The hinges on Alfred's bedroom door squeaked as the door was pushed open. The room was dark; Alfred didn't like light while he slept, but the hallway night light told him someone was entering. He lay still, his eyes adjusting to the dim glow that outlined the figure at the threshold.
He stirred, and his heart beat like a drum. The room was cloaked in darkness. Fear swept through him as he watched the dark shadow step toward his bed. A large hat and a black overcoat hid most of the intruder's features, but Alfred could tell it was a man's silhouette.
Despite the darkness, Alfred sensed something evil. His mind raced with possibilities. Who was this mysterious figure? What did it want?
Taking a deep breath, Alfred decided to address the man. His voice, though shaky, broke the silence. "Who are you? What do you want?" he asked.
Alfred knew that none of the residents of Meadow View Assisted Living Center ever came to his room. At this hour, he realized something was amiss.
The figure paused, as if surprised to find Alfred awake. The tension in the room was palpable, each second stretching into an eternity.
Half asleep, Alfred's first thought was that one of the residents had come upstairs by mistake. He dismissed the idea because the building's other twenty residents stayed strictly on the first floor. Up here, there were only two rooms and a small bath: Alfred's bedroom and bath, and his private office. As his thoughts cleared, he stared at the intruder and realized he was wrong. This wasn't one of his residents.
"Who are you?" Alfred asked again, his voice barely above a whisper, yet it reverberated off the walls in the otherwise silent room.
"Your death," came the reply, the voice coarse and chilling, seeping into Alfred's bones. "You were told to vacate these premises, but you haven't. Now you must die."
Alfred's heart pounded in his chest, a steady drumbeat of fear. The words hung in the air like a dense fog, threatening to swallow him.
"I know who you are," Alfred said, his voice laced with concern. "I'm not afraid of you." With that, the shadow moved toward Alfred's bed. Alfred saw the dark silhouette's hand holding what looked like a metal pipe.
Just before darkness consumed Alfred, he heard, "You should have left."
Mary Rose closed her book and switched off the lamp. She stood, watching the stairs to the second floor. She had heard something, and at three in the morning, she wondered what could be stirring. She often read in the living room at night, and she had just settled in when a sound from upstairs caught her attention. It sounded like someone had fallen; she stared at the dark steps.
She knew the only rooms on the second floor were Alfred's, the owner of Meadow View. She wondered whether Alfred was awake and, if so, what he was doing so early in the morning.
From where she stood, she was partly in the shadows of the
living room, a large room that wasn't used much. It was furnished with chairs and small tables, a place for solitude and quiet. Mary Rose used it for reading, and she preferred sneaking away to those pages in the early hours of the morning. It was her alone time.
Mary Rose was in her mid-seventies, slim, petite, and healthy for her age. However, she was always alert, listening to others and watching what was going on at the center. One might say she was a bit nosy.
A shadow appeared at the top of the stairs. Mary Rose slipped into the dark corner of the room. She took cover behind a large plastic plant, carefully removing a small plastic leaf that had snagged her glasses. She brushed a cobweb from her face. The plant was covered in dust, and she hoped it wouldn't make her sneeze. She watched as a shadowy figure descended the stairs.
For a moment, she thought the mysterious figure had seen her when he stopped at the foot of the stairs and scanned the living room. Even in the dim hallway light, her observant gaze took inventory: sharp cheekbones, a large overcoat, and what looked like cargo pants.
The overhead hall light lit his body, giving Mary Rose a glimpse of his face. Her heart raced as she held her breath, fearing that even the slightest noise might give her away. Her nose tingled; she fought the urge to sneeze.
The figure's features were sharp and shadowed, with eyes that seemed to pierce the room's dimness. Mary Rose strained to remember whether she had ever seen him before.
Satisfied he was still alone, the intruder moved down the hall toward the kitchen. Mary Rose remained frozen, her mind racing with possibilities. She wanted to follow him, but decided to wait until the other residents were awake. There was safety in numbers.
She heard the back door open and close. The intruder had left, or so it seemed. Silence once again filled the house. The grandfather clock's soft, rhythmic ticking was the only sound. She waited, counting the seconds in her mind, each one a small victory in her resolve to remain undetected.
She had to decide what to do next. Should she wake the others or investigate what had happened upstairs on her own? During her working years, she had been a reporter, so sneaking around, watching others, and poking her nose into things wasn't new to her. But now, in her mid-seventies, she wasn't as quick or as aloof as she once was.
Insomnia was an old friend, which was why she was up reading at three in the morning. Her doctor's prescribed sleeping pills sat untouched in her room; she never took them. Mary Rose preferred a sharp mind to a chemically induced zombie state. Who knew what could happen to her while knocked out by the medication? She didn't want to think about it.
Suddenly, fear swept over her. Her small body trembled as she remembered seeing the intruder, which in itself wasn't so scary, but she remembered what he held: a metal pipe. It glistened under the hall light and was wet.
Unsure what to do, she cautiously approached the back door. It was unlocked, so she turned the deadbolt. At the time, it seemed like the right move. She certainly didn't want the intruder to return to the center. However, she would soon realize she shouldn't have locked the door.
She looked out the window; the night beyond was full of shadows, yet none moved.
Across the parking lot, she saw the recreation building. She and the other Meadow View residents had held many parties there, though they were more like bingo games and checkers than real parties. Now it was dark and looked undisturbed, as it should be. No lights were on.
She wondered where the intruder had gone.
With the immediate threat gone, Mary Rose felt a surge of courage. In her previous life as a reporter, something as strange as an intruder would never have stopped her from her investigations. She knew she had to find out why the mysterious man was upstairs.
She couldn't help it; she needed to uncover what was going on behind the night's unsettling events. A mystery was afoot, and she had to know what it was.
The stairs creaked as she stepped onto the first tread. That step always creaked. Though Alfred had sworn for years to fix it, he never got around to it. She climbed slowly. Should she turn on the light at the top or knock on Alfred's door? As she climbed, she could tell that Alfred's light was off and his door was open. That, in itself, was a mystery. Alfred always closed his door when he slept; everyone knew that.
She left the overhead light off. The hall nightlight lit the entrance to Alfred's room. She tapped the door frame. "Alfred."
No response came. The room was dark, except for a sliver
of light peeking through the bathroom door.
She stepped into the room. "Alfred, are you awake?" she asked.
Still no response.
"I'm going to switch on the light," she said, flipping the wall switch. The room lit up, and to her surprise, Alfred wasn't in his bed. In fact, he wasn't anywhere in the room.
The bathroom light was on, and the door was slightly ajar. She stepped cautiously toward the doorway. "Alfred, are you in there?"
Only silence answered.
"Alfred, I'm coming to the door. Are you listening to me?"
There was no response.
Mary Rose pushed the door open and saw Alfred lying on the floor, blood pooled around his head. She gasped for breath.
For a moment, she thought she would faint, but she mustered enough courage to turn and head back downstairs. "Homer will know what to do. I must get him," she whispered as she descended the stairs.
The center was as quiet as a mouse; nothing stirred. Apparently, the intruder hadn't returned. The large grandfather clock ticked slowly, its steady ticking breaking the silence.
Mary Rose tapped on Homer's door. "Homer, there's an emergency. Please open the door. Are you in there?"
Moments later, the knob turned. "For heaven's sake, Mary Rose, of course I'm in here. Just because you can't sleep doesn't mean I can't. You realize it's after three. What do you need?"
"Homer, it's Alfred. He's on the bathroom floor, and blood is everywhere."
"Keep your voice down; we don't want to wake the other residents. Let me grab my robe."
Homer and Mary Rose rushed up the stairs and into Alfred's bathroom as fast as they could. Homer bent to examine Alfred's wound.
"He's fallen and hit his head on the toilet," he said, pointing to a spot of blood on the rim of the toilet bowl. "I'm afraid he's dead." He bent closer to the body, squinting through his bifocals. He tapped his chin. "Classic slip-and-fall, Mary Rose. The ceramic on these old toilets is slick. He hit his head on the rim. I'll call it in."
"He didn't slip, Homer," Mary Rose said, her trembling hand pointing toward the stairs. "Unless he slipped on a metal pipe, carried it downstairs, got it wet, and then fell?"
Homer looked at Mary Rose, his detective instincts suddenly snapping to life. "What pipe?"
"The one the man in the black overcoat was carrying as he came down the stairs," Mary Rose said. "Not more than ten minutes ago."