sj mcmahon writes

When I was growing up my family moved to a small back to back terraced house. Our new home was in a row of similarly appointed houses, set in a bland little street of a banal small town. In some ways the house suited our family dynamic. We were all in need of calm and quiet.
I was given one of the two attic rooms to occupy, with the other room being by taken by my two younger brothers. Their room was south facing and had a large dormer window. It flooded the room with soft warmth on sunny days.
My room was served poorly by a small rooflight set into the pitch of the roof. The glass within in had a grid of grey wire, which only served to add to the gloom. I was however afforded shifting sky views as the day morphed from pinky reds to bright blues or dull greys depending on what the weather painted upon it. If I dragged over the chair from my study area and stood upon it, I could just about see rows of slate roofing of the other terraces that ran down the hill from our house.
The previous occupants had seen fit to paint the walls and the sloping ceiling of my room a colour I could only described as prison cell grey. The floor had been lain with a dark flecked carpet that made my bare feet tingle when I stepped upon it.
We had all laughed at the decor, with my parents saying that I would be sent to my cell when I misbehaved. They had promised to repaint the room a more fitting colour but thus far no paint had been purchased. So, my room remained a dull granite box, which I did my best to enliven with a mishmash of posters and pictures cut from magazines. I arranged my many ornaments in colourful tableaus and made sure I had the most brightly coloured bedding from the airing cupboard. However, the room remained steadfastly sombre.
Along one side of the room, where the roof sloped to meet the eaves was a crawlspace. This was accessed by a small door, also painted the dominant grey, and set with a firmly closed latch on its outer face. The latch was overly large for such a small door and I had been struck by the oddness of its appearance from the first moment I had stepped into the room,
I would often place a finger and thumb on the latch, applying a little pressure as if to open it, before retreating to the opposite side of the room. Here I would lie on my bed the better to thoughtfully regard to the door.  
The first few weeks in our new home passed uneventfully. Of course, we unpacked and arranged our belongs in a manner to suit each of us but nothing that could be called unusual happened.
It was only after we had lived there for at least 3 months that I became aware that there was something different here.  
I had been awoken early one morning. The turning light still grey through my skylight added nothing to the temperature of my room. As had become habit, I looked to the small locked door. Of course, I saw nothing but the dark outline of the opening in the wall.
Then a sound. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Just like that. Three times. Then, when you thought it had ended, three such scrapping noises would repeat, again and again. It was like something sharp was being slowly dragged along the wooden boards that lined the crawlspace. I held my breath, willing the sounds to stop.
Scratch, scratch, scratch,
Finally, I couldn’t stand it no more and I crept from my bed, full of fear, to press my ear to the tiny wooden door.
All was still. All was quiet.
Had I dreamed it? I thought it must be so, yet from that point on, night after night I was awoken by those noises. In the dark they echoed in the hollow crawlspace, as if beckoning me to discover their origin. They seemed to have found their way inside me and I spent my waking hours pondering their meaning. I was repeatedly reprimanded at my lessons for my lack of attention and was found to be distant by my family. That sound was all I could think of. Yet I remained too afraid to open the crawlspace door.
I became reclusive. I did not wish to be in my room, yet I found it hard to leave it. My family came to cajole me, to hug and beg me to join them in our bright warm kitchen or the cosy living room. My brothers brought games to play with me, but I refused them all. Each time I would decline and turn my head away, to continue my vigil. I asked them to leave me be. Eventually their visits reduced and food and clean bedding would be left outside my room door. I needed only to listen for that dreaded sound.  To be on guard for it. Scratch, scratch, scratch.
I became unsure how long my self-imposed captivity had extended and could only judge the turning of the days, by the washing of tones across my rooflight.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Finally, I could take it no more. With shaking fingers, I unclasped the lock, pushing open the crawlspace door.
A wash of stale air shrouded my head as I peered in to the darkness before me. I inched my head and shoulders forward, allowing myself time to adjust to the gloom of this dead space. Slowly I swivelled myself left and right to survey the full length of this narrow hidden slice of our home.
Nothing, I saw nothing. How could that be? The sound. It had to come from some source in here. I simply must discern what was making that awful sound.
I took a deep breath and pushed my body forward, to crouch awkwardly in the tiny gap. One end of the crawlspace was longer than the other and now I was inside I was sure that there was a dark mounded shape to the furthest end. Despair and fear raged a battle inside me, but I had to find out the truth. I had to know. I inched my way inside the crawlspace, away from the door.
The air seemed denser in there. Thick with warm, cloying dust. I felt weakened by it, my head cloudy, as a sudden intense headache took hold.
A flash of movement.
Something, was upon me. I saw dark shapes wrapping themselves around my limbs. The flash of sharp slender forms that embedded themselves within me. I tried to fight it, but could not move. The breath was being pulled from me and then my eyes were forcefully held closed. A roaring pressure filled my ears and then an unexpected quiet.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Now. my fingers ache with the repetition of it. Yet I am compelled to do it. It must be repeated over and over again, for someday, someone will open the door to me.
 SJ McMahon 2018. ©