#BlogBattle Week 33 “Lurk”
genre: suspense? mystery? drama?
Shadow Lurking
There it was again. That flash of something out of the corner of his eye. It never failed to happen and almost always when he thought he was alone.
He circled around in his chair, head swiveling back and forth, to search the nearness for any sign of what he’d have been willing to bet his life on had been there but wasn’t. A chill ran down his spine.
Alone. Not a living soul there in room with him. Only stagnant air surrounded and a bevy of half-formed shadows daring the sunlight to invade their hidden spaces. He wondered if whatever he thought he saw might lurk in those places.
“It was only a mouse. That’s all. A mouse that can fly at eye level.”
He shook his shoulders and willed the creepy-crawly tightening of his skin to relax, but couldn’t seem to shake the feeling he wasn’t alone. One more quick roll of his neck with eyes closed tight but ears attuned to every minuscule sound were the last bit of distraction he gave himself before his fingers were typing furiously at the keyboard once again.
Minutes passed into hours, and the shadows stretched across the room. He stopped to rub his neck but froze with his hand in midair. He strained his ears, his lips parted, and the hairs on his neck stood on end.
“Why did I want to write this stuff? It’s getting to me. That’s all. There’s nothing there.”
On the other side of the door he heard his wife’s voice, muffled by the hollow wood-paneling.
“I’m home, honey.”
“See, just the wife, home from work,” he said to himself. “Hey hon! Just working. Be out in a bit.”
His shoulders drooped, but he averted his eyes from the deep darkness of lurking shadows.
“Just going to finish up this last chapter.” He swiveled the chair back toward his desk, illuminated by the computer screen. “What in the–”
Knock, knock.
Silence answered.
“Sweetie, I brought Chinese home for dinner,” his wife said through the closed door.
She turned the knob and the door creaked open.
“I didn’t feel like cooking and–that’s odd.” She peered into the shadowed corners. “Honey?”
Rachael Ritchey 
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