The Stalker by Verna Cole Mitchell Horror Writing Contest contest entry Artwork by avmurray at FanArtReview.com |
Premonitions of danger troubled my mind, even before I arose from a night of restless sleep. With my husband away on a business trip, I was alone and afraid as news of a stalker, roaming the streets of our city, had me on nervous alert.
Heating the kettle for tea, I turned on the television to get the latest reports. The sun, just waking from her slumbers, shone through the windows to provide a background for the flickering face of the newscaster as he described the dangerous attacker: heavily bearded, tall and thin, and wearing jeans with a blue long-sleeved shirt. Each sound I heard filled me with renewed fear. Sirens that wailed nearby awakened terror while tree branches, brushing against the house, brought fresh panic. Suddenly the sun forsook her perch to crawl back into night darkness. A loud clap of thunder shook the house, and all at once, the power went off. The deliverer of dire warnings was silenced, and the whistling of the tea kettle faded into the dark and silent world, which now enveloped me. Grabbing matches from the cupboard, I lit the candle that sat on my kitchen counter. With a small circle of glimmering light, I sat at the kitchen table and read in my Bible of God's many promises never to leave those who love Him. Though these remembrances calmed my fears to a degree, I confess that I still felt some alarm. Fists of rain pounded on my window panes, and I could hear angry gusts of wind gathering sodden clumps of leaves from the ground to fling all around with vengeance. I thought I heard a baby crying on my front porch, and as I peered through the peephole of the door, I saw in a streak of lightning, the neighbor's cat, flying down my front steps to disappear into the darkness. Some indistinguishable sounds in my back yard drew me to the kitchen window, where in lightning's flashes, I saw a tall man, dressed in a long-sleeved shirt. He beckoned to me with long, thin arms. The lightning did not last long enough for me to see his face, but what I did see was enough to terrify me. I rushed back to the table, and putting my head on my trembling arms, I prayed for protection. Before I could say amen, the room was filled with light and noise. A woman on TV was reporting that the stalker had been apprehended by the police a half hour ago and was now in custody. Then who, I wondered, had that been standing in my yard? As the sun came out of hiding, I went to the window again and saw, hanging on the clothesline, my husband's shirt I had forgotten to bring in yesterday, its long sleeves waving in the wind.
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Verna Cole Mitchell
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