Raw fear and the rush of adrenaline that follows with it can do crazy things to the brain. Her heart rate beating faster than it ever had, her primal instinct had taken over. For a second, she reflected. Was she doing the right thing? Should she have called 911? And tell them what?

First, there was a stalker who had taken her picture using her own camera when she was asleep, and then the mystery caller who knew her and Mike, and was probably watching her from somewhere close by, and then the lights had gone out in her apartment, and now here she was, with a car was waiting for her. Was this caller the same person who took her pictures? Is he also the person in the car? Was he trying to save her? From what? From whom? Or, was she walking straight to a trap, like a moth to the flame? 

“Kelly, stop!”  She heard Mike’s voice, and turned back.  Mike, after all, was her boyfriend. She hesitated, and turned back. Mike was running towards her. She saw fear in his eyes. Did he know something she didn’t? And then, it happened.

Just as he was a couple of steps in front of her, the fear in his eyes turned into shock. His eyes and mouth wide open in terror and feeling a sudden sharp pain, he lunged forward and fell on her arms. As she held him, she saw blood. He was shot in the back. The shot must have come from one of the windows facing her. Her own apartment window was in the line of sight.

There was commotion on the street. “Some body has been shot!” “Call 911!” People were crowding around her and Mike, who was now lying in a pool of blood in her arms. She was overcome by feelings of shock, fear and agony of her boyfriend dying in her arms. “Mike! Mike! Talk to me!” she cried “Somebody call an ambulance!!”

“Kelly…..” Mike muttered. He was trying to tell her something.  “The man in that car…” he paused, struggling to speak. He then weakly took out a folded paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to her.

“What? Mike, come on, talk to me… Mike.. Mike!” she cried to him in vain, his now motionless body lying on the pavement, his head on her lap, her tearful face buried on his chest, and his lifeless eyes wide open.

People crowded around her, trying to comfort her. In what was only a few more minutes but seemed like eternity, she heard the sirens getting louder. It was then that she realized that the white Camry was long gone.

RATE THIS BRANCH!