THE STORY OF SARAH JAMES By: Nathan Lowe

Foreword:

I also wrote this for my writing class fall of 2008. I wanted to create a story that has palatable fear in it. One day I will build upon the scene set by this short story.

It has been weeks since she first felt the chill of someone watching her. She has tried to explain it to her friends, her coworkers even the police but none of them have believed her. She has wondered if she was simply going crazy. After all, there has been no evidence of anyone or anything that could validate her fears.

Tonight when she sees the lone dark figure out of the corner of her eye and then looks and can see no one. The hair on her neck stands up so straight it could prick skin. She lifts the phone receiver and calls her fiance. "Tom I can't be alone tonight, I don't feel safe. Please come over I need you here."

"I can be there in 20 minutes. Just try to calm down. I will be there as soon as I can."

"Ok, I love you."

"I love you too. Lock the doors until I get there."

She reluctantly hangs up the phone. "Get a grip Sarah, this doesn't make any sense!" she says to herself.

She walks around the living room checking all the windows. Goes through the Kitchen and the Dining Room and the Pantry. She makes sure the Garage door is locked and the front door and the back door. Then she starts up the stairs to her bedroom.

She walks to the end of the upstairs hallway and secures the window there. Finally she is in her room. She closes the door firmly behind her and locks it. She gets her flannel pajamas out of her dresser and changes into them. Placing her other clothes in the hamper in the closet.

She looks at the clock. "Just 11 minutes more and Tom will be here. I should be ok."

She goes into the bathroom and opens the mirror cabinet. Pulls out her pink toothbrush and toothpaste, and turns on the cold water at a trickle. Her hands are shaking as she clumsily spreads the toothpaste on the bristles.

"Get a grip! Geesh!"

She brushes her teeth and rinses with Scope. Then she begins to pull back her hair. Still feeling like she is not safe but seeing no one, hearing no one.

She scolds herself in the mirror and then feels it again, some one must be there.

She turns around and he is there. Gaunt, with cold dark dead eyes. Fear grips her. She is paralyzed, unable to move but it is not the fear that holds her. It is his lifeless gaze.

The doorbell rings but she cannot answer. He moves toward her slowly, deliberately and she glimpses a flicker of something darker than his eyes within them.

She vaguely hears shouts, pounding at the door. He moves close enough She can feel his cold breath and the rattling of his chest as he bites her neck. The coldness starts at her fingertips and her toes Creeping through her extremities.

A sudden distant crash as her front door comes down through thick blankets of air. Her vision begins to dim. The coldness now closing in around her heart.

"Sarah! Are you ok!" he shouts through the bedroom door. There is no answer he raises his leg and shatters the latch. The door flies open and he glimpses a dark figure embracing her as the door bounces back and he barely deflects it with his fore arm. He pushes the door open again and sees Sarah collapse to the floor. Her eyes faded with no spark left. Her skin gray and clinging to her bones.

A shadow crosses his vision and he sees the dark figure leap from the window.

He crosses the room to her in one inhuman leap. She is cold and limp. He draws her eyes closed and turns to the window. Two swift steps and he is looking down at her lawn. No sign of anyone no trace that anything had been there.

The Story of Sarah James by Nathan L. Lowe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at nathan-lowe.blogspot.com.