Tanya

Tanya shivered.

She wasn't cold.  

The furnace was busily whispering to itself somewhere downstairs in the gut of the house.  Warm air was pulsing out of it's open veins into the many articulated spaces above.  Oil was burning, the fan was turning, cool air sucked into it's metallic lungs was warmed and sent back out to comfort all the sleeping inhabitants of the house on Carillon way.  

Tanya wasn't comforted.

Her bare feet registered the feel of the new plush wall-to-wall carpeting in the living room.  It still had that "new carpet" smell.  

Her eyes were wide open, her pupils nearly blotting out her normally multi-colored Irises. In the light of day, her eyes sparkled with an effulgence of colour.  There were sparks of green, yellow, and blue there that would reach out and hold you, daring your gaze to go elsewhere. 

Her hand rested on the light switch.  She had futilely clicked it up and down 5 or 6 times.  It wasn't working.  Light would chase 'em away.  

Tanya shivered in icy moonlight that barely could push through the thick clouds that raced across the sky outside the huge bay window that looked out onto the blackness that was her front lawn.  Her whispy blond hair hung straight to her shoulder, just grazing the top of her flannel night gown.  The white gown made her stand out in stark contrast to the nebulous figures, which in daylight would be the couch, the chair, the ottoman, the low table, the stone ledge at the base of the fireplace.  In this nether world 'tween day and day they were giant crouching toads and wrinkled dwarves with sharp knives and bad teeth.  They were wagons  filled to the brimful with rotted corpses, whose mouths were agape, carrion creatures busily slithering in and out of the putrescent orifices, munching, and crunching, and swallowing; swimming in odorous brown, dead blood.

A cold breath whispered across the nape of her neck, pushing a loosened bit of her hair out of place.

She heard him.

Mmmmmmmummm, mmmummmm, mmmmummmmm.

The skin of her back went instantly taut then prickled and tickled itself into a myriad field of fleshy humps.

She clicked the light switch one more time.  Nothing.

Mmmmmmummmm, mmmmummmm, mmmummmmmm.

Tears welled in her eyes.

She looked to her left at the front door.  Thought became motion.  Her hand was on the knob.  The door was unlocked.  She threw it open and rushed out into the blackness.  She shrieked as inertia carried her out and across the yard.  She turned, she had to know if she was being pursued.

There, at the open front door were a gathering of her nightmare musings, their red eyes burning holes in the fabric of the night.  They were just standing there, staring.

Why weren't they coming after her?

The dry leaves at her feet rustled ever so slightly.

From behind her a dry whisper uttered a single word: "Thankssssssssssss"

Slowly the front door to the house on Carillon way closed.