Screeeech!

The scream of my alarm clock disrupted the peaceful quiet in my bedroom. Groaning, I rolled over on my unusually lumpy bed and reached for the snooze button. Just then my finger jammed into a solid object.

“Ahh!” I sucked in a sharp breath and yanked my hand back. Disinclining to obey, I forced my sticky eyelids open to see… the leg of my bedpost. Confusion clouded my thinking briefly.

Then it hit me.

Like a vision, everything that had occurred last night popped into my mind. I gasped and leaped up from the carpet. Whirling around this way and that, I searched my room clean through for any evidence of someone being here. Someone had to have somehow gotten in and knocked me out. But… how?

Just then a flash of a bird’s shadow across my curtains caught my attention.

“The window,” I breathed, and wasted no further time in darting towards it.

I ripped the floor-length curtains apart and almost succeeded in tearing them from the wall. The sun streamed in through the glass but I barely saw a thing outside of the pale pink note stuck to my window.

My hazel green eyes were glued to it with such hunger that someone could’ve walked in nude and I would never have noticed. Shaking now, I reached up and plucked the note from its sticky bond. In one, clean stroke of a Sharpie was written the number seven.

“Seven?” I repeated in puzzlement. And as though expecting the very author of it to just pop up and say ‘good morning’ I spun and around and did another check of my room.

And as I was bent down low and scoping the area underneath my bed, a heavy swoosh noise could be heard from nearby. I halted dead in my tracks and dared not move a centimeter. Slowly, cautiously I lifted my head to see the curtains trembling.

“I pinned those back,” I thought, mystified. I quietly rose to my feet and began to slowly descend towards my curtains. They continued to tremble and that got me quaking as well. I lifted my hand out to pull them back.

Brrriiinnngggg!

The phone sent its alarm call ringing throughout the house. My feet left the floor in a jump of alarm. Spinning around, I darted across my bedroom floor to retrieve the phone. And as I did so, my foot slid across a small, round object. I stumbled slightly and stopped to see what it had been. A tiny, cylinder object lay embedded in my thick carpet. In bafflement, I bent and picked up what appeared to be an undersized shot.

The phone gave another shrill ring and I dashed out into the hallway where the cordless phone hung. Yanking it from its cradle, I said huskily into the receiver, “What? I-I mean, hello?”

“Luke?”

I recognized the voice of my coworker.

“Yeah.”

“Hi, it’s Roger.”

“What’s up, Roger? I’m kind of busy,” I replied breathlessly as I situated the phone in between my shoulder and ear.

“Too busy to come to work?” he shot back.

I leaned into my room and noted with alarm that it read ‘9:24’.

“I am so sorry, Roger!” I moaned.

“Don’t apologize to me, Luke. Chief’s the one that’s angry.”

I groaned again.

“Chief’s noticed?”

“Oh, yeah, and it’s even worse today because he’s got a huge assignment for you,” Roger informed my smugly.

“Really? What is it? Is it that Rodriguez guy that plays baseball? Because I’ve been begging Chief to let me do a story on him for awhile now,” I said excitedly, and even began to sound like a small child in a candy shop.

“Luke,” Roger began in agitation, “We work for the downtown newspaper, not ESPN. Just hurry up and get down here while you still have that.”

And then he hung up.

I sighed and hung the phone back on its hook before trudging into my room while thoughtfully studying the shot. Then, it occurred to me that I had left the sticky note stuck to the windowpane. Without hesitation, I rushed over and scooped it up… my only two clues for now.

“Just hurry up and get down here while you still have that.”

Roger’s words echoed in my mind as a reminder. Hurriedly, I threw on some clean clothes, wolfed down a breakfast of toast, grabbed up my briefcase, and was out the door in five minutes flat. I had safely secured the two clues inside a plastic bag that was now resting in my briefcase.

I drummed my fingers up and down the steering wheel in deep thought as I sped down the highway.

“Chief is going to kill me,” I thought in remorse, “And not to mention fire me.”

My thoughts were interrupted by the familiar ‘Oh When the Saints’ ring tone of my cell phone as it began to sing its cheery song from within my pocket. Luckily, I had to roll to a stop at a red light right then and was able to quickly yank it out and flip it open.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, Luke,” the dreary, female voice sounded on the other end, “What’re you doing?”

“Hey, Amber,” I replied with equal enthusiasm, “Oh, I’m just about to get fired. You?”

“Trying to stay awake as my boss drones on and on with this meeting. He’s too deaf and blind to even notice that a good three quarters of us are on our cell phones.”

“That exciting, huh?”

“Oh, always.”

I pressed the gas pedal as the light changed to green.

Just then, the memory of last night and even a little of this morning popped into my mind.

“Amber!” I practically yelled into the cell.

“What? Good grief, I’m not deaf!” she growled.

“Sorry, but you’ll never guess what happened last night.”

She paused briefly and I knew it was to think.

“The murder mystery, huh?” she guessed, seeming to brighten a little.

“Yeah, last night…” my voice trailed as a new realization stirred in my mind.

“Luke? Luke, are you all right?”

Amber’s voice faded in my mind to be replaced by the men’s voices outside my window.

“Two… three… nine… eight.”

“They’re people,” I whispered.

“Huh?” Amber barked into the phone. It just occurred to me that she had been attempting to carry on the conversation the entire time.

“Uh, Amber, I’ll tell you later. Right now, I got to go,” I told her hurriedly while already drawing the phone away from my ear.

“But, Luke!” she cried in agitation into the phone.

I rolled my eyes and pressed it against my ear.

“What?”

“What about the serial killer? I heard… hey!” she suddenly shrieked.

“Amber! What?”

There were several loud crashes and a few cries of annoyance that slowly, painfully morphed into screeches of pain and cutting fear. Several more crashes sounded even closer to the cell phone, it seemed and then Amber’s breathy voice sounded into the receiver.

“Luke,” she whispered, obviously frightened, “The lights went out and people over in the far corner of the room are panicking.” She paused briefly and then spoke her next words in such a way that sent shivers of terror and anxiety crawling up my spine. “I don’t think it was an accident.”

“Amber,” I began as I could feel my blood turning to ice, “Just stay away from the group. Just-“

Amber’s blood-curdling shriek as I had never heard before interrupted my sentence.

“Amber!” I cried in desperation.

“Stay away! Don’t touch-“ Her voice was cut short by almost a choking, gurgling sound.

“Amber! Can you hear me?” I screamed as loud as my quaking vocal chords would permit.

Just then, the phone seemed to have been hurtled against another object. I cringed as a high-pitched noise sounded in my ear. I drew away only briefly, but not long enough to miss the sound of another breathy, masculine voice beginning to speak into the voice.

“Forget you ever had this conversation,” it ordered, “Or else your fate will be the same.”

And there was a click and I was disconnected.