A: Oh no! Take care,no worries!
There it is—the chaos.
F: I’m serious about tomorrow, though! Army. National. Guard.
A: Okay! I promise! Good luck! I hope Jesse is better soon!
The ease I got from chatting with Fae sustains me through the evening, and I even manage to make myself a really nice ramen bowl from scratch-ish. Maybe I am just dissociating my way through it, but Fae’s reaction really did help me put things into perspective. Nothing that has happened, outside of Tom’s weird creeper cams, has beendangerous. Whoever is doing things seems to be genuinely trying to help me have a happy holiday season, however ill-advised and ham-handedly they are going about it.
And hell, if I’mreallylucky, maybe my nightmare monster man has come to life.
Tomorrow, I’m sure I’ll be a nervous wreck, having to go tell Tom to give me the tapes… or having to text him because it’s not like I’m going over to his house. But for tonight, I shove all of it aside and snuggle into bed with my book.
A while later, I wake up, lights on and drool all over my pillow, because my book slammed down into my face… rude. “Computer, lights off!” I yell in my sleepy haze, closing my eyes.
I’m just about to drift back off when I realize that Henry isn’t in bed with me. In fact, he’s in the kitchen, because I can hear his little tippy taps on the tile.
That’s… odd.
“Henry, c’mere!” I call, and in seconds, he hops back up on the bed with me, tail wagging and tongue lolling out.
“What’s going on, bud? What were you up to?”
He doesn’t settle like I expect. Instead, he jumps off the bed—arthritis forgotten, I guess—and heads back out to the kitchen.
“Silly dog.” I close my eyes again, smiling at his antics.
A few seconds later though, I hear the clatter of metal from the kitchen. I squeeze my eyes shut. Has my dog suddenly decided that he’s a puppy again? That it’s time to get intoeverything?Please let that not be the case.
I disentangle myself from my sleeping pod and pad toward the door.
“Henry, what on ear—” I stop talking and scream instead.
In my kitchen, my very dark, unlit kitchen, is aman.
He’s huge, practically bent in half to lean over my counter. Dressed entirely in black, he turns his head, and I scream again, but this time, it’s a warbling, unrestrained sound.
I’d know that white and red mask anywhere. This isnotpossible.
My nightmare is standing in my kitchen, lifting a rolling pin like he’s about to attack me.
“Ada, it’s me!” he says, looking at the rolling pin in his hand and dropping it to the ground. It lands with a bang, and he growls, “Fuck!”
“Get away from me!” I yell, reaching to my side to grab blindly for the knife block. I find a larger handle and whip it out in front of me. I lucked out, the shine of my microwave clock reflecting off the thick blade of a butcher knife.
“Get out of my house or I’m calling the cops!”
He moves toward me, and I slash the knife. Instead of dodging it though, he grabs it, barehanded, along the blade. He hisses but doesn’t move his hand away. Instead, he steps closer.
“I would, Princess,” he says, his voice a whisper that permeates the kitchen. He’s close enough that I can feel the heat of him on my bare skin. “But you’re in front of the only exit.”
Oh fuck, he’s right. I’ve got a U-shaped kitchen,and I’m trapping him inside.
“Oh.”
“I said I was going to make you cookies. You didn’t need to attack me.” His eyes shift to his hand on the knife, where thick blood so dark it’s nearly black runs down the blade to drip on my floor.
The second I see it, everything comes crashing in on me. The blood drains from my face, and I feel cold all over.
