The Worst Gift

          No matter how fast I walked, I couldn’t shake him. Everywhere I looked, he was there. Behind the street sign. Reflected in the store window. When he stood under a light pole, the dim yellow glow seemed to make him translucent; the eerie haze allowed me to see the cars driving by on the street behind him.

            I turned onto my neighborhood. I was so close to home. So close. The only thing that worried me was that I hadn’t been attacked. Was he waiting for something? Is this too public of an area? I was walking so fast my book bag pounded on my back.

            My house came into view; everything looked normal. Two stories, four windows. Our yellow front door. But as I walked closer, I began to notice an alarming difference. When I left the house this morning, my yard was green and plush, full of life. Now the entire lawn was a sickly brown, the dead grass matted and flat. The flower bed, home to radiant chrysanthemums and marigolds, was now a tangled mess of wilted and broken blossoms. My heart dropped.

            I rushed up the sidewalk and, with shaky hands, pulled my keys out of my pocket. I clutched them to my chest, afraid to let their jingling voices sound in the eerie silence. When I reached the door, I hastily shoved the key in the lock, and watched in frantic horror as the key slipped off the curved side of the doorknob. I attempted to unlock the door a second time, but my hands were shaking severely and I couldn’t seem to see straight. I cast a glance behind me to check for the figure, but he was nowhere in sight. With a third and final attempt, the key clicked into place and I ran inside. I engaged the deadbolt and a wave of relief crashed through me. Resting my head on the door, I took a breath. I knew his disappearance was too good to be true. A nagging feeling stirred in my stomach, so strong it almost had me running to the bathroom. Instead, I walked over to the window facing the living room. My hands shook, my heart raced. I had a strong inclination as to what I would see. But, I drew the curtain back anyway.

                He was standing on the yard looking right at me.

            Around the edges of his dark shape, he was starting to shimmer in small waves like the hood of a car in the summer. His face wasn’t visible, but I could feel his presence, heavy on my chest.

            I pulled the curtain to and pushed away from the wall. I backed away. I couldn’t seem to get far enough away; I could feel his eyes boring into me. I needed more distance--

            Something caught my foot and I was sent sprawling backwards. All of my pent up fear and worry was released at that moment and the silent house was filled with the sound of my scream.

            I stuck my hands out to catch my fall, and they landed on something furry. I looked down and met the cold, glassy eyes of Scout, my childhood pet. The nose that had nudged my hand when I was eating, coercing me to slip him a scrap, was now dry and motionless. The paws that had playfully attacked me when I came home from school were sprawled out, lifeless. He would no longer lay his head on my lap when I read, or pester me until I took him for a walk.

           I couldn’t breathe. I skittered away from the body, a choked sob rising from my throat. Tears slipped from my eyes and I covered my mouth with my hands. There was no mistaking the cold stamp of death.

            I ran upstairs to grab my phone. I needed to call my parents. I needed to hear their voices. I started falling apart as I tripped up the stairs, my tears making it hard to see the steps. When I reached the door, my salty-wet hands slipped off the smooth copper of the doorknob; another desperate cry escaped my lips. I finally flung the door open and was in pursuit of my phone sitting on my nightstand when -

         I saw them. My parents.

        Laying on the floor, that same glassy and blank stare replacing the lively, loving gazes I have always known.

        I fell to my knees, sobbing. My mother’s long red hair fanned out across my rug, so beautifully bittersweet. My father’s strong shoulders and arms were slumped against the foot of my bed. Would he never hold me, comfort me again? Would I never get to feel my mother’s soft hair brush against my cheek as she leaned in for a hug, drawing me close? Reaching out to touch my mother’s cold hand, I noticed what she was holding: a banner. And even though my vision was obscured by tears, I could still make out the words “Happy Birthday” written in scrawling print.

           Another anguished yell.

        I noticed the presents on my bed, the extra wrapping paper and tape in the corner. I thought they had forgotten… They hadn’t said anything to me this morning or made the customary heart-shaped pancakes with the single candle. Was this why? Were they planning something all along?

       I pushed away from their bodies and grabbed my cellphone before sprinting blindly down the hallway, tripping over the stairs while my hand, slick with tears, glided across the rail. My feet landed with a thump on the first-level floor, and I refused to look in the direction of the remains. If I did, I’d lose it. I allowed my hair to drape down like a curtain as I stumbled to the door and threw myself outside. My gaze landed on the dead, wilted flowers and the dead, brown grass, and I was reminded of my dead, cold family.

        My shaking hands were about to dial those three infamous numbers when down the street, I saw him. As he drifted idly down the sidewalk, farther away from the scene of the crime, the wind picked up and tossed my hair around, making it unmistakably clear as the shimmering waves slowly began to whittle away his form until he was… gone.

       As I stared heartbrokenly at the place from which he disappeared, the air flowed through the trees and the neighbor's wind chimes, and I could’ve sworn I heard the words “Happy Birthday.”