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Slipping on the boots, I reach for the door but stop in my tracks. A small, white box is attached to the doorframe, a matching piece on the door. I know instantly what it is as I recall the sound I’ve heard a few times before.
Re-re-re-re-re-re.
An alarm.
It’s how he knows I’m still inside. He must’ve installed a similar one on the storm door, since the main back door didn’t have one. If I open this, he’ll know I’m leaving. He’ll find me. For all I know, the windows all have them, too.
I’m trapped here, and he knows it.
I step back, weighing my options. I could run, try to make it to safety. If I have a plan, I—
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
I hear the sounds of him jogging up the stairs.
He’s coming back.
He’s in the kitchen already, moving steadily toward me. I have mere seconds before he walks into the room and finds me standing here, helpless and unprepared.
Darting for a room across the hall, I step into an open doorway and search for a hiding place. It’s clearly his bedroom. There’s an old waterbed in the center of the room and a television that has been ripped from the wall lying on top of it.
I make a quick assessment of the walls in horror. There are so many photos of me here. Pictures from my website and the press, but also images from book signings. There are three different pictures of the two of us together, my arm around him from behind a table where he proudly holds one of my books.
My mind is fuzzy, my stomach tight. My lungs are suddenly in a vise.
Pure panic and outright horror spread through my chest, like roots spreading out and overtaking my body.
I’m going to be sick.
I had no idea whom I was meeting back then. No idea I was standing next to a monster. How could I have missed it? Why didn’t I see how dead he is behind his eyes? How did I overlook the pure evil hiding there?
On the wall, there’s a shelf with a full collection of my books. None are missing, which means the ones he’s been bringing me are extras. He owns multiple copies, just like he told me before.I probably own more copies than anyone else in the world.The wall to my right is covered in framed images of comments I’ve responded to on social media. They’re all to him.
Thanks for your support, Chris!
I’m so glad you liked it, Chris!
You’re the best, Chris!
Wow, Chris! What a great review! So grateful for your support.
I snap back to reality as I hear him in the living room once more. It sounds like he’s searching the closet I hid in earlier again, more thoroughly this time.
With no other choice, I dart into his closet and slide the door shut slowly and silently. It’s not much bigger than the one in the living room. I sink down to the floor and pull a stack of boxes around me to shield myself from him, pulling my legs in tight to make myself as small and unnoticeable as possible. The wound on my stomach screams in revolt.
I’m probably going to die today. Soon.
Strangely, I think I’m okay with that. I’m coming to peace with it as the seconds tick on. I tried. I fought. I did all I could do, but there are fates worse than death, and I will not allow him to take me back down to that room to do what he has planned.
I just won’t.
Declan would be proud of me, I think. For trying. For fighting back and continuing to try again and again, despite the fear. I need to believe he’d be proud of everything I’ve done.
I sit in anxious silence, too afraid to move for fear he’ll hear me. I listen as he searches another room in the house. I can make out the sound of things being shuffled around, hear his grunting, groaning, and complaining.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are…” he taunts in a low, sing-song voice.
Snapping into action finally, out of my frozen-in-fear stupor, I decide to look for anything I can use as a weapon. There’s always something.
