Cynthia knew she should have left the light on.
Because now the noise came again, soft, like the purr of a rat or the settling of disturbed lint.
A layer of lint had gathered under her bed because she couldn't clean there. She was afraid of that dark, mysterious space that had never been explained to her satisfaction. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and pictured the sea of dust, the fine powdered layers of accumulated motes. Beggar's velvet, she'd heard it called. But that thick gray fur didn't bother her. What bothered her was the beggar, the man that wore the dust, the creature that slept in the bright of day and made those terrible sounds at night.
The noise came again, a flutter or sigh. Louder tonight. The beggar must be more formed, closer to whole.
Cynthia had moved in three weeks ago, though the efficiency flat was a little beyond her means. She'd been attracted by the cleanliness, the wooden floors, the queen-sized four-poster in the bedroom. That, and the streetlights that burned outside the bedroom window. Best of all, the neighbors were within easy screaming distance.
Not that she would scream. If she screamed, the beggar would awaken, reach up with one monstrous hand and grab her around the ankle, tug her down twisted sheets and all, draw her into the deep, thick fog of the underthere. Better to bite her lip, close her eyes, and put the pillow around her head.
She shouldn't have moved so often. She should have stayed and faced him that first time, back when she had a roommate. So what if the roommate, a fellow college student, looked at Cynthia strangely when Cynthia crossed the room at a run and dived into the bed from several feet away? So what if the roommate poked fun because Cynthia always slept in socks? The roommate wasn't the one who had to worry about the beggar, because he only lived under Cynthia's bed.
Six months, and the roommate had forced Cynthia to leave. Cynthia's name wasn't on the lease, she was behind on her half of the bills, and she'd lost her job because she had to sleep during the day. Perhaps having to move out was for the best, though. Her roommate had started muttering strange languages in her sleep.
So Cynthia dropped out of college, worked the graveyard shift at the Hop'N Go, and took a cramped studio apartment downtown. That place lasted two months, and she'd ended up sleeping on the couch. Even with such a small space to work with, the beggar had still knitted himself into flesh, worked the lint into skin and flesh, formed arms and legs from the dust, shaped its terrible rasping mouth.
Though her new landlord said a professional cleaning crew had given the efficiency a white-glove treatment, the dust gathered fast, like clouds in a thunderstorm. The noises had started on the second night, so hushed that nobody would have heard them who didn't know what to listen for. Every night louder, every night another ounce of substance incorporated, every night a new muscle to be flexed.
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