September 2006 Issue The Horror Library, your Haunted Home for Horror Fiction, Dark Art, Horror Games, Movie Reviews, Book Reviews, Non-Fiction, Alternative Music, Horror Authors, Horror Short Fiction and featuring The Terrible Twelve - RJ Cavender, Bailey Hunter, Boyd E Harris, Megg Roper, Jason Beirens, CJ Hurtt, Eric Stark, Cordelia Snow, Chris Perridas, Curt Mahr, Stephen Sommerville, M Louis Dixon, Kerry Drummond
I know it's name. We looked it up online when Janice had gotten worried about me. 'Sleep paralysis with auditory and visual hallucinations.' Knowing its name is useless, it's like knowing you have cancer. What can you really do about it? You just wait.
I just really need to get some fucking sleep.
But, the house is on fire again.
No one is here to wake me up this time.
It always starts with the sounds. The whirring mechanical sound, like machines working too hard.
A grinding purring sound that keeps getting louder. Pistons slamming and pumping on an runaway engine. My eyes stare straight forward.
Like now.
I cannot move. Not a single muscle, not even to open my mouth and scream. The living nightmare invades my bedroom again.
I really thought it was all the Trip that started these problems, and I got myself off that shit for good. Janice was worried about me, even though she did a lot more Trip than I ever did. All her crystal and acid and pills and she was so fucking worried about me!
I know all I need is one good shake and I could wake up from this. Just a hand on my shoulder. But, she's gone. Gone for good.
I'll just have to try and ride this out, and all I can think of is Janice right now. Her sleeping next to me in our bed. Her soft and shallow breathing as she dreams. Her face angelic.
I remember having an 'episode' while she slept next to me. A tall shadowy figure crept to our bedside and I couldn't move at all. Everything in me tried to attack. I saw it crouch next to her and before I could do anything at all I saw the knife. In silhouette, I saw this figure sawing away at her throat with a carving knife.
It's just a thing that happens sometimes to a very small amount of people. It's just my brain falling asleep before my body does. The website said it was perfectly normal, people have had this phenomenon happening to them for hundreds of years.
For as long as people have studied sleep, there have been reported episodes of this kind of sleep disorder. Sure it's frightening, but completely harmless.
It's related to panic attacks and narcolepsy. There was no mention of this happening more frequently to people who use drugs, but Janice was worried anyway.
It's all superimposed. Like the room is still here, and everything is still the same on some level. But, on top of what is really there in our physical world, a dream plays itself out before my opened eyes. Like a film projector playing out a misty dream before my eyes. Never a dream, though. Always something horrible. Always a nightmare.
The voices are common, from what we read. They fade in and out and they say horrific things.
Like now.
First come the whispers, which become gradually louder and louder until I just about can't stand it anymore. The whirring sounds have also gotten louder and louder until I swear my eardrums are going to blow apart. A building crescendo threatens to shake my rattled brain and body into a million pieces. Then a screeching hissing sound and then a total silence.
Like now.
The wind whistles through the windows.
I try to break from this spell and wake myself by counting to ten. It's not going to work this time. My body seems to be vibrating and humming of it's own hyper-spastic energy. My lips are parted, but hardly any sound can be produced. I hear my own heartbeat banging in my chest and my own tiny, little whimpers.
The smoke is beginning to curl into the bedroom. I can smell it. The flames crackle and lick at the doorjamb. I watch in mute horror as the melting and singeing spots on the carpet spread rapidly, creeping their way into the bedroom. The carpet begins to bubble in little pools, and from these pools I see hands of all shapes and sizes begin to emerge.
I see a pair of large hands dripping with blood wring the wrist of a smaller childlike hand. An audible snap is heard over the crackling roar of the fire, as the larger hands win out and crush the tiny trembling pair.
Frantically, they reach up in unison from all angles around my bed, grasping at the bedspread and pulling the sheets tight over my frozen form.
Voices cackle and call to me from outside my bedroom window.
I hear inhuman sounds from outside, like vicious animals being turned into monsters. The voices sound like what I'd imagine demons would sound like, if I believed in that sort of thing. The fire roars in the other room. I hear the sound of glass shattering.
One growling voice booms louder than the others saying something about eating human flesh. Sharp, nailed fingers dig into my sides from under the covers. A burning beam from the living room ceiling crashes loudly to the floor, sending tremors through the entire bedroom.
I hear the tinkling rattle of keys in my front door. The dead bolt lock slowly pulls back and clicks. Somehow I hear this, almost on a subliminal level.
A screaming feedback guitar howling sound fills the air, like electric nails sliding down a metal chalkboard. The arms lie flat and trembling over my body. Arms intertwine and snake together, finding their way under my pajamas.
Fingers slowly stroke the air, as if each and every hand were feeling the electrical static suddenly charging the air.
Then all the fingers dig into my flesh, and tear me apart. It happens every damn time.
