The Unwelcome Visitor

There’s another package. Isla MacGregor exits the elevator to her waterfront condo’s front door. The innocent brown package sat waiting just like the other ones had.

“Not today of all days,” Isla said.

Isla neared her door, feeling sick from the unfinished sandwich she had eaten at her desk. She mechanically bent down to pick up the brown-wrapped package. Her muscles were tight, making it hard to move.

It was as if her own body was telling her, “Don’t pick it up.”

With a gloved hand, she could almost swear that a wave of cold anger radiated from this small package. Isla let out a ragged breath she must have been holding.

“Ok, don’t panic. If it’s just like the last ones, you know it’s not containing a bomb.”

Isla inserted the key into the door lock and unlocked it.

One package once a month. Dread pooled into her stomach. Why did it have to be today? This was the day she had to get through. To stay numb as much as possible.

As the front door swung open, Isla was assaulted with orange blossoms and hints of jasmine that wafted from her many scented reed diffusers. Her favorite fragrance added to the nausea. She took the tip of her leather boot and kicked the other pieces of mail into her apartment, causing a frantic scatter of bills and holiday catalogs, dispersing like fire ants aggressively leaving their nest.

Crimson light streamed in from floor-to-ceiling windows that cast a warm, welcoming glow in the early autumn season. Her ultra-sleek modern condo, bathed in the sunlit of reds and golds, greeted Isla with a welcoming embrace.

As she continued to make her way into her home, she was too focused on the alarming package she carried to bask in the early evening radiance. There was terror and fear that was winning over her attention. The Air was suffocating her from the foreboding malice of that package.

“When will it stop?” she said aloud to herself.

Isla continued to walk stiffly into her kitchen; the striking of her boots sounded like banging against the light wood planks, causing an echo that didn’t fade. When she finally reached her white marble kitchen island, she set the package down and backed away. She acted as if the package was like a snake ready to strike out at its prey. Standing in the middle of her kitchen, she turned her eyes around the open space, searching for her cat, Luna.

Usually, she would be curled up on her two-seater couch facing the expansive windows of New York City, but she didn’t Luna in her usual spot.

“Luna? Where are you? Where have you taken yourself?” Her soft voice called out.

Had she retreated to her exercise room? Luna loved the soft, fluffy, plush cotton blanket that Isla had put in there, so Luna had a place to sleep when Isla was doing some yoga.

No reply came. Just the ticking of the gold-plated Tiffany clock on the fireplace mantel, a 50th Wedding Anniversary clock of her parents, was the only other noise echoing throughout her one-bedroom apartment. Isla was getting a little worried.

Where was her cat?

Isla decided to remove her coat before searching for Luna, her loyal companion. As she walked to the closet to hang up her heavy coat, a slender, warm body rubbed against the material of her pants’ legs. Isla’s striking blue stare met intense almond-shaped, soft gray-colored eyes.

“Luna.”

She bent down and scooped up her affectionate, graceful Siamese cat.

“There you are. I was wondering where you went off to.”

After Isla hung up her coat, she kicked off her leather high-heeled boots and pushed them into the closet. The coldest of the marble tiles seeped into her thin, socked feet. It was as if she had been walking on a sheet of ice.

She carried Luna across the kitchen to her living room windows to admire the view before her. As her feet sank into the plush sandy-colored carpet, her feet welcomed the hug from the velvety rug. She tenderly glided her hand from the top of Luna’s head, down her neck, to her sleek body. Isla watched the cars crossing over the Brooklyn Bridge.

The bridge was painted in reds, warm golds, and hints of amber as the setting sun disappeared into the cotton candy sky. The beautiful, relaxing panoramic view outside her windows starkly contrasted the terror and fear flooding into her body.

Isla continued to be mesmerized by the twinkling lights of the cars commuting over the bridge; she also thought of another person she could have contacted to help her. Isla quickly closed her eyes, and a flash of pain and sadness crossed her face.

When the first of these mysterious packages arrived, accompanied by puzzling notes, Isla wished she could avoid the situation. It wasn’t until the third note, laced with frustration, that she inquired with her friendly doorman about the odd deliveries. Each package only states her name, no address, no return label, or even a postage stamp.

Derek, the doorman, who had been working at her building for the past year, discussed with his colleagues to try and gather some information about these deliveries.

“None of us have a clue, Ms. MacGregor,” Derek said. “It seems like a different cyclist makes each delivery. Random… it was,” he continued, sensing Isla’s growing unease.

Derek vowed to keep an eye out to unveil the mystery behind these unusual arrivals.

He was a good-looking man in his early 40s who had moved here from out West. Isla had tried to find out if he had any family in New York. All Derek had said was, that he was alone with no family anymore, and needed to make a change in his life. Isla couldn’t help but see the haunting look in his eyes. She recognized and sympathized with the need for change.

It seemed Derek was good at his job, always attentive to help her with her grocery bags, and running to get to the door. Derek had even offered to check in with Luna if she needed to be out for a while. Isla had thanked him for the offer but didn’t want him going into her apartment when she wasn’t there.

She sometimes felt he looked at her in a way that didn’t make sense. It felt weird. When he would bring up her groceries, she thought he hung outside her door to talk a little longer than necessary. He was almost as annoying as these packages; he just showed up like an uninvited guest.

“I should have contacted the police when these first started to arrive,” Isla told Luna.

As a result, this package problem had gotten out of hand. Isla just didn’t want to draw attention to her family’s name. After all, she had grown up attending various charity events because of her parent’s philanthropy work.

The family had been photographed for popular magazines and newspapers and even interviewed for TV on their dedication to many global developments and emergency response programs. Even though they are very supportive and generous with their effects.

“Too bad they didn’t extend that to their only child,” Isla told Luna.

Although her parents were retired and not in the public eye as much, the family name still carried stature. Nevertheless, she had to continue protecting their legacy, not causing any reason to land in papers.

Instantly, she remembered a time when her father was angry at her.

“Do you want to embarrass our family, Isla?”

That comment was said the day she announced her engagement to Tom an FBI agent.

Because of this, she did not reach out to the police it was expected of her to never embarrass the family’s name. She had already let her parents down once in a big way and didn’t want to do that again.

The gentle purr came from Luna, who immediately recognized her owner’s distress, guiding Isla’s attention away from her worries. Isla turned around to survey her one-bedroom apartment. Her eyes landed on minimalistic pieces of furniture, all decorated in soft neutrals of white and beiges.

Isla’s eyes drifted over her adorning the walls. Looking at each painting was positioned to catch the sunlight at varying moments, bringing out distinct colors in the abstract waterscape artworks. Isla found herself enveloped in a serene, almost Zen-like ambiance. Sadly, it was doing little to settle her turbulent mind.

As she reflected on how hard she had worked to build a life for herself, Isla contemplated her journey to break away from her parents’ legacy and establish her identity. Her goal was to heal the sorrow stemming from losing the life she thought she was going to have.

Today was meant to be a day of celebration with Tom and the baby they had lost. Yet those words haunted her mind, inflicting a pain in her heart like a searing blade.

‘Stop,’ she said. ‘I can’t dwell on the ‘what ifs.’

She forced herself to banish those painful memories.

The sender of these packages seemed to understand their twisted game with her. Now, they had breached the carefully guarded sanctuary she had painstakingly constructed. Isla had gathered the shattered fragments of her heart and soul and had strived to move forward. However, these packages now threatened everything she had worked diligently to heal.

Her eyes strayed again to the brown-wrapped package sitting on her kitchen island. Calling her to come closer. Her heart thudded in her chest. Will this note in the package be signed like the others? From “The Judge” stating another evil judgment on how she had tried on from her past? she thought.

That damn package is sneering at her.

To be continued….

This is chapter one of five from a short fiction story: The Haunting Package

The Haunting Package is a suspenseful short story, Isla MacGregor, haunted by a mysterious, threatening sender known as ‘The Judge,’ receives packages that make her face past and test her resilience. As Isla battles her inner demons and a menacing presence, her determination to stand alone may lead to her ultimate downfall.

This was originally posted on Medium.