"What Happened in the Dark" -- July 10

Word count: 1500

What Happened in the Dark

“Will you please turn that down?”

“I can already barely hear it!”

Tyler set her keys gently onto the entry table, the rasping of the metal drilling into the side of her head. “I can’t even hear myself think!”

Margot dropped her video game controller onto the table, a deafening crack. “Well then put on your headphones!”

Tyler made for the bathroom in the shared studio apartment, her body wound like a tight spring, ready to snap. It had been a long day at the movie theater daycare, full of screeching children, and her head buzzed with feedback and painful static. She closed the bathroom door, the click of the latch pinging off her aching head like a bb pellet.

Tyler switched off the bathroom light and turned on her pink salt lamp, rummaging beneath the sink for her noise-canceling headphones. Her head ached and the pain had migrated down her neck and across her shoulders. She couldn’t wait for Margot to get a job. Maybe she would get lucky and her roommate would work night shifts.

She located her headphones and slipped them on, reveling in the sudden silence. She grabbed a microfiber towel, her knuckles brushing painfully over Margot’s stacks of rough towels, and tucked it around herself as she lowered herself into the corner of the shower.

She was safe here for at least thirty minutes, reveling in the soft pink light and the cool steadiness of the shower wall. Tyler focused on her breathing—slowly, deeply, in and out.

Suddenly the floor of the apartment trembled. Tyler shot to her feet, dropping the towel, her heart pounding painfully.

“What was that?” she whispered.

She stood still, waiting for it to repeat, but the floor remained stationary. Tyler gently moved the headphones off one of her ears, cringing at the onslaught of noise from appliances and vents, and tried to listen for Margot.

No sounds, except the obnoxious blare of Margot’s gaming system.

Tyler replaced her headphones and tried to still her body. Someone must have slammed a door downstairs—or upstairs. Maybe someone was having a fight.

Ten more minutes. Tyler needed ten more minutes before she could deal with Margot’s noise again. She could feel lost energy trickling back into her as the silence lengthened, pressing in around her and molding to her body like warm water.

Tyler closed her eyes and didn’t even notice when the pink salt lamp flickered, flashed, and blinked out.

Twenty minutes later, headphones in hand, Tyler slowly opened the bathroom door. The apartment was strangely silent. Tyler could no longer hear Margot’s gaming system, and the buzz of the appliances was silent. The lights were off. Even the harsh, indestructible bathroom light wouldn’t turn on.

There must have been a power outage.

The bathroom door swung open all the way, grating on its hinges. The tiny apartment was completely dark, except for Margot’s screen. Margot sat in front of it, cross-legged, shaking her controller. The insides of the controller rattled.

“What did you do in there?” Margot demanded.

“What did you do out here?”

Margot stopped shaking and leaned back on her hands. “Everything just shut off. Except this.” She pointed to her screen. “I got some weird in-game message right before it happened.”

Tyler could hear the soft static coming off the screen. Keeping a distance—the static pulled at her hair and filled her brain—she crouched beside Margot. “Did someone hack it?”

Margot shrugged. “It was a bunch of random misspelled words.”

“Glitch, maybe.”

“Maybe.” Margot pushed the power button on her console. It flickered green, then red, then shut off again. “I don’t understand why the screen is on but not the rest—”

Something clanked in the kitchen, then crashed, an explosion of sound that threatened to restart the headache that had just faded from Tyler’s skull. Margot grabbed Tyler’s arm, fingernails digging into skin.

“What was that?”

“Probably your dirty dishes.” Tyler pulled her arm away. “Are you going to call the landlord or am I?”

Margot took a deep breath. “No, I’ll do it. Do you have a flashlight or candle or something?” She got to her feet and scooped her phone from the floor.

“Why can’t it just be dark?”

Margot shot Tyler a look and dialed the landlord.

Tyler listened to the buzz of the phone as Margot waited for the landlord to pick up. The soft glow of the screen put a blue cast over the apartment, vaguely illuminating the fold-up bed in the corner and the futon by the wall.

Twice, three, four times the phone buzzed.

Margot slowly lowered it from her ear. “Tyler, he’s not picking up.”

“Try again.” The edge of panic in Margot’s voice grated on Tyler’s ears. “Don’t freak out; it’s just a little dark.”

Something in the kitchen clanked again and Tyler thought she heard a snuffling sound. Her shoulders went rigid and she caught her breath.

“What is it?” Margot nearly screamed.

“Shush!”

“What is it?”

“I just thought I heard something.”

Margot clutched her phone to her chest. “Should I call someone else?”

“It was nothing.” Tyler stood up. “No answer from the landlord?”

“Nothing.”

“Check the app and see if the rest of the building is out.”

Margot looked down at her phone. In the dark the glare of the screen was obnoxiously bright.

A sound like a piece of metal dragging over concrete came from the kitchen, and then a snuffly and irregular, but very definite breath.

Margot dropped her phone and screeched. “There’s something in there!”

Tyler tried to tune out the shrill pitch of her voice. “Calm down. I’m sure it’s just a rat or something.”

“No! It sounded bigger!”

Tyler stood up and moved softly toward the kitchen. Behind her, Margot’s voice kept climbing upward.

“I’m going to call 911!”

“Just wait! I haven’t even checked it out yet.”

Margot kept squeaking in the background, spewing words in fragmented sentences, and Tyler tuned her out, squinting into the semidarkness for the source of the noise.

It leaped out at her before she spotted it, a shadowy shape with long limbs and claws, and she fell back. Margot screeched.

“Give me something to hit it with!” Tyler called back to her. The shadowy shape crouched in the corner by the refrigerator. Tyler squinted at it, not daring to go any closer. Its shape was entirely unfamiliar to her.

The creature made a high-pitched whining noise, the frequency of microphone feedback, and teeth flashed in the semidark. Its eyes began to glow, and Tyler’s insides sank into a quivering pile.

“Margot! The bat!”

Tyler had no idea what this thing was, but she had never seen anything like it before. The hair stood up on her arms and its eyes seemed to glow brighter. The pull on her skin was like the pull from the tv screen.

“Margot!”

Tyler could hear Margot screeching and sobbing and clattering around behind her. She didn’t dare take her eyes off the little demon crouched in the corner.

“Margot, shut up and get me the baseball bat!”

“I can’t find it!”

“Stop crying; that’ll help!”

“I’m calling 911!”

“Margot, give me the baseball bat!”

The creature’s humming grew louder and louder, pressing on Tyler’s ears and filling her head so she couldn’t think straight.

Something clattered across the floor, and Tyler reached out and picked up Margot’s pink Hello Kitty baseball bat from her Little League days. Across the room, Margot was still jabbering.

“Can you see what it is?”

Tyler twisted to face her, baseball bat in hand, the whine in her head building to a crescendo.

“Shut. Up!” she shouted.

Suddenly the creature was in her face, claws jabbing at skin, sharp teeth flashing, something soft and membranous brushing Tyler’s skin like a bug’s wing. She flapped her arm at it, sending off a shower of static sparks. The bat clattered to the floor and Tyler kicked it as she flailed, sending it skidding toward Margot.

“Kill it!” Tyler screamed. Something brushed her lips and got into her mouth and she gagged and sputtered. It stank and the chatter of its teeth, the rustle of its skin, the touch of it on her was too much. “Kill it, Margot!”

“I’ll hit you!” Tyler got a glimpse of Margot holding the bat over her shoulder, poised to take a swing.

“Just kill it!”

Crack.

White light exploded across Tyler’s face. All sense of gravity left her and she collapsed. She hardly felt the impact when she hit the floor.

When she woke up, the creature was gone.

“What was it?” Tyler asked, pushing herself up on an elbow.

Margot shook her head, her eyes wide. The power was back on and the appliances were humming. Dishes were strewn across the floor in the kitchen.

“It’s gone,” Margot whispered. “I called the cops. And an ambulance.”

“Thanks.” Tyler sank back to the floor, groaning. This would not be easy to explain.