Short Story: The Man in the Dark Suit

Still sitting in his armchair, Dave bent over and lifted the box from the floor to his lap. The cardboard was dusty; the brown packing tape that had once sealed the lid had aged and withered, allowing it to half open. He could see a dark piece of the material from the clothes that he’d hastily stuffed in there all those years ago. He opened the lid fully and began to carefully pull them out and pile them on the arm of his chair.
He paused at his task, head cocked to one side. A noise? The familiar sound of the floorboard in the hall creaking under a foot. Loud in an otherwise silent house and very familiar. During the daytime you could jump on it wearing roller skates and it might emit a squeak. At night if you touched it with your sock it would creak like the front door of Castle Dracula. Was Holly up? If she was then she was moving like a ninja. Normally she couldn’t get out of her bed without her little feet thumping on her bedroom floor and likewise down the stairs. Nothing more, no stealthy footsteps, no small voice whispering “Daddy” in Holly’s conspiratorial way as if her and him both being out of bed was a big secret. He sat there for a while pondering…
Still he didn’t move, staring at the half open door and the darkness of the hallway beyond. He became aware he was holding his breath although his heart wasn’t thumping in any sort of alarm. He let it out silently and waited some more. Something had made that floorboard creak and he was damn well going to wait quietly until he found out what. Nothing was going to tell him though. Now that he was listening he could hear all the sounds the world made when no one was paying attention. Outside the very faint rumble of traffic from the motorway a mile distant, the muffled sound of next door’s television, the clunk of the fridge as it made some more ice, the knock of a radiator pipe expanding, the ticks of the door hinge. the door hinge christ the door was opening why was the door opening? The lounge door opened and stayed open. It took maybe two seconds from half open to full and all he could hear was the shush of the carpet as the bottom of the door brushed past it
If he’d been sitting quietly before, he was a study in paralysis now. Apart from his heart beating nineteen to the dozen he was motionless. what the hell was that what the hell was that what the hell was that jesus christ.
Nothing came in the door. He didn’t get any tingling, didn’t suddenly see his breath plume in icy air. Everything was the same as it ever was. Except the door had opened and nothing had done it.
He waited for events to transpire. The house resumed its quiet conversations. Across from him and to the right was the sofa. he’s on the sofa the sofa he’s on the sofa. Once a shining example of what nothing to pay until April 1st could get you. Now after a few years of pummelling and drinks spillage it was a saggy blue heap. It wasn’t in his field of vision, staring as he was at the door, but he suddenly knew there was a dead man sitting on it. His stomach plunged downwards. His eyes widened and swivelled around. He could just get the edge of the sofa into his peripheral vision. If he wanted to see properly he’d have to turn his head. But moving anything would give his position away in the ethereal game of hide and seek. With his eyes at their furthest traverse he could see a leg in a pair of dark suit trousers and a white hand resting on a knee. Then the hand moved and millennia of hunter-gatherer instinct snapped his head round to follow it. Like a flash photo he saw the man fully. Suit jacket spilled out across the sofa, leaning forward slightly, head turned to look at him, jaw tilted upwards. The hand was no longer on the knee, it was pointed at him in accusation. All that came to him later, all that he was really aware of was that he had no eyes. oh sweet jesus christ it’s him it’s him he has no fucking eyes. Where there should have been whites, corneas, eyelids there was only darkness.
And then he was gone and Dave was alone again. His breath whooshed into his lungs and, still motionless, he sat staring into space, eyes wide, mouth agape, fists tight clenched. Then he was bolting for the downstairs toilet to lose his dinner.