Man in Black

The clock winked out as the thunder rolled outside the darkening window. Katie glanced up from her phone to see the clouds moving toward her house from the river beyond the backyard and frowned at the thought of having to get out in the rain later for a dinner run. Having the house to herself for a long weekend, she had been enjoying existing off of coffee and donuts in the morning and tacos at night while her parents were away. Her irritation grew when she turned her eyes back to her phone and found that her battery was still almost dead. Grumbling under her breath, she untucked her feet from under her and rose to find the emergency battery pack her dad had given her last Christmas that she had tucked away somewhere in her closet.

On her way to the staircase, she passed the window looking out into her neighborhood. Glancing out at the row of tan and white house, Katie noticed something odd. The porch light of the house down the street was shining brightly in the impeding gloom of the storm. Puzzled, she wondered briefly if their house could have power while hers had somehow gone out. Eliminating that possibility quickly, she decided she must have somehow tripped the breakers.

Grabbing her father's oversized blue rain jacket from the closet, she pulled up the hood and tucked her wayward blonde hairs away as best she could. Her feet sank into black oversized rainboots and she sighed in anticipation of the wind and rain she would have to endure while she fiddled with the breaker box just outside the back door. As she walked outside and turned toward the tiny overhang that housed the silver box, she bent into the wind, turning her face down against the gale and pulling the hood tighter around her round face. As she began her second step, her eyes bounced up to her destination. She stopped dead in her tracks.

A man, clad in black, face hidden by a mask seeming to be made of tinfoil, was leaned against the wooden wall blocking her access to the breaker box. Katie felt as if a scream should be escaping from her lips, but her breath seemed to be sucked out by the howling wind, all chance of a cry for help flying away with it. Ice crept from her throat to her toes, rolling in waves through her stomach while her panicked mind just kept trying to understand why a movie villain was dressed up in her backyard. Her paralysis seemed endless. Until he uncrossed his arms and used his hips to push away from the planks shielding him from the noreaster and took his first step toward her.

Her boots made a sucking noise as the mud tried to impede her retreat to the relative safety of the house. She slipped and scrambled up the back porch steps and fell clumsily into the doorway of the kitchen she had exited only moments before. She kicked the door closed from the floor and jumped up to quickly slide the deadbolt home. Panting heavily with tears stinging her eyes, she tried to think of what every girl in every horror movie had ever forgotten to do. She ditched her wet jacket and muddy shoes, slid a knife from the butcher block on the counter, and started running for the stairs. She moved the black handled chef's knife from her right hand to her left as she sprinted past the chair that was still warm from her late afternoon TV binging, snagging her cell phone as she went by.

Her foot hit the second step when she heard him slam into the back door. She hesitated for only a millisecond before continuing her climb, hoping the deadbolt would be a deterrent and he would quickly move to another house on the block. Her socked feet struggled for traction against the carpet of the stairs, but she finally topped the mountain and scrambled to the guest bedroom on her hands and knees. Closing the door behind her, she started to crawl under the bed but hesitated.

"Don't they always look under the bed?" Katie asked herself aloud. Looking around the room, she realized she hadn't given herself many options. "Closet...closet it is," she muttered frantically.

Throwing open the closet door, she found a small space between the boxes and extra blankets and slid onto her bottom to fit. Wedging herself between the musty crochet blanket from her grandmother and a box of who knows what from the last time they had moved, she finally took the time to look down at her phone. Dead. Absolutely dead. The panic seized her heart for a second time when she realized she had no other communication. Her parents didn't believe in home devices that could "track" their conversations (and conveniently call for help if needed) and landlines were gone before she had ever started school.

Her head sank back and she felt tears welling in her eyes and tasted bile in her throat at the thought of her predicament. It suddenly occurred to her that she hadn't heard anymore banging. As she was about to emerge from her hiding place, she heard a different type of noise. A hammer ringing against a nail, coming from INSIDE her house. How had he gotten in? What could he be hammering? She cracked the closet door a fraction of an inch and peeked out into the room. Her mother's favorite mirror, a keepsake from their days spent shopping along the beach when she was younger, was angled just perfectly so that Katie could see the closed bedroom door. She listened tensely as the hammering noises moved from the back door to the front door and she realized he was somehow hammering her into the house. trapping her inside unless she escaped from a window.

She briefly considered trying to get the bedroom window open and using her weapon to slash the screen. But the fall was every bit of 20 feet and the rocky walkway to the garden that was directly under the window would prevent her from running for help after that landing. Before she could consider any other possibilities, the house went deathly silent. She held her breath and tried to fight the wave of tears burning her eyes. A minute later, she heard her bedroom door open and her bed creak as the man sat on it.

"Kate, babe, come on out," he called out calmly. His voice was velvety smooth and deep. Katie didn't know what she expected him to sound like, but the voice of a man advertising a dating app certainly wasn't it. She tried to place the voice, knowing they had to have crossed paths for him to know her name.

"Don't make me find you honey, that'll only make me angry," he cooed, "and we don't need me angry tonight."

After a few silent beats, she heard the bed shift as he rose. Shuffling noises reached her ears as she assumed he was searching under her bed and in her open closet. His feet padded across the carpeted hallway and she heard him methodically check her parents' bedroom as well. Sweat began to accumulate on her forehead and roll down her back. She knew it was only a matter of time until he made his way to the guest bedroom. The only other room left was her father's office, and there were clearly no hiding places in there.

She closed her eyes, waiting and planning. She shifted the knife to her right hand and played out the coming scene in her mind. He would come in and she would lunge out and stab him. But where? In the leg? Or the chest? In the back? What would hurt him enough that she could escape? And what would she find when she got downstairs to the doors?

Suddenly, her planning period was up as she heard the doorknob begin to slowly turn. Tensing her body and shifting her weight forward as much as she could, she peeked between the door and frame to watch him enter in the reflection of the mirror.

He had discarded his mask somewhere in the house, no doubt fighting his frustration at his fruitless hunt. She examined his dark features and jet black hair. The chocolatey eyes were foreign to her, his countenance hard and not one she could place. He once again sat on the bed and she could no longer see his image, but his feet and knees hanging over the edge of the golden comforter instead. He called her name one more time and she took a deep breath, steadying herself before she planned to jump out and begin swinging the knife.

Before she could shove the door open, however, he jumped up from the bed and turned to face the mirror again. He examined himself, turning first one way and then another, admiring the outfit he had apparently carefully chosen for this night. As his eyes moved from his jeans to his boots, he saw a flash in his reflection. The knife in her hand had caught the light from the room and glinted through the darkness of the closet. He roared and ripped the closet door open.

Katie sprang up and turned toward him, throwing her full 120 pounds into the tackle she attempted to execute. He caught her by her shoulders and shifted his weight as she rushed him, throwing her almost effortlessly to the side of the hallways as they backed through the doorway. She stumbled and fell against the railing lining the hallway and overlooking the living room. Gripping her knife even tighter, she grunted and shoved herself off the floor, her fear now turned into pure adrenaline. He laughed and absorbed her rush toward him, but didn't account for the last minute swing of her arm. With an upward motion, she slashed through his shirt and into his chest. He roared and shoved her into the wall then backed away from her slowly. He seethed as he saw the blood dripping down his torso and raised his arms to grab her throat in anger.

She swung her knife wildly at him in an attempt to get him away from her, but he merely grabbed her wrist and flipped it painfully. The knife crashed out of her hand and she cried out in pain before trying to punch him with her free, although weak, left hand. He deflected her punch and headbutted her before swinging her by her wrists toward the stairwell. She lost her balance and began to fall headfirst down the stairs, her momentum dragging him down with her.

She suddenly felt as if she were watching the fight happen from above. She heard herself scream and watched herself wrench one arm free and use her nails to claw at her assailant's face. Her arm caught in the bannister of the stairs and she heard, rather than felt, it snap as the weight of them both pulled her bone in two directions. She snapped back into her body as her head made a dent in the wall at the bottom of the stairs and they came to a stop.

A few silent minutes went by before one of the two rose from the tangled mess they had become in the fall. Limping toward the door, the figure grabbed the nearby hammer and began prying the nails from the doorframe. Minutes dragged by until finally, fresh air swept through the house and the door swung open.

And just as quickly as he had arrived, the figure in black strode off into the night.