Change of pace

The door slammed shut behind Lilly and she could feel the drop in pressure all the way to the insides of her eyelids. She looked around her at the dim room – a worn cloth sofa on the far side under the window, its cushions stained with cigarette burns, a rotted coffee table with rusty gold-painted legs, and a red leather potato chip chair. And then the lights went out.

Lilly heard a terrible scream from the other side of the door, the sound of creaking hinges, and then tip-toes from behind her. She sprinted forward and felt sharp talons on her back and a cutting laugh. Her heart raced as the talons tore into her silk blouse and then wrapped themselves around her torso and squeezed her rib cage. She tried screaming – but nothing came out except hoarse cries.

She wrestled the strange figure with the sharp talons back and forth, left to right, trying to break free. She could smell garlic, onions, and stale body odor from the figure’s breath, and finally managed to poke the figure’s midsection with her elbow. A groan came from behind her and she broke free. And ran and ran and ran –

Into something hard she assumed was the coffee table, and then she went down, face first into what must’ve been the sofa. She scrambled and fell between the two and, before she knew it, felt something flying above her, bumping into her temples, landing on her chest, screeching something high-pitched like a bad modem from the 1980s –

“Okay, cut,” the director said, and the lights came up. “Fine job, Lilly. Next time, though, land in the sofa, not on the coffee table? Let’s take fifteen. We need a change of pace here.”