Lizzie's eyes opened to darkness. This seemed odd to Lizzie, because living in southern California, she was used to the sun being up before her. Normally, the rest of her family was also up before her.
That was the next strange thing she noticed. The sounds. There were none. Matt wasn't yelling that he couldn't find his shoes, and her Dad wasn't bumbling around downstairs trying to collect his work papers into his briefcase. It was quiet.
She lay in the bed for what seemed like several minutes. The quiet darkness felt strange to her. Part of it pulled at her mind, like the touch of a friend, and another jabbed spikes at her overactive imagination, sending images of monsters and other horrors lurking beyond the limited scope of her senses. She looked over at the digital readout from her bedside clock, and she saw that she had only been lying there for three minutes. She was tempted to close her eyes and go back to sleep, but she knew she had school today and sleeping any later would only make her late for class.
Lizzie peeled the comforter off, letting the cool dark air rush in to crawl along her skin. She sat up on the edge of the bed, sliding her feet into the slightly chilly insides of her fluffy slippers. She slipped off the edge of the bed and stretched in the darkness of the room. She looked to the window where no sunlight peeked in, no indication that it was even morning. Dark storm clouds hung low in the sky, obscuring any vision of the bright California sun.
She padded over to her closet and flipped the light on inside. She opened the door and surveyed her collection of clothes. With an eye towards the weather, she picked out a light blue t-shirt with the slogan "I heart Hugs" written across the front in puffy multi-colored iron-ons. A pair of brown hip hugger pants and brown open-toed flats for shoes completed the ensemble.
Lizzie turned and threw the items onto her bed. They landed with a soft "whump" on the turned back comforter. She flipped the closet light off and headed to the other door, leading into the hallway. Two things happened at that moment, causing Lizzie to catch her breath in her throat.
She noticed that her constant companion, the little voice inside her head, her "monkey" as she called it sometimes, was quiet. Not a sound, not a single word since she woke up. The voice wasn't gone; it just wasn't saying anything.
The second thing was the solitary "bang!" that came from the hallway. It was a little noise, nothing remarkable in the course of everyday events. This time, the sound rattled through the quiet house like the ricochet of a gunshot. Lizzie jumped at the sound, scared and relieved.
That one sound meant that someone was out there. Lizzie didn't know if they were playing some kind of practical joke on her, but she was going to find out. Running her hands through her hair, pulling it up and ratting it enough so that it stood up from her head. Lizzie tried to be quiet as she turned the doorknob, hoping to get the jump on what was probably Matt pulling a practical joke on her. She pulled open the door to the hallway and leapt out into the hallway yelling "Boo!" in her loudest voice.
The solitary occupant of the hallway seemed a lot less surprised than Lizzie. Lizzie stumbled back from her "boo" position, both hands formed into claws above her head, her knees bent and legs spread wide.
In fact, the person in the hallway wasn't anyone from her family at all; it was Mr. Brown from next door. His shoulders were slumped over, exactly like Lizzie remembered when he had come over to borrow some gas for his lawnmower a week ago. He was wearing an old brown sweater; the yarn had stretched in places leaving holes in it. A dark stain ran down the front of his shirt underneath the sweater.
Lizzie stumbled backwards and then caught herself. She made an "eww" face when she saw the stain on his shirt, but she replaced it with a smile before she called out. "Mr. Brown?" she said.
Mr. Brown's head swiveled upwards in a slow motion arc, like it was some great effort for him to lift his head.
Lizzie gasped and stepped backwards. Dark rings surrounded Mr. Brown's eyes and dark brownish-red drool dripped from the right side of his mouth. His eyes were a glaring yellow color that reflected the light from the hallway lamp. Now she could smell him too, it was a rotten smell, like he had been working in his garden and forgot to wash up before he came over.
Brown's mouth opened and a low guttural moan yawned outwards as he rushed towards Lizzie. His arms rose up in a grasping motion towards Lizzie, his legs kicked out from beneath him and he sprung forward. He stumbled just a little on the loose carpet covering the hardwood floors, but it didn't slow him down as charged headlong at her.
Lizzie tried to step backwards, but there was only air behind her. Her back to the stairs she lost her balance and started her fall down the staircase just as Mr. Brown's hands twisted into her nightshirt. Lizzie's was too far off balance when he latched onto her and both of them tumbled down the dark mahogany stairs. The carpeting tacked onto the top of each stair did little to stop the pain as each stair butted into her soft skin. A jumble of arms and legs, bumps and bruises, was all that remained as their rapid descent was cut short as they landed on the floor at the base of the stairs.
Blackness and blossoming stars of deep colors obscured Lizzie's vision as her head fell to the floor, the final toll on her already strained consciousness. She looked up enough to see that she was lying almost directly on top of Mr. Brown now, but there was nothing she could do about it, her eyes closed and the world went black.
