Closer

The Final Episode of The Intruder Serial appears below, after Closer

Closer

by Kris T. Marie

One by one, the streetlamps flicker on, illuminating the dark street with soft yellow light. No windows are full of life, no music plays from the garage down the street. Candy wrappers lay where trick-or-treaters stood merely two hours ago, dressed in colorful costumes and screaming with laughter. On front lawns, decorations remain, casting shadows with the little light they’re given. The moon winks at her every few minutes from between the moving clouds, a small sprig of hope threatening to take root.

The roof isn’t the most comfortable place to rest, but it is the most calming, a cool, gentle breeze ruffling her hair, the scent of rain not far off. She lies on her back, arms crossed under her head and feet propped on the chimney.

She rolls her head to the right and catches a gleam of white from behind the trampoline in her backyard. It moves, and her eyes move with it, her mind coming up with different scenarios—all ending with her murder, like in a cheesy horror movie.

The figure moves to stand next to the trampoline. His (her?) face is covered by a white mask, but she can see the eyes. The rest of the body is cloaked in black, but the eyes.

They’re so pale, bordering on nothing but small pinpricks of black where the pupils would be, and rimmed in bright red.

There’s laughter to her left, and she bolts upright, quickly glancing around, heart beating madly, furiously.

Nothing.

She looks back to the trampoline, but the figure is gone, leaving nothing in its wake.

Hesitantly, she stands, peeking over the side of the roof before climbing back into the house through the open laundry room window. When she closes the window, the eyes are staring back at her, unblinking, daring.

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Kris T. Marie

Kris T. Marie is a Creative Writing student at Southeastern Louisiana University. Though she will never meet two of her literary idols, she hopes to at least half-experience America the way Jack Kerouac did and Europe similar to Ernest Hemingway.

 

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Intruder houseThe Intruder

A Serial in Five Parts

Previous Episode 1 2 3 4

Episode 5

She could hear the intruder inside the den working at the gunsafe, a project she knew was futile. She had less an a minute to wait. The soft sounds of his footsteps reached her and she readied the bat. As he stepped through the doorway she swung the bat with all the power she could muster, made strong by the rage and the hatred for the animal who had intruded into her life.

The sound of bat hitting his shin was sharp, and the intruder’s cry of anguish as he collapsed onto the hallway floor was mixed with her own animal-like war cry. She moved quickly back, making sure she was out of reach. Switching on the hall light, she saw him for the first time. She looked at the unkempt figure writhing on the floor, hands to shattered bone. The foot stuck out at the wrong angle.  The sounds he made were a combination of curses and wounded animal noise.

With a cocked bat, she moved toward him. He looked up at her and let loose a long string of obscenities. She ignored the filth emanating from the intruder’s mouth and cautiously approached, stopping just out of reach. He lay crosswise in the hall, his shoulder against the wall and his knee to his chest as he cradled his broken shin. She reached out with the bat and lightly tapped the bottom of his foot.

The cry of agony normally would have been repulsive to her, but normal was a long time past. Now she relished the pain and torment he was undergoing. She thought of what he had done to her and gave the foot another tap, harder this time. With another anguished cry, he fainted. She regarded the figure for a long moment. The thoughts running through her mind were alien to her. They would not have been possible in her previous life, but that existence was something left far behind.

The thought of his touching her again made her shiver. She raised the bat over her head and brought it down on the ankle of his good leg, breaking it. The intruder convulsed and then lay quiet. She regarded him briefly with intense hatred. The next two blows ruined the ankle forever.

She sat on a chair in the hallway, bat leaning against the wall. She was dressed now: heavy flannel shirt that belonged to Davy, jeans, and running shoes. The intruder still lay in the hall, but there was heavy twine securing his ruined legs to the stair newel, and more twine ran from his neck to the closet door. His hands were tied off to the railing above his head. There was enough tension on all so that the slightest movement from any relaxation brought excruciating pain. He lay whimpering, tears staining his dirty cheeks and urine staining his pants.

* * *

She could smell his sour odor as she sat waiting for the county sheriff to arrive. Before long she could hear the faint sound of approaching sirens, gave one more little tap, and relished the scream.

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Lester L Weil 1998

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