The Dybbuk Teaser...

The stairwell was dark when she walked through the doorway.  Bree shifted the paper grocery bag uncomfortably on her hip as she shut the door with her foot.  

Groaning, she began her ascent in the dark, making a mental note to call Breyden in the morning to complain.  First the elevators, now the lights.  God forbid one of his tenants should fall down the staircase and hurt themselves.

It had been a long day at Riley & Wendt.  Deposition after deposition; a neverending stream of domestic abuse cases, homicides, manslaughters, child custody, divorce.  The world was going to hell in a handbasket, Bree thought to herself with a smug smile.  

She’d be the first in line.

Peru seemed like a distant memory now.  It had only been a few weeks since she returned but a demanding job with twelve hour days was again beginning to take its toll.  She knew that she had be patient.  That eventually all of her hard work and the long hours would pay off.

A few flights up, she stopped to catch her breath.

A door somewhere in the stairwell latched shut.  It echoed through the dark down to her.  

The building was 15 stories high in the middle of SoHo.  Her apartment wasn’t large and she was struggling to pay rent, but it was rent-controlled and she had no intention of moving.  She hadn’t met many of her neighbors, as work demanded the majority of her time.  The only time she spent at her apartment was on the weekends, staring mindlessly at the television decompressing from the previous week.

Only to get up early on Monday morning and continue the entire charade all over again.

She heard footsteps coming down the stairs and anticipated putting a smile on her tired face and saying hello to one of her fellow stranger/neighbors.  

But the footsteps stopped just as the person should have rounded the bend.  Bree waited a moment, and then called out, “Hello?”

She heard her voice echo throughout the stairwell and fall flat.

No answer.

Shrugging, she continued up the next flight of stairs and turned.

No one was there.

Old buildings were funny places, she told herself.  She often heard things, shifts and creaks, and was growing rather accustomed to them.  But she was pretty certain she had heard footsteps. 

She groaned as she glanced up and realized she still had another four flights to go.  Bree grumbled to herself quietly, cursing Breyden for being so cheap.    

She was reaching the 5^th floor landing when she heard it.

At first it sounded like the mere hissing of wind coming through the stairwell air duct.  But instead of maintaining a consistent tone, it began to crescendo.  

The hairs on Bree’s arm began to rise.

There was something in the stairwell with her.

She knew it immediately, instinctively.  There was a change in the air, a de minimis shift.  It became hard to breathe.  The air felt almost static, electric.

“BBBBRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE……” The sound began to change, forming a word.

Her name.

She glanced over the rail into the dark stairwell below her, her heart thudding loudly in her chest.  At first she saw nothing.  The building was abnormally quiet for an evening hour.  All of her neighbors’ doors were shut tightly and locked.  

Under the eave of the 4^th flight, she saw a movement in the shadows.  A gnarled hand, hidden mostly under the sleeve of a heavy, brown cloak, gripped the railing.  

Bree slowly backed away, but she could not divert her eyes from the figure that was gradually emerging from under the eave to glance upward towards her.

From out of the shadows it came, only to be momentarily awashed by the meager moonlight streaming in through the dinghy skylight high above.  A hooded head came out into the moonlight and began to turn upward towards her.

She first saw his smile.  Wide.  Abnormally wide.  His teeth were ancient, knobby and jutting out in awkward directions.  But they were sharp.  Bree could see that in the dark. 

Very sharp.

Saliva dripped from his mouth, coating his hand and the railing in a slippery dew.  And then his eyes rose to meet hers.  

Bree gasped.  Her eyes widened and she dropped the bag of groceries.  

“BRRRREEEEEEE…..” His horrid mouth opened and her name emitted into the stairwell, echoing up to her quickly.  He began to move.  He moved quickly up the stairs, surprisingly agile for however ancient an abomination he was.

Bree burst into a run, hearing him tripping over the rolling cans of Spaghetti O’s and refried beans that littered the staircase behind her.

How did he catch up to her so quickly?  Bree thought madly as she sprinted up the stairs.  She could hear her own rapid breathing, forced and difficult.  Beyond that, nothing.  The man wasn’t even breaking a sweat.

“BRRRRREEEEEEE….” He called out to her again, and she burst into tears.

His voice was suddenly different.

It wasn’t.

It couldn’t be.

Her heart felt like it was going to stop; her lungs felt like they were going to burst.  It became difficult to see through her tears.  

Any moment she waited to feel his gnarled grip on her shoulder, to pull her back and over the railing, to flail to her death below.  But it didn’t come.

She sensed he was right behind her.  

The call came again.

“BRRRREEEE…..” 

He was directly behind her.  But it was a woman’s voice now. 

If she wasn’t so terrified, her instinct likely would have been to stop and face the creature.  The voice was familiar.

Loving.

“No!  It can’t be!”  She sobbed into the dark stairwell and rounded the bend to the last flight.  Bree could see her apartment door; the letters 6A never seemed so inviting.

She shoved her hands into the pocket of her jeans as she bolted up the last set of stairs, fishing out her key.  Her legs felt like they were going to buckle underneath her.  She screamed loudly into the stairwell, hoping the sound would drive her neighbors out to help. 

…just in case she couldn’t get her door open in time…

She finally reached her door and fumbled with her key, suddenly forgetting which one it was.  Her eyes were foggy with tears and mascara; it was hard to see in the dark.

Fuck Breyden.

But she didn’t dare look back.  

She couldn’t look back.

She waited for the fingers. For the hand to grip her shoulder.

Finally the key slid easily into the hole and she twisted, opened the door, flew inside.

Just as she shut the door, she caught another glimpse.  The figure slowly stalked up the stairs, eyeing her.  That broad, demented, diabolical smile never faltering. 

She shut the door and immediately bolted it.  Chained.  

Grabbed her heavy oak console table and pushed it against the door, knocking her lamp and telephone off its ringer in the meantime.  

Bree flew over to her small living room, dove onto the floor and reached under the sofa.  She felt the cool metal and sighed softly. 

She always kept it loaded.  Bree flicked the safety off and waited.   Watching the door.  

She had little hope that this would help her at all against whatever it was that was waiting outside her door.  

Bree hunkered down behind her coffee table, her arms shaky and wavering yet steadily aiming her 9mm towards the quiet door.  Her mind began to process everything that had occurred in the last few minutes.

She had seen this man once before; once she saw his eyes she was positive of it.  And that voice… it turned into…

Bree shook her head, trying to clear the insane thought.  It couldn’t be.  

“Okay, Bree, get it together.  Get it together,” she said to herself softly, her cheeks still damp with tears, her forehead clammy with sweat.  Try as she might, she couldn’t stop shaking.  Her heart, she feared, might never beat normally again.

She wasn’t sure exactly what she was trying to get together, or even how to reconcile what she had experienced, because it was beyond the scope of normal.  

It was impossible.

What had just happened was impossible…

Suddenly the door to her apartment exploded, pieces of wood flying through the air.  

She screamed, closed her eyes, and squeezed four shots out towards the entrance.  

“Shit!!  Oh God, please help me….” She begged.  It had been a long time since she had prayed.  She wasn’t even moderately religious.  Yet she didn’t know what else to do.  

When she opened her eyes, there was no one there.  

The obliterated apartment door lie scattered around her apartment in pieces.  Beyond the threshold, the dark, black corridor.  

He was gone.

She sat there the rest of the night, her gun aimed towards the open maw of what used to be her apartment door, crying and growing ever more sure of one thing.  

Bree had seen the man before.  She was certain.

When she was in Peru, she had seen his corpse. 

 

And he had followed her home…

~ Angela Darling

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