Shawna

Shawna

Shawna screamed.

Could mommy not hear when she screamed?

The woman floated beside the bed. Red hair fell in a swathe across the alabaster face. Shawna didn’t want to see that face. She couldn’t scream any more. Mommy should have been here by now. Why wasn’t she here?

The woman slowly revolved. Shawna focused on the gap between the bottom of the woman’s skirt and the floor. Where were her feet? Did she not have feet? Her gaze moved slowly upwards. Red eyes pierced the blackness of the room. She lunged for the bedside light switch. Briefly, bright light overcame the dark. The terror. The bulb shattered, piercing her cheek with the violence of its explosive end.

“Mommy,” she whispered.

She couldn’t move. The woman spun. Whirling around the room, with no feet, and mouth gaping blackly, stretched in a silent scream. And then suddenly she was there, hovering horizontally above the bed, face to face with Shawna. She stared into viridian eyes. Eyes of blood set in a face now as black as coal. The coldness of hell engulfed her. Her body shuddered as she tried to jump up. Run away from the thing that now reached a black hand towards her face. But she couldn’t move. All went black.

*

“Lying is bad Shawna.” Mommy angrily swept up the shards of glass. “I can’t afford to buy you another bedside lamp. If you’re going to be throwing things around the room and breaking them you can just go without.”

“But—.”

“There is no such thing as ghosts! Maybe it’s just as well that you broke it. You can’t sleep with the light on every night. Light costs money!”

Shawna realised that she wasn’t alone any more. Something inside her was getting angry.

“And another thing. I need to sleep too. You’re far too big to expect me to come running every time you yell in the middle of the night.”

Shawna grinned down at the back of Mommy’s head, floating above her, light as a feather. She understood now. She had nothing to be scared of any more. It wasn’t her the lady wanted. It was Mommy.

“Mommy.”

“Really Shawna. Just shut—.”

Mommy looked up. The lady smiled.