Let Me In, Lucy

Let Me In, Lucy
Lucy’s POV

I froze, fingers still curled around the edge of the dresser, the wood biting into my palms like it was the only real thing left in the world. 

My heart slammed against my ribs so violently I could feel it in my throat, in my teeth. 

The voice on the other side of the door had sounded so perfectly like Ethan…warm, steady, laced with that familiar edge of concern…but something in my gut twisted hard, a cold, instinctive warning that refused to be ignored.

Something was off about it.

“Lucy?” The voice came again, softer this time, almost coaxing. But there was a faint… wetness to it. A gurgle buried beneath the words, like someone speaking through a throat full of thick fluid. “Baby, open the door. It’s me. I’m home.”

I didn’t move. Couldn’t. My legs felt locked in place, every muscle screaming from the earlier exertion and now this fresh wave of terror.

A low, dragging sound scraped along the hallway floor outside. Slow and deliberate… Like heavy, waterlogged flesh being pulled across carpet, leaving a possible trail. 

The sound was so intrusive…like it was just right next to my ear. Plip. Plip. Plip. Droplets of water from a leaking pipe? Or from someone who just came out of the shower?

I couldn’t tell.

And for some strange reason, I imagined bloated skin splitting under pressure, river muck clinging to it, pale and swollen fingers scraping for purchase.

The image almost had me doubling over. My stomach lurched violently as I backed away from the door on trembling legs until my back hit the bed frame. 

The phone slipped from my numb fingers and clattered to the floor, Ethan’s untouched device still glowing mockingly on the nightstand.

“Lucy… let me in.” The voice was twisted now, no longer quite right. It stretched on the vowels, viscous and wet, like phlegm bubbling up from drowned lungs. 

The banging started again…THUD…not the frantic pounding from before, but heavier, more insistent. 

The wood of the doorframe creaked under the force. “I’m cold, Lucy. So cold. Open the door and let me in. I need you to keep me warm.”

I wanted to scream, but my throat wouldn’t work. Instead, I slid down the side of the bed until I was on the floor, knees drawn up tight against my chest. My hands flew to my ears, pressing hard, but it didn’t block anything. 

The sounds wormed their way in anyway. That dragging again…closer to the door now…accompanied by a sick, choking gurgle. Like someone trying to cough up gallons of river water that had filled their chest for days. 

Glug. Glug. Then a wet slap against the wood, as if a bloated palm was smearing across it, leaving streaks.

Why is this happening to me? What did I do wrong?

“No,” I whispered, rocking slightly. “No, no, no… Go away…please.”

Tears burned down my cheeks. I didn’t know where the words came from…some half-remembered scrap from childhood movies, Sunday school reruns on TV, or desperate instinct…but they spilled out anyway. My lips moved on their own, voice cracking and hoarse.

“Hail Mary, full of grace… the Lord is with thee…”

I didn’t know if I was Catholic. Or even a Christian to begin with. Hell, I barely remembered my own middle name some mornings. But the words felt like armor, flimsy as it was. 

Light wins. Light always wins in the movies, right? The cross, the prayers, the flickering candles pushing back the shadows. It always works in movies.

God, please let that be true.

“…blessed art thou amongst women…” My voice rose, shaky but louder, trying to drown out the nightmare on the other side as I held on to the sheer hope that it will work in real life too. “…and blessed is the fruit of thy womb…”

THUD. THUD. The door rattled violently in its frame. The dresser jolted forward an inch with each impact. That voice…his voice, but wrong…grew thicker, more distorted, like vocal cords rotting underwater. 

“Lucy… why won’t you let me in? I came back for you. From the water. Open. The. Door. Why won’t you open the door, bitch!” The voice growled in frustration.

I kept reciting the rosary as the dragging intensified right outside, slow and laborious, as if whatever it was had hauled its swollen body up against the wood. 

More droplets pattered steadily now…plip-plip-plip-plop…seeping under the gap at the bottom of the door. 

I stared at them in the moonlight, transfixed and horrified. Dark…almost like the color of something that decayed in the mud. The stench hit heavier and I felt my eyes burning.

Just then, I screamed out loud. Raw, guttural, the kind that tore at my already abused throat. 

My hands clamped tighter over my ears until my skull ached, but I kept reciting, the rosary words tumbling faster, desperate, tripping over each other. “Holy Mary, Mother of God… pray for us sinners… now and at the hour of our death…”

Another slam. The wood splintered somewhere near the hinges. A low, bubbling laugh seeped through the cracks…wet, choking, like lungs half-filled with mud. 

“Lucy… sweet Lucy. You feel so good when you’re scared. Let me in. I want to be inside you.”

Inside me? What the hell?

I curled tighter into a ball on the floor, forehead pressed to my knees, rocking harder. The screams kept ripping out of me between the prayers, wordless now, animal sounds that echoed off the bedroom walls. 

Every muscle in my body was locked in terror, waiting for the door to finally give way, for those possibly cold, bloated fingers to wrap around my ankle and drag me out into whatever nightmare waited.

Time stretched into an eternity of darkness and noise. The banging slowed but didn’t stop entirely…rhythmic, patient, like a heartbeat from something long dead. The gurgling breaths continued, wet and labored, interspersed with that dragging scrape of flesh on the floor.

Then… silence.

Absolute, suffocating silence…like nothing ever happened.

I lowered my hands slowly, breath coming in ragged gasps. The droplets had stopped. No more dragging and no more twisted voices.

I sat there, trembling, waiting for the next horror.

“Lucy?”

The voice came again. Clearer and undeniably Ethan’s…urgent, laced with real worry, no distortion, no wetness, just the man I knew. “Lucy, it’s me. Open up. Please. I heard you screaming from outside. What’s going on in there? Are you okay?”

Relief crashed over me like a wave, so sudden and overwhelming that a sob tore from my chest. 

It was him. It had to be him this time. 

The nightmare was over. My hands shook as I pushed myself up from the floor, steadying my breath, legs wobbling but moving. 

I reached for the dresser, fingers gripping the wood, and started to drag it aside. 

As soon as the door flew open, relief hit me again…so hard my knees nearly gave out. 

Thank God. The prayers really did work!

I rushed forward, desperate to throw myself into his arms, to let him hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay.

But the moment my eyes landed on him...

I stopped dead.

Every ounce of relief vanished in an instant.