The Night Visitor

Tucked in among several rows of aged brick buildings and sprawling oak trees, set on the property at the heart of a bustling college town, the intimidating building that housed the students of Elmsworth College had stood for countless years. Among those that lived within its walls was Jake, a sophomore with a penchant for midnight snackage balanced only by an even more consuming obsession with news shows best watched after any reasonable hour for such activities had passed.

It was well after midnight; the time when outside the world seemed to hold its breath, and the dull blue glow of Jake's small TV set trickled out into his tiny, warm room from the open doorway. The local news played softly, a familiar soundtrack as he munched contentedly on his cold pizza. He found a strange comfort in the nightly routine, a buffer against the stress of college life.

But this evening, there was an intensified note of urgency in the news anchor's usual monotone. "Breaking news," she said, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and excitement. "A convicted killer has escaped police custody during transit. Authorities warn that he is extremely dangerous and urge residents to stay indoors."

The screen flashed to a mugshot of the escaped convict, a man with cold piercing eyes and a jagged scar running down his left cheek. Jake's heart skipped a beat. The prison was close to the college. He locked the door, double-checked the window but in a mildly rational way thought that a chance to run into the escapee would be one in a million.

Trying to shake the uneasy feeling from his mind, Jake returned back to his bed, the news still murmuring in the background. Laying there, he could feel his eyes grow heavy as there was a faint tapping coming from around the room. Tap, tap, tap. He figured it was just a branch from the old oak tree outside, swayed by the wind.

Tap, tap, tap. The sound continued, more rhythmic this time. Jake's heart began racing again. It was not anything at all, he told himself; it was only his imagination that was fueled by the frightening news.

But mixed with this, there was an adventurous fear that goaded him from his bed. Mixing at the window his hand trembled ever so slightly. The tapping continued, more insistent this time. He reached for the blinds, his breath held in suspension there.

With a single quick motion, he parted the blinds and peered into the dark beyond. At first all he could discern was the velvety blackness of the night. Suddenly, however, a face appeared out of the darkness, barely an inch away from the glass. It was him -- the killer from the news, his scar glowing in the faint glow of the streetlamp, his eyes greeting Jake's in a silent and terrifying communion.

The throat screamed of Jake, but it got muffled in the body frozen in terror. The mouth of the killer curved into a menacing grin, a finger rising to his lips for silence. The mind raced as he stumbled backward. His fingers reached out and dialed 911 on his phone, the voice shaking.

He whispered his address to the dispatcher, never taking his eyes from the figure outside of his window. The killer stared into him, unblinking, the predatory voyeur basking on the fear of its prey. But then, as sudden as he had appeared the killer vanished into the night leaving Jake with his pounding heart and the distant wail of approaching sirens.

Afterwards, Jake had a very hard time trying to come to grips with the reality of what happened. The police arrived too late at the scene to catch the killer, but they assured Jake that he was now safe. Yet in the nights that followed, every shadow seemed to hide a lurking danger, every noise a potential threat.

The encounter at the window, brief as it was, had irreversibly altered Jake's perception of safety and normalcy. What had one time appeared as some sterile vision of tedium just beyond the window of his dorm room had become instead a world out there poised to visit upon him disaster at any given moment, a reminder that sometimes the most chilling stories are not those we read in books or watch on news reports but rather are the ones we live through in the solitude of a late-night watch.