There was a pause. Whatever it was that lay hidden within the blackness of the hallway, was waiting for something – a sign, or a signal, or perhaps the perfect moment. The sound of an approaching car waxed and waned, slowly rolling past the open window, and then the brush of a rolled newspaper landing somewhere in the bushes below. The click-clicking of knives on the floor boards began in the hallway. The bedroom door softly oscillated back and forth in the slipstream as a wispy mass of white and black – mangled black hair, pasty skin and tattered rags – whisked its way along the floor, through the doorway…

An eruption of nauseating noise gripped the quiet morning by the throat and shook it with wild rage. The beast’s eyes shot to the alarm clock on the nightstand, as it screeched in terrifying pulses, and then back at Benjamin’s sleeping – no, now painfully awake – face. Benjamin’s eyes glared down at the beast – the yet unsprung trap – that lay below him, his eyes wide with horror. So many words and thoughts came rushing into his skull, yet only one could he manage to successfully mutter in time. A pitiful, stifled, “No!” The huntress lunged upwards at him, knives extended. With another shrieking, “No!” Benjamin rolled onto…

Benjamin caught and returned her glare as he sat up on the side of the bed. “I’m up.” He looked down at his hand as he rubbed it. A tidy row of little, dark gray spots lined both sides of it. He pulled up his shirt to observe his ribs. Again, he found five dark discolorations on the surface of his skin, these ones larger. Dropping his shirt and returning to his right hand, he rubbed the marks, and then as he watched, they slowly began to vanish, his skin returning to its normal color. Still seated on the side of the bed, he rubbed his eyes with both hands,…

Regaining his footing, Ben took the dangling towel from the fist. With a voice far manlier and more imposing than any that Ben could muster, the disembodied voice reiterated his own thoughts to him, “All ruined, you stupid! Now need go buy. Gah!” And with that, the fist again shot back through the hole in the closet door. Instead of re-emerging this time, it patched the hole that it had originally made in the door with a piece of wood of perfect size, color and shape – pounding it into place with the same wood-splitting slam as when the hole had been made. Benjamin stumbled momentarily, rubbed his jaw and…

He didn’t bother looking in the mirror. There’d be plenty of time to deal with that later. He simply brushed his teeth, picked up his shorts and t-shirt, and tightened the towel around his waist. Before opening the bathroom door, with his hand on the door knob, he inhaled deeply through his mouth, and exhaled. Time to begin. No sooner than he opened the door did his grandfather’s grandfather clock let out its first strike of the day, 7 am. “Shit. SHIT!” He must have fallen asleep in the shower after all. How hadn’t the water gotten cold? What time did he get in the shower to begin with? There…

He looked down at the spot where the door knob had struck the wall. Fortunately, the wall had already been dented in that very same place. In fact, sitting atop the dresser that stood next to it was a small tub of drywall spackle, a putty knife, and a small can of paint. And on the other side of the dresser, in the empty space that spanned between it and the closet wall, was a chest-high patch of roughly layered plaster, covered by a coat of poorly-matching paint. Ben tucked his left hand under his right arm, and with his right hand pinched the bridge of his nose. He closed…

All four closet doors flew open at once, to the sound of another shriek – this one of repulsion and terror. Benjamin covered himself with his hands, spun around, and crouched below the window sill. Down from the dark space of the closet ceiling, a giant, reddish-pink tentacle unfurled in haste. Benjamin hobbled towards the closet, stepping over the motionless corpse of the stomping thing, and reached down for the towel that had fallen onto the floor beside it. But before he could get to it, the tentacle darted down and snatched it up. It whipped the damp towel back and hurled it at Ben’s unmentionables. He let out an…