2:04 A.M.

The numbers on my phone glared 2:04 into the dark bedroom. Beside me, my husband breathed in heavy, rhythmic swells, utterly dead to the world. A sudden prickle of heat crawled beneath the skin of my chest, blooming upward across my neck and jaw until my face burned. A hot flash was imminent. Defeated, I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress. The floorboards were cool against my bare soles, a welcome contrast to the furnace running under my ribs.

I slipped through the back door, desperate for the relief of cool night air. Late September in rural Georgia was always weird. Some nights felt like fall, but tonight clung to a heavy, damp mugginess. Still, there was a cool breeze that offered some relief. Far off, faint, tinny notes from a neighbor’s wind chime drifted through the stillness.

Southern nights are never truly quiet. Usually, you are enveloped in a wall of noise. Cicadas, tree frogs, crickets, and other creatures serenade the night. I leaned back against the porch rail, closing my eyes to let the chorus drown out the restless simmer inside me.

Then, every hair on my arms lifted at once.

It was an instinctive feeling of dread, one that I am sure our ancestors felt just as we do: you are being watched.

My eyes snapped open. Beyond the porch, the yard stretched out toward the tree line, swallowed by an impenetrable black. Two cleared acres buffered me from the nearest dirt road; out here, the only thing lurking in the weeds should have been an errant coyote or a foraging possum. I squinted at the darkness, trying to make out whatever wildlife was causing this feeling.

My eyes scanned the perfectly placed azaleas and dogwood trees. The small pump house stood toward the back of the property, and I noticed that the security light had gone out back there, making me feel even more uneasy. Someone could easily hide behind it without being seen. I told myself it was just in my head.

Yet the silence was sudden, absolute, and unnatural.

The crickets hadn’t slowly quit singing. They had cut out mid-chirp, as if a hand had clamped down over the mouth of the woods. The frogs were gone. Even the breeze died, leaving just silence and heavy, muggy air.

I backed into the house, pulled the heavy wooden door shut, and threw the deadbolt. Click. The metal locking into the jamb felt secure, and I should have felt better, but my anxiety grew anyway.

Ash, my cat, came trotting toward me from the hallway, his paws silent on the rug. I let out a trembling breath, bending to run a hand down his soft fur. "Hey, handsome man," I whispered.

He didn't rub against my ankles. He froze, his spine bowing instantly into a jagged arch, every bit of fur puffing upright. A low, vibrating growl rose from deep inside his chest. Before I could touch him, he bolted down the dark hallway, scrambling desperately beneath the couch.

"Just anxiety," I muttered aloud, trying to force reason back into my head. "My hormones are just playing tricks." I needed to talk to the doctor about it next week; I made a mental note.

Sleep was out of the question. I walked down the dim hall toward the kitchen, leaving the overhead lights off so I wouldn’t ruin whatever night vision I had left. The house felt too big, the rooms expanding into the dark. Every creak of the floorboards echoed.

Halfway past the laundry nook, a sound stopped me dead in my tracks.

It was a wet, heavy scrape, like something dragging slowly across the wooden floor right behind the drywall.

My breath caught in my throat, and my heart hammered against my ribs. I crept closer, the hallway floor cold beneath my bare feet. Reaching out, my fingers wrapped around the brass knob. The metal was like ice against my sweaty palm. I leaned in until my temple pressed against the hollow grain of the door, holding my breath to listen. Nothing. Just an agonizing, hollow silence that stretched between the heavy thuds of my own racing pulse. Slowly, I pulled my hand back, telling myself it was silly to stand there shaking in the dark. Rats, I reasoned, letting out a tight, shaky exhale. Or a raccoon got into the crawlspace again. It’s an old house; they always find a gap in the autumn. I rubbed my temples, irritated at how completely unhinged I felt.

I pushed into the dining room and caught movement out of the corner of my eye.

A tall, shifting silhouette draped across the opening to the kitchen, backlit by the sharp blue glow of the digital oven clock. I flinched, my shoulder clipping the counter edge with a sharp thud.

"Who's there?" I demanded, my voice cracking.

Nothing answered. Heart pounding in my ears, I reached over and flicked the switch for the dining room.

Fluorescent light flooded the room, but it stood completely empty.

No one was near the pantry. The only thing hanging anywhere close was my husband's bulky winter coat hooked over the back of a dining chair that I had pulled out to wash. I pressed a hand to my chest, letting out a self-deprecating scoff. A coat. I was jumping at winter coats and mice.

I laughed at myself as I cut off the light and wandered into the adjoined kitchen. I filled a glass of water from the fridge; the rushing pipes sounded unnervingly loud. I leaned against the counter and glanced toward the kitchen sink window, which looked straight out over the black lawn toward the back fence line.

I raised the glass, waiting for the cold water to shock my throat, but my reflection in the pane wasn't clear. The room was dark, but a faint sliver of blue light from the digital oven clock bounced off the interior glass.

I set the cup down. The hair on my arms prickled violently again. I leaned forward, trying to see past my own shadowy silhouette into the yard only to realize the dark shape wasn't on the outside of the glass at all. The silhouette was standing directly behind me in the room, towering over my shoulder, staring back at me with sinister eyes through the reflection.