The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

What’s Inside Number 9?
by Alyson Faye 

The bike – the bloody bike, still there, never moves. Why would they leave such an expensive bike behind?

Petra’s thoughts ran along the same mental tramway tracks daily. OK, the tenants at number 9 had done a midnight flit, or so the gossip went. But Petra, their neighbour at number 8, was having trouble buying into that.

That bike had been Mike’s pride and joy, and they really hadn’t seemed like the sort of couple who’d pack up and run. It was as if they’d vanished into the night, leaving behind their gear – and the precious bike.

Petra felt her own aloneness and isolation – intensely. After the messy break up with her ex, who’d also abducted their cat, she felt abandoned. Numbers 5 and 6 were summer homes and empty in the chill, grey months. There was only old Mr Janus at the very end of the mews terrace, deaf and prone to bouts of vagueness.

Since number 8’s departure Petra had started hearing noises through the shared wall. In the wary, mean post-midnight hours as she lay wakeful she’d hear tentative steps, whispers, and a low staticky hum, which reminded her of bees hovering around a flowering shrub. She had bizarre dreams featuring a bee-man riding a bike, humming, and eating honey.

Snap out of it. You’re being fanciful.

That autumn evening as Petra trudged home, laden with shopping, dusk was creeping in from the nearby woods, accompanied by an undernourished mist. She shivered as she pushed the key in the lock.

Home alone – again. Oh goody. Another evening of Netflix and cleaning.

She postponed going to bed, did a hundred unnecessary jobs, and only when tiredness threatened to overwhelm her did Petra finally climb the stairs to the sole bedroom.

Despite her weariness, sleep proved elusive. Petra lay, clenching teeth and fists, straining to hear . . . first – the pipes in the bathroom gurgling, a cat outside yowling, a car in the mid-distance vrooming past, but then it started ‘ . . . zzz . . . zzz . . . shh . . . brrm . . . P . . . p . . etra . . .’

Petra sat bolt upright, fumbling for the bedside lamp and the blessed halo of light. ‘Who’s that?’ Her right hand knocked the lamp over. ‘Bloody hell!’ Her spine tingled with the knowledge of a presence on the other side of the wall.

‘Z z z  . . . P . . . etra . . .  join us  . . .’

‘What? Who are you?’

Petra pulled the duvet up to her chin, and felt the susurration at her shoulders throbbing behind the shared wall.

‘Go away!’

The wall began to grow warm, the creamy plaster glowed amber, a web of cracks splintered and through them poured  – a sticky yellow substance. When the jelly touched her Petra was consumed by an intense warmth and all her anxiety faded away. Memories flooded her brain.

‘Mum?’ she asked, drowsy now. ‘Is that you?’

She was reminded of long, hot summer days walking with her late mother, blowing dandelion clocks, making daisy chains, eating toast and honey for tea, and never being alone, always feeling loved.  She wanted to be loved again so much  . . . and to sleep like a child does – tired out, happy, innocent.

‘Zzzz . . . join us . . . s – sleep . . .’

The golden liquid, sticky as syrup, laden with toxins, seeped into Petra’s hair, over her bare arms, into her eyes, sealing them tight shut. A light snore escaped her lips, before they too were glued silent. Soon her whole body was drenched in the jelly, along with the bed, the covers and some of the carpet.

The wall cracked open wider, forced apart by spindly, black arms and legs, far too many to count, armed with brutal bristles.

They entered Number 8 just as they had number 9  . . . and began to feed.

Fiction © Copyright Alyson Faye
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from Alyson Faye:

The Lost Girl & Spindleshanks

The Lost Girl
A nailed-up door. An inheritance which comes with a ghost. A missing girl. A fifty-year-old mystery. Parapsychologist Berkley Osgood is hired to investigate. What he uncovers reveals secrets the living want to hide and the dead will never forgive.

Spindleshanks
Adam is having nightmares about a skeletal shadow figure, who he calls Spindleshanks. Soon his whole class are sharing the same nightmare. Adam’s dad, Rob, knows that Spindleshanks can’t be real. But is he? One terrible night Rob has to face his son’s nightmare creature and fight for his son’s life. What would you sacrifice to have your child back safe?

“A decent two-for-one. Alyson Faye brings the engaging and eerie in equal measure.” CC Adams – horror / dark fiction author

Available on Amazon!