The rain falls hastily through the bleak darkness and heavy clouds that show their light with a bang, the air roams with its stiff cold hand leading the way, screeching as it blows against the trees and homes that are hidden in the night’s brace. The moon is full but it doesn’t show, its light remains in silence, allowing the shadows to take control and brew their insidious plots, leaving an eerie stain in the small town of Marville and its people, and as the night drifts on a new terror will arise, and the deeply tucked away nightmares will crawl from the decrepit spaces of frightful minds, and they will wreak havoc on the souls of the living. Death is in the air tonight, it wants new victims, and it will not wait much longer to finish its deeds.

“Alright now, Thomas it’s time for bed, you won’t want to get up for school in the morning if you don’t get some rest.” Mr. Beckom speaks with a reassuring voice to his son as he moves towards his child’s bedroom door to switch off the lights.

“But dad … I’m scared.” Thomas speaks softly as he pulls his blanket over his head for protection.

“Son, there’s nothing to be afraid of, you’re mother and I are just down the hall remember, so I need you to big and strong for me okay, and keep an eye on your sister; can you do that?” Thomas’ eyes avert to his left to see his sister sleeping peacefully in the bed next to his, and he tries to find strength in the fact that his little sister isn’t afraid like he is. He takes this new found sense of strength and he gives his father a nod to assure to he’ll be alright.

“Good, now goodnight slugger.”

The lights go out and Thomas is left alone, eyes wide as they stare into the emptiness of his room, his heart beating uneasily as he forces himself to lay his head down on his pillow, his mind still lying to him, speaking the soft lie that everything will be okay, but he knows that he is afraid. The hours slipped by with each being worse than the last, being filled with a new torturous nightmare each time he attempted to rest, and waking up suddenly not long after with sweat atop his forehead and unstable breaths. He knew he couldn’t cry out for his parents like he usually does, he promised his dad that he would be strong, that he would be a protector, truth be told, his sister Delsa should be protecting him.
It is now three-forty-five and Thomas is still awake, still fearing, and still hoping for the blessings of a new morning sun, but as the outside’s storm grows heavier and as a new flash of lightning rips through the air, the sound of something dropping comes to Thomas’ ears, being a boisterous slam that echoes its way throughout the entirety of the house.

“Mom?”
No answer.
“Dad?”
No answer.

Thomas waits in the darkness for his call to be met with a response, but instead of hearing the comforting sound of his mother rushing to see what’s wrong with him, he hears nothing. He finally decides to crawl from his bed, slowly, judging his surroundings carefully as he moves to his bedroom’s door. The silence still runs on, and Thomas is left wondering what’s going on?”

“Dad…?”

BANG!
The sound from before goes again, having a form that’s loud and ferocious as it ripples throughout the halls and into Thomas’ room. He jumps back from the door, his heart left racing and forehead left cold and moist as his worries begin to reawaken. His thoughts are telling him to go back to sleep, telling him that he didn’t hear a thing, but his father told him to be strong tonight, and a promise is one thing that he can keep.
“Delsa … Delsa wake up.” Thomas turns his back to try and wake his sister with a light whisper, but she does not respond, she remains in her slumber, calm and docile and unaware of anything. Thomas turns his head once more to look to the door that sits in the darkness’ cloak, and he opens it, stepping out into the hallway that is dark, and only dark. Thomas waits a minute to gather himself, standing still as the storm rages on outside, and the silence within his home becomes more and more horrifying, but he could still feel that something wasn’t right, and as he began taking his steps through the dark corridors of his home, searching for any sign of his parents, he ends up finding the glow of a dull florescent light that shines through the darkness, and it’s coming from the kitchen, and as he follows the light that acts as a beacon of escape from the darkness, his spine became a faucet that drips only cold water, and his eyes look frantically with each flash of lightning that illuminates his house with sapphire rays, and as he entered the kitchen by slowly bending the last of the corners he saw that the refrigerator door was open, with its light mixing every object with a dull sterile white.

Thomas didn’t move, he stood solidly where he was, only looking at the door and wondering why it would be open, maybe it was his parents he thought.

“…Mom…?”

He spoke, but he did not hear a voice in return, he only heard footsteps, loud and heavy, footsteps that brought a man from behind the door of the refrigerator. The lightning flickers suddenly and the house becomes blue, and just for a moment Thomas was able to see the figure and its true details, and he was horrified. The man stood ominously by the side of the open door, being almost seven feet in height: he wears a solid black plumbers jumpsuit, boots that blend with the night, face blank, white like a fresh Christmas morning, he wore a mask that rendered every one of his facial features a sheet of mystery, but Thomas could still feel his eyes gazing upon him through the dull light of the refrigerator. At this point, Thomas didn’t know what to do, run, scream, or fight? None of those options sounded like good ones to him, so he stood, with the trespasser and him both exchanging looks through the night’s silence, but the man was growing restless. He moves one of his large hands that are protected with surgical gloves and pushes on the refrigerator door. It slowly went back, creaking as it took the light with it, and as it came to a complete close. Thomas found his mother and father, their bodies stacked on top of each other, bloody and vile, cut and mutilated in several places, gruesomely murdered by the man standing right in front of him.

“Mom, dad!” His screams went out and his want to go to his parents caused him to move slightly, which soon proved to be a mistake. The man with the blank face reached out his arm and grabbed a thirteen-inch machete from the kitchen counter, scrapping it against the granite, and allowing the fresh blood on its steel to drip onto the tile beneath. Thomas’ heart skipped a beat and his breaths became loud and uncontrollable, and as the lightning flashed once more, the room became blue, and Thomas could have sworn that he saw the man smile.

“Delsa, help!” Thomas began to run back to his room, but the killer followed, taking slow thick steps across the floor, leaving a trail of blood behind him, letting the rust on his blade take air and swing in his hand, he followed, but Thomas continued to run, keeping his hands close to the walls to ensure that he could find his way around through the night’s muse.

“Thomas is that you fooling around out there.” Delsa awoke from her slumber, calling out into the empty for a sign of her brother, and as quickly as her words were spoken, Thomas arrived back to the room. He came through the door with reckless speed, slamming it behind him and locking it for security. His breaths were heavy, his face was dull and wet, and his eyes showed that his mind was on the verge of collapse.

“Delsa, call 911 now!” Thomas puts his back against the bedroom door to add an extra bit of fortification.
“Why would I do that, what’s going on?” Delsa climbs out of bed and looks at Thomas as if he had lost his mind, but his emotion and fear were, unfortunately, genuine.

“Delsa … mom and dad … they’re dead, and the man who did it is getting closer with every second we waste!”
“Thomas quit trying to scare me, go back to bed.”
“I’m not kidding! He’s coming and-”

Thomas’ voice is cut short as the end of the killer’s blade divides its way through the weak barrier of protection between them, leaving its point of impact only inches from the top of Thomas’ head.

“Do it now!” Thomas yells out and he ducks away from the door as Delsa runs to the bathroom, taking the phone from their night stand with her. Thomas’ eyes become locked to the door as he watches the machete force its way through, taking the door apart piece by piece, with each of the killers strikes holding more anger and a stronger blood lust than the last. He wants a higher casualty count, and Thomas is next on his list. The storm seemed to rage it’s hardest at this point, with the rain hammering against the house, the lightning burning its way through the sky and leaving its thunder behind, and with the darkness taking its most sinister form, the day had no chance of coming, and Thomas is afraid of the dark.

Thomas put up as much resistance as he could, but the door was inevitably reduced to nothing, and the brute is left standing solidly within the frame, gripping his machete tightly as it rests in its kill position. Thomas is again left petrified, wanting to escape, but he knew that he couldn’t, if he ran the killer would be able to get to Delsa quicker, and as his dad spoke to him before, he had to be strong for her tonight.

The killer moves forward, keeping the same pattern of loud heavy steps and malicious eyes that translated to a white emptiness to the dictation of his mask.

“Why are you doing this?!”
He steps closer.
“Why did you kill my parents?!”
He steps closer.
“Why!?”
He grabs Thomas by the throat and lifts him as high as the ceiling will allow. Thomas struggles and squirms within the tight grip around his throat, his air begins to fade, and the killer begins to aim his machete, still fresh with his parent’s blood to his heart. Tears begin to roll down Thomas’ face as he realizes that he being nothing more than a corpse in a shallow grave by the river will soon be his faith. He closes his eyes tightly, only wishing that all of this was nothing more than a dream of his.

Everything goes to red-and then blue, and then red again, the police have arrived. Thomas opens his eyes and the killer shifts his head to look through the window to see the lights of two squad cars and an S.W.A.T. van coming through the rain soaked glass. The killer’s grip loosens hastily and Thomas falls to the floor, and as Thomas stood again the killer was gone, leaving as he came, through the dark shadows of the night.
The police soon came in yelling with strong voices, and with the flashlights attached to their shotguns steering them through the home. Thomas was safe, but even better, Delsa was safe as well, and as the sun finally began to rise through the heavy clouds and shined upon the wet streets, Thomas realized that he was no longer afraid of dark and stormy nights, but he was now afraid to die, and he was now afraid of the silence in the night.