Quickly getting out of her clothes, she put on her nightgown, pulled back the covers, and dove beneath the sheet. So very tired but too early to sleep, once in her bed, she closed her eyes and tried to calm herself with her breathing to relax. Earlier in the evening, before she readied herself for bed, when she was out walking to be alone with her thoughts and to commune with nature, she was already disturbed by the quiet. Unnaturally calm, too unnervingly quiet, she sensed there was something wrong. Knowing that sleep tonight would be elusive, if ever it was to come, just as it was too uncommonly quiet to comfortably sleep, it was too hot.
Sensing evil in the air, the silence and the stillness of the night frightened her. No longer hearing her father and brother, either they went out or they fell asleep. Not wanting to put herself in jeopardy to check, she remained locked in her room. Waiting and listening, finally, she got out of bed and trying not to avoid the steps that creaked, without taking a light with her, went downstairs to stand out on the front porch to get some air. With the dogs locked in the barn sleeping when not killing rats, if there were wolves about looking for food, the dogs would have been barking. Knowing they traveled in packs and seldom traveled alone, she took the rifle with her before stepping out on the front porch to peer through the darkness. Shooting one would frighten off the others.
With her father and brother already drunk and not asleep downstairs, not seeing the shine of a lantern, obviously they were out wandering the grounds in the dark drunk again. Sometimes, especially when drinking, neither one of them had the sense enough that God gave them to stay indoors and just go to bed. Especially as drunk as they were, it was dangerous to prowl around the farm without a light and a gun. Not knowing nor caring where they were and what they were doing, she figured they may have been in the barn and left the barn door open. Hoping they'd be struck by lightning, when she saw the first flash of lightning in the distance, she was glad she'd soon be safe inside and in her bed again. She feared an impending lightning and thunder storm coming that would spook the horses. Before she went upstairs to bed, Mother Nature's nightlight, the moonlight allowed her to see that the distant barn doors were secured and the horses were safely inside.
As if there was a hawk soaring high above her in the sky, no doubt looking for a late, night meal, her early warning device much in the way of an alert dog barking, it was too late in the evening for the cawing and cackling cacophony of crows to be a noisy nuisance that foretold of someone or something approaching. Without the chatter of squirrels, the rustle of rats, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, turtles, and the noise of ducks and geese to alert her, it was so unearthly quiet that even the crickets would have been an intrusively loud welcome but they were quiet too. So weirdly quiet, it seemed that every animal, reptile, bird, and insect was asleep or knew enough to hide from the approaching weather but her.
"It's so quiet. Where do they all go? Maybe they're all smart enough to hide below ground or up in the trees. There's so much to learn from nature if observant enough to see," she said for no one to hear.
She returned safely inside, closed the front door with the unsettling feeling of being watched, and climbed the stairs for bed again. Just in case her father and/or brother returned and tried to climb in her bed as they'd tried to do before, she pushed her dresser against her door again. She couldn't have been asleep for more than a an hour or two when she heard the scream. Wanting to fall back to sleep but sensing there was something wrong, fearing that she may be in danger, she struggled to open her eyes. As if she dreamt herself screaming, as if she was having a bad dream, the noise awakened her in a fright.
"What the Hell was that? It sounded like a scream."
Already on edge with the unearthly quiet before, even though she was exhausted from working hard all day, the mystery of not knowing if it was a scream she heard and, if it was, where the scream emanated from would surely keep her awake. Being that it was so very quiet again now, did she really hear a scream or did she imagine it? Was it a dream or was it real? Hoping to hear the scream again for her to make out what it was and where it had come from, she sat up in bed while waiting to hear it again.
Not making a sound, not even breathing, she intently listened. Asleep when she heard it, she heard something but what did she hear? Was it a screech or a scream? Was it animal or human? Maybe Mr. Owl perched outside her window in the tree swooped down to catch another rat. Hiding in the hay, rats had the run of the barn and the cornfield whenever the dogs weren't killing them. Maybe the cat played with a mouse downstairs in the kitchen. Whatever it was and wherever it was, what was it? She didn't know. Even though she quietly listened, even though it fell so stilly silent outside for her to hear, she didn't hear the scream again.
Waiting to hear it, listening intently while remaining awake not to miss it, it was quiet again now, too quiet, as quiet as it was before, and now she was wide awake listening for the noise she heard. Too early to get up, she wondered what time it was. Too tired to start her day, she wondered what had awakened her. Too frightened to go back to sleep, she stayed in her bed listening, thinking, and peering out her window while trying to see what or who was out there at this late hour. Too tired to get up and too afraid to walk around in the dark again, she remained positive that the noise was nothing more than a bad dream. Unable to kid herself that what she heard wasn't real, she gave in to her suspicions, suppositions, and premonitions to imagine the worst by fearing the most horrible.
"Who's out there? There's something or someone out there. I just know it. I can feel it," she said to herself for no one to hear.
Knowing that rain was inevitable before, raining now, it had started raining sometime during the night. Even by the light of the full moon and the occasional flash of lightning in the far distance, the thin fog as if a sheer curtain that concealed the evil that lurked outside, veiled the landscape to make it more difficult for her to see out her rain speckled bedroom window. Normally it was so dark outside anyway, as dark outside as it was dark inside her bedroom, especially this time of the early morning, before the morning's first light and before the clockwork like crow of the rooster. Even with the light of the full moon, it was still too dark to identify nature's dark and scary shadows.
With her face pressed against the cool, wavy glass of her bedroom window, the scary shadows she saw made her wonder if there were ghosts and/or monsters lurking about her father's farmland. Maybe there were bandits and marauders out and about hoping to kidnap her, strip her naked, and make her do whatever they sexually so desired. As sexually excited as she was frightened by a bandit or marauder kidnapping her and forcing her to do all sorts of sexual things, she closed her eyes hoping to have a sexual fantasy while fingering her nipples and touching herself beneath the covers.
Reassuring her fright by trying to fall back to sleep while blocking out the deafening silence, she took some big breaths of bravery. She tried to calm her feelings of foreboding by convincing herself that what she heard was just her imagination and just a bad dream. Besides, after what she's already witnessed by seeing how tragically her mother's been so abused, after all that she's experienced being beaten, and after all that she's suffered being brutalized herself at the hands of her father and her brother, she knew that she needed to fear the living more than the dead. Much more monstrous, men were much more frightening than ghosts.
To be continued...
