Her bare feet pounded on the carpet of the short hallway as she dashed toward her bedroom. She heard no sounds of pursuit coming from behind her, but she didn’t know if the shadow creatures made any noise as they moved – the one at FoodSaver hadn’t. But she wasn’t dumb enough to believe the things weren’t chasing after her, and she was damn sure she wasn’t going to look back over her shoulder to check. When she reached her bedroom, she dashed inside, slammed the door shut behind her, and locked it. She then hurried to her nightstand to snatch up her phone. Before she could start to input numbers, one of the creatures crashed into her bedroom door, hitting it so hard she heard wood crack. The creatures might look like shadows and move just as silently, but it seemed they could pack a wallop when they wanted to.
More pounding at the door now. She pictured a mass of shadowy forms filling the hallway, clawed hands curled into fists, all of them pounding on her bedroom door, desperate to get at her. It wouldn’t take the things long to break down the door and flood into the room. She preferred not to be there when it happened.
She darted toward her bathroom and reached it at the exact instant that the bedroom door burst open. She spun around, shut the bathroom door, locked it, then plopped down on her ass in front of it. She turned, braced her bare feet on the toilet bowl’s cold porcelain, and pushed her back against the door. She didn’t know how long she’d be able to keep the shadow creatures from reaching her, but she hoped it would be long enough.
Heart pounding, head throbbing, breath coming in ragged gasps, she pressed nine-one-one on her phone’s screen and then held the device up to her head with a shaking hand. For an instant she feared that the call wouldn’t go through, that the shadow creatures possessed some kind of ability to block her phone’s signal, and she was relieved when she heard the sound of ringing as her phone tried to connect.
Before the dispatcher on the other end could answer, dozens of hands began pounding on the bathroom door, striking so hard that she could feel the impacts juddering through her bones and teeth. She experienced a draining sensation then, a sudden weariness, as if her strength was deserting her. Her legs began to tremble, and she feared she wouldn’t be able to keep the door closed much longer.
“No,” she said. “Please, no….”
And just like that, the pounding stopped. It didn’t taper off, one pair of hands stopping, followed by another and so on. All the hands discontinued striking the door at the exact same instant, as if the shadow things had received some kind of signal to break off their attack.
“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
Lori was so relieved she started crying, and when the dispatcher once again asked what her emergency was, she almost couldn’t speak.
“Someone’s broken into my apartment,” she said, voice soft and breathy. “I’ve locked myself in the bathroom and I’m hiding from them.”
“Hold on. Someone will be there soon. Give me your address.”
Lori did, and the dispatcher told her to remain on the line while she contacted officers closest to her location. Lori said she would, and while she waited, she listened, trying to hear if the shadow creatures were still gathered outside the bathroom, perhaps hoping to trick her into thinking they were gone so she’d open the door and they could get at her. She heard nothing, though. Maybe they were gone.
A soft rapping sounded on the door, and she screamed.
“Lori? Are you okay?”
It was Larry.
In an instant, she was on her feet. Still holding on to her phone with her left hand, she unlocked the door with her right, opened it, and threw herself into Larry’s arms. She hit him so hard, he staggered back a step before hesitantly bringing up his arms to hold on to her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She tried to speak, but all that came out was a sob, which was swiftly followed by more tears. She began trembling then, and Larry held her tighter as she cried.
* * *
Lori and Larry were sitting on the couch when someone knocked on the door. Lori held a mug of tea in her hands – Larry had made it for her – and while she’d drunk very little of it, she found the mug’s warmth comforting. She turned her head toward the door, but before she could start to get up, Larry gave her hand a gentle squeeze, then rose from the couch and headed to the door.
Larry was tall and thin, with a stubbly beard and thick black hair that was always in need of a trim. He wore T-shirts, jeans, and sandals, regardless of the weather, and tonight his shirt was black with the iconic red Rolling Stones lips on the front. His battered guitar case was propped up in the corner next to the couch, where he usually kept it. He tended to practice when she was at work, and it had been a long time since she’d heard him play. She was surprised by how sad this realization made her feel.
Larry unlocked and opened the door to reveal a pair of uniformed police officers, one man, one woman. The man spoke first.
“We got a call that someone broke into your apartment.”
Both officers looked Larry up and down, and the woman wrinkled her nose. After a night of performing, Larry always smelled like sweat, alcohol, cigarette smoke, and marijuana. Not exactly the best first impression to make on a couple of cops.
“Yeah,” Larry said.
He opened the door all the way and stepped aside so the officers could enter. They did so, immediately noting Lori’s presence, as well as sweeping their gazes around the apartment to take everything in. Once the officers were all the way inside, Larry closed the door. He didn’t lock it again, though.
The male officer looked to be in his thirties. He was stout, broad-shouldered, and his head was shaved. His facial features were unremarkable, his expression emotionless, almost bored. The female officer was about a decade older than her partner, as well as a few inches taller, and she possessed a runner’s build – lean and strong. Her brown hair was straight and cut short, and she wore minimal makeup and no jewelry.
“I’m Officer Rauch,” the man said. He nodded toward his partner. “And this is Officer McGuire.”
Lori and Larry gave the officers their names. McGuire took a notebook from her shirt pocket and wrote down the information.
“Which of you called to report the incident?” she asked.
“I did,” Lori said. She didn’t rise from the couch. She felt weary, although less so than she had earlier. But that wasn’t the reason she didn’t get up. She still wore only her oversized T-shirt and panties, and she’d pulled the shirt over her bare legs as far as she could to cover them. She felt uncomfortable at the idea of Officer Rauch staring at her legs, and he was bound to notice she was braless if she started moving around. Maybe she was being foolishly modest, but she didn’t care.
“As calm as you both seem to be, I take it that the intruder is no longer on the premises?” McGuire asked.
“I don’t think so,” Lori said.
“I got home right after she called,” Larry said. “I didn’t see anyone.”
McGuire nodded. “Okay. It doesn’t hurt to be thorough, though.” She looked at her partner. “Ralph?”
“On it.”
Officer Rauch gave the living room another once over before heading for the small kitchen. Larry looked at Lori and mouthed, Ralph Rauch? She knew what he was thinking. It sounded more like the name of a cartoon character than a police officer. She smiled briefly at the thought.
As Rauch headed for the kitchen, McGuire said, “Lori, tell me what happened here tonight.”
Lori nodded and began talking. Larry stood off to the side, listening, brow furrowed. She’d already told him a short version of what had occurred, but this was his first time hearing the details. Not that Lori provided all of them. She knew if she told the officers everything that had happened, they’d write her off as a kook, or worse, haul her in for a psych eval. She told McGuire about hearing the thumps, but she omitted any descriptions of the shadow creatures, and instead spoke of ‘someone’ who’d been in the living room when she’d left her bedroom to check if Larry had come home yet. As for the rest of her story, she told a modified version of the truth. The ‘intruder’ had chased her to her bedroom and broke through the locked door. She’d then hid inside the master bathroom, and the intruder had tried to break through that door as well. The next thing she knew, Larry was knocking on the door and asking if she was all right.
As she told the edited version of her story, Officer Rauch headed down the hall and into her bedroom, continuing his search of the apartment. She was uncomfortable with the idea of a strange man inspecting her bedroom and bathroom, but she knew he was only doing his job. Still, it was in its own way as creepy as the shadow things that had come after her.
