Pulling up under the dim streetlamp, I leave the car engine running. The air is so cold that my breath soon fogs up the windows, so I wind the driver’s side down to see out.
Mia’s not waiting outside. She usually waits on the veranda.
I glance at the house. The lounge room window is lit with flickering lights and crawling shadows. Faceless, amorphous figures stretch out across the window like other – worldly ghouls, projected from the television.
Turning the engine off, I leave the keys in the ignition, open the car door and walk toward the house, cutting across the lawn. There’s an early dew, and I feel the spray of water droplets against my ankles with each step.
As I reach the front door I see it’s ajar. There are no lights on inside, aside from the quivering disembodied television images that stretch into the entry.
Feeling down inside the architrave, I find the light switch, and flick it on.
Instantly I have the sense of being watched. I’m conscious that I’m silhouetted by the backlight.
The air seems to thin, and I can’t suck enough oxygen in. I’m breathing shallow breaths as if I’m slowly freezing. A feeling of unreality steals over me, like time has slowed down and sped up at the same time.
“Mia?”
“Mia!”
There’s no answer. The only sound is from the television set, which seems to be stuck on a loop; a woman pleading, then whispering, then screaming.
I feel drawn into the house at the same time as wanting to run, but I can’t stand the noise of the screaming and pleading and whispering any longer.
I can’t hear myself think above the noise of it, and somehow the volume seems to be rising.
Walking into the lounge I reach out to turn the television off at the set.
I look at the woman on the screen, and the woman looks back at me and screams.
“Mia?”
She pleads with me, and whispers, and screams, and pleads and whispers and screams again. Her eyes are frantic with fear.
I want to reach her, reach in and grasp hold of her, pull her out. I touch the screen hoping to drag her through, but it’s as hard and unyielding as marble. I feel like a fog is seeping into my mind, the synapses are failing to connect; I’m splintering.
I don’t know how to help her, and the feeling of being watched gnaws at me.
Pushing the power button off, I see Mia sucked into a single pixel before the screen turns black.
I leave Mia, I leave her.
Running back to the car, I climb in and feel for the ignition. The keys are gone.
The fog thickens around me inside the car. The air is heavy, it feels like a stranger pressing against me, engulfing me softly.
And I have the feeling of being watched.