Superbird
Fire emblem is great
An assignment for English. Crit appreciated, if you feel like it. Honestly I'm just posting to see if I get any helpful advice for the future; I'm probably not going to have time to change it between now and when I turn it in.
A shadowy figure grabs me by the neck, holding me and my slightly overweight frame with ease. “I will have my revenge!” it cackles evilly in a hoarse voice.
“For what?” I reply in between gasps for air. I am wide-eyed, scared, and fighting for my consciousness.
“You know exactly what!” the figure shoots back. “Now die!”
It launches me upwards, a long way. For someone who is only a little bigger than me, it has a surprising amount of raw strength. I soon reach the ark of my flight, and I catch a brief glimpse of the shadowy ground. It looks more than a hundred feet away, and as I flip onto my back again I know it will be a long fall. I begin to descend, faster and faster, and the longer I fall the closer I know I am to the ground. I’ll be there in three, two, one…
But instead of an impact, all I hear is a loud beeping sound. My eyes open, and I reach over to turn off my alarm. Once the thing has stopped beeping, I sit up and rub my eyes.
That was the third time I have had that nightmare. It’s tolerable as nightmares go, I guess, but I still don’t like it. It gives me a strange sense of foreboding that sticks with me the rest of the day. It makes me think that someone’s out to get me in real life, which is a somewhat terrifying thought. Not that it’s impossible or anything – it’s not, by any means. That stunt I pulled to get myself into the CEO seat of Axiom fifteen years ago probably netted me a lot of enemies. People hold grudges, and that’s something I don’t like to think about, really.
It takes me only a few minutes to get out of my nightclothes and change into a more comfortable casual outfit. Since today is Saturday, I don’t have to wear a suit and tie to work today – actually, I really don’t even have to go to work today. But I like to go to the office on Saturdays. I use the time to catch up on any business affairs I’ve let slip by me during the week, and to check on all of Axiom’s affairs to make sure nothing is out of order. It’s nice to be able to work for a few hours on weekends, free of any distractions from work. I rather like the opportunity – and it’s becoming a favorite thing of mine since my son stopped wanting to do anything with me.
I walk into the kitchen, smelling curry sauce, and my wife Penny says good morning. I ask what she’s cooking.
“Oh,” she replies happily, “It’s for that potluck dinner we’re hosting tonight. I figured I’d make some curry as the main entrée. Because everyone likes curry, you know?”
I smile. “Of course,” I say. “Penny, you sure know how to cater to the crowds.” We are going to host a potluck at our own house tonight, and many of my business subordinates are probably going to be there. Like myself, Penny wants to make a good impression on them, so she’s cooking the thing she cooks best.
I nudge her to the side as I begin to prepare my own breakfast. “So,” I begin to say, “Where’s Alex?” Alex is my seventeen-year-old son. Like any teenager his age, he usually ignores his parents, saying that we embarrass him. I’m convinced that it’s just a phase that he’ll get over eventually, so I’ve been mostly staying quiet about it.
“He said he was going to Carter’s place to hang out,” Penny answers. Carter is Alex’s best friend – though Alex would probably never call him that by any stretch of the imagination. To Alex, Carter is more of a ‘bro’ than a ‘friend’, I think, unless the times have changed again and that’s not the term he uses any more.
“He also said he had scheduled a date with Nikki tonight,” she continues, “So he confirmed that he won’t be back for the potluck.” Just as well, I think. Otherwise he might cause trouble. He’s been known to do that in the past. Nikki is Alex’s girlfriend, and they’ve been dating for about eighteen months. They also got accepted to the same college, so there’s a good chance their relationship status won’t change for a while.
I nod at my wife’s news. “Well, at least she’s a nice girl, not one of those girls like Jim’s daughter.” Jim is one of my subordinates; his daughter is, according to my son, an alcoholic, a drug addict, and a slut. I try to stay away from that subject with Jim.
Penny nods in agreement. “So, how has the company been doing as of late?” she asks, changing the subject.
“Not bad,” I reply as I sit down at the table and take a bite out of my toast. “Our stocks are up, and we shipped another shipment of refrigerators to a Lowes somewhere in North Carolina yesterday. I’m thinking of hiring a few new people; I have their job interviews set for Monday afternoon.”
“Nice to hear,” she says in agreement. I check my watch. It’s 10:15; I should be off soon. I finish eating quickly, and then depart to my room to do what I need to do before leaving.
I take out my key ring, select a key, and plunge it into the keyhole. As I turn it, there’s a satisfying ‘click’. I pull the key out and open the now-unlocked door to the office. I flick on the light switch next to the door, and the office lights up instantly. I decide to go to the development wing first, to see how my employees are doing on their design for our new freezer model, the Axiom Freezer Deluxe 2.4. As I walk in, I see blueprints and design notes for the thing pasted all along one wall. Clearly, that project is coming along nicely. I decide to leave it be for the time being and check on the Engineering wing.
The engineers are the ones who figure out the new technology and build the prototype models of everything. They also mooch off the research of other companies and organizations sometimes, but hey, what scientist doesn’t? Sure enough, they have one halfway-built prototype for the Freezer Deluxe 2.4 in the construction section of their wing. They’ll finish it on either Monday or Tuesday, I assume, and then they’ll rush to show it to me, as they always do once they finish a prototype.
Finally, I go to Marketing. I usually don’t check on Marketing; their stuff is too hard for me to figure out and they leave very little evidence, but today I look at our sales rates. They’ve increased – there’s been an increase in demand for Axiom refrigerators lately, it seems. Our most common model is the Refrigiderator, a refrigerator that is split into sections and controls the temperature in each section based on manual settings or whatever is in that section. I think it’s a very cool model – so much so that my wife had me get one as soon as they were released. I testify that it works perfectly.
After having checked our sales and being pleasantly surprised, I depart to my own desk. I always seem to forget if I’ve completed all of my paperwork during the week, but thanks to my supreme organization skills I can always just look on my desk to find out what I’m missing.
Today all that I’ve left out are a few business agreement forms. Wal-Mart has replied to my request to peddle my company’s wares in its store, and I have to sign several forms before doing so. I take out my trusty magnifying glass, specially made for reading fine print, and begin to pore over the form.
Suddenly, the phone rings. That’s strange. Usually we don’t get many calls on Saturdays. I figure it must be some customer who is uninformed about our work hours. But I answer it anyway, as any good CEO should.
“Hello,” I say into the mouthpiece with practiced ease, “You’ve reached Axiom Cooling Company inc. We make top-quality, state-of-the-art refrigerators, freezers, and other cooling devices. How can we—”
“Hello, mister Rao,” the person on the other line says in a dark voice, cutting me off. Whoever this person is, I am beginning to figure that they’re not a customer after all. I begin to wonder if this person is the source of my nightmares. Before that, though, I have to figure out who the mystery caller is.
“Who is this?” I ask, my voice unwavering and sounding just like a secretary.
“Oh, don’t play any games with me,” the caller says. “I know who you are, Horace Rao, and your little pretend secretary game isn’t going to get me very easily, especially now that I know the jig is up.”
Damn, I think. He saw through it. Whoever this caller is, he knows my habits. He obviously knows that I’m the only person who comes to the office on Saturdays.
“Who is this?” I repeat, this time in my normal voice.
“That’s not for you to know.”
“Then why are you calling?”
“To let you know that I’m watching you.”
I stay silent.
“I’m watching you, Horace Rao,” the voice says. “Like Big Brother. You’d best be on your guard.”
“Who is this?” I ask again.
The caller laughs. “You’ll find out soon enough,” he answers. “For now, I bid you leave. Be careful, Horace Rao. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you on the way home.”
Then I hear a dial tone. The caller has hung up.
So, I think, That sense of foreboding I felt was real. For now, I push the thought out of my head as best I can and resume my work. I’ve never been the type to be overly paranoid, and now isn’t when I plan to start.
I twist the key in the lock and hear the office lock. As I turn around, I catch a glimpse of my own shoes. They’re athletic shoes, tan-colored, with white trim and high grip on the bottoms. They aren’t particularly well used, and the only dirt stains on them are from almost a decade ago, back when my son still appreciated my company. They look sort of like me – rather normal, with a rather large history but very little current depth.
As I walk down the street to my car I can’t help but feel like I’m being watched. It’s like an assassin’s on to me and is stalking me or something.
I get into my car and turn the keys. On the way home I drive extra carefully; despite the fact that I really don’t believe in any of the nightmares, I still have an ominous feeling in my gut. Today seems irregular; I just can’t relax.
The first thing I see when I get home twenty minutes later is a police car parked in front of my house. I park the car immediately and run to the door, where a policeman stops me. “Mr. Rao, I presume?” he says in a heavy Brooklyn accent. “Your wife is inside. She’s just regained her senses.” He steps out of the doorway, and I thank him as I rush inside.
“Penny!” I yell as I run through the house.
“Horace?” I hear her reply weakly from the kitchen. “We—we were…I don’t know what happened…”
A police officer standing at the side of the kitchen speaks up. “She claims there was a robber here. We’ve found evidence of a hard knock to your wife’s head. We speculate she got a mild concussion from it and it knocked her out cold for a while. But we have no idea what the weapon was.”
“Found something,” another officer says, walking in. “I was searching the bedroom for clues when I found this interesting note. I fingerprint-checked it already, and there’s nothing on it at all.”
He shows me the card, and the message written on it. Be warned, it reads, We can do much worse.
I shudder. Someone is definitely out to get me. It’s scary. I stay silent, waiting for one of the officers to talk again.
“We’ll be staying around until we finish our investigation,” one of them says. I nod. I can wait until then. In the meantime, I begin to fix myself lunch.
~
“He slammed me on the back of my head,” my wife says nervously. “Thankfully I wasn’t injured much.”
All she has is a minor concussion. It’s about four PM, and the police just left. I’m extremely thankful it went smoothly…relatively so, at least. “I’m glad,” I say to her. “I’ll call right now to let people know that the dinner is off.”
She nods. “Good idea.” I know that while she hates to agree with me, she has seen reason; she can’t host a potluck dinner in her shaken state. Personally, I feel like I’ve been acting a lot more calm than I really am. I give myself credit for that.
I pick up the receiver, and soon I am on the line with the first of the guests we invited. “I’m sorry,” I say, “But due to some circumstances that I’d rather not detail, we have decided to regretfully cancel the potluck.”
The guest accepts the message in stride, sounding slightly disappointed but okay and understanding. As I hang up the receiver, I smile weakly about the fact that it went smoothly.
Miraculously, the rest of my calls go the same way. Within half an hour, I have hung up on the last person. I turn to my wife. “The potluck is cancelled,” I say. She nods. She’s still clearly shaken. I feel like I should take a load off of her back as much as I can. “How about I make dinner tonight?” I ask.
“That’d be…nice,” she says softly.
I get out some macaroni and ground beef, and begin to make her favorite casserole. Soon, I’m lost in the cooking and trying to do everything quick enough. I barely even notice the time fly by until the casserole is done and I’m washing the dishes and spoons it took to make it.
I sit down across the dinner table from my wife. She takes a small bite of her casserole, her face lights up, and she takes another bite. It looks to me like she’s realized how hungry she really is. I smile. It’s nice to see her somewhat upbeat again. I take a bite myself, and discover that my cooking really isn’t all that bad – better than it should be for how out of practice I am.
We soon finish dinner. Penny yawns. “I’m going to bed early tonight,” she says.
“Good night then,” I reply as she heads upstairs. Soon I hear our door close. But before I retire for the night I have something I want to check.
I boot up our computer and open my E-mail. Right at the top, sent two hours ago, is a suspicious-looking E-mail titled “Have fun?”. I open it.
“Hello, Horace,” it reads. “Don’t worry, I didn’t take anything. And I promise I won’t take anything, ever, except for what you took from me. I will make it mine again, no matter what that means I have to do to you.”
The cops told me before to call them if I found something out. Within a minute, I’m on the line with someone. “Yeah, I’m Horace Rao,” I say into the receiver, “I was told to call here if I found more evidence for this case. Well, I found something.”
“We’ll be right over,” a voice says back to me. No more than three minutes later, I find myself welcoming some of the same officers from earlier into my home once again. I lead them over to the computer and show them the message.
“It’s from someone named ‘IWantHoraceOut@earthlink.net’,” one of the cops says to the other. “You reckon we can trace that?”
The other officer smiles. “I think we can.” He takes out a notepad and begins to write on it. “Thanks for the evidence, buddy,” he says. “We should find the guy in less than a few days.”
I nod. “Thank you so much,” I say.
Then, they leave. Feeling at peace, I sit down on the couch, turn on the relaxing music and begin to read a book. The next time I look up I’m one hundred and fifty pages further and it’s 10:30. I hear the door open, and I put down my book and go over. “Hi, dad,” I hear.
“Hi, Alex,” I reply. “Thinking of going to bed any time soon?”
“About midnight, maybe one,” he replies cooperatively. I’ve found as a parent that it’s easiest just to let him be most of the time. He’ll go through with his promise, and I’ll find him up at eleven tomorrow morning, I know.
“All right, sure,” I nod, watching him depart up the stairs. I yawn, and decide it’s best to retire myself. I follow Alex upstairs and go to my own room. After changing and brushing my teeth, I’m climbing into bed next to Penny. Five minutes later I’m asleep peacefully. I know that tonight I won’t have any nightmares.
-----
A shadowy figure grabs me by the neck, holding me and my slightly overweight frame with ease. “I will have my revenge!” it cackles evilly in a hoarse voice.
“For what?” I reply in between gasps for air. I am wide-eyed, scared, and fighting for my consciousness.
“You know exactly what!” the figure shoots back. “Now die!”
It launches me upwards, a long way. For someone who is only a little bigger than me, it has a surprising amount of raw strength. I soon reach the ark of my flight, and I catch a brief glimpse of the shadowy ground. It looks more than a hundred feet away, and as I flip onto my back again I know it will be a long fall. I begin to descend, faster and faster, and the longer I fall the closer I know I am to the ground. I’ll be there in three, two, one…
But instead of an impact, all I hear is a loud beeping sound. My eyes open, and I reach over to turn off my alarm. Once the thing has stopped beeping, I sit up and rub my eyes.
That was the third time I have had that nightmare. It’s tolerable as nightmares go, I guess, but I still don’t like it. It gives me a strange sense of foreboding that sticks with me the rest of the day. It makes me think that someone’s out to get me in real life, which is a somewhat terrifying thought. Not that it’s impossible or anything – it’s not, by any means. That stunt I pulled to get myself into the CEO seat of Axiom fifteen years ago probably netted me a lot of enemies. People hold grudges, and that’s something I don’t like to think about, really.
It takes me only a few minutes to get out of my nightclothes and change into a more comfortable casual outfit. Since today is Saturday, I don’t have to wear a suit and tie to work today – actually, I really don’t even have to go to work today. But I like to go to the office on Saturdays. I use the time to catch up on any business affairs I’ve let slip by me during the week, and to check on all of Axiom’s affairs to make sure nothing is out of order. It’s nice to be able to work for a few hours on weekends, free of any distractions from work. I rather like the opportunity – and it’s becoming a favorite thing of mine since my son stopped wanting to do anything with me.
I walk into the kitchen, smelling curry sauce, and my wife Penny says good morning. I ask what she’s cooking.
“Oh,” she replies happily, “It’s for that potluck dinner we’re hosting tonight. I figured I’d make some curry as the main entrée. Because everyone likes curry, you know?”
I smile. “Of course,” I say. “Penny, you sure know how to cater to the crowds.” We are going to host a potluck at our own house tonight, and many of my business subordinates are probably going to be there. Like myself, Penny wants to make a good impression on them, so she’s cooking the thing she cooks best.
I nudge her to the side as I begin to prepare my own breakfast. “So,” I begin to say, “Where’s Alex?” Alex is my seventeen-year-old son. Like any teenager his age, he usually ignores his parents, saying that we embarrass him. I’m convinced that it’s just a phase that he’ll get over eventually, so I’ve been mostly staying quiet about it.
“He said he was going to Carter’s place to hang out,” Penny answers. Carter is Alex’s best friend – though Alex would probably never call him that by any stretch of the imagination. To Alex, Carter is more of a ‘bro’ than a ‘friend’, I think, unless the times have changed again and that’s not the term he uses any more.
“He also said he had scheduled a date with Nikki tonight,” she continues, “So he confirmed that he won’t be back for the potluck.” Just as well, I think. Otherwise he might cause trouble. He’s been known to do that in the past. Nikki is Alex’s girlfriend, and they’ve been dating for about eighteen months. They also got accepted to the same college, so there’s a good chance their relationship status won’t change for a while.
I nod at my wife’s news. “Well, at least she’s a nice girl, not one of those girls like Jim’s daughter.” Jim is one of my subordinates; his daughter is, according to my son, an alcoholic, a drug addict, and a slut. I try to stay away from that subject with Jim.
Penny nods in agreement. “So, how has the company been doing as of late?” she asks, changing the subject.
“Not bad,” I reply as I sit down at the table and take a bite out of my toast. “Our stocks are up, and we shipped another shipment of refrigerators to a Lowes somewhere in North Carolina yesterday. I’m thinking of hiring a few new people; I have their job interviews set for Monday afternoon.”
“Nice to hear,” she says in agreement. I check my watch. It’s 10:15; I should be off soon. I finish eating quickly, and then depart to my room to do what I need to do before leaving.
~
I take out my key ring, select a key, and plunge it into the keyhole. As I turn it, there’s a satisfying ‘click’. I pull the key out and open the now-unlocked door to the office. I flick on the light switch next to the door, and the office lights up instantly. I decide to go to the development wing first, to see how my employees are doing on their design for our new freezer model, the Axiom Freezer Deluxe 2.4. As I walk in, I see blueprints and design notes for the thing pasted all along one wall. Clearly, that project is coming along nicely. I decide to leave it be for the time being and check on the Engineering wing.
The engineers are the ones who figure out the new technology and build the prototype models of everything. They also mooch off the research of other companies and organizations sometimes, but hey, what scientist doesn’t? Sure enough, they have one halfway-built prototype for the Freezer Deluxe 2.4 in the construction section of their wing. They’ll finish it on either Monday or Tuesday, I assume, and then they’ll rush to show it to me, as they always do once they finish a prototype.
Finally, I go to Marketing. I usually don’t check on Marketing; their stuff is too hard for me to figure out and they leave very little evidence, but today I look at our sales rates. They’ve increased – there’s been an increase in demand for Axiom refrigerators lately, it seems. Our most common model is the Refrigiderator, a refrigerator that is split into sections and controls the temperature in each section based on manual settings or whatever is in that section. I think it’s a very cool model – so much so that my wife had me get one as soon as they were released. I testify that it works perfectly.
After having checked our sales and being pleasantly surprised, I depart to my own desk. I always seem to forget if I’ve completed all of my paperwork during the week, but thanks to my supreme organization skills I can always just look on my desk to find out what I’m missing.
Today all that I’ve left out are a few business agreement forms. Wal-Mart has replied to my request to peddle my company’s wares in its store, and I have to sign several forms before doing so. I take out my trusty magnifying glass, specially made for reading fine print, and begin to pore over the form.
Suddenly, the phone rings. That’s strange. Usually we don’t get many calls on Saturdays. I figure it must be some customer who is uninformed about our work hours. But I answer it anyway, as any good CEO should.
“Hello,” I say into the mouthpiece with practiced ease, “You’ve reached Axiom Cooling Company inc. We make top-quality, state-of-the-art refrigerators, freezers, and other cooling devices. How can we—”
“Hello, mister Rao,” the person on the other line says in a dark voice, cutting me off. Whoever this person is, I am beginning to figure that they’re not a customer after all. I begin to wonder if this person is the source of my nightmares. Before that, though, I have to figure out who the mystery caller is.
“Who is this?” I ask, my voice unwavering and sounding just like a secretary.
“Oh, don’t play any games with me,” the caller says. “I know who you are, Horace Rao, and your little pretend secretary game isn’t going to get me very easily, especially now that I know the jig is up.”
Damn, I think. He saw through it. Whoever this caller is, he knows my habits. He obviously knows that I’m the only person who comes to the office on Saturdays.
“Who is this?” I repeat, this time in my normal voice.
“That’s not for you to know.”
“Then why are you calling?”
“To let you know that I’m watching you.”
I stay silent.
“I’m watching you, Horace Rao,” the voice says. “Like Big Brother. You’d best be on your guard.”
“Who is this?” I ask again.
The caller laughs. “You’ll find out soon enough,” he answers. “For now, I bid you leave. Be careful, Horace Rao. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you on the way home.”
Then I hear a dial tone. The caller has hung up.
So, I think, That sense of foreboding I felt was real. For now, I push the thought out of my head as best I can and resume my work. I’ve never been the type to be overly paranoid, and now isn’t when I plan to start.
~
I twist the key in the lock and hear the office lock. As I turn around, I catch a glimpse of my own shoes. They’re athletic shoes, tan-colored, with white trim and high grip on the bottoms. They aren’t particularly well used, and the only dirt stains on them are from almost a decade ago, back when my son still appreciated my company. They look sort of like me – rather normal, with a rather large history but very little current depth.
As I walk down the street to my car I can’t help but feel like I’m being watched. It’s like an assassin’s on to me and is stalking me or something.
I get into my car and turn the keys. On the way home I drive extra carefully; despite the fact that I really don’t believe in any of the nightmares, I still have an ominous feeling in my gut. Today seems irregular; I just can’t relax.
The first thing I see when I get home twenty minutes later is a police car parked in front of my house. I park the car immediately and run to the door, where a policeman stops me. “Mr. Rao, I presume?” he says in a heavy Brooklyn accent. “Your wife is inside. She’s just regained her senses.” He steps out of the doorway, and I thank him as I rush inside.
“Penny!” I yell as I run through the house.
“Horace?” I hear her reply weakly from the kitchen. “We—we were…I don’t know what happened…”
A police officer standing at the side of the kitchen speaks up. “She claims there was a robber here. We’ve found evidence of a hard knock to your wife’s head. We speculate she got a mild concussion from it and it knocked her out cold for a while. But we have no idea what the weapon was.”
“Found something,” another officer says, walking in. “I was searching the bedroom for clues when I found this interesting note. I fingerprint-checked it already, and there’s nothing on it at all.”
He shows me the card, and the message written on it. Be warned, it reads, We can do much worse.
I shudder. Someone is definitely out to get me. It’s scary. I stay silent, waiting for one of the officers to talk again.
“We’ll be staying around until we finish our investigation,” one of them says. I nod. I can wait until then. In the meantime, I begin to fix myself lunch.
~
“He slammed me on the back of my head,” my wife says nervously. “Thankfully I wasn’t injured much.”
All she has is a minor concussion. It’s about four PM, and the police just left. I’m extremely thankful it went smoothly…relatively so, at least. “I’m glad,” I say to her. “I’ll call right now to let people know that the dinner is off.”
She nods. “Good idea.” I know that while she hates to agree with me, she has seen reason; she can’t host a potluck dinner in her shaken state. Personally, I feel like I’ve been acting a lot more calm than I really am. I give myself credit for that.
I pick up the receiver, and soon I am on the line with the first of the guests we invited. “I’m sorry,” I say, “But due to some circumstances that I’d rather not detail, we have decided to regretfully cancel the potluck.”
The guest accepts the message in stride, sounding slightly disappointed but okay and understanding. As I hang up the receiver, I smile weakly about the fact that it went smoothly.
Miraculously, the rest of my calls go the same way. Within half an hour, I have hung up on the last person. I turn to my wife. “The potluck is cancelled,” I say. She nods. She’s still clearly shaken. I feel like I should take a load off of her back as much as I can. “How about I make dinner tonight?” I ask.
“That’d be…nice,” she says softly.
I get out some macaroni and ground beef, and begin to make her favorite casserole. Soon, I’m lost in the cooking and trying to do everything quick enough. I barely even notice the time fly by until the casserole is done and I’m washing the dishes and spoons it took to make it.
I sit down across the dinner table from my wife. She takes a small bite of her casserole, her face lights up, and she takes another bite. It looks to me like she’s realized how hungry she really is. I smile. It’s nice to see her somewhat upbeat again. I take a bite myself, and discover that my cooking really isn’t all that bad – better than it should be for how out of practice I am.
We soon finish dinner. Penny yawns. “I’m going to bed early tonight,” she says.
“Good night then,” I reply as she heads upstairs. Soon I hear our door close. But before I retire for the night I have something I want to check.
I boot up our computer and open my E-mail. Right at the top, sent two hours ago, is a suspicious-looking E-mail titled “Have fun?”. I open it.
“Hello, Horace,” it reads. “Don’t worry, I didn’t take anything. And I promise I won’t take anything, ever, except for what you took from me. I will make it mine again, no matter what that means I have to do to you.”
The cops told me before to call them if I found something out. Within a minute, I’m on the line with someone. “Yeah, I’m Horace Rao,” I say into the receiver, “I was told to call here if I found more evidence for this case. Well, I found something.”
“We’ll be right over,” a voice says back to me. No more than three minutes later, I find myself welcoming some of the same officers from earlier into my home once again. I lead them over to the computer and show them the message.
“It’s from someone named ‘IWantHoraceOut@earthlink.net’,” one of the cops says to the other. “You reckon we can trace that?”
The other officer smiles. “I think we can.” He takes out a notepad and begins to write on it. “Thanks for the evidence, buddy,” he says. “We should find the guy in less than a few days.”
I nod. “Thank you so much,” I say.
Then, they leave. Feeling at peace, I sit down on the couch, turn on the relaxing music and begin to read a book. The next time I look up I’m one hundred and fifty pages further and it’s 10:30. I hear the door open, and I put down my book and go over. “Hi, dad,” I hear.
“Hi, Alex,” I reply. “Thinking of going to bed any time soon?”
“About midnight, maybe one,” he replies cooperatively. I’ve found as a parent that it’s easiest just to let him be most of the time. He’ll go through with his promise, and I’ll find him up at eleven tomorrow morning, I know.
“All right, sure,” I nod, watching him depart up the stairs. I yawn, and decide it’s best to retire myself. I follow Alex upstairs and go to my own room. After changing and brushing my teeth, I’m climbing into bed next to Penny. Five minutes later I’m asleep peacefully. I know that tonight I won’t have any nightmares.
