Visitation

It was not really that obvious, not at first anyway. The dark was deep and seemed almost heavy as though the night had dropped some heavy black blanket over the room, letting its folds fall into the corners to create a thicker darkness.

I could sense something was wrong though, how I do not know. Maybe it was some old pre-civilisation preservation instinct.

‘Shit!’ It is funny how, in the quiet heart of the night a whisper can be as loud as a shout.

Now my eyes widened and I could see movement. I had thought maybe a burglar or some other miscreant when I first awoke feeling as though there was someone in my bedroom, but that had been a woman’s voice.

There was a rattle as she knocked something over, obviously not expecting there to be a pile of books in the middle of the bedroom floor. The books clattered across the bare floorboards.

I turned the light on.

There was no-one there.

There wasn’t much in the room, after all I’d only moved into the cottage that morning and most of the furniture had not arrived yet due to some bugger-up at the removals firm, but there was a wardrobe, the bed and piles of books on the floor.

I got out of bed, feeling the cool air on my naked body. I pulled open the wardrobe doors.

It was empty, except for the suit and the shirts of course.

I looked around the room. The pile of books had been kicked over, I had not imagined it.

Also there was an old carpet tack, sitting up at an odd angle on one of the bare floorboards, and a trail of blood spots between the tack and the book pile.

The room though was empty. I picked up my trousers from the floor, pulled them on and opened the bedroom door. I paused and went back to pick up my golfing umbrella – not that I play golf of course, but I walk a lot - and crept out on the landing, following the trail of blood spots that….

The spots just stopped about three steps from my bedroom door, just disappeared. I took a firmer grip on the umbrella and started down the stairs.