“…I didn’t put that box up there.”
The phone slipped against my sweaty palm. Inside the heavy wooden chest, sitting on a bed of faded red velvet, were dozens of photographs. They were all of me. But they weren’t from our three years of marriage.
They were from my childhood. Me playing on the swings at age six. Me sleeping, taken through my open bedroom window at age ten. Me walking to my college dorm.
And beneath the photos… a neatly coiled length of heavy rope, a sharp hunting knife, and a hand-drawn map of our current house. The attic was circled in thick, red marker.
“Arthur,” I choked out, my eyes locked on the horrifying collection. “If you didn’t put it up here… who did?”
“Listen to me very carefully,” Arthur’s voice cracked over the phone. “When I pulled into the driveway, I saw the attic vent was kicked out from the inside. There’s a dark grey truck parked two houses down. It’s him. He found us.”
A loud THUD echoed from the floorboards directly beneath me. Someone was on the second floor.
“He’s in the house,” I whimpered, scrambling backward away from the open box, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
“I’m coming,” Arthur said fiercely, the sound of the garage door opening echoing through the receiver. “Get out of the attic, lock the bedroom door, and do not make a sound.”
The line went dead.
I scrambled down the pull-down attic stairs, my hands shaking so violently I almost lost my footing. I lunged into our master bedroom and slammed the heavy oak door, throwing the deadbolt just as I heard the slow, deliberate creak of the floorboards at the far end of the hallway.
Creak. Creak. The footsteps were heavy, unhurried, and getting closer. I backed away, pressing myself into the darkest corner of our walk-in closet, clutching a heavy brass candlestick I’d grabbed from the dresser.
Then, my phone buzzed in my hand. A text message. From Arthur.
I’m at the bottom of the stairs. I see him. He’s at your door. Stay quiet.
I held my breath, tears streaming down my face as I stared through the slats of the closet door.
Suddenly, the bedroom doorknob jiggled. Once. Twice. Then, a voice on the other side of the wood whispered, soft and sickeningly familiar—a voice I hadn’t heard since I faked my own death and fled my hometown ten years ago.
“I know you’re in there, little bird.”
My blood turned to ice. It was David. The man who had vowed I would never, ever escape him.
Before I could react, another text from Arthur lit up the dark closet.
I have my gun. I’m right behind him. When I say now, open the door and run past us down the stairs. Do not look back.
The doorknob rattled violently, the wood beginning to splinter under David’s weight as he threw his shoulder against the door.
My phone screen glowed one last time.
NOW.
