No Longer Alone.

No Longer Alone.

Ember regretted all her life’s choices the moment her phone alarm buzzed at her bedside. She groaned audibly and hit the snooze button. She immediately had wet puppy nose in her palm that was draped over the side of her bed. “I love you Charlie but I gotta have five more minutes.” She face-planted into her pillows and groaned. Charlie was ready to go out and started to lick her fingers from his doggie bed beside her mattress.

“Alright buddy. Let’s go.” She pulled on her jogging pants which she had flipped over the back of a chair the night before, clicked the leash into place on his collar and headed downstairs. As usual, she forgot to grab her keys off the hook by the front door. She was hopelessly bad at locking the front door behind her, so she luckily never locked herself out. She swung the door shut and Charlie led out of her townhome with enthusiasm to the designated dog park between the units a few hundred feet from her door. He panted happily at her side. He loved to be outside in any kind of weather. Clouds were gathering and Ember hoped there would be rain today. Maybe even a power outage at the office and she could come home early.

Ember would love to let Charlie run but his original owner said if you let him off leash, you would have a tough time getting him back home and then he laughed. Bill knew this from experience. He had made the mistake only two times – both were very long nights. He had raised Charlie to be a show dog but as time went on, Charlie’s hip dysplasia made the training too much for him. Bill was a friend of Ember’s dad and when he heard she wanted a dog, Bill mentioned Charlie needed a good home. She was in love from the first moment. Charlie had her heart from the moment he snuggled against her leg and licked the fingers of her outstretched hand.

“C’mon Charlie,” she tugged. “As much as I don’t want to. I gotta get to the office.” They headed back to her unit. Ember’s roommate Steph had moved out at the beginning of summer and with fall coming on quickly, the room was beginning to gather boxes and other treasures that Ember didn’t want to deal with. Ember was fantastically distractable, and she loved to start a hobby and never finish it. The room was a catalogue of the last year of her life and a glimpse at her array of interests she had dabbled in. She had a cello phase. Why couldn’t she pick a smaller instrument? That was leaning against the corner wall by the window. There was a half open box of all the sports she had tried: roller blading, boxing, pickle ball and even a community course in sword fighting. And while we are on the subject of the main floor, she didn’t want to discuss the downstairs bathroom which she stubbornly refused to clean. Ember detested cleaning bathrooms. She only had time to clean one, so she cleaned the one she showered in.

She really should get another roommate. She had posted the vacancy at the university but hadn’t had any bites. She had deliberately made the rent a bit pricey for starving college students because she wasn’t sure she really wanted to do the roommate thing anymore. Maybe Daddy would help if she got strapped for the rent. She only had three semesters left in her bachelor’s degree and she would love to have her place to herself until graduation. She could go back to being a barista as a side hustle if she got strapped for cash.

She unsnapped the leash and hung it and her jogging pants back over the chair and jumped in the shower. She was running a bit late so she would have to do her fast hair. She rushed the process and barely had time to say goodbye to Charlie as she rushed out the front door. She wasn’t lucky enough to get a power outage at work. She wasn’t even lucky enough to get a lunch. She rushed home to let Charlie out. “So sorry buddy. I gotta run to class. Remember? This is my long night.” She spent a few minutes rubbing his ears before grabbing her school bag and heading out into the windy evening. The storm was amping up and she was elated. She took a long deep breath of the pre-rain air. She could smell it coming in.

Ember took great notes in her first class. In her second class, she doodled with her laptop pen in her open note file and by the last class of her night, she was fighting sleep and begging for the professor to let them out early. He just had too much to say, and he took the class over by thirteen minutes. She was spent. Ember met Keira in the class on the first day and they had been sharing a table each week and they made their way to the parking lot complaining about the professor who could not stop talking. Keira had a puppy too and she was hoping he would make it until she got home without having an accident in his kennel. Both dashed for their cars as the rain started to fall.

On her way home, Ember could hardly see out her rain-drenched windshield. She pulled into her garage with a smile. She was so pleased that the storm had found her. She threw open her front door.

“Charlie!” she shouted, and he came running. She ran upstairs to get the leash; her hoodie and jacket and she clipped him in to go out. She grabbed her umbrella near the door and pulled the door shut. Charlie, like Ember, took his time in the rain. They were both drenched and neither cared as they headed back to the townhome.

Ember stopped in front of her door. It was open. Light was spilling out from the vertical slit in the space between door and frame. She could’ve sworn she had pulled it shut as they had left. Maybe she had forgotten when she reached for the umbrella. Maybe she hadn’t pulled it closed with enough force to latch it shut. Charlie growled as if he sensed her hesitation. Charlie’s breed weren’t barkers. He made plenty of other noises, but he just wasn’t the barking type. She loved that about him. She pushed open the door and listened. She couldn’t hear much over the sound of the wind and the falling rain. Charlie held very still and listened too. What if we are not alone?

She stepped inside. Should she lock the door behind her? What if she was barricading something inside with her? She held Charlie near her as she flipped on the light in Steph’s room where the porchlight streaming into the empty room full of odds and ends was casting shadows like tall buildings in a cityscape. Ember’s heart thudded inside her chest. How long had they been outside? Could someone really have come inside in that time? Wouldn’t they have been wet and left footprints as a trail behind them? Charlie pulled her inside the room and around the islands of standing items. She placed her hand on the door to the closed closet. Her brain was swirling with ideas of what could be standing inside. She sucked in a breath and pulled. Charlie stretched the leash to look inside. Empty. She left the light on in the spare room.

He was pulling her to the hallway. Why didn’t she own a gun? What was she going to do if she came face to face with someone in her home? She was ill. The blood coursing through her veins felt like mud – cuthunking through each artery and stopping in her throat.

The bathroom. Ember peered into the room. There were deepening shadows outside where the hallway light was breaking the barrier. She bent her hand around the wall to flip on the bathroom light. She placed her hand on the shower curtain and without missing a beat she pulled back the decorative shower curtain in the bathtub. Only the dingy white of the bathtub walls stared back at her. She knew that she didn’t speed up this exploration, she was going to be sick.

Charlie seemed to sense her need to complete the investigation quickly. She turned on the lights in each room and left them glistening off every surface. The kitchen. Empty. The family room. Empty. Under the stairs storage – not that anyone could fit under there with all of her Christmas decorations, but she had to look. She had to know. Empty. Light at the bottom of the stairs. Up the stairs at almost a run. Bedroom light. No one. Walk in closet. Nothing. One last bathroom – her own. Empty. Was there anywhere she hadn’t looked? She felt that sickening stomach dread that there was somewhere she hadn’t looked.

She was being silly right? She left all of the lights in her townhome on. She realized she still had the umbrella in her hand and was dripping water all over the entire house. She was holding it up beside her like a bat. Her jacket and hoodie were soaked through. She knelt on the floor and hugged Charlie. She was so proud of him for being right by her side through the search. She felt cold. Exhausted. Her heart was slowing a bit at a time – coming down to normal like it did after the fall and deep valleys of a rollercoaster. She was beginning to shake. She needed something warm to drink. Maybe a shower. She could steam the fear out of her.

 She started heating the water. She unhooked Charlie’s leash. With a steaming hot chocolate cupped in her hands, she made her way around the main floor closing blinds and confirming the front door was indeed locked. She started turning off the lights behind her in the house. Maybe she would reduce the amount of rent she was asking for the spare room. For better or worse, it would be nice to come home to someone. Someone who loved dogs.

The hot chocolate was nice, but it was not enough. She was going to take a boiling hot shower and crawl into her down comforter. She put Charlie on his bed before she climbed into the shower. She made it as hot as she could stand. It took over ten minutes to stop the shaking. It took another ten to warm up completely. She climbed into her softest pajamas. She slid into bed and pulled the comforter around her. She dropped her hand to the side of her bed and Charlie licked her outstretched fingers. “Let’s go to bed buddy. I’m glad you are here.”

Ember slowly drifted into a stilted sleep. She woke suddenly. What sound had woken her? She held still to see if the sound repeated itself. She reached out her hand and Charlie let her know he was there as he always did. As he had that first day they met. There was a distant dripping sound. Was that rain outside hitting the window?

She didn’t want to get out of bed. But the dripping continued. Was it still raining? She pulled herself from the warm bed reluctant to search it out. What time was it? How long had she been struggling to sleep?

She threw back her blankets and grabbed her phone from her bedstand. She turned on the tiny flashlight on her phone. Her bathroom sink was dry. Her shower was still and quiet. She made her way downstairs without turning any lights on. She slid open a window. It was no longer raining but the air was still cold and rich with the smell of rain. In the kitchen, she flipped on a light. The sink was motionless. Yet, she could still hear the dripping. It must be coming from the downstairs bathroom. Maybe she had pulled on one of the taps when she was in here earlier. Why hadn’t Charlie followed her downstairs? He must still be sleeping. “Charlie?” she called.

There was no movement upstairs. But the dripping continued.

She flipped on the light in the downstairs bathroom and took one step into the room. The dripping. The dripping was Charlie. Red on the dingy porcelain of the tub. Somehow hanging. She didn’t realize the screaming was coming out of her. All was lost. He was gone. She bent over and vomited in the open toilet bowl to her left.

She looked down at her own fingers. Who? If it hadn’t been Charlie at her bedside…there was someone or something. Her skin crawled up her spine and twisted every limb. He had licked her fingers!

Everything inside her stopped. Frozen. Like all of the blood inside her turned to ice. What could she do?

Suddenly she heard it. Third stair from the top. The one that always creaked no matter where you stepped. He was coming.

He was coming for her next.

Was she just going to stand here and let this happen? Hell no. Not tonight. Not after he had killed Charlie. If you want to get me, you sonofabitch, you are in for the fight of your life!

She looked down at the phone in her hand and dialed 911. She prayed whoever picked up would send help when she didn’t answer their questions. She set the phone on the bathroom counter and stepped into the hallway. He didn’t know she had heard the creak. He will still making his way down slowly. She had time. She stepped into the spare bedroom. She found the box quickly that she was looking for. It wasn’t a gun, but it had heft and length. It was only a community class and only a training sword, but it had a blade. She placed her hand around the hilt and slid it from the box.

She heard his feet on the tile. He was near the open door. She could hear his shallow breathing now. The fear had left, and the rage had taken its place. Whatever happened, she was going to do her best to make him pay.

For Charlie.