Shattered Illusions

A woman tries to evade a stalker.

 

 

Shattered Illusions

Traci Kenworth

 

Faster. Don’t look back. He was almost upon her. Laicy paused at the intersection than

broke into a run. The grocery bag in her hands nearly toppled. She held to it as best as she could and picked up the pace. So did he. Her throat convulsed. Any minute, she was sure she’d feel the weight of his hand upon her shoulder. She reached the corner of her apartment building and chanced a glance back.

            He was closer.

            She hurried up the steps, greeted the desk clerk, and hit the third floor button on the elevators. Whish. Her stomach rolled with each lift. At last the doors slid open and she rushed down the hallway. Five steps, four.

            She heard the door to the stairs swing shut.

            There he was, in his familiar black coat.

            Oh, how she loathed him! Coming here. Disturbing her peace.

            She slowed, heart-racing, eager to face him and let the words well to the surface.

            But she didn’t dare.

            She knew how the story went and what the front page, or maybe at least the seventh page, would read. Her steps quickened. Three now.

            Cold breath pricked the back of her neck and she felt a hand slide down her arm.

            He whispered her name and she was lost.

            Tears clung to her eyelashes as she swung about, a mere step from safety.

            “Leave me be,” she shouted.

            A chilling smile answered.

            Her back pressed against the door as he moved in. The grocery bag�"the reason for her going out in the first place�"fell from her hands. It split at the seams, contents spilling out. The container of salt caught her eye and she dove for it. He tried to reach out but did so too late. She pulled back the tab of the shaker and threw it at him.

            A sizzling sound like steak on a grill rent the air.

            He stumbled back, clutching his face, with a scream. Smoke began to billow about him until his flesh burned from his bones.

            With a shaky hand she inserted her key to the lock and pushed her way inside her apartment. Too late, she remembered the food. Her stomach growled at the thought. There remained nothing in her refrigerator or cupboards. She’d been sheltered too long avoiding him. She slid down the door and wept.

            It’d been so long since she’d eaten. She didn’t have the strength to rise from the floor.

            A skeletal hand reached out to brush the tears from her face.

            “No, not here. You can’t come in here. I didn’t invite you.”

            He gave her a tired smile. “My dear lady. A Reaper needs no invitation. We simply come when the time is right.”

            “But it isn’t! There’s so much to do, so much to see�"”

            “Not for you. You’re time passed long ago, you’ve just been dragging your heels. Now the time has come.”

            “The doctors said the tests were negative. That everything was fine.”

            “True. But you’re not going to die from illness. You’re going to die from fear.”

            And as the layers of the night peeled back, I realized with the frantic beat of my pulse, he was right.