Night Falls

Night Falls

Night falls with a heavy force on Cassie’s soul. Afraid to sleep, afraid to dream, afraid of the demons of death that haunts her when she shuts her eyes. The bags under her eyes are growing quickly. Nobody knows why she is so tired now. Nobody knows but her. She sat up all night in her bed, watching television. The faint signal died at 1:00 a.m. but she still starred on.

Cassie looked on as the white noise filled the room. The noise began to morph into a frantic chanting. The chant was not in any human language. The static on the screen began to separate into distinct patterns of black and white. Images began to reappear. They were like nothing she had seen before. They were pure violence. She starred on as the black and white television began to show color. Red blood dripping from the tip of the knife and hitting the floor with a splash.

She tried to look away but the chanting beckoned her back. Back into its horrible clutches. She decides that anything is better than this. Cassie grabbed the remote trying to turn off the television. Finally it was off. She tried to sleep. A noise filled her ears; she sprung back to life. The television was on again and the blood was pooling even more now. Pooling around the now lifeless body that laid center stage as if some kind of sick trophy.

She quickly went to grab the remote to turn off the television, but the remote was gone. Jumping to her feet, she ran to the television and pushed to power button, but it still would not turn off. She pressed her hand against the screen trying to stable her worrisome body as she reached for the plug. Cassie got a good hold on it and pulled. Suddenly the plug popped out of the wall, the television remained on.

Her hand began to feel wet so she pulled it away from the screen. She dashed down the hall into the bathroom to see what the mystery substance was. Throwing the switch, the lights began to appear bright over head. She looked down at her hand and it was coated in blood. Washing her hand, her thoughts were true, there was no visible wound. She ran back to her room, turns on the light, and begins again to glare at the screen. Across the screen were the words “SAVE ME ”, spelled out in thick dripping blood. She sank to her knees crying and let the sleep over power her.

A few hours later, the faint echoing ring of a doorbell awakened Cassie. She jumped, then ran down the stairs and answered it. It was her best friend, Mike.

“ Hey baby.”
“ Hi.”
“ You sound like something is wrong. What is it?”
“ Nothing, I am fine.”
“ No, you only say your fine when something is wrong. Spill!”
“ I told you everything is fine.”
“ And I told you I know it is not fine. This is your last chance; you have five seconds to tell me what is wrong. 5.” She ran through what to tell him.
“4” Should it be truth or lies?
“3” She decided to speak the truth.
“2” She tried to figure out where to start.
“1”
“Ok, fine, you win”
“ I always do.”
“But, you are not going to like the prize.”
“ Go on.”
“ Well, you remember when I told you that I could not sleep at night…”
“ You told me it was better now.”
“ It was, but…”
“ No. Please no buts. I have always hated to hear what follows but, especially from you. The next sentence is always bad.”
“ It is not always bad!”
“ I have known you for five years and 98% of the time, the next sentence following but is bad.”
“ Ok, whatever, do you want to hear about it or not.”
“ Spill, not just because I want to hear it but it will help you fight this thing.”
“ So… the past week I have been having those terrible recurring nightmares again. I try to stay awake and keep busy until my body shuts down. Then I get about two hours of uninterrupted sleep. Last night it all combined in to one gigantic vision.”
“ So you had a nightmare where...”
“ Not a nightmare, it was real this time.”
“What do you mean by real.”
“ I was awake.”
“ You mean it felt as if you were awake.”
“ No! I was awake.”
“ Ok, ok, so you were awake.”
“ If you are going to fight with me, just come in and see what I am talking about.”

Together they walked into the vacant house. Cassie pushed Mike through the living room, up the stairs, and down the hallway to her locked bedroom at the end of the hall. She jumped up to retrieve the key off the top of the doorframe. Slowly, she placed the key into the door and began to shake. She began to fall but Mike caught her. He softly placed her on the floor. He took the key out from her cold hand and finished opening the door. He looked into the room and hesitantly walked in. She jumped back to her feet as Mike screamed for help. She ran into her bedroom, blood dripping down the blue wall leaving a purple haze in its place. Scared she stared at the wall afraid to look down, but in a quick bout of courage she turned her head quickly from the wall to the ground. The carpet had become red and wet. Within the growing blanket of red laid the corpse of her best friend. She fell down to her knees, hunched over Mike and cried.

She felt someone shaking her already trembling body. She kept her eyes closed until she heard it, like someone calling her from the grave.

“Hey kid, get up, we have to leave here in 10 minutes if we want to get to Michigan before noon.”

“I am up, I promise, Mike, I will not make you late for your mom’s surprise party.”

“Are you ok? When I came in you were crying. Did you have one of those nightmares again?”


“ You know what, I don’t know. Why don’t you load the car will I get dressed.”

“ Ok, I will. Which bags are you taking?”

“ The two on the couch and the pillow off my bed but I will bring that down.”

“ Just hurry, I don’t want to hit too much traffic.”

Cassie used to tell Mike everything until that day; the image is forever hers and hers alone. Slowly, she got dressed and walked out of her room, forever hoping that she would never have to see the massacre of Mike again ever.

* * * *
“ Cut, that’s great, Gizmo, now lets put this one on the red letter list, so she can have a peacefully sleep tonight and recover before anyone taunts her again.”

“ But last time we controlled her dreams for at least a week after she should have been red lettered.”

“ This time we went to far, I think she might crack if we do this again to soon. I am afraid that she might actually kill herself this time, remember she tried last time. So we better wait. ”

“ But isn’t it our job as demons to make people lose their minds?”

“ Yeah, but if we let this one die, we can’t play with her anymore. Plus, I know she is your favorite.”

“ That’s true. Only because her mind is already so mangled and twisted that I get new ideas ever time we visit. It’s all her fault anyway because everything I have showed her was from the deepest depths of her own morbid psyche.”

“ While, at least we can use what we discovered here tonight on the next helpless, sleeping soul to feel our horrible wrath.”

“ You really think that she would attempt to kill herself again? Would she take such drastic measures to get rid of us?”

“ Yes, I really do.”

“ But maybe if she dies we can work out some kind off deal, you know Quaid, then she could play with us every night.”

“ Exactly, all you want to do Gizmo is play. Why don’t we just watch her dreams for awhile, stop picking on her and use her ideas on other to move us into the spotlight?”

“ You know we should do that but can’t we also throw in some of our own ideas to start the evil flowing?”

“ Ok, let’s move on to our next victim, and we will watch over her again later on tonight."