EMILY

THUMP!

I sat straight up in bed. Lucky lifted his head just as fast. He kept staring at my bedroom window, emitting a low menacing growl. Other than the sound of my heart, which was pounding in my ears, it was silent.

I glanced at my clock and the illuminated numbers read 4:10. What the hell? I looked quickly for my cell phone and then I remembered I’d left it in my office.

Shit!

I sat there, listening. Lucky was like a frozen block of ice, not moving a muscle as he watched the window.

More than a minute went by of complete silence. I started to think I was imagining things when I heard what sounded like a chair scrape across the concrete patio.

Lucky tore from the bed toward the window and let out a bark, then another growl. I ran to my office to grab my cell phone. I could hear someone trying to work the patio door, clicking and jabbing at it, the sounds magnifying with each movement. Lucky raced into the living room, his growl growing louder, meaner. The hackles on his back stood straight up as he faced whoever was out there, trying to get in.

I jabbed 911 as fast as my fingers could work.

Nothing…

It was then I realized I had forgotten to plug the phone in to charge it back up. The battery was dead. I reached for my landline. Again, punching the numbers 911.

Nothing.

Lucky lunged at the sliding door, shoving the blinds aside with his motion, his paws trying to dig their way through the glass. I could see someone crouched over the door handle, trying to work it open, poking at the lock with something and then pulling at it. It was so dark outside and the only light was coming from a small fixture over the kitchen sink. I could make out the shadow of a man and what he was trying to do, but his face was hidden from where I stood frozen in the doorway. This had to be a dream, a nightmare.

I felt like I was on the outside looking in at some horrible movie that I was starring in. I was in my home, alone, in the middle of the night and this man was trying to break in. He wanted to hurt me.

It was that split second I understood. This wasn’t a burglary. This man was after me. He wanted to hurt me.

My heart was pounding, immobilizing me, my mind a blank. I couldn’t make a rational decision. Lucky kept jumping at the door trying to get through to the monster on the other side, his bark becoming louder, fiercer.

My voice broke through my fear and I let out a scream, startling even myself. I didn’t recognize the sounds coming from my throat, the sheer terror of what was happening. A light flicked on in my neighbor’s yard behind me, casting a glow on the top of the wall. It backlit the man working furiously to open my sliding door. A dirty blue hoodie concealed part of his face. A face I didn’t recognize.

I stepped closer to the door, my need to know who he was overriding the fear. I needed to connect a face to the man who was making my life a living hell.

He stood up, pushing the hood of his jacket back. His dirty hair stuck up in tufts across the top of his head and hung long in the back, mullet style. His eyes looked at me, traveling up and down the length of me as I stood in front of him, a glass door separating us. A glimmer of recognition hit me but I didn’t know him. I couldn’t put a name to his face. I would have remembered him, especially those eyes. They were void of anything. His eyes didn’t see or feel; they were dead evil eyes that I didn’t know. A stranger’s eyes that I had maybe passed by at some point in time. I stared back at him as he watched me.

It wasn’t his dirty appearance or his dead eyes that had me hypnotized in fear now, it was the cold smile stretching his colorless lips in a straight line across his mouth, giving me a glimpse of tobacco stained and broken teeth. He smiled the smile of a hunter who had cornered his prey. I shuddered and my blood ran cold as I started to back away, my mind searching for an escape.

I watched in horror as his arm raised up from his side, realizing there was a gun in his hand. He pointed it at Lucky, trailing him as my dog raced back and forth, snarling. Half the vertical blinds were broken, scattered on the floor where he had torn them from the header in his attempts to get at the man outside.

At one point I knew I was screaming, screaming for this stranger to leave us alone, screaming for help into a dark and otherwise silent night, screaming at the top of my lungs for someone … anyone to stop this nightmare. I barely registered the sound of breaking glass, the rock shattering the sliding door from the outside. I didn’t think. He had a gun pointed at Lucky and I jumped forward as Lucky lunged, jumping on the devil with the gun, pushing the man back, and his arm swung upward.

Everything began to move in slow motion, while in reality, it was only a matter of seconds.

I heard the gunfire as lights flooded the backyard. I registered pounding on my front door before the splintering of wood as it was kicked in. I felt the vibrations of a hundred feet pounding the floor around me.

The world was disappearing, growing hazy in front of me. I couldn’t focus or see anything. I could feel the intense heat spreading over my right shoulder and my chest, a burning, searing pain. What was it? I grabbed at my arm to make it stop, but I pulled away when my hand became warm and sticky. The jolt of pain came with a blast; the dizziness coming stronger as I realized my hand was covered with blood. Everything started fading, growing darker. Where was Lucky? I tried to turn my body to search for him but nothing cooperated. The pain engulfed me almost completely.

I heard a familiar voice screaming my name, the panic evident but the scream was only a whisper. I couldn’t track the whisper. Where was it coming from? Was I dreaming again? I wanted to wake up. I needed to hang onto that voice, a voice I needed more than anything, and the last voice I heard before my world just stopped.