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THE NEXT DAY, DAD WAS at work, and I was home alone. The doorbell rang around lunchtime. The sound caused Wolf to go into a barking frenzy.
I stumbled through the house and made my way downstairs. Wolf had her front paws resting on the lower window panes of the door. Zee was trying to do the same thing but wasn’t tall enough to reach. Each time that Zee tried to mimic the older and much larger dog, his paws just slid down the smooth wood. From the floor, Zee would start all over again. It was a display of sheer determination that I couldn’t help but admire.
I peeked through the curtain on the door, but didn’t see anything, mail carrier or otherwise. The day was bright and clear. Wolf’s barking, however, was unrelenting. My eyes scanned the yard for a stray cat, squirrel, or anything that could have gotten the dogs so excited. Just as I was about to give up, I saw it... across the road, a dark figure moved among the trees.
It was a person wearing a long, black rain jacket with the hood pulled up. Now, he was staring straight ahead. Toward the house. At me?
With my hand, I felt the deadbolt to make sure that it was locked. I stepped away from the door and eased the curtain down, hoping that I had not been spotted.
Trying to be as quiet as possible, I moved into the living room and stepped closer to the bay window that faced the woods. From there I could get a better look. I pushed the edge of the curtain aside. The man was gone. My eyes darted to and fro in a frantic search. I would feel safer if I knew where he was. Then, from the left, he was on the porch.
I jerked my hand away from the curtain and stepped backward. My feet stumbled over the large rug that was spread across the floor. The corner of the coffee table caught my fall, but there was a loud clatter as everything on the table came down as my ass finally hit the hardwood. Now, it was impossible for him not to know I was in the house. From the floor, I watched as the dark shadow continued to move across the wraparound porch and stopped at the next window.
Wolf scampered across the room, barking at the figure that was on the other side of the glass. Zee was right behind her.
I got to my feet and ran. I didn’t care anymore if I made noise. I bolted up the stairs, nearly tripping over my own feet before I reached the top. Once inside my room, I slammed the door and locked it. I ran to the desk, picked up my phone, and called the police.
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BY THE TIME THAT THE deputy got there, the man in the rain jacket was gone.
I was sitting at the kitchen table. The deputy was standing with his back against the counter. “So it was a man wearing a rain jacket?” Deputy Roper had a small notebook and pen. He was taking notes.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve already told you. Just like what I saw the other night in town at the gazebo.”
Mr. Roper huffed, obviously annoyed. “Look, Blake. Unless you’ve been put in any physical danger, I can’t do anything about somebody walking down a public road.”
“He was on the porch,” I explained. “He was wearing a rain jacket. It’s not even raining.”
“Blake, look. It’s Spirit Week. I called the school. Today is Inclement Weather Day.”
Of course. How could I have been so stupid? The fact of the matter was that there were probably countless people walking around the area wearing rain jackets and all kinds of other ridiculous things. The point of the day, after all, was to dress for extreme weather conditions.
The deputy continued. “Heck, I even saw a girl wearing a homemade costume that was supposed to look like one of those ice scrapers that you use on your windshield in the wintertime. She made it out of cardboard. Craziest damn thing I’ve ever seen. Have you ticked somebody off? Or upset somebody at school? I heard that you were suspended for fighting Cade Williston.”
I nodded my head. I saw where he was headed with everything he was saying—it was Cade messing around with me, and by the time that Dad got there, the case had been settled, or at least as far as Deputy Roper was concerned.
“I’m going to head over to the Williston’s,” he told Dad. “I’ll get a statement from Cade about where he has been all day.” The deputy left.
“Blake, whatever is going on with you and Cade has got to stop,” Dad talked in a low, hushed tone. “I can’t keep doing this. It has been going on long enough. First, the night at the brewery, then the fight, and now this?”
I wasn’t ready to tell Lisa about the fact that I would be moving soon, but I wanted to talk to somebody. Under the circumstances, the easiest person to talk to would be Charley17. There was no attachment between us. What was going on in my world had no bearings on his. And after all, the whole reason for him being in my life was to help me. When I logged on, he was already online. He messaged me right away.
HOW’S IT GOING?
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NOT GOOD. I JUST FOUND OUT I’M MOVING TO COLUMBIA.
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COLUMBIA. WOW. WE’LL BE SO CLOSE!
I wasn’t expecting that. Before I could think of how to respond, I got a new message. This one was a photo. Until then, I hadn’t even known that you could send photos on the site. It took a few seconds for the photo to load. Finally, the whole thing was revealed. It was an old, brick building. Palmetto Apartments, the sign said. The photo was accompanied by another message from Charley17...
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS? WE CAN BE ROOMMATES. IT WOULD BE A BIG STEP UP FROM THE CRAZY HOUSE DON’T YOU THINK?
I flung myself back in the chair so forcefully that the wheels rolled across the floor. The chair didn’t stop until I was a good three feet from the desk. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My hunches had been right—the guy was a creep. Why did he think I would want to live with him? I didn’t even know him. And how did he find out about my time at the mental hospital? All of that was supposed to be confidential.
During those two months I’d insisted that it was my fault that Davey was dead. I told the nurses that I would never let people get close to me again out of fear that they would get hurt. I had hoped that nobody would ever find out about all of that, but he did.
Trying to make sense of all of this, I had another thought—Charley17 was obsessed with me. I was sure of it. Internet stalkers were not that uncommon. Maybe he had been orchestrating things all along, trying to push the two of us closer together. The idea was scary. I knew I had to stop communicating with him before things got even weirder.
I went to the profile on my account and clicked a few links until I found the SETTINGS tab. I hovered the cursor over DELETE ACCOUNT for several seconds before finally clicking the button and sealing my fate. A message appeared on the screen.
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THANK YOU FOR READING! YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY DELETED YOUR PROFILE. IF AT ANYTIME IN THE FUTURE YOU WANT TO SIGN UP AGAIN, JUST REACTIVATE YOUR ACCOUNT BY CLICKING HERE. GOOD BYE.
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THAT NIGHT, I DREAMED that I was a werewolf.
With clawed hands, I ripped at my clothes until they were in tatters. My rapidly growing muscles and changing bone structure pushed the pieces of fabric off my sturdy frame. Thick, brown fur covered every inch of my body.
I ran through the night and jumped from one bale of hay to the next. The feel of the cool air on my exposed anatomy was liberating. Eventually, I found myself standing outside of Lisa’s bedroom window. The blinds were open, and I could see her lying in bed, asleep.
It was there, in the glass, that I saw my reflection for the first time. I had large, turned back ears and a long snout that was full of canine-like teeth. My back was slightly hunched, but the size of my pectoral muscles and biceps made up for the bad posture.
I tapped on the window, and Lisa woke. She shoved the blanket aside and stood from the bed. She was wearing a cotton tank top and sleep shorts. She opened the window, and I lifted her up. With Lisa in my arms, I ran.
I didn’t put her down until I stopped at a small pond. Lisa sat on an overturned fishing boat, and I was on all fours lapping at the water. Lisa placed her fingertips on the flat of my stomach. The caress caused my body to flinch, and I stood up straight. Drops of pond water fell from my muzzle onto the top of her head. Finally, she slid her hand lower so that it was just below the slight paunch of my belly.