Nightfall

I am eight.

It is 11 p.m. My eyes are shut tight. The TV is on at full volume, a popular horror movie is playing. I have been watching the movie with my eyes closed, just taking in the sounds, the shrieks, of deranged maniacs and of their terrified victims. Suddenly the sounds stop. I open my eyes to find that my mother has switched the television set off.

"Go to sleep. You shouldn't be watching such movies at night. It will only give you bad dreams."

Displeased with my mother, yet relieved in some strange way I follow her orders albeit reluctantly. She turns off the lights and goes to her room. I am all alone in mine. I pull the bed covers on to me.
It is a warm night and sleep continues to evade me. I lay in the dark, listening to the sounds which filter in from outside our apartment. I hear the dogs barking on the streets, the honks of random vehicles passing by. But overpowering all these other noises is a dominant one, shrill and terrifying - the mad woman in our opposite apartment.

Every night she shouts and screams and rants and raves against her husband, calling him names which I was too young to understand yet knew that they meant something unpleasant and unprintable. The poor man, wiry and slightly built in stature would respond by unblinkingly staring at the television, years of familiarity having made him immune to his wife. Sometimes when she would be tired with screaming at her husband, she would beat up her young daughter, whose pitiable sobs and pleas would reach my perked up ears.

Suddenly even the screaming stopped. This was curious as normally the tirade would last for at least an hour. I get up and go to the window, and then I see her. She is at the window. Her pudgy face is contorted with anger. I have never seen so much anger in someones face. She appears to be staring at some thing on the road intently. I try to follow her gaze, curious to see what has caught her attention so thoroughly. But I cannot see what it is. The road appears to be empty, so late in the night.

I glance up. She is now staring at me.

She no longer seems angry. A completely different expression now adorns her face. Something much more scary. She is smiling or rather jeering maliciously, her eyes twinkling insanely, her features contorted into a grotesque grin. It reminds me of the grin The Joker would have, the arch enemy of Batman.

Eight year old me stands there for a second in utter terror, before immediately closing the curtains and rushing back to my bed. I pull my bedsheet over me. The security it provides me helps calm me down.

An hour, maybe two must have gone by. I haven't gone to sleep but am breathing heavily through the thick bedsheet. The limited pocket of air inside is stale and the heat inside is deathly oppressive but I don't pull the covers off me. I know that she is waiting for me, in that very room. Unfortunately after some time I realize that my body isn't giving support to my will and I have to got to the bathroom. The more i procrastinate the more uncomfortable I get.

Finally taking a deep breath I pull down the covers and slowly open my eyes ...

The room is draped in shadows. The streetlights below have dimmed creating pale and nightmarish shadowy shapes. The shadow behind the showcase draws my attention. Is a shadow formed against a straight surface supposed to be so curved?

No. It isn't supposed to. It is her, waiting for me to leave my bed. I have reached a point where I just don't care, the business in the bathroom being of utmost urgency. Taking my chance I leap from my bed with my eyes shut tight and relying on pure instinct, sprint into the bathroom. When the bathroom door latch is safely bolted behind me do I pause, take a deep breath and open
my eyes.

Only to find that I have not turned on the lights in the bathroom.

And she is waiting for me outside.

After somehow managing to accomplish the task I had set out to do, I now have to turn my thoughts towards getting back to the safe warmth of my bed.

I wait for a tense excruciating nerve racking three minutes before I finally manage to gather enough courage to open the door.

After what seems like an eternity the door finally opens.
I wait there till my eyes adjust to the almost total darkness that envelops me. The only luminescence is due to a faint vestige of the now almost extinguished street light below.

Suddenly the headlights of a passing vehicle cuts an illuminating arc across the corridor. And there she is. Standing at the door of my room and smiling. Goading me, challenging me to cross her path. But as soon as the arc of light passes I can no longer see her.

My feet are transfixed in stone. I can not move. i try to call out for my parents but no sound comes out. I can no longer see her in front of me.
Suddenly, I feel hands pulling me into the bathroom. Clammy Cold hands Clawing at me, tearing at my clothes, pulling my hair. This breaks the spell on me and I grab at the wash basin with both my hands, hold onto it for dear life and bawl out at the top of my voice.

The door to my parents room opens. A light is switched on. Immediately the hands stop pulling me and I feel myself getting released. The sudden gain in momentum due to it tips me forwards.
I hear my parents voices, my father is lifting me in his arms, my mother is worried out of her mind at finding her younger child sprawled on the floor near the bathroom. I try to explain to them about what had happened but obviously they don't believe me, convinced that I had a bad dream and must have sleepwalked.

Mom brings me a glass of water and dad puts me to bed. This gives my mom the perfect opportunity to reiterate - "I told you don't watch such dirty horror movies before going to sleep. You should sometimes atleast listen to me."

Dad promises to keep the lights on till I fall asleep and after they think that they have successfully handled the situation, go back to bed.
I am in no mood to sleep and make sure that my eyes are wide open, thankful that the light being switched on makes all those nasty shadowy shapes disappear.
I don't expect her to attack now. After sometime I gather enough courage to get up and go to the window again.

There she is. Staring straight at me. The smile on her face has changed. A smile that implies satisfaction of having gotten away with something. A leering smile. And then she draws the blinds and goes back into her house.

I draw the blinds of my own windows and return to bed.
Of course I don't plan to sleep a wink. How can I? After all I still can feel the clamminess of her paws on the back of my neck.

THE END

Epilogue -
The next day I hear that one of my neighbours in the next wing had slipped in his bathroom in the middle of the night. He never could describe to anyone how his accident took place, simply because he never regained consciousness again.

24 year old me hasn't been attacked again since that night.
As for her, she still lives across me and still rants and raves on stifling moonless nights.