Featuring the Invisible Travelling Shovel Of Death

Carol was climbing out of her bath when she heard the noise.

She opened her mouth to call "Who's that?" but closed it again, thought better if it. She pulled the towel around her body as quietly as she could, and crept to the bathroom door, feet padding and leaving puddles all over the faded pink carpet. She opened the door cautiously and stuck her head out, listening.

There it was again. It sounded like metal scraping against a wall, a kind of grating noise. Carol chewed her lip thoughtfully, plucking nervously at the towel. She moved further out, and stood at the top of the stairs, listening to the noise get louder and louder. Whatever it was, it was coming up the stairs, but she couldn't see anything.

"What are you?" she asked the invisible advancing thing. Another scrape, metal on her nicely painted wall. Another second and she actually saw a scratch appear on the paintwork as she watched.

Carol started to back away. She ran through the scenario in her head, wondering how she could make an escape. Run into her bedroom, run quickly round the bed, and hope whatever it was followed her and didn't cotton on to what she was up to and wait by the door. Then she had a clear run to the stairs so she could get out of her house and away from this creature, whatever it was. If only she could see it, it would be a lot easier.

Suddenly, Carol felt a whoosh of air, cold and fast moving, near her head and ducked just in time. She squealed and shot down the staits, tripping over a loose corner of the towel and going down on her knees, bobbing against each stair until she landed in a pile on the floor. She sensed the thing gathering itself to swoop down after her.

"Leave me alone!" she whimpered, and scrambled up, pulling the towel around herself to try and protect her modesty. Her still foot slipped on the carpet and she skidded agin, but managed to keep her balance this time, starting to cry in frustration.

Carol ran through her hallway, her kitchen, and through her back door into her garden. She yanked an overly large jumper from her washing line and threw it over her head, pulling it down over her knees. The towel she tossed behind her, in the direction she hoped the thing was advancing in. She knew it was still following her, because she had heard the clatter as it came after her, bashing into door frames and into furniture. Across her neat green garden she ran, in bare feet, the stones and grit cutting into her, although she didn't notice. As she slipped through her gate, and into the street where she lived, she heard the thing go clanging into a parked car, and saw the dent that appeared in the silver paintwork as she heard the noise. It was a nice and shiny Subaru as well.

Carol kept running. She needed something to fight with, some large stick or bin lid, or a hose pipe. Anything.

An old lady was walking past, so slowly, with a little yorkshire terrier on a long lead. The dog yapped and wagged it's little tail in double time, it was so pleased. Carol dodged the old lady neatly, but clipped her ankle on the kerb as she passed. She let out a cry of pain, but kept going. She had no other choice. Suddenly the old lady screamed. It was a proper, throaty scream, the scream of young girls from the olden days, which Carol supposed the old lady had once been. Carol slowed - she had to anyway, because of her smarting ankle - to look, and saw the kindly, gentle old lady kneeling on the pavement, holding a little, still whimpering red bundle in her hands. The bundle, or what was left of it, was fluffy. The tail wagged, probably some sort of reflex action.

Carol must have looked for a little bit too long, because suddenly she felt a blinding pain between her eyes. The pain lasted for probably less than a second before everything went a pure white, whiter than snow. The invisible spade chuckled to itself as it regarded the bloody shape of the young woman, one eye looking up a the sky in an almost dazed way, and red blood leaking on to the pale lilac coloured jumper. It pushed down the jumper a bit, to cover up the young lady's thighs. It wouldn't be nice to leave her like that, with all her bits and pieces showing.