AncilChapter 18: Footsteps.
It was the year 2562 in the Twin Republic and the entire country, which was once vibrant and full of life, now seemed hollow and void. It was barely even a shell of its former self, Trinidad and Tobago. The streets were lonely, the cars were abandoned, the buildings were desolate and the homes were empty. The only thing that seemed to roam the land was an eerie mist that made the ground appear to be almost non-existent. There were no lights and no noises or anything that signified any sort of life…..There was NO ONE. Or so I thought.
In my two storey dwelling in Arima I lay flat on the bed with the coverlet up to my neck, preparing to dose off, but I couldn’t sleep. Amidst the void-like silence of the dead and lifeless night, I heard slow and ominous footsteps coming up the stairs. They were getting louder and louder and a bit more vigorous as whoever was there made ample progress towards me. I stayed still on the bed, wide-eyed and awake. With bated breath I waited as my brief moment of solace from all the chaos that had occurred during the Midnight Robber’s invasion on San Fernando was shortened to none. I tried to connect the dots and decipher who could have been walking up the stairs, but my brain lost all its ability to reason amidst the building fear and uncertainty. Could it be the Midnight Robber? The thought alone had me shaking uncontrollably. My heart felt like it was ready to escape my chest and sweat poured out my pores in a gushing torrent.
During my bout of sweat, tears and fearful anticipation I heard a small groan right before the place went abruptly and completely quiet. Too quiet. I wanted to clap the lights on to fill the awful silence but I didn’t want to make a noise so as to startle my unwelcomed visitor. Instead, I sat up on the bed and waited for whoever was there to make the first move.
My gun belt was perched neatly in its holster attached to my exo-suited pants which hung at the door right next to my brown leather jacket that my father got me for Christmas. All I had to do was get up and take it but that would mean going closer towards my unwelcomed visitor and that option seemed the most unpleasant. I knew my father would have known what to do in the situation and I waited patiently for instruction from his voice in my head but he wasn’t there anymore. He was dead. Truly dead, even in my mind. So I had to handle this difficult circumstance on my own which both scared me and saddened me at the same time.
The place had gotten so quiet that I began to think that the footsteps I heard were just in my head but it all seemed so real that I doubted it was merely a figment of my imagination. However, as time lazily crept by, I eventually convinced myself that it was just that. Eventually, I slowly and cautiously got off my bed, counting every last second of lull. I eased into my slippers and as I dragged my way through my room to the door, fishing through the darkness, I heard the groaning sound again. This time it was much louder and filled with venom. The groaning sounds were accompanied by the shuffling of dragging feet and it was just as vigorous as before. Jolted, I decided to hasten my steps. I reached my pants and began to unlatch the gun from my belt, but my hands were shaking so violently that getting the gun seemed as hard a task as threading a needle.
As I tried to unlatch the gun I heard the doorknob move and watched in fear as it twisted and turned with an eerie squeaky noise. Someone was trying to turn the doorknob but thank goodness it was locked. I saw a moving shadow in the light of the corridor shuffling across the door accompanied by a very grim groan that sent shivers all up my spine to every part of my body. I kept trying to unlatch the gun but for some reason, my sweaty hands wouldn’t let me.
The shadow then disappeared and the place went quiet for a while but only for a while. Within that brief moment of silence, I managed to pull the gun out from the holster attached to my belt but as soon as I did, I heard the footsteps again. Only this time it sounded like running. I then heard a loud thud followed by what I recognized as the top blade of an ax making its way through the door, creating a huge hole in the old wooden door which caused me to jump back in fear. A pale wrinkly hand with nails that looked unkempt slowly poked through the hole and turned the doorknob, opening it.
The door swung open.
I couldn’t believe who I saw standing before me almost hidden within the dim light of the corridor. The sight caused me to drop my gun in a sudden state of shock and confusion. My eyes watered and my nose ran as my emotions erupted all at once. I shook my head trying to deny what I saw before me but the sight was too real. It was my father. My father who I loved dearly and who I had spent my entire life with. I had so many memories of us; happy ones, but the only one that I could recall at that moment was when he got shot and killed back in Arima during the Midnight Robber’s attack. I almost didn’t recognize him with his pale skin and powdery face but it was definitely him; a smelly version of him with thick black bags around his eyes. The smell permeating from him was so unbearable that I could barely breathe. He smelt like rotting flesh which correlated with the parts of his body that actually looked rotten. His ears, neck and teeth seemed to have decayed but the rest of his body was simply pale and his face seemed to be covered in white powder. He wore a fiendish smile that had never been present on my father’s face while he was alive.
“Dad?” I said in a confused and tremulous tone, “I – I – I thought you were dead?”
He didn’t respond but just kept walking towards me, dragging the giant ax behind him slowly with a hair-raising screeching sound.
