It later came to be known, at least by her friends and family, that October 26, 2000 was Naomi's last day as a human. The drive home from the campus was a long one. It was pitch black out, as it often was this time of year. Suspended above the horizon, a full moon shone bright, unfiltered light gleaming on the road in front of her. The trees cast dark, eerie shadows. Their gnarly weathered branches, like old clawing fingers. A light hum came from the car, a comforting sound with an alarming tendency to make one feel tired. She was on her way home after a long day at school. Two tests and three long seminars made for a very long and stressful day.

It was exactly 10 o’clock and the roads were clear of all cars, save for a few heading to and from the college.

”Poor souls“ she thought, “probably going to night classes“.

A little giggle escaped her. “I’ll be having a much better time than they will. I’ve got a recliner, the TV, a few packs of instant Ramen, and that’s about all I need.” “And Nick will be over in a few hours.” The thoughts excitedly coursed through her mind. It was Friday, and she had the whole weekend to do absolutely nothing.

She finally arrived in the back of her apartment, and as she stepped out of the car, she marveled at how perfect the temperature was. Naomi considered herself cold-blooded. As a child, she would go out on bitterly cold days with nothing but a sweatshirt and jeans. It was 60 degrees, maybe 65, and this was perfect. Naomi had spent the last week at her friend’s apartment, so she was glad to be home.

She walked through the familiar alleyway, and out onto the main sidewalk. She thought her flowers smelled especially sweet, and everything looked incredibly clean. She walked up to the door, tired but content. Her hand reached out to touch the doorknob, and as her fingers approached it’s intricate brass carvings, she froze. A chill, so profoundly cold, coursed through her body. It wound around her and choked her, and if it were a snake, squeezing the life out of her. It took hold of her, and sweat started to bead on her forehead, despite the sudden change in temperature. Naomi somehow knew with the same certainty of her name, that there was something behind her. Something dark and evil. And it was staring right into her.

She could feel its icy breath on her neck. Slowly, as if to prolong the inevitable, she turned around. But the front lawn of her apartment was empty. There wasn’t a person or even car in sight. “Strange” she thought. “Not even the crickets are chirping.” At that moment, the world seemed so very dark and cold, and she was overcome with the urge to go inside as quickly as possible. But still she paused, for at the last second, she saw something in the window of the upstairs neighbors apartment.

There were two of them, a man and a woman. They moved in last month. Naomi had never actually gotten much of a chance to talk with them. She could barely even remember their names. On the first day they moved in, they brought with them a huge moving truck with no words or markings whatsoever. It was filled with a strange assortment of things. Some were common like sofas and tables. But they also brought things Naomi had never seen before. They brought in peculiar devices, that made even stranger noises. These people were… different. The way they stared at her, their faces blank and emotionless. Their eyes slowly following her as she passed. Everything about them was unnerving. They didn’t talk to her, and Naomi certainly had no desire to talk to them.

Naomi stood there, staring up at their window, her eyes glued to that one pane of glass. There was a brilliant red and orange light, spilling out of the window. She was hypnotized, transfixed by its glow. The light was beautiful but strangely eerie. It flickered and danced, as graceful as a ballerina, yet somehow burdened. As if it were trapped. As if it wished to be free. For a long moment she marveled at it, and then went inside.

Ramen was made, the tv was turned on, and in 10 minutes, Naomi was lying on her recliner enjoying the definition of relaxation. As she sunk into the smooth warm chair, a bowl of steaming hot soup in her hands, the events of the day slowly washed away. A tide of comfort swept up the last morsels of anxiety, and with it the events at the door. The unexplainable chill. The strange lights. It was all washed away, left only as a distant memory in the back of her mind.

Nick called to say that he was heading over, he lived about an hour and a half away. Everything felt perfectly normal until the noises started. It began when she heard three or four people walking down the hall and up the stairs to her neighbors apartment. They walked with heavy footsteps, their boots thudding and creaking on the carpeted floor leading upstairs. Naomi clearly heard the door opening, and her upstairs neighbors greeting the guests (the apartment had very thin walls). Only she couldn’t pick apart what they were saying. She assumed that this was only because of her not being able to hear that far, but as she listened closer, it didn’t sound like English. She couldn’t pick out what language it might be. It sounded so foreign. Like it wasn’t even a language at all. “This is odd”, she thought to herself, and her heartbeat quickened. “It must just be my mind playing tricks on me”. It was getting late, nick would get here in about an hour, and she felt tired. Eventually, Naomi dozed off.

Thirty minutes had past when she woke up. From the upstairs apartment, her tired mind heard more loud thudding footsteps. Behind that, there was the sound of people loudly talking. “There must be a party going on up there” she thought. Slowly, Naomi tried to shake the sleep from her eyes. As her mind came into focus, she began to sweat, Her pulse quickening. “Those are no footsteps” she thought with a grimace. “Or if they are, those certainly aren’t normal ones.” Footsteps are unnatural, scattered. But these. They were perfectly even; a little too even. Like a monumental metronome, the loud thumps were overwhelming, and her heart felt the need to join in with their powerful beat. It seemed, at the moment, like everything suddenly lined up with the hard beating rhythm coming from above. The clock, the ticking on her microwave, it all became one. And the voices. These were no people talking. After a moment, Naomi has a terrifying realization that the were chanting. A slow eerie chant that penetrated the walls, consuming her. She felt the chant prodding, pulsing through the air. Long tendriled fingers, groping for something. Pushing in then pulling back. Pausing on something for only a moment before dissolving into near silence. A roar followed by a whisper.

The chanting and stomping was disturbing, and it left Naomi cowering in her chair, her hands over her ears. She sat in her recliner, frozen. Naomi assumed that eventually it would stop but it never did. The constant thudding and chanting continued on and on, for what seemed like an eternity. And for an eternity she sat, in her chair, waiting for the chanting and rhythm to subside. She considered the possibility of going up there and seeing what was happening, but fear quickly shut that idea down. It continued on into the night, the fear, the chanting, droning on. It had been two hours, and Nick still hadn’t showed up.

Naomi now had a stabbing headache. She was sick of it all. The chanting and thudding had now quieted slightly, but for some reason not even blasting the tv could drown it out. She finally decided that she would have to go up there and talk to them. She tentatively got up from her chair, and headed over to the door. She opened it and glanced up the cold hallway. It was dimly lit by three or four bulbs, Hanging and flickering precariously. “They didn’t used to flicker like that did they” she thought. Slowly she started to climb. With each step, her pulse quickened. It was getting louder now. She placed her shaking hand on banister. She could see that same red light, creeping from the crack under the door. She continued up the stairs. At the moment, the door at the top seemed so far away. Her steps slowed, a burden to simply lift up each foot. Naomi finally made it to the top, and found herself exhausted, and not at all ready to knock.

She was leaning against the wall next to the door. For a moment, the incredibly appetizing thought of turning around and going back to her apartment crossed through her mind. But it fled, leaving Naomi with the harsh truth that she needed to get to the bottom of this. She decided to knock, and as she raised her fist, the chanting seemed to get louder. Like it was rising up to her challenge. She swung her knuckles towards the door with every intention of stopping this madness, and then froze. There was sudden and absolute silence. She hadn’t even knocked yet. She hadn’t even made a sound. It had all stopped. And as Naomi stood there in total shock, a single pair of footsteps started towards the door. They were perfectly even, and the wood gave off no creaks or groans. As they approached the door, they slowed. And then they froze. Time followed suit, and it felt like an eternity before the voice spoke. That scratchy, hoarse, terrifyingly alien voice. From the other side of the door, in a slow, drawling accent it spoke.

“You have disturbed the sequence. The ritual has been paused. But you are too late. We have already summoned him. When he comes, and he will, you’ll be the very first to go.”

Needless to say Naomi had no trouble making her way down the stairs in a timely fashion. She flung the door open, and she immediately took to the recliner, not daring to pause before catapulting herself into the warm comfort of the leather. “The ritual, the sequence, you’ll be the first to go, and summoned.” What did it all mean. Those words played over and over in her mind, haunting her.  And that voice. She may not have talked to her neighbors much but that voice certainly didn’t normally come from their mouths. In fact, Naomi had never heard a voice so chilling. It reverberated through her mind, repeating the same lines over and over again. After a minute, the noises started up again. Naomi covered herself in a blanket and huddled, alone in a cloud of perpetual fright. “If only Nick could come. He would be able to fix this.” But she knew that not even Nick’s muscular build and seemingly fearless facade could stop this. Deep down she knew nothing could.

It was quiet when the clock struck midnight. Totally and absolutely silent. In the first minutes after the noise stopped, Naomi welcomed it with open arms. But after a few long minutes of silence she became more nervous. “Without the noise,” she thought “I don’t know where they are or what they are doing. They could be anywhere.” She shivered at the thought of them standing outside her door. And then as if cued by her thought, she heard a noise. One pair of lone footsteps, descending the stairs. No, footsteps wasn’t the right word. These weren’t like the ones before. No word could describe them. They were uneven, one foot falling harder against the ground. It sounded like a drunk man's footsteps might sound after a long night. They lurched, slowly thumping down the stairs. Naomi mustered up all her thought, and with it sent a silent prayer that the footsteps would pass right by her door. But her prayers were in vain, for as the footsteps neared, they slowed to a complete stop. Right outside the door. And then it knocked.

It started as a slow rapping. Naomi’s heart leapt. It was trying to get in. The knocking continued, and Naomi attempted to speak. It took her three tries before she was finally able to force out the words, “No thank you.” She meant for them to sound tough and unwelcoming. Instead they just sounded weak; and scared. The knocking continued, louder now. “No thank you” Naomi said again, this time with more force. “Your not welcome” she added for effect. But whatever was at her doorstep wasn’t taking no for an answer. The door was now being pounded. It shook on its hinges, and cracks started to form in the intricately carved wood. The whole apartment shook, and Naomi screamed. She ran into the bedroom closet and hid. The closet was dark and musty. Dresses and other clothes hung. Outside the pounding continued, until finally there was a loud crash. The door had broken, and whatever was outside was now inside the apartment.

She could hear its lopsided footsteps, going throughout the apartment. It was searching for her. It was only a matter of time before it found her. She could make out a low growling noise coming from the creature. “Like it was a wild animal” she thought. Her heart convulsed in her cheats, beating so loudly Naomi was positive that thing would hear her. But she stayed quiet, hoping and praying it wouldn’t check the closet. Eventually she could hear that the footsteps were coming towards the bedroom. Slowly the bedroom door creaked open. Light from the outside hallway filtered in through the crack. The footsteps entered the room, and from under the closet door, she got a small glimpse of a shadow, gliding across the ground. The footsteps were as clear as daylight, but through the crack under the door, she could see no feet. She could only see the shadow, splayed on the ground from something above. And the smell! Whatever it was, reeked of rot and death. It had an evil stench, and all the air in the room suddenly became thick. It was hard to breath, And Naomi started to suffocate. As the shadow neared the closet door, it became dreadfully cold. Like all the happiness and light had been sucked out of the air. Naomi felt alone, and helpless. She grabbed a nearby coat to pull it over her shoulders, and as she slowly removed from the coat hanger, it fell. In what Naomi considered the loudest noise she ever heard, the coat hanger broke the silence and clattered on the ground. Naomi froze, not daring to move a muscle. Whatever was out there had heard the coat hanger, and she could see the shadow approached the door. Naomi was on the verge of tears when the door was ripped open in front of her. She stood face-to-face with two blood red eyes.

Epilogue

The bright noon sun shone through the dusty windshield. A few late autumn leaves remained clinging to the trees, hung out to dry by the changing of the seasons. The  lush, green of summer, draining out of them on brown, stiff clothes lines. Final vibrant splashes of color, stood against a dreary carpet of brown and gray. Savoring the last weeks of fall, and rustling in dreadful anticipation of the cold long winter to come.

    Nick was speeding, easily fifteen miles per hour above the speed limit. He had to get to Naomi’s house, and fast. After not having seen her in more than a month, it was inexcusable to be late to their night alone together. And it was totally out of the question to not even show up, let alone not call to explain himself. But last night, he had gone ahead and done that. His mind was spinning, frantically trying to scrap together a believable excuse. His reason had been legitimate, but totally incomprehensible to anyone else but himself. It was a feeling Nick had never felt before. Everytime he tried to get in the car to head over, an overwhelming feeling consumed him, and without even thinking, he would head back inside. It was impossible to go to Naomi’s house, despite his longing to see her.

     Nick felt helpless, as he pulled up to the back of her apartment. He would tell her he had something at school. She would understand, she always did. He walked through the back alley, and through the front lawn. He pulled out his set of keys, but the door was open. The hallway was dim, as there were no windows, and the lights were out. The door slammed shut behind him, which nick though was strange because of the perfectly still air. Still, but not serene. Like the thick, stuffy air of a tomb. Nick rounded the corner, and as he approached her door, his heart froze in his chest. There was no door. Or at least much of a door left. Shards of wood littered the ground, splayed over the floor. Bits of the door was everywhere. The doorknob sat a few feet away, and the hinges were feebly dangling on the frame.

    Nick crossed the threshold, and slowly his eyes soaked up the scene before him. The furniture was in disarray. Papers and books were strewn all over the floor. The house had been raided. Nick suddenly came to, and he realized the danger. “Where is Naomi” he thought. His heart was now pounding his chest. “What could have happened to her”. “NAOMI” he screamed. There was only silence. “NAOMI WHERE ARE YOU”. He scrambled through the apartment, fearing the worst. “What If she had been hurt. Or worse, killed.” He thought. Nick was now going room to room. In each one, the same chaos and disorder. Then from the bedroom, he heard a noise.

    A little wheeze, barely audible, came from behind the closed door of the bedroom. Then the faint sound of a low cough. “Or was that a growl.” He thought. Nevertheless he went to investigate. Nick was prepared for a horrible scene in front of him. Maybe he would find a body, possibly even Naomi’s. There would be blood, that would be for sure. The room would be totally wrecked, possibly even burnt. Or maybe a murderer would be lying in wait, a bloody, gleaming knife, in his hands, ready to kill him. Nick ran through the horrible possibilities in his mind as he opened the door. There was nothing unusual at all. Not one thing was misplaced. Nick marveled at this, and then at his own stupidity and fear. He was exiting the room when her heard a high pitched noise. It was so soft, he was unsure he had even heard anything, but slowly it grew louder. It was laughter. Crazed, maniacal, laughter. Coming from the closet.

    Nick approached the closet door, his hands shaking, and sweat pouring from his forehead. He flung the door open, and there was Naomi. She was facing away, into the dark of the closet, no longer laughing. He breathed a long sigh of relief. She was alright. Then she spoke.

    “Hi nick.”

The moment he heard these words, a deep chill coursed through him. His skin began to crawl, literally stretching and convulsing. The words came out slowly, and in an extremely high pitched voice.

    “I’m so glad you’re here.”

     She let lose a small giggle, that slowly dissected his nerves. That was when he noticed the stench. It smelled worse than a rotten animal. It seemed to fill the air around him, choking him. He quickly spun her around, and reached out to grab her hand, when he noticed her skin was gray. And wrinkly. It was stretched over her, tight in some places, and horribly lose in others. Her eyes had turned dull, lifeless and glazed over. He shrunk back, terrified. “What happened” he gasped. “What happened to you Naomi.”

     “I’ve got a little present for you” she chuckled. And he saw she had a hand behind her back. That was when she smiled. Her teeth were yellow, and Nick almost threw up as he saw the little bits of blood in the cracks between her teeth. His head started to reel, and as he fell, he caught a glimpse of her pulling something silver and shiny from out behind her back.