Page 24 of My Turn

“Uh, someone named Erebus was asking me about my book. When I looked outside, there was a guy in a neon mask. He was just staring at me, then he texted me again. It was the same person.”

There were a few beats of silence. “Please tell me you’re playing a prank on me right now.”

“I wish I was. I thought maybe it was you fucking with me.”

“Of course it wasn’t me. I’m coming over.”

“No,” I said quickly. “That’s not necessary. It’s probably just someone I know trying to mess with me.”

“Who would do that? Alana, this doesn’t sound safe. You should call the police.”

“There’s nothing to report at this point. If I see him again, I might.”

“I have a bad feeling about this. You’re keeping everything locked up, right? The front and patio doors, all of the windows. Everything.”

With a sigh, I plopped onto my bed. “I’m not an idiot. Look, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Okay.”

He sounded hesitant and I could just imagine him jumping in his truck to race over here.

“Maybe you need cameras,” he went on.

“I don’t need cameras. Just relax, okay? I’ll tell you if anything else happens.”

“Good. Please be careful.”

“Always. I love you.”

“I love you too, Alana.”

After I ended the call, I stared up at the ceiling and focused on my breathing. My heart rate was steady and I didn’t feel as anxious as before. I was still more than a little unnerved by the whole thing, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it right now. I lived in an apartment and there were people all around me. If anything happened, someone would hear me scream, which would’ve been a comfort if I thought anyone would actually try to do something about it. Studies showed that a lot of people wouldn’t call the cops if they heard or saw something suspicious.

Maybe I should’ve made friends with my neighbors over the past six months. They might be more willing to be helpful if they knew who I was. How did one introduce themselves to neighbors? In movies, they baked cookies and brought them by. If someone did that, I would immediately throw them away because they might be poisoned. I also didn’t trust anything cooked by someone I didn’t know. There was no telling what the state of their kitchen- or their body- was. For all I knew, they could be like that woman who made sourdough using her vaginal yeast infection.

Now that I’d triggered a gag first thing in the morning, I got to my feet to make a very strong pot of coffee. Once again, I hadn’t worked on grading midterms yesterday, which meant I couldn’t spend the day sleeping. I was far from in the mood for it, but I didn’t really have a choice. Next week, my students would be doing their presentations, which meant I’d have to focus on that. These tests had to get finished this weekend. No exceptions.

Giant coffee cup in hand, I settled on the couch with a stack of paper in front of me. Five classes times twenty five studentsin each one gave me one hundred and twenty five tests to grade. That wasn’t horrible, except that each one had a hundred questions on it. That left me with twelve and a half thousand places to put a check or an x.

Fuck me. The school needed to give me a T.A., but that would require a budget, which we never had. The teachers had to pay for most of our supplies. Parents that were able and willing to buy the things on the provided list at the beginning of the year helped a lot, but we were still left with a lot to cover ourselves.

Public school was laughable sometimes.

After I turned on some music, I got to work. It didn’t take long for me to get into the groove of things. My head bobbed to the beat and I found myself singing badly along with the lyrics. I’d made it through about half of the stack when my neck felt prickly. I looked up, then turned to the living room window, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Shaking my head, I got to my feet and headed into the kitchen for more coffee. Once my cup was full, I started back toward the living room but came to an abrupt halt when there was movement outside the sliding glass door in the dining room.

My heart hammered in my chest. The caffeine probably didn’t help the anxiety I felt right now, but god could pry it out of my hands in hell. I took a cautious step forward and when I didn’t see anything, I moved closer.

The deck was empty, aside from my little barbecue and the chest with my random gardening supplies that I couldn’t use here. Blowing out a breath, I brought the cup to my lips.

Neon blue appeared at the window and I screamed. The cup fell to the floor, shattering on impact. I was frozen with my eyes locked on that mask. It was at the top of the window and it was… upside down. Was this fucker on the roof?

We stayed like that, as if in a stare off, for an indeterminable amount of time. I wanted to run, but I didn’t know where I’d go.I was afraid that if I left the door, he’d break in. If I ran through the front door, I could be at his mercy since he was prowling around on top of the building like a cat.

My chest ached with how hard my heart was pumping. I swallowed and took a step back, then nearly dropped to my knees when I stepped on a piece of ceramic. When I looked down, I found that it was all around me, leaving me in a minefield of sorts.

Looking back up, I felt something lodge in my throat. He was gone. I didn’t know if that made me feel better or worse.