"Loco"

It was the second night, in the new house, when it happened:

Outside the farmhouse, the black August night was interrupted by rumbling. The earth trembled and the trees swayed in the summer air. Upstairs on the second floor, Martha awoke to find her bed shuddering.

Earthquake, was her first thought--until she heard the steady mechanical drone. The sound reminds her of the bulls on her Uncle's farm, and the way they breathed after they'd butted heads with one another and were exhausted. Martha sits up in bed; around her photographs on her walls are flopping up and down like fish out of water. She stands up. The wooden floors shiver under her bare feet. The nearby window is rattling. Her entire house has become a cold, frightened child with chattering teeth.

With a fluttering heart, she heads to the bedroom door. She's half-way across the room when a metallic shriek bursts through the walls. Martha covers her ears, but the mechanical cry is so loud it feels as if her skull is cracking open. Then the banshee-like wail stops, ceasing as mysteriously as it began. Opening her mouth to scream, a rush of artificial daylight comes charging into her bedroom. The light pours in from the still shaking window.

Then the piercing wail begins again.

"Stop it!" she screams sprinting over to her window.

Removing a hand form her ears--the pain rushes into her like water. Despite the extreme discomfort she reaches out with a frightened hand and gropes the window pane. Her fingers feel the glass vibrating as she pulls the window shut. Unable to see what she's doing because the light--the light is so intense, it takes Martha three tries before she can finally get the window down. The light remains, but the mechanical groaning and horrible siren-wail dissipate. Holding up a hand, she squints into the brilliant ball of icy-white light aimed at the side of her house.

The light is growing.

The sound, shut-out by the closed window, is becoming louder. Frozen in both disbelief and terror, Martha watches as the single glowing eye bears down on her.

Chug-a. Chug-a. Chug-a.

There's a smell--a burning odor, that fills her nostrils. A strip of wallpaper next to the window peels off the wall, it flaps and flails in the air. Outside her bedroom window, the light is now bigger than the sun. Turning to run--to hide form whatever it is that's bearing down on her--Martha faints, her body collapsing onto the floor in a heap.

When she regains consciousness, it is a quiet late-summer morning. With shaky legs, Martha stands up and tip-toes back over to the window. Looking down on her new backyard, she sees no sign of the horror from the previous night. She does, however, notice a pair of old rail road ties at the edge of her lawn.