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  “Shit. Shit. Shit,” he said, urging his body to even greater speed. He turned right on Orange Street, hoping to make it to Avenida Menendez. There was usually traffic on the Avenida, no matter what time of night it was. He would be able to flag someone down and get help.

  But he had only made it a block when the thing caught him, a thin black tentacle wrapping around his right ankle. Kevin screamed, a fiery pain ripping up his leg. He turned to see the monster, and wished to God he hadn’t. It was better not to see his attacker, for in its true form it was sheer madness to look upon. Such a thing had not been seen in the world of mankind for a long, long time.

  His cane slipped out of limp fingers and fell clattering to the street. Kevin made no attempt to pick it back up, for he knew the slender wooden shaft would not protect him. Nor did he attempt to cry for help, for fear had stolen his voice like a thief in the night. He could only stand and stare as the creature before him did a hypnotic little dance, slowly weaving from side to side as it studied him.

  Another tentacle wrapped around his waist, slipping beneath the fabric of his jeans. Tiny teeth sliced like razor blades as the tentacle moved down his left leg, touching, tasting, feeding. Pieces of flesh were cut from the bone and swallowed by a hungry mouth.

  A single tear ran down his left cheek as Kevin lowered his head and closed his eyes. More tentacles wrapped around his body, snatching his legs out from under him. There was a moment of sheer weightlessness as he was lifted into the air, followed by the indescribable sensation of having the flesh ripped from his bones. Darkness followed.

  Chapter 7

  Ssabra Onih had been a resident of Cypress Pointe for almost five years. Her second-floor, one-bedroom apartment was located on the backside of the complex, with a wooden porch that overlooked a retention pond and drainage ditch. The water in the pond was fairly clean, and might have been the perfect spot for an afternoon dip, were it not for the eight-foot alligator that called the place home. The overgrown lizard had moved into the area a few months after she did, and was a fairly common sight in the early evening hours.

  The view from her bedroom window was not nearly as nice as the one from her porch, because her bedroom faced an identical apartment in the next building: an apartment occupied by an overweight man who liked to walk around on his porch wearing nothing more than a pair of Speedos. Such a sight could be very hard on the eyes, especially when her portly neighbor was bent over watering his plants, which was why she made sure to keep the blinds covering her bedroom window lowered at all times.

  Arriving home from work a little before midnight, Ssabra popped a frozen dinner into the microwave and set the timer. She then slipped out of her historical costume, taking care to hang the dress on a hanger so it wouldn’t get wrinkled. Wrapping herself in a faded yellow robe, she went into the bathroom to start a shower.

  Not having a man in her life, her evenings were rather simple and pretty much routine: shower, followed by dinner in front of the television, then, if she wasn’t too tired, she might have a glass of wine and curl up with a book for an hour or two before going to bed.

  The frozen dinner would take less than ten minutes to cook, giving her just enough time to take a quick shower. Adjusting the temperature so it was hot, but not scalding, she discarded her robe and underwear and stepped under the water. Grabbing a bar of deodorant soap off the rack, she lathered up, washing away the dirt and memories of the day. She was just about to rinse off, when the lights in the apartment suddenly went out.

  “Hey!” she yelled, even though there was no one to hear her cry. “What’s going on?”

  She stood quiet for a moment, thinking that the sudden blackout might be just a temporary thing. The apartment complex had been built back in the 1950s, which meant all the wiring was aluminum and old. It wasn’t designed to handle the stress of multiple modern appliances and air-conditioning. Blackouts and temporary outages were not uncommon, especially in the hot summer months when everyone had their air conditioners running at full blast.

  A few moments passed, and she realized that the power obviously wasn’t going to come back on anytime soon. Turning off the water, she reached out and grabbed a towel to dry herself off. As she stepped out of the bathtub, she suddenly became aware of how cold it was in the bathroom.

  “Brrrr...it’s freezing in here. The stupid air conditioner must be acting up again. No wonder the power went out. It must have tripped a circuit breaker.”

  Ssabra discarded the towel and felt around in the dark for her robe, slipping it on over her still damp skin. Opening the bathroom door, she stepped out in the hallway, surprised to find that the lights still burned in the rest of her apartment. It obviously wasn’t a power outage. She must have burned out a bulb in the bathroom. But how could that be? Her bathroom was lighted by three bulbs above the sink. All three of them would have to go out at once in order for the room to be dark.

  She stepped back into the bathroom, and started to jiggle the light switch to see if all three light bulbs really had burned out at once, but stopped when she noticed that the light switch was down in the off position. Raising the switch, the lights above the mirror came on.

  “What the heck?” she asked, looking at the lights and then down at the switch. There hadn’t been a power outage, nor had a fuse blown. And none of the lights had burned out. Instead, the switch had been flipped off, but how had that happened?

  Ssabra thought about it a moment. Maybe she hadn’t flipped the switch all the way up, and it had slid back to the off position. Perhaps the vibration of the shower door sliding closed had caused the switch to slip down. Or maybe something had come in contact with the light switch: a bug perhaps.

  She took a step back from the switch and looked around, fearful that she was now sharing the tiny bathroom with an overly large palmetto bug. She wasn’t terrified of bugs, but she didn’t like them either. And Ssabra damn sure didn’t want to tangle with a cockroach from hell when she was still wet and half-naked.

  Whatever the cause, the problems with the lights had been solved. Unfortunately, her relaxing shower had been interrupted, and she didn’t feel like climbing back under the water to shampoo her hair. She would just have to get up a little earlier in the morning to finish the job.

  There was nothing wrong with the bathroom lights, but the air conditioner was obviously on the fritz again. It was freezing in her apartment. As a matter of fact, it was so cold in the bathroom she could see her breath.

  Ssabra exhaled, watching as a cloud of white mist drifted away from her lips. “This is ridiculous. I’m going to catch bloody pneumonia.”

  Clutching her bathrobe tight at her neck, she hurried into the living room to check the thermostat. According to the temperature gauge, the air conditioning unit was operating normally. It obviously wasn’t operating normally, but there was little she could do about it except turn the air conditioner completely off. She would call the maintenance people in the morning to have them fix the problem.

  Returning to the bathroom, she grabbed her discarded underwear and her hairbrush. The bathroom mirror was completely covered with a layer of condensation, due to the combination of a hot shower and a freezing bathroom. She was about to wipe the mirror off so she could see herself, when a tiny clear spot appeared on the glass. It was no more than the size of a dime, but, as she watched, it started to move slowly down the mirror to form a clear streak.

  She assumed that the streak appearing on the mirror was being created by tiny water droplets racing each other down the glass, but when the streak reached the bottom of the mirror it turned right, traveled straight for a few inches, then started back up toward the top. Reaching the top of the mirror, the streak turned left, returning to the spot where it had started.

  At first she thought it was just the condensation lifting from the glass, but then she realized that something strange was happening. A perfect oval had appeared in the steamy bathroom mirror. A few moments later another tiny clear spot appeared on
the glass, a few inches to the right of the first. It too started to move, following a curving pattern from the top of the mirror to the bottom.

  Much to her surprise, Ssabra suddenly realized that letters were forming on her bathroom mirror. First the letter O, then S, and an I. The letter Y next appeared, and then another O followed, forming a word, or perhaps a name.

  “Osiyo.” She said the word aloud, her skin breaking out in goosebumps. It was the same word she had heard earlier at the Huguenot cemetery, spoken by a man she could not see. And now someone was writing it on her bathroom mirror, someone that could not be seen. It was as if someone were standing in front of the mirror, drawing the letters with an invisible fingertip.

  Ssabra had no urge to reach out to see if she could feel the person who could not be seen. Nor did she want to remain in the bathroom for another second, not even to see if any other words would form on the mirror. A whole frigging book could magically appear, and she would not care.

  Snatching the bathroom door open, she ran across the living room to her bedroom. She closed the bedroom door behind her, locked it, and picked up the telephone. She started to dial 911, her fingers trembling so badly she could barely hit the right buttons, but then she stopped and put down the phone.

  If she called the police, what would she tell them? Hello, Police Department? Yes, this is Ssabra Onih. I need you to send a squad car over to my apartment right away, because I think I have the invisible man drawing things on my bathroom mirror.

  No. That probably wouldn’t go over too well. It might even get her arrested for making a crank phone call. Telephoning the police was out of the question, but she needed to talk with someone, anyone, about the strange things happening in her apartment. She was scared, and she needed a reassuring voice on the phone, someone to convince her that she wasn’t going crazy.

  “Jenny,” she said aloud. “I’ll call Jenny Sanders. She’ll know what to do.”

  Jenny Sanders worked at the restaurant where Ssabra used to work. They had been friends for years. She was around Ssabra’s age, very levelheaded, and quite intelligent. She was also a great listener, which was another quality of a good friend.

  Punching in the number from memory, Ssabra waited impatiently as the phone at the other end of the line began to ring. She shifted her weight nervously from one foot to the other, hoping her friend would pick up the phone, and that she had not gone out for the evening. As she waited, counting the rings, she kept an eye on the bedroom door. The door was locked, but she was still worried that the knob would begin to twist back and forth as someone tried to get into the bedroom. If the knob did start to turn, Ssabra was going to take her chances and climb out the bedroom window. The phone rang twice, then a third time. “Come on. Come on. Pick it up, Jenny. I know you’re home. Pick up the phone.”

  The phone rang a fourth time, and then there was a sharp click, followed by the recorded voice of Jenny Sanders. “Hi. This is Jenny. I’m sorry, but I’m not home right now. Please leave your name and number, and I’ll call you back as soon as possible.”

  “Damn.” She waited for the beep, then said, “Jenny, this is Ssabra. Please call me back when you hear this message. I need you.”

  There was another click, and then Jenny’s voice came on the line. Her real voice, and not just a recording.

  “Hi, Ssabra. What’s up? You sound upset.”

  Her heart leaped. “Jenny? Jenny, is that you?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “Why didn’t you pick up?”

  “Sorry about that. I’m watching a movie on television, so I was screening all of my calls. Why? Is something wrong?”

  Ssabra started to blurt out about everything strange that was going on in her apartment, but she stopped herself. Jenny was one of her best friends, but even she wouldn’t believe a story about an invisible person writing words on a steamy bathroom mirror. She might think Ssabra was pulling her leg, or maybe that she had had one glass of wine too many.

  “Jenny, I think someone has been in my apartment.” It was the only logical thing she could think of to say.

  “Who? When?” Jenny asked. “Did you see anyone?”

  “Not long ago. I was taking a shower, and some strange things started happening. I think maybe I had an intruder.”

  “How do you know? Is something missing?”

  She shook her head, then realized Jenny couldn’t see the gesture. “No. Nothing’s missing. Not that I know of. I was in the shower, and the lights went off. At first I thought it was just a circuit breaker, but now I’m pretty sure someone flipped the switch. When I turned the lights back on, I found a word written on my bathroom mirror.

  “Jeez, girl. This is serious. Did you call the police?”

  “No. Not yet. I started to call them, but I wasn’t sure what to say. I thought I would call you first. I don’t think the intruder is still here; I think he left.”

  “But you’re not sure, are you?” Jenny said, obviously concerned for her friend’s welfare. “Listen, you can call the police later, but right now I want you to get out of that apartment. It’s not safe staying there. I’m leaving right now. We’ll meet at the all-night sandwich shop down the street from you. We can call the police from there.”

  Ssabra nodded, then said, “Okay. I’m leaving, but I have to change clothes first. I’m only wearing a bathrobe. I’ll meet you at the sandwich shop. Please hurry, I’m really scared.”

  “I know you are, but everything’s going to be all right. Just hurry up and get out of there. I want you to call my cell phone when you get to the sandwich shop. That way I’ll know you’re safe.”

  “Okay. I will,” Ssabra said good-bye to her friend and hung up the phone. She crossed the bedroom and started snatching items of clothing from her dresser, slipping into a pair of khaki shorts, a knit blouse, and sandals. Once dressed, she dropped her cell phone into her purse and approached the bedroom door.

  It took a great deal of courage for her to unlock the door, even more so for her to pull it open a few inches and peek into the living room. The living room was empty, at least she didn’t see anyone. The bathroom door was still standing open, but she couldn’t tell if anyone was in there. Nor did she want to find out.

  Setting her sights on the front door, Ssabra left the bedroom and hurried across the living room. She had to circle several pieces of furniture, but she didn’t take her gaze off the front door. For one thing, she was too terrified to look around, fearful of what she might see. She was halfway across the living room when she detected the unmistakable odor of pipe tobacco, further convincing her that someone had indeed been inside her apartment. The odor lay heavy on the air, as if the pipe smoker had just left the room. It was the same fragrance she had smelled earlier at the Huguenot Cemetery.

  Ssabra made it to the front door and quickly worked the locks, pulling the door open and hurrying out of the apartment. She locked the door behind her and started down the stairs. Once outside the building she decided to leave her car sitting in the parking lot, and practically ran the block and a half distance to the sandwich shop.

  Jenny lived on the other side of town, so it took almost half an hour before she arrived. Ssabra was already on her second cup of decaf, and still shaking, by the time her friend entered the all-night eating establishment.

  “Jenny, over here,” Ssabra called, waving to her friend as she entered the sandwich shop. It was an unnecessary gesture, because she was the tiny restaurant’s only customer.

  “Thank God you’re okay.” Jenny approached the booth, giving her a quick hug and kiss on the cheek.

  “I was beginning to think that you weren’t coming.”

  “You know me better than that.” Jenny said, sliding into the seat across from her. “I said I would be here, didn’t I?”

  Ssabra nodded, feeling better now that her friend had arrived.

  “Did you call the police?”

  “Not yet.” Ssabra paused as the waitress approached their booth with
a pair of menus.

  “Just coffee for me,” Jenny said, ignoring the menus.

  “How about you?” the waitress asked, turning her attention to Ssabra. “Would you like to order anything now?”

  She glanced down at her half-empty coffee cup. “No. I’m fine. Thank you.”

  The waitress frowned, walking away to get Jenny’s cup of coffee. She was probably annoyed that they weren’t eating, thinking she wouldn’t be getting a tip for just coffees.

  “So, why didn’t you call the police?” Jenny asked, waiting until the waitress was out of hearing range.

  “I didn’t know what to say to them.”

  “What do you mean? You tell them that some pervert broke into your apartment while you were taking a shower. That’s what you tell them.”

  “But no one broke in. The door was still locked.”

  “Maybe they had a key.”

  Ssabra shook her head. “I had the chain on, and the deadbolt. I always put them on when I’m home alone. And you can’t open either one of them from outside. No one could have gotten in after I set those locks.”

  The waitress brought another coffee. Jenny poured cream and sugar into the cup, thinking about what her friend had just said. “You said they can’t open the deadbolt for the outside, but that also means you can’t set it from the outside. Right?”

  Ssabra nodded.

  “Okay. Then maybe someone got into your apartment when you weren’t there. Maybe they picked the lock and sneaked in, and were waiting for you to come home. Maybe they were hiding in a closet, or under the bed. They might even have been hiding in the cabinet under your kitchen sink. Jeez, girl. They could have been watching you for months, might even have been stalking you and you didn’t even know it.”

  Ssabra thought about it for a moment. “If it was a stalker, then why didn’t they do something when I was in the shower? I was naked and wet, and there was no one else around to help me. I was the perfect victim. If it was a sexual predator, I should have been raped, maybe even murdered.”