[#026] Chameleon

*thunk*

She stared blankly at the computer screen for a second before stabbing a finger at the progress bar to track backwards. Sure enough, in the middle of her interview with the author, she heard a distant *thunk* in the recording.

She sat back in her chair and glanced around the office. It was at this same desk she'd taped her podcast over Skype just the night before, in the same room in the same house she'd lived in for nearly five years, and now she found herself gazing over every door and window with the suspicion of an agent in enemy territory. She knew every nook and cranny of the little ranch, yet still her paranoia flowed.

*thunk*

She paused the playback and removed her headset, ears prickling at the air. In the darkness of her mind, the noise sounded like the crash of a claw against the front door, or a dead leg dragged up the cellar stairs behind a beast of ravenous hunger. She rose from her chair slowly, as though disturbing the air might alert the imaginary intruder, and she waited for another sign.

*thunk*

She stepped into the hallway and glanced at the door beyond the kitchen. "From the cellar, then," she thought. She wrapped her fingers around the freezing metal knob. She grimaced, shut her eyes, and waited for the mad march of her heart to slow. She turned the handled, pulled the door aside, and--

*THUNK*

She could feel the wind blowing up the stairs from somewhere down below. But how? There were no doors leading out from the basement, and the windows didn't open. From where could the draft be coming? And still it nipped at her toes and shivered up her spine. She reached for the light switch and quickly thought better. If something *were* in her house, the last thing she needed was to alert it to her presence.

*THUNK THUNK*

And so she descended the steps with her breath buried in her throat. She stared at the spaces between the slats, half-expecting a gnarled claw to pop at any moment from the shadows and tear her through. When she reached the bottom, safe and sound, she slowly turned to gaze across the shadowy walls to catch the dim light peering down through the shattered glass at the rear. The frigid February wind ripped through the hole and tossed her hair, and, again, she heard it, just as the figure stretched out on the ceiling dropped on her and shut off the world...

"THUNK THUNK!" it said with a grin.