Wake Up, Henry

There shouldn’t be anyone knocking at my door.

I have no neighbors for miles. My driveway is a quarter-mile long if it’s an inch, not to mention nearly hidden from the main road by thick brush, so there’s almost no chance of someone turning down the loose gravel path by accident. And the edges of the modest property are lined with dense forest. All features I’d made a priority when searching for a new place to live.

Hoping that whoever was outside would assume there was nobody home and leave, I’d ignored the first three short raps, but after thirty seconds of cavernous silence…

Knock knock knock.

I pad to the door in stocking feet and place my hand against the smooth wood, bracing myself, before quietly asking, “Who is it?”

“My name is Henry, ma’am. May I come in?”

In the six months I’ve been here I’ve been visited by dozens of deer, scores of rabbits, countless birds, and zero people, by design. Nobody knows I’m here. So why is someone who already knows I’m a woman standing at my door?

“I don’t think so, I…”

“Avery, it’s important. Please.”

My blood freezes in my veins. Fingers trembling, I slide open the small panel cut into the door that allows me to see outside - a large version of a peephole, I suppose - and peer out.

The man - Henry - wears the uniform of an effortlessly-cool college professor: dark jeans, faded graphic t-shirt, open button-down with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, dark-rimmed glasses. He’s slightly taller than me, slim, with unruly brown hair and three-day stubble. He is unassuming in every way, except for the quiet fear in his voice and the urgency in his gaze.

“How do you know my name?”

He winces. “Right. Yes. You’re the Avery that’s posted on the AmIHaunted? message boards, right?”

My muscles lock down and my heart thunders in my ears. “I need you to leave…”

“You are, though,” he says, “the one who’s posted about the night terrors and the shadows at the corner of your vision, and your latest post about seeing what you thought was some sort of smoky tendril or tentacle…”

He’s speaking so fast and all I want is for him to stop so I blurt out, “I don’t use my real name on anything like that online, so you’re mistaken. I’m not that person…”

“You are. It’s not hard to determine someone’s real identity these days, which is horrifying but unfortunately true. But in this case it’s a good thing…”

“...Leave or I’ll call the police…”

He steps closer to the door, desperate. “Your life is in danger.”

My next words die on my lips.

“Not from me,” he adds quickly. “No, nothing like that. I just… The things you’ve seen, the things you’re experiencing… It’s not benign, this entity…”

My eyes sting, not from fear, but from relief. “...You believe me?”

“I just want to tell you my story. See if what I tell you sounds familiar. If you still want me to go after that, I will. I promise.” He steps back and shoves his hands into his pockets, giving me space to decide even though there’s a door between us.

“Tell me from there,” I say. It’s the best he’s going to get, and from the expression on his face he knows it.

He nods, takes a deep breath, and says, “My name is Henry Cooper. I have a doctorate in folklore and teach courses on history, mythology, and the occult at a university just across the state line. When my dad said he wanted me to become a doctor I’m sure this isn’t what he meant, but, um, it’s the path I went down after what happened to me when I was young… The reason I’m here on your doorstep.”

***

“So, I’m nine years old and it’s the middle of the night. I’m in that liminal space where you’re not quite asleep but you’re not awake, either. The door to my bedroom is cracked open and a sliver of muted light slices in from the living room. I haven’t fallen asleep to darkness and quiet since my mom left to get groceries three years, two months, and sixteen days ago and decided not to come back. Now, every time my dad tucks me in I insist he leave my door open just a bit. That fraction of an inch is my safety blanket. My childish guarantee that if he tries the same thing as my mom, I’ll be able to hear the front door open and stop him from abandoning me before he has both feet out the door.

“The television is on, the volume turned low, and muffled voices from some late night program float in, lulling me. Dad didn’t sleep much anymore and I think it kept him company. I’d tried to stay up past my bedtime so he wouldn’t be alone, but it always ended up with me passing out on the couch and him carrying me to my room.

“The couch creaks as he shifts position, and the voices from the television come in fragmented fits and starts as he flips the channels. I’m so close to sleep the words start to blur together. They ebb and flow and snake their way into the recesses of my brain, and I slowly rise back to full consciousness as I realize that they’ve stopped being snippets and have started to form a sentence.”

“Wake up, Henry.”

“My eyes snap open, and, half-asleep, I mumble for my dad, expecting him to be standing over me, but he’s not there. Nobody’s in my room. I know for certain because that tiny bit of light from the living room is just enough illumination to see that my toys and posters and furniture are all where they should be, but I feel with bone-deep certainty that something is still off.

“It’s the silence. I can feel that low-level electrical hum that lets you know the television is on, but there is no sound from the speakers. No shifting of fabric as dad moves to get more comfortable. No yawns of exhaustion or the swish of his socks against the carpet as he shuffles to the kitchen for a late-night snack. But he’s out there. I can feel it. And he’s being perfectly silent and perfectly still.”

“Wake up, Henry!”

“The shout comes from inches away from my left ear, so loud it makes me flinch, and I scramble out of bed, moving on instinct before I fully understand what’s happened. My hands clutch my heavy comforter as I flee to the far corner of the room and cower, throwing it over my head and burrowing deep. It will hide me. Keep me safe. Make me invisible, somehow.

“Heart racing, hyperventilating, I squeeze my eyes shut and wait. Wait for something to attack me. Wait to die. Wait for… I’m not sure what. All I know is that there is nobody in my room. So who screamed in my ear?

“I remember wishing we had a dog. A dog would warn us about danger. Would protect us against it. I can’t say how long I sit there. Long enough that the awkward position I’m in causes my back to ache and my feet to feel needle pinpricks as they fall asleep. In all that time, the silence is unending and unbroken. As the minutes stretch on and nothing else happens, I manage to talk myself out of being terrified. It had to be a nightmare. Painfully slowly, I pull my comforter down and peek out over the edge. My room is empty. Relief floods through me, and I exhale a breath I didn’t realize I’ve been holding. I get to my feet and move to the door.

“The light from the living room makes me squint, and I tuck my head down in an effort to let my eyes adjust as I make my way to the kitchen. The low mumblings from late-night programs on the television have returned, so I don’t look over to check on my dad. I’m embarrassed at how worked up I got over nothing, and simply mumble something about getting a drink of water. He doesn’t respond, but that’s not unusual. He falls asleep on the couch all the time.

“I get up on my tip toes and grab a glass from the cabinet, turning the tap on and filling it to the brim. Gulping half it down, I turn and head back toward the living room, my eyes finally ready for the glare. A few more feet and I’d have reached the threshold where the kitchen turns to the living room and tile turns to carpet. I don’t make it, though.

“The cup slips from my hand and shatters on the floor, splashing lukewarm water against my bare feet. I barely feel it, just like I barely feel the tiny shards of glass nicking my flesh and causing small beads of blood to well up, because my dad is hovering three inches off of the ground just in front of the couch…

“A swirling mass of black smoke and shadows is floating in front of him. It’s vaguely human-shaped, but the way it slides and shifts, it never holds one form for longer than a few seconds. A tendril has snaked out and is wrapped around my dad’s throat, holding him up. Choking him. His eyes bulge and his tongue hangs out and his jaw is dropped too low, making his mouth impossibly wide, frozen in a silent scream. The volume on the television starts to rise of its own accord. The stations flip, slowly at first, and then faster, until each station is on screen for just a fraction of a second. So fast it shouldn’t be possible. The lights begin to flicker, strobing and making my brain swim.

“The shape, the form, the thing, turns the part of its body where its head should be to face me. Though it's made of darkness, the space where its eyes are is impossibly black, and a tiny, brilliant red light shines out from each obsidian hole. It has no mouth, but I’m certain it’s going to eat me alive. My legs go weak and I start to tremble. Hot tears flow down my cheeks and I want to shout to someone, anyone, for help, but my throat has clamped shut and I can’t breathe.

“The shape lets go of my father, dropping him as if he is of no consequence. His body falls to the couch, landing askew, his head lolling back against the cushions. The swirling darkness floats toward me, its movements jerky in the flickering light. As it grows closer a terrible buzzing fills my head, as if my brain is a radio and this thing has found a staticky station at the far end of the dial and twisted the volume knob all the way up. My teeth clack and my bones rattle and I drop to my knees, clutching my ears.

“I have to get away. I have to help my dad. I have to do something, anything… But then it’s hovering above me and that tendril pulls free of its central mass and snakes down, wrapping around my throat, the feeling like sandpaper and acid. It will burn through me, severing my head from my body and cauterizing the slice. It lifts me. Pulls me toward it. Its eyes, if that’s what they are, are fathomless, and I feel like I’m going to fall into them forever…

***

My throat is dry and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. The way he described this entity - this thing - it sounds exactly like what I’ve been seeing out of the corner of my eye. Somehow, I manage to croak out, “What happened?”

Henry’s shoulders are slumped as if he carries the weight of this world and the next. Like talking about this has sapped him of all strength. “I woke up in my bed as if my dad had carried me there just like he had dozens of times before.”

“But he didn’t carry you, did he?” My voice is barely above a whisper.

Shaking his head, he says, “No. He was on the couch. He hadn’t moved from where the entity dropped him. His skin was cold and his lips were grayish-blue and he was gone.”

I let out a long exhale, though it’s not one of relief. It’s one of terrible confirmation, when the feeling of gnawing dread ends but only because you’ve gotten an answer to your question that’s exponentially worse.

He chuckles, cold and cruel, and says, “They told me it was a heart attack. Thirty-nine, and they say heart attack. Somehow they were able to ignore this…” he continues, and gently pulls at the collar of his button-down shirt to reveal his neck. There’s a faded mark that encircles his throat, as if he were burned and the skin healed slightly pink.

“Where it grabbed you,” I breathe.

He nods. “My dad had the exact same mark. Same guys who said heart attack told me it was an environmental allergic reaction.”

Henry takes a deep breath and stands straight, gathering himself. “I told anyone who would listen what I saw that night. But after a while, I got tired of the pitious, disbelieving looks they gave me. They assumed I was creating a story from my trauma. A fantasy to help me cope with his very real death. I went to live with my paternal grandparents. They treated me well, but I was never able to shake the feeling that they thought I had more information about their son’s death, something I just couldn’t remember, or refused to tell them, and when I left for college I think it was a relief to them. Thing is, they were right.”

My brow furrows in confusion, and he continues, “I did have more information about that night, but I had locked it away, unable to fully process it as a child. It didn’t come back to me until my sophomore year of college. I’d overslept for class, and my friend called to bust me on it. The ringing of my cell phone filtered into my dreams, and I surfaced from sleep and answered before I was fully awake. And she said to me, ‘Wake up, Henry.’”

Cold begins to creep up my spine. A prickling at the back of my neck. He’s going to tell me something I don’t want to hear, but I can’t stop him. I need to hear it.

“I don’t know if it was her cadence, or just that it was finally time, but those three words at that specific moment somehow unlocked what I’d buried so deep for so long: that the voice that woke me up the night of my father’s death, the one that screamed at me in my empty room, it was my mother’s.”

Henry moves to the door, placing his hands on either side of the open panel, and locks his eyes on mine. “I don’t think she left us. I think the entity that killed my father killed her, too, and I think it’s in there in that house with you right now.”

I shake my head no. This is supposed to be my safe haven. A place I can start over. But… “Things have been moving.” I somehow manage to get the words out through sheer force of will. “On their own. And I’ve heard whispering when I’m alone. I’m always alone here but somehow there are voices. They say my name.”

Henry’s nods, encouraging me to continue. “I don’t want it to be true,” I say, and choke back a sob. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I just wanted to be in a place I could make my own and get a fresh start, and…”

“I don’t know why it chose you, or me, or my parents, but we’ll figure this out, I promise…” he says, his voice trailing off. I press my fingers to my eyes, wiping away tears, and when my vision is clear again I see that Henry’s looking over my shoulder, into the house. “Come outside, Avery.”

“I… I thought you wanted to come in.”

“You have to come outside right now. Listen to me…” he begs.

But it’s hard to listen, because his words are drowned out by the whispering that’s filling my ears. That prickling at the back of my neck has turned to cold fire, and I can sense that someone… something is just inches away… that if I turn around I’ll be face-to-face with an endless void with piercing red eyes…

Henry slams his hand against the door, rattling it on its hinges, and cries, “It’s behind you! Run, Avery, get out of the fucking house it’s behind you!”

The room dims around me as the shadows at the edges of my vision thicken. The whispering is a roar now, and I know that if I look down I’ll see a tendril of smoke and something much, much darker reaching out to wrap itself around me.

I twist the lock and rip open the door while I still can. The thing snags my arm, searing the flesh, but I lunge forward, crossing the threshold, and it lets go, hissing and retreating from the light of the setting sun.

I trip and stumble and land hard in the dirt, whipping around to face the open door. The darkness inside the house is complete, but not empty. It slithers and roils and beckons to me…

***

We drive all night. There are others like us, he tells me. Doing their best to get away from a thing that moves in the shadows, the thing that never gets tired and never wavers. There is a place we can go where the entity hasn’t followed yet, a place where they’re trying to find a way to destroy it.

He tells me we’ll figure this out.

I tell him I believe him. That my arm doesn’t hurt.

I don’t tell him I can still hear whispering.