Beginnings - Shadows of the Night

“Sam….. Sam!” Victoria spit into the darkness with a hoarse throaty whisper. She stepped tentatively through the front door onto the large Spanish tile entryway, acutely aware of the click made by her high heels on the ceramic squares.

Sam was Victoria’s chocolate and cream cocker spaniel. The dog had access to the house and subsequently to the back yard through a petite doggy door fashioned into the back wall of the kitchen next to an expansive set of glassed French doors opening onto a latticed covered patio

Her house was dark, cold, foreboding. Shouldn’t she have left a few lights on throughout the home? She could have sworn? She thought back to earlier that evening. In the flurry to get ready, excited for the prospect of shaking the stresses of work away on the dance floor with the girls from the office, had she planned ahead? Searching her thoughts, she remembered that the TV had been on, the local news, a breaking report of some consequence. A dull memory surfaced slowly. A feeling that had touched her while she had been on her knees, digging through the closet. Nothing more than an awareness that she would be late and that she should leave some bright areas of the house. Now, standing in the doorway, backlit by moonlight, she peered through the shroud of darkness blanketing her carefully decorated interior, wondering.

A chill brushed her spine, causing a shiver and an involuntary shrug of the shoulders. Could it simply be the result of the cool evening breezes blowing through the open door, up her skirt and across her bare back or was it a feeling of something far more sinister? Could it be a sense of pending danger, a palpable evil whose frequency could only be perceived by the workings of an inner unconscious tuner of basic preservation. As she paused, her body clenched as her mind began conjuring up devils and ghouls, murderers and rapists, all hidden in the shadows, salivating with the anticipation of the attack.

At the same instant, she shook her head self-consciously and let out a nervous yet embarrassed giggle. Ridiculous! She was acting like a child… afraid of the dark. This is what comes from living alone with an overactive imagination, she scolded herself.

She turned, closed and bolted the door and flipped on the hall lights from a wall panel. Slipping off her shoes, she cradled them over an arm and padded down the hall in stocking feet to the stairs. She paused to toss her keys into the decorative Mexican terra cotta bowl on a side wall table before climbing the stairs to her bed room.

The end of a long day with nothing required of her over a potentially lazy weekend. Maybe a bike ride up the coast with Sam. Sam would love the exercise. Where was that cute little mutt! She made a mental note to feed him and take out the trash from the kitchen before settling into bed.

Behind her, in the front sitting room, still in a pool of darkness, a large shadow slipped from behind the piano, unnoticed, and crossed the room to follow. As if it were breadcrumbs, left to mark the way through the woods, large crimson drops of blood fell from the blade of a dirty kitchen carving knife, clutched in a scarred and equally dirty fist, to the plush ivory carpet and were quickly absorbed.

The shadow paused at the line where the light from the hall began and listened, his breathing was slow, controlled. He could still taste the greasy hamburger from dinner. He liked the lingering taste of the onions as well as the metallic smell of the fresh, sticky blood covering his fingers, like an old wet copper penny. He slowly lifted a wet forefinger to his nose. Ummmmmm. He then stuck out his tongue and dramatically wiped his finger clean, leaving scarlet stains along his lower lip. Ummmmm.