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I was working ten hour days in the desert only to come back to a cramped, worn-out hotel room. The mini fridge didn't keep my groceries cold enough, and I was afraid to walk across the dingy industrial carpet with my bare feet. It was a real dump, man. The company tried to save money every way they could. The heat out there just sapped every bit of my energy, so I would normally shower and lay in bed watching TV for an hour or so before I fell asleep.

I guess it was a few weeks on the road out when I first heard the noise. It sounded like pieces of sheet metal sliding across one another, but it sounded very far away. I thought it was coming from the TV, but when I turned it off I could still hear it. It was faint, but I was barely able to fall asleep that night.

The next night I heard it again, and I got out of bed to try and figure out what was making that awful sound. It sounded really far away, so I left the room and walked outside the hotel to listen for it again. Every step I took away from the building, it seemed to get louder. As I walked around the hotel parking lot, I tried to pinpoint the origin. It was coming from the north, but it was still distant.

After the fifth or sixth night, the sound started to seep into the day. I heard it constantly. I started to see eyes in the shadows of the cacti. A tumbleweed would blow past us, and I would see wiry, black fingers reaching towards me. I desperately tried to shut it out. I rationalized it all by telling myself it was stress. It was lack of sleep. It was the freshness of my grandfather's death.

When I finally got home, I had been away for well over a month. I was exhausted. I hadn't had a good night's sleep in three weeks. When I stepped off the plane, it was 11:30 at night. I kissed my wife and sons and hugged them all tightly. I was genuinely happy to see them despite my frustration and the swell of fear in my throat. The screeching, groaning, grating sound I had heard every night had become a horrible constant. Every shadow moved the wrong way. I just needed sleep. At least, that's what I kept telling myself.

My wife fell asleep quickly, and I left the bed. I picked up the pistol from the nightstand and started towards the stairs. Neither my wife nor my sons mentioned anything about the noise, and I think that frightened me more than anything. It was absolutely deafening. As I took each deliberate step towards the upstairs bedroom, I felt sweat start to pool between my hand and the rubber grip of the pistol. I tightened my clench and gritted my teeth. Something was up there, and I was going to make it stop filling my house with that sound.

I flung the door open and immediately raised the gun. I centered the sights right in the middle of its head; that spindly black shadow. It's prickly head snapped around with a sickening twitch, and it glared at me with those paralyzing, piercing blue eyes. Its jagged jaw just kept swiveling back and forth, and that godforsaken noise rattled through my bones. It slowly started to stand with its hands raised towards me, and I emptied the magazine as quickly as I could pull the trigger. After my ears stopped ringing, the sound stopped, and I dropped the empty pistol.

The investigators told me that Jeremiah watched as I shot seven rounds into Jack's chest and head. Jeremiah screamed as soon as he woke up, but I never acknowledged it, even after he fell down the stairs running from the room. They say that I didn't say a word to anyone until I got here. I zoned out while Gloria broke down and attacked me. I stood like a statue in the room with my murdered son until the cops arrived. They say Gloria and Jeremiah moved to New Mexico.

That's what they say, at least but I know better.