CHEERINESS, PERSONIFIED! =O)

There was that sound again. Except, this time, Helena could swear that it was louder. A slight tapping sound, followed by a whispering shurrrr. The first time she'd heard it, she had dismissed it; hell, she had been under a ton of stress, lately, and she'd found--from experience, unfortunately--that the brain, the mind, had ways of playing its games in its bony cell. It would find ways to entertain itself if one didn't keep it entertained. She wanted to get up and check on Eliza, but, too, there was that part of herself, the "Tough Bitch" she liked to call it, that rebelled against that notion.

Single mother, recently divorced, jumping at shadows, it chided her. How quaint.

"Shut up," she murmured into her pillow. "It's just logical to check on a strange sound at night when it's just you and your seven-year-old daughter in a new apartment. In fact, it would be stupid not to check on it."

Jumping at shadows, her mind insisted.

Helena made a deal with herself. If she heard the sound again--she looked at the clock which read 11:28--before 11:33, five minutes, she would get up, grab the chipped wooden baseball bat that lay at the side of the bed, and do some damned investigating. "Okay?" she said aloud.

The Tough Bitch was silent.

"Okay, then." Helena reached over her head and plumped her pillow, made a show of being uber-relaxed. She snuggled her head back into the fluffy pillow, snuggled again, and then she remembered to breathe. "Take it easy, girl," she whispered. "Just take it easy. Homes and houses and apartments make all kinds of noises all the time." She was just wound up, she knew that. "You're just wound up," she murmured, her eyes wide and unblinking, staring at the stained ceiling.

She concentrated on the crickets chirping outside of her window, rubbing their legs together, calling for love. With an exaggerated yawn, she stretched and rolled toward the clock: 11:30. "Oh, come on!" she said. "That had to have been at least five minutes!"

The red digital numbers mocked her with their infallibility. Click. 11:31.

Her eyes began to sag, despite her trepidation. "Go. To. Bed. You loon," she said. And her eyes slipped shut.

Tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-- Shurrrr.

Her blue eyes, rimmed with red, slammed open. The sound seemed to be coming from her closet. Her closet that was open just a tiny bit. "Oh, fuck," she said. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." Images of horror movies screamed through her mind. The heroine running through whipping underbrush, a crazed killer stalking slowly behind. The bad-girl sex-pot being skewered by garden shears. The isolated blonde opening a door to see a lumbering hockey goalie behind. "Fuck," she whispered.

She looked at the closet door, really examined it. Didn't it seem to be sliding open, ever-so slowly? Didn't it just seem that way? In fact, it did. It did, indeed. "Look," she said, trying somewhat-successfully to control the waver in her voice, "I have a gun, asshole. I'm not afraid to use it. Self-defense, creep."

From the next bedroom, Eliza said, "Mommy? Mommy, who're you talkin to?" Sleepy, like she'd just woken up.

"Go back to bed, baby," she said. "Everything's all right. Mommy's just playing around, hon. Go back to sleep."

"Mommy?"

Helena was focused on the closet door. There was no denying that it was opening. Slow as molasses but, yeah--fuck yeah, oh shit, yeah--it was opening. "Asshole? Can you fucking hear? I said I have a gun, here." She reached at the side of the bed, reaching for the Louisville Slugger, and her fingers grasped only air. The panic-animal threatened to suffocate her and so she made it a point to breathe and reach more thoroughly. Nothing.

Her heart skipped a beat and she gasped and, at that moment, the Thing Behind the Door decided to make its grand entrance. In the darkened room, Helena could barely make out the white oval face of the mime, the mime from the park, the mime that had creeped her out these last few weeks as she had jogged to relieve her ever-increasing stress. The mime who'd always aped her long gangly strides. Always, that is, until yesterday, when Helena had stopped running and, panting, told the mime that he was really bothering her and maybe he ought to stop before she called the cops and, don'tcha know? mimes are the lowest form of theatre. And then she had set off, looking back once to see the mime fisting air-tears from his eyes.

"Looking for this, bitch?" he snarled, his makeup smeared, his eyes wide, his mouth a blacker black in the darkness of the room. In his hand he held the baseball bat. "Lowest form, eh?" He smacked the bat into his huge right hand. It made a meaty thwack. "We'll see. We'll see, indeed."

And Helena had lost even the breath to whimper.