The Light Doesn't Shine Here (chapter two: Skudewee)

Skudewee glared at the woman before him, her fear tickled his nostrils like sweet nectar, and her sweat flowed like honey from her forehead. Her time was up; Skudewee had come to collect his prize. His shadow rose up the yellow walls of the bedroom and then the ceiling - leaving it black like the night sky - it sailed along the carpeted floor, cocooning every inch of it in tarry blackness.

In his presence, the woman was as blind as a bat, and as helpless as a sheep for the slaughter. Sitting on her bed, and breathing heavily, she tossed nervous glances around the murky room, but did not see the black tongue tasting the air in front of her face. A shiver crawled along her back, raising the small hairs on her neck, but she had no idea of the talons closing around her neck. 

Skudewee lapped up the sweat dotting her forehead and groaned, arching his gnarled head backwards to soak up the sweet taste of her fear. Cries, or laughter, or both clanked from his throat just then, shaking the dust off the furniture, but the only noise the woman heard was the noise of her own thoughts; she was lost deep inside them.  

She had troubles to fill an ocean: A slain brother, and no friends and family to turn to for comfort. Pleasing as all this was to Skudewee, it didn't help explain why the Lord desired her demise.

His hit list was replete with heads of states, kings and queens, scientists and the rich. Rarely was Skudewee required to kill a nobody, yet here he stood before one.

He snapped his gaze back to the woman as her sudden whimpering cries interrupted his thoughts. Few things annoyed Skudewee more than a human feeling sorry for itself: It exposed them for the vain and loathsome creatures they were. This entitlement mentality, stemmed of course from their belief that life owed them happiness. Skudewee enjoyed freeing the self-important worms from such grand delusions.

He raised his nose at the woman. How dare she sit here and pretend like her feelings were any more important than those of a fly? The truth is, she was but a fly herself to be squashed by his fist, without as much as a notice.

Skudewee snarled in the woman's face, baring row upon row of needle-like teeth. A little higher, his eyes roared like fires, ready to consume the pathetic creature.

“I will show you...” he hissed in her ear.

“Today you will know pain, you swine. You despicable filth!"

Skudewee's tongue slithered out of his leathery lips once more only to vanish into the woman's ear. It passed right into her head like it was going through a wide-open hole. He grinned, as he groped around her mind for thoughts to manipulate and memories to dredge up. Whatever he was in the mood for. He could do it all. The mind was his gateway to the physical world.

Aha! There it was, a memory he thought might be useful to him. A memory from happier times in her life. He knew it would increase her misery and bring her that much nearer to the edge of her death. There was no better way to end a human life than to make them kill themselves.

“Think about Pearl Margin.” he said to the woman, “Think about how happy you were then, and how miserable you now are.”

His words slopped out of his lips with a green goo that dripped on the woman. Although it left a swath of slime on her shoulder, she didn't seem to notice a thing.

Skudewee beamed when the woman closed her eyes as she begun pondering about all the joyful times she's had with her brother at Pearl Margin. Her face twisted into something halfway between a smile and a frown. Right away Skudewee knew that his manipulation had succeeded.

“Now, go and kill yourself, maybe you can jump to your death. You'll be so much better off dead. No one should live in this misery of yours.”

Skudewee's tongue slipped out of the woman's ear, leaving it covered with the same goo on her shoulder. His acute senses instantly noted the goosebumps that had spread across her arms. She was sensing his presence, but nothing that worried Skudewee though. He was quite sure that the woman would sooner blame her hyper imagination than an invisible creature. After all seeing is believing, as the humans would say.

Skudewee helpfully slipped the lamp switch under the woman's fingers as she began to finger for it on the nightstand. Switching it on she got out of bed. With a grin Skudewee watched her cross the room and open the window.

“Jump!” he growled, “put an end to your sorry life.”

But the woman didn't jump, she just stood there like a dumb beast, and bawled. In anger Skudewee descended upon her in a roiling cloud of shadows. As much as he longed to push her to her death, he couldn't. She had to take her own life as the lord had commanded. What she needed was a little more persuading.

"Push it!" a disgusting voice croaked into the room at that moment. It had come from the vulture sitting on one of the leafless trees in the parking lot outside.

"Imbecile! Were you not supposed to be keeping watch? You know the fate of deserters." Skudewee growled, rushing past the woman and out of the window in front of her. Like a giant thundercloud he hovered above the ground.

"There's nothing in the skies master." the vulture whined, cringing with scared little black eyes. "Master must kill the female creature." It hissed nervously.

"Shut up, you fool!" Skudewee thundered. The vulture clung to the branch for dear life against the force of Skudewee's voice.

"She must die at her own hand. You know that. " Skudewee sounded off, "That is how it works! Now return to your task, or I will have to add to your punishment."

The vulture freed the branch and scarpered like a bat out of hell, disappearing into the night sky.

Skudewee turned his attention back; to the woman. He couldn't allow the incompetence of the stupid beast to distract him from what had brought him here.

He studied the woman closely for the first time since he had begun scouting her two days ago. She had the looks a lot of her fellow humans would find attractive, although to him, she was nothing more than a worm. Aside from that there was nothing remarkable about her or her past that Skudewee could see.

She was shivering in the cold air which now was chock full of snowflakes, eyes puffy and red, and begging for some sleep. Skudewee was in no need of sleep, and never could understand what benefit the creatures of this planet procured by wasting all that time, sleeping. The humans had even invented beds and mattresses to make sleep time as cozy as possible for themselves. It was all so pathetic as far as Skudewee was concerned.

The woman was about to shut the window but he would not have any of that, she was supposed to be jumping out of it, not closing it. Skuduwee moved so fast towards the window that he twisted the air around him, causing thousands of snowflakes to pour into the room after him.

When all the commotion had settled down everything around the window was under snow including the woman, though she dug her way out of it.

Three days was too much time spent trying to kill one unimportant human. He couldn't waste anymore time here. He had been away from his throne for far too long and was becoming uneasy. Too many vermin thirsted for power, and would see his protracted absence as an opportunity to rule.

He crouched before the woman and slipped his tongue inside her ear, as he had done before. Searching for a weaknesses, for anything that would end this once and for all.

"Jump!" he told the woman, "it won't hurt, it will be quick. Just do it."

In seeming response to Skudewee's command, the woman got up and approached the window, but like before, she refused to take the leap when she got there. It was then that he had an idea, in fact it was the woman's thought, he merely found it.

"Yes," he hissed, "you should take pills. The ones you keep in your bathroom cabinet. Ambien, yes those are the ones." he said, reading the woman's thoughts.

"They will slow your heart enough to put you in a deep permanent sleep. Go take them now."

The woman didn't respond immediately, what's more she began to sob and quite annoyingly about her brother, and so he punished her by sending a sharp pain into her ear.

That certainly got her attention, for she stopped her whimpering and snatched her throbbing ear. In the next moment, to his great delight she proceeded to the bathroom.

*************************************

He withdrew his tongue, stood back and observed the woman study her face in the mirror. He was about to stick his long serpentine tongue into her ear when all of a sudden her sixth sense awakened. It was like scales falling from her eyes. She had seen him for she screamed like someone who had seen a ghost. Skudewee had been caught off guard, but he had the situation under control. Quickly, he blindfolded the woman with his hands while he chanted words in an ancient language. Removing his hands, he watched her with a grin as her eyes searched for him in vain.

It was not everyday humans got to see behind the curtain separating the world's. It happened nonetheless, as often as it did not, for one reason or another.

Skuduwee looked at the woman curiously.

"How did your see me?" He asked not expecting to get an answer. Perhaps he was getting too up and personal with her.

"Go on you swine, end this for the both of us. Kill yourself." he said, getting impatient. This time he didn't lay a finger on her.

The woman opened the faucet and washed her face. Thereafter she opened the cabinet and with Skudewee watching her with great interest, removed a cup and the bottle of Ambien.

"Yea, there we go." Very few could say no to Skuduwee's suasion, he was even known to control the minds of his own kind.

He watched the woman fill the cup up with water, and spat in it out of sheer spite.

As the woman drank up the pills Skudewee exploded with joy. He had done it.

He followed her back to the bedroom where she laid down on the bed and welcomed death, with open arms. If only she knew that death was no friend of hers.

Skaduwee leaped with untamed delight having crushed one more worm. There was no way the woman would survive this. She was as good as dead. Why not quicken her fate?

He neared her and wrapped his hand around her nose and mouth. As he'd expected she put up a struggle, but having her exactly where he wanted, he wasn't going to let her go. She would die here, and she did.