Page 32 of Secrets Along the Shore

I reached for my cell phone and flicked it on, the backlight set to its dimmest setting so as not to flood the room with light. I swiped to the app.

No one was outside my apartment’s entrance. Everything appeared serene. Untouched.

I started to relax, chalking the creak up to my imagination. I mean, Iwasseeing dead people so it wasn’t too far of a stretch to assume I could conjure noises in my subconscious.

Another creak.

Adrenaline was becoming a constant companion. I should be used it by now, but I wasn’t. It greeted me now. My eyes widened, staring at the closed bedroom door. I slid from under the covers and poised on the side of my bed. I gripped the hairspray-sized bottle of bear spray on my nightstand.

More effective than a bullet. The product tag line had claimed.

I hoped it was true.

Another creak of the floor and my body tensed, my brain shooting off sparks of danger. Not again. This wouldnothappen to me twice!

I dialed 911.

The operator spoke on the other end of the line, but I left the phone on the bed beside me. They could figure out where I was—thank God for technology.

My bedroom window was across the room. I could make a dash for it, unlock it, bust through the screen and flee. But I doubted I’d make it if the intruder charged into attack me. I felt more confident in dousing him in high-concentrated volumes of pepper spray that was known to blind grizzly bears.

My breath hitched and I held it.

The doorknob was slowly turning.

Someone was here. In my apartment.

A fury filled me. A claws out, hissing kind of fury that made my body tense, ready to spring. It mingled with terror that also caused me to freeze, stealing my breath and my ability to cry out. It was the strangest sensation. This fight or flight combination. The knowledge that death stood on the other side of that door. That death was pushing it open, and my bedroom hinges had the audacity to squeak in an eerie horror movie reality.

My finger shook against the pepper spray’s trigger.

The door swung open, hitting the door stopper.

No one was there.

There was no silhouette in the entrance ready to attack. There was no voice. No sudden movement. No violence.

Just an open door that bounced off the stopper and then settled.

I managed to stand, my legs trembling, my body protesting the movement toward the door to investigate. Everything in my body told me to run. Flee. And it was probably the wisest. But instead, I held the can of bear spray in front of me and peered into the hallway beyond my bedroom.

It was a short hallway, and lit by a nightlight that created familiar shadows. My bathroom was on the left, and then further down the hall, the open entry to the main living area. If the intruder was here, he had likely hidden in the bathroom behind the shower curtain, or he had exited the apartment by way of the main entrance. I didn’t dare to cross the threshold between my bedroom and the hall.

I could hear myself breathing, heavy in my ears. I could sense him.Feelhim. That cold, calculated way he had of torturing us. Toying with us—keeping us in the dark, blinded to each other’s faces. His prisoners in a cellar of concrete and rotting wood, our only companions each other and the spiders and roaches that lived in the corners.

He was here. I could taste him in the air, I could smell his scent, I could hear the low timbre of his voice when he?—

A siren sounded in the distance, snapping me to attention. I strained to hear anything—a sound, a shout, a breath—but it was as if my apartment was abandoned, and only I was left behind here. Entombed with my nightmares turned reality. The question of whether my dreams were so vivid that they had become my truth, or whether my truth was so present that my dreams had become safer than my awakened existence.

The police had beenat my place all of ten minutes at best when Reuben Walker pushed his way into the apartment. With two cops and now Reuben, my home suffocated me. Too many people. Too many men. I desperately needed air.

I shoved past Reuben, busting into the night, the sky opening above me like a black canopy with twinkling eyes everywhere. Yet somehow, I felt safer. Less exposed and less constricted.

“Noa.” Reuben strode up to me. He smelled of coffee, and the lights on the east end of the building illuminated another ridiculous T-shirt. This time a deck of cards with cartoon eyes read “careful, or I’ll deck ya”.

I couldn’t even laugh.

“Are you ok?” Reuben asked. “I heard the call on the radio and recognized your address.”