(A piece I recently wrote for a peer appraisal in class. Something I'd possibly look into expanding, but quite like at the length it is. I love writing horror and suspense, and when I first came up with the idea of this, I didn't have much of a clue about where I wanted it to go, or the exact nature of the noise in the corner of the room. Any suggestions much appreciated!! Enjoy.)
Jessica McRedmond turned off her
bedroom lights. It wasn’t too late, but the tedious 9am lecture the next
morning was nagging at the back of her mind. She could hear her flatmates out
in the kitchen laughing loudly at some cartoon they’d drunkenly found on TV.
She’d usually be in there with them, but for once she didn’t fancy facing a
lecture still drunk from the night before.
She climbed into bed, setting her
mobile phone down on the standard issue uni accommodation table beside her. She
hated living in a place like this. It felt like a prison cell at best: looking
out of her window only to be greeted with the steely grey concrete of the
courtyard below and hundreds of other square bedroom windows that only opened
so far as to not prove a hazard to the students that thought they were
invincible.
The duvet pulled up to her chin,
Jessica rolled over onto her side, trying to block out the noises coming from
the kitchen. If they carried on like this for too long, she’d have to break out
the ear plugs, and they were just uncomfortable.
She wasn’t sure how long she had been lying
there for before she heard it. The stage of drifting off into a semi-conscious
state had finally washed over her. She was awake, but only just. The noise broke
this, making her eyes snap open, only to be greeted with the same darkness that
they’d been enjoying just a second before. She twisted over, fumbling for her
phone on the nightstand. Reaching the light switch required her to get out of
bed – a design impracticality featured in every one of the block’s 945 rooms.
The phone dropped out of her tired hands.
She heard it hit the floor with a dull thud. Sighing at her own clumsiness, she
pulled herself upright, then twisted over the edge of the bed to reach for it.
Damn, it must have bounced into the void beneath the mattress in that way that
only things you’re trying to grab in the middle of the night do.
Behind her back, the noise again.
This time, it was a little louder, a little more prolonged than last time.
Almost like an intake of breath. She paused one moment and then turned to face
it in the dark.
“Who’s there?” Her voice cracked
against the silence. She’d left her door open, just like every other night, but
surely she’d have heard if one of her flatmates had sneaked in to play a
practical joke on her.
Silence.
“This isn’t funny. I’ve got a 9am,
so unlike you, I’d actually like to get some sleep tonight.”
More silence.
“Come onnnnn, don’t be a dick about
this. If you’re going to jump out at me with a mask on, just get it over and
done with.”
She sighed.
“Right, if that’s how you wanna do
it.” She said, pulling the covers off. She stood up in the blackness, letting
her arms guide her along the wall and towards the light switch.
*click*
She looked around her. Towards the
desk - the corner in which she’d assumed the source of the noise was
originating from. But nothing seemed different from when she’d turned the light
off earlier, no flatmate in a mask waiting there to jump out on her, nothing
displaced on her desk that could have fallen over and caused the disturbance.
Confused, she turned back towards her door. That’s funny. The door was locked. Which
was rare occurence, considering how trusting she was of her flatmates.
Jessica took a final look around
and flicked the light switch again.
*click*
Darkness resumed. She stumbled back
to her bed, almost tripping over a pair of boots she’d left strewn across the
floor earlier. Something about that locked door unnerved her. She’d heard that
same noise twice, but now she knew that it hadn’t come from one of the people
she lived with, she felt slightly more on edge. Come to think of it…
She listened. They must have either
gone to sleep or gone out somewhere, as there was now not a single peep coming
from the kitchen down the hall, just that single monotonous hum that the fridge
emitted. Their quietness was unnatural.
The bed was colder now that she’d
left it. She tried to resume the position she’d last been in before she’d got
up. Nothing felt right against her skin.
She tried to get herself into that
frame of mind again, the blissful pre-sleep phase of being unaware of most of
her current surroundings, but the more she lay and concentrated on sleep, the
more that noise replayed itself over and over inside her mind. What exactly had
caused it? Nothing had fallen over, she’d checked that just a second ago.
Nobody was in there with her. Nothing that could…
The noise again, this time louder
and much closer to her.
Jessica flinched at the sound of
it, not wanting to move. She wished she had maybe left the light on, that she’d
made more of an effort to pick her phone up from underneath the bed. She even
wished that she’d left her door open, so that when her screams penetrated the
silence of the night, her flatmates would be able to let themselves in
immediately, rather than having to run down to reception to get themselves one
of the university’s master keys.
Silence.
Then nothing.
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