A Scream

The spiral stair led up into the darkened room which had grown oh so very silent after that scream. I stared into those shadows above, wondering. Pricks and tingles ran over my skin as a cold sweat covered my brow.

There ought to be no one here, I thought. No one but me.

The silence grew more terrible than the scream as the second hand rolled along the clockface. Like it were a dream, a nightmare, I found myself moving toward the stair, helplessly drawn to it as by some invisible force.

Oh how loud were my footfalls as I ascended, step by step, going round and round that screw, going up and up and up into the next floor. The shadowed room waited for me, silent in the wake of that scream.

On the landing, my trembling hand made a desperate search for the switch. Blundering along the wall, the darkness hiding it from me, I eventually touched it and flipped on the lights.

Nothing. The room was empty. Empty but for that scream which played in my memory. Moving as silently as possible, I began to search the room. Closet, the desk, under the bed—nothing. No one was here. Not some fiendish murderer. Not some helpless victim, or the corpse of one. Nothing.

The ghost of the scream haunted me as I wandered back toward the stair. I turned my back toward the room and put my hand to the railing. I could feel it…something.

Spinning around in a sudden motion I caught just a glimpse of the thing, it’s dreadful face, there in the window. Upturned snout, snarling fangs, and then the scream. It, the thing in the window, opened its mouth and let out a terrible howl—the same I had heard. Then it was gone.

Rushing toward the window, I stared out at the empty street. The electric glow of the streetlamps shone on the abandoned pavement and sidewalk. A shadow, a furious flapping, and looking up into the dark sky I found it, its weird silhouette, a giant bat, racing away into the night.