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The Man in the Hall

A Cliff-Hangers Story

By Anna-Roisin Ullman-SmithPublished 5 years ago 4 min read
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I let the door snick shut behind me, mussing hair out of sleep-coated eyes as my leaden feet carried me back down the darkened hall to the bedroom.

My fuzzy mind was already returning to realms of sleep, the abandoned warmth and safety of the bed, a melody my body responded to like a siren's song.

This hazy state may explain why, as I passed the open door into the dark maw of our silent living room, I immediately dismissed the figure lying low to the floor, head turning like a serpent ready to strike, watching me.

It might explain why I did not question this person, their hair alive with electric shock frizz, legs spread wide and arms jutted out from the shoulders; a low-lying, inhuman, crab like pose; watching me from my living room floor.

It might explain why, after one slow blink and the minutest of pauses in my shuffling steps, I carried on through the bedroom door.

It is only after I had passed the threshold of the bedroom, re-entering the warm sanctuary of sleep, that a part of my mind screams out in fear. Adrenaline, the core of all true action, spikes through me, waking my mind and body like a hard slap. I spin.

There, on the floor, that same crab-wide pose spreading to take up the width of the hall, is the man. His features are blurred by the half-light pooling in from the street, but still I can see his eyes are too wide, his smile too broad, jaw slack in a way that screams of wrongness. A manner that makes me immediately picture a snake’s jaw coming unhinged. His head too seems oddly placed, both low to the ground and yet turned up to me, as if his neck has more joints, allowing him such a crooked pose.

Instinctively I grab the door, slamming it shut and throwing my body against it. My mind swirls with images of the man slipping under the door, his body somehow flattening completely, head turned 180 degrees like an owl's to smile, slack-jawed, up at me as like oil his body pools past my feet.

My heart hammers so loud I don't hear my partner’s voice until he is standing before me, eyes alight with his own adrenalin.

“What's wrong?” he asks, his voice thick with sleep.

I notice the warm light of his bedside lamp, igniting the warmth of the room, comforting my racing heart just enough to allow me speech.

“There's a man in the hallway. He's on the floor. He looks unhinged,” I lean up to my partner to whisper, holding his eye to stress my seriousness. His face momentarily pails, a stiff nod his only confirmation to hearing me.

On lighter feet than I knew him to possess, he trips to the other side of the room, finding and grasping in firm hands the full size, solid-wood, bokken I got him for Christmas. Keeping the bokken aloft, he comes back to me and nods again.

On the count of three, my heart in my throat, I release the door, allowing it to fall open. Initially my partner does not move, and I panic that he has been frozen by shock, faced by the inhuman figure of the man. After a moment he steps out into the hall and begins a slow procession through our home, checking every nook and cranny. I follow after him, turning on the lights, my heart jittering.

We find nothing. Nobody. We check the doors, the windows. Every entrance as tightly sealed as when we went to bed. My partner checks the news, looking to see if there has been an outbreak from any asylums or prisons. After a while he looks at me with tired eyes, his face the portrait of disappointment.

The next day we both agree it was a waking dream. I feel awful, and apologise profusely. We eventually laugh it off.

Despite knowing it to be a trick of the mind, I take to carrying a torch on my midnight trips to the loo, needing the reassurance of golden light. After one such toilet venture, months later, by chance, I turned back to look down the hall.

There, the bathroom door left wide from my exit, slowly swung closed, revealing, caught stark in my torch light, the man. This time standing, as tall as the door frame, his slack smile and too wide eyes balanced on his crooked neck.This story was nominated for the Wicked Young Writers Awards 2019, 18-25 Category. All copyright for this story is held by Anna-Roisin Ullman-SmithRead more stories in Cliff-Hangers, available on Amazon.

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About the Creator

Anna-Roisin Ullman-Smith

I am a trained Journalist with a passion for writing. Check out my book of short stories on amazon titled Cliff-Hangers: Extra or follow me on Twitter @ullmansmith432

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