it notices you and walks with outstretched arms towards the door. It collides, scraping at the
glass, snarling murderously. You use the spare key to lock the door before bolting over the
fence, through the back door, and into the safety of your home.
After a lifetime slumped against the back door, holding your knees, and sobbing while your
dog sniffs at your shoulder worriedly, the urgency to dress your wound becomes immediate
and you carry yourself to the bathroom. The iodine is a torrid flame on your mangled flesh.
You bind the wound with gauze, which helps to staunch the bleeding. You gaze at yourself in
the mirror startled at how pale you’ve become. Already the encounter with the thing that was
James seems an eternity ago, the memory of it as opaque as the plot to a movie you passed
out watching. But you know that the monster is real, still alive, still there in the living room,
desperate to get out, desperate to feed.
Lauren! You must warn Lauren! You reach into your pocket for your phone but you must’ve
dropped it during your struggle. You try to rush out of the bathroom but your legs refuse to
cooperate. All you can manage is a sorry shuffle. Maybe you lost more blood than you thought.
You put on a light jacket to cover up your wound, grab your keys, but just before you leave the
house, you find you can’t remember why you’re leaving.
To warn Lauren! someone inside your head screams. How could you have forgotten?
What if you forget again? Write it down, just in case. You find a pen and some paper and
write the following:
Don’t go home, no matter what!
When you’ve finished, you’re shocked to see red spots obscuring the words. You look at your
hand and realize that you forgot to wash off the blood.
You go to the sink and clean yourself hurriedly before grabbing the note and leaving the
house. The supermarket where Lauren works is only ten minutes away. As you stagger down
the sidewalk, you wonder if you’ll be able to make it…
“I don’t understand,” Lauren says, staring wide-eyed at the note. “Katie… is this blood?”
“Just trust me,” you say insistently, not knowing how long this moment of clarity will last.
“Promise me you won’t go home, ok?”
“Katie, what happened!” Lauren shouts, panic rising in her voice. “What did you do?”
You’re getting dizzy. If you sit here much longer you’re liable to faint. Maybe you should eat
something to get your strength back.
“I — I have to go now, Lauren. I’m just… I don’t feel so good.”
“Tell me what you did!” Lauren demands.
Summer/Fall 2015
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