Tap,Tap,Tap

Part 4: Tap, Tap, Tap. 

The following is being recounted as best I can from memory and seeing as I experienced it while suffering from a severe allergic reaction to Penicillin and sleep paralysis, you are free to interpret it in the comments as best you can, I know a lot of people have put theories forward already. 

Shortly after the events from "Let Me In", the police had done an investigation, concluding that the incident at the house was "an attempted burglary", no windows had been smashed but the locks on the front & back door had been unsuccessfully forced. 

No fingerprints or evidence was found in the car other than the note and the items, the writing pulled up nothing and the emails were encrypted. Basically to them, it looked like a dead end investigation with a stalker trying to rattle me. So, as a precaution, they placed a police car outside the residence for 2 weeks and we had an internal alarm installed to inform us when anyone came through the door, it wouldn't constantly go off should someone enter, it would simply beep loudly twice as soon as the door was opened more than an inch. 

However, whatever or whoever they were, they didn't like the attention and nothing came of it. The police told us to inform them if anything else happened, however it seemed as if they'd given up. 

Several months passed and things once again, slowly but surely, returned to normal. It didn't leave my memory this time, however. I couldn't get it out of my head, I felt I was being observed wherever i went and i was getting severe nightmares virtually every evening, waking up screaming myself hoarse thinking I was being attacked again. I eventually contracted Chronic Tonsillitis and had to start a course of Amoxocillin, Erythromycin and Penicillin. Standard drugs to treat the condition, i'd have to take these regularly over the next couple of years until I finally had my tonsils removed in 2011. 

Unbeknownst to me, i'd developed a severe allergy to Penicillin as I had not taken it since I was a child. As it was already in my system, there was not much to be done except ride it out and have my parents watch over me to make sure my throat didn't close up. Over the next 48 hours, I began to suffer cold sweats, severe vomiting, among other symptoms. It's now June 2009 and i'm lying in bed, desperately trying to sleep and end this awful feeling, I finally felt my eyelids get heavy and I knew I was on my way. 

I wish i'd never closed my eyes. 

I began to have awful nightmares, many of which included being strapped to a cold operating table in a dark, dingy operating theatre while three masked surgeons observed me for hours on end. Not even cutting me open, just…looking at me. Occasionally one would point something out on my person, then point to something out of my peripheral vision to the others and they'd all nod, rubbing their hands together. I couldn't scream or try to reason with them as I'd lost the ability to speak through my tonsillitis, strangely, it was also apparent in my nightmare. I just remember their cold, unforgiving black eyes staring at me, a sick smile could still be made out even behind their surgical masks. 

It was around this time, that part of my nightmares surroundings began to bleed into my room. And just like in my dream, I felt like I was strapped to my bed, I was unable to move anything except my eyes. The surgeons were slowly fading however, and despite not being able to move, i felt a sense of relief wash over me. I knew I was experiencing sleep paralysis and that it would pass eventually, all I needed to do was ride it out. 

Then i heard something shuffle behind my bed. 
The shuffling got closer and closer behind me, until it reached my bed frame. 

Tap, tap, tap. The clinking of nail on metal rang through the room.

"No, no it can't be, i'm just imagining things." I thought to myself.

Tap, tap, tap.

"If they'd gotten in, i'd have heard the alarm, my parents would've done something." My heart began beating in my already swollen throat.

Tap, tap, tap.

"This isn't happening, oh god, i'm going to die." My vision was getting blurry. 

The tapping stopped, my heart was beating so loud, I swear you could hear it in the room. 

Something ran it's fingers through the back of my hair and slowly covered my eyes. It knew I couldn't speak or scream and it seemed to know I couldn't move. 
Without a phone or a door obstructing it, I could hear it's voice clearly in front of mine. I can't begin to explain what it sounded like. It practically bordered on the inhuman, though I don't like to even entertain that notion. When it spoke to me, it first recited the poem in the email, it's voice full of malice and joy. I whimpered as it got progressively faster to the end of the poem.

*"Three hungry beasts, three hungry beasts,
See how they feed, see how they feed,
They always capture their prey, someday,
Be it today, April or far away.
Just when you think you've escaped and are free,
You forgot, not two, but three hungry beasts are we."*

It…it even licked me as it ended the poem. The stench of decay from it's mouth filling my nostrils and making me want to vomit. It then spoke to me in Latin, I didn't understand it at the time, but it was burned into my mind and I managed to find a translation on the internet.

“nemo dat quod non habet, non semper erit aestas….eheu fugaces, labuntur anni”

“No one gives what he does not have, It will not always be summer…Alas, the fleeting years slip away”

To this day, i'm still not sure what it means. While my mind processed this, I heard a faint scratching sound in the background. At first i thought they were scratching me, but I realised it was the sound of scrawling, someone frantically putting something down on paper. I wasn't sure how that was possible, given that my eyes were being covered by two hands.

I remembered quickly however, there were three of them. That reality hit me in the chest, quite literally, when a huge weight bared down on me and placed it's hands around my neck, it's long, grotesquely thick fingers pushing on my windpipe as it's warped, animal like voice started laughing with glee. Like a child playing with it's favourite toy. The other two started laughing, it was like a chorus of wounded animals crying, trying to speak and it made my ears ring. Despite my fear of them, my fear of that sound was stronger, it felt…wrong, like I shouldn't be able to hear it, like something no man should be able to hear. 

I was beginning to lose consciousness again as the things grip got tighter around my neck. The laughter ceased and a snarling took over. The one holding my eyes shut leaned down again and spoke once more, the smell of decay filling my nostrils:

"You will not be ours today, it is not time."

I could hear the snarling getting louder. 

"But we will show you when your time is coming."

It was right by my ears, I could hear them lick their lips. All three of them were surrounding my head and there wasn't a single thing I could do.

They all spoke together. 

"We've been here before, and we WILL have you."

As they finished, my eyes opened and the grip was released instantaneously, I sat up and vomited on my bed, that awful smell all around my room. I frantically searched my room for anything, but there was nothing, save for the bedroom door opened a crack. 

I calmed myself down and after cleaning my vomit off the floor, went to check the front door and back door were locked. Oddly enough, they were. When I went to check the alarm, however. It had been unplugged. I decided against telling my parents or my police, i'm still unsure whether this actually occurred. When I went back in my room, I realised two things. The first being that smell, if their breath smelled of decay but not their bodies, then it wasn't smell of decay, it was the smell of flesh. 

The second, being the source of that scrawling. There was a piece of paper on my bedside table with a black etching on it in an almost un-legible handwriting (before anyone asks for photos, i burned it) It was scratched over a certificate. When I looked closer, I saw it was a death certificate. It had my death date written on it. 

It wasn't far away.