It was ice cold under the bed; my phone was in within arms reach of me, I lunged from under the bed to grab it.  My leg was on fire. I turned the flashlight on to see three scratch marks on my leg. I heard a barbaric growl coming from under the bed. I aimed the light under my bed and saw a lady in old clothing with blacked out eyes, the same figure I’ve been seeing . She tried to rush me, I started praying and whatever was in there was gone.  I left my room went into my parents room to show them the scratch, my mom was shook up when I showed her the scratches on my leg.

“Arthur what happened?” She asked.

“The figure I saw outside the other night was in my room,” I said on the brink of tears.

My mom gave me a band aid and I slept in my parents room in a chair they had in the corner of the room. I couldn’t remember the last time I slept in my parent’s room, I forgot how loud my dad snored.  The next morning I really didn’t want to go to school, but it was better then being in that house by myself. I got ready, jumped into my car and was on my way to school. I blasted the radio to try to flush out the memories from last night, when I was adjusting my mirror the same woman was in my backseat. I abruptly pulled over looked in the back and absolutely no one was there.  I pulled into the student parking lot, grabbed my stuff and made a bee-line towards the front of the school.  I met up with my friends.

“Hey Arthur you feeling okay?” Darius asked me.

I wanted to tell them about last night, but I didn’t want them to think that I was crazy so I told them that I was fine.

“You ready for football tryouts?” Jay asked.

“Yeah” I said back.

The bell rang and we all went to class. Alex beat me there.

“Hey Arthur” she said.

“Hey,” I muttered back.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

I don’t know what it was when she asked me that, I felt compelled to tell her everything that has happened to me since I have been in town. When I told her about the scratches she looked at me with concern and asked me to show them to her. So I removed the bandage, when she saw them her jaw dropped to the floor.

“Arthur whatever is in your house is very dangerous, when are you free?” she asked while taking her phone out.

“I should be free on Friday, why?” I asked.

“We need to go to the library and pull all the records that they have on your house, then we will know what you are dealing with. What’s your phone number?” she asked.

We exchanged numbers and after first period she hugged me and then she left. At lunch my friends and I went to Big Jim’s. They saw me hug Alex and asked me if we where dating. I told them that we weren’t. They told me to ask her out, but I don’t know how she really feels about me. We left the restaurant and drove back to school, when I got back in my car it smelled so bad. I thought it was my cleats, but that’s impossible because they are brand new, it smelled like something rotting. I just rolled down the windows and went back to school.

When I got to physics some random person walked up to me and said, “Stay away from Alex.”

My friends overheard and looked at me. I stood up and said, “And who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am, just stay away from her for your own good,” He said walking away.

“He’s a weirdo, don’t pay any attention to him,” Harry said.

School was over, my friends and I were on our way to the football field when I saw the kid from my physics class get in a car. I recognized the driver from somewhere, I stepped a little closer to see the truck driver from the diner to be in the car. I grabbed my friends and showed them the guy and they told me no one in town likes him, he’s racist and just an overall not good person. We had a little chuckle about it as we walked in the football stadium, I laced up my cleats and we got to practicing. I introduced myself to the coach, I saw on his shirt his last name was Perez.

“Arthur go over there with Coach Bower, he’s the quarterback coach, your tryout will be with him,”  Coach Perez said.

I said okay and went with Coach Bower.

“Alright gentleman, I’m looking for a total of three quarterbacks and the three that make the cut will compete in practice for the starting spot. You will know by the end of the tryout who the top three are, let’s start stretching,” he said.

After warm-ups we started doing individual drills and that tryout was one of my best performance’s, I was hitting all of my targets, the receiver’s were catching the ball, I was in my element.  Towards the end of the tryout I started practicing with the starters from last season.

The tryout ended and Coach Perez said, “Gentlemen, I am extremely proud of each and every one of you, you all showed that you can play football, but unfortunately you all can’t make the cut. I’m going to let Coach Bower get us started by announcing our QB’s.” He said as Coach Bower walked to the front.

“Okay first, Arthur Smith, second Eddie Young, third Victor Grace.”

Everyone clapped for us as we stood up, I was so happy that I made the team and when I was sitting back down coach announced that all of my friends made the team as well. When we left the field I checked my phone to find several missed calls from a number that I didn’t recognize.

I call the number back, “Hello?” I said into the phone.

“Hey Arthur this is Alex, sorry for spam calling you I wasn’t sure if I had the right number,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said back to her.

” I have a question Arthur,” she said.

“Okay what’s up?” I said back.

“Actually, I want to talk to you about it tomorrow,” she said rushing to get off of the phone.

“Okay, are you good?” I said with a little bit of concern.

“Yeah, I just want to say this to you in person,” she told me.

“Okay, sounds good, bye,” I told her.

She said bye back and we hung up the phone, my friends were telling me that she was gonna ask me out, but I should make the first move. I thought about it and I was going to ask her out tomorrow. A girl I barely met, I’m gonna ask her on a date that made a lot of sense to me. We hung out at Harry’s place for a little bit and I just wound up spending the night over there. It’s about 3 in the morning when I get a phone call from my dad,

“Hey stop making all of that noise your going to wake up Leila,” he whispered too me.

“Dad I’m not even home,” I said back to him.

“Where are you?” he said.

“I’m at my friend’s house, Mom let me spend the night. What’s going on Dad?” I said growing more worried.

“I think I hear noises coming from your room,” he said.

“Dad don’t go in my room, please. I’m on my way home right now,” I said getting up and grabbing my keys.

“NO Arthur, you’re fine, I’m sure that it’s nothing. I’m going to go get Leila and we are going to come back into our room and lock the door,” he said trying to make me feel better.

He told me to go back to bed as he hung up the phone, that still didn’t sit well with me so I got my jacket on, got in my car and drove back home. While I was driving back that same stench from earlier returned. I pulled over to the side of the road, the scratches on my leg started to burn again when I turned on the light to inspect the wound I saw the same woman in my backseat.

I nearly jumped out of the car, it was silent, then she said, “YOU TOOK MY SON!!!!!!!!!”

The car doors locked, the light turned off, the same demonic growl that I heard last night rattled the car. I grabbed the cross necklace I had in my glove compartment and I started praying; the presence that was in my car was gone. I made it back home, I ran upstairs to check on my family and everything seemed to be okay. But when I walked in my room written on my walls where the words

YOU HAVE MY SON!!!!!!!!