Chapter 4

1. Last night, as I was sitting in my living room and watching a little TV before bed, I heard a strange noise. It was a slow, drawn out scraping across the hardwood floor. Confused, I searched for the source of the sound; and I found it immediately. Someone had a slipped a small, folded note under the door.

"What the.?" More curious than anything, I approached the note slowly. I knelt down cautiously and picked up the strange paper. On it were only five words, scrawled on in a crude, messy fashion: "Get out. He is coming." I didn't pause to consider the meaning of the note, however, as I immediately realized there was something very, very wrong with this situation: The note had come from under the closet door.

2. I hate it when my brother Charlie has to go away.

My parents constantly try to explain to me how sick he is. That I am lucky for having a brain where all the chemicals flow properly to their destinations like undammed rivers. When I complain about how bored I am without a little brother to play with, they try to make me feel bad by pointing out that his boredom likely far surpasses mine, considering his confine to a dark room in an institution.

I always beg for them to give him one last chance. Of course, they did at first. Charlie has been back home several times, each shorter in duration than the last. Every time without fail, it all starts again. The neighbourhood cats with gouged out eyes showing up in his toy chest, my dad's razors found dropped on the baby slide in the park across the street, mom's vitamins replaced by bits of dishwasher iblets. My parents are hesitant now, using "last chances" sparingly. They say his disorder makes him charming, makes it easy for him to fake normalcy, and to trick the doctors who care for him into thinking he is ready for rehabilitation.

That I will just have to put up with my boredom if it means staying safe from him. I hate it when Charlie has to go away. It makes me have to pretend to be good until he is back.

3. Under the Covers Tonight's like every other night You lay there, in the dark and silence, alone, with no company other than your thoughts You shit and rol troughout your bed, just you and your thoughts.

You ponder, you plan, and you fantasize, anyting to distract trom he ringing silence silence that surrounds you You hear a creak, a comman sound to hear on such a stil night, but you still recoil when the sound hits your ears. You hear this sound almost every night, but the sheer unexpectedness sets off a trigger in your head as paranoia takes over. The thoughts that once iuminated your mind are now darkened What was once pleasure and Success has now turned to demores and kilers.

The silence that your mind was distracting you from has now become the focus. You lay there, silent, istening for any obscure sound, hoping that the silence doesnt leave.

Every itle noise adds to your paranoia and the silence lingers as you await the nest unexpected occurence. You're too afraid to open your eyes at the thought of seeing anything your mind can conjure. You lay there, aione in fear The fear builds in your mind as you try to find a quick escape from anything creates. You revert to your childhood salution, hiding under the covers. You pulthe blarket over your head and lay in silence. You hear noises, but they dont seem as scary. You figure if they cant see you, youre safe. The heat buids up under your blanket, but you put up with it simply for the comfort it supplies. You begin to caim down and relax, and revert back to your usual logical sel Ks kust you and your thoughts again, alone, under your blanket You think of how silly It was to get so scared and worked up over a sily, Itle noise. Eyes closed, you it the blarket of of your face as the built-up heat is relessed You breathe a sigh of relief and roll over, orty to hear a deep, grating voice whisper, "Oh there you are" as the sound of footsteps creeps toward your bed.

4. A few months ago a friend of mine, who is an up-and-coming nature photogra- pher, decided to spend a day and night alone in the woods outside of our town. She wanted to get photos of the woods and wildlife as naturally as she could for her portfolio. She wasn't afraid of being alone, as she had camped by herself many times before. She set up a tent in the middle of a small clearing and spent the day taking pictures. She filled up four rolls of film on that trip, but something was strange about them. What she saw in those pictures has stayed with her ever since, and she is still trying to recover from the trauma the have caused her. Almost every picture was accounted for, save for one picture in each roll of film. These pictures were of her, asleep in her tent in the middle of the night.