I was on a conquest for alcohol, the only thing readily accessible to numb the other dancing in my head, holding me captive.  Normally contained in the house, I can escape when the times are dire and I have to purchase food or other staple items.  Why is it my family only seems here and present in the daylight hours, or when I need verification that I am sane?  They are all too eager to admit I am – I’m suspicious of them all.

I have no real concept of time right now.  I feel like there is a rubber band strapped to my back – the further I get from the dwelling, the harder it wants to snap me back.  The second traffic light seems like the breaking point, when I pass through on the green, the rubber band loosens and I rocket forward into town on a clear night.  The haze that normally clouds everything has lifted.

I feel so awake, so alive while I pull into the fluorescent lighted supermarket.  No one makes eye contact in the store as they just push their way through the checkout line.  Only one lane is open as the poor chap manning the large van out front, is busy steam cleaning the entry carpets.  They all seem normal with no ulterior motives.

With my beer in hand, the guy two places ahead of me stands waiting for his total so he can leave and get on with his day.  But its not day, its night and the broad smile forming on the cashier’s lips exposing the tiny toothy grin is enough to raise my blood pressure.  She’s one of ‘them’.  The guy standing in front of me with the single pint of Chunky Monkey wont face me… I have no idea how entrenched I am.  I wont turn and examine the couple behind me either.  “I’m doomed” I admit to myself while anxiously awaiting my turn to pay and bail out the front door and into my car.

She’s normal as far as I can tell, as I watch the subtotals flash across the digital monitor with my purchase being announced for anyone looking our way.  I break my stare and I can hear the desperate hissing of her hungry sighs, I swipe my card across the magnetic reader quickly and in a quick rebuttal, it demands a second caress.  The hunger panged panting is more intense, however when I shoot up to see the checker smiling happily at me, her human persona does not expose her lighter side as a fraud.

I exit the market with a few Greebles on my tail, but they stop just outside the door – its as if they were suppose to have kept me in but failed miserably. My Coors Light slides right into the passenger seat when I take off past the fast food joints and back onto the main drag leaving the Greebles behind.  My antagonists appear to be of limited power, although they make up for it in their numbers.

Skidding down my gravel road, I exit he vehicle and toss myself and the case of beer through the waiting opened front door – which swings closed and lock itself behind ‘us’.  I feel there was a rush to get down the lane and into the house, even though nothing seems to follow us closely behind.  I am relax again in my safe walls – even if I am again a prisoner.

He kind of shrugged and sauntered away, looking left and right as he walked down the driveway. It was when he reached the edge of the pavement and touched the gravel road that I popped my head all the way up and peered at his backside. On cue, he stopped in his tracks and spun around to meet my gaze. Did he sense or hear me? Why did he turn around!?

The Greeble bolted for my window, but the elevation, or lack of, outside kept him from seeing in – even on his tiptoes. I looked down at him writhing below the glass and cheap screen. Occasionally it appeared as if we made eye contact, but he never locked on, swaying his head and feeling the wall like a blind man. Then he really started to freak me out by smelling the sides of the house. Taking huge snorts against the painted slats of my home, he traced what could have been my outline from the other side of the wall. Sniffing and grunting against the house, through his nose-less face he found a spot he particularly liked and put his hands against the siding to brace itself and pressed hard inhaling deeper and with more vigor.

I ducked down truly afraid of what this beast might be actually looking for. I think it’s probably physically impossible to sniff oneself through a wall – but he was giving it a solid run for its money.

Finally my drum-playing neighbor drove down the road and parked in front of his home, having finished his day of underage mayhem. His own chuckles and laughter broke the frustration – he was obviously entertaining a guest he was having over… all this finally made me realize that the odor-hunting vacuum on the other side had fallen silent.

It took just a few seconds for me to make it from one side of the house to the other, finding my way to the front door and the side window, where I could scan the driveway and see my window from the other side. It’s a mean trick that these Greebles play – popping up from under this new window and beaming at me face to face – still waving his head slightly and taking in the fragrance of glass. This time it was gentle and appreciative, as if he was enjoying the aroma and… well, getting ready to dine.

When I made this realization he simultaneously decided it was time to meet me in person, reached for the doorknob and proceeded to assault the handle. Frantic now he fought the door but was losing. I desperately wanted to go and pull from the other side insuring that he would not draw it from its hinges – while I glanced down and see that the door itself is UNLOCKED! Eyes like saucers, I imagine – I began to cry. Literally right then and there, I knew I was only moments away from my demise. But as much as the house hates me – it seems more determined to keep me for itself. Several times the Greeble pulled the door open almost an inch, only to have it slam back into the doorjamb and bounce itself face first into the knocker.

That same vertigo from the attic began to set in and all I could think to do was scream. I don’t know what I said or what language it was in – but I ended it with a hearty “Go Away!” And opening my eyes found the Greeble to be gone. I don’t know where to – and I don’t care for now, but my front door is still sealed shut. Not that I want to wander around the neighborhood right now anyway.

I normally see them out of the corner of my eye – living in my peripheral vision only. Normal people I meet everyday when I decide to leave the house, when they pass and make their way behind me transform into their Greeble states. Not so long ago I thought that everyone other than me was afflicted with this alternate state of devilishness, but I have seen others like me… other people who look upon me with distrust and fear of every other person who passes by them. There are other pure people like myself – but we never seem to congregate for long – something always seems to break us up and separate us as quickly as we realized we were similar.

Normally when I realize there is one watching me, skulking nearby I twist to catch his gaze but I only see their human shape. The broad toothy grin is gone, and the black eyes – with no whites at all, are normal and almost apologetic. It was last night, however, that I saw one in my dream, looking right at me as I stared it right in the face.

Its face is the same shape as a regular face I guess. The shape always looks the same in my periphery, its just the features that alter during those stalked times. Its mouth is broad and spans from cheekbone to cheekbone while elevated to the center of the head, making for a huge chin. The eyes are in the same location as you would expect, but with sallow lids and circles under them, hiding and withdrawn as if hiding from the light. There was no nose that I could distinguish, or at least remember much about which explains the near-panting movements of the mouth as they breath to steam bifocals from yards away. His complexion was grayish, or at least deathly ill – and had thick wiry hair. Not like greasy wiry like you would expect on a bum, no, more like several millimeter thick hair, twisting in a few strands back from his brow to the rear of his head.

His breath was upon me and seemed to pass right through my very being. And instinctively I knew the name: Greeble.