Full Moon Maze
This story is true. Or, at least I think it is. I still wake in a cold sweat sometimes, the memory clawing at me, and my heart aching for it to have been a dream. I've gone over it a thousand times, combing over every second meticulously. Every mundane detail is burned into my mind, easier to recall than my own name or birthday.
March 17th, 2022. A Thursday. I could never forget that date, not after how many times I confirmed it was the correct date. Just a day, like any other at first. Still, I catch myself agonizing over what we ate, hoping to remember the milk smelling off, a strange color in the eggs. Maybe the bread was moldy, or the chicken tasted funny, but no. There had been nothing wrong with the food; I can't blame this on some illness.
My husband, Ben, was off work that day as usual, and I had planned to go grocery shopping. Normally, my husband and our eighteen month old son, Cole, would stay home for bonding time, and I would enjoy a rare mental break from stay-at-home motherhood. But, as I was getting ready to leave, this sense of unease settled deep in my bones.
I lingered, pacing around the house as the boys played in the backyard. I could hear Cole’s laughter as I checked the fridge, going over my grocery list. I checked the bathroom; maybe we needed soap or toilet paper. I checked the basket of mail, but found no unpaid bills waiting. I looked out the window to see Ben rolling the soccer ball to Cole. His little foot kicked as hard as he could, landing a blow that sent the ball about a foot back towards Ben.
As Cole cheered his success, I saw Ben's face had fallen once Cole was no longer paying attention to him. His eyes darted around the yard, almost nervously.
Ben doesn't get nervous, I think as fear spiked in my gut. I crossed the kitchen and almost dove out the back door. Ben's head snapped in my direction, and the look of relief on his face gave me pause. I didn't have to tell him the shopping was off. He didn't have to tell me he knew. The primal instinct screaming at us both was saying don't leave the house, wait for tomorrow.
Neither of us was willing to ignore it.
“Go take a nap, Lilly,” Ben said, trying to hide the fear in his voice.
But he tucked me under his arm protectively, and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. I wrapped my arms around his waist as we watched Cole kicking his ball around the yard. A nap was usually at the top of my ‘I want’ list, but now the idea was unfathomable.
“Maybe I'll get ahead on some chores…” I said after a few minutes. Neither of us loosened our grip.
“Mommy, look! Look,” Cole called in his adorable baby babble, excitedly running over with his ball. “I kick!”
He dropped the ball and reached out to me, wanting up. When I lifted him into my arms, it was like a balm to a painful wound. He seemed unaffected, but in a cuddlier mood than usual. Ben placed a hand on Cole's back, and we stood together like that for a good long time.
Standing in the warm sunlight, trying to convince myself everything was fine, I thought I could see something wrong in the sky. Or maybe it was the air. A sound? A distant hum? I could never pin down where the wild feeling of wrong came from. The more I thought about it, the more it evaded me, until I was no longer sure I had ever been aware of it.
When Ben ushered us all inside, Cole didn't even complain; unusual for him. The boy was content to lay his cheek on my shoulder and stare at his father. Ben and I were in agreement, we would stay inside for the rest of the day.
By dinner, we had both convinced ourselves we were crazy. Surely we had changed our plans for nothing. But, when bedtime came, I nearly had a panic attack at the mere thought of putting Cole down in his room. Too far away. I realized, as I rocked him in my arms, clinging to him as if for dear life, that Ben and I hadn't let him out of our sight all day.
We rearranged our blankets and pillows and told Cole it was a sleepover. Normally, Ben and I went to bed a few hours after Cole, but once he was asleep, nestled tight between us, I couldn't imagine moving.
“What's gotten into us?” I whispered to Ben.
He shook his head, and didn't answer. I knew him too well to buy the calm expression on his face. His unease disturbed me more than anything that day. I'd watched this man unflinching while staring down the barrel of a gun held by a mugger. Another time, he'd scared off a bear that crossed the hiking trail we were on– a laugh his only reaction. Even when I was rushed into emergency surgery to deliver our boy, he'd looked me in the eyes and convinced me everything would be okay.
And now my rock was wobbling under my feet.
Eventually, we fell asleep, fingers laced together above Cole's head. My sleep, while it lasted, was dreamless.
When I opened my eyes, unexplained terror washed over me. The hallway light was off, and at first I thought Ben had done it. The room was still bright enough to see by, the full moon shining in through the windows. A thin, cold shaft of moonlight lay across Cole, leeching the color from him.
We're in danger, a little voice in the back of my head warned. The thought caught me off guard. That was the first time I had realized we were hiding. All day, we had been hiding, and we had been safe.
Until now.
Ben's eyes snapped open just as the back of my neck prickled. You always know when you're being watched, and clearly Ben felt it too. He silently raised himself up, crossing a finger over his lips unnecessarily. I doubt I could have made a sound if I wanted to. Ben pointed to the door, and we both flinched when the floor creaked as he crossed the room.
I slip out of bed, paranoia demanding I check the bathroom. Cole didn't stir at the clipped cry when I stubbed my toe, his face still a peaceful mask of sleep, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. Taking my eyes from him felt wrong, dangerous, but I had to check. The bathroom was connected to our bedroom, mere steps from Cole.
I flipped the light switch. Nothing. Ice prickled down my spine, and goosebumps rose on my arms despite the fact it was a warm night for March. Ben's phone, plugged in on the bathroom counter, lit up with a notification. I snatched it up, ignoring the notification, and turned the flashlight on.
The bathroom was clear. I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. I returned to the bedroom, hoping to sleep it off, telling myself it was nothing.
Ben returned, my phone in his hand. He must have grabbed it from the kitchen, needing the flashlight as I had. I laughed quietly to myself, switching off Ben's light and handing the phone back.
“Look at your notifications,” Ben said, unamused as we swapped devices. He unlocked and then held up his phone so I could see.
The homescreen was taken up completely by an amber alert-
No. Not an amber alert. The little red triangle with an exclamation point in the center flashed above large, bold letters.
WARNING:
UNIDENTIFIED PHENOMENON
REMAIN INDOORS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
When I opened my own phone, there was the same message.
“It won't go away,” Ben says, but there's no surprise in his voice.
I spent a few seconds trying to clear my screen, but other than accessing the lock screen drop-down, my phone was a brick. Even the emergency call feature was inaccessible.
“I've never seen anything like this,” Ben said, his jaw tight. He slapped the phone facedown on the nightstand like it had offended him. It was clear he wanted nothing to do with the alerts. “The power is out. All the doors and windows are locked. House is clear. Let's just try to get back to sleep, I guess. Nothing to be done about it in the middle of the night.”
I nodded, putting my phone down, and sliding back under the covers. Just as Ben settled down with us, the night air exploded.
Lightning struck, so close the flash was synched with the boom of thunder. The white-hot light illuminated the window more brightly than the sun. Then again and again, making the house rattle with the cacophony of sudden, intense wind and rain. The sound was so loud, and the rain so heavy I thought the roof might cave in. I jumped from the bed again, no longer needing a flashlight from the constant barrage of lightning, and started pulling on my clothes and shoes. Ben followed suit.
I don't know why, but I was certain we would wind up outside. My mind raced, trying to remember where the tornado shelter was, and wondering if we would have time to get there.
I really, really wish it had been a tornado.
Just as I turned to the baby, his back arched off the bed, and he screamed. Like nothing I have ever heard from a child. My heart stopped as I scooped him up, the sound of his cries so loud and shrill I thought he might burst all our eardrums.
At last, Cole's eyes open, and his screaming slowed to a stop. I held him tight to my chest, whispering nonsense in his ear. He clung to me, whimpering, and gasping as Ben slipped tiny shoes on precious feet. My ears rang with the sudden silence.
Silence?
The house still shook, the lightning continued, but the sound was gone. When I turned to Ben, my voice made no sound. He called my name. Nothing.
Boom. Boom. BOOM!
I froze. Someone was pounding on the front door. Ben shakes his head at me.
“Do not answer,” he mouths, fear etched clearly on his face.
Another round of pounding shook the foundations. Who would be out there in the storm? I couldn't make myself believe it was just some unlucky person who got caught in an unexpected thunderstorm. I remember feeling silly, because I was sure it wasn't human.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The sound came from the back door now. I huddled close to Ben, frozen in terror, and at a loss as to what to do.
UNIDENTIFIED PHENOMENON. The words flashed in my mind over, and over. What kind of alert was that? Is this some sick joke? Is this a dream?
But I had stubbed my toe on the bed frame just minutes ago, and the throbbing ache was enough to tell me this was no dream. I remembered this feeling when my father died, a desperation to wake from a nightmare that was real. And again with the loss of our first pregnancy. This was the same feeling; my mind unable to grasp the reality right in front of me.
Then the windows rattled, and the pounding was all around the house. The front door, the back, at every window. Surely the glass would break, the doors would splinter.
How could our voices– the storm– make no noise? Why could we hear the pounding? I didn't want to accept the answer my mind provided; so you know it's there.
Ben caught my attention, and spoke. No sound, but he mouthed the words as clearly as he could. “Stay here, I'll check it out.”
My heart galloped into a frenzy as he pulled his glock from the drawer, and slipped his hunting rifle off the hooks over the bed. He slung the rifle’s strap across his shoulder, and stalked to the door, his back ramrod straight, and his teeth clenched tight.
Just as he stepped into the hallway–
CRASH!
The bedroom window exploded inwards, glass flying across the room. I spin, curling my body over the baby, and feeling glass pelting my back as it rains like confetti across the floor and bed.
The scream in my throat is silent as wind and rain invade the room. Yet still, the only sound was the pounding on the doors and remaining windows. Ben was back in a flash, shoving me behind him as he raised the handgun to aim at the window.
Curling, black smoke drifted in, unbothered by the wild gusts ripping at my hair. The space around the window warped, almost like my eyes were a glitching camera melding two images together. The night beyond the window changed as the smoke pulled itself inside. Gone were the familiar trees, gone was the rain and wind.
When my eyes dart around, the bedroom is gone too. Sound slams back into my ears as I look down at the metal grate beneath my feet.
Ben fires the gun, and my head jerks up. I press Cole's ear into my chest and cover his other with my hand, watching in horror as Ben fires again.
The thing in front of us hisses, the black smoke whirling around the holes left by the bullets. It was unharmed, and solidifying. The shape of it twisted and jerked from one form to another, and looking at it made my head spin. It was like trying to look at an optical illusion, or trace a single cord through a tangle of wires. It was nothing. It was everything.
Cole began screaming again, his terrified eyes locked on the thing ahead.
“Da-da!” he wailed miserably, struggling in my arms.
I could relate. As nonsensical as it sounded, all I wanted was to cower in Ben's embrace. My fear-shattered mind didn't want to accept that he couldn't protect us from… whatever this was. No human could.
The thing was huge, at least fifteen feet high. It had too many legs, too many arms, but its shape kept changing and I couldn't count them.
Ben fired again. This time the bullet struck something solid with a sick, wet thwack. He emptied the rest of the magazine in a frantic roar, but each hole simply sealed itself. Flesh knit over smoke, smoke bled into flesh. The wounds were gone before the brass even hit the metal grate beneath our feet.
It took a step forward, outstretching a mangled hand. Or was it a tentacle? A snakelike tongue darts out, twitching as it tastes the air in our direction. With the next blink it's like some giant bee probing a flower with a deformed and rotting proboscis.
I pressed my back against the wall as Ben hurled the gun at the creature. It slammed into the torso with a crackling thunk, disappearing into a fleshy, smokey hole before that, too, was covered over. Ben pulled the rifle and began firing into bottomless eye sockets.
That seemed to make it angry. The metal grate shook under us as it took another, more deliberately menacing step forward.
Click.
Out of ammo.
Ben spun around wildly, reaching for where the shelf would have been with another magazine. I don't think he realized our house was gone– or we were gone from the house?
His wide eyes met mine as he dropped the rifle. It rattled as it caught on the sling wrapped around his body, and hung uselessly at his side. Maybe we could use it as a club.
“Run!” he screamed at me. “Lilly, run, don't stop for anything.” He wrapped his big hand around my arm and hauled me forward when I couldn't make my feet work fast enough for him.
The pounding of metal filled my ears along with the pounding of my heart. The thing behind us hissed again. Different this time. Closer to words. I almost gagged at the sound of it, as if the sound itself were some germ to be avoided.
Ben picked up the pace, faster than I've ever run in my life. If I was winded, or in pain, or tired, I didn't notice it. My only focus was holding Cole to my chest as securely as I could without hurting him.
Cole had gone silent, and his wide-eyed panic hurt me to my soul. I had failed him. I couldn't protect him.
I almost tripped and fell when the ground shifted under my feet. Only Ben kept me upright as metal turned to wet grass.
“Wait,” Ben whispered, looking around in the dark.
The churr of… crickets and frogs? The sound rose off in the distance. The full moon was gone, but there was still enough light to see that something wasn’t right.
“Wrong way,” I whispered to Ben and felt a lead weight settle into my gut.
An endless, uniform plain stretched out before us, and I knew, knew as surely as I knew I would fall to my death if I jumped from a cliff, that something much worse waited somewhere in this void. There was nothing to be found. Nothing but unreal grass, and a facsimile of nature sounds. A trap.
Fog began to surround us.
Ben spun us around, and after only a few steps, we were back where we started.
The metal clanged under our feet as we barreled out of the fog, gasping for breath. I couldn't see the thing, the only light was a dim red glow that didn’t seem to have a source.
But I could feel the monster watching.
“Put the child down.”
I almost wet myself at the voice. Slithering, putrid, hateful. I clutch Cole tighter.
“The child must walk.”
“Lilly,” Ben whispered, his voice shaking. “Do it. Look at him.”
I glanced down at Cole and cried out in terror. His face was scrunched in pain, clearly gasping for air he couldn't get. The thing was punishing Cole for my disobedience.
Against every instinct in my body, I move to follow instructions.
The moment I let his feet touch the ground, he sucked in a lungful and began to cry again.
Bitter relief coated my tongue as I bent down to soothe him. It was not long lasting.
When the voice spoke again, my heart stopped, turning to a block of ice in my chest. It… sounded like Cole. A demented, evil version of his baby babble.
“Let go of his hand. All walk of their own accord. Do not touch one another.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat. Ben looks sick, his face bloodless, his eyes almost lifeless. He nods at me, and I let Cole go.
“Follow Mommy closely, okay bud,” Ben says in a monotone. “It's going to be ok.”
I had never heard such a bold lie from my husband. The look on Cole's face told me he heard the falsehood as well.
The creature shimmers into existence, long limbs slithering around us like a fleshy, amorphous cage. The sound of it moving, like a squirming mass of insects, was almost as sickening as the putrid smell rolling off it.
“Follow mommy closely,” it said, mimicking Ben's voice this time.
Ben motioned for me to go first, and as much as I didn't want to take the lead, I knew he was right. Cole would try to cling to me, and we could keep him between us easier with Ben at the rear.
The monster marched us for a long time. Sometimes we walked through metal halls, sometimes through formless voids where nothing but the creature seemed to exist. Sometimes the floor turned to carpet, and the walls to tightly packed trees.
I felt that every step brought us closer to the grave.
Then I heard the screaming. Countless voices twisted in agony, echoing off the metal walls. My breathing was coming in ragged pants, and only Ben's voice from behind kept me going.
“Doing great, bud,” he said, still in that dead monotone. “I know, I don't like it either. Just follow Mommy. Yes, just like that.”
I couldn't bear to turn and face Cole's cries. I wouldn't be able to stop myself scooping up his pitiful form. I wasn't willing to find out what price I would pay for disobeying.
“Home,” Cole cried over and over. It was the only coherent word he could get out.
“I know, my sweet angel, I want to go home too,” I told him, and had to dig my nails into my arms to hold back the instinct to snatch him up. “Jesus, help us.”
The creature howled in rage. “Silence!”
Cole's voice again, and as twisted as it was, hearing rage in a baby’s voice chilled me to my toes. My step faltered, and I almost couldn't continue.
The screaming got louder. I heard women begging for children, men howling in anger, children's terrified sobs.
The creature stopped, unfurling its tentacle limbs from around us, and I could see the mass of people.
And more of the giant abominations.
The place looked… oddly familiar, like I had seen it before. But as I looked harder, I realized why; it was a livestock pen. Or something close to it.
A maze of fencing snaked through the place, guiding people as they filed through, like a line of sheep to slaughter. Oh, God, that's what we are, aren't we? Food for these creatures? I thought to myself.
I had never prayed before, but I did then. The monster ushered us through the gate with a guttural hiss, and grew angrier. My silent plea for whatever power could be out there became more desperate as its limbs flailed about in agitation.
“Move faster,” it said, almost unintelligible now, as if it couldn't be bothered to keep up the mimicry. My skin crawled.
I chanced a glance back at Cole, and the look on his face shattered my racing heart. His face was pale, his eyes were wide and glassy, continuous tears streamed down his little cheeks, and his crying had faded to a whimper I couldn't hear over the noise. He had never looked so frail, so delicate. Not even as a newborn. He chased after me, his wobbling legs stiff and jerky with fear.
Please, I begged, please help him, God. Please.
If these things could be real, if this place could be real, maybe that meant God could be real, right?
I couldn't make myself believe it.
I caught a glimpse of Ben, shuffling forward like a zombie. A helpless, hopeless feeling engulfed me, and yet I prayed. There was nothing else to do.
“Keep moving,” one of the monsters said, the sound of it clawing my ears painfully. The angry, contemptuous voice echoed through my skull, rattling around like chains beating on the metal floor.
I faced forward, and made myself walk on. My body became more numb with every inch of progress. I watched the people in front of me, crying, screaming, begging.
A child across the room, maybe seven at the most, fell over and her mother leapt to pull her up. The child screamed a wild cry before the sound choked off. One of the creatures swooped in to grab the child and her mother, one long arm grabbing them both in one hand. As they began to disappear into the smoking, shifting flesh, I looked away.
I couldn’t escape their screams.
The man ahead of me looked back— glossy black skin covered in mud and grime, like maybe he had tried to run too and had fallen face first in the grassy void— and for the first time I noticed the clothing of the people around me. The man ahead wore a brightly colored outfit that made me think of an African tribe.
Another woman wore a floor length dress that must be Mexican. A woman with rollers in her hair, and cartoonish bunny slippers. A man in a business suit, sans jacket. Snow gear on one family, beach attire on another.
Whatever this place was, it was pulling people from all over the world.
“No bud, follow Momma,” Ben’s desperate voice calls, fear raising his voice an octave above normal.
I spin around, walking backwards as best as I can. Cole is trying to walk back to Ben, his tiny arms thrust straight up.
“Dada, up,” Cole whines. He danced from foot to foot, and then stepped towards Ben again.
Every fiber of my being screams at me to hold him. To grab him and run, and run, and run.
“Baby, no, we have to walk,” I pleaded, my voice cracked and strained from the lump of sorrow in my throat.
Cole looks back at me, and runs, full speed at my legs. I shuffle back as fast as I can, almost colliding with the man in front of me.
“No, no, baby, we have to walk. I can’t hold your hands. Please Cole, please walk. I think we're almost there.”
With a resigned wail, Cole follows instructions. My heart will surely give out before we get to the end of this maze.
“Please, God, help us. Save him,” I whisper to myself.
The screech of rage is deafening. Everyone froze, and Ben and I stared at each other in wide eyed shock. Cole covered his ears, his face screwed up in horror. I wanted nothing so badly as I wanted to comfort him.
The monsters crowded in, banging on the fence, their bodies twitching and limbs bending in unnatural angles.
“SILENCE!”
The word is nothing more than a shadow of speech, garbled with rage.
“Keep moving!”
With my heart in my throat, I started moving with the line. Cole toddled along as instructed. He had always been such a good child, eager to please. It made me sick to see his desire to follow Mom and Dad’s instruction taken advantage of so horrifically.
The smell hit me then. Burning, rotting, sulphurous. The stench made me gag, and for a moment I could think of nothing else.
We were close to the end of the line now. The tang of blood grew stronger with every step, until it overpowered everything else. What waited at the end? A slaughter chute? A torture chamber? The screaming got louder, each unique voice coming to an abrupt halt after an agonizingly long second.
I could see, then, how wrong I’d been. The truth drifted in slowly, almost as horrifying as these monsters. These things had lied. They had planted the idea in our heads that fleeing was dangerous, and we had sat at home, waiting for them. Even back in the grassy void, these things had somehow whispered into my mind that it was wrong, that whatever was out there was worse. As I watched a woman walk out of the gate, and vanish through a door, I suddenly remembered their voices. How had I not noticed? We could have gone home. All we would have had to do was keep running.
I swung my head around and studied every inch of the place I could see through the bodies surrounding me. There had to be a way out, there had to be.
My eyes landed on a fork in the maze ahead, almost at the front of the line. There was no one on that short path. And it ended in a gate, much like the path we were on now ended. The giant creatures avoided the gate. As if it was repulsive or painful to be near it.
They need our cooperation, I realized. They couldn’t force us through that door. But they could scare us through. Could there be a set of rules they had to follow? Did they need to leave a way out to follow those rules?
“Please God,” I whispered to myself.
A wordless howl rose up, though I was almost sure it was another command for silence.
And then it hit me.
The only time they had told us to stay quiet was when I had said “Jesus” or “God”. Even when I had been praying silently, the things had reacted. People were talking, pleading, and screaming all around me, and I had been blind. I had been weak. I had listened to monsters.
I spun around, the revelation on my lips, my arms reaching for Cole.
I stopped dead in my tracks. No. If we broke their rules now… no. I had seen what happened to the girl and her mother.
I forced my feet to move, walking backwards. I didn’t know what this would do, but it was my only shot.
“Pray,” I told Ben, and pointed at the fork in the maze. “Pray to God that the other gate is the way out!”
Chaos erupted as soon as the words left my lips.
Ben’s half crazed, half dead gaze turned to the gate, and for a wild heartbeat I thought he was too drugged with terror to recognize a way out. Then he looked back at me and nodded.
Like the coward I was, I was too afraid to scream to the others in front of us. What if I was wrong? What if I was right, and the monsters would stop me, or punish me, for warning the others. They had hurt Cole the last time I disobeyed their orders, what if they killed him for my transgression.
No, I would have to live with the hope that, maybe, when we broke from the line, others would follow.
I begged and pleaded with a God I didn’t know, didn’t even really believe in, and with every word that left my lips the things drew back in a rage. One of them rushed forward, screeching loud enough to actually make my ears bleed. After only a moment it retreated.
I kept glancing back, making sure Cole was still following in the chaos. Many people further back had stopped, crouched down, and covered their ears. The monsters, worked up as they were, didn't take kindly to that.
I shivered at the sight I couldn’t avoid, at the much more violent way the creatures dealt with the rule breakers this time.
I turned back to catch Ben’s eye again, and pointed at the fork, only feet away. He nods again, and I see his lips moving with his own drowned out prayer.
I beckoned to Cole, making sure he was watching as we reached the fork. Just as the man ahead was clear, I launched myself to the left, down the empty path, watching over my shoulder to make sure my boys followed.
I breathed a shaky sigh of relief as they cleared the fork and followed behind. When I looked back again, it looked like no one had noticed. They all continued down the certainly doomed path.
The chaos grew louder as we closed the distance to the gate. The creatures grew more frantic. Their bodies shifted from one form to the next with increasing speed. The smoke that had obscured them at the beginning of this nightmare grew thicker as it rolled off them in waves. Their bellows shook the floor, and my heart stopped when I heard Cole stumble and fall.
I turned to see him balling up on the ground, wailing. No, no, no. C’mon kid now is not the time.
Ben and I yelled over the noise, begging and promising bribes. Something in me warned it’s now, or never and our chance was slipping away.
“Cole, come on, there's ice cream waiting for us, you just have to get up and walk,” I shouted, my mouth just inches from his head. “And we can go to the store and buy any new toy you want! Please, God, please make him get up.”
Cole looked up, confused and terrified. I nodded frantically at his questioning gaze.
“Yes, get up, follow Mommy, please baby come on. We can’t stay here. Do you want to stay here? With these scary monsters? Please baby come on,” I begged.
“Be a good boy, Cole, listen to Mommy, and then we can have ice cream and get away from these bad things,” Ben shouts over the noise.
Cole struggled to right himself on the shaking floor, but at last he managed. I turned and almost ran to the gate.
It was closing.
No, no not yet, please not yet, please get him through.
“Go,” Ben shouts from behind our boy, waving frantically at the gate. “Go bud, run!”
The things noticed our position. They tried to
get close to the gate, they tried to snatch us with arms that were increasingly smoke instead of flesh.
But they could not.
My feet cleared the gate, and I turned, ready to catch Cole in my arms.
“Run, run baby, hurry!”
The sound seemed to melt away as I watched his tiny feet step over the threshold. My vision dimmed at the edges as Ben barreled out behind him, just barely squeezing through.
I snatched Cole up in my arms and bolted, Ben hot on my heels. I frantically scanned around the room, suddenly completely new. Metal walls replaced with glass and wood, light no longer the eerie red glow, but the too bright light of a full moon. I heard the screeching of the monsters fading away in the distance as the floor went from metal to grass to carpet and back again.
We ran, and ran, and ran until the black veil that had been closing in on my vision swallowed us.
When I could open my eyes again, I couldn’t make sense of what I saw. Rough, white, almost glowing in warm light…
Ceiling. My ceiling.
I bolted up in bed, and almost screamed when Ben gasped and jumped up too. I clutched at my chest, my racing heart almost painful as we stare each other down.
Cole. He wasn’t in bed with us.
Ben followed my gaze, and leapt up, thundering out the door and down the hall. I follow, almost afraid to check the house and find our son missing.
Ben returned before I caught up, a smile on his face.
“Sleeping peacefully,” he told me, and wrapped an arm around my waist as I went to see for myself.
Sure enough, my precious baby was sound asleep. He looked clean, no tear stains on his face, nor dirt on his clothes. A smile played on his lips as I whispered how much I loved him, how incredible he was, how many toys I would buy him.
I noticed the clock in the kitchen on the way back to our room proclaimed it was 5:30. And the glow out the windows told me we would live to see another day.
A crash from the bedroom almost gave me a heart attack. I rushed into our room, expecting the worst, only to see Ben putting the rifle back on its spot on the wall.
“I tripped… It was laying on the floor by the bed,” he told me.
“Did… that all really happen?” I asked, wanting more than anything to write it off as a fever dream.
But Ben wasn’t a liar. “I think it did.” He dropped the mag on the rifle to show me.
Empty.
I opened the drawer where he kept his glock. The gun was gone. The sound it had made when Ben had chucked it at the monster replays in my head.
My phone lay on the bed, where I had dropped it… before. When I picked it up, there was an odd rattle to it. It wouldn’t turn on. Ben found his own phone on the bedside table, and it, too, rattled like everything inside had been shattered.
The window was fixed, I realized, and no glass coated the bed or floor. We drifted through the house in a daze, mentioning details to each other, hoping we would find a discrepancy to prove it had all been a dream.
“Its still Thursday,” Ben whispers, frowning at his laptop. “But, how..?”
I didn’t want to think about it.
Cole’s soft laughter called my attention, and I looked to see him wobbling out of his room. A huge grin lit up his face when he saw me. My heart melted.
After more kisses and hugs and ‘I love you’s than the boy was willing to put up with, I began to wonder if Cole didn’t remember the night that wasn’t.
Ben and I never forgot.
And we never found the gun.
So if you ever feel a strange feeling, a terror to leave home for no reason? Don’t listen to it! Take a vacation. Get as far away as you can. Run**.**