Haunted

Two

Two years. It has been two years since that night and I still think about it everyday. And why shouldn't I? I've had some weird shit happen to me before – shadows that seem to move out of the corner of my eye, strange, unexplained noises at night, white flashes of light now and then – but that one encounter took the cake. Everything up until that point had a plausible explanation. I'm seeing things. I'm hearing things. Something's wrong with my eye. But him? I couldn't explain him. People don't sneak into other people's houses, have a relatively decent conversation with them and just leave. People rob, rape and kill. When someone enters your house without your knowledge or permission, especially if this someone is a stranger you have never met before, you can be pretty damn sure that they intend to do you some form of harm. But he had just left. And that wasn't the strangest part. Four shots were fired that night. My gun was on the floor when I woke up with four bullets missing. Yet there wasn't a single drop of blood anywhere.

But there could be a rational explanation for this. Maybe, I didn't hit anyone. Maybe he was a figment of my imagination, a character in a dream. Maybe I had, in my sleep, grabbed my gun and fired into open air. If that were the case, however, I would have found four bullets on the floor. But that's not what happened. I'd only found one.

There was the other thing, too. The hole in my bedroom wall. As if someone with super human strength had punched it. My note, the one in which I had so harshly rejected his offer of friendship, had also disappeared.

I shook my head, trying to make sense of my confusion, but to no avail. It has been exactly two years, to the day, and thoughts of him still plagued me. Especially at night. Especially when I was alone in my room as I was now. At first, I didn't recognize what it was that I was feeling. The prickle at the back of my neck, the random bouts of anxiety, the sweaty palms, the fast, rhythmic pacing of my heart. The feeling would come and go but it was always the same. I figured it out eventually. It was fear. Genuine, true fear.

The loud, buzzing sound from my cell phone cut through my thoughts. Sighing, I reached over and looked at the display. Neal.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Hey," a smooth, masculine voice said, "you almost ready?"

I looked at the mirror. Jeans, a light sweater, a matching scarf, my favorite red pea coat and brown, leather boots. Just an average outfit for an average night out at the movies.

"Yeah," I said, "you coming soon?"

"Yeah, I'm leaving the house now. I'll be there in about five minutes."

"Okay, see you then," I said and hung up.

It was Halloween night and I was going to watch a horror movie with Neal, my boyfriend of five months. It was going to be a simple night. Watch the movie, go out for a late dessert afterwards, come back home, the end. So why does he always pop into my head? Why do I feel extra jumpy tonight?

Because it's Halloween, stupid, my inner voice said to me, it's when creatures of the night come out to play. I bit my lip, remembering the idiotic move that had started everything. I could see it in my mind: me, standing in my doorway, so utterly convinced that there was nothing in the world I didn't or couldn't understand, so full of my own arrogance that I didn't even notice the break in the shadows, the strange way the light hit the carpeted hallway floor, all signs that there was someone else there. Someone who couldn't quite be seen. I wish I could take it all back. More than any other moment in life, that is the moment I wish I could forever erase. But it can't happen. Life doesn't work that way.

My phone buzzed again.

"Hey I'm outside. Come out," Neal said. I took a deep breath, determined to put Mr. Vampire out of my mind. At least for the night