Tara used her mother’s gold fingernail polish to the paint pieces of gravel she left in the garden beneath her bedroom window to distract the sack man from seeking her out at night.
She had tried many things to prevent his visits; she rubbed onions on her blankets, smeared Vaseline on the window sill, and now she was painting rocks.
She thought that he might stop to look at the gold rocks, thinking they were real.
Anxiety clawed at the back of thoughts as she hoped this trick might work.
At first she thought he was a dream, but two nights ago, she could feel the crescent path of warts that dotted along the inside of his thumb to his index finger as he touched her hand. Snippets of burlap sack patched the holes in the knees of his pants and he smelled like dirt. He was real.
Her mother, weary of hearing about
Tara’s sack man nightmares, refused to believe that he was an intruder.
At first
Tara thought she only dreamt about him standing over her bed at night, but then he touched her.
She screamed and he bolted out of her bedroom window before her mother shuffled in.
Tara’s mother worked the nightshift at the local hospital that week.
Most nights, her neighbor across the stream would stay with her, but it was Saturday night and the woman’s auxiliary was holding a BINGO.
Tara would be alone.
Before her mother left,
Tara checked the window and door locks three times.
She had a knife from the kitchen hidden between the sandwich of her mattress and bed springs.
She put fresh batteries in the Hello Kitty flashlight her grandmother had sent her for her eleventh birthday, just the previous year.
She settled in her mother’s bedroom for the night with her dog, Rex.
She tried watching TV, but found she was better at analyzing the quietness of the empty house. She hoped that eventually she’d just fall asleep and wake up when her mother was home.
She took to watching Rex.
He’d cock his head and perk his ears if he heard anything.
She was counting on him to be an early warning to unfamiliar house creaks.
Rex had been napping, but stretched and
Tara scratched his belly.
He jumped from the bed and walked to the bedroom door, scratching to be let out.
She had forgotten to let him out to go to the bathroom before locking them inside.
He barked twice and pawed at the door again.
“Rex! No! I can’t let you out.”
Three more barks.
Tara thought about leaving Rex to pee on the floor.
She knew her mother would be furious at them both.
Rex kept pawing at the door, and
Tara knew she’d have to let him out.
She opened the door slowly, but Rex pushed through the crack and ran down the stairs. She left all of the lights on that night, so she scanned the hallway. Nothing looked unusual. The shadows were still and the fans churned.
Tara followed Rex down the staircase to the front door.
He stood patiently waiting for her.
She braced herself against the door and opened it quickly, just enough for Rex to escape before she slammed it shut, locking it in one smooth movement.
She felt silly; and began second guessing her nightmares. She walked into the kitchen and removed a can of soda from the refrigerator. There was a magazine in the bathroom she fetched to take upstairs with her. She double backed to the kitchen and picked a dog treat from the cupboard for Rex. By now, she could hear him scratching at the front door.
She set her items down on the small table in the foyer and opened the door in the same braced position.
As soon as the door was opened a crack, it was blown back against the wall with a great gust.
Tara stumbled backwards with outstretched arms to balance herself.
In the doorway stood the sack man, both of Rex’s bloody, severed paws were in one hand, and a machete was in the other.
Tara’s screams came from deep within the depths of her chest cavity.
She turned to run, but he caught her by her long, brown hair and tossed her to the floor where he began separating her, using as much determination as he used steel.
