1. Snowstorm
Midnight. Dark. Quiet. That was all I really knew of the situation. It’s the only
problem with living in the middle of nowhere, if the shit hits the fan you’re the last to know
and the last to get helped. That was exactly what had happened; the shit had hit the fan,
and hit it bad, the incoming snowstorm had blown…no…beaten down the power line,
resulting in a dead phone and no light. That’s what the little news man on the radio said
anyway; thank god I’d kept my wind up radio, it was a pain winding it up every half an hour
but at least I had some connection to the outside world.
Being blind felt unreal, almost disorientating. My senses heightened due to the
hidden world around me, ok well it took a while I kept tripping over my feet on the staircase
blindly groping for the rail. Was that me? It felt like I was pushed. I could hear things I never
did before; the owl’s lonely cry, the wind whipping past the window, past the back of my
neck…past the back of my neck? I could have sworn I shut all the windows. The bitter cold
wind blew my hair around in a frenzy, exposing the bare skin on the back of my neck to the
icy cold touch of winter. The shiver slithered across my neck and touched my shoulder. I
jumped. That felt like a hand. The feel was unmistakable; the light-weight slender touch my
Grandmother had but the hand was too small, more like a child’s.
I ran across to the window and bolted it shut, which was when I heard a creaking
sound coming from above. I manoeuvred around the umbrella stand downstairs and blindly
reached out for the staircase rail. I felt the cold chill on the back of my neck again, but was
determined to ignore it as I knew I had just shut the window so I was imagining it, right? I
walked calmly up the creaky stairs, the large cottage seemed to moan and sigh with its old
age. My Grandmother had left this place in her will to me and with her passing I took over to
preserve its antiqueness, not the ideal home but it had its charms. Or at least it did, it
doesn’t seem the same anymore, it feels like all the happiness in the world has been sucked
out and every last drop of hope has diminished.
Time seemed to elapse so slowly, five minutes felt like thirty, and every moment I
felt more and more vulnerable. I had no torch, I had no watch, I had no hope. Once I’d made
my way upstairs I felt along the wall of the landing listening intently to the creaking noise.
The further I went down the louder it got, till I reached the final room at the end of the
corridor. I desperately tried the doorknob to no avail, my mind started to run crazy but then
the creaking stopped. I turned around and started to feel my way back when I heard
another creak; I spun back round suddenly and with suspense gripping me tightly, almost
choking me, I made my way back to the door. I felt the door knob again but slipped, my
hand should have hit the door but it went straight through. The door was open?
I pushed the door fully open and edged in slowly gripping onto the door frame. The
creaking sound flourished again, I’d never felt so frightened in my life. I couldn’t see a

2. bloody thing, only listen. I used the noise as a guide and managed to make it over to the
other side of the room; I felt a tapping by my foot and reached down shaking slowly to find
something moving. It felt wooden, rough, aged. The harsh creaking had subsided again so I
felt safe to feel my way up taking in its surface till I got to a large rounded bit, then further
up long extended bits, and right at the top individual bars connected at the top by a long
surface. It felt like a rocking chair. Grandmother never had a rocking chair…creeeeeak. The
creaking came back full force, pounding away inside my ears, inside my mind. I was still
grasping onto the chair when I felt it move involuntarily, then bam. I went flying over to the
other side of the room and hit the wall, slumping onto the floor.
I cuddled my legs up and cradled my aching head on them, trying to block everything
out. I felt around the wall and the floor to try and find something to stable me to get up.
Thud. What was that? Thud. A thudding sound was creeping ever closer towards me. I
panicked and fell back down onto the floor. That’s when I felt it. Underneath. Before I had
time to stifle a scream an anguished voice bellowed out from all four corners of the room,
ringing in my ears with its pain. I pegged it. That’s all I could do. My head was spinning,
playing tricks on me, surely? Out the room, down the hall way, down the stairs; I tripped
again and went tumbling full force down half a flight of stairs. I lay there panting, gasping for
breath. I meekly lifted my arm up and reached out across the floor to feel for the umbrella
stand to help me get up onto my feet. Got it. I pushed down hard as I tried to push myself
up.
Fuck. A surging pain shot up my right leg from my ankle; I must have twisted it in the
fall. I shrank back onto my knees and started to cry. I heard in the distance a faint clicking
noise and then a crackling. I lay on my front and shuffled along on my elbows to the living
room where I groped out in front of me to find my radio. White noise, that’s what the noise
had been. There was another sound though, a voice. Had the signal connected back to the
news? No. It came loud and clear…the screaming sound from earlier. The front door at that
moment burst open and I felt something grasp onto my ankle. I shrieked in pain and yelled
for help, but no one was there, no one at all. No matter how hard I tried to fight and hold
on, it was just no use. I was dragged screaming and clawing into the night, into the
snowstorm.
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