The darkness outside my window was something I'd gotten used to. Out here in the middle of nowhere, with neighbors miles away and streetlights just a memory, the night feels like a living thing. A few stars twinkled half-heartedly, not really doing much against all that black. Everything was quiet. Tomb-quiet. The kind of quiet that usually felt like an old friend, the silence I'd grown up with in this dying town.
But then I heard it. Footsteps. Soft, hesitant, like someone wasn't sure they should be there. On the porch.
I froze at the top of the stairs, peering down. That single bare bulb on the porch doesn't cast much light—just enough to know something's there, not enough to know what. My first dumb thought was bear. We get them sometimes, wandering too close. But no. As I squinted, the shape sorted itself out into something worse.
A man. Tall and gaunt, clothes filthy, hair a tangled disaster. Bare feet, dusty like he'd walked the whole road that way.
My mom's voice popped into my head automatically—"Don't open the door for strangers." She'd said it a thousand times since we moved here. Good advice when the nearest cop is forty minutes away and the neighbors might as well be in another state.
So why was I walking toward the door?
My legs just moved. Like my brain wasn't fully connected to them. I opened the door—that creak sounding way too loud in the silence—and there he was. Up close. Hollow eyes, sunken cheeks, shadows carving his face into something not quite human.
Neither of us moved. Neither of us spoke. Just my breathing, loud and ragged.
Then his hand went to his pocket.
My heart started doing this wild thing against my ribs. What was he pulling out? Weapon? Money? My brain cycled through every bad possibility while I stood there like an idiot, frozen.
He pulled his hand out. Something glinted in that weak light.
A knife.
But not just a knife. The blade had this sheen on it. Dark. Wet. Even in that dim light, I could see it was red.
Before I could move, before I could scream or run or do anything useful, he grabbed my hand and shoved it into my palm. The handle was warm. Sticky.
Then he turned and walked away. Just... vanished into the dark like he'd never been there at all.
I stood there staring at this blood-covered knife in my hand like it might explain itself. The smell hit me then—that sharp, metallic scent you can't mistake for anything else. Iron. Blood. My stomach lurched.
The silence rushed back in, heavier than before. The man was gone. The knife was here. In my hand. My fingers wrapped around it like I'd chosen to hold it.
What the hell did he want me to do with this?
The question just hung there in the empty night, waiting for an answer I didn't have.