Free Supernatural: Night Terror by John Passarella Page A

waking world, he was unaware of the shadow-hand and fingers pressed to his forehead. He was equally oblivious to the creature of darkness taking form over his bed. The creature’s head continued to solidify, with glowing red eyes pulsing in its sunken cheeks. Beneath a long, malformed nose, its mouth opened wide to reveal a row of black, fanglike teeth. As the young boy moaned in distress, the creature hissed in delight.
    Outside the boy’s bedroom window, a rush of wind pummeled the house. The white oak’s branches heaved up, and dropped, twisted and shook, flailed in the night, striking the house’s siding, scraping the windowsill and rapping against the windowpanes with a ragged drumbeat of persistence.
    When a branch struck the window with enough force to crack it, the shadowy creature emitted a gurgling hiss of satisfaction and withdrew its hand from the boy’s forehead.
    Daniel’s head whipped to the side and a startled cry escaped his lips. A moment later, he awoke and pushed himself up from the tangled bedcovers as if he were coming up for air. Staring across the dark room, without even the benefit of the nightlight’s meager glow, he called for his mother again.
    Behind him, the shadowy form lost its cohesion, thinning to irregular splotches of darkness that climbed up the wall and slid across the other shadows, once again invisible and unknowable.
    “Mom!”
    This time his father came down the hall and pushed the door open. Even in the best of times, Daniel’s father had less patience for his nighttime fears than his mother. Daniel hung his head, ready to apologize despite the feeling of dread that kept his heart racing.
    “Daniel, your mother asked me to come up here,” his father said, standing at the foot of the bed, arms across his chest. “You need to stop this nonsense.”
    “I’m scared.”
    “It’s just a storm. You don’t—”
    “The tree broke the window.”
    “What?”
    “Look!”
    But Daniel’s father had already crossed to the window to assess the damage.
    “You’re right. It’s cracked. Hard to see.” Daniel’s father walked over to the doorway and flicked on the light switch. Nothing happened. He tried again. “Try your lamp.”
    The wind gusted and rattled the house. Outside the damaged window, the tree branches danced in the wind.
    Daniel leaned over and tried his bedside lamp to no effect.
    “Broken,” he said.
    “No. Looks like we’ve lost power.”
    His father returned to the window, ran his hand along the crack.
    “Okay,” he said and turned back to face Daniel. “I’ll put some tape on this. Tomorrow, I’ll trim the branches so they don’t—”
    Suddenly the wind howled with renewed ferocity and a thick branch thrust forward, shattering the window with a loud crash. Daniel jumped out of bed with a cry of alarm. Then he noticed his father hunched over, making choking noises as he tried to say something.
    “Gah—gah—guhgh!”
    For a moment, Daniel’s imagination tried to fill in the blanks. He thought his father had grown a third arm—that it had sprouted from the center of his chest and was dripping on the floor. But as he took a step toward his father in the dark room, the true nature of the shape became apparent. The branch had come through the window and speared his father, whose blood was now running down the length of the branch and dripping all over the floor.
    “Dad...”
    His father’s head rolled to the side, almost resting on his shoulder. Blood leaked from his mouth, forming little bubbles that spread like foam across his chin.
    “Dad!”
    The house shook, vibrating beneath Daniel’s feet.
    Outside the window, the white oak seemed to heave against the house, all its branches surging upward. Daniel’s father was lifted by the branch that had impaled him, up to his tiptoes, and held swaying there. His gleaming eyes seemed to stare at Daniel, even as his head flopped from side to side. Hands that had grasped the bloody tree branch now fell