Night Things: A Novel of Supernatural Terror by Michael Talbot Page B

next morning when Garrett felt a hand close upon his shoulder he screamed and somersaulted out of bed. It was only his mother.
    “Good Lord, Garrett, what is it?” she asked, her eyes wide with alarm.
    He blinked as he looked confusedly around the room. He half expected to see the thing still standing in the doorway, but instead his eyes were met with the brilliance of the early-morning sun streaming through the window. He was so relieved day had finally come it that it took several seconds for him to realize his mother was still waiting for him to explain.
    “Last night something came into my room!” The words fairly flew out of his mouth.
    She frowned. “What do you mean, something came into your room?”
    “Last night in the middle of the night something opened my door and came into my room.”
    She looked at him skeptically. “You mean someone came into your room? A person?”
    He shook his head as he tried to find the right words to describe his experience. “No, not a person really. I mean, it looked like a person, a man, only instead of being made out of skin and stuff it looked like he was made out of a cloud of black smoke.”
    Her expression became slightly annoyed as she started to make his bed. “Are you sure it wasn’t Stephen? Maybe Stephen looked in on you last night.”
    This time it was Garrett’s turn to be skeptical. Even ignoring the preposterousness of the notion that Stephen might care enough about his welfare to look in on him during the night, the thing had clearly not been Stephen.
    “I told you, it was a man who looked like he was made out of black smoke. He didn’t even seem to have a face. Besides, he was a lot taller than Stephen. And bigger too.” She stopped making the bed. “Then it must have been a dream.”
    “No, it wasn’t a dream!” he insisted.
    His obstinacy finally got to her, and she swung around angrily. “Then what are you telling me? That you saw a ghost or some kind of creature from outer space?”
    The question took Garrett off-guard, and he considered it with some seriousness. It had not occurred to him that the figure might have been a ghost, for in his mind ghosts were white and translucent and gave off light. His nocturnal visitor had been unghostlike in these respects. Could the thing have come from a UFO? But just as he was about to consider this possibility, he saw how upset she was becoming. He wanted desperately to convince her of the reality of his experience—the prospect of spending another night in the house without her knowing about its presence seemed unthinkable. But on the other hand, the fear in her eyes reminded him just a little too much of the way she had reacted to his dinner conversation the night before, and this was something he wanted to avoid at all costs. He mulled over his options and then finally, reluctantly, he acquiesced. “No, it wasn’t a ghost or anything. I guess it was only a bad dream.”
    Her relief was visible. “Of course it was,” she said as she resumed making the bed. She even began to hum, and when she finished she said brightly, “Now go wash your face and hands and hurry and get dressed.”
    “Why?”
    She smiled even more broadly as she tousled his hair. “Because I’m making your favorite breakfast. I’m making pancakes.”
    Although Lauren was certain his experience had been a dream, his description of the thing bothered her. An entity made out of a cloud of black smoke just did not seem like something a child would spontaneously come up with, and by the time Stephen came out of his shower and put on a bright-blue velour robe, she felt compelled to tell him about it.
    “Garrett just said something a little strange,” she said. “What’s that?” Stephen asked as he looked in the mirror and fluffed his curls so they would dry properly.
    “He said something came into his room last night.”
    He knitted his brow. “What came into his room?”
    “He said it looked like a man made out of black