This is a Hallowe'en story inspired by Welsh traditions and folklore.
There are some lines of Welsh spoken, but it will be either translated or contextualised.
It won't matter if you don't know any Welsh, but I wouldn't recommend trying to pronounce it.
Please enjoy.
===
Evan awoke to the sound of fireworks. They had been going off for weeks in the lead up to Bonfire Night.
Remember, remember, the fifth of November
. Not much chance of forgetting. That was still a few days away, but tonight was as good a reason as any to set them off: Hallowe'en.
That was if he hadn't slept through it already. What time was it?
Explosions of green and red lit up the room, and Evan remembered with a groan that he was still at the office. He had fallen asleep at his desk. Again.
He nudged the mouse and his monitors lit up. His movements activated the motion sensors, and the strip lights in his section of the office flickered into life too. He was alone. The clock in the bottom corner of his monitor told him it was 19:27. He had made coffee little more than half an hour ago so he couldn't have been asleep all that long. The coffee sat untouched and cold amid a teetering stack of paperwork to his side.
He wondered again if it was worth working so many late nights if he was just going to fall asleep and not get any work done. It didn't help that when he did drag himself home to bed, a decent night's sleep eluded him. More often, he would lie awake for hours, unable to settle.
When he did sleep, he had the nightmare. Nothing as common as turning up late for work or being naked in front of a crowd. He longed for something so simple. No, in his nightmare he was stalked by a creature, a monster, and not some unseen figment in his peripheral vision that his unconscious mind merely convinced itself was there. He saw it. It was a pig. A bizarre, enormous, hairy black sow. It had huge, curved tusks, one of which was broken. It was covered in scars, and it was missing its tail. It had fire in its eyes, and smoke leaked from the corners of its mouth. It looked the same every time, it made itself known to him, and then it hunted him relentlessly until he woke up.
The dream probably lasted a matter of seconds in the final moments of sleep, but Evan felt like it consumed the whole night and, fed by fatigue, he carried the fear with him in the day too. A chill ran down his spine and he glanced around the office as another volley of fireworks illuminated his surroundings. He was still alone, but the shadows at the far end of the open plan office space were ominous and deep. Time to go home. He gulped the cold cup of coffee and set about wrapping up what little extra work he had achieved.
After shuffling the papers on his desk into piles that would cause him the least anxiety the following morning, Evan closed half a dozen spreadsheets, then took a deep breath before clicking back to his e-mails. There was an automated corporate communication that he deleted with barely a glance and some satisfaction, and nothing else worth wasting any time over. The only other open mail was one that had lived in his Drafts folder for years, that he stared at wistfully from time to time. It was his resignation, and it hinted at a life where he didn't work late and fall asleep at his desk. He still remembered a time when he had liked his job though, only his workload had seemed to continue growing as long as he had worked there. He gave his resignation serious consideration on particularly difficult days -- more frequently, it seemed, of late -- but he usually convinced himself that the status quo was preferrable. That was, on those occasions where he did not simply become so distracted by the work that he forgot
the e-mail altogether. He sighed and closed it.
As he tried to log off, his computer started installing updates. Typical. Still, better to sort now, than deal with it in the morning. Deciding to wash out his coffee cup while the computer did its thing, Evan made his way across the office space, the motion-controlled lights chasing away the shadows as he went.
The office opened into a reception area where lifts and stairs led to a lobby and five floors of similar offices below, and one above. The top floor of the building was built as a wide, open conference space that could be used as needed by the businesses in the building but stood empty most of the time. Evan's colleagues often took their breaks up there and mingled with the building's other employees. Evan did not take many breaks. He could hear music and voices drifting faintly out of the stairwell. One of the other businesses must be hosting a Hallowe'en party. Evan supposed that was a better reason to still be in the building at this time.
He entered the small kitchenette off to one side, washed and dried his cup, and stowed it in a cupboard. Then he splashed water on his face, which did no worse at waking him up than the coffee had.
He strode back out towards his desk and was halfway across the space before he realised that the lights had clicked off and were not coming back on. He looked around. It wasn't fully dark thanks to a few lights shining in through the windows from neighbouring buildings, but it seemed the air outside was thick with smoke from fireworks, and no more bright explosions were forthcoming. Inside, the shadows closed in, deeper and more unnerving than before. At first, he thought the power had cut out, but across the room his computer monitors glowed dimly like a lighthouse in fog. Evan had slowed, but not stopped walking. Lights or no lights, he needed to get back to his desk before he could leave. His keys, phone and wallet were in the pockets of his jacket which hung over the back of his chair.
He made his way more carefully between the desks. His eyes should have been adjusting to the low light, but it seemed to be getting even darker. Surely, it was his imagination. Working too late and getting too little sleep had him all but jumping at shadows. As he neared his workstation, his monitors clicked off, and the last glimmer of light disappeared.
Evan stopped instinctively. The darkness was accompanied by a deep silence. He considered calling out, but he suddenly thought about being in the nightmare, opening his mouth but unable to make a sound. He was awake now. If he was dreaming, he wouldn't be thinking about dreaming, but he kept his mouth shut.
Evan stood staring into the dark. The silence was so complete that the sound of his own breathing was deafening. It seemed to be coming from all around him. As he started to edge closer to his desk, the sound got louder. He felt uneasy but was not exerting himself. When he gulped down one deep breath, he finally realised that the loud breathing surrounding him was not his own. Something else was here. Some
one
, surely, rather than some
thing
. Perhaps someone from the upstairs party playing a drunk Hallowe'en prank.
Evan took another deep breath and was about to call out when two small lights appeared in the darkness behind his desk. They flickered like candle flames, but they looked to Evan like something that he was all too familiar with. Something they couldn't be. Something that literally kept him awake at night. The flaming eyes of a nightmare.
There was an explosion of fireworks outside, and everything lit up. Evan flinched. The pig did not. The room was bathed in a multitude of colours, but the light that touched the hairy, black hide of the hideous creature seemed to be swallowed up, making it look more like a shadow. But it was there. Evan's mind raced, and his heart pounded. Now, his breathing was loud, but didn't begin to cover up the horrific snarling emanating from the monster before him.
Evan stumbled backwards, then turned and stumbled forwards. Behind him, the creature let out a sickening squeal. When Evan found his footing, he ran.
He hurtled across the office as fast as he could with the darkness closing in once more around him. Afraid to even slow down, much less stop, Evan ignored the lifts and followed the sliver of light peeking out from the side as he crashed into the dimly lit stairwell. He should have headed down. He should have leaped from landing to landing to the bottom and got out of the building, but he wasn't thinking clearly, if at all. The stairs right in front of him presented a different choice. He went up.
He took the steps two at a time. He didn't dare to look behind, but as he turned across the first landing, he caught sight of the black mass filling the space below. Even with his pulse pounding in his ears, he could still hear it clambering up behind him, and that putrid smoke spewed from its mouth and nostrils with every grunt and snort.
Almost falling over the last step, Evan burst through the door onto the top floor. The reception area here was separated from the conference space that could be entered by a double door. Evan was alone in the space and the doors were closed, with the sounds of the party muted on the other side. Evan stopped, not knowing how to proceed because, of all things, he hadn't been invited to the party. If he ran into the room and wasn't followed by a huge demon pig, he would look like a lunatic. If it did follow him, he might get a whole room of people mauled, or eaten, or whatever the hell the thing wanted to do to him.
