Your hero walks to the
door. He has a bottle of wine in one
hand, and some gifts in the other. His
friends have invited him to share their celebration, but no one answers his
knock. He tries the door and finds it
open. Inside, the oven is still on, and
pots are boiling over, but no one is around.
Something has spilled on the kitchen floor, something brown and syrupy. There are tracks in it. They look like the prints of a giant bird
claw …
"Yikes", Jim says to the empty room. The sound of the door slamming shut behind him made him jump. Spinning round, he finds no one is there. As far as he can tell, the apartment is empty.
ReplyDeleteHe could check the bedrooms. Maybe they'll all hiding in there. Jim scanned for a spot to place his gifts under the 3-ft high, plastic Christmas tree. The piles of gifts dwarf the tree. As he adds his own gifts and the wine to the heap, he tries not to think what the claw prints on the floor may mean, but he senses that something is afoul.
After turning off the stove burners, Jim follows the prints into the narrow hall that leads back to the bathroom and bedrooms. He's careful to avoid stepping on them, and they definitely look like bird claws - a big bird.
The lights are off in this part of the apartment. The end of the corridor is dark, and all the doors are closed. A scratch behind one of the doors stops him in his tracks. It sounded as if someone was ripping apart a bed. A small whimper followed the scratch.
"What the fu--?" Jim says under his breath, but he doesn't move a muscle. A whistling sound is growing behind him, and he can feel the fetid breath of something on the back of his neck. He wills himself to turn around, but he can't - he just can't. Sweat pores from his temples, and prickles his armpits.
In a low whisper, he asks, "Who's there?"
An unearthly screech fills the hall, and