Fucking useless,I thought.What’s bear spray going to do to a homicidal maniac?Crouched down with my back against the opposite wall from the door, I waited.
Listened.
Everything was quiet. I was almost certain they hadn’t followed me up the stairs, and thethudof their steps along the deck would give them away before they reached the door.
Wouldn't they?
Maybe they left.
I strained my ears, searching for any sound at all.
Crunch, crunch, crunch
There. Boots on the gravel behind me.
Then on my left.
In front, now.
On my right.
Behind me again.
They circled the tower.
Why would they do that? Why not come up here?
Maybe they weren’t willing to risk it if I was armed? Or maybe, they’d realized I wasn’t a small person and weren’t confident they could overpower me?
I held my breath as they circled again, and again, and again. Boots crunched on gravel, steady, sure, and deliberate.
It felt like a message.
I know you’re up there. I know you’re all alone. I know you’re afraid.
Frozen, I sat there. I should’ve found my phone, should’ve called someone, but I was stuck in place, terrified of making any noise in case it prompted them to climb the steps and attack.
Just as I convinced my muscles to unclench and stretched one leg in front of me to crawl across the small cabin in search of my phone, the sound of their steps shifted.
Scratch, scratch, scccraaatttchhhh
What the hell were they doing? I froze again, afraid to even breathe, terrified I’d drawn their attention with my movement.
Scratch, Scraaaatttchhh
For once, being high above everything else didn’t make me feel comforted and safe—it made me feel trapped.
I wasn’t sure how long I waited, listening to the shifting gravel before the cadence of their steps changed again and grew distant. Slowly, breaths shallow and trembling, I raised my head just enough to peek out the window. As I’d noted so many times before, I couldn’t see anything in the dark.
Then, as suddenly as it’d gone out minutes or hours ago, the light appeared again.
It was a ways away from the tower already, moving at a steady clip back into the trees. I watched as it drifted farther andfarther away, until it finally disappeared, swallowed by the inky blackness of the night.
I still couldn’t move.
For whatever reason, they hadn’t followed me up, and I didn’t want to turn on a light to draw their attention and cause them to change their mind.
So I sat on the floor of the lookout for hours, praying they wouldn't come back.
