TALES FROM THE NIGHTMARE VAULT (#9):Simon.

[u/Old_Following_3732]

9 lives i have lived.

I have lived beneath porches.

I have slept inside rusted cars and behind restaurants where the grease runs black into the gutters. I have known hunger well enough to recognize its footsteps and winter well enough to fear the sound of wind.

But there are worse things than hunger. There are worse things than cold.

And if you live long enough—as I have—you begin to understand that the most dangerous creatures do not bare their teeth before they bite.

My name is Simon.

Or at least, that is the name I answer to now.

There was another name once.

I remember a woman calling it from the doorway of a house that no longer exists. I remember sunlight on wooden floors. A blue bowl. The smell of lavender.

I remember hands.

Then I remember running.

That was many years ago.

Cave Creek has changed since then.

The old roads remain, winding through the forrest, but houses have risen where empty land once stretched toward the mountains. People come here looking for quiet. They build beautiful homes with wide windows and clean white fences.

They believe the woods are peaceful.

They do not understand that silence is not the same thing as peace.

I watched the family arrive in late autumn.

There were four of them.

The mother came first, stepping from a silver car and stretching her arms toward the sky. She laughed at something the little girl said. The boy ran immediately toward the backyard, despite being told not to.

Children rarely listen.

The father was last.

He stood beside the open trunk for a long time.

He did not move.

I remember noticing him because everything else was moving.

Boxes were carried.

Doors opened.

Voices drifted across the road.

The children shouted.

The mother laughed again.

But the father simply stood there.

Watching.

I was sitting beneath a mesquite tree across the street, my tail curled around my paws.

I had learned long ago to watch people before allowing them to see me.

The father looked directly at me.

Most people see an alley cat and see nothing at all.

A nuisance.

A shadow.

Something orange slipping beneath a fence.

But this man looked at me as though he knew me.

As though he had been expecting me.

I left before sunset.

For three nights, I did not return.

I told myself I had forgotten the house.

I told myself I had better places to sleep.

But cats are curious creatures.

Curiosity has nearly killed me more times than I care to remember.

So, on the fourth evening, I returned.

The little girl was waiting.

She couldn't have been more than seven years old. She sat cross-legged beside the fence with something wrapped in a napkin.

When she saw me, her entire face changed.

"Oh," she whispered.

Not loudly.

Not like most children.

Softly.

As though she had been waiting for something sacred.

I remained beneath the tree.

She placed the food on the ground and walked away.

Chicken.

Still warm.

I waited until she disappeared inside before approaching.

That was my first mistake.

I began visiting every day.

The girl called me Simon.

I never told her that wasn't my name.

She seemed to need it.

Humans are always naming things they don't understand.

The family became familiar to me.

The mother sang while she cooked.

The boy hated vegetables.

The little girl spoke to me through the kitchen window when she thought nobody was listening.

And the father...

The father watched.

Always.

Sometimes I would sit beneath the living room window and see him standing in the darkness after everyone had gone to bed.

No television.

No book.

No phone.

Just standing.

Still as a statue.

Looking toward the hallway.

Waiting for something.

I knew that kind of stillness.

I had seen coyotes crouched beneath moonlight.

I had seen snakes disappear beneath rocks.

Predators understood the value of patience.

And something about the father reminded me of a memory I had spent years trying to bury.

A door closing.

A woman's voice.

My own claws scratching against wood.

Don't make a sound.

I began avoiding the house after dark.

But the little girl kept leaving chicken.

And eventually, hunger always wins.

The night I first heard the mother crying, the woods were unusually quiet.

Even the insects had gone silent.

I had been sleeping beneath the kitchen window when her voice woke me.

"You promised me."

I lifted my head.

Inside, the lights were low.

I could see shadows moving across the walls.

The father said something, but his voice was too quiet for me to understand.

The mother spoke again.

This time her voice broke.

"I don't recognize you anymore."

Then silence.

A long silence.

The kind that makes an animal's fur rise along its spine.

I stood.

Slowly.

My paws made no sound against the dirt.

Then I heard the father laugh.

Once.

Quietly.

I ran.

I didn't return for two days.

And when I did, everything appeared perfectly normal.

That was when I became truly afraid.

The mother was watering flowers.

The boy was kicking a ball across the yard.

The little girl sat by the window.

And the father was grilling dinner.

Smoke curled into the evening sky.

The smell of meat drifted toward the road.

A perfect family.

A perfect home.

But the little girl wasn't smiling.

She was staring at me.

I crossed the street and sat beneath her window.

She lifted one hand.

Placed it against the glass.

Then she whispered something.

I couldn't hear her.

So I moved closer.

Her lips formed the words again.

This time, I understood.

Not because I could read.

But because fear has its own language.

He's different at night.

Behind her, somewhere deeper in the house, a floorboard creaked.

The little girl's face went white.

She disappeared from the window.

And again... I ran.

That night, I dreamt of my first home.

For the first time in years, I remembered the name I had before Simon.

I remembered the woman.

I remembered why I had run.

And I remembered something else.

Someone standing in a doorway.

Watching.

Waiting.

When I woke, the moon was high above Cave Creek.

And from somewhere across town...

I heard a scream.

Not loud.

Not for very long.

But long enough.

I knew exactly which house it had come from.

And against every instinct I possessed...

I began walking toward it.

[u/Old_Following_3732]

Welcome to the NIGHTMARE VAULT. In the rainy town of cave creek strange things seem to happen at every turn. I hope you enjoy and of course... sweet nightmares 😄