Run

The alarm screamed angrily, frightening Maeve out of a dead slumber. She shot upright, tumbled out of tangled sheets, and stumbled half-conscious down the hall to the keypad by the front door of her grandmother's farmhouse style home. It took several tries, but after a final, desperate attempt, the house finally fell silent. Maeve took a deep breath, leaning her back against the wall, the paint cool on the exposed, fevered skin of her shoulders. “Stupid thing,” she muttered, wiping a hand across her sweat studded forehead. She’d been sick for a week, and the first night she actually falls fast asleep her dreams are interrupted by a damn house alarm…

The house alarm… went off…. Realization suddenly struck Maeve, her senses fully waking. Panicked, her eyes darted around the darkness, trying to find movement in the shadows. Clumsily, her hand fumbled for the door knob, but found that both it and the deadbolt were locked. The police, she thought, trying to find the courage to make her way back through the dark hallway to her cellphone, I need to call the police.

Taking a deep, shaky breath, Maeve darted from the front door back to the guest room she’d taken upon her arrival. Gran had asked her to house sit while she was visiting friends overseas, and with it being spring break and having no plans, Maeve had agreed. Growing up, this house had always been a welcoming friend where she’d find homemade cookies, sun tea, and unconditional love. Never, in her twenty-one years, had Maeve felt anything but safe in this house. Until now.

Maeve all but slammed her bedroom door shut, locking it immediately. Racing to the bedside table, she struggled with the lamp switch, turned it on, snatched up her phone and… Brrriing!! Maeve stifled a startled scream. Her iPhone lit up and a picture of Gran smiled at her from the front porch swing, gardenia’s in the background. Brrriing!! 

“Hello? Gran?” Maeve answered it, her heart still pounding.

“Maeve, I got an alert that the house alarm went off,” it sounded like Gran was on a busy street with the traffic noises in the background.

“Yes, it woke me up, I was about to call the police. Gran, I’m really scared.” Maeve clutched the phone with both hands, sitting on her bed, knees drawn up to her chest.

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Dear,” Gran said, her voice calm and comforting, “I meant to tell you before I left, but it’s been malfunctioning for a few weeks, and the security company isn’t able to come fix it till I get home. I’m sorry it startled you, Maeve.”

Maeve let out an audible sigh, “Gran…” she moaned, feeling like an idiot. It made sense, Gran lived in a safe neighborhood where nothing exciting ever happened. “Alright, Gran, thanks for telling me….”

“I’m very sorry, Dear. How are you feeling? Has your fever gone away?”

“No, but I don’t feel as bad as I have been. I’m sure I’ll be better before you get back.”

“Alright, well, try to go back to sleep. I’ll see you in a week.”

Maeve hung up the phone, irritated with her grandmother for not telling her about the malfunctioning alarm, and feeling guilty for being irritated with her favorite person. She considered calling the police anyway, what would be the harm in having someone look around just in case? But she already felt silly enough, and she didn’t want to waste an officer's time when there could be a real emergency elsewhere. Plugging the charger into her phone, she set it back down on the table and walked into the guest ensuite. Maeve cringed as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. She hadn’t eaten in days, having barely been able to hold down water. She was flushed, her eyes looked sunken in with heavy bags, dark curls clung to her forehead and cheeks, and her yellow tank top was dark in spots where her fever and sweated through it. She considered taking a shower, but it was only 3AM and she knew that she should try to get as much sleep as possible. She opted for wetting a washcloth with warm water and patting her face clean. With an exhausted sigh, Maeve shuffled back to bed, leaving the bathroom light on. 

She rolled onto her stomach, tucked one arm under the pillow and reached for the lamp switch with the other, stopping suddenly as a wave of fresh panic came over her. Her phone- it was gone. The charger lay discarded on the carpet, and the spot on the table where she’d left it was bare. What the actual fuck? Maeve thought as she sat up looking around the room. She’d locked the bedroom door from the inside, and it had the loudest hinges in the house, no one could have opened the door without revealing themselves. Her heart pounded painfully in her chest, and terrified tears stung her tired eyes. Paranoia encompassed her senses, survival instincts fighting with each other in her brain. 

Run! Just run out of the house!

Don’t be ridiculous, it probably just fell off the table and landed under the bed, just grab it.

No! What if someone is under the bed?!

Then they’ll grab you as soon as you get off and try to make a run for it.

Stop. The bed is too close to the floor, no one could be hiding under it.

Then where did the phone go? Even if it dropped, the charger would still be plugged into it!

She felt the eyes before she even thought of it. She knew that’s where they were staring at her from. There was no other place in the bedroom. The closet. She refused to look at the slatted double doors of the long closet. Looking at it would only make it real. She was frozen. The closet was only a few feet from the bedroom door. Even if she made a dash for it, how would she unlock the door, open it, run down the hallway, unlock the door knob and the dead bolt, open the front door and run to safety? And where was safety? She knew Gran’s neighbors, but it was 3 o’clock in the morning, everyone would be sleeping and who would wake up in time to let her in? She knew there were only two choices, and only one of them gave her smallest shot at survival. She could sit there on her bed, refusing to acknowledge the gaze of her intruder, waiting until they decided to reveal themselves on their terms, or

She could run.

She chose to run.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Maeve braced herself to jump from the bed, her arm still reaching toward the lamp. She counted to three, then sprang. With the hand that reached for the lamp, she tore it from the table, the cord resisting only slightly against the adrenaline that now fought to keep her alive, and she made a mad dash for the door. She wouldn’t look at the closet, she wouldn’t see the monster that found its way into her childhood paradise. But she heard it. She heard the heavy panting and growling as he threw open the closet doors and lunged out at her. Blindly, Maeve swung the lamp as she reached the bedroom door, unlocking it. The lamp connected with the assailant, forcing him to stumble back, giving Maeve just precious seconds to run faster than she ever had in her life. Hurling herself down the hallway, Maeve yanked the accent table with its vases and books away from the wall, hoping to create an obstacle between the attacker and herself. She reached the door, her body slamming hard into the wood as she fumbled clumsily with the locks. Her hands were sweaty with fear and fever, but she managed to get the knob unlocked first. She still refused to look behind her, but she could hear the swearing and the grunting as he stumbled into her haphazard trap. 

The dead bolt stuck, and in her slippery hands and panicked trembling, she struggled and begged it to open. Click.

With a deep breath, Maeve threw open the front door of the house, one foot on the porch, cold night air tasting of freedom…

A hand tangled into her hair, yanking her backward. She let out a painful, terrified yelp, throwing out her arms to grip the door frame, fighting in a horrifying game of tug o’ war. He was stronger than her, but she was desperate, a wild animal fighting for survival. With a rage fueled scream that tore through the thick silence of the night, Maeve ripped her head forward, leaving the bloody tangle of hair behind as she flew through the darkness of her grandmothers front yard, launching herself over the white picket fence that separated her property from the Bates’ home next door.

Relief found her when she saw lights turning on throughout Mr. Bates’ house. They must have woken to her scream. “HELP!!!” Maeve shrieked as she tripped up the porch stairs. She was greeted by a disheveled Matthew Bates, shotgun in hand. He pulled her into his house, slamming and locking the door shut, Maeve fell, sobbing, terrified, into his wife's arms. 

“I’m sorry, Ms. Porter, but there’s no sign of your intruder,” the police officer looked the bedraggled young woman over, sympathy in his seasoned eyes. If it weren’t for the clump of hair missing from the back of her head, there really wouldn’t be any evidence of one either, he added silently.

Maeve still trembled, clutching the blanket Mrs. Bates had wrapped around her while her husband had called the police. She didn’t know what to say, so she kept silent, hot tears trailing down her cheeks.

“Are you sure there was really someone in your house?”

Mr. Bates bristled protectively, “Maeve isn’t a liar! Just look at her head! She couldn’t have done that to herself! I’ve known this girl since the day she was born, she wouldn’t make something like this up!”

Officer Parker waved his hands, “I’m not implying that Ms. Porter is a liar…”

“Then just what are you implying?!” the older gentleman demanded.

Officer Parker sighed, “There’s no sign of a break-in, Ms. Porter even admitted that the doors were locked. We didn’t find any windows being tampered with. Aside from the broken lamp and the overturned table in the hallway, there’s no sign of a struggle inside the house. And your phone, Ms. Porter, we found it on its charger on the bedside table in your room.”

Maeve shook her head, “He was there, he took it while I was in the bathroom, and he hid in my closet!” She sobbed heavily, exhausted, scared, and her fever felt like it was getting worse.

“Ms. Porter, don’t you think it’s possible that, with your fever and lack of sleep over the last week, you could have had some sort of mental break-”

“HOW DARE YOU!” Mr.Bates roared, outraged. “Are you a doctor? A psychologist? NO! How dare you make that accusation! I heard her screams! I heard the struggle! Are you going to accuse me of being crazy?!”

“Mr. Bates, please, calm down, I’m sorry.” Officer Parker tried to calm the old man, “You’re right, that comment was out of line. I’m just trying to understand. With no evidence of a break -in, a faulty home alarm system, and a woman who’s had what sounds like a flu and never actually saw an attacker- I have nothing to go on.”

After several more hours of questioning by detectives and other officers, Maeve was left feeling defeated. Alive, but defeated. By the end, she felt confident that the investigators believed her story, but they had nowhere to look. Maeve couldn’t give them any names of people she’d thought could want to hurt her. She got along with most people, and couldn’t think of any enemies. In the end, she’d spent the rest of her spring break home with her parents, and was on the receiving end of several desperate apologies from Gran. She’d never felt so relieved to go back to school.

Weeks had passed since the break-in, and Maeve was constantly on edge. Even though college was on the other side of the country, she still feared the man who got away. Given her circumstances, she was given approval from the school to add two more sliding locks to the door of her dorm room, and she never went anywhere alone. Finals were coming up, and Maeve had thrown herself into studying, which she found a welcome distraction from the paranoia that plagued her. Until she felt the eyes staring at her from her closet again….