13 Tales To Give You Night Terrors by Elliot Arthur Cross Page A

mouth was open. The water was red.
    “ He said it’s easy,” she
said, turning to face me. “He said it’s so easy anyone can do
it.”
    My phone rang. It didn’t stop ringing.
I sat with my sister for a while. I tried to take her hand once,
even though I knew I couldn’t. All I touched was dusty old
porcelain. I told her I loved her. If she heard it, she didn’t let
on. Then I went back to my car, fetched the can of petrol, and
finished the job that they’d started years ago.
    The fire could be seen for
miles.
    I’m sure Laura’s still around
somewhere. I just hope she’s not with them.

6.
WAITING FOR THE WOLF
    Troy H. Gardner, United
States
     
     
     
    HE’S coming for me.
    I locked the front door—deadbolted—but
it’s no comfort. How much safety can a deadbolt really guarantee?
The lights are on in every room of my fourth floor apartment,
matching the firefly sprinkling of every other home and business in
the city at night. I’m sitting at the Formica table in the kitchen
with my back to the wall, scanning the two doorways. My right
hand’s wrapped around the knife so hard it’s practically fused to
my flesh.
    For the first time ever, I’m thankful
my Brooklyn apartment is so small. Less space to worry about. I
grew up in a two-story farmhouse in Idaho with stairs and a
backyard and privacy. That house would have been hell to safeguard
but I can manage the apartment.
    He’s not going to get the jump on me
like he did the others.
    Lights from the street flash into the
kitchen, casting long shadows my way. As they recede, I relax my
grip on the knife.
    Any minute now.
    A man and woman talk in hushed tones
on the other side of the kitchen wall. It’s just the neighbor’s TV.
Before I moved to the city, any sounds I heard from the TV came
from my parents’ viewing habits—westerns and political talk shows.
The widow is different. She loves reality shows and sitcoms. I
suddenly envy the amnesiac shut-in. The bag boy delivers her food.
She’s never watched a friend die. She never waits for death to
burst through her doors.
    Or maybe she does. Maybe that’s why
she never ventures outside.
    I see my life following the shut-in’s
path. Call in to my professors, tell them I’m sick. They’ll fail me
eventually. I can take classes online and get a job from home.
Endless nights watching the doors. How long until I feel
comfortable enough to turn on the TV?
    It started when my phone buzzed on the
subway after my late class. I had to brush up against a
squirrelly-looking woman to fish it out my pants.
    My buddy Jay was calling to cancel our
weekly poker game. I figured he’d contacted me last because he knew
the other guys wouldn’t give him any resistance, but I wasn’t
having any of it.
    “ Don’t be a loser. Why
don’t you want to chill?” I asked him.
    “ I’m not up for it
tonight.” The voice on the phone sounded hollow. I’d never heard
Jay like that before. I’d known him for two years, ever since we
sat next to each other in one of my first engineering classes. I
was a freshman and used to sticking your hand out and making
friends like from back home. The city was a different story and
most people treated me like an oddity, but Jay had shook my hand
and started blabbing. We were instant friends.
    “ Something
happen?”
    “ I don’t know. I guess
so.”
    “ Don’t be a chick. Just
tell me.” He was never the type to get worked up easily. The
uncertainty in his voice made my skin crawl.
    “ I ran into Declan in the
bar the other night.”
    “ Who?”
    “ He used to work with me in
the college bookstore. He was just sitting there at the bar,
drinking alone. There weren’t any decent girls around, so I had a
few Post Nap Funks with him.”
    “ And?”
    “ And his cousin died the
other day. A severe heart attack. He was only twenty-nine. The
weird thing was the cousin’s neighbor was shot a few days before in
a home invasion or something.”
    “ That’s messed up,” I