My Sweet Annie

10

I could have continued reading. I could have read the entire thing in one night, in one sitting, but I didn't want to. It had felt like Gran was telling me these stories herself, and the longer I had these new stories, the longer I could savor them. The longer I could feel like there was still a part of my grandmother I could come to know as I hadn't when she was alive.

I set the diary aside to finish the last couple bites of Gran's homemade chicken and noodles. It had been a long day, and I was still tired from my cross-country trip and the general stress of the past several weeks, but it was only nine. If I went to bed now, I would be up at five in the morning.

I made myself a cup of cocoa. Without fresh milk, I had to settle for hot water and the powdered stuff from Gran's pantry. Then I settled down in the living room with a blanket and an Agatha Christie novel from Gran's bookshelf. I liked a good Christie novel. They were clever and cozy, the time period setting them at a safe remove from the modern world and its true crime horrors, and they ended with all of their loose ends neatly tied up.

Porkie came snuffling over and sat down in front of the couch, looking up at me with her big walleyes. She snorted once, then stood up again and pawed at the couch. I put my cup aside and leaned down to pick her up. She was heavier than she looked.

"We should get you a ramp," I said as the dog found a choice spot by my feet. "It's either that or acrobatics training. I could strain my back getting you up here."

We lapsed into companionable silence, Porkie with her head on her small paws and me with my book on my knees. I read a couple of chapters, sipping my cocoa and trying my damnedest to stay awake even though my eyelids were growing heavier and heavier.

That's when I heard the scream.

The sound passed through my body from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes in an icy-cold wave that left my fingers numb on the pages of my book.

Porkie's head whipped up, her small, soft ears perked. She stared toward the back of the house, a soft growl rumbling in her throat. Her hackles were raised.

It had sounded like a woman. A woman in trouble.

I was terrified. I was a woman alone in a huge house in the middle of nowhere, far removed from the small town of Myrtle. There was no one close enough to hear and to help if I was in danger.

Danger.

That scream.

What if something happened to somebody out there, and I didn't do anything to help?

I set my book aside and stood up, jostling Porkie as I pulled my feet away. My phone was plugged in near the toaster in the kitchen. As soon as I reached it, I fumbled it off the charge, staring out into the back yard through the kitchen window. All of the lights in the house were off except for the reading lamp in the living room, which made it easy to see out into the darkness.

There was nothing to see. The yard was empty under a faint wash of moonlight, the black forest that surrounded Gran's property crowding in around the house, closer in the night than it had been during the day.

Had it really been a scream?

This house was ancient. Maybe it had been a creak as it settled. It might have been a noise from the refrigerator, or even a wheezing breath from Porkie. No, that didn't make sense, because the noise had surprised Porkie, too. But maybe my distant mind, absorbed in the novel I'd been reading and slipping down into sleep, had taken some completely normal night life sound and twisted it into—

The scream came again.

I was paying attention this time, standing right there at the kitchen window, staring out into the back yard, and I heard it very clearly.