. Peter came to in a hospital room. He was in a bed and there was a tie-dye balloon tied to the rail. It read Get Well Soon in yellow letters. He didn’t know who could’ve brought it. Then he realized his cousin, Melanie, lived just outside New York City. The hospital must have contacted her and she had picked out a balloon and brought it with her.
There was a knock on the door and a nurse walked in. She was a heavyset woman in a white coat and hat and she held a clipboard.
“Oh. You’re awake now, Mr. Hall.” The nurse said and laid the clipboard on the nightstand beside the bed.
“Yeah. How long have I been here?”
The nurse walked over and checked on the IV stuck in Peter’s left hand.
“Hmm..two days. Almost.” She pulled the IV out of his hand and put a cotton ball and band-aid over where the need was inserted.
“Was I out the whole time?”
“Yes, I think so. You were every time I checked in on you, at least.” She pulled a thermometer out of her coat and took it out of the plastic covering. “Under the tongue.”
Peter opened his mouth and the nurse put the thermometer in. “Am I okay?”
“Yeah, you’re fine. An infection was the worst of it. Other than that, you’re fine.” The nurse said, picking up the clipboard and heading to the door. “My name is Nurse O’Riley. If you need anything, just yell for me. I’ll be right outside.” She left the room.
It wasn’t thirty minutes later when Nurse O’Riley returned. In her hand was a small plastic cup, like the kind that came with cough syrup. In the cup were two large, white pills.
“These are antibiotics to get rid of the infection.” She dumped them in Peter’s uninjured hand. She left and came right back with the plastic cup full of water. He took the pills with a sip of water from the little cup. “Now, these will make you drowsy. You’ll probably be asleep in about an hour or less.”
After a couple minutes, Peter felt the medicine begin to take its course. He closed his eyes and decided to sleep it off. He woke up in one of the waiting room chairs. The room was empty, not even a nurse answering phones at the desk. He stood up and walked to the doubles doors that led to the patient rooms. The hallway was also empty. No doctors, not even an extra gurney or mattress was in sight. A tile floor and walls with blue doors put into the tiles. The lights on the tile ceiling flickered.
Peter opened the first door on his right. This room wasn’t empty. There was a patient in the bed. The man, at least it looked like a man to Peter, lay still in the bed; not even his chest was moving. Was he dead?
He slowly made his way to the bed. He almost screamed when he saw the man in the bed, the only thing stopping him was his fear. The man was tied to the bed, not with the belts usually used to keep the people from squirming, but with barbwire. Peter couldn’t see the barbs though; they were dug into the skin. The wire was tied around the man’s wrists and ankles. Peter barely noticed the wire. He was too busy staring at the man’s face, or lack thereof. Where the face was supposed to be, there was only a mass of stretched skin. No eyes, nose, or mouth. That’s why the man’s chest wasn’t moving; he had no way to breathe. The man heard Peter and raised his head as far as he could and moved his jaw as if to open his mouth, which he didn’t have, to scream.
Peter turned and ran from the room. He hit the door opposite the faceless man’s and burst in. this room was empty. He let out a sigh of relief. Anything was better than whatever that had been. He was about to leave, when he heard someone scream. It came from the bathroom right beside him. He thought about leaving, but then there was another scream. He decided to open the door, which turned out to be a horrible decision.
This person was in worse condition than the last. It was a woman, hanging from the ceiling by chains with large meat hooks at the end of them. There were four chains and hooks. One was put through her triceps, under the bone. The other was through her hand. It was like that on both sides. Blood dripped from her like a faucet barely turned on. There was a large puddle of blood in the floor. It took almost the whole floor. He noticed that the woman was crying. Her eyes were closed. She didn’t even notice Peter.
Then Peter noticed something in the shadows behind the woman. Something had moved. He saw a black hand, as black as the shadows, reach out and grab the woman’s dangling foot. The thing then emerged from the shadows. It was the creature from the drawing. It leaned its head back and opened its wide mouth. The inside was also black. You could make out sharp ridges on the top and bottom of the darkness. A long snake-like “tongue” emerged from the mouth. It was as dark as the rest of the creature. The tongue went to the woman’s calf and made its way all the way up her leg, licking the blood off. It brought its tongue back in and started to climb up the woman. It stuck to her back like a koala. Peter saw the tongue going in and out, licking off the blood and drinking it. It brought its head beside the woman. That’s when it noticed Peter. Its dark red eyes met his. He rushed out and the thing followed, climbing down the woman like a spider.
When Peter got outside to the hallway, he turned around. The creature was coming out of the doorway. It twisted its arms and legs so that it stood on two legs. It looked almost human like this. Peter wanted to turn and run but his eyes were fixated on the creature. As it stalked forward slowly, he closed his eyes and everything changed.
Nurse O’Riley had been picked for the night shift. She was sitting in the break room, a bag of Lay’s potato chips in her hand, watching old reruns of Maury. That was when she heard the scream. It had come from the homeless man, Mr. Hall’s, room. She rushed out of the break room and down the hall. When she burst in the room, Peter was sitting up with sweat covering his body.
“Are you alright?!” Nurse O’Riley asked frantically.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Peter replied, panting. “Just a nightmare, that’s all.”
“Okay. Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”
Peter nodded in response. He remembered every moment of the nightmare, and it terrified him. “When will I be able to leave and go home?”
“In the morning you can. Your cousin’s coming to pick you up.” Nurse O’Riley turned to leave, but she noticed something under Peter’s bed. She walked over and picked it up. It was an envelope, a dusty one. She laid it beside Peter and then left.
Peter reached over and picked up the envelope. He peeled back the flap and brought out the contents, a singlet letter. He undid the tri-fold and looked at it. On the paper were the words “Hes Neer.” Was it some kind of foreign language? Then he realized, with the sloppy handwriting, that it was a young child’s writing, probably a kindergartener. It was supposed to say “He’s Near.” That’s what Peter thought, at least. What did that mean? Then he saw. Under the second fold line was a drawing. The drawing was a human like creature scribbled with a black crayon. It was the creature from the other drawing, and his nightmare. It looked exactly the same as it did when it stalked Peter down the hall. He crumpled it up into a ball and threw it at the far corner of the room.
Peter though about sleeping, but he just lay there, staring at the letter. He also didn’t want to have another nightmare about the creature. It didn’t feel like long before sunlight began to show through the blinds covering the window.
Nurse O’Riley walked into the room with a tray. On the tray was a bowl, and beside the bowl were two boxes of cereal: Frosted Flakes or Lucky Charms. “These are the only kinds we have. I didn’t know which you’d prefer, so I brought both.” She laid the tray on Peter’s lap.
“Thank you.” Peter said, and he grabbed the little box of Frosted Flakes. Nurse O’Riley brought out one of the small cartons of mile, opened it, and poured it once Peter dumped the cereal into the bowl. He picked up the plastic spoon and began to eat.
“Your cousin, Melanie, will be here in about an hour. I’ll bring in your clothes when you finish eating. Nurse O’Riley said and left the room.
Peter quickly ate the cereal. He had been sitting up staring at the piece of paper most of the night, and that made his appetite grow quite a bit. Once he was finished, he sat the tray on the bedside table and pressed the nurse button. Nurse O’Riley came in with a white t-shirt and grey sweatpants. She walked out and let Peter change out of the hospital gown and into the clean clothes. When he had the clothes on, he peeled back the bandage on his right hand. The wound didn’t look any different, it just wasn’t bleeding. There were spots of green in the wound; the infection. He put the bandage back over the wound.
A few minutes later, his cousin walked in. Melanie was a short woman, with curly brown hair. She was wearing a red business suit. She looked like she came straight out of the ‘80s. she hugged him tightly.
“How are you doing? “ She asked, with concern in her voice.
“I’m fine. It just hurts a bit.” Nurse O’Riley walked in with a prescription pad.
“Dr. Scott left almost ten minutes ago, but wrote you a prescription for the antibiotic I’ve been giving you. She tore the prescription off the pad and handed it to Peter. He stuck it in his pocket.
Nurse O’Riley led them out of the room, toward the elevator. She called it and then walked back to her position. When the elevator reached them, a person got out and then it was empty. Melanie and Peter got onto the now empty elevator. That’s when Peter noticed what floor he had been on; the fourth floor. The same number floor where all the rats had went to. He all of a sudden became nervous and anxious, expecting rats to burst through the vent on the top of the elevator. When the elevator opened, they walked across the lobby. Melanie led Peter out to the parking garage and to her care, a ’01 Toyota Corolla.
“This thing still works?” Peter asked, jokingly.
“Yes it does. Not everyone buys houses.” Melanie replied. She was a realtor, and not many people were buying houses in New York, so she didn’t have enough money to upgrade her car.
“I’m guessing you still live in that little mailbox, as always?”
Melanie stopped midstride. “It’s better than what you live in.” They both laughed and got in the car.

Melanie lived in Hutchinson, a small town about five miles outside New York City. It was a completely different atmosphere. Where New York City was a bustling city, Hutchinson was a small, country-like town. There was a general store, an antique store, a diner, and a movie theatre. The rest of the town was homes.
Melanie’s house was on the other side of Hutchinson, at the edge of the forest. Her house was a small yellow box with flower patches scattered around it. “It looks exactly the same as the last time I was here.” Peter said, getting out of the car.
“I don’t have time to ever change anything. Heck, I have to go back to work tomorrow.” Melanie said heck because she didn’t believe in cursing. She walked up to the front door and unlocked it. “Well, I have to go get some food because as we both know, I can’t cook.”
Peter walked into the house. “I don’t see how you’ve lived by yourself for so long.” Melanie smiled and walked back to the car. She got in, waved, and backed out of the driveway. Peter waved back, and then turned to the inside of the house. The parlor was small, consisting of only a bookshelf and a small, half-sized couch, which, in the tiny room, made it look even larger than a normal sized couch. The bookshelf, which was located on the west side of the room, was filled with books. Peter didn’t know how she had time to read all these books. The wallpaper on the walls was a floral pattern of red, green, and yellow. There were two wooden doors on the north wall. They led to the master bedroom and the guest bedroom. On the east was a double hinged door that led to the kitchen. It was barely used, only when Melanie wanted a drink.
Peter walked over to the bookshelf and grabbed a book at random. He had picked The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He took the book and sat down on the small couch. The ceiling fan overhead was on. It was shaking at the base, creating a rattling sound. It was very distracting to Peter. He tried reading, but rattling kept distracting him before he could get going with it. When he got to page twenty, something fell out; a piece of paper. At first he thought it was one of the pages, but then realized it wasn’t. It was folded up and twice as long as the book. He unfolded it. Written on the paper were the words “It Is Darkness.it was written neatly in the center.
There was a knock at the door. Peter laid the book and paper on the arm of the couch and answered the door. It was Melanie holding a pizza box. She walked into the kitchen. Not a moment later, she emerged. Peter grabbed the piece of paper and handed it to Melanie. “Where did you find this?”
“Outside in the woods.” Her face showed concern. “Why?” Because it reminded him of all the other sheets that had the creature’s drawing on them, that’s why. But he couldn’t tell her that. She’s think he was some crazy, paranoid nut. “Just cause.” He answered. Her concerned look didn’t disappear.
“Okay, well there’s food now, so yeah.” She turned and walked back into the kitchen. Peter followed her. The interior of the kitchen looked like one from the ‘50s. Every appliance, even the table and chairs, had a retro design and color. The pizza box was sitting on the table. Melanie sat down at the table and he sat right beside her. They ate the pepperoni pizza, Peter’s favorite. When he finished, he stood up from the table. “I’m going for a walk.” Peter told Melanie.
“Where at?”
“In the woods.”
Melanie looked up, her eyebrows raised. “It’s getting dark, ya know?”
Peter looked out the window over the sink. The sun had already begun to set. Soon it would be night. “I’ll be fine. I won’t get lost.”
Melanie shrugged and looked back down at her plate. Peter walked out of the kitchen and out the front door, making sure it was locked as he left. He walked around the house to the back, where the forest was. It was already beginning to get dark in the woods. There were no paths in between the trees, so Peter just walked straight.
After a couple of minutes, Peter came to a path. He began to follow it. As he walked along to path, he came to a cave off in the trees. There was a path leading to it. The path was burnt grass and plants. He walked along it, the burnt grass crunching under his feet.
The entrance to the cave was small; Peter had to duck his head so he wouldn’t hit it. The inside of the cave wasn’t much bigger; he still had to keep his head down. It was pitch black inside/ he slowly crept forward. All of a sudden a loud hiss came from further off in the cave. Peter stopped, and then took another step. That was when the two red dots appeared further down. He stopped and stood dead still. There was another loud hiss. Then there was the sound of something hitting the ground, and the red dots began to move forward. It was then that he realized what it was; the creature from the drawings, and his nightmares. It started to move faster, the sounds becoming more rapid. Peter turned and ran. He heard the thing getting closer. Then it all went away and was replaced by flashing lights and a loud ringing in his head.
Peter came to consciousness in a field. The grass and plants of the field were grey. He sat up. The field seemed to to span on for miles. There was a dense fog covering the field.
Peter stood up. When he did, he noticed something far off in the fog. It looked like a person. “Hello?” Peter yelled at the figure.
It began to move fast towards Peter. He turned and began to run from the figure. When he turned to look back on the figure, it was gone. He stopped running. Where had it gone?
Peter spun in a circle looking for it, but it was nowhere in sight. He noticed some grass swaying. Was it the thing crawling or the wind? He backed away from the swaying plants, just in case it was the thing. Then he tripped over something. The thing that was chasing him in the cave stood over him. It fell on top of him, pinning him to the ground.
“Oh how I’ve waited for this…” The creature’s voice was soft and raspy. It opened its mouth, showing the rows of black teeth that matched the rest of the creature, and brought its head down on Peter’s neck.
Peter woke in the guestroom of Melanie’s house. He could tell because of the China plays that were on the wall in front of the bed. The floral pattern was also continued in the room. He sat up on his elbows on the bed. His head began to pound once he did so. There was a bowl of tomato soup on the bedside table. He pulled himself up so his back was against the headboard and grabbed the soup. He sat it in his lap and began to slurp it down. It was lukewarm.
Once he finished, Peter sat the bowl and spoon back on the table. The clinking of the empty dishes was heard by Melanie, who quickly rushed in. She sat at the food of the bed. “How are you feeling?” She asked.
“My head is killing me, that’s all. What happened?”
“I think you were in the cave, and with the low entrance, you hit your head. It didn’t look serious.” Then it all came back to Peter; walking through the forest, the burnt grass, and the nightmarish creature. Oh God, Peter thought, that thing is real! Or maybe it was just his mind playing tricks, a hallucination, but no. Hallucinations couldn’t hiss and chase after you, could they?
“Was there anything in the cave?” Peter asked.
“I don’t know. It was dark and I didn’t want to be like you and knock myself out. You were about five feet from it, too.”
“How long was I out?” All of a sudden, he thought about the last couple of days. They had been tough. He looked down at his right hand. The bandage was still there. The infection must have died down because he didn’t feel it or much pain in the wound.
“Not too long. When you didn’t come back before the sun went down, I went out after you. I found you right where the path went into the cave.”
Peter wasn’t paying any attention to her when she spoke. His mind was back to where he first saw the drawing of the thing. “Can I ask you a favor?”
Melanie pulled her car in front of the abandoned hotel. Peter got out and walked to the doorway. The doors were still off their hinges and the inside was still the same. Dust everywhere, the luggage trolley still on its side, and the carpet still ripped. He looked back over his shoulder. Melanie was staying in the car. He saw something on the sidewalk. Blood…his blood. It was little drops in a trail. He followed it. The trail went across the lobby to the stair door. He had to give it a kick for the door to open. The trail went up the steps to the top floor. When he got top the top, he saw a rat scurry through a hole in the wall. He winced. He had found himself completely disgusted by the sight of those filthy creatures now.
There was a fork in the trail. One went into the room Peter had slept in and the other stopped at the hole. Peter followed the blood that went to the hole. Could it be his? He thought about it. He had almost fallen into the hole after he got bit, but this trail looked as if it went into the hole. Then he noticed that the blood was dripping from the edge of the hole and down to its dark depths. The blod was fresh. Someone else had been injured and had fallen into the hole. “Are you okay?” Peter called down into the darkness.
There was no answer. Peter considered jumping into the hole, but that would be stupid. He didn’t know how far down it went, but if someone was injured, they’d need help. “But if I jump down, I’ll be in the same boat as that guy.” Peter thought to himself.
Peter took a piece of wood from the edge of the hole and tossed it into the hole. It was maybe a second before the wood hit something. It wasn’t that far down. He took a deep breath and leaped into the hole.
When Peter hit the ground, something squished under his foot, almost like a bug. He reached down to feel what was under his foot. He felt wet fur. He had landed on an animal, a rat most likely. He took a step back and there was the same squishing sound. He took another stop and the same squishing sound greeted him. He began to run. The squishing sound came from every step he took. There was a light farther down. Peter ran toward the light. It was coming from a door, and Peter burst into the room.
It would’ve been better if Peter had stayed out of the room. It was a hotel room with all the furniture taken out. Across the walls were pictures of people. He noticed something written on the floor. “Victims” was written in blood. He looked up at the ceiling. There were two red dots, the eyes of the creature, Peter already knew. The eyes came closer to him and then quickly went away. At the far end of the room, the creature emerged from the shadows, its red eyes still staring at him.
“You see,” It said in its raspy voice. “I am very real. Darkness if my friend and fear is my food.” The creature crawled toward Peter, stood up on its back legs, and got barely an inch from his face. “And you, my friend, are full of fear, overflowing, actually. You see, I’m in your head, you see what I want you to see. And when you start to feel safe, I make you afraid, and I prolong my visit.” Everything went dark. Peter expected the creature to attack him, but it never did.
When the darkness went away, the room had changed. It was no longer the room of victims, but the room Peter had spent the night in. He didn’t know how he got there, but he didn’t care. It was a welcoming sight from the victim room, and the hall full of what Peter had thought to be rats. His heart was still pounding from the experience, though. He wanted to do what he came here to do and then get the heck out of here.
Peter walked across the room to the window and looked out. The only sight was of the harbor, which Peter noticed had no red lights on it. He realized what had been there and when he did, he rushed out of the room. He took the stairs two at a time, kicked the door open, and ran out of the lobby. He got in the car with Melanie.
“What’s wrong, Peter?”
“GO.”
“What’s –“
“JUST GO!” Peter screamed. Melanie stepped on the gas; she had kept the car running, and sped off. She drove down the abandoned road to the turnpike and then drove the highway back to Hutchinson. She pulled the car into her driveway and cut the engine off.
“What happened, Peter?”
“Rats. Lots of them.” He lied. Well, it technically wasn’t a lie, since there were a lot of rats, dead ones.
“Afraid of a little rat, are we?” She smiled. Peter shot her a disapproving look and the smile faded. Melanie got out of the car and headed into the house. Peter sat in the car and thought about his experience with the creature at the hotel. Had all those pictures been of its victims? No, it was probably his mind playing tricks. But, then again, the creature had said it was in his head. Then he thought about the pictures. They had all looked like they were suicides.
Peter got out of the car and headed to the house. When he entered the house, Melanie was heading into her room. She smiled and went in. Peter returned the smile and headed to the guest room. He hopped in bed and tried to sleep, but he couldn’t. He kept thinking about the creature and it was like his mind didn’t want him to have a nightmare about it.
After what seemed like hours, there was a knock at the door. Peter didn’t move. The knob turned and the door slowly opened. The person on the other side of the door was pitch black. He heard something scraping across the floor. He knew without even looking what it was.
Two red eyes opened in front of Peter’s face. He smelled the scent of rotting flesh now. The creature was right over him. Peter knew the thing came every night, that’s why he had the nightmares. This was a nightmare in itself, being so close to the creature, smelling its rotten breath.
A tear began to fall from his eye. He was terrified but that wasn’t the reason for the tear. This torture had gone on for almost a week. How much longer could this go on?
Until he got rid of the creature.
Eventually in the night, Peter finally fell asleep.
The next morning when Melanie went off the work, Peter decided he was going to get rid of the creature. He went to the bookshelf, grabbed a hardcover, and ripped one of the blank pages out. He also grabbed a pen from the shelf. He sat on the couch and wrote “Don’t Fear” on the paper. He laid the pen on the arm of the couch and then walked out of the house.
The morning was gray and hazy. You could tell it was about to rain. It looked just like the first night he had seen the creature. “This’ll be a fitting end to our friendship.” Peter said.
He walked around the little yellow house and walked into the woods. Eventually, he found the path that cut through the forest. He followed it until he came to the burnt path of plants and grass. He followed the path to the cave. When he reached the entrance, he kneeled down in front of it. He laid the piece of paper on the entrance.
Peter walked back through the woods and back into the house. He grabbed the pen off the couch and walked to the kitchen. He began to draw something on the table. It was a sketch of the creature. When he finished it, he went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of ketchup. He squirted it on the drawing for the eyes. Those dang eyes.
When Peter completed the drawing, he went to the knife drawer. He opened it, and grabbed a butcher knife from it. Knife in hand, he walked into the guestroom. Peter was going to kill the creature in its home…
Melanie unlocked the door and walked in the house. She learned her dripping umbrella by the door. It had been raining since late morning. She took off her coat and tossed it on the little couch. The she walked into the kitchen. She noticed something on the table when she did. It looked like someone had spilled ketchup. She grabbed a dishtowel from the sink and started to clean the tabletop. That’s when she noticed the scribbling. It looked like someone had hastily drawn a person with a black ink pen. What’s gotten into him? She thought.
Melanie dropped the towel back into the sink and left the kitchen, heading for the guestroom. The door was locked. She knocked. “Peter?”
No answer.
She pulled the keys from her pocket and unlocked the door. When the door was opened, she screamed and ran to the bed. Peter was lying in the bed, the knife in the creature’s home. It didn’t affect the creature any thought, that’s what it had wanted. But now it had to find someone else and it had someone else in mind. It stood in the corner, red eyes starting at its next victim.