Midnight Visit

The darkness of the nighttime sky hangs like a shroud cloaking the Earth in mystery. The shroud is empty, devoid of the decorations that usually dot its fabric every hour past sunset. There is no night light to assure the inhabitants of Earth, that we are safe.

The ground reflects the same unsafe state as the sky. The neighborhood below is a ghost town, a modern ghost town. Rows of pastel white and red brick houses line the quiet smooth asphalt streets. Not a soul is present on the streets of this quaint community, not a single person and not even a single vehicle. The silence hangs over the neighborhood like two layers of the night sky shroud, threatening to muffle the collection of houses completely. The silence is eternal and torturous, like the pain inflicted in torture chambers.

The waves of houses ends at a clear demarcated border. A gray steel fence separating the urban from the wilderness. At the edge of the dead neighborhood is an undead pitch black forest. The forest looks quite frightening in the dark, especially with its close proximity to the backyards of comfortable middle classers. The last street of civilization, which runs behind the border houses, offers the last hope in the philosophy of light. The streetlamps are socially distancing themselves with a distance of over five metres. Their faces beam down yellow that unfortunately do not offer any hope of safety. The yellow beams form large triangles, which sadly aren’t big enough to hold off the darkness.

The white suburban mansion is large for house standards. The castle is built entirely using stone bricks that were chiseled by poorly trained stonemasons. Two stories of black windows cover the ancient surface, reminding us that human activity ceases during sleep. The entire structure is wide enough to fit two mini garages. Beside the black painted door is the wrought iron sign that gives the house its official name. Its first name is 175 and its last name is Bellwood Avenue. 175 Bellwood Avenue.

The interior is an empty space of gloomy darkness. The haunted halls are silent and still. The living room is one spooky cathedral with dark, shadowy furniture arranged meticulously to fit the status of the householders. The floor is a sea of sickly snow white carpeting. The curtains are tightly shut, adding to the suspense of the room’s atmosphere. The petrifying ancient stone walls and the brilliant snow white carpeting complement each other perfectly. The tap from the nearby kitchen maintains a steady drip. Drip! Drip! Drip! Nature’s metronome is always the most accurate drum. A humming sound comes from a boxed aquarium sitting several feet behind the white sofa. A goldfish bangs against the glass, trying to break through its Matrix. At the centerpiece of the living room is a Gothic fireplace. A gold embroidered picture frame sits on the rocky mantle surface. The picture frame shows a happy family. A loving father, a loving mother, and a loving daughter. The picture does nothing to warm our souls as the black coals of the fireplace have long been snuffed out. Light has been snuffed out in this dwelling. The stairs are even darker, with each step conversely leading up to the gates of the underworld.

Usually, in the daytime, the master bedroom would be a beautiful square space of white walls. Unfortunately, this is not the case at night. Without the light, the space is more reminiscent of creepy rooms in horror movies. The master of the house, a middle aged man with black hair, snores loudly in his brown oak, king-sized bed. His round analog alarm clock on the cabinet beside his bed ticks on steadily. Tick. Tick. Tick. The short hand is nearing 12. The long hand is at a 10. The seconds hand winds clockwise in a never ending cycle. 11:50 pm. Beside the metronome clock is a white miniature Statue of David figurine. The graceful nudity of the Biblical hero fails to light up the oppressive darkness that envelopes it. Even though the interior is sealed shut, the whistling wind can still pour through the various tiny cracks that cannot be closed. At the foot of the bed sleeps a brown Rottweiler on a multicolored rug.

Woof! Woof!! WOOF!!! The Rottweiler sits upright and begins to bark furiously at the window. At first, the man continues to sleep. His brain is too inactive to be disturbed. However, his pet dog continues the loud animal rant. The man groggily gets up.

“Buzz, what’s the matter? Can’t you see that I’m sleeping?” moans the tired, disturbed man.

He slowly gets out of bed and he flicks on his cone-shaped lamp. Immediately, his surroundings become more friendly. He walks over to his Rottweiler, petting his trusty companion on the head.

“It’s alright. Nobody’s outside. Now go back to bed.”

The man attempts to coax Buzz back to the multicolored mattress but to no avail. Buzz continues yelling in his agitated state. Defeated, the man sighs and he cracks a tiny sliver in the curtains. The first sight that greets him are flashing lights. He opens the curtains wider to fit his head area. What he sees is strange: the streetlamp in front of his lawn is flickering. On and off. Repeatedly.

“What the hell?” mutters the astonished man.

Ding dong! The loud ring of the doorbell echoes over the whole house. Someone is at his door. Near midnight. Who could be visiting him at this late of an hour? The moment the rings enter Buzz’s ears, he breaks out into a shouting frenzy and he dashes out of the bedroom. The man puts on his long blue nightgown, and goes down the stairs.

He enters the foyer and turns on the hallway lights. Buzz is now clawing at the front door. The man approaches the door carefully and slowly. He looks through the peephole. At first, the expression on his face is that of surprise but it quickly changes to that of unsettled fear. What he sees is even more shocking: there is a kid standing in front of his door. The kid is wearing a jet-black hoodie and is staring at the ground, concealing his visage.

The man retracts his face from the peephole. He ponders what to do for a few seconds before he looks back into the hole. The kid is a frozen statue. The man steps back and slowly reaches his hand out to the doorknob. Buzz is jumping around him, squirming through his legs and tugging at his nightgown, desperately trying to stop his master from opening the door. Of course, the man doesn’t listen to his dog-he grabs the doorknob and turns it. He opens the front door. At that moment, Buzz ceases his activity and whimpers in fear before sliding behind the man’s legs. The hooded kid keeps his tableau perfectly frozen.

“Don’t worry Buzz” assures the man. “It’s not dangerous. He won’t hurt you. It’s just a little kid. Why would he hurt you?” The man takes a deep breath, straightens out his nightgown, and puts on his best fake public smile. He reaches his hand out to the latch on the glass screen door. He lifts the latch and Buzz bolts away into the basement. The man slowly opens the screen door with a terror and dread sprouting mysteriously within him. His heart begins to race like a Bugatti Veyron, going over 200 mph.

The boy looks to be around 10 years old. His jet-black hoodie looks old and outdated. His skin is unusually pale, like a chalky white color. Below his jet-black hoodie are black jeans and black sneakers. The man is nervous and scared by now but he keeps his calm and he opens his mouth.

“Hello, how can I help you?” asks the man in a very friendly way.

There is an unusual long pause before the hooded kid responds. “May I use your phone?” asks the kid politely, but in a very robotic and monotone voice.

The kid’s voice sends shivers down the man’s spine and increases the growth of his internal dread.

“Um, why do you have to use our phone?” inquires the man politely.

There is another long pause before the kid replies “Our mother is worried.”

The man feels like he is being controlled by an unseen force into continuing his conversation with the mysterious kid and he also feels a wave of compassion sweeping within him.

“Um…um…yes, you can come in and call your parents. Do you have a cell phone? If you do, then you don’t need-.”

The hooded kid cuts the man off immediately with his cold voice. “No” is his solid reply.

The kid slowly turns around and beckons to his companion, who seems to emerge out of nowhere. His companion is shorter than him and is also wearing the same hooded black attire. The second boy, who looks to be about 8 years old, is facing the ground in the same manner as his friend. He approaches the front door and stands in a straight line parallel to the first boy.

The man slowly opens the screen door all the way and beckons for the two kids to enter. The two slowly step inside the foyer while the man shuts both entrance doors. As the two kids enter the house, the foyer lights and the front porch lights begin to flicker intermittently. Upstairs, the bedroom lights and the second floor hallway lights engage in the same weird behaviour. The two kids pass the shoe mat, directly walking into the living room. The two kids keep their eyes on the ground and their backs are to the man. Their walking style is reminiscent of the Hunchbacks of Notre Dame.

The two kids stop in the middle of the living room and the first one speaks.
“My friend needs to go to the bathroom. Will you be as kind to take him? And also, where is the phone located? I will call the parents.”

His speech strikes the man as very odd as no kid in the world that he spoke to, including his daughter, had ever used language as strange as the hoodie kid.

The man is now feeling extremely uneasy but he still plucks up the courage to answer: “Uhh… right over there.” He points at the mobile phone on the wooden cabinet.

The first kid slowly walks over to the mobile phone. He slowly takes off his hood, revealing jet-black, raven hair and pale, chalky white skin. The man trails behind the second kid as he slowly walks up the stairs to the second floor bathroom. The man wants to tell the second kid that there is a guest bathroom on the first floor but some invisible force keeps his mouth from opening. The man’s uneasiness is increasing every second. His internal dread grows large enough to gnaw at his heart. The man’s facial expressions start to contort into one of fear. The second kid walks into the second floor bathroom without closing the door or turning on the lights. The man waits by the stairwell. Squinting into the darkness, the man can see the second kid take off his hoodie, revealing the same jet-black, raven hair and pale, chalky white skin as the first kid.

The second kid slowly turns around, revealing jet-black, obsidian eyes without any sclera. The man gasps loudly and a contorted expression of horror appears on his face. The second kid walks out of the bathroom, facing the man. The kid grins evilly, signalling at the first kid downstairs. Cold sweat is starting to sweep down the man’s head. The magnetic force of the second kid seems to hold the man solid in his place. He can’t move.

However, by using all of his mental willpower, the man is able to break out of the hypnotic spell and he runs downstairs. The second kid begins to follow the frightened fleeing man but at a normal walking pace. The man bolts for the front door when suddenly, the first kid blocks his path near the foyer. The first kid looks directly into the man’s eyes, revealing his jet-black, obsidian eyes without any sclera. All the lights inside and outside the house flicker out immediately. Darkness has truly taken over the man’s property.

“We have been sent here to collect you. Come with us” says the first kid in an emotionless voice that is apparently deeper than the voice he’d first heard from the kid when they met at the front door. The man turns around and attempts to run to the backyard door but the second kid appears and blocks his path. Now, the two kids are blocking his only two escape routes. Both kids start to smile the same evil grin the man has seen in the upstairs bathroom.

The man’s face is now frozen in pure horror. The freeze comes off after several seconds when the man utters a loud piercing scream.
“Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Heeeeellllpppppp! Help me! Help me!”

“There is no help,” says the first kid. “You are doomed.”

The man backs away quickly from both kids and retreats to a corner. The two kids are closing on him. He is surrounded on all sides. There is no escape. As the two kids move closer to the man, their appearances begin to change. Both of their jet-black eyes and their evil grins begin to enlarge. Their expressions now show sheer sadistic madness. The man is now the statue. He can neither move nor talk. The invisible force has him under control again.

The first kid speaks, this time with his voice in a frighteningly deep monstrous voice that the man has never heard ever in his entire life. “Now, your life will end. We are here to eat your soul!”

The second kid emits a high-pitched, witchlike cackle that fills the whole house with loud echoes. The man begins to sink towards the floor. The two kids stop moving and they begin to change. Three gill-like gashes appear in both their cheeks. The hair from their heads quickly disappears, revealing bald, oval-shaped, alien-like heads. The two kids slowly open their mouths. Their mouths sink one inch. Razor sharp incisor teeth appear inside their mouths. Both kids howl demonically, creating more frighteningly echoes that bounce around the house.

The man breaks down completely and screams the loudest scream he has ever screamed in his entire life.

The man tries to run in the opposite direction but both kids raise their left hands and freeze the man in place. The kids slowly lower their hands and their mouths begin to expand outwards. Their faces begin to rot. Two tentacle appendages emerge from their mouths and float to the totally helpless man. The two appendages latch onto man’s mouth and they begin to suck out his soul. As the two kids are in the process of sucking out the man’s life, he rapidly degenerates, ageing into his eighties and then into his hundreds. After a few minutes, the man is finally reduced to a lifeless skeleton. Both kids retract their tentacles back into their mouths. They slowly close their mouths and give out the loudest, most maddening demonic howls which shake the house. The two kids kneel down by the skeleton of the man and they coldly watch his blackened remains. After spectating for several more minutes, the two kids get up. They slowly turn around. Their heads are facing the basement door.

In the basement, Buzz is hiding in a cabinet, whimpering. He dares not come outside. Slow, quiet footsteps invade the dark underground space. Buzz fearfully looks up through the crack of the closed cabinet doors. Two white shadows move by. He immediately crouches into a fetal position. The footsteps inch closer to his hiding spot. The two cabinet doors slowly open. A yelping, panicked Buzz attempts to leap out of harm’s way but both kids catch him. They raise his trembling body high into the air, staring into his terrified eyes with the coldness of absolute zero. The two facehugging appendages latch onto the mouth of Buzz. In a few seconds, Buzz rapidly turns into a charred, blackened dog skeleton. His murderers gently place the skeleton on the floor. They view their second victim with no emotion. They hold hands and they instantly vanish.

In the living room, the family portrait darkens quickly. In the bedroom, the David figurine is fading. The analog clock shows the present time: the two hands on 12 while the seconds hand continues its racecar revolution. 12 am. Outside, the street lamp switches back on. Numb, pervasive silence fills both the exterior and the interior. Everything remains the same.

Credit : Alex Heng

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