She truly believed that he was coming for her this time. Like a deer in headlights, she stared out the top floor window processing what she had just seen, recognizing the shape of the shadow that was creeping along the long fence across the street.
He had been walking in broad daylight when she had first seen him, realizing now that he had been casing the house across the street.
' house.
She thought nothing of it until the next day. He wore the same clothing as the day before, and the day before that. Slowly, almost in a menacing fashion, striding up and down the street glancing at houses.
He had worn a grey jacket over his usual clothing, but once he had gotten close enough for her to see him more closely she knew that hood anywhere; burned and browned around the edge, just like all of the pictures.
Sasha felt frozen in place by his blackened glance. She didn't feel as much fear as she anticipated as when she had imagined this moment dozens of sleepless nights before. But her breaths became short-lived grasps of what she found comfort in as reality. Her body retaliating by leaving her lungs feeling more and more flattened with every stroke of air. What had truly startled her was not the fact that there may now be some truth to every forum post she'd ever read, but how those late nights scaring herself into insomnia had conditioned her for when she finally came within shouting distance with one of the Master's...no...theMaster of those fears.
Her body felt as though it had suddenly chilled with a thin film of heat leaving her in a wave as the caption of his eyes centering into her face seared into her mind.
She had just turned off her computer when he had been ensnared in the corner of her eye. His white hoodie treading across the yard like a large animal. Even when she wasn't sure that it was in fact him that she had seen, she instinctively shut off her laptop, enclosing herself in the darkness of her empty home.
His frame faded into the grey and blue shades of midnight as he became a shadow along 's home. Her fingers hesitantly stumbled along her computer desk, searching for her phone, unable to look away.
The window in the living room left little to the imagination as it was unveiled, but from there she could see the opening of the staircase illuminated by the fractions of moonlight. He's heading up the stairs…
Her fingers slid along the finished wood surface to no avail. She leaned stretching her torso back without breaking her focus on the house. Her fingers felt as though they were pulsing each time they touched the surface.
If she had never moved out, she wouldn't be here right now.
If she had never left, she wouldn't be up this late.
She would be sleeping next to mom and Annie on the couch, and her terrier, Duke.
Although she knew Mom wasn't there to tell her she had only been dreaming, she wasn't at home, either.
Just Ken.
And his new wife.
The woman stole a quick breath and shook away the thought slowly. Her fingertips nearly grazed her phone, she sneered distastefully at her gawking.
There was a weightlessness that made her heart pound hard against her chest in a solo cry. Her frail hand barely gripped the table as she collided with the oak floor. She cried out holding her head as she began writhing.
"Damn...Damn it!" She hissed. "God-DAMN IT!"
Her protest was cut short by a sudden stir from the room below her.
Foot steps.
Heavy, quickened, and heading toward the stairs.
The pounding in her chest gave way to a quaking in her body so violent it made her joints feel as though they were vibrating.
He's here…
Her mind began to reel. He finished -he's on a killing spree! The aching now replaced with a violent conglomeration of fear and a sensation she hadn't been able to identify before. Not since her Mother's accident had she felt such a need to survive.
From the floor she could see under her bed, just a few feet away, a baseball bat.
She rolled to her side, sitting up her chair. It would give him enough time to ponder what he had heard. Her hands felt clammy compared to the wooden floor, she quickly threw each hand in front of the other, nearly scattering across the floor. A panicked hand nearly thrust under the bed for the weapon, now unsure of when the slamming in her chest started and the pounding of hurried footsteps began.
Both simultaneously came to a halt as the door flew open.
She didn't have enough time to hide.
The dark brought a figure forward, lunging towards her-she shrilled swinging the bat with all of her might, a muffled thud knocked him to the floor with a high pitched cry followed by an uninhibited whimpering.
"WHAT THE HELL SASHA?!" the voice cracked.
Her eyes shot open dropping the bat against her nightstand, she crawled from the space between her bed and drawers crawling to the small figured girl shrieking on the floor.
"ANNIE! OH MY GOD!" she bellowed. "Annie! Are you alright? What are you doing here?"
"You IDIOT! I was just at the bar-oh my god! What the fuck is wrong with you?! HUH?!"
The girl lying on the floor curled up holding her side swearing profusely through wildly spilling tears. She coughed between her sobs leaving Sasha more aware of the danger, her thoughts were tangle yarn as her sister drunkenly cursed her.
It had only taken a second before she shook herself out of one mess and diving into the one in front of her. "Annie...Annie, we have to get out of here! There's a killer across the street, we have to get to the car and call the police!"
The younger of the two rolled onto her back growling more profanity under a hinged breath. "What are you talking about? I came home from the bar, and I heard you fall out of your chair and you hit me with a fucking bat-now some bullshit about a killer?"
Sasha shook her head violently as her sibling lifted her from the ground and onto the bed. "Annie you don't understand! I just watched him go into Mr. Jacobs house! Please! I want to go!"
"How do you know it's not his son, Sasha?" Annie's voice snapped with a less than enraged tone as she turned to retrieve her sister's chair. Sasha's stomach churned smelling the alcohol on her sisters breath.
Her voice broke into a panicked wail as her hands clutched at her chest in her matter of fact way when she is absolutely certain, but refraining from screaming towards her sister. Reaching down from the bed she gripped the bat once more, "I've had physical therapy with Mr. Jacobs for two years Annie! He doesn't have a son!"
A second had passed when Sasha realized Annie wasn't responding.
She stared out the window with an expression that could rival an empty canvas. Sasha's eyes widened feeling her heart sink into the pit of her stomach. "A...Annie?"
The young woman didn't respond, her lips parting only slightly as though she were forming words in slow motion.
"I...it's him...it's Jeff the Killer."