Hidden in Wait

Lynn is being haunted by something strange, all the while Jenny Williams is torturing her to death. Lynn finds a way to use the haunting to get revenge on her enemy. Without hate, good would fail.

The darkness engulfed Lynn's flashlight beam.

"Crap!" she whacked it multiple times but got no response. The tap tap tap got closer.

"Come on! Come on!" she shook the flashlight frantically. Tears started to streak down her pale white cheeks smeared with dust. The sound moved a little closer, and Lynn had no way of seeing it at all. Her field of vision might as well have been eaten by a swarm of wheat hungry locusts, because all she could see was darkness.

She closed her eyes and hoped for the best, and wished with all her heart that if it killed her, Jenny Williams dies in terrible pain, and hopes that Jenny feels terrible for doing what she did to Lynn before she dies. Maybe Jenny will think Lynn killed herself. That made her feel better.

The tapping got closer, it sounded like a crab with four legs tap tap tapping very slowly along a wooden floor, but this was not a crab. Lynn balled up her fists and shouted "Come and get me!! You dumb old demon!!!! Do your best!!" Tap. Tap. Tap. CRACK.

One week earlier.

"Oh! Lynn? Do you want this paper back? Just let me read it..."

"Give it back! That's my report!"

"Hmmm..." Jenny Williams was a jerk from the start. "Looks like a D to me".

"Jenny! I need that! Please! It's due today and I'm late for class!" I said, begging.

"Well, one minute here..." Jenny tore the paper right down the middle.

"Noo!!"

"Hahahah, wait, I think it needs some more work, don't you?" She ripped it up even more.

My face flushed red. I stormed off to class, deciding to make another excuse.

"Lynn, your papers have been late for a whole week now," Mrs. Dorepi said.

"I know, but trust me, I will make them up!"

"You better, or your grades will drop and you'll be forced out of gifted class.”

I was not dumb, I had turned in every paper ever given to me until Jenny came to my school. I genuinely hated Jenny.

When I was walking home, I spotted Jenny across the street. I wondered why she was there, she usually takes the bus. Maybe she was planning something. Although she payed me no mind, I still sprinted like a cheetah in steroids to my house.

When I arrived, I put on a straight face and walked in.

"Hey Lynn! Have fun presenting your report? I know how excited you were to show it!" my mom shouted for the kitchen.

"Yep! My gifted teacher LOVED it! Some of the students even gave some helpful critiques!" I said, trying not to yell with anger.

I ran upstairs and sat on my bed, hands on my face, and cried. I cried for a good half hour, until a sound from my closet stopped me. It sounded like a plastic skeleton being rolled up into a ball and stuffed in a corner, like when Mrs. Perium decided that the skeleton model was too scary and tried to store it in the janitors closet. (That resulted in a terrified janitor) I slowly got up and tip toed for no reason over to the closet door, wiping my eyes off and blowing upward to dry the tears.

I opened the door and saw what I usually saw when I opened it, a few racks stuffed with purses and books, and hangers with colorful clothes hanging from the lowest one.

I pulled everything around and searched for something that could've made that sound. I was about to search the top rack when my mom called me down for dinner. Dinner? Maybe I cried for longer than I thought!

I ran downstairs and ate pasta with homemade basil pesto sauce.

"Mom, why did Dad hate me?"

"Honey, your father was not normal, he studied bad things, and you being so good, just didn't add up," she kissed my forehead, and a wave of guilt washed over my stomach. It twisted my insides like a boa constrictor.

"I'm full," I said.

I pretened to go up stairs, by making foot-on-stair sounds, but really went downstairs. I wanted to see my father's workshop.

It was dusty. Very dusty. Everything from animal skeletons from bunsen burners were scattered around the space. A certain book stood out from the junk. I walked over and curiously picked it up. It was heavy and dirty. I dusted of the front cover. It's title read "An Expert's Guide to Demons and Monsters" I dropped the book and ran back upstairs.

I had been down there before, but my mother always caught me and made me come back up before I really had a chance to look at anything. Wow. Demons and Monsters.

At school, Jenny was nowhere to be found. Until lunch. I sat down and looked at the gooey array of foods on my tray. Eww. Suddenly, BANG!!!! Face full of food. I lifted my head slowly and saw all red, all red food and all red everything. Then I heard yelling. Smash!! My rib cage felt like it had exploded. More yelling. More red. Crunch!! Now black. Something grabbed my foot and started dragging me, I was becoming less and less aware of what was going on. Footsteps. Pain. Another crunch and my ankle started throbbing. My heart pounded like a drum in my chest. Then, everything was gone.

I woke up in serious pain. My face, ribs and ankle felt like they were each being crushed by 100 pounds of cement. I was able to open one eye and focus with it. I was in a hospital room!

Did Jenny beat me up THIS badly? For all I knew I was dreaming! Something moved in the corner of the ceiling. I tried to focus in on it but failed. Something long, boney, and white hung down from the ceiling, it swung back and forth like a cat's tail when it's agrivated. I still couldn't make out what it was...

Whatever it was awfully timid, because it twitched with the slightest of movements. Like me lifting my bad foot and looking at how unnaturally it was bent. I gently brushed my fingers across my face and felt my eye and the area around it throbbing.

Suddenly the door to my room opened, in walked a nurse in pure white pushing a cart with food on it.

"Oh! You're awake! Let me get your mother, help yourself to breakfast," she pushed the cart closer to my bed.

I reached for the buttery biscuit accompanied by some bacon, when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, it was the thing. I whipped my head around to see an empty corner where it had been coiled. I shrugged and dusted it off my shoulder, thinking that it was just an imaginary creature.

Then my mind races back in time to when I picked up the book in my dad's workshop. Demons and monsters. Then I almost laughed. Oh come on Lynn! So I guess there was a flippin' demon in the hospital corner. Pfft! I'm such an idiot!

CRASH! The cart-full-o-food toppled to the floor. Oh no! I looked over and saw it. No, not "it" as in the cart, but "it" as in the thing. The demon. The monster. The "it". I can't recall what it looked like, or I just can't describe it. Either way, it was scary, boney, catlike, terrible. That's all I can say.

I couldn't move. I was caught in a gaze that seemed to last forever. Darkness... Darkness...Darkness...

Five years earlier.

They were all around me. I never saw them, well I guess I did sometimes. They were not small. About as tall as me. They looked like cat skeletons, with front feet resembling crab legs, long enough that they could be standing upright and still on all four.

But of coarse I worked off of glimpses. I know how lucky I am to live surrounded by what I study. I kept the lights off. They like it better. When in a lighted space, they tend to curl up or stay in a small compact area out of the way.

I hear them. They don't talk, for they lack vocal cords. But they speak to me through thoughts, through vibes that fill the air. When I think of something they dislike, the air feels like hate. It feels like that when I think about my daughter. I love her, but they want her.

They feed off of hate. They kill and then suck the hate right out of their victim. They use the hate to choose their next target. That's why they want me to hate my daughter. So they can feast on my hate when they kill me and kill my daughter. The reason they go after her now, is they can't break the chain. They must be fed the right hate to make the right kill, and they want her desparately. That's all they talk about. They keep me down here. Slowly driving me mad. Driving me to hate her more and more.

They live in your house and wait for the right time to kill their victim. They usually kill when subjects are old. But when one is feeling ecspecially naughty, and hungry for fresh hate, they go after younger subjects. I can't leave. They keep me down here. I must study them. Share their truths with the world and their weaknesses with to-be victims. Because you'd be lucky if their isn't one coiled up in your home.

Hate fills the air. I am revealed. My cover blown. They felt my thoughts.

"You hate her," they send me a thought.

I do. I hate her.

They come closer. Hate radiates around me. They strike. I hate her.

Five years later.

The creature lunged at me, clawing the air with its front legs. It's mouth was agape menacingly, it's fangs sharpened to a point. I ripped the IVs out of my wrist and tried to run. My ankle rolled out in pain, I almost fell but caught myself on a small equipment table. I grabbed a flashlight that doctors use to examine patients throats and whacked the thing in the head. The top of its skull was quite sensitive. It recoiled in pain.

Hissssss!!!!.....

Suddenly, the lights went out. I was alone in the room with this thing. I switched the flashlight on. It was a small pinpoint of light, but it was all I had. I was broken. I couldn't get up and run for my life. I shined the light around the room, searching for it.

Then I cried. I cried because I knew I was going to die. Then, my flashlight flickered out.

"Crap!" I say.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A week later.

Jenny tossed her flowers onto the grave. She felt terrible that Lynn had commited suicide in the hospital. All because of her. Jenny was a mess, how could she live with herself? Then a sensation crossed her.

"No, we won't have to worry about that will we?" the air seemed to speak those same words.

"Huhh?" she looked around the graveyard.

"She hated you," the air whispered...

CRACK.