In the Shadows

Chapter 2

      Luke wasn't really enjoying himself. He was at a popular nightclub. Being a Friday night it was crowded and he had to stand sipping on his drink for the first hour until a table near the bar was vacated and he was able to sit down. As he watched the people filing to and from the bar he wondered why he was there. The girls were all giggling and drunk, and most of them appeared to be under twenty. He had asked two girls for a dance but had been turned down. As he gazed around the club his attention suddenly stopped as he saw a familiar face. Standing against the far wall, he only got glimpses of her through the crowd, was a girl with light brown hair who seemed to be staring right at him. He was so unnerved he almost dropped his drink! She looked just like......no that was impossible. He lost sight of her for a few seconds as people blocked his vision. Then when his view was clear again she was gone. He stood up and frantically looked around the club. No sign of her.

Calm down, he told himself. It was just someone who looked like her. He went back to the bar and ordered another drink. Soon he had calmed his breathing, and with the effects of the alcohol he was relaxed again. But he didn't want to stay. This was a waste of time. He wasn't going to meet a nice girl here. He made his way to the front of the club where he called a taxi.
Half an hour later the cab dropped him in front of his block of flats. He paid the driver, but as he walked past the darkened carports he thought he heard a noise. He stopped and looked closely into the gloom towards the back of the carports. There, standing near the rear wall was the dark outline of a person. Someone was watching him. He should have called out, or maybe approached this person and asked what they were doing there. But this was the city. Assaults late at night were common. It could be dangerous challenging someone hiding in the shadows. They might be planning to rob him, they could have a knife or a gun.

He walked quickly to his door, unlocked it and stepped inside locking it after him. He made a cup of coffee and sat down at his dining table. He had just taken the first sip when realisation hit him like a sledgehammer. The faint silhouette of the person in the shadows of the carport tonight had long hair. It was a woman. First at the club tonight, and now outside his flat. He was being stalked by her. It had to be her. He took deep breaths and tried to think logically. Of course it couldn't be her. She was safely locked up. That woman at the club tonight just resembled her, and that shadow in the carport was probably some teenager smoking pot.

Luke finished his coffee and went to bed, but sleep was elusive as his memory kept taking him back two years to the nightmare he thought he had left behind.

The following night as he arrived home from visiting friends he looked around apprehensively as he walked from the car to his front door. There was a noise from behind the carports. He froze for a second, but then decided he had to know. If someone was stalking him he was going to confront them. He slowly walked along the side of the building straining his eyes trying to see into the gloom. He hesitantly peered around the corner of the carports. There were some empty cardboard boxes stacked at the back of the building. Someone could be hiding behind them. There was another noise. One of the boxes moved slightly.

"I know you're there," he called out in a bold voice, "Come out and show yourself."
Nothing happened.

He took a step towards the boxes. Suddenly a small black and white form streaked past him. He jumped back in shock, his heart threatening the jump out of his chest. Then he relaxed. It was only the neighbour's cat. He took deep breaths. He was a nervous wreck. He walked to his front door. As he stepped into his flat if he had turned and looked back outside he would have seen a figure step out from behind the shrubs across the road and stare intently in his direction.

Although Luke slept better that night than the previous night, she still came to him in his dreams. He opened his eyes and saw her standing over his bed. She leaned forward so her long hair brushed against his face. She had the face of a fairy princess, a beautiful face with hair as black as night and lips begging to be kissed. "Kiss me, Lukey," she whispered, "Kiss me and we'll be together forever." Then she faded from his sight.

Luke spent the day on Sunday washing and doing housework, then a trip to the supermarket to stock up with groceries. He was doing the dishes after his evening meal with the television on in the next room. He paused as he heard the news reader say, "Police are still looking for a patient of the Stanmore Mental Institution who escaped three weeks ago."
He dropped the pan he was washing and rushing out into the lounge room where he stood in front of the television.
'The woman had apparently eaten something which produced symptoms of poisoning and had been taken to Bankstown Hospital. Sometime during the late evening of the fifth she managed to get loose from her restraints and disappeared from the hospital.' The newsreader went on to say how she was considered dangerous, do not approach. Finally they showed her photo and gave her name, Summer Mills.

Luke knew who it was even before he saw her photo and heard her name. His stomach twisted into knots and he broke into a sweat. At first he couldn't move, he just stood there for several minutes, but then survival instinct kicked in. He checked that all doors and windows were securely locked, then he turned off the lights and stood inside the front window, parting the curtain by just a few centimetres so he could see outside. The person he had been seeing hiding in the shadows over the last few days had to be Summer. She was stalking him, waiting for her chance to strike. He could see nothing out the front. He did the same with a back window. Still no movement.

What could he do? Tomorrow he would call the detective who had been in charge of her case two years ago and demand protection. But tonight he would protect himself. He armed himself with a carving knife from the kitchen, then sat in a lounge chair facing the door and waited.

Things start to hot up in the next chapter.
But first don't forget to vote :)