The Mezzanine

Her neck kinked as her body’s natural alarm clock jolted her awake. 5:27am. Today her circadian rhythm was thirty-three minutes off its typical course. She groaned, rubbing the side of her neck that ached with the movement of sitting upright. Reaching across for her phone, she found only the smooth wooden top of her bedside table. That’s strange. Stretching further, she twisted the knob on the lamp she’d bought last week at a garage sale that looked like it was covered in lettuce. The light stung her eyes as her room came into view. She blinked once, twice, trying to figure out what she was looking at. It was her room. Or at least, it looked like it was. Her desk was in the same place, so were her plants and the photographs strewn across the walls. Her jeans, which she had stripped off before pulling on her pyjamas, lay in a distorted heap in the exact spot she left them eight hours earlier. She couldn’t figure it out. Something was just slightly amiss. Shaking the feeling off and chalking it up to the cheese she ate before going to bed last night - that had been a mistake- she grabbed her robe and headed to the bathroom to shower. Surely she must have left her phone on the couch last night before passing out. It was late, and the move from the couch to bed was a blur. Had she even brushed her teeth? She ran her tongue across her front incisors and was met with more fuzz than usual. Apparently not. 

The moment she stepped into her living room, she felt it. An icy fist gripped at her insides. Something isn’t right. The book she had been reading last night on her couch before she turned the TV on was on the other side of the room. Maybe I put it there. Of course I did. Don’t be ridiculous, Lucy. Unease still gnawed at her. Scanning the apartment for anything else that may have been out of place, she decided it was her mind playing tricks. It had been an extremely busy week. Heck, only three days earlier she’d had a full-on breakdown to her therapist about how burnt out she’d been feeling lately. The insane hours she was putting in at work, plus starting a new relationship and promoting her newest book, were taking their toll. What had her therapist said to do when she was feeling overwhelmed? Take a deep breath, in for four, hold it for four seconds, then breathe out for six. The repetition and counting calmed her nerves. 

You’re just stressed out, Lucy. You’ve lived alone for years; you’re fine. She reminded herself before going into the bathroom and locking the door behind her. 

Hot steam from the boiling water fogged up the mirror, clouding the small space. She climbed into the shower, letting the water scorch her skin before she washed her hair, hummed her favourite tune and forgot about the world outside. 

She turned off the tap, wrung out her sopping hair, then froze. Footsteps scurrying and a creak of the floorboards outside the bathroom door pulled her up short. 

Someone’s in here.  

Her heart hammered into third gear as she reached around the curtain for her towel. Straining her ears while holding her breath, she waited to hear something, anything, else. 

Nothing. 

 It’s your imagination. You shouldn’t have watched that episode of Widow’s Bay last night before bed. She conjured up the image of the Sea Hag crawling towards her right outside the bathroom door when she saw it. 

“We’re not alone”

A scream got caught in her throat, her jaw dropping in terror. The message was clearly written across the steam in her mirror with a fingertip. Not believing her eyes, she blinked twice before squeezing them shut, then flinging them open to find the message gone. She imagined it. 

What the heck was in that cheese? No more Widow’s Bay alone before bedtime. 

Picking her up her robe, she shoved back the panic building inside of her. Lucy continued on with her morning routine. Even with the water turned off, the bathroom had begun to fill with a thick steam clouding her vision. 

 Another creak. More scurrying of feet. 

She began trembling all over, as though her survival instincts were trying to catch up to the fear and understanding that she was, in fact, not alone. 

Her eyes darted around the bathroom, scanning the shelves for something, anything she could use to defend herself and landed on hairspray and a nail file. That would have to do. Her mind danced between staying put behind the locked door of the bathroom, and then it dawned on her. Whatever it was out there had already been in the bathroom. 

The message. 

It wasn’t all in her head. 

Swallowing the lump of dread that had lodged itself in her throat, Lucy tightened the belt on her robe and reached for the doorknob. 

It was unlocked. She’d locked it from the inside, though, hadn’t she? Bracing herself, nail file ready, finger on the hairspray trigger, she flung the door open. Nothing. No one was there. No Sea Hag clawing her way across the carpet. No man in a balaclava or possessed child with long black hair with an arm stretched out to grab her. No evidence of anyone or anything being in her one-bedroom apartment. Full stop. 

“I’ve called 911!” she called out, cursing herself for not bringing her phone into the bathroom and sounding like an absolute nutter. 

In fact, that pulled her up short. 

Where was her phone? 

Stepping outside of the bathroom, her eyes wide and every sense on high alert, she waited. For anything, really, to prove she wasn’t completely losing her mind. 

She was met with silence. The steam from the bathroom swirled out into the room around her, disappearing as quickly as it had come. Cautiously stepping into the kitchen, peering around the corner to where the sun was now creeping its way up from the ground, she let her shoulders slump. From this position, Lucy could see every room in her one-bedroom loft. She was alone. 

Letting out the breath she’d been holding for the last five minutes, she dropped the hairspray to her side. 

 6:01 am. The time indicated on the stovetop. She’d left wet footprints along the hardwood and cursed herself for not towel-drying her hair before running out of the bathroom like a madwoman. 

Then it hit her. 6:01 am. 

Why hadn’t her alarm gone off? 

Where the hell was her phone?

 She started manically pulling her decorative pillows off the couch in search of it. Nothing in between the couch cushions, nothing on the coffee table, nothing on the kitchen counter. Where the hell was it? She went back into her bedroom, and immediately the hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention. Peering up at the mezzanine above her bed, everything looked to be in order. Surely there was no one who could fit up there with the mound of boxes she’d stacked. She searched in her jeans’ pockets next, then on her desk chair, her bookshelf and had no such luck finding her phone. 

Then she heard it. 

Her alarm, snoozed by nine minutes. 

It was coming from the bathroom. There was no way she had it in there. 

Picking up the baseball bat she kept at the side of her bed, she crossed the length of her apartment back towards the bathroom. The steam was still pooling and flowing, even more so than it had been when she was in the shower itself. 

The alarm grew louder. 

She crept into the bathroom, the shower curtain drawn. She was certain she hadn’t pulled it shut behind her. 

The alarm was coming from inside the shower. 

Nausea swept over her as she gripped the bat tighter in her hands. She swung it at the curtain once. Twice, grunting with the force of how hard she was smashing the empty shower. 

Throwing back the curtain, she was met with, once again, nothing. Nothing, except her phone. 

In the middle of the tub, vibrating with its alarm on the porcelain. 

More footsteps behind her. She swung around towards the door of the bathroom and watched in horror as a new message began writing itself on the mirror.

R…

U…

N…

Lucy looked out of the door of the bathroom and saw him. 

A man, dishevelled and with wild eyes, was climbing down the ladder from her mezzanine above her bed. Their eyes locked. A grin stretched its way across his face as his eyes narrowed in contempt. 

Suddenly the steam around her swirled, and she felt a shove from behind as his feet landed on her bedroom floor. 

Lucy ran as fast as she could towards the staircase leading down to her front door. She heard his thunderous footsteps racing after her before a thud followed by silence. Not waiting to see what had stopped the intruder, she kept on sprinting out of her house into the street. 

Her neighbour was out walking his dog and saw her frantically flying off of her front porch.

“Are you -” he started before she collided with him. 

“Help! Oh my God, please, call 911. There’s a man,” she gasped, “in my apartment!” 

Without question, he pulled out his phone and punched in the three-digit number. 

Within minutes, the sirens sounded, and three police cars showed up. 

Her neighbour ran inside once the cops arrived to get her a sweater and some sweatpants to put on while they waited.

Lucy’s body was shaking uncontrollably. An ambulance arrived a few minutes later, wrapping her with their foil blanket and checking her vitals. 

“She’s in shock,” the paramedic with the freckles splayed across his cheeks told the female officer who was waiting to take her statement. 

“I’m okay. Did they get him? Did they? There was something else, someone else, the mirror, oh my god, the steam in the bathroom, and he was in my mezzanine,” she babbled, tears now streaming down her face.

The paramedic exchanged looks with the officer as if to say, “ told you,”. 

Lucy didn’t care what they thought. Her eyes were trained on the front door of her apartment as the group of policemen who had gone inside now came out holding the now cuffed and struggling, wild-eyed male. 

She jumped up, dropping the blanket from her shoulders and began shaking once again. 

“That’s him! That’s the man I saw! He was chasing me! He was, oh my god, he was in my mezzanine above where I sleep, oh my god, oh my god,” her body was wracked with sobs as her intruder was shoved into the back of a cop car. His wild mane of hair all tangled and matted, looked coated in something she hadn’t noticed before. Something red. Dark, crimson coloured. 

Blood. 

The two male officers came over to where Lucy was standing, looks of concern etched onto their faces.

“How is she?” one of them murmured to the officer who was looking out for her.

“I’m fine. That’s the man. That’s who was climbing down from my mezzanine when I ran,” 

The one man nodded before shooting his partner a concerned look.

“Miss, sorry I didn’t catch your name,” he started.

“Lucy, you can call me Lucy,” she replied, her voice quivering. 

He nodded again.

“Lucy, have you noticed anything strange going on in your apartment the last few weeks?” 

Her brows furrowed at this. Then realization sank into her stomach like a rock.

“I, um, I’ve been really busy and not home much. I think I’ve only spent a few nights here actually…” 

The officer offered her a reassuring smile.

“Listen, you’re safe. We’ve checked the rest of your apartment, and there is no one else inside. Unfortunately, it seems this man has been residing in your apartment for about three weeks or so-”

“Three weeks?!” she shrieked, cupping her hand to her mouth as the nausea bubbled up inside her, then made its way onto the pavement by the paramedic’s feet. He didn’t even flinch. 

“We’re so sorry, Lucy. Is there anyone you can call before we fill you in on the rest of the details?” the female officer asked gently, guiding Lucy back to sit down on the ambulance step. 

She called her sister first, who lived the closest, who then called her parents who all showed up within the hour. Her sister was there in nine minutes. Her parents, thirty-six and her boyfriend was there in forty- two.

Within this time Lucy had been told that this man was on the run from the police for sexual assault, breaking and entering and kidnapping. He was known to stalk his prey for quite some time before he attacked. 

“Was there anything you did differently this morning? Anything out of the usual?” 

She thought back. Something had woken her up that morning. Something that was shoving her head from side to side. 

She still had the kink in her neck. 

Then she remembered. 

We’re not alone. 

Not you’re. 

We’re.

“I think, I think someone else was in there, trying to warn me,” she said slowly.

The officers all exchanged more looks before looking back at her with faces full of pity. 

“Lucy, there was no one else in the house but you and that man…” 

She shook her head.

“There was a note on the mirror when I got out of the shower. It said, um, it said, we’re not alone.” 

More exchanging of looks. This time her sister squeezed her shoulder. Her parents looked concerned. 

“Lucy, we’ve checked every nook and cranny. There was no one else with you this morning, unless there’s something we’re missing?” 

She shook her head. 

“Maybe I was dreaming it…” 

It wouldn’t be the craziest thing if she had. Maybe her survival instincts had kicked in all along. 

“Well, whatever it was, it saved you today,” the female officer said kindly. 

“Yeah, I guess it did,” she agreed. “I guess it did.”