Entry #9

Underlater
by Rachel Green


Susan’s world was made of slow-moving stripes of jagged light.

And Feet. Lots and lots of feet.

Noise filtered through with the light for most of the day. People in pairs talking; people on their own talking (this puzzled her for years until she came across a mobile phone) and the cries of children and babies. The stripes and the noise stopped in the evening, leaving immobile bars of light for her to read or crochet in. She slept when it went dark, nestled in her bed of sweet wrappers and old, dry tissues.

Every day Susan squinted through the moving cracks waiting for the right moment; a combination of silence, hesitation and the scent of fear. It rarely came. She had been here years and it had only happened twice – enough to keep both the legend alive and her belly full. Though most mortals scoffed at the idea of her existence, there were enough believers to keep her safe.

Ah! There was one now. The trepidation of a pair of tiny red sandals a step behind smart black courts. Susan watched them from the bottom of her lair to the top before she struck, pulling the kicking, screaming child through the gap between the escalator and the floor in a fountain of blood that would sate her for years.

Urban legends were generally based on a grain of truth.