I Am Not Ready To Leave

Anastasia

A shy knocking on the door echoed in the darkness of the night. I pulled my blanket around me and shifted to my other side in the bed. I covered my ears with my hands but I could still hear the knocking. It came through doors and empty rooms. Outside, the wind and the rain were banging against the windows. The old, wooden tall-case clock in the corner of the bedroom made a loud ticking sound as its hand moved. The portable radio kept playing some unfamiliar blues song, crackling with static. Over all these things, I still heard the knocking. I knew not to open the door as that was how I had driven Alex away. He would have taken me with him if I was ready but I was not. I could not leave our daughter in a house like this.

“Ana, my dear, please don't stay. This house is not good for you. I can help you to move forward. You cannot dwell in the past forever”, he had begged.

“I'm not ready to go.” That was all I could say. I was not ready, it was the truth.

The radio started playing static and then it sounded like a baby crying. I closed my eyes and cried with her. Behind the white curtains, outside the bedroom window I saw the silhouette of a child’s hand touching the glass. I got up and whispered alone in the room:

“Don't go yet. I want to let you in but I dare not.”

The crying stopped and the radio started playing music again. But the song came to an end and a male voice informed me:

“There you had the last song of tonight, now it is midnight and I must say goodbye to you. There will be continuous, soothing music from now on.”

At the precise moment, the tall-case clock’s hand reached midnight. A loud and deep noise filled the room. It felt too much in an otherwise quiet house. I was startled by it and felt now fully awake. I brushed my face with my tired hands. I had bitten all the nails short. They had white spots in them too, which meant that I probably had an zinc deficiency.

The next morning came like one before that. I sat in the empty house alone, waiting for the night. The light from the window touched my face and I pondered whether I should go out, but I did not dare. I knew she only came during nights but I feared that if I opened the door, she could nevertheless be there, crying on my doorstep.

It was autumn now, and soon it would be too cold in the house. Alex had threatened to demolish the house, and so he had cut the power and heating from me. He had taken all the furniture and so the house was deserted. The only things I had were my radio, my night light, the tall-case clock made out of birch, and my daughter, coming to see me every night. I was sure though, that Alex would come back to get me before winter. I knew that then I would have to be ready to leave. I could not bear the thought. How should someone be able to leave their home and their daughter behind?

Mia came to see me every night. She could not leave. And that was why I could not either. Mia was born dead. She was our first born. I had been devastated back then, almost two months ago now, and I could recall the feeling. I had not wanted to let go of the little angel in my arms, but the doctors made me and then they carried the girl away. However, two weeks later she came back to me. She was knocking on our door and I could hear her crying outside every night. I could not see Mia, but I saw a dark shadow under the apple tree. It paced back and forth, crying. I knew it was my daughter. Alex could not hear or see anything.

He believed me though, when I said it was Mia’s spirit that could not move on. She wanted her mother, she wanted to come home. Alex believed so too but there was something in his eyes that bothered me. Every time she knocked on our door, Alex forbade me from opening it.

“Ana, I think that Mia could move on if you did too. If we leave the house, she will have nothing to come back to. She is coming for you. You need to show her how to move on, it would be better for everyone. You should try to get over everything no matter how horrible it was.”

Alex was crying a lot. He lost weight and looked tired, restless. Every night, I cried and paced around in the house peeking through windows, and Alex seemed to get more and more anxious until he could not take it anymore. He told me he was leaving and that he would demolish the house. I could not believe it. He would leave our daughter and make me leave her too.

“She's not real, Ana. Our daughter was born dead. She's not walking outside during nights, no matter how much you would want that. She's just an echo, a lingering picture. She just does the same thing over and over like a broken record. It is not real.”

“How can you say that? I will let her in tonight!”

“Ana, I don't think she will come inside. You should not invite her.”

But I did not listen to him. The night came and the darkness surrounded us. I could hear knocking on the door and her crying through the radio. I kept the radio on all times, since I felt that Mia was able to communicate through it. I listened to her crackling voice.

“Don't be afraid, my darling”, I said.

I ran to the living room window from where I could see the doorstep. The swing in the yard was moving slowly in a still air. The branches of the apple tree were bent from the weight of the round and plump fruits. Under the tree was a shadow. It was so tiny and hardly reminded the shape of a human being. It started moving from the tree to the front door like it was hovering in the air. It went back and front as the crying in the radio did too. I could hear the knocking coming and going. I walked to the door and slowly opened it. I tried to step outside but something kept me from doing that. I saw how the shadow got scared and vanished in to the night.

“Don't go!” I yelled and tried to run after her but right then there was a terrible rumble. The furniture started moving by themselves and in the kitchen all the glasses and plates flew to the floor smashing into thousand little pieces. The static on the radio grew louder. I covered my head and yelled in disbelief. Alex emerged in front of me, looking into my eyes fiercely.

“ANA! Did you do this? Why?”

“I did not. Mia, she...”

“Stop already! I will leave before morning and I suggest you do the same. Please, Anastasia, leave.”

“I cannot. I cannot leave my daughter.”

“Ana, my dear. You are using her as an excuse.”

Alex

The new house was a lot smaller than the old one and it did not feel like home because I was alone. We had been married for over ten years and I did not know how to be alone anymore.

I sat on a couch in my flannel dressing gown. The first rays of sunshine shined through the blinds, it was morning. They seemed to blame me for not doing anything. The hot coffee on the table was steaming against the light. On the floor, there were a pair of blue woolen stockings, I had kicked off before I fell asleep. I was waiting to hear the morning birds but they had all moved to south. There was nothing to break the silence but the ticking of my new clock. It had a much nicer sound than our old tall-case clock, though.

We had been together for so long before it all. I had wanted a child. Anastasia had shared the feeling for sure, but I had been more pressing on it. And now I felt guilty about that as I had lost both my daughter and my wife. Anastasia had bled to death during childbirth. I might have been able to deal with the pain of the loss, but then Anastasia came back. She haunted our old house and would not leave. And our daughter was not able to move on either because of her. It had been a nightmare to live with someone who did not realize she was dead. She had done the same things every night, over and over like an old gramophone stuck at playing the same tune.

That was why I had to leave. And I decided to tear down the house too, so she would not have anything to return to. She would have to move on.

That was what I hoped, at least.   

The DoomGiver

Mike 

I woke up in an unfamiliar room. The walls were green and white, and there was a window from which I could see how outside the fog had swallowed the world. There was a tree that had bright orange berries in it. There were so much berries that the branches were hanging low from their weight. I knew the name of that tree but could not remember it. I looked all around me and realized, I was in a hospital. I did not remember what day it was or how I got there. I stared out the window in silence. Why am I here? 

Soon a man in a white coat walked in. 

“Good morning, Mr. Ambrose”, he said. So he knew me. I did not remember meeting him before. 

“Morning. Have we met?” I asked curiously. He had an unshaved face with tiny gray beard and big,  friendly-looking, brown eyes. 

“Sure we have, Mike. You've been here as my guest for three weeks now”, the man answered. 

“Three weeks! Oh my, I don't remember at all!” I yelled in disbelief. The man smiled at me and told his name was Rafael. I apologized my forgetfulness but he said it was fine. He asked how I was feeling and I said that my mouth felt a bit dry so he brought me a glass of cold water and it tasted refreshing. After that I remembered the tree and asked him: 

“Rafael, what is the name of that tree with those nice orange berries? I can't quite recall.” 

“It is a Rowan, Mike. It is very beautiful this time of the year. It is often said, that the winter is going to be a long and cold one if the Rowan makes a lot of berries. That is so, that the birds have enough food to last till spring.” I felt satisfied with the answer. Rowan, of course. Why did I not remember that? 


After Rafael left, I closed my eyes and fell asleep for a while. I was picturing how the Rowan would look during winter, surrounded by all that white snow. I woke up, when someone was knocking on the door. A beautiful woman with blond hair and blue eyes walked in. I recognized her immediately. She was Katherine, my wife! I got up, my back was hurting. She smiled at me and there were tears in her eyes. 

“Mike, my darling! How are you today?” 

“I'm fine. I just don't seem to recall why I'm here. Have you visited me before?” I asked and smiled back at her. Katherine sat down to a chair next to my bed, took my hands and kissed them. 

“Everyday.” 

We chatted for a while. I pointed to Katherine the Rowan outside and told her what Rafael had said to me about the winter and the birds. She smiled at me but it was a very odd smile. The corners of her mouth turned downwards but she was smiling nevertheless. 

“That is awfully nice from the Rowan, is it not”, she said and I nodded. Silence fell. I was getting sleepy and a little nauseous. I asked Katherine, if she could tell me a bed time story like my mom had used to do when I was little. 

“Have you ever heard the story about the two addicts who traveled in time?” Katherine asked me and turned her head to the right. I thought about it for a while but I did not recall anything of such. I shook my head. 

“Two buddies, ready to try everything in order to get high, they got this new drug one day, right? No one else had tried it before so there was an obvious risk to it, but they wanted to try it no matter what. The drug was revealed to be a time machine and they ended up traveling far into the future”, Katherina explained. She stared at her hands that were resting on her lap. Her fingertips were gently brushing against each other. I stared them too. She continued: 

“In the future, they found another world entirely: the sky had been torn apart, the world looked weird. There was odd-looking buildings and one which was the weirdest, a tall, white mountain of a building, a research laboratory, in fact. Inside they found new technology, and the most exciting was The DoomGiver. It was developed by The Scientist and it was used to carry out a death sentence as a part of the justice system. But it did not only kill, but erased from the very existence. That meant that the whole reality was changed so that the criminal was never even born and thus, the crime never committed. All the bad deeds were erased but so were the good ones too. The world got suddenly different, the reality was altered. But The DoomGiver was only used in the most hideous crimes, like when someone had started a war or committed a mass-murder. All this was explained to the two time travelers by this Scientist.” 

“I don't get it. What then?” I asked restlessly. I raised my eyes from Katherine’s hands and looked out the window. The fog was still lingering but behind it I could make out the setting sun. I felt uneasy. 

“They went back to their own time, and they promised to never use the drug again. Months went by, years. They kept going like they had before but then something happened. The reality began to distort. Suddenly they felt like living in the past, then the future. The sky opened revealing a bloody wound under it. It was the same sky they had seen years ago in that distant future. But it should have been thousands of years away. That is when the two buddies decided to take the drug again, and so they traveled into the future. They were greeted by a chaos, the end of the world, the same sky they had seen in their own time. They went back to the research laboratory and found The Scientist sitting inside The DoomGiver. He explained to the two travelers that using The DoomGiver had torn holes in the universe and all space and time was leaking through sky and mixing into one. However, he had a solution: he would erase himself, so that The DoomGiver was never created and the past was never altered. The two buddies looked at each other in disbelief and waited for a goodbye that never came. The Scientist just pushed the button and everything disappeared.” 

I stared into the fog and wondered. The story made no sense. I guessed it should have had a meaning, perhaps I just could not remember it. 

“Why did you tell me that story?” I asked and looked straight into Katherine’s sky blue eyes. 

“I don't know.” 


That night I dreamed that I was lying on an operation table. My skull had been cut in two from the middle and there was blood gushing from the wound. Under it, the brain tissue had lost all color and turned white like fallen snow. Suddenly it all changed. I stood outside, it was winter, and the heavy snow pulled the Rowan’s branches down. The ground was covered in a veil of white powder. In the sky, I could see the wound they cut into my head and the doctors leaning towards, peeking inside me. Then Katherine’s face appeared beside them. She looked as if she did not see me. I smiled at her. Suddenly, I noticed a box in front of me, it was full of buttons and wires. It had a door and it was slightly open, inviting me in. I stepped inside, there was a armless chair that spun around. I felt as if it all had happened before. 

I woke up in an unfamiliar room. Is this hospital. Why am I here? 


Katherine 

I rubbed my head with one hand and my stomach with the other. I was sweating a lot for some reason. I sat in a living-room couch and in the background the characters of a soap-opera gasped in horror because of some new plot-twist. I was not paying attention. It had turned dark outside, pitch-black in fact. Even though I could not see it, I knew the fog was still there. I could also hear the neighbor’s dog barking somewhere far away. It always barked when someone walked past their house, so perhaps there was a jogger even if it was a bit too late for that. I felt dizzy, and I had to close my eyes. 

Day after day it got harder to visit him in the hospital. Mike could not make new memories anymore and seemed to remember less of his past everyday. Everyday he asked about the Rowan tree and everyday he wanted me to tell him a story. I always told the same one. He had told it to me once. He had claimed that he saw it all in his dreams when he was younger. Everyday I told that story and everyday was as if he heard it the first time. I tried to convince myself that if I just kept telling it, he would one day remember. I knew, however, that he would not. Soon he would forget me too. I secretly wished that he would leave this world before it happened. 

Some days he seemed like himself, some days he was someone else, aggressive. I knew it was due to his condition but it did not make things easier. I was losing someone I had always known. Some times Mike heard things or saw things that were not there and often his speech was blurry. The doctors had not given him much time. 

Unfortunately, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease can usually be detected only when the symptoms get severe. It was after months before Mike agreed to see a doctor. All the people around him had already noticed that he was not himself and forgot things more than due to some stress or such. When the diagnosis was made it was already too late and the doctors gave him from couple weeks to a month. On the other hand, it changed nothing since Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease always ended up in death. 

We had only been married for two years. We were young and we had our whole lives ahead of us. Lives, that could not be lived anymore. Tears ran down my face burning the dry and broken skin. They would not stop coming even though I had cried every morning and every night. It was hard to breathe and a felt a panic attack coming. It came every time I remembered that in Mike’s case it was a familial disease. It took away the only light in my life, the pregnancy. My stomach had not grown almost at all probably due to all the stress, sleep deprivation and the fact that I was not eating. Soon I would have to make the decision whether I would keep the baby or not. I pressed my hand on to my stomach. 

I had told Mike about the baby but it was no help, he did not remember. And I did not want to tell him that everyday, again and again. I needed to make the decision alone. The decision whether the baby would be erased from existence before she really existed at all. 

In A Burning Hot Sea

Walter

I could not recall how long I had been without sleep. I felt tired and alert at the same time. It was all that sleep deprivation perhaps, but I could not make out where I was or who I was, I think I was hallucinating a lot. All around me was the darkness like a thick, black veil that kept me from seeing. And it kept getting darker still. I could not even tell if my eyes were open or if they were closed. I knew, I was in a room of some kind, but no matter how hard I tried to search the walls with my hands, I could not find a way out. I felt weak. It was hard to move. It felt as if something was pushing against me when I tried to walk around the room.

I was plagued with a sense of hunger. I could not recall when I had last eaten. How did I get here? Has it been an hour or days? I did not know. My memories were full of holes. I did not remember getting here. But I remembered my name now, or so I thought. I had a vague sense of who I was even though I could not know how I was unable to sleep. I was trapped in that room alone and restless.

I was sure now that it had been days. Suddenly, I started to hear voices coming somewhere outside the room. An unfamiliar voice spoke and I could feel the walls trembling. I felt unsafe. I was afraid that someone had come for me but at the same time I hoped for rescue from the prison I was locked in. I could not make out the words. Maybe it spoke a language I did not know. I tried to listen hard but it did not help. I was still not able to sleep.

Then, one day, a familiar voice answered. I knew that voice from somewhere. Then it hit me, it was my mother’s voice. I could hear her speak, but I still could not make out the words that were said between her and the other. If it truly was my mother, she would come and help me, for sure. I pushed myself against the wall and tried to yell. They did not hear me, though. I went from wall to wall and screamed until my voice was gone. Did they answer me? I could hear my mother speak again and this time the words were clear:

“Can he hear me?”

Yes, mother. Yes, I can hear you. Then the voices started to get blurred again.

That went on for days. Those two voices spoke to each other. And sometimes there was a third one too. My mother spoke a lot. Sometimes she sung. I could not sleep. The hunger inside me grew and I felt weightless, weak, light like a feather of a newborn baby bird or heavy like lead. I really needed to sleep. I really needed to eat. My skin was tickling and it would not stop no matter how hard I scratched. How long has it been?

I was wondering how long I would be able to get on without rest before losing all sense of reality. I could still hear the voices but I did not try to answer anymore, I had lost my own voice yelling. I did not know if they ever heard me. I was pondering on the fact that the voices could be just my imagination. My skin was crawling, and I had scratched it so bad, junks of it were coming off. It was burning. I still missed getting some food as well and my hunger made me do something horrible: I was eating my own flesh to feed myself. The flesh that came off my ribs and my face. And even though I was eating, I was eating my own body up, so I felt even weaker day after day. Although, I did not feel the passing of the time. I still did not remember getting there either, and I was starting to forget who I was. But every time I heard my mother’s voice, it brought warmth in my heart and hope that I could see the world again some day. But what was the world like outside this room? I could not remember.

Then came the cold. I was shaking in my little room and I felt dizzy. The voices outside sounded panicked and hasty that day, even sad. I could feel people moving restlessly behind the walls. I pushed myself against the wall and tried to speak again. I was answering to something, I guess, just did not know to what exactly but I kept talking anyway. I thought it might help. For a while I thought I could see some colors. Hues of red and blue. Light that kept growing until the walls around me suddenly disappeared and I was standing in the middle of a sea.

The sea was covered in ice sheets that glimmered in the bright sunlight. I could see shores and pure white, snowy mountains on them. I was cold, so, so cold. I had no clothes on and it was at least minus 30 degrees celcius. Everything looked absolutely beautiful, though. It reminded me of something from my childhood. Then the memory came to me. I was six and traveling north with my parents. The sea was the same one we were passing by in a cruiser back then to an island so beautiful and icy. My breath turned into white mist around me. It was freezing. My broken skin tinkled in the cold weather. I just lied there, floating in the sea, surrounded by ice. I felt calm and restless at the same time. The cold sea burned me like blue fire.

I still had not slept.

Vivian

Does not open eyes, makes sounds, abnormal flexion to painful stimuli. I was reading the words the doctor had written but it made no sense other than it was getting more unlikely that he would wake up.

It had been six days and Walter’s condition remained mostly the same. I knew that my son could hear me as he reacted with hums and sounds to my voice. The doctor’s ensured me that he was not really saying anything but sometimes I thought I could recognize a word. It was as if he was trying to say my name but perhaps it was only wishful thinking.

I talked to Walter as often as I could. Sometimes I even sung, although I had a pretty lousy ear for music. My voice sounded too high-pitched. It did not matter though, as Walter would recognize my voice and that was the most important thing. And that is why I sung mostly lullabies I had been singing when he was little. That would be thirty years ago next month. He was still my baby as he was my only child and I had raised him alone. It was hard to see your own son fall into coma. Everyday I woke up hoping that it would be the day he would wake up. But it only kept getting worse.

At the eight day, Walter got fever caused by an infection. The doctors tried to get the fever down by putting backs of ice in his bed. That is when he started making more sounds than usual. I did not know if it was the fever or the ice. I held his hand and hummed to calm him down. I wished that he would feel, at least at some level, that he was safe.

I wondered if Walter dreamed or was he totally unconscious. How does it feel? And what would happen if he woke up? Or if he fell into vegetative state? Would he feel that he was dying? No parent should have to think this.

He finally broke out of the fever in the tenth day. The hospital chair at his bedside had become my other home. I had found old children’s books, Paddington Bear-books, that I used to read to Walter when he was little and had the flu. I brought a few of them in to the hospital and read them to him as the doctors encouraged me to do everything that could bring back memories to Walter. I started with the one named “Paddington Passes Through”.

Walter

The ice was gone, and so was the sun, but the darkness had not returned. I could see movement, it looked blurry like a watercolor painting. I knew then that my eyes were closed and I could see through my eyelids. I was able to imagine scenes around the moving figures like forests and fields, streams and rivers. I still felt restless and hungry. My skin hurt, I felt so weak, but at the same time I felt more alert. Back when it was cold, I had heard no voices but now they were back. In the burning sea, I had felt weird serenity and it still lingered. I liked it.

I heard my mother speak again. Her voice was soft and paced. I sat on a cornfield with my legs crossed and listened carefully. Suddenly, I had these familiar visions, even though, I could not remember exactly what they were from. There was a thought waking up inside me. I felt warmth in my hand like I was touching something. Then everything disappeared: the sounds, the light, the touch.

It was as if the world, I had been imprisoned in, was no more. Am I waking up or falling to sleep?

Evil Walks In The Shadows

911: 911, what is your emergency?

Caller: There is someone inside the house, please, help!

911: Can you give me your name and your location, please.

Caller: Alisa Hadley. I do not know the address. I am at my friend’s summer house and someone was outside and now I think that someone is inside the house. I can describ…

The call has ended.

Alisa Hadley

The lights went out, the phone fell silent and the television in the living-room turned off. The power was lost or someone had cut it. I put the receiver back to its place and crouched. Then I crawled under the oakwood desk since there were no other places to hide in the room. My heart was pounding so I wanted to shush it. I could hear footsteps on the hallway or did I just imagine it? Outside the window the summer night’s darkness swallowed the surrounding forest and the wind from the sea knocked on the wooden sash like it was asking to get in. My eyes locked on to the oil lamp resting on the windowsill but I did not dare to stand up to reach it.

I could definitely hear the footsteps now. They came towards the office and finally stopped right outside the door. I had been holding my breath for too long and it came out loudly. My mouth was open and I was panting like a dog. My stomach hurt.

My friend had offered me her cabin, surrounded by forest and in a lonely island, so I could work on my autobiography in peace. That meant, I was alone, cut off from everyone by the sea. Or so I had believed. But I should have known that the stalker would not let me be, and earlier that night, before I heard someone coming into the house, the phone had rang three times. The first and second times there was nothing but silence on the other end, the last time I did not even bother to answer.

Suddenly, the door opened and I was trapped. I searched for something I could use as a weapon but all I saw was pencils, books and binders. I pulled my knees to my chin and hoped the stalker would not find me. But then a dark shadow leaned over me and I could see the painted face of a grotesque rubber mask. That scared me so I tried to quickly get up and ended up hitting my head against the table. Then everything went dark.

24.06. Forty-two-year-old Alisa Hadley was found murdered at her friend’s summer house

Alisa Hadley called 911 ten past eleven at night and informed that there was someone inside the house. Hadley did not remember the address and the call ended before she could say more. Hadley’s friend, and the owner of the summer house, Irene Potts later called the police telling them she could not reach her friend. Police got the address from Potts and when they arrived at the scene, they found Alisa Hadley dead. She had been stabbed multiple times. Forty-two-year-old Alisa Hadley was a kindergarten teacher and she loved the theater. She had told to her friend that she wanted to go to the summer house in order to write her autobiography. The house was located on an island and surrounded by thick forest. However, Irene Potts told that the real reason Hadley wanted away from the city was that she had suffered some harassment back home. The police confirmed that Alisa Hadley had received numerous disturbing phone calls as well as letters through mail. The letters were written using clippings from magazines. The content was disturbing. Irene Potts told that Alisa Hadley had stopped everything, even going to the store alone, claiming that she was sure someone was following her. Only one week prior to Hadley’s murder, she had found her Affenpinscher dog Meemee, dead in a cardboard box outside her house. A police report was made but the perpetrator was never caught. The police believes that the harassment has a connection to the murder.

Benjamin Porter

I sat quietly in the closet. When I had been a kid, I had often hid myself in that very same closet when we were playing hide and seek. This time I hoped the game would end before I was found. I heard how someone was pacing around in the kitchen. I waited, holding my breath, that I would hear that someone retreating into the living-room as that would be my chance to make it to the front door. Then I could simply run to our neighbor’s and call help. The distance between us was over a kilometer but I could manage that easily. Just last spring, I had won a race at school.

I could not hear the footsteps anymore, so I yanked the closet door open and sprung into the stairs. They were old and made out of wood, so they made a terribly loud cracking sound under my feet. I went down the last steps unbalanced like an elephant in a slide and almost fell face down on to the floor. But not quite. I opened the front door and at that very moment someone grabbed me by my shoulders. Then I could feel stinging pain in my back and chest. I stopped moving and went numb, it hurt so. Hands on my shoulders let go and I fell on to the wooden porch that was wet from the rain. A burning sensation went through my back. After that came even worse pain, as the something used to struck me in the back, was pulled off. My head felt light. Then I was struck again. The wind pushed the cold rain against my face.

13.07. Teenage boy was stabbed in his home – Connection to the Alisa Hadley -case?

Sixteen-year-old Benjamin Porter was found dead Friday night. The young boy’s parents were at a barn dance and Benjamin was home alone. Someone had forced their way in and cut the power. Porter’s friend from school, Ian Peterson, phoned 911 half past eleven, after Benjamin had called him that there was someone in the house. Peterson said that Benjamin had sounded genuinely scared. When the police took a closer look at the case, it was revealed that Benjamin Porter had received phone calls and letters similar to ones Alisa Hadley was getting before her death. The boy’s parents had not known anything about them.

“We thought he was getting letters from his friends. We never opened them”, Mrs. Porter explains. Nevertheless, Benjamin had told about the calls and letters to his friends from school.

“We thought it was a bully from school. Benjamin was not too popular amongst older kids”, Ian Peterson says. The police have not yet found a connection between Benjamin Porter and Alisa Hadley. They had never met each other. It is recommended that if you receive any disturbing calls or letters, you should immediately inform the police.

Sandra James

I was lying on the floor, and I heard the footsteps disappearing in to the hallway. Then the front door to the stairway was slammed shut so forcefully the doorbell in it clang faintly. I heard him running down the stairs. Someone stop him, please!

He had thought I was dead already, but I was still breathing among the blood gushing from my lips. Everywhere I saw only red and the world was spinning around in circles. My body was hurting so I could not feel it anymore. I could not move. I was covered in holes, like a voodoo doll. The noise in my head grew louder. It was hard to remember what had just happened.

At first it was cold, then warm and then hot. The world disappeared in front of my eyes. I was left lying in the pool of my own blood as my consciousness drifted away.

01.08. The third victim of The Stabber: Twenty-six-year-old Sandra James

History student was found dead in her apartment 31. of July, when the neighbors informed the police about loud screaming in the building. Sandra James had received letters almost identical to the ones Alisa Hadley and Benjamin Porter. It had the same pattern; at first they had been friendly and harmless but soon escalated into threats. Sandra James had not told about the letters to her parents or her friends or the police. There were no signs of forced break-in. Sandra had let the perpetrator in herself. This leads the police to believe that it was someone she knew or someone posing, for example, as a janitor or a salesman. The young woman had been stabbed several times and there was evidence that she had fought back. In any of the three crime scenes, no evidence has been found. The police are now looking for a serial killer, and encourage people to keep their doors locked at all times and to inform if there is anything unusual.

***

I stare my next victim through the glass. My victim does not see me or even know that I exist. The game is about to begin. I have my victim’s phone number and I am going to make a call soon, the very first one. I have shadowed my victim for many days now. To the market, to the park, I think my victim feels my stare as I have seen you turn around and look for something as if you knew I was following. That is good.

I can see you sitting there, poor posture, thinking you are alone. Reading. I have seen you talk to yourself when you think no one hears. Your phone will ring soon.

You should close the windows, close the doors. I see you. Can you feel it?