Anya Meets Mr. Yes

Anya tried to close her eyes again, but it felt wrong, like pretending. She checked the clock- 3:33 a.m. No use lying in the dark, wide-awake. She slid out of bed and drifted into the kitchen.

Brrrr.

Heat still scorched the late days of summer, but the nights came in cold. Cold air. Cold house. Cold floors.

Socks. She needed socks.

In the living room, she found some under the couch. No sweatpants, though. Or even a robe. Anya wrapped an afghan, her mother's latest creation, around her shoulders and called it good enough, although her legs were still shivering.

She decided in the kitchen to make tea, because in the nowhere-land of three in the morning- too late to go back to sleep, too early to start the day- what else is there to do?

Tea. She had tea somewhere.

Microwave humming, a mug of water rotating within, Anya blindly felt around the top shelves of her cabinet by the sink, stretching, searching for tea, and that's when she saw it, from the window above the sink, for the first time.

The Monster, as she later came to call him.

The microwave beeped. The light extinguished. In the dark of her kitchen, Anya caught the shadow of...something...moving in the back corner by the fence.

What in the world?

Anya leaned far over the sink, nose to the cold glass. No, it hadn't moved. It was the shadow of a tree, that's all, a fir tree in the neighbor's yard.

Except that it wasn't. The angle was all wrong, the moonlight too weak. It would have to be a shadow come to life, crossing over the fence.

Not a tree.

Then...what?

Anya hugged the afghan around her. Dare she go out and see? No. No, that wasn't a smart idea. But it was her own back yard. What if it was a person?

A cold shot of bile filled her throat. No, she told herself quickly. No, it couldn't be. It was much too big to be a person.

Should she call the police?

And say what?

Her parents?

No. She was a grown-up now, remember?

Anya stared out the window, trying to determine what had crept into her back yard. She could almost see it...

There! It moved again.

Did it?

"Yes," she whispered.

Now she could see it moving closer, with a slight up-and-down movement, like a lion stalking.

Anya's breath fogged the glass. She wiped it away with the edge of the afghan.

Two fence posts closer, then three, now it angled toward the middle of the yard, where she had placed a few potted mums over a bare patch in the grass.

Past the mums now, closer, close enough to see...

Anya again wiped the fog from the window, and there-

"No!"

She cried out, pushed away from the sink and stumbled, backward, tripping on the afghan, landing hard on her backside, and cried out again in pain.

Too close.

She had seen. The shadow was a hole cut through the night, and within was a man...of sorts...human-shaped, but with fingers too long by many inches, and with no clothing. Gray, mottled skin. A man-form made from other matter.

The shadow had pulsed around him like a wide mouth. He was but a thing connected to a larger entity, and from within, he had appealed to Anya with shiny, solid black eyes.

Anya shook on the kitchen floor, tremors attacking her in waves, waiting for those eyes to appear at the window.

But they did not. Her body settled. Anya pulled herself up to the window.

He was still there.

But he had not moved any closer. Anya and the creature stared at each other until dawn arrived, until her back ached and a bruise blossomed over the delicate skin on her stomach, and she watched him slowly dissolve in the growing light of dawn.

Then she went to work.

In the small square of her cubicle, Anya pulled orders from her in-basket like any other day, typing numbers and letters that did not enter her consciousness, for it was filled with the creature in her back yard.

He might be there now. Invisible. Waiting.

She went through the motions of her day, but in her mind felt a tingling preoccupation. Something that wouldn't let her rest. What was that feeling? She remembered it from her childhood, like when a spider crawled up her arm or when she climbed to the top of the swing set. Or the time her closet door had swung open on its own, and she had made her dad check for a monster, although he insisted that monsters did not exist.

Her monster had finally shown up.

The next three nights, Anya tried to stay awake, waiting at the window. But every night, she would open her eyes and find herself curled, shivering on the cold kitchen floor, always just after three in the morning. And the Monster would be there. She would lock eyes with him until dawn, and then watch him slowly fade in the sunlight. He did not move any closer, and after three nights, she wondered if he could not. Unless she wanted him to.

On the fourth night, she tested this theory.

She leaned forward, met his gaze.

"Yes," she whispered.

He stepped forward. One, two... three steps. At the edge of the garage now...just a few more steps, and he would be at the patio...

"Stop!" she cried, clutching the countertop. But she stood. She stayed at the window. She did not turn away.

Her Monster stopped.

She watched him fade into the morning.

During the day, she pulled his image from her memory, like a piece of chocolate, unwrapped it and savored it. It was delicious, this long-lost feeling. And then she realized, walking to her car after work, what the feeling was.

Fear.

She was afraid to go home. And yet she couldn't wait to get there. She was afraid of the oncoming night. And yet she wished it would come faster. She was terrified of her own back yard. And yet every evening, she stood outside as long as she dared, until the sun fell dangerously close to the edge of the world.

That night she went to bed on time, knowing she would not oversleep her appointment. She woke at 3:33, and went to the kitchen window.

There he was.

"Yes," she whispered.

He began to move.

At the edge of the patio, close now. Closer. She could see the smoky slithering skin, the eyes dilating, growing larger as if absorbing more of the night.

At the steps now, closer than ever...

She left the kitchen window.

She opened the patio doors.

The tip of her tongue behind her teeth, forming the word no, and then not. The feeling. The fear. The memory. She did not want to let it go now.

In the end, she saw that he meant to swallow her whole. The fear vibrated, burst open, and blossomed into terror. She remembered the sensation clearly now, and it thrilled her.