The open window

She was welcomed into wakefulness by a terrible chill and an even worse stink. She paused at rubbing her face to try and place the smell. It definitely wasn’t gas, thank god. Skunk..? Maybe? But no, this stink was more robust. Old smoke and long dead roadkill. It tickled her nose.

She scuttled out of bed with a sigh, pausing to crack her back and regretfully leave the warmth of her blankets. The smell wasn’t that strong but unease still simmered in the back of her mind. She must’ve left a window open or something. She’d feel better after checking on her sweet little Abigail. Then she could clamber back to her comfy pillows anxiety free.

The house wasn’t very large, some might even call it cramped (she preferred the term ‘cozy’) with the narrow staircase that led right up to her room and the tiny kitchen tucked underneath said staircase and the barely there hallway beside her bedroom that led to the nursery. It was also painfully old, as she remembered with a cringe after opening the freshly painted with flowers door and stepped forward onto a part of the floor that squealed unpleasantly. 

Thankfully, this time it wasn’t loud enough to set off the nightlight she’d put in the corner of the room. It was supposed to turn on when it heard a baby cry and lull them back to sleep with fun projections of stars spinning throughout the room. It hasn’t worked yet however, and with the creaky nature of the house setting it off more than Abby did, she was regretting spending any amount of money on it. 

The smell wasn’t so bad anymore, which was a bit of relief. She squinted her eyes at the far window, confirming that yes, it was fully closed and locked, just as she thought it would be. The broken streetlamp across the street sputtered on and off, lighting up the ceiling in stark yellow swathes. She tiptoed over to the crib, feeling immediately better at the sight of her little girl fast asleep and breathing easy. She took a second more to watch her before backing - carefully - away and closing the door.

The house creaked and groaned during the colder half of the year, as she was learning. It was old, the whole neighborhood was. Even the streetlamps outside were breaking, lights burning out nearly as soon as they were replaced. She could see the flickering glare of the light across the hardwood floor as she made her way back to her room. Maybe she should complain to the city… A moderately worded letter about the safety of its residents, or something. 

She just about choked when another, stronger whiff of that weird stink tumbled into her nose. She coughed and tasted burnt shit and mold on her tongue when she breathed. Like rotting trash. Disgusting.

Going down the stairs was risky, it took careful, considerate foot placement to not wake Abby, which was the last thing she wanted to deal with this late at night when she had work in the morning. Something else she didn’t want to deal with was the rotten stink keeping her from going back to bed. 

The floor was significantly colder and she rubbed her arms to fend off the chill with a huff. She didn't have many windows and a cursory glance told her the one with the window seat was definitely closed all the way, but the window seat also had a blanket so she went to double check that one first. She was just beginning to consider the terrible possibility of sewage problems when she caught sight of the outside. 

The moon was a mere sliver in a starless sky. Every streetlamp on her street was dead and swallowed in inky darkness. Only the one directly across from her still fluttered with electricity. But standing beneath that lamp, shadow warping as it blinked, was an almost familiar man gazing down the street at something only he could see.

Her first instinct was to go outside, see if he needed help - that would be the neighborly thing to do after all. But when she looked at him and odd, uncomfortable feeling sprang to life in her chest. So she sunk down into the pillows out of sight and watched. She should probably go back upstairs, forget about the smell and the cold and the man and get as much sleep as she could. She should grab an extra blanket, maybe call the police if she was really that worried… 

And yet, she was transfixed. Glued to the window with bits of frost creeping in at the corners. There was just something off about the way he stood completely and utterly still. Was he even breathing?

He didn’t seem cold. He didn’t shiver or pace or fidget. It was a freezing night and he stood out there without a coat for several minutes without moving. A terrible breeze cut through the trees and she shivered just seeing it. But he didn’t react at all. He stood completely and utterly still.

She was beginning to think it was some sort of prank. That someone had made a startlingly believable puppet just to freak people like her out- 

when he moved. His body turned in a way that had her twitching hands pause and sent her anxiety flaring. He moved his head and his chest and his legs all in the same motion, with a weird, methodical grace - until he was facing her.

And she got a real good look at his face.

It was her neighbor, from a few houses down. Or it looked like her neighbor from a few houses down. Almost. It was Bruce in the roundness of the jaw and the comb-over of his sparse, graying hair. It was Bruce in the crookedness of the nose and the protrusion of his bottom lip. 

But that was not her neighbor. 

It was the idea of her neighbor executed to perfection, but it didn’t move like an old man with joint pain. It’s face was too blank, impassive, empty.

It was then that the smell came back with an unbearable force and she covered the her mouth and nose with her hand, not that it helped. Not-Bruce turned again to look down the other street, waiting… for something. She could taste bile in the back of her throat and her hands shook, just a little, as she moved closer to the side of the window, to the stairs, to some form of safety and normalcy and her phone.

As much as she wished she’d brought it with her, the thought of it catching sight of her face, lit up in the window as she watched it, was paralyzing.

The streetlamp fizzled out again. She held her breath, squinting into the dark, watching a silhouette of something pretending to be a man.

A cry rang out from upstairs and her heart almost stuttered to a stop. The tiniest glare of light from her daughter's room - from that damn nightlight - fluttered into the night. She got one last look at it, mouth dropping open as it stepped towards her home, and she bolted away from the window. Some primal voice was telling her that this was the worst thing that could have happened. That the light was bad, very, very bad. That Abby was in danger.

She was flying up the steps before she could even consider trying to be quiet about it. Adrenaline flushed through her body and threatened to send her spiraling into a panic, limbs flailing a bit too out of control as she scrambled upwards. Not even the blood rushing in her ears could drown out the deep cries of the house that she was sure could be heard outside. She rushed into Abby’s room and pulled her little girl into her arms. She snatched the nightlight out of the wall and tried to calm herself down. Tried to breath and rock her baby. She risked a glance out of the window and saw… absolutely nothing. 

The smell clung to her and filled the room, even after she closed the door.

The room was dark and Abby was back asleep when the first step of the stairs gasped harshly against the tense silence that had built up in the house and she froze. That was just, the house settling. There’s no way that thing got into the house without opening the loud front door, or breaking a window. And yet, the smell still pooled into the room, because somewhere down there was an open window. 

The sounds of snapping wood sent ice into her veins. Then another step keened in the dark. Oh god. Her heart beat unevenly in her chest and her head had started to fill with fuzz. She had to calm down, she had to calm down and think! For Abby. Without even looking she knew there was nothing in the room that could even begin to pass for a weapon, it was a nursery for gods sake. In her room she had a pocket knife, but-

Another creak. Another step closer.

She looked around wildly, trying to be quiet and trying to keep asleep and trying to think think think. She never should’ve gotten out of bed, she should’ve ignored it and gone back to sleep. She should have called the police when she first saw that freak outside.

There was only one place in the room she could possibly hide, since defending herself was very much off the table at this point. It was a very obvious, terrible place to hide. It was the very cramped, filed-with-boxes closet. But Abby, sweet and warm and still so very small, fit snugly in the bottom drawer of the dresser. She kissed her baby one last time and gently closed the drawer with shaky hands. .

God, if only she had her phone. If only she’d grabbed it before coming to get Abby. She slipped into the closet, kneeling a bit in the tiny space she wedged herself into and held her breath.

She could hear the doorknob turn and click as it swung open, knocking against the wall. For a second it sounded like the floor was tearing open as it stepped on the creaky floorboard. For a second, she thought the closet was being ripped open and it took everything she had to keep her mouth shut. It was a bone deep sound - louder than she’d ever heard it. 

And then nothing.

No foot falls or the brush of fabric or the whisper of breath.

The silence was terribly loud.

Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, she tried very hard to keep them still as she placed one on the door as softly as she could. She very, very slowly pushed her finger between the door and the wall, discovering a patience and a focus she didn’t realize she had, and opened it up just enough to peek through.

She gagged at the intensity of the smell that swept in, burning her nostrils and eyes. She put her face against the crack, blinking away blurry tears and gazed into the darkness of the room. After a moment she could barely make out the familiar shape of a person-

Standing completely and utterly still.

Directly over the empty crib.

She couldn’t bring herself to move anymore. Terror had clawed its way into her limbs and throat and froze her there, squatting, desperately trying not to wheeze, eyes locked on the thing in front of her. 

It was almost scary that Abby was still quiet.

It didn’t take long for a cramp to blossom in her calf, soreness spreading up from her toes and into the muscles of her thighs. Her legs trembled.

Orange light flashed onto the ceiling, breaking her obsessive focus. SHe tried and failed to comprehend what she was seeing in the bitter light of the streetlamp. The thing that looked like Bruce’s but was absolutely Not Bruce, had stretched it’s jaw open inhumanly wide, strange dark saliva dripping from it’s rubbery lips, with a long, thin tongue-thing squeezing the life out of Abby’s doll, pulling it into its mouth.

The thing turned slowly, entire body moving at once, towards the door. Its glossy, lifeless eyes passed over her for a terrifying second- 

and then it was out the door. The stairs roared as it moved over them.

The house plunged into silence once more.

The first rays of dawn lightened the sky outside.

The streetlight sparked.

The smell lingered in her hair.