{ I realize this won't be in time to be posted for Halloween. Actually it is an expanded version of something I wrote a few years ago, but lost when my HD crashed. I'd quite a fan of Halloween, so I decided it was time to re-write it. Enjoy! }
*
He pulled onto the concrete slab of the carport just as the streetlights came on with a dull click. Another night or two and the moon would be completely full, he thought, as he unlocked the back door and walked in through the mud-room. The sharp clatter of keys hitting a porcelain dish echoed, almost as if the house was empty around it. It was, but not in the accepted sense of the word.
Joe's wife had cleared out a little over a year ago. Ironically, 'cleared out' meant she took everything she wanted, and left him with just enough to get by on. Even the bank accounts had suffered a marked loss. Apparently she would rather have an out-of-work-actor/waiter/what-ever-work-he-could-find boyfriend over a reasonably attractive hard working construction engineer.
The house had looked burgled when he got in from work the evening Sylvia left him. He hadn't summoned up enough interest to purchase anything new except a big screen television and a king-sized bed. But he'd splurged on the mattresses. He decided if he had to sleep alone, it might as well be on the best set the store had in stock.
The mist had begun to gather not long after sundown. As the temperature slowly dropped, the mist grew thicker and seemed to climb higher on the walls of the surrounding houses. At first the occasional bark of a neighborhood dog broke the silence, but as the atmosphere grew increasingly haunting, even those sounds faded away.
Joe took the 'hungry man' frozen dinner out of the microwave and peeled back the shiny cover, cussing under his breath as the escaping steam burned his fingers. There was a game on cable and eating in front of the flat screen off a wooden TV tray had become habit. After all, Sylvia had taken the new dining table, along with the extra leaves, and the eight chairs they'd spent weeks shopping for. Which only made sense, considering she tended to treat shopping like an Olympic sport.
As he walked into the den, Joe glanced out of the window at the fog. It had grown so thick, that even the streetlights struggled to fight their way through the gloom. His steps faltered as the vague outline of a slender woman covered in a long dark hooded cloak appeared for an instant just outside the window, then vanished as if the form had simply blinked out.
He moved closer to the window, but there wasn't even a hint of any movement outside. Shaking his head, he continued across to the Lazyboy, picked up the remote and turned on the game. Obviously he was spending way too much time alone if he had begun to imagine ghostly women outside on the lawn. It was definitely time to think about getting on with his life, Joe thought.
The game went into double overtime and it was after eleven before Joe turned off the television. But it had been worth it, his team had pulled out a win 27-24 with a last second field goal. Leaving him with a sense of euphoria as he began to drift off ... that and long hours, combined with a couple of beers relaxed him into a deep, sound sleep. Sound enough that the appearance of a woman outside his bedroom window didn't pull so much as a shiver out of his sleeping form.
As the moon climbed higher in the night's sky, and the fog began to move as though blown by a slowly undulating wind. The patterns ebbed and flowed around the outside of Joe's house as if an invisible hand moved it back and forth. Anyone watching would have seen it thicken into the vague shape of a cloaked figure and move up against the window on the outside wall of the room Joe slept in.
They might even have seen the misty form rise up and wrap around the windowsill, sliding into the open space where the window didn't quite shut. It hadn't for years, because, why have it tight when you were just going to raise it to hook up the outside Christmas lights the day after Thanksgiving. That had been only one of the many things he and Sylvia had disagreed about. She kept a loosely rolled-up towel on the inside of the sill because she liked the idea of having fresh air while she slept.
As the mist filled the space between the window and the side of his bed, Joe began to shift in his sleep. Vague scenes of a winning season, morphed into dreams of a woman wearing a hooded cloak. In the dream, she drifted across from the window and bent over the side of his bed to whisper something he couldn't quite hear into one ear.
Trying to catch her words, he turned over onto his back. As he did, she leaned closer and he caught a glimpse of eyes as green as glass looking down at him. They seemed to glow with an inner light as her lips moved in an almost soundless whisper. Each time her full red lips parted, he caught a peek at startlingly white teeth. But what was most shocking of all were the canines that pressed against her bottom lip, and ended in wickedly sharp points.
Even close enough to feel her breath on his hair, Joe didn't understand. Maybe it was because there was something about the shape of her nose, her cheek, even her chin that kept him from concentrating on the whispered words. He didn't want her to stop, or even move away. The side of the bed dipped when she crawled up onto it, but he couldn't seem to move.
