The Perfect Nightmare

Part 1: Chapter 1

The monotonous tone of his alarm cut through his drunken sleep and he reached out from under the blanket to turn it off. He opened and closed his eyes trying to get rid of the blurriness of still being drunk from the night before. Reality called to him from beyond his comfortable position.
         “Jack! Get your ass up!”
         His mother’s voice grated at his ears – he flipped the blanket to the side, rolling his eyes. He glanced at his bedside table and put the bottle of tequila and shot glass under his bed. He checked the clock, noticing that he had 15 minutes before he had to leave for school – with a heavy sigh he stood from the bed and headed to his dresser.
         His soul felt black, so he chose a black band tee and black pants. He slipped socks onto his feet and then stepped into his black boots. He ran his hands through his blond hair and stared at himself in his floor-length mirror. He looked horrible, black bags under his eyes, hair was stringy from not showering in a few days. He couldn't remember the last time he had slept soundly – it must have been before the violent nightmares had plagued him before the drinking started. He just wanted to sleep. He had taken to keeping the lights in his room and a white noise machine on at all times – the darkness, the silence, had begun to cause him severe panic attacks. He felt like something was silently stalking him through the darkness.
         He left his room and locked his door, a daily thing to keep his parents from rummaging through his room while he was at school.

They took the
light bulbs away.
They said I was
wasting electricity
with my paranoid
delusions.
They said I could
have them back
in a week
if I behaved properly.
I’ll kill them -
slit their throats
and feed them their eyeballs.
I need a drink…

He woke up on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. He sat up, his head pounding. There was coagulating blood on the side of his face and in his hair; it had soaked into his jacket and shirt. Whose blood was he covered in? He checked vital areas on his body to see if he was injured, but he found nothing. It was then that he noticed all of the lights were off downstairs – the only light came from the streetlamp outside, shining in through the sheer curtains covering the kitchen window.
         He crawled through the blood, to the corner of the island in the center of the kitchen, and stopped when he saw his mother laying on the ground, her eyes wide and her mouth open. He gagged until tears streamed down his face. Had someone broken in? Had someone murdered his parents? Why was he still alive?
         “I need to call 911,” he whispered to himself, trying not to make too much noise.
         No.
         A voice from the dark echoed in his head. His eyes had finally adjusted to the dim, shadowy light in the kitchen, and there, peeking out of the pantry, was a figure.
         Bring them to me.
         The figure disappeared. Curiosity overtook him and he crawled over to the pantry, peering through the doorway. In the back of the room, where the wall should have been, was a void. Chill air made its way from the darkness to his face and the drying blood on his clothes, making him shiver. Something slithered into his thoughts, a dark feeling that warped his concern for his parents into concern for himself.
         They would blame him. He would be arrested and charged with murder. He couldn't do that. He couldn't leave the house, not when it needed him.
         Wait, the house needs me? He shook his head, getting rid of the feelings that had filled him. Call 911, you were knocked unconscious by whoever broke in and killed your parents. You woke up to them being dead.
         He hadn't seen his father’s body, how did he know he was dead? Where was he if he wasn’t? He backed away from the pantry, fighting against the desire to enter the darkness.
         Jack, bring me the bodies. Bring them into the darkness. I need them.
         The voice was pleading with him. Jack stood from the floor and glanced at his mother’s body. What would happen to him if he gave into the voice from the darkness? Would they find out about it?
         He didn't care. He just didn’t care what people thought they knew. He grabbed his mother’s arms and began to pull her toward the darkness in the pantry. The cold sent shivers up and down his spine, but he steeled himself against the severe temperature drop as he entered the silent void. The sounds of his footsteps were swallowed by the darkness. He didn't know how far into the hole he had dragged the body before he dropped her arms and stood up straight.
         “Where is my father’s body?”
         In the living room.
         He made his way back to the entrance, a straight shot from where he had left his mother. It took a moment for his eyes to readjust, and once he was reoriented he made his way to the living room, just off the kitchen.
         Jack found his father on the floor of the living room; there was a hole in the back of his head where he had been hit repeatedly with something blunt. He lifted his father’s arms and dragged him, just as he had his mother, into the darkness in the pantry. He dropped the body beside the other one, heaving a final breath as he stood up and stretched his arms over his head. He was ready for a shower and some clean clothes.



He waded through the thick layers of fog as they plumed up around him. The bar was packed, as it usually was on a Friday night, but he was able to find a seat at the counter.
         “Jack and Coke,” he called over the other voices. The bartender nodded and began pouring his drink. He handed Jack his drink. “Thank you.”
         He turned on the barstool and surveyed the busy room. There were a few groups huddled into booths on the opposite side of the room, and in the back, as if framed by the smoke, there was a lone girl with black hair. She was absently popping chunks of ice in her mouth from her empty glass. He had never seen her before, and he was a regular at the bar on the weekends. It was the only bar that didn’t check ID.
         He left the counter and made his way over to the girl, the testosterone in the building increasing his confidence. He stood a few feet back from the table, arguing with himself about how to approach the girl.
         “Are you going to sit down? You’re making me nervous,” she said, her voice piercing the din. Her words were clipped as if speaking was unnecessary labor. Jack sat down.
         “I’ve never seen you here before,” he started. She rolled her eyes at him, popping another piece of ice into her mouth.
         “I’ve been waiting for you all night. What took you so long?”
         “Excuse me?” Jack looked at her with wide eyes. “Do I know you?”
         “No, but I saw you here in a dream. I’m Charlie, nice to meet you. The house told me to come here,” she said around her ice. She reached her hand across the table and grabbed his. “I just had to see if you were real.”
         “The… house?”
         “Yes, the house. The house where you live. The house with the silent void,” she said, her face straight. How did she know about the void? How did she know about him? “Look, I didn't come here by choice. Whatever lives in that house, in that void, compelled me to come here. It needs me like it needs you.”



He unlocked the front door and stepped to the side to let her in. She walked passed him without acknowledging him, and he followed in silence, locking he door behind him.
         “It seems so… normal here, but there is definitely something unsettling in the air,” she said, turning around. Don’t notice the blood stains, don’t notice the blood stains. He kept repeating that in his head as he followed her around the downstairs. He had done his best to clean up the blood, but he couldn't find the right chemicals to really soak up the color.
         “The entrance is in-”
         “The kitchen pantry, I know,” she said. She made her way around the downstairs like she already knew the layout. He followed her to the kitchen and stood next to her in front of the pantry.
         “Whelp, there it is,” Jack said, gesturing toward the gaping maw of darkness. Charlie moved passed him and into the darkness. “Hey, wait!”



They walked for a while in the inky blackness, Jack a worried mess of anxiety over whether they would stumble upon his parents bodies or not. After a while, Charlie dug in her bag and pulled out two flashlights. She handed one to Jack and turned on the one she held in her hands. There was nothing for the light to fall on, it just got swallowed up by the darkness.
         They continued to explore, walking beside each other until Charlie decided to split off and go to the right. She left Jack in the darkness in the blink of an eye, their black surroundings absorbing her form.
         “Charlie? Hey, Charlie? Where’d you go?” Jack called into the abyss. No answer came. He was alone. The house began to groan and growl with each step forward he took. He felt the beginnings of a panic attack, and he turned to run back the way they had come. As he picked up speed, the sounds grew louder around him and he screamed, but the sound was drowned out by the roar of the house.
         Just as they had begun, the sounds died out and silence echoed throughout the darkness. It felt like a vacuum – there was no sound at all, even his breathing was swallowed by the void. He could hear his thoughts echoing off the walls around him. Even his choked sobs drowned in the silence.

I
just heard something…
My… name
but it wasn’t Charlie’s voice.
The flashlight is dying,
I am about to be immersed in total darkness.
FUCK.
I am FUCKED.

Charlie moved through the darkness, her flashlight revealing nothing but the black shadows of the void. She couldn't hear Jack anymore, but that was alright. He was alright. She was alright. Everything would be alright.

We have her alone,
the darkness that surrounds her waiting with so many
hands
claws
M O U T H S.

She is ours;
He is ours;
And soon, the world shall be
O U R S.

He crawled toward the piercing line of light in the far distance. He had left his flashlight somewhere behind him. Whimpers fell from his lips and tears rolled down his cheeks as he pushed himself to continue moving forward.
         “Jack? Jack, is that you?”
         He stopped and sat back on his knees, turning his head from side to side. After a few more moments of silence, a light hit him in the face and he shied away from it.
         “There you are!”
         “Charlie?” He asked, his hand covering his face from the light. “Where did you go?”
         “I just took a few steps away from you and then you were gone. I spent the last however long trying to find you,” she said, lowering her flashlight. Jack could barely see the outline of her body in the shadows. Her hand extended into the beam of the flashlight and he tentatively took it. “Here, let’s get out of this place.”
         “Sounds good,” Jack said as he got to his feet. They walked forward, hand in hand, toward the light from the pantry door.