She wanders the house, switching off lights as she goes. The sounds from the Trick or Treaters outside carry through the converted church Erika now calls home. A place chosen for its protection, from it who resides in her nightmares. Shuttering inside, carrying on like any normal day, telling herself Halloween draws no more evil than November 1st, heading to bed to try and forget all about it. On All-hallows forgetting of such things was almost an art, as she would come to discover as time went by.
***
The same dream. A powerful scream rips forth, silent. Too big to escape. Help. Help me. She tries to run, to get away. Body frozen, paralyzed from terror perhaps, or something more feral. She braces, just as it reaches her. Knowing no rescue is coming.
Falling, into the abyss, she gasps and her eyes fly open to the dark room. Her heart is pounding. The fear, as always, follows her awake. Cold skinned she tries to scream again. She is as alone in this house as she was in her dream. Even half asleep this scream has no voice either. Conscious now, she tries to still the terror. Her eyes fly wildly around the darkness, trying to anchor onto a familiar shape.
"It's over. I'm in my room." She tells herself. "It was just a dream. You are safe now. Stupid girl, there are no such things as those you imagine with claws and red eyes and blackened hearts full of killing intent."
Except she is not. The terrible darkness surrounding her is all encompassing and far too deep. The hair on her neck stands up, goosebumps rise on her skin. It is here. Somehow, it has followed her back from her nightmare. Enveloped in the endless black, she squeezes her eyes shut. She feels its presence at the end of the bed. It makes no sound. The moments of time flipping lazily over page by page. Soundless she screams again, and then again. Or perhaps one long, mad scream, born useless in her mind, instead of her throat.
She feels the sheet start to slide off her body. So slowly, she questions whether it's real. Her only protection, she makes to grab for it. She can't move her fingers. Or her arm. Her body. Just as paralyzed here as in the land of dreams. Frozen. Flat on her back, tears fall from closed lids. This true disquiet like sinking into a cold pocket in a dark lake.
As the sheet drops to the floor at the foot of her bed, a switch somewhere deep in her mind breaks. She realizes it is not human. It bathes in her fear. Transcendent between this world and the last. All of the evil brought together here, to this spot.