I woke up in the dark, breathing heavily, panicked... Everything around me was pitch black and the room felt almost damp. I threw the covers off of myself, exposing my bare legs to the chilly air. Goosebumps raised to the surface of my pale skin almost instantly. The blanket felt damp as well. "That's odd." I thought to myself. I shrugged it off to cold sweats from whatever bad dream I may have been having and reached for the lamp on my bedside table.
After a moment of searching, I found the small switch. Flipped it up, into the on position and waited. The light bathed the small room in a faint orange glow. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and waited for my sight to adjust to the light. I glanced around the room briefly, looking for anything that may have stirred me from my slumber, but nothing seemed out of place.
The little table next to my bed had the small lamp on it and my cell phone, which was now fully charged. I picked it up, and looked at it, thinking maybe someone had called, rousing me awake. "No Notifications".
"Ok," I thought, so that wasn't it. The phone said it was 3:17 am. Almost two hours before when my alarm was supposed to go off. 5 am.
I set my phone back on the table and swung my legs to the left, drooping them over the edge of the bed. I hesitated a moment, fear of something grabbing me from under the bed. This was an irrational fear from my childhood, that I never really grew out of. After a moment of hovering just above the six inch gap between my box spring and the floor, I slid forward, and placed my feet on the red shag carpet.
I pushed myself up into a standing position and drowsily began shuffling toward the door to my bedroom. I figured I would get a glass of water, and hopefully get back to sleep for a little while before I had to get up for work.
I reached the tall oak door leading to the hallway of my tiny one bedroom apartment, reached out and turned the knob.
Creeeeaaaak.
The door whined from its brass hinges.
The entire apartment was dark and quiet. The tiny kitchen was just at the other end of the hall, separated by the bathroom, just to my left and an archway leading to the living room off to the right. I felt for the wall with my hand, and made my way down the dark hallway toward the kitchen.
Drip... drip... drip.
I heard from the bathroom.
"Damn that faucet!" I said out loud, aggravated. The sink in the bathroom had leaked on and off since I moved into this building about four months ago. I had called maintenance about it multiple times. And every time, they came out, fixed the leak, and then no more than a day later at best, it would be leaking again.
I made it past the bathroom, the dripping slowly fading out behind me. I moved past the living room entryway, and to the kitchen at the end of the hall. Reaching up to my left, I felt for the switch on the wall. When I found the switch, I flipped it on and showered the small kitchen in yellow light.
Again, nothing seemed out of place, and by this time, I wasn't sure anything had happened to stir me from my sleep. I shrugged it off and walked across the room, the linoleum cold on my bare feet. I stopped at the cupboard where I kept all of my glasses, opened it and grabbed a glass, when something moving in my peripheral vision, caught my attention.
Off to the right of where I stood, was my refrigerator, and to the right of the fridge was my back door. It was one of those sliding glass doors. It led to a small balcony overlooking the concrete parking lot behind my apartment building. I had a set of large sky blue drapes hanging over the doors, to maintain what little privacy I was allowed, given my living in a cramped apartment building in the middle of the city.
The movement I saw was one of these drapes, the one that hung over the door that opened, was waving slightly, as if there were a breeze. But that couldn't be right. I specifically remembered closing and locking the sliding glass door before I had gone to bed the night before.
Concerned, I set the glass down on the counter, and inched toward the doorway. After just a couple steps, I saw the shimmering shards of broken glass laying on the floor of my kitchen, just in front of the doorway.
"Shit," I thought to myself.
Had someone broken in? I lived on the second floor, and my balcony was a good distance up from the ground, so it didn't seem likely. But the shattering of glass would have undoubtedly woken me up.
Panicked, I turned back to the cupboards and counters. Just below my glasses cupboard, was a drawer, you know? The one with all the sharp stuff in it. I slid open the drawer carefully, trying not to make any noise, and grabbed the first thing I found. It happened to be one of those two-pronged turkey forks.
I turned, weapon in hand, and faced the dark hallway again. It all seemed so eerily quiet. I was having trouble believing that anything could be in my apartment with me. Were they in the living room? Waiting in the darkness for the perfect time to attack? Had I passed right by them in the bathroom? I felt chills imagining the horrifying possibilities.
Slowly, I worked up my nerve and edged back toward the darkness looming in the hall. I had made it almost all the way across the kitchen, and could barely make out the dark gap of the archway leading to the living room, when I heard a loud crash coming from my bedroom.
The crash was so loud, it made me almost jump out of my skin. I dropped the turkey fork in my start, which landed point-side down into my right foot.
"Oww!" I cried out in pain, as the blade pierced an inch into the meat on the outside of my foot. "Good thing it's so sharp!" I thought cynically as I squatted and quickly jerked the prong from my foot. I bit my tongue so I didn't cry out in pain again, and stood back up, holding the fork menacingly out in front of me.
My foot throbbed in agony and bled profusely from the half inch hole in it. The blood poured out onto the smooth kitchen floor, making the floor slippery. I reached to the left, and grabbed the marble counter top for balance. Once I was sure of my footing, I turned back to the dark hallway.
The source of the crash was still hidden, although I knew it was in the apartment, probably still in my bedroom. I limped slowly toward the hall. After just a couple seconds, I was back in the dark hallway. I reached for the light switch, to my right, and flipped it. But nothing happened. I flipped it another time, and again, nothing.
"Damn," I thought. I could see the faint glow of the small lamp on in my room at the opposite end of the hall. It seemed so far away from where I stood now. Slowly, I made my way down the hall, toward my room.
As I reached the archway for the living room, I flipped the switch for the light in there. Nothing. Trying not to lose my nerve under the pressure of the horrible thing that was happening, I ignored the fact that the light wouldn't work, and instead continued down the hallway, using the wall for support. My foot still gushed blood, and left a nasty trail of blood down the hall.
I reached the bathroom, and flipped the switch.
Light!
The dim bulb basked part of the hallway in an iridescent yellow glow, which further revealed the bloody trail I had left behind. I saw my reflection briefly in the full length mirror on the bathroom door. My hair was crazy, my eyes wild and I had speckles of blood all over my right arm from the turkey fork piercing my foot and then dripping blood everywhere.
I continued past, to my bedroom, the door was slightly ajar, but mostly closed. Cautiously, I peeked into the room, careful to not touch the door to avoid making any noise. From where I stood, I could only see the small table with the lamp on it. I couldn't quite see my bed, but I could see that my cell phone wasn't where I left it.
Dammit! How could I call for help now?
Slowly, I pushed the door open.
Creeeeaaaak.
At first, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. My bed was slightly disheveled, as I had left it when I had woken up. The lamp sat on the night stand, as normal. My phone charger was on the floor by the night stand, but no phone attached to it. As I turned though, to face the back half of my room I saw that my oak dresser had been toppled over, and lay in pieces on the floor. Splintered wood and my clothes laid scattered all over the red shag carpet.
I continued to scan the room, still holding the turkey fork, though my hands now shook violently with fear. When my gaze reached the corner to the left of me, I saw the intruder. It was about eight feet tall, dark leathery skin stretched tight over what looked to be a humanoid bone structure. He had long bony fingers, and holes in the sides of his head where his ears should be. He faced the wall, and had something shiny in his hands. My cell phone.
I watched in horror as he took the phone, sniffed it briefly and then put it into his mouth. I heard the awful crunch as he took a enormous bite out of it. The lights flashed, and then failed completely as the beast tore the phone in half with its brutally sharp teeth. He then threw the other half on the floor, and spit pieces of plastic and metal out in all directions. He continued to sniff more of the room, almost like he was searching for something.
I gasped in terror, and the beast turned his gaze to me.
His eyes lit up in excitement when he saw me. Eyes that glowed a vibrant green color. He grinned menacingly, revealing his long, sharp fangs.
"Who a-a-are you?" I stammered.
"I am the Razor," he scoffed. "Who are you?"
"Um, I'm Amy," I answered honestly, too terrified to lie. "What do you want?"
"I want to eat," he answered.
"What are you doing here?" I asked him, as I slowly inched back toward the doorway. Maybe I could get away, out the front door before he killed me.
"Searching." He answered, sniffing the air wildly. "Something... something smells so good." He finished. Before I knew it, he sprang toward me. "It's you!" he said excitedly, "You smell so... delicious." He cried, breathing heavily into my hair in a craze. "I must have a taste."
"No," was all I could get out, totally stunned.
The beast grabbed my right hand, the one holding the weapon, and licked the blood from my fingers.
"Mmmmm," he mumbled, as he continued to lick the blood from my arms.
"I must have you," he declared.
"Let me go!" I cried desperately, trying to break free from his grip.
"I'm sorry, I can't do that," the Razor laughed maniacally. "I'm so hungry." And he began to nibble at my arm. His teeth scratching through the layers of my skin.
"Stop!" I yelled, and thrust the turkey fork into his side, just below his bony ribs. The blade sunk in all the way to the shaft, and I released it. The blade now hanging from his side.
The Razor continued to laugh.
"Stupid girl," he proclaimed. "I could have made this easy on you. You wouldn't have felt a thing." He wiped the drops of my blood from his mouth, and licked his fingers. "Now, you will suffer!" With this, he grabbed my arm with both hands firmly, and snapped it at the elbow, which caused the bone to protrude from the inside of the joint.
I screamed and cried out in pain as I felt warm tears start to slide down my face. I could do nothing except watch in horror as he twisted my forearm the wrong way, and ripped it from the rest of my arm. It detached and began to ooze blood.
The Razor put the detached forearm in his mouth, and began sucking the blood from it. It was dry in just a matter of seconds. I didn't know what to do. I just crumpled into a ball on the floor, curling my legs up to my chest, and wept, watching the blood pour from my now missing arm. He crept closer to me, and crouched down, getting right next to my face.
"You don't enjoy this?" he asked tauntingly.
"Fuck you!" I screamed through tears, and spat in his hideous face. I gazed with pity at my cell phone in pieces on the floor, not eighteen inches from my, still attached, left hand.
"Very well," the Razor laughed, and again, he began to advance towards me.
As the last shimmers of hope faded, I saw the turkey fork still sticking out of his side. If I could just get a hold of it...
He lifted me off of the floor, and began chewing on the end of my wound. The blood making an awful gurgling sound. I ignored it as best as I could, and while he was distracted, I grabbed a hold of the turkey fork. I yanked it from his side, and jammed it into my own chest.
I looked up just in time to see him look at me in confusion, and then everything faded to black...
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