Chapter One
The old man waved to me. I walked precariously toward the brown, splintered shell he called a boat. It looked unable to hold him without capsizing, so I worried about burdening it with my own extra weight. His gaze was so certain that, declining the invitation to drown with him was not an option.
The cold damp wood welcomed the soles of my feet as I stepped off the relative safety of the muddy riverbank and into the old man’s vessel. My panic increased as the decrepit canoe began to sway violently under the added weight. The tranquil quietness that smothered the stream a second ago quickly turned into the riotous crescendo of water being disturbed as I lost balance and nearly tipped our boat upside down.
The fear that filled me at that moment seemed to be neck and neck with the water that rapidly filled the boat. I did not realize anything could terrify me more at that point until I raised my head for a moment.
I caught a glimpse of my companion, the bald headed old man. His eyebrows were ferocious and full, roofing a pair of nearly hollow eye-sockets that housed a pair of hazel, marble-like balls which formed his eyes. His cheekbones, jutted out under pale, paper-thin skin, lined with a million wrinkles that spoke silently of a gloomy past.
I did not have the liberty, amidst all the chaos that was quickly unfolding, to figure out who he was. He sat there, unmoved, glaring at me with those dead marbly eyes. A long brown gown with wiry fibres peeping out from the hemlines, not too different from a worn out potato sack, covered his thin torso from the neck to just below the knees. The garment was already soaking as the boat rapidly took water and submerged.
He suddenly stood up erect with all the agility of a young boy. His flat countenance unchanged as he bored into the depths of my frightened soul with his stony eyes.
“End it.”
End what? I thought, unable to speak as I struggled to grasp the surreal events that quickly unfolded.
“End it!“ he thundered.
I felt my heart choking my throat as it jumped out of my chest. The level of danger that had been steadily rising since I stepped into the boat finally exploded as he lunged forward, reaching for my neck. He let out the most spine chilling scream I had ever heard.
****
I sat upright, eyes wide open. My mouth was drier than the Mojave. The sheets on my bed were swamped in perspiration. The yellow digital alarm clock on my headboard screamed, reminding me of the dream. I turned it off angrily as I slumped back into my sweaty pillow.
“What the fuck was that?” I mouthed weakly, as I tried to understand the dream. This was not the first of its kind. And I knew it would not be the last. I was dying of thirst so I worked my salivary glands in an effort to moisturize my parched, aching throat. It did not work. I would have to go to the kitchen downstairs. I waited a moment to stabilize my labored breathing. What the fuck was that?
I sat up again, putting my feet on the floorboards, my elbows on my knees and my face in my sweaty palms. My stubble had grown rougher over the past four days.
As I trudged down the stairs, I felt the flowery patterns embroided on the wallpaper with my hands to lead the way. The sun still had not risen, and I still had not replaced the dead lamp in my dark stairway. My fingertips had to serve as my eyes in the meantime. It has been four days.
The low creak of the last stair alerted me that I had reached the ground floor. But just as I lifted my foot off that final step, I heard the shuffle of footsteps in the living room beyond the wall to the left. No one except me had stepped into my house in three and a half years. I froze.
