Wheelchair Mystique

“Love you too. Bye.”

I hung up, and no sooner had I put the phone down than I yawned. Habitually, I glanced up at the wooden clock on the wall: ten o’clock at night. Ten o’clock wasn’t really that late, really, especially on a Sunday. I was quite sure that some of my classmates at school were still partying somewhere—even though we’d have school the next day. Mondays are only as dreary as you make them.

My parents were on a trip; they had left the house a couple of days ago and would be away for a couple more. One might find it strange that a sixteen-year-old girl would stay at home all by herself every night that she knew her parents wouldn’t be home instead of going out and doing…whatever it is girls do, but I was just tired recently. Well, no. The more appropriate wording would be that I was troubled.

Even now, although nothing was happening, my heartbeat quickened, and my muscles tensed as I walked upstairs to my bedroom. The only sound in the house was the ticking hands of the clock, and it was that way every day. Even if my parents were home, they weren’t particularly talkative people either.

In this state, I simply wasn’t in the mood to socialize past school hours. I didn’t even talk to my friends about it—not before I figured out what the issue was myself.

Ten o’clock, and I was already getting ready for bed. Before sleeping, I checked the mirror in the bathroom. I pouted slightly at my auburn hair. I should dye it tomorrow, I thought to myself. My natural hair color was beginning to show near the roots.

Changing to shorts and a tank top, I plopped down on the bed. It probably took less than a minute for me to fall asleep since I didn’t really remember rolling about before the world of dreams consumed me.

In the middle of the night, I woke to the sound of someone whispering. No, wait…it was sharper than that. It was the sound of someone hissing.

“Shut up…” I mumbled groggily, pulling the blanket over my head.

Then, I jolted wide awake.

I should be the only one in the house.

Frozen, a chill spread through my whole body. I didn’t dare move.

There came a scratching sound at the glass window. Another shiver ran down my spine, but—more than eerie, the sound itself was plain

annoying

. I turned in bed, then threw my blanket aside to glance out the window.

Standing on the other side was a man with a mask covering his entire face. The mask had a death-pale white color. A smiling face was painted in red over the whiteness. It was…quite literally, a smile plastered over his face. Two big, red, sloppily painted ovals lay on the top half of the mask as eyes, one slightly higher than the other. The smile had been painted in the same bloodred color; like the eyes, it was slovenly drawn. As if the mask had been lifted before the paint could dry, there were marks of dripping red here and there.

I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

Before I could contemplate the meaning of what I was seeing, the man lifted a sheet of paper with both hands—it must have been folded before since there were wrinkles on the sheet. Only then did I see that his hands were small for a man—or even a teenage boy—but his fingers were long. His skin was green. The fingers were disproportionately long, but his nails were even longer—all in the color of green.

As the man pressed the paper against the glass, I read the words, all capitalized and written in red:

MY NAME IS BRANDON.

A few seconds later, he lowered the paper. When he lifted his hand again, he was holding a gun—pointed directly to the glass.

I bolted out of my room.