splintering wood as the chair broke under force and pressure . There was a loud smashing sound as the door handle collided with the wall . Finally , amidst the noise of dust and wood particles settling , there was the gentle sound of feet padding across the bedroom ' s hard floor , all the way up to the closet door .
“ Ernest ,” said the voice outside the closet . “ Let me in . You have to let me in .”
Through the moonlight , Ern could see the creature ' s silhouette through the shutters . Like its hand earlier , it was human , but wrong . It loomed taller than any person Ern had ever seen , and its head seemed too round , almost spherical , completely devoid of hair . It was as if the being had been sculpted by someone who ' d only had a second-hand account of what a human was supposed to look like .
The creature didn ' t try to open the door . Through the shutters , Ern could feel its eyes watching him , boring into him . It knew where he was , and this time it knew he had nowhere left to run . It was simply waiting for him to open the door .
Ern glanced down at the shotgun still in his hands . There was still one buckshot left to be fired . As he glanced up at the creature ' s shadowy form looming over him from the other side of the doorway , Ern placed the end of the barrel in his mouth , determined to make the last shot count .
16
Quinn Graham is an emerging fiction author living in Georgetown Ontario . He has a B . A . in creative writing from York University .