Lurking behind the Veil

The figure kept on staring at her from across the classroom. It bled from its eyes and didn’t blink once from when it first appeared. Dorcas ignored it as she wrote down notes from the board. The figure followed her everywhere and nobody said it. All she had to do was not look at it and she would be fine. Nobody saw it so she pretended that neither did she. 

Dorcas started to pack up her belongings as the time neared dismissal. As soon as the bell rang everyone rams to the entrance. Dorcas walked out the doors of the school as uneasiness crept up her spine. Soon she would be along with it. She could see it in the corner of her eyes as she walked out to her car.

Hopping in the driver's seat Dorcas checked all her mirrors before getting in line to get out. As she got onto the road she checked her rearview mirror and jaundiced bloody eyes stared back at her. She gasped before turning up the music and gripped the steering wheel tightly.

When she got home she rushed from her car into the house.

“Hey-hey lightning mcqueen where are you going so fast.” Her father teased as Dorcas blew past the kitchen.

“Hi, Dad!” I just have a metric ton of work to do.” Dorcas heard his humm before she shut the door to her room. She turned around to see something run from her desk to under her bed. Setting her backpack down, Dorcas looked around her room to see if anything was off. The figure seems to not have followed her but she doesn’t feel any better. The feeling of something watching her is still there and is holding up all the hair on her body.

Dorcas takes out her laptop and starts on her assignments. In the middle of practice history questions, a bang sounded from inside her house. Dorcas paused that question timer and walked downstairs to see what made such a noise. When she got to the kitchen she saw her father on the ground cleaning up a pot of something he dropped. Most likely their dinner for the night. Looks like it's a fend-for-yourself kind of night.

He looked up as he heard her coming, “Hey grab some paper towels for me yeah?”

Dorcas opened the door to the pantry quickly and screamed as the figure from before stood at the entrance. Her father rushed over to see what was wrong. 

“Dorcas, what the hell was that?” He seemed tired of her antics.

“Sorry I thought I saw something”, she grabbed a new roll of paper towels and handed it to her father.

“Yeah, canned goods and boxes. They frighten you?” He went back over to the mess spread across the tile and started to soak the paper towels in it.

Dorcas picked up some and tried to get as much as she could before throwing it away. While in the zone of her cleaning, another loud bang erupted and soared through her ears. She jumped which caused her father to throw down the towels and look at her.

“What is wrong with you? Every day it's been you walking on eggshells. What's wrong?” While his face showed annoyance under the veil laid concern. For her. 

“I-”, she stuttered, “I don’t know. Did you not hear that bang?”

“The one I created with our dinner? Yeah, we’re cleaning it up right now Dorcas.”

“No, just now, when I jumped. Did you not hear anything?” Dorcas already knew the answer but there was still the chance the bang was real and like her, he could also see the figures.

“I didn’t hear a thing. How about you go and take a nap? Go get your head on straight yeah?” He took the towels from her hands and pushed her off to the stairs. 

Taking her father's advice Dorcas crawled into bed and closed her eyes. The minus ticked by as she tried to sleep, but Dorcas felt every minute. Nearly an hour goes by, and Dorcas does not get a lick of sleep. She opened her eyes. At the sight of thousands of bugs crawling on the ground she froze. Each is different and nearly indescribable. Dorcas gasped and pushed herself high up on the bed. The movement below stopped. All the bugs were turned to look at her. Her body shook. Glancing at the window, light, it wasn’t even night yet. 

Dorcas kept eye contact with the creatures in front of her and gathered her blankets around her. Leaning to the nightstand she blindly searched for her phone. She felt the corner and tugged it in her direction. She had a stronghold until she hit the water bottle and it with her phone fell to the ground. The thud seemed inconspicuous but she knew better. Under both her phone and the water bottle lay the remains of several insects. 

She held her breath. Half the bugs turned to the unrecognizable bodies of their comrades. It was silent before the sound of crawling, flying, and scattering filled the rooms. All at once the bugs rushed to her. 

Dorcas screamed and covered herself in the blanket. As fast as the bugs came at her they all disappeared. Tears ran down her face as fear coursed through her veins. Lowering the blanket, Dorcas looked all around her room. 

Her father didn’t enter at the noise. Which is both a good and bad thing. On one hand, he may not have heard her and he wouldn’t look at her with concern and annoyance. On the other hand, he may have heard her and stopped caring about what happened to her. 

She got out of bed and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes are red and her cheeks are flushed. Her hair is tangled in a big rat's nest on her head. Tears ran down her face ruining the make up she worked hard on that morning. 

Dorcas doesn’t know what to do. Her father and classmates look at her weirdly and stay away from her. Dorcas thinks she's dying. It's the only explanation. No one else sees these things. Dorcas goes back to her desk trying to get her mind off everything. 

Once it hits half past 8 Dorcas goes down to the kitchen and puts bread into the toaster. She takes the strawberries from the fridge and starts washing them in the sink. She looks up and out the window. It's completely dark outside other than the stars. Only Dorcas could wish she would have the constellations as her only company. Her father is absent, possibly in the basement, either painting or carving figures. The slight noise downstairs confirms her thoughts.

Slowly Dorcas ate, she wasn’t that hungry but she knew she had to. She already lost too much weight. Maybe tomorrow she will eat more than she did today.

After washing the dishes Dorcas started towards the staircase. As she hit the bottom step a knock sounded from the door.

Who would knock on someone's door this late? Dorcas peered at the doors and saw a shadow standing there.

“Dad!” She yelled in the direction of the basement but there wasn’t an answer or any more noise. Dorcas started toward the front door with trepidation. The figure was standing completely still, with no sign of moving away from the door. As if they knew someone was there eleven though Dorcas knew no one could see through the door.

Dorcas reached for the lock and opened the door but when it opened there was nothing there. Dorcas stood there confused. She stepped out of the house and looked around seeing nothing other than shrubs and trees. Letting out a breath she finally relaxed and turned to go back inside. 

“Gah!” She exclaimed, stepping backward. In front of the door was the figure from earlier. It was smiling. Its teeth were normal other than the color of them, they were a dark yellow, some black or missing. 

Dorcas continued to step back. The figure followed her. She turned to run and stopped and fell off the porch onto her face. Groaning, she turned around and saw nothing there. She felt like an idiot. Why does she still act like this when it happens nearly every day? Slowly standing up Dorcas looked over herself. The only damage is her palms and ego.

There was no sign of the creature around her and she rushed inside and locked the door behind her. She didn't want to be alone so she went down to the basement towards the noise her father was making earlier. She turned the corner to her father's desk but no one was there. Nothing was there. Not the paints he used or the figurines that lined the walls. It was just a bland basement. It looks like no one ever lived there. 

Dorcas turned around and went upstairs. Maybe her father went upstairs as she was outside? But the door was open so he would have seen her. 

“Dad!” She yelled once she got to the ground floor. “Dad, where are you?” There was no answer, no noise except the house settling. Dorcas started to grip her hair as she ran around the house calling for her father. He was nowhere to be found. She yanked on her hair harder as the stress in her body grew exponentially.

She grabbed her phone and started to call her father. The call went directly to voicemail.

“Dad, where are you?” She left a voicemail before going toward the window and she saw her father's car still there. Maybe he went to bed and is already asleep.

Dorcas ran upstairs to her father's bedroom. She opened the door gently and peered in. His bed was completely empty, her heart started to race, and her breath was weak.

“Dad!” She screamed and tears started to run down her face. “Dad!” She continued to yell as she flew through the house. With no sign of her father Dorcas took her phone and dialed the emergency hotline. When they answered she started to speak quickly into the phone. In the middle of her speech, she heard the disconnection noise beep in her ear. She looked at her phone in confusion before dialing again. The call went straight to voicemail. Just like her father.

Dorcas started to grip her hair with vigor as she paced throughout the house. With a sharp tug, she gripped her head as she called out in pain. Dorcas looked down to see her hair fall out of her grasp and onto the ground. The tears increased tenfold. She turned to the front door and rams. She went out to the street and looked back at the house. There in the doorway stood a black creature with elongated limbs disproportionate to the rest of its body, There was no visible expression on its face. It just stared at her. Slowly it took a step forward. Dorcas stood there frozen in place. The pace quickened and her heart pounded. It was the only thing she could hear. 

When the creature reached the sidewalk it stopped. It looked like it was waiting for something to happen. The show was just starting for it.

It took a single stop on the pavement and broke Dorcas out of her head. She turned to run down the street. Light blocked her vision and the blare of a horn filled her ears. All she could do was look at the truck racing towards her. 

Dorcas closed her eyes and felt the impact before everything went dark.

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Dorcas could hear beeping and voices surrounding her. She couldn’t move. Her entire body lay there frozen. Was she in a hospital? She started to tune into the voices.

“It is doing well. The graphs show the missing father increased his distress. But it also underperformed in overcoming her obstacles.” It was a male voice who spoke. But what was he talking about? Of course, her missing father increased her distress but why did they talk about it like it was not a big problem? 

A woman spoke up, “We could increase the appearance of the creatures and try to make it adapt.” Increasing the creatures? Can they control them? Why would they do this?

“That could work but we have to wait for the brain activity to start up again. It looks like there was an increase of activity in the amygdala before it stopped. It seems to have fallen asleep.”

“Which is a strange reaction considering her father is missing.” but she didn’t fall asleep. She was on the road getting chased by that thing. What are they doing to her? What have they already done?

The male voice spoke, “Let's wrap up for tonight, it looks like nothing is going to go on for a couple of hours.” Dorcas could hear shuffling and tried to open her eyes, this time she succeeded. The room looks like a hospital room. The only difference is the glass at the far wall across from her. It was completely solid on her side but it looked like a two-sided mirror. They were watching her. 

Dorcas looked down at her arms and saw an IV and several sensors. The sensors were attached to many parts of her body, especially her head. Within the room, there was nothing that could tell her where she was. There were no windows, it looked like a prison. But why would they keep her here? There isn’t any damage from the truck that hit her. Only fatigue that made her limbs feel heavy.

Slowly she pushed herself up to get a better look. To the left was a clipboard, Dorcas reached over and picked it up. Written on the top of the paper was “Experiment 79” and underneath “female”. Why did this say experiment? Why was it in her room? The more Dorcas looked over the papers the more horrified she got. But when she saw her name she stopped. This was about her, she was the experiment. They gave her these grotesque hallucinations and wanted to see how she reacted. Her breath picked up as she started to panic. Dorcas knew she needed to get out of there. Even when she didn’t know what “there” was. 

Dorcas pushed the blankets off of her and started to rip off everything connected to her. As soon as she did everything started beeping, the heart monitor flat-lined and there was a blaring siren echoing through her room and most likely the halls. Dorcas knew that meant someone was coming, it hadn’t been that long since the people left so they must still be nearby. She hopped onto the found and booked it out the door. As she reached for the handle the door swung open and stood there a man in scrubs with a clipboard and pen. They stood staring at each other with panic written on their faces. 

Dorcas grabbed the pen and stabbed him in the eye before he could react. He dropped the clipboard and fell backward. Dorcas took her chance and took off down the hallway. She took turn after turn, trying to find something resembling an exit. The building was a labyrinth that looked identical in all directions. Dorcas was starting to lose hope, but she turned down a new path, and at the end, an exit sign hung from the ceiling. She could leave!

Dorcas increased her pace, she couldn’t relax until she got out and was far away from there. She got to the door and it opened to stars. As she started down lights flashed red and sirens blared. They found the guy she presumed. Nonetheless, Dorcas continued down the stairs until there wasn't anymore. The next door she opened was to a lobby. It had people in scrubs along with those in coats talking frantically with each other. They hadn’t seen the door open so Dorcas crept along the wall to what she believed to be the exit.

When she was almost there someone spotted her and yelled. Dorcas threw away all subtlety and booked it out the doors into the cold night. She ran as fast as she could into the surrounding woods. She could hear people yelling at her to stop but she never lost her pace.

Dorcas sprinted for what felt like hours before she could slow down. She didn’t know what was happening but needed to get as far away as possible. Whatever they were doing they most likely didn’t want anyone to know. They would never stop trying to find her.