This is the second of my shorts, my first attempt at writing something even remotely scary. Frankly I don't have that much hope for it.
A Night in Midsummer
The sun was setting on another warm summer day. Today had been a great day at school, our normal teacher had been ill and we'd had an amazing substitute, a blue-haired woman with red eyes who looked oddly familiar and had… strange methods of teaching us.
I took my time walking home, enjoying the sunlight and the breeze. When I did get home it was almost dark so there wasn't much time before I had to go to bed, just enough for dinner and desert – a delicious home made ice cream.
I said goodnight to Nanoha-mama and Fate-mama - who was on leave from work - and went upstairs to bed. The clock on the wall opposite my bed said that it was nine O'clock pm.
I couldn't sleep; I lay awake looking at the ceiling as the clock ticked. As time wore on I finally began to doze off, fatigue overriding everything else in my body and numbing my brain.
A cloud passed over the moon; it's shadow blanketing my room in absolute darkness.
That was the first time I heard it, faint as the wind, at the upper edge of hearing, piercing and hollow.
Laughter, shrieking, hysterical, laughter echoing through the night, I huddled up in my bed and drew the covers up to my chin. I strained my ears to catch the sound again…
Nothing.
Maybe I was simply hearing things, I was tired after all. There was a small sound outside my room, the creaking of floorboards perhaps? Yes floorboards, nothing else makes that same soft creaking noise.
All this ran through my head in the time it took my door to open a crack.
"Vivio, Fate-mama and I are going to bed now, good night, we'll see you in the morning." she smiled at me, her face illuminated by the moonlight streaming in through the thin curtains.
"Yeah….'night mama" so what if my voice was shaking a little, I was still scared.
"Is something wrong, Vivio?"
"No, I'm just tired mama, I'll see you in the morning." I rolled over in my bed to face the window and closed my eyes, trying in vain once again to sleep. After exhausting every method I knew to entice sleep I gave up and settled down to wait for dawn.
It came again, louder this time but still hovering at the very upper end of what I could hear, that same haunting, discordant melody of laughter. I couldn't make out where it was coming from; it couldn't be coming from inside the house because there was no one here besides my mamas and me. Maybe someone in the neighbourhood was having a party and the laughter was distorted by distance.
That wasn't right though, it couldn't be. I had never heard anyone laugh like that before; there was no way that came from a human throat.
That didn't leave me with any other option except the previously mentioned overactive imagination. There could be no other explanation, after all big kids don't believe in ghosts.
All my efforts to reassure myself were rendered useless when the strange laughter echoed through my room again. Once more it was louder, I knew where it was coming from this time and I was afraid, the noise was outside the window.
Shaking with fear I walked slowly over to my windows, the silhouette of something was visible beyond the curtains. Swallowing I took hold of the curtains, one with each hand and pulled them apart.
I looked out at the night sky, the moon and the stars. Whatever it was, it was gone now.
I turned back to my bed, lay back down and turned to face the open window.
I froze; there was something there, something person shaped but shrouded in shadow, even while standing in moonlight.
I tried to work moisture back into my suddenly dry mouth to no avail. As the figure in the night turned towards me it was illuminated. It had no eyes in its pasty white face and rivets of bright blood dyed black in the moonlight tricked down to fall in streams to the ground below, its thin lips curved in a twisted mockery of a cheery smile.
It turned its bloodless face to the sky and opened its mouth, letting out that same hideous laugh, the same high, haunted laugh. Even though it had no eyes I could swear it was looking right at me when it lowered its head.
No sooner had the echoing of its laugh faded than dozens more of the creatures began to materialise outside of the window, half the size of the original – like its monstrous children.
I backed myself into the wall unable to cry out, my chest frozen by their eyeless stare. They began to move towards me, they passed through the window as if it didn't even exist. They drifted across my room towards me, gliding like spectres.
The tallest of the group stopped in front of me, still I couldn't cry out, I couldn't do anything as it reached out for me.
Its head bent down, its blood soaked face an inch away from mine. Its hands like black ice as they encircled my head. Its mouth opened an endless abyss of blackness and I screamed.
So, Did I scare you?
