Something had awakened me.  Was it the darkness?  It’s so dark that when I wiggle my fingers in front of my face, I can’t see them.  The wind is howling and it’s pouring buckets outside.  A lightning bolt flashes across the sky, and for a brief moment, the shadow of a tree and something else falls across my field of vision.  I sit upright, gasping and panting as though choking.  Lightning illuminates the sky once more, and I’m unable to shake away that image.

            A figure standing in the weak moonlight, dripping like a bleeding heart, pale and ghostly, and—for some reason—I can see it grinning with a clear intention of what they want in their eyes.  A knife’s glint flashes through my mind’s eye. 

            Letting a deep breath in and out, I slowly climb out of the cocoon I had made for myself and almost in a trance, walk toward the window, my fingertips and forehead lightly resting against it to steady my shallow breathing.  I had always been paranoid of things like this.  My whole body trembled with anticipation, my brain on fire, screaming, Stalker!  Stalker!  I scan the surroundings and see nothing out of the ordinary—that tree that I planted when I was five, the street silent and deserted.  Nothing’s there.

Stop scaring yourself, I scold myself.  Nothing’s there.  Get back to sleep.

And I do, drifting into an uneasy slumber, with the image of the knife seared freshly in my brain…

Suddenly, a creak wakes me up.  It’s a soft, slow, almost menacing creak, like the calm before a storm.  I peek out from under my covers, completely immobilized by terror.  A figure with a feminine shape slowly tiptoes appears at the doorway of my room.  I blink, and she disappears.  I close my eyes as if to block it out, and when I open them again, the figure has melted into the shadows, all that remaining of it is a slight whisper of movement.  All of a sudden, lightning flashes and thunder booms, and outside, a neighbor’s hound is howling mournfully at the moon.  The lightning illuminates the room, and for a split second, I see the shadow of a body hanging from a rope on the opposite wall.

Biting back a loud scream, I close my eyes tightly and try to pretend I’m sleeping, when suddenly I feel soft, wet breathing on my face.  The world seems to stop spinning, the clock stop ticking, even the storm stop howling as I slowly open one eye and take in what’s next to me.

A face, that’s what I can make out.  A ghoulish one at that, smiling wickedly, awaiting my reaction.  Strands of dark green, greasy, knotty hair spill over her face and fall on mine.  I can’t seem to say anything or do anything and there’s just one thought on my mind—don’t look at her eyes.  In all the movies and books I’ve ever seen or read, the eyes of a creature can always lure you into a trap and make you forget all that ever was.

It obviously doesn’t help, because I do, and I get a nice, long look of her.  She has no skin, and her eyes, if you can call them that, are dead.  Deep, bottomless pits where anything could get sucked in, like a black hole.  They are the origin of all sadness, grief, and hate.  A triangular warty nose sets itself between them, and teeth line the inside of her jaw, blackened by age.  Her bones are tinted green and obviously old.  She steps back, allowing me to feel the full terror before I scream.

As I scan her body, I see that on her lower front spine, there is a chilling replica of the words Bai Gu Jing in Mandarin.  Looking at her, even being in her presence, makes me shiver and send chills down my back, and the only thing that comes out of my mouth is, “Go away.”  It sounds like a soft croak, and my throat constricts as she leans in my face again.  I desperately spring out of my bed and huddle in a corner of my room.  She follows me and throws her head back as she laughs, a horrible, throaty, nails-on-a-chalkboard type of laugh.

“Where are you going, little human?  Do you like my lovely features?” she purrs, and brings up a rotted hand with suspiciously long, razor-like fingernails to stroke my skin.  “Oh, such lovely skin!” she coos.  “I had skin like this once.  In fact, even more peachy than yours!” 

I manage, “Your attitude is peachier than mine.”  She slaps her knee screeches with laughter, when she suddenly draws a knife and scrapes it across my cheek oh-so-slowly, emitting a low moan of pain from me.  My cheek is on fire.  Outside, lightning flashes and thunder booms.  The grandfather clock in the hallway strikes twelve.  Cackling, she raises her arms.

“More!” she cries.  A dog and coyote outside bay a duet at the moon, while my windows and curtains fly open.  Rain comes pouring in.

“Other humans have dared!  Tried to defeat me!  And failed, miserably, and died a painful death!  Would you like to join them?” she growls, and she brings her face so close to mine that I am forced to look in her eyes.  I see the ghost of a lovely young woman, her face radiant like sunshine, spreading rays of happiness.  She is laughing with someone when suddenly a shadow falls across the day and the young woman looks straight at me with such hatred I stumble backward.  She dries up before my very eyes, and croaks, “Your fault!” and her bones fall into a pile on the grass as her flesh twirls around as if in a whirlpool or organs.

Another man, who is huddled in a corner, clutching a dagger, sees an identical shadow and tries and fails miserably to stab the ghoul.  I hear terrible, horrible, cackling laughter and almost like an announcer-type voice saying, “And another puny life about to end.”  The feminine ghoul appears out of nowhere wielding a wicked-looking double-edged sword, five feet of deadly steel with dripping poison, on her face an expression so serene I’m not sure that she’s going to kill the man.  She seems to speed through the air like a bullet but stops suddenly in front of the man.  The man, whose eyes are fiery with determination, yells straight past her as though to deliver his final message.

“May you all see that I was the only one to stand up to her!”  He goes on about some sort of brave sacrifice, but then his eyes seem to settle on me.

“You!” he snaps.  “It’s all your fault!”  And the feminine ghoul stabs him, laughing, screeching in pure joy, as his bones clang against each other and fall on the concrete.  His flesh seems to have been sucked into a vortex.

I see more and more of those kind of scenes, all ending with the person blaming me, the flesh being sucked into a vortex and the body turning into a pile of bones.

I desperately look around my room to find a way out of this—this nightmare.  I catch a sight of my alarm clock.  It reads 12:07.  My vision tunnels and all I see is lightning striking the tree, the tree catching on fire.  Fire…those brilliant hues…red…orange…yellow…the lady grins crookedly and saunters over.

“You know what to say, now, don’t you?” she cackles.

“N-never,” I croak out.  “I will never blame another person for my own problems.  And I will never let you torment another human being again!” 

“Oh, such brave words!”  She claps her hands as though delighted.  “I should record this!  You, by far, are the only human who has stood up to me and talked back!  Besides that delightful young man, of course.  But he was a bit on the stringy side.  The woman, however, was nice and tender—“

She gets no farther when I realize that she eats her victims.  She seems to notice my facial expressions and grins.

“Goodbye, dear,” she muses.  She brings her elbow back as if drawing a string on a bow, and for a second I’m confused until I realize what her nails are for.

“No,” I whisper, horrified, and duck, but she grabs ahold of my nightshirt and holds me on the wall.  Digging her razor sharp nails in my flesh, her rotting hand over my mouth to muffle my screams, I kick and scream as my chest bleeds into her mouth and the world slowly turns black.  The last thing I remember is 12:07 in the light of the burning tree with a certain cackle in my mind.

I start awake, gasping.  Clutching my chest, I check to see that there aren’t any signs of rotting nails or blood.

See, just a dream, I tell myself.  Smiling ridiculously, I turn back to sleep when a scream rings through the neighborhood.  Heart pounding, I sit up and stare straight ahead until my breathing returns to normal.  Just some little girl crying about her teddy bear.  Everything’s fine.  I am just about to go to back to sleep when I hear, from downstairs, a jumbled mess of bass notes on the piano being played.  Immediately alert, I sit back up straight and stare at my door.  Who could be playing piano at this hour?  Ignoring the roaring in my ears, I hear a sharp, shrill howl throughout the house.

“She’s back,” I whimper, like the fool I am, sneaking a glance at my alarm clock.

It reads 12:06.

As if on cue, a soft padding of feet echoes down the hallway, coming closer to my bedroom—to me.  Biting back a soft sob, I count the seconds.

54…53…52…

The wind howls louder and my window starts to shake.  Thunder booms overhead.  As if I didn’t know danger was near already.

48…47…46…

Lightning flashes and I open my eyes to search for any sign of the shadow of a dead body.  The tree is swaying innocently in the violent wind.  How ironic!

42…41…40…

There’s no shadow; not yet.  I try to urge away the image of a ghoulish skeleton face from my mind.

36…35…34…

My ears start to roar; my heart rises to my throat.  A low drone from the wind starts to hum outside.  What do I do?

30…29…28…

The padding gets louder.  The trees seem to knock and tap on my window, whispering, “It’s here, it’s here!”  I resist the urge to yell back, “I know!”

24…23…22…

The footsteps break into a trot.  Who knew skeletons could run?  Along with the running then comes a slight giggle-like noise, almost a purr.

18…17…16…

“No!  I want to live, oh God, please help me!  Why is it my fault?  What did I do?!  Oh, Lord, please, please help me!  Help your lowly servant, oh please…” I wail, hugging my arms, frozen to my bed.

12…11…10…

The door creaks slowly open.  My breath catches in my throat.  My life seems to flash before my eyes.  Me, at three years old, in my parents’ arms.  Me, at seven years old, in second grade, playing with my toys.  Me, at eleven, in my new school.  Finally, me, now, as if glued to my bed, unable to move, paralyzed with fear.

6…5…4…

A figure stands in the doorway.  I can’t seem to remember what my name is.  All I can concentrate on is my will to survive. 

3…2…1…

I never got to tell my family how much I loved them.  How much I appreciated what my parents did for me.  How much I cherished my cousins, each and every one of them even though some hated me and some didn’t even know my name.

0.

“This is it.  Goodbye, world,” I whisper, and suddenly something leaps on my chest.  I scream, and as I feel claws digging into my nightshirt, something else distracts me from the pain.

“Mrroww….”