Chapter 7: Why Are They Back?

Carrigan

A noise awoke me from my sleep, and I sat up, looking around my tiny apartment. I swore I’d heard something. I’d learned to be a light sleeper in the last few years and jumped out from between the sheets. I felt my heart pound empathically in my chest as the noise sounded again. I flinched at the new noise but still wasn’t sure where it came from.

I needed to find something to defend myself. It was so dark in the apartment, and I couldn’t get my eyes to adjust. I kept touching the walls and tried to determine where exactly I was standing.

The noise rang out, and this time, it didn’t stop after one time. It was my front door; someone was pounding repeatedly. I started panicking, my breathing getting shorter and quieter. An intruder was attempting to break in, and I was basically blind. I needed a damn weapon.

I could hear screaming on the other side of my thin door, but I didn’t know what to do. I was blind, my breathing growing to the point I felt like I would have another panic attack.

There wasn’t anywhere to hide in the damn apartment, but the banging and screaming were growing louder, and I resigned to hiding under my bed. I just had to find my way back under.

“Let me in!” The first time I understood what was being hollered at me. I froze, and the blood began draining from my entire body. It was him—no doubt about it. I had to hide before he found me. I couldn’t let him find me here. I couldn’t be seen.

I dropped to my hands and knees, and my brain went into autopilot, steering me toward my bed. Even if he broke in, he might not think to check there. I scurried until I found the bed and rolled underneath, breathing heavily with tears flowing down my face.

How had he found me? How? I was so careful, and he had never been able to find me in the past. Was I mistaken in thinking that he wouldn’t be searching after four years? No, I must have been! I was out too often. He must have found me at the bar and followed me home.

The realization punched me in the gut, and I started to shake. I was crying, shaking, and hyperventilating. How would I be able to fight him off like this? Or even how I was going to be able to hide from him?

The door splintered off its hinges, and I clenched my mouth closed to avoid making any noise that would draw attention to where I was hiding. I saw his feet, and he took several steps into the apartment. I was still shaking and crying but was doing everything I could not to breathe loud enough so that he’d be able to hear me.

I heard him take one deep breath in and then release it. “Oh, it smells just like I remember. Carrigan and her love of all smells of autumn. How could someone forget something so little about you, baby?”

I closed my eyes as he began walking slowly into the apartment. Each footstep felt like he was setting off a bomb, and I wanted to scream. I wanted to attack him. I wanted to find a way to safety.

I opened my eyes just a crack and looked to see where he was in the apartment. He had gone to the kitchen on the opposite side of the apartment. Still shaking, I looked around the room in the light from the open door.

I knew I had pepper spray and my pocket knife somewhere. But I didn’t know where. I couldn’t see well enough through my tears, and what if he had a gun on him? What would I do then?

“Come on, Carrigan. If you’re not here, I will be forced to threaten people for answers. You don’t want that, now, do you?”

I don’t know if it was possible to shake even more, but I felt my entire body basically vibrate like a cell phone. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be found. I didn’t want him to hurt anyone. I just wanted him to go away.

“GOTCHA!” His face appeared under the bed, his teeth crooked, yellow, and demented. His eyes glowed as I let out an ear-piercing scream. I couldn’t stop screaming, and he kept staring at me, his laughter growing louder and louder.

I sat up in bed, still wailing. I looked around, the shouting over, but the fear, the tears, and the shaking still consumed me.

I ran my hand through my hair, looking around the studio. No one was in the room. The door hadn’t been kicked off its hinges. I was still alive. But my heart was still in overdrive.

Why was this happening to me? I hadn’t dreamed about him in a long time. So long, in fact, that I was finally starting to think I was healing. Nothing was adding up. It had been years. I knew he couldn’t find me. I had been gone too long. He wouldn’t still be looking, but what if the nightmares were trying to tell me something?

What if this wasn’t over?

I wiped under my eyes, and I began to worry, thinking about if it was time to run again. There was a reason I didn’t stay in the same place for too long. But I let my guard down and thought South Carolina was safe. I thought that maybe he would have given up after all these years. I wanted to believe he had never cared to look for me.

I knew that wasn’t true.

He’d made it very clear that he’d find me. Anywhere I thought to run, he’d be there.

I looked over at the clock on my nightstand. It was a little after three in the morning.

Did I dare sneak away? What was the point in waiting around if my nightmares were becoming so vivid that he could find me and hurt me?

Getting this studio was difficult because I kept getting fake IDs and creating false Carrigans. I couldn’t be myself. Carrigan Hudson was the current fake name I was going by to my landlord and Kaitlyn. I didn’t have a bank account. I didn’t have more than a few hundred dollars hidden in the apartment.

I rubbed my eyes and wondered if giving Royce my number was a bad idea. Maybe Royce knew him. Or better yet, he could have hired him. They could have been in on it together.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and shook my head back and forth. I may have been paranoid, but expecting the man I had dinner with earlier in the week to have some connection to what I was running away from was idiotic.

I checked my pre-paid phone, curious if I’d received any messages that may have tipped me off. But nothing. Just the blue background of the phone and no texts or calls.

I locked the screen and swung my legs over the side of the bed, resting my elbows on my legs and burying my face in my hands.

I was tired of running. I didn’t want to have to leave again.

Especially now that I met Royce…

But he wasn’t going to be safe. Kaitlyn wouldn’t be safe. No one in my life was safe as long as he was out there.

For the first time in years, I wished I could call my dad. I wished I could tell someone what was happening.

I may have dreamed about him for the first time in years, but I never stopped being afraid. And if I was going to continue down this path of more nightmares, I had to seriously consider leaving South Carolina behind.

It wouldn’t be the first time running away without a trace.