Torment

‘WARNING! Carry on reading or you will die!’

My name is Tommy. I am seven years old and I have no eyes-‘

Stacy stopped reading the comment there. It was one of those chain letter comments. Now most people ignore them. Some people do what they say. Some people even report them, but Stacy was just about sick of these things. She clicked on the user’s name, went to their profile, found their given email address and sent the following email.

‘You’re not funny. You’re not clever. Stop with these comments or I’ll give you something to be scared about. I know where you live.’

The moment she sent it, she felt her stomach drop as if she was falling, and her hands turned cold to the touch despite her room being warm. These signs were minute, however, and Stacy carried out her business.

That night, she had nightmares about a seven year old with no eyes, and a manic smile, with a knife, standing over her bed. She awoke to nothing. Her bedroom was as it was when she went to sleep. There was no seven year old.

She got up, and went to the bathroom, to splash some water on her face. It wasn’t every day that she got nightmares, let alone nightmares about a stupid little chain letter comment. She turned on the taps, and when the basin had filled up, she leaned down to cup water in her hands and bring it to her face. ‘I bet that when I look up, I’ll hallucinate that little boy’s reflection in the mirror.’ She thought to herself, and her head shot up, soaking wet, to examine the mirror. There was nobody there. Stacey sighed, and left the bathroom, returning to her own room.

When she opened the door, the seven year old boy was standing there, in the flesh. A pool of blood had formed at his feet. She could smell it. She could smell the wounds where his eyes had been. This was real, and he opened his mouth and chuckled, the most unnerving, frightening laugh she had ever heard, and it was so loud.

She whimpered and covered her face with her hands, but when she brought her hands from her face, there was nothing there. No boy, no blood, no smell, just her ordinary room.

She logged back on to her computer. There was one new email, and it simply said. ‘No, Stacy. I know where you live.’ But it wasn’t text. It was a jpeg of the message in her handwriting. She shut the laptop and frenziedly threw it onto her bed, away from her. She whimpered again, and pinched herself. No, this was the real world. She didn’t have the luxury of being in a nightmare.

Once she had calmed down, she opened her laptop back up again, and tried to find the comment that she didn’t read. The moment she began to read the first line of it, the screen of her laptop turned into the face of the boy. It wasn’t like a screamer. For one it didn’t scream. It just smiled at her, and even though it had no eyes, she could feel its stare boring into her.

She threw the laptop to the ground and ran out of her room. Her heart was beating so hard it was beginning to hurt, and she could feel herself sweating and getting more worked up with every passing second. She needed to go outside and get some air. She headed downstairs.

The moment she reached the last stair, she heard rustling and crashing in the kitchen. She didn’t want to turn and look there. She didn’t want to. But she had to. She very slowly turned her head towards the kitchen, and there was the eyeless boy.

The moment her eyes connected with his, he raised the knife, and began to charge towards her. She screamed and ran back up the stairs. She had to get to the bathroom. It had a lock. As she was running, she looked back. The boy was gaining on her. It was a mistake to look back. But she reached the bathroom, slammed the door shut behind her and locked it. The boy knocked several times from the other side, and then there was silence.

Stacey cried. She broke down and wept with terror. Why didn’t she run out the front door? She ran up here because of a primal need for safety and security in the familiar. Now she was trapped. She sat, and waited. Waited to muster up enough courage to open the bathroom door. To check.

It felt like several hours before she found the bravery to unlock the bathroom door and open in an inch, to peek out from the gap. There was nothing there. She swallowed, and headed out. It was only a seven year old anyway. She could take a seven year old. She had to protect herself. She had to be strong.

There was nothing in the halls, nor in her bedroom, nor the kitchen, nor the living room, and there was absolutely no sign that anything had been there. The whole house was quiet. Too quiet. There should be sounds. There should be the sound of the clock. There should be sounds of the wind outside, or cars driving past, but there was literally nothing but silence.

Was the child hiding? Stacy grabbed a flashlight, and a broom for defence, and headed into the basement. The flashlight was weak, on low batteries, and didn’t illuminate much. It was only when Stacy had descended to the final step did she feel scared. Her flashlight was weak, and only lit in front of her. The child could be right next to her and she wouldn’t know it. She frantically waved it like a sword to and fro as she searched round the basement.

Every time a chill came from the unheated room, it went straight through her spine and she trembled, as if the tendrils of cold were child’s fingers upon her back. Every time there was a breeze, she nearly screamed out. Sometimes she thought she heard the child’s breath, but it could have simply been her own. She held her breath for short periods of time to check, but she was greeted by more silence.

When she was confident that the child wasn’t in the basement, she turned her back on the darkness, and headed up the stairs, but as her foot touched the first one, the child’s laugh rang loud and sharp in her ear, and she could feel the hot breath on the back of her neck, and smell the strong stench of blood. She ran. She ran up the basement stairs lest the darkness catch her. She needed to get back to the light. She was safe in the light.

The moment she reached the door, she felt the child’s hand grab her leg. She shrieked and shook it off, before slamming the basement door on the child. She saw it. In the last brief instant when she turned round to shut the door, but before the door was closed, she saw it. The horrific child with its missing eyes and its manic smile.

She crawled up into a ball opposite the door to the basement, and then screamed at it.

“STOP IT! STOP TORMNTING ME! IF YOU’RE GOING TO KILL ME, JUST KILL ME ALREADY!”

The moment she shouted this, the door burst open, and the child, knife raised, ran straight towards her. She cried out and closed her eyes, covering her face with her arms. She was about to die.

Seconds passed, then minutes. She was still alive. She opened her eyes. There was nothing there. The child had gone. She was alive. For a brief second, she started to feel relief, and hope, that maybe it was all over, but then the child’s laugh rang in her ears, though quiet and distant, but coming from all directions. The smell of blood was back to, though weak. The child hadn’t left. It was still here, haunting her. Tormenting her. She looked around frantically, but she couldn’t see him. He wasn’t anywhere. She knew he was here, she could still hear him, and smell him. But she couldn’t see him. Where was he? WHERE WAS HE?!