"I want you," the soft voice said.
I ran from the room in a blind panic, not stopping until I was outside the apartment. I was wearing nothing but my underwear, but I didn't care. I was breathing heavily, not from the exertion of running, but from fear. I did not feel, as people often do in books or movies, that I was going mad. I knew I was sane. I knew the pillow had actually spoken to me.
I shivered as I recalled the whispery sound of those words. I want you. I had no idea what that meant. For all I knew, the pillow planned to kill me. But I perceived no threat in the words. Instead, I sensed an undercurrent of erotic longing.
And that scared me even more.
I heard the door to the next apartment open. A little girl came out to get the newspaper. She looked at me and giggled, averting her eyes. I forced myself to gather my courage and go back into the apartment. I looked around carefully, afraid that the pillow was hiding behind a door or a couch, but it was nowhere to be seen. I crept down the hall to the bedroom. It was still lying on the floor next to my dresser. I slammed shut the bedroom door, grabbed some dirty clothes out of the hamper in the bathroom, put them on and left.
It was after twelve noon before I was brave enough to return to the apartment. Even in the harsh heat of midday, my fears did not seem stupid or childish. The pulse of that pillow beneath me, the horror of that soft voice was still very real, and I came back to my apartment with a newly charged pitchfork and a large plastic bag.
The pillow was still lying on the floor.
Had it moved?
I couldn't be sure, so I stabbed it with the pitchfork and tossed it into the bag, using a wire twist tie to seal the opening.
Inside the bag, the pillow jumped.
I fell back, shocked, though I had been preparing myself for exactly that. In a series of short leaps, the plastic sack moved across the floor. Fighting down the dread that was building within me and threatening to take over, concentrating on my anger and trying to nurture my aggressive feelings, I grabbed the squirming plastic bag and took it outside.
The second I crossed the threshold, the pillow stopped fighting me. The movement died. I did not stop to ponder the reason for this sudden good luck, I simply ran to my car, opened the trunk, and threw in the bag. I drove to the dump, still keyed up, and was gratified to see that a pile of wood and leaves was in the process of being burned. Taking the bag out of the trunk, I threw it on the fire, not daring to move until I saw the greenish black plastic sizzle and evaporate, until I saw the pillow inside blacken and wither and burn.
I had expected to feel relieved, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from my shoulders, but the anxiety I'd been experiencing stayed with me. I felt no joy after the pillow had been destroyed; I felt no freedom. My dread became less immediate, but it was still there. The pillow was gone, but it had won its war. It had done its job. I drove home feeling frustrated.
Before going to bed, I took a spare pillow from the hall closet—the pillow guests use when they sleep on the couch. I was still nervous, tense, but the sight of the new pillow made me smile. I took off my clothes, turned down the blanket, and got into bed. The pillow felt soft and comforting, reassuring in its ordinariness. My body was dog-tired, but I'd expected to have trouble falling asleep, afraid that my overtaxed and overactive brain would keep me up all night. My mind, however, was tired as well from the day's exertions, and I fell almost instantly into a deep, dreamless slumber.
I awoke to the sound of the pillow whispering in my ear. "Take me," it said, and there was no mistaking the intent behind that statement.
"Take me," it whispered again.
I'd been sleeping with one hand under the pillow, which in some grotesque way could have been considered a position of perverse embrace. My mouth was open, drooling onto the pillow cover, and in the second before I leapt out of bed, I felt the cloth press upward against my mouth.
As if to kiss me.
I spent the rest of the night sleeping outside, in my clothes, on the stoop.
In the morning, I was angry. My fear had turned to fury, as fear will do after a suitable gestation period. I refused to be intimidated by whispering voices, I refused to let squares of padded cloth rule my life. I boldly went inside, closed the bedroom door, showered, shaved, and made breakfast.
After I ate, I took every piece of linen in the house and threw it into the Dumpster outside the apartment complex. None of it fought me. None of it even moved. I would have taken the linen to the dump but I was too angry. I refused to have my life dictated by inanimate objects, and I refused to devote anymore time to this ludicrous pursuit. I threw the sheets and pillows and bedspreads into the blue metal container, then afterward, in a gesture of supreme disgust, I emptied my garbage on top of the linen.
"Eat shit," I said.
And this time I really did feel good. The dread, the tension, the nervousness left me and was replaced by a sense of optimistic finality. The horror was over.
I slept that night on a bare bed, with no pillow, no covers. And the feeling was nice.
In the morning, after breakfast, I went outside. I'd been intending to stop by, see a couple of friends, maybe catch a movie, but the sight that greeted me on the apartment stoop stopped me cold.
A trail of sheets and pillowcases, covers and comforters led from behind the building, where the Dumpster was located, to my door. On my doorstep, leaning upright, as if they'd been trying to get inside, were three pillows.
It wasn't the pillows, I realized. It was the apartment. There was a spirit in the apartment, or a demon, which animated the linen. Factory-made cloth in and of itself could not be malevolent, could not be alive. Something else was doing this.
I took only my wallet, leaving everything else, afraid even my clothes could be contaminated, and spent the morning looking for a motel. I found one close to the library, and I spent the afternoon among the stacks of books, reading everything I could about poltergeists and TK and the supernatural.
I ate alone in the coffee shop across the street from the motel, staring through the plate glass window next to my table at the black square window of my room. I thought of white sheets climbing up the cold glass, shutting in the room from the outside world, and I shivered. Maybe I would spend the night in the car.
But no. I was being paranoid. There was no way the ... whatever it was ... could track me there.
It was dark when I returned to my room, and even in the antiseptic light of the motel lamp, the two long pillows on the bed appeared somewhat threatening. "Better safe than sorry," I mumbled to myself. And I threw the pillows in the bathroom and closed the door.
In my dream, a gorgeous woman, the most perfect I'd ever seen, offered me her body. I hemmed and hawed, nervous, not believing that such a woman would desire me, but she pushed me onto my back and began unbuttoning my shirt. She unbuckled my pants, pulled them down, then slipped out of her own clothes, revealing a body surpassing even the high expectations generated by her beautiful face and covered figure. She lowered herself onto me, kissing me, pressing against me, moaning with passion, promising pleasure. It was the most realistic dream I'd ever had, and definitely the most arousing. I awoke on the brink of orgasm, feeling as though I was still inside her, feeling her still-thrusting her hips with me.
And I saw the pillow pushing rhythmically against my crotch.
In one instant, my glance took in the open bathroom door, the pillow pulsing between my legs and the other pillow moving up the bed toward my face. I was too confused to react spontaneously. I knew the pillows were having their way with me, but in my sleepbound mind I saw the gorgeous face and figure of my dream lover.