We had both been asleep, I suppose, for a couple of hours, when I suddenly awoke. The room was in total darkness, but somehow I “felt” the presence of some stranger in the room. At that instant it flashed in upon me that we had left the door unlocked. Straining my ears to catch the least sound, I held my breath.
Suddenly a noise came to me, not from the room, but from somewhere in the house. It was a cry—A cry for help! Sitting bolt upright in the bed, I remained motionless, listening intently. I heard it again. It was a woman’s cry—but this time fainter—
“Help! Help!” sounded in a long drawn-out gasp—a gasp of despair.
Something moved in the darkness. Again I “felt,” rather than heard it. My mouth grew dry, and fear, a deadly fear of the unknown, possessed me.
“Who is there?” I called out loudly.
There was no answer, but the sound of my voice gave me courage. I stretched my arm out in the darkness, meaning to reach over to Faulkner’s bed and prod him into wakefulness, when by chance I touched something alive.
Instantly a cold, damp hand gripped my own, holding it like a vice, and a moment later I was flung down on my back on the bed, and held there firmly by a silent, unseen foe.
In vain I struggled to get free, but the speechless, invisible Thing pressing me down in the darkness, kept me pinned to the bed! I was about to cry out, when a third hand closed about my throat, preventing me. It was a soft hand—a woman’s hand. Also, as it gripped me, a faint perfume struck my nostrils, a perfume familiar to me, curious, rich, pungent.
And then, almost as I stopped struggling, the room was suddenly flooded with light.