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3:11
Night four, I am ready.
I am prepared.
I’d taken a sleeping pill at dawn, and slept all day, ensuring I would be alert and ready when night came.
I have my baseball bat. I have Shirley’s attitude, and I have an entire pot of coffee on tap.
I am totally sober. Not a single drop of wine in my body. A victory in itself.
As if reenacting a scene from a movie, I’d set up the living room to look exactly as it had the two previous nights. The television is on, the light flickering over the room. The curtains are open. I am even wearing the same sweater and sweatpants. (Different underwear.)
I am a producer in my own little scary movie, a gripping mystery, surely to earn an Oscar nod. A bit over-the-top, I know, but I can’t help it. I’m bored. Also, I have a natural tendency to ask questions, to solve mysteries. This is why I loved my job at the newspaper so much.
I sit on the couch and wait.
And wait.
My fingertips are frozen around the can of mace I’d purchased the day before, my body shivering from the cool night air. I’d forgotten to turn on the heater but I don’t want to leave my post.
Finally, at 2:57 a.m., a rapid,tap, tap, tap,on the door breaks the silence.
This time, I am crouched, like a cat ready to strike, on the other side of the front door.
Gripping the mace in one hand and my cell phone in the other, I fling open the door, ready to confront whoever or whatever is at the center of the mysterious letters.
My late-night visitor is too quick, however. He is already gone and I see nothing but the outline of a dark silhouette sprinting across my lawn.
“Wait!” I lunge out the door, sliding on the white envelope in the center of the welcome mat.
Letter number four.
“Wait!” I yell again. “Stop!”
I sprint after him, mentally cataloging the height, weight, every detail I can of the silhouette running away from my house. He is wearing a black sweatshirt with a white skull and crossbones on the back. And he is extremely fast, which suggests that he is either young or very fit.
The stranger darts around the house, trampling over my beloved vegetable garden.
I can’t keep up. The silhouette disappears into the woods.
I skid to a stop at the tree line. Chest heaving, I stare into the black mass of trees, listening to his heavy footfalls fade into the night.
The world goes silent once again.
“Dammit.”
I glance up at the moon just as a cloud drifts over it.
Something is in the air tonight, more than just the chill. Something ominous that sends a ball of dread twisting in my gut. I don’t like it. It feels like something is coming.
Once back inside, I carry the white envelope to the kitchen table, and open it as carefully as the ones before. This time, however, something tumbles out. I recognize it instantly. It is the necklace my mother used to wear every day, a long gold chain with a stone pendant attached to the bottom. Except now, the pendant is speckled with dried blood.
The letter in this envelope reads:
You are next
Ice-cold fear trickles up my spine.
