Blind Terror

by Laurel Busch

Brands&People

I wake up, not knowing why.

Without opening my eyes or moving, I check for whatever might have disturbed me. Over the years I’ve developed the habit of not opening my eyes when I’m awakened during the night.

If a burglar is there, I might have a better chance of being left alone if I seem to be asleep.

My bedroom is still dark. I don’t have to go to the bathroom. I’m warm. I’m in a comfortable position, on my side, back to the wall.

I try to remember if I heard anything just before I woke up. There might have been an unusual noise. I’m not sure. It’s Halloween, but it’s way too late for trick-or-treaters to be out. Maybe it’s teenagers smashing the neighbor’s jack-o’-lanterns the way they did last year.

I continue to lie without moving — listening and wondering why I’m awake. The only thing I’m sure about is that it is completely quiet now.

I wait.

I should just drift back to sleep, but the more I wonder why I woke up, the more awake I become. I lie in the same position with my eyes still closed.

Suddenly, a puff of warm, moist air hits my face. My dog’s breath, I start to think, but in mid-thought I remember I haven’t had a dog in years.

Then what was it? What if someone or something is next to my bed breathing on my face? Then why don’t I hear it? Was it a breath on my face that woke me up a few minutes ago? If someone is breathing on me, he must be watching me!

I realize that my face is grimacing with the horror I feel, so there is no point in pretending to be asleep anymore. But now I am too afraid to open my eyes and see what is there. I am covered with cold sweat.

I lie there feeling my fear increase until it turns to anger. I can’t stand the tension anymore. Confronting whatever it is will be no worse than lying there in blind terror. I open my eyes.

Nothing is there. That is, nothing unusual. My bedroom looks the way it always does in the dark. I had to have imagined the air moving across my face.

I look at the time on the clock radio: 3:28 a.m. I stretch, as much to see if that makes anything happen as to release the tension. Nothing happens.

I begin to feel foolish. It’s possible to wake up for no reason, I scold myself. Or maybe my own snoring woke me up.

Now I do have to go to the bathroom. If I don’t, I won’t be able to go back to sleep. But what if whatever breathed on my face is hiding under my bed, waiting to grab my feet when I get up? That thought is so childish I am annoyed at myself.

I make myself sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed, trying to stretch my feet out and away from the reach of anything underneath it. Half amused, half nervous, I stumble through the dark to the bathroom.

I usually don’t turn on the lights when I get up at night, because by the time my eyes have adjusted to them I’m wide awake and have trouble getting back to sleep. Another thing I usually don’t do is look in the mirror, but tonight I do it for some reason. Looking back at me is a shadowy face with bright eyes. I’m startled and frightened. It doesn’t look like me, but it has to be me. It’s a mirror!

I force myself to lean toward it to look more closely at the face. I’m startled when it simultaneously comes toward me. My heart is suddenly pounding wildly. I tell myself the only reason the face doesn’t look like mine is the room is so dark. I back away and avoid looking at the mirror again.

By the time I return to my bed, I’m beginning to forget my fears of a few minutes ago. Of course there’s nothing there. Even so, I make an awkward jump into the bed from a few feet away. I pull the bedcovers up and settle on my side, back to the wall again.

I am halfway back into the unconsciousness of sleep when I feel another puff of warm, moist air on my face.

This time I am instantly wide awake, and I know exactly what woke me up. And this time fear paralyzes me. I feel another breath move across my face, and still I do not dare open my eyes. In my mind, I see the face from the mirror watching me.

Perhaps it is my imagination, but now the breath has a rancid odor. The smell is nauseating and unavoidable.

I sense a change. The breaths grow stronger, as if the breather is moving closer.

Suddenly my entire head feels warm, as if a sheet of half-melted wax has been draped over it. Now I do open my eyes — and I see nothing. Not even my room, just blackness. Oddly, I do not feel my eyelids moving against whatever is covering me. I no longer smell anything.

I try to scream for help, but the sound won’t come out. I try to struggle, to jump out of bed and run out of the house. I can’t move.

My feelings and thoughts stop.

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Laurel Busch is a lifelong writer and a semi-retired editor who has lived in northern Nevada all her adult life. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and she spent much of her career writing news releases and editing environmental and engineering reports. She put aside her early attempts at writing fiction until she had more time to devote to it. In the past few years, she has worked as a book editor, written the first draft of a history of her great-great-grandfather’s Civil War experiences, and started writing a historical romance novel.