Found You

By David Vorhees

BANG… she woke with a start. “What the hell was that!” she said into the dark empty room. The noise sounded like it had come from the kitchen. She threw off her covers and got out of bed. She searched her room for some type of weapon unsuccessfully. Slowly she walked down the hall listening for any sound. There was nothing but dead silence. “Hello? I called the cops, so you better leave.”

She had just moved into the house a few days ago and was still unsure where everything was. As she entered through the swinging door to the kitchen her hand crept across the wall looking for the light switch. When she finally found it, she flipped the switch, and the fluorescent light came to life. She noticed that the kitchen table had been overturned and the boxes that sat on top of it were now sprawled across the floor.

What the... she thought to herself and immediately went to check the back door. It was shut and locked from the inside. She turned and headed back into the living room turning on every light as she passed by on her way to check the front door. It was also shut and locked from the inside. She then proceeded to go from window to window. The house was small, and it didn’t take very long. Everything was firmly shut and locked from the inside. Another noise came from the kitchen, it sounded like something glass had shattered. She headed towards the kitchen quickly and burst through the door. She looked down and saw black pepper and the remains of the glass pepper shaker strewn accross the floor. Then she heard a rattle and looked up.

Across the room on the stove sat the glass saltshaker. It began to move back and forth. She stood watching it, unable to take her eyes off of the dancing saltshaker. Her eyes widened as the saltshaker hurled itself through the air at her head. She dodged it just as it smashed against the wall behind her. She gave out a small scream and then darted back through the kitchen door and ran towards the front door.

She unlocked the door and began to pull but the door barely budged. Someone or something was holding the door closed preventing her from escaping. She then turned to head towards the window when she saw a red shadowy figure watching her. “Who are you?” She asked the figure, but it did not move, it just stood there staring at her. “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” she screamed at it. She thought she saw it smile for a second, then thought better of it. She started to slide along the wall towards the window. The figure turned its head following her every movement. When she got to the window, she unlocked it and tried to open it, just like the front door it barely opened as if someone, no, as if the red figure was fighting her. She turned back and the red figure had moved towards her. Behind the red shape came a dragging sound, a sound she had not heard since she was a child. A sound she would never forget. It was so close now, she could reach out and touch it.

She stood there and stared at, and the figure became less shadowy and clearer, it began to take a shape. She watched as its details became clearer and clearer. She saw it was a man, a man she recognized... her father.

The last time she saw the man who she knew as her father she was 9 years old. She watched him take an axe and use it to kill her mother and brother. Covered in the blood, he had searched the house overturning beds and tables, smashing things, and calling her name, “Suzie, come here, Daddy has something for you.” She watched him from the cubby hole under the stairs as he searched and searched, dragging the bloody axe across the floor making a spund she would never forget. Finally, at what seemed like hours the police had arrived and entered the house. Her dad raised the axe and charged the cops before they could react. He buried the axe deep into the first officers head splitting it in two. The second was able to pull his revolver and empty it into her father’s chest, he fell to the floor facing her. He smiled and said “found you;” before he died.

There he was again staring at her, the bloody axe at his side. She began to scream as he swung the axe and said, “Found you.”