He slipped into the kitchen. He had earlier gone round the flat to check if there were any windows left open. But, unlike the other nights when he had spied on her, this time they were all locked. So, he had no other choice than to break a pane from the kitchen window in order to reach the bolt behind the kitchen door. From there, the rest was easy.
He made care not to touch anything. The less things he touched the better. He reached for the door knob with his gloved hand and stepped into the living room. It was dark, so he needed some time to accustom himself to the room and the darkness. He knew the layout from the several times he had been in there while waiting to be paid after delivering pizza or other food items to her, but he didn’t want to make any mistakes tripping over items or furniture that had been moved or replaced. So, he waited a few minutes then proceeded to move into the centre of the living room.
It was a nice and neatly furnished room, with the black leather sofa taking the entire opposite wall to the TV and home theatre set. The rug beneath him softened his footfall even more as he made his way upstairs. As he approached her door, he pulled out the knife making sure his grip was firm.
The next few moments were the most critical. The element of surprise and quiet was essential, so also was his state of mind and readiness for the task at hand. He would not contaminate his mind with anything else other than the big prize in mind. All unforeseen circumstances must be prepared for and he must be ready to improvise in case anything happened.
This was it. His next kill. And nothing would stand in his way now. He opened the door, slowly and gently. She was lying there on the bed, the soft light from the moon lit night falling on her prone body on the bed outlined her shapely hips and buttocks.
He moved in closer towards the bed, the knife glinted as it caught the moonlight. As he stepped into the middle of the room, he began to hear the voices.
You do not know where you are? You do not know before whom you stand?
He stopped mid-step, totally taken by surprise at what he was hearing. The female voice seemed to have come from behind him. But, there was no way anyone could have come into the room with him. He looked around to try and identify where the voices were coming from. There was no sign of anyone.
You have come here to do evil and in your ignorance you walked into the den of evil itself.
This time it was a male voice and it came from right beside him. He turned and slashed at the space beside him, the whoosh sound the sharp blade of the knife made as it cut air told him there was nothing there. Just an empty space occupied by a voice belonging to an unidentifiable body.
He could feel his heart begin to thump in his chest now. He was not in the place alone. He looked on the bed, she kept sleeping and seemed quite oblivious to his presence or whatever else was going on in the room. But, he knew as sure as he was of his own presence, that he was not alone. Other people were with him and he couldn’t see them. It began to make him shake and feel hot all over.
What did you think you would do here tonight? Kill an undead?
He turned and fled from the room of accursed voices. He grabbed the door knob, yanked it open and ran the short hallway to the top of the stairs. As he reached the stairs, it crossed his mind that with all the noise he had made, she had not woken up or chased him; or even ran out of the room in fear of the racket he had made. As the thought crossed his mind, he looked back for a brief moment to confirm if she or anyone was coming after him.
In that split second, he mistimed his steps on the stairs, and completely lost his balance. He tumbled, hit his head a couple of times on the hard wood stairs. But, it was not that which did him in. As he tumbled towards the end of the stairs, he did a complete somersault and by an unfathomable sequence of events which confounded even the law enforcement agents who saw him later lying dead on the floor, he landed squarely on the knife still gripped in his hand. The full weight of his body and momentum of his fall driving it fully into his heart, killing him instantly.
Back in the room, the figure on the bed shifted facing upwards. If he were to still be in the room, what he would have seen would have instantly driven him mad.
The face for a brief few seconds changed, first came the face of an old shrivelled male then it morphed into that of a teenage girl. The man had one of his eyes plucked out, while the girl’s face was scarred like it was burnt.
As both faces disappeared and returned to that of the sleeping on the bed, a smile crept across her face and the voices could be heard again.
We are the undead. We are the unseen. We are the evil ones you hear only at midnight.
