It Could Just Be The Wind

At the tail end of my to-do someday list is to enter writing contests. Not today, and likely not tomorrow, but someday. The monthly newsletter from Reedsy reminds me of this goal, and that I fail to unsubscribe to it means it’s not junk.

Although I’m only 50% into the current contest’s word count needs, I hit a stopping point and wanted to share it. The prompt is “It Could Just Be The Wind…” and the contest creator is looking for a piece that “plays on the ambiguity and uncertainty of whether a paranormal or not-of-this-world event actually happened (or whether it’s just all in a character’s head!). To me, the line between the supernatural and the psychological is where true horror lies.”

So….without further ado.

It’s the hammering in my chest I recognize first. As strong as the final sprint to the marathon’s finish line, my heart fists against my ribs. I gulp for air, heaving, pleading for each breath to fill me, but everything pushed in is forced out just as quickly. I can’t get enough.

My eyes open, and nothing changes. Open or closed, the darkness is complete, total, smothering.

I lay on the bed as if fastened by a psych ward’s canvas strap. Only—I am free to move, and the sheet I tucked into the crook of my neck for comfort abandoneded me.

My hand goes to my chest. My fingers rake over the two-inch scar where my skin was chewed into ground beef when the chainsaw kicked back and turned on me, damning me to months of beeping monitors.

Like a cat flipped onto its back—never expose the underbelly. Vulnerable doesn’t begin to cover it. I am as cold-blooded, as alert, as an ISIS terrorist with a serrated knife at a throat. However many times my therapist tells me I survived, that I’m safe now, there is a forever vigilance. Like soldiers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, I march back and forth along the boundary of the scar, always keeping it covered by thick, tight Velcro fabric.

But now—it’s gone.

Ever since I left the hospital, no longer among the dead but not quite among the living, that bandage gave me security like a decades-worn wedding ring on an old woman’s bony finger. In the shower, I’d slide it just far enough to wash. On hot days, I never removed my shirt.

And now—gone. I am a lamb to the slaughter. Helpless. Exposed. In the dark.

Acting on impulse, I go still. My hands, which had been digging into the fitted sheet, loosen and fold just above my navel.

A sound. The tick, tick, ticking of the baseboard heater coming on.

Only—it’s not the heater.

Through the dark, through my bedroom’s ajar door, a light begins to glow. A pale, bluish fire: the burner on my stove.

To turn it on, you have to push the knob in, twist counterclockwise to “light.” No one else has a key. And even if they did—I know I set the deadbolt. I remember talking to my ex-wife about the kids’ visitation and, when she heard a sound over the phone, she asked what I was doing. I said, locking the deadbolt.

As if static were injected into the room, every hair on my body stands on end.

The flame shrinks to darkness.

And in the breath between fear and disbelief, I feel the warmth and wetness of a tongue drag itself against my big toe.

With a sudden jerk, I yank my leg to my chest and roll off the bed onto the cold tile floor as something rustles in the dark behind me.

It could just be the wind, I tell myself.
But the wind doesn’t breathe.