Unexpected

Part Une

  I dedicate this story to Ms. Norum, my English teacher. Without her, I never would have written this.

          “I’m coming to get you.”

            For one second, Torin Diallo stood frozen in place. The rough, gravelly voice on the phone congealing his blood in sudden fear, it’s rasping tone chilling him to the bone. Terrified and losing his wits, Torin slammed the receiver into its cradle and yanked the plug out of the wall. Hyperventilating, he nervously glanced around the darkened room for any sort of danger. His hazel-eyed gaze first fell upon a frozen scene of the movie he had been watching. The actress’s face was fixed in as if in rigor mortis, a scream on her lips, clawing at the ground as she was dragged backwards to her death. Torin shivered at her expression, the drawn curtains doing nothing to dispel the feeling of despair and doom. He wished he had not covered the window to block out the morning light. It only served to increase his fright.

            Torin ran his fingers through his medium-length brown hair. He wondered at the phone call. Creepy and disturbing, it belonged in one of the many horror movies scattered on the low glass table in the middle of the room. It made him all too aware that he was alone in the house, his parents off at work. It was at that moment that Torin desperately wished for he presence of his best friend, Sabin Selvaggio. If there was anyone who could find out what was going on, it was Sabin. However, Sabin had fallen sick yesterday afternoon and hadn’t been able to come to their planned Saturday morning horror movie marathon. Instead, here he was by himself at home at ten in the morning, his terror only increasing exponentially as each second passed, the sharp odor of fear ripening.

            KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

            Torin almost screamed, his hand barely smothering the sound before it could travel beyond his lips and alert whoever stood on the other side of the door. Instinctively he froze, obeying the timeless response of startled animals. His muscles tensing, he let the other make the first move. Breathing softly, he waited.

            KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

            He waited still in silence, ears straining to hear the slightest alarming noise. The wooden planks of the porch creaked, the noise followed by the whisper of shuffling feet taking a step closer to the entrance. Torin’s nerve broke then. Turning on his heels, he rushed silently to the back of the house. Throwing open a window, he tore the screen out of the way and sprang out of the house and into the backyard. Torin took off with the speed of the wind, acting as if the hounds of hell were on his heels.

            On the porch, a Jehovah’s Witness knocked on the door once more. When no response came, he turned to his partner and asked, “Should I leave a magazine?”