Chapter one sets the scene. Stand by for chapter two.
It was late and it was dark. Lisa Reisert's body was working to full capacity, every fibre of her being was alert and every sense she had was observing her surroundings for anything usual. It was a full six months since the plane incident, and there was no sign of the sickening anxiety fading.
Jackson Rippner had disappeared from hospital and hadn't been seen since. Worse, the police had yet to find any evidence to incriminate the man, or indeed to suggest that he even existed. At first they had been sympathetic and had listened to Lisa's recounts with interest. Now, half a year later Lisa was begining to feel like the paranoid fraud the investigators though her to be. They had concluded Jackson Rippner was the product of stress ridden, traumatised woman's imagination.
23 weeks ago, a hysterical Lisa Reisert had pleaded with her liaison officer. She had sobbed as she tried desperately to convince him that she was in danger. She was patted on the back and reassured that no Jackson Rippner had ever been on that flight, and no Jackson Rippner had ever been treated at the local hospital.
22 weeks ago Joe Reisert died suddenly in his sleep. Pathologists decided he'd had an undiagnosed heart condition.
20 weeks ago Lisa Reisert was treated at a residential mental health facility. She was admitted forcibly after her therapist concluded she was suffering delusions as a result of post-traumatic stress.
2 weeks ago Lisa Reisert's car stopped working. The man in the repair shop said it could take weeks to order the replacement parts needed.
1 week ago Lisa Reisert ran out of funds for taxis too and from work. With her job already in jeopardy from the amount of leave eaten up by her time in hospital. She was forced to take the train.
When not at the hotel, Lisa was at home. She didn't dare leave her house and she kept the curtains drawn at all times. She had invested in a new security system and carried in her handbag: two cans of pepper spray, a whistle and the gun she had purchased illegally from Cynthia's tough looking cousin.
It was a five minute walk from the station, though these days Lisa made it in a little under three. Her whistle clutched in one hand and her pepper spray in the other, she hurried up her lit driveway and let herself into the house. She fastened the three deadlocks on the door and made sure the the latch was secure. Next, she went into the kitchen to reset the alarm before it activated by her presence. The room was lit, as it always was. She never turned the lights out, not even in the day.
She moved to the cupbard housing the security system and opened the door. The green light of the password screen sat blinking benignly at her, deactivated.
Screwing up her face, she brought her hand to her forehead and tried desperately to remember her actions that morning. She had set the alarm, she always set the alarm.
She stood as still as a lake willing the truth away. Her breath was rising in panic as she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand. She didn't need to open her eyes to know he had come for her at last.
'Hello, Lis. Miss me?"
The first chapter of my first Red Eye story. Please do leave any suggestions.