Black-Eyed Girl

It's half past eleven. The neighborhood's dead, right down to the strays, and you're in a bell jar.

Each sound is trapped in the room: the refrigerator's hum, the TV's drone, your own manual breathing. A great weight shifts, the walls groaning as a shadow passes beneath the blinds.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The cadence is lazy, the sound flat against the wood. Silence pervades, broken only by the TV choking on static. You move to answer, bare feet padding on the cold floor. Through the hall, approaching the front door, jaundiced light filters through the peephole.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

You look through. Distorted by the fisheye lens, a girl stands at the door. Her hair is a dark shag that drapes a pale, symmetrical face. She wears a cropped band shirt under a loose black hoodie, a golden ankh dangling from her neck.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Hey," she begins, vocal fry gritting the word. "I saw your lamp on. It's sooo..." She stretches the syllable as she looks up from her feet to the door. "…dark out here." The sockets are black, as if gouged out, but nothing shows inside. "The hour nears midnight; I pray you now, please let me come inside and rest awhile."

A pressure at the threshold breeds naked, instinctual fear. "Swear I'm not some loser freak," she adds, seeming to catch herself. She flicks a wrist back toward the empty street and proclaims, stepping closer to the door, "The way is long and hard to climb, and I am tired."

It's half past eleven. The neighborhood's dead, right down to the strays, and you're in a bell jar.

Each sound is trapped in the room: the refrigerator's hum, the TV's drone, your own manual breathing. A great weight shifts, the walls groaning as a shadow passes beneath the blinds.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Then a long note of silence.

The TV's picture breaks into static. Just when the visitor seems possible to ignore, your phone buzzes: Motion at Front Door. The live feed loads—grainy, green night vision. The timestamp glitches: 23:31:05... 88:88:88.

A figure stands uncomfortably close to the lens. You can barely distinguish dark hair draped over a pale face. The image distorts around her eyes, showing two lightless open cavities.

"Hey," a voice crackles from the phone, out of sync with the video. "I saw your lamp on. It's sooo..." The audio drones. "...dark out here. The hour nears midnight; I pray you now, please let me come inside and rest awhile."

The audio spikes. "Swear I'm not some loser freak." She doesn't move on the screen, but her posture seems to shift.

She flicks a wrist toward the empty street. The speaker crackles, her voice phasing in and out: "The way is... hard to climb... I am tired."

The engine sputters once, then twice, and it gives up the ghost. You're rolling on momentum, down a switchback between Silverton and Ouray. Tires crunch onto the gravel shoulder as you guide the car to a jerking stop.

The dash clock reads: >11:31 PM

Mountains saw down the night sky into jagged teeth. No service, of course. The radio's all static. As you kill the engine, pressure builds behind your eyes, promising a migraine.

That's when you register motion on the very edge of your headlights, just before they flicker off. Maybe a doe crossing the road. You expect it to bolt. Instead, it comes forward, resolving against the dark curtain of pines.

It's a girl. Almost fashionable, but jeans soiled to the knee like she’s been wading through a tar pit. Her skin is white under the faint starlight. Unhurried, her bare feet make no sound on the gravel.

Before you can think, she’s already there. Delicate fingers press the window, nails gingerly painted black.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Her face presses close, nose nearly against the glass. It takes a moment to make out the sight. She has no eyes. They are perfect, seamless pits, broadening the shadow beneath her brow.

"Hey. Bummer night, right?" Her voice is a soft rustle, yet it sounds perfectly clear inside the cabin. "Can you believe it?" She seems intrigued by the position of the lock.

"From upper light withdraw, and seeks prime darkness to conceal Him, and His thoughts..." A drizzle of rain starts. "I'd rather hide in there with you."