In a cradle of sand

In a cradle of sand

A short story of horror written by Efrain Hernandez

Susana rolled over on her side, away from the window, and closed her eyes. She tucked the blanket beneath her feet and tugged the rest of its slack over her shoulder. Something jingled around her neck. Imagining herself rolled up in her sheets Susana then started to listen to her own breathing. It was pitch dark in her room. The heater had just shut off and the wintry night air was getting colder. She calmed herself and kept listening to the sounds of the blankets tightening and loosening to the movements of her chest. She tried her very hardest to ignore the sound she had heard.

The door creaked again.

Her ear deep in her pillow Susana heard her own heart stop and pick up again. The creaking was only temporarily but she distinctly knew that it was her wooden door that was moving. She tried to sneak a quick peek but both the room and closet door remained shut.

She felt a small hint of dread as she crawled into her own blankets, trying desperately to fall asleep. She reached out from beneath the blanket for her i-pod on the dresser next to her and heard the loud clunk of her cell phone dropping to the ground. She cursed herself but dared not to look out from beneath the covers as she pulled the i-pod back in with her. The blanket was now emitting a bluish light with a subtle hint of soft music in the background.

More creaking.

And then footsteps.

Susana kept turning up the volume as she shut her eyes as tightly as possible. The music was exploding in her ears now. Still completely wrapped in her covers she tucked her knees into her stomach and fought memories of previous nights. Memories of the same wooden creak, the pulling and tugging of her bed, sheets being shuffled around and if she listened hard enough there would also be a slow, deep breathing coming from somewhere in her room. She convinced herself it was ventilation noise but it felt much too organic. Too long she had tried to ignore the noise when eventually it resulted in sleeping away from her room almost obsessively. But she always returned to her room and the essence, that dark essence, was waiting for her when she did.

She needed to text someone. Susana slowly peeped out from her comfort zone and splashed the i-pod’s LED light onto the room casting a dim, bluish haze. She never once looked at the creeping shadows towering over her bed. Twisting the i-pod around, she looked for the fallen cell phone but every dark corner and every shadow beneath the dresser made her blood run colder the ice outside.

Finally she found the cell phone sitting back on the dresser next to her.

Susana faced the i-pod at the cell phone for a few minutes and held her breathe before nearly dropping it at the sound of deep gurgling inhalation.

She slammed her palm over mouth and scurried back underneath her covers.

Exhalation.

Susana wanted to get out in a break and run but she couldn’t. She was frozen to her bed; terrified and petrified. Every noise that followed she jumped, whimpered and silently prayed for it to stop.

When it did the bed moaned downwards and pressure was added onto the edge of the mattress. She could feel her body leaning towards the side. Her chest was trembling now. She sneaked a look through tiny slits and saw a massive shadow rising from beneath her bed using the edge to pull itself over. It was too distorted to see anything else but a silhouette. The same darkness that gave it its power to creep also intensified the horrid smell that came from its head. Her slits became widened eyes as the shadow climbed over her, breathing in deep gulfs of air and expunging its warm and metallic stink towards her.

Then there was silence. A gloved hand moved over her mouth as a ferociously demonic voice whispered: Go back to sleep.

Susana jammed a whistle that was held around her neck in between the glove and her lips and blew as hard as her chest could squeeze.

The bed had suddenly lifted and a blast of frozen air following a piercing crash was now pouring into her room, instantly chilling everything. Susana’s door was kicked open from the hallway outside and a man with a badge around his neck immediately began surveying her room with his gun and flashlight. His flashlight reached the broken window next to her bed.

“This is Detective Reynolds,” the man quickly placed a radio up to his mouth, “I have suspect on the run. He is on Lavender outside the Miller’s house and heading towards your location.”

“Copy that, we’ve got Lavender blocked off from all possible exit routes including Straight and Banning. If he’s going anywhere it’s going to be straight to our guys. All units are standing by.”

The detective sat down on the bed next to Susana who was crying in between her breaths. She was wrapping her arms around her chest.

“Susana. Susana? Look at me. You did good.” He held on to her as he helped her out of her room. She stared at him with red, flowing eyes. “You did very, very good.”

Sniffling and coughing she nodded and hurried out of the room with him where her mother and several other police officers awaited her.

The radio buzzed on again. “We have him in pursuit! Suspect is making way around the Miller’s backyard towards the garage.”

The detective left the daughter with her mother and sped across the living room through the back glass panel door with his team of officers. The air was chill again.

“I see the suspect- STOP RIGHT THERE!”

The detective aimed his gun at a tall figure dressed in a dark, long trench-coat. It raised its gloved hands up and stood dead still.

“Turn around, slowly.” The detective kept his gun steady. Teams of police were hiding behind fences and neighboring houses now with their guns pointed. A screaming helicopter dressed the night in a massive white light from high above, turning the dark trees and rooftops into shining gems. The trench-coat was now apparent as tattered and torn.

“I can’t confirm a facial visual. It looks like he’s got a hood on. Can you see him down there?”

“Turn around now.”

The figure obliged and moved around so that he could see the face beneath the hood.

The detective blinked twice and motioned his gun towards the ground. “On the ground and spread our arms and legs apart.”

The figure fell to its knees with its hands still up in the air. The closest officers began walking towards him with handcuffs and guns.

“Suspect is being apprehended. I have visualization on the suspect’s identity.” The detective paused, re-imagining the face beneath the black hood. It was bloody and mutilated but the rawness of its expression was definitive as evil. “Notify headquarters that suspect is John Miller.”

“Can you confirm that detective?”

Each policeman grabbed a different part of its body while another was reciting the Miranda Rights and preparing the handcuffs.

“Yes. He is the victim’s father.”

A flash of sharp light and several of the officers immediately collapsed holding their torsos which were all pooling out a thin stream of blood. The detective and dozens of others began firing at once but the hooded figure was already through the garage’s side door.

The detective’s head was pounding with dread as he sped over the officers’ body, barely reaching the doorknob when a loud crackle and a burst of light flashed from inside the garage. The detective threw open the door and carefully stepped in. The flashlight hovered over two parked cars, a pool table in the back and the hooded figure’s body lying flat on the ground. Edging closer, the detective could see a still smoking shot gun with a box of cartridges several inches away. The body’s face which included mouth, nose and eyes was blown completely off. A mass of gore was splattered in a perfect circle around it. The arms and legs were lying in crooked angles like a rag doll thrown across the floor. John Miller was dead.

Other officers joined in surveying the garage as the detective took a second to collect himself before scrambling for his radio again.

“Suspect is deceased. The body located inside the Miller’s garage. All units stand down.” The detective holstered his gun and slammed his fist into the side of the wall, muttering something himself. He took a last look at the body and felt a cold spider crawling up his spine. Mr. Miller’s face resembled that of an angry red demon: eye sockets and nostrils still pulsing fresh and while the frontal oral region was destroyed, there was still the hole and the back teeth that displayed something other worldly and nightmarish to him.

The infamous Boogey-man is stopped at last, dead, but stopped regardless. No more teenage girls being raped and slaughtered in their sleep, no more cradles being rocked tonight. The detective thought to himself as he stepped out of the garage and into the backyard thriving with activity. He stopped to kneel down and admire the craftsmanship of the killer as he picked up the six inch piece of steel used to cut the officers arresting him. The blade was slightly curved and smoothed over with blood. As he wiped the blade on the grass he read to himself an engraving on its edge.

If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you

He imagined, just for a second, how it must have felt having to sit and wait for the evil to leave the room when one knows deep in their hearts that terror can be either across the room or two inches from your eyes. What can you do when you are left out of options and that evil is done playing? When you are left gazing into that abyss? Nothing, he thought grazing the engraving over with his fingers. He handed the knife over to the arriving forensics team and re-entered the Miller’s house.

Nothing at all.

The air is chill and dark. Early into the morning the next day the police have long gone, the family is mourning for their misfortune at the city morgue and the press is buzzing with deliberate sympathy and excitement, expressing to the world that the operation was a success and the nights are safe once more.

Detective Reynolds is closing his eyes for the day, Susana rewinds into the night. The trains and buses are overcome with celebration as fathers and mothers venture off to work after weeks of sleepless nights, hovering over their cradles brandishing their own knives and guns. All the while, Lavender Street is silent. The neighbors flee the tragedy next door in hope of security. They take their beloved daughters and run from a quintessential feeling of evil still parading around. No one else feels it but they do. They can hear it from afar breathing loud.

In the midst of dawn, within the Miller’s garage where police tape envelop all exits, a hand, an arm and then a body slithers out from beneath a car. The body is nude as it stands up straight, dozens of red lines traveling down from the face. With one hand it touches its ear gently, slowly caressing its neck and chin. It turns to look at the stains from the previous night. The face is that of Miller’s and as the hand peels away the Miller to reveal a gore-stained face indiscernible to human eye, it grins and leaves to push against the door. That morning in the quiet street of Lavender, a creaking noise is heard.

The end