Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Beyond the Glass Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

BEYOND THE GLASS

Half under a bulky duvet and on the warm side of the window, Carrie Stein was comfortable, and yet shivered at a thought. It was all kinds of winter outside. Snow blanketed the yard in soft, sparkly cotton. The wind-driven dunes and valleys cast unfamiliar and ever-changing shadows. It was as if it wasn’t really her yard out there.

Carrie watched the whipping and tossing of loose snow from atop the pillowed mounds. She hoped there’d soon be a reprieve despite the nostalgic and homey sensation that weather carried beneath its frost. T’was the season and all that.

The winter had set in with ferocity and then lowered its soft mask, thumping its chest and calling out its inaudible victory cry that seemed to mute the world. She imagined the artic blanket burying her car and the effort come morning to dig it out.

It was only 10:30 PM, but since Wallace wasn’t home for another two nights—investment conference in Toronto—the option that tempted her most was curling up in bed with a book. As her perspective shifted away from the nearest mounds, a pale aura amidst the shadows jumped across the yard. Her body stiffened and she leaned closer to the glass, searching for the movement. There was nothing unusual. Wind and winter were bedfellows, and shadows danced on the night. Simple.

In her pajamas—old boxer shorts and a fundraiser t-shirt from a World Wildlife Foundation half-marathon, 2013—she snuggled deeper into her bedding and picked up her book. There was an ever-shrinking stack of birthday books sent by her mother sitting on her nightstand. Forthcoming Christmas books were apt to add to the pile, but there was no harm in having a wealth of choices.

She’d settled on a thin volume based on a floating body in bright blue water. “Vacationers, take me someplace warm,” she whispered.

She flipped open to the dedication page.

For River

“River?”

This was a mystery in need of an immediate answer and she fingered to the back of the book, her hand over the final paragraphs so that she could read the acknowledgement page without ruining the ending. Nothing.

The back flap offered a clue, but not a definite answer.

…lives with her husband and son…

River was almost surely the child of Emma Straub and she’d dedicated the book to him.

Surely. But maybe not?

Carrie placed the book back on the nightstand and swung the covers off her legs. She’d never be able to read with the absurd question nagging her. She rose, catching a glimpse of the mirror at the end of the bed.

There was her face, foremost, front and center, but a flash of white dashed by in the shadows behind her, outside. A chill tickled her flesh and she forgot about River.

There was a face on that shadow, pale as the snow and—Stop it!

She swung around to look out the window, onto the yard and saw nothing beyond the dim glow cast by her bedroom light. A huff left her lips. Self-serving bravado. That huff carried no real emotion.

In the spirit of phony confidence, she stepped out of her room and down the dark hallway, purposefully ignoring light switches in an affront to her fear. With every quick step, her confidence increased, and the image faded. Mystery retook its place in the mental pecking order.

Straub child? Straub dog? Straub friend?

She flicked the light switch on in the office. It seconded as the charging room for a handful of portable devices, limiting the flashing greens and reds to one space. She awoke her laptop and opened Google. The search bar sat empty as her memory failed—the name River on the tip of her grey matter—and the dedication name floated just beyond reach. No trouble, she typed Emma Straub child into the bar.

The top results heeded no answer.

She typed Emma Straub family.

“Shit.”

She typed Emma Straub Wikipedia.

“What in the hell?” she asked the screen. The Wi-Fi monitor in the corner suddenly had a red X through it. “Dammit.” She hit reset on the router, and while she waited, recalled the name.

River.

It was a stupid curiosity and Carrie wished she’d stayed in bed. It seemed so obvious that the dedication was to her young child. Didn’t it say something about vacations to come, or someth—the thought died as she heard a…

Tap-tap-tap.

It was the familiar childhood creeper: a hard object touching glass like a nail on a Coke bottle.

Tap-tap-tap.

Ignoring the light in the office, she stomped to her bedroom. Fear coated her veins in lead and her limbs grew rigid. Once in the doorway, she glimpsed the face again, but only momentarily. She forced her legs forward and looked out the window.

Just cold winter, cold, cold winter.

‘Tis the season.

She lowered herself back into bed. It was a man’s face, she was almost certain. And yet, logic reassured that she hadn’t seen anything but sleepyhead phantoms.

“Only your imagination.” She tried to smile. “A grocery bag blown by the window, probably…but the tapping?”

The force behind the smile failed and according to her reflection in the mirror on the dresser at the end of the bed, her expression wouldn’t pass as even a grin.

Once again, she folded her legs under the covers and picked up the book. She attempted to read. Her mind drifted away from the black on white, slurring and twisting the letter shapes into some indistinguishable language of demons. She stared at that first page of the opening chapter, her chest and stomach achy and light as if she held a book by Peter Straub rather than Emma Straub.

She suddenly didn’t want to be near her bedroom window.

“That light won’t hit itself,” she said. Book on her lap, eyes directed toward the dim hallway, she accepted the small task. The covers once again flopped over to the empty side of the bed as she got to her feet, refusing a glance at the window or into the mirror. The danger was in her head and her eyes had played tricks.

The intention was to go straight to the office and flick the light, but her feet took her past the office and to the next door.

“Okay, you’re scared, no need to—” she whispered to the dim hallway staring at a door open a crack. She stomped her feet and then waited a moment, stomped again.

“Mom?” a small voice called from beyond the door.

A true smile rose to her lips and she pushed into the room. “I’m sorry, honey. Did I wake you?”

“No.”

“I didn’t?” She took another step into the room.

“No, a tree or something’s hitting on the office window.”

Carrie stared into the dark at the glint of her son’s eyes. She had to control herself. She had stepped into her son’s room for a boost of strength, not another spoonful of fear.

“Hitting the window?”

“Yeah, like tapping. It woke me up. Must be pretty bad out there.”

Bren was eleven and thanks to television, video games, and comic books, had numbed to monsters. He could master anything that came along, given the right tool.

“You think there’ll be school tomorrow?” he asked.

Before she’d turned off the television and tried to slip into a book, the week’s collective snowfall was close to a meter and they were only three days into an expected eight days of heavy weather. It had appeared to slow outside, but she wasn’t really looking for snow, she was…

A laugh formed in Carrie’s throat, and she pushed it back. “Goodnight, Bren,” she said, not answering the question.

“Goodnight.”

She left the room and the laugh fought for more and won only a consolation chuckle. She saw a face because she looked for a face. It was obviously snow, falling from the roof, falling from the hydro lines, falling from trees, falling from clouds, just snow.

Tap-tap-tap.

The tapping hit at the office window and she jogged into the room. She put her hand against the wall to steady herself and stared at snow clumped against the glass. It didn’t explain the tapping entirely, but again, it made much more sense than a man outside.

Ease draped over her, though she remained semi-rigid with passed adrenaline. She wasn’t tired and she had a lot to do if it was to be a snow day. That meant sleep. Having her son at home had a way of pushing her behind schedule. She passed her bedroom and flicked the bathroom switch. She took two pills from the Ambien carton, chewed and swallowed. She’d become a bit of a junkie since Wallace had started sawing logs like a regular Paul Bunyan. He said it was aging, but Carrie thought it was the extra twenty pounds he’d put on since he got a promotion and stopped taking a sack lunch to work.

She swallowed the lingering chalky residue and popped a third Ambien intact. Sometimes she awoke after an hour and the third came like a stutter to push her back under.

She got to her room and squinted at the window and beyond. It was snowing and she imagined an understanding of how she might mistake flake for face. She hit the switch and rolled into bed. The pills weren’t immediate, but they were quick.

Tap-tap-thump-thump.

“Who…ah…wha?” Groggy, awaking to a black room. The heavy sound at the window. It was pure night outside and she saw nothing. She spun the lamp’s switch and the room lit, the window lit, a smiling white face lit.

Tap-tap.

No mistaking it this time. The tapping ceased. A hand waved next to a hideous, yellowy face. The face opened its mouth and revealed rotting and blackened teeth. A fat tongue licked the window.

Carrie rocked from the bed and onto her feet as if drunk. She chased out of the room toward the office. The Stein adults made the rule a few years earlier that no communication devices would enter the bedroom, ever. Suddenly, it seemed the dumbest rule on the planet.

The hallway swayed beneath her. Tapping landed at different windows from the various rooms as she passed them. It was a big house, old, and had dozens of panes of glass.

Tap-thump-tap-thump.

The strikes grew louder and she stepped into the office and hit the light. She squinted at the window. It was a void beyond the clinging snow.

“Okay, dreaming, maybe—no.”

She stomped across the room and scooped her cellphone. She dialed 911 and heard nothing. She looked at her phone. It was dead, utterly dead.

But it’s plugged in!

She dropped it back onto the desk and picked up the landline receiver. There was no dial tone.

“The storm,” she said and then decided not. “The face. Bren!”

Tap-tap-tap.

The ghastly white visage pressed a cheek against the office window. Carrie peered into the sickly greenish eye and fought back a scream.

She awoke her laptop. The Wi-Fi status still featured a bright red X over it.

Tap-tap-tap.

“Bren!”

The face at the window began French kissing the glass, melting the clinging snow, forcing a greyish rubbery tongue like an exploratory eel. Its shoulders were bare and boney.

“What, Mom?” Bren’s voice came back, this time he’d obviously been asleep.

“There’s somebody outside,” Carrie slurred.

“What? Are you sleepwalking again? You’re dreaming.”

Carrie cleared her throat and the face waved with both of its arms. Obvious then, this face was saying hello, not goodbye, there was not a doubt in her mind.

“Go away.” Carrie turned toward the door. Her feet weighed a thousand pounds each. She dragged herself into the hallway and heard it again.

Tap-tap-tap.

It came from Bren’s room.

Bren spoke, but it was too low to hear what he said. Carrie forced her body on, wishing that the soft Ambien fog would leave her alone. The door hadn’t latched and she kicked it the rest of the way open before she realized that she’d arrived. She hit the light.

“Mom?” Bren asked, hand blocking light.

The face surfaced in Bren’s window, pressed its lips and blew, offering a view down its throat. Popping sores mired the pink cavern, oozing greenish-yellow pus.

“We got to…” what, what can we do? Wallace has the Ford and snow buried your Fiat. Besides, go where?

“Mom?”

Tap.

“Bren it’s—” She stared into her son’s eyes, unable to put a word to the face. Insanely, her drug-addled brain wanted to call it River.

River’s the name, terror’s the game.

Tap.

“Mom?” Bren squinted at her and she gawked at the window.

The face once again smeared its grubby cheeks against the glass. Carrie was mesmerized.

“Mom?”

Tap.

With a finger, the face traced a grimy heart below the slobbery smudges. Purplish blue lips grinned. It couldn’t be human, not with an expression like that, not bare shouldered out in the snow.

“Mom!”

Carrie swayed on her feet and then the lights went out.

Tap-thump-thump.

“Mo—” Bren’s voice cut off and the lightless room shook the face’s hold over Carrie.

“Bren?” Carrie moaned into the darkness. “Bren!”

There was no answer and she took a step forward, losing her equilibrium, toppling downwards, bouncing first off his bed and then to the floor. She touched the mattress, feeling for a warm body and found nothing. It was bedding, empty blankets.

“Bren!” Carrie hurried away, getting to her feet in the hallway.

She knew what had happened.

The face took him.

“Bren!” She continued, crawling around the kitchen.

The light flicked on and feet prattled all around her. She didn’t dare look. The sounds came closer and closer, rushing toward her like a herd of devils. Hands came down on her arms and she shivered under their cool touch.

“Mom, what are you doing on the floor?”

She recognized that voice. Her heart softened and she fell forward, crying in glee. “Oh, thank goodness.”

Gone on an Ambien errand, not the first time.

“Mom!”

Carrie flipped over, wiping her eyes. Relief washed.

She peeled her lids and looked up at that horrid pale face, baby shit green in the dim kitchen light. The face smiled. Her heart rattled a drumroll.

“No!”

“Hey, Mom!” the face said with Bren’s voice.

A frozen hand fell over Carrie’s nose and mouth. She had no struggle left, none at all. As she succumbed to a lack of oxygen, she drank in the figure of this thing, not a human: its legs were skinny as its shoulders, its hips bowing outwards, its groin vacant of appendage.

The third Ambien kicked in.

Carrie Stein awoke in her bed, the sheets strewn about. She had a pill hangover, her head was cloudy and her bladder felt as if it carried cement rather than urine.

The memory came back.

“Bren? Bren!”

It was a nightmare. The pills sometimes gave her awful dreams. That’s all.

She climbed from bed.

“Bren?”

She listened. It was quiet but for a whistling wind from beyond the walls. Forward from the bedroom, she shuffled.

“Bren?” she whispered, fear taking hold.

Tap-tap-tap.

She stopped in the hallway. The sound assaulted from every direction.

“Bren?”

She listened.

Tap-tap-tap.

“Bren, please answer me.”

Tap-tap-tap.

Tap-tap-tap.

Again, from every direction, those taps landed…coming from inside the glass.

XX