Dangerous

"The Dark Stranger"

© VeGirl 2014

A few days later, my friend meet me at the door to work with a wild look on her face. "Could you please, please help me out with the catering tonight?" Eddie begs, her pleading blue eyes resemble a cockerspaniel in desperate need of a walk. She has a partnership with a local restaurant who work catering together, and a couple of girls who usually takes care of that, but everything has gone wrong tonight.

"Are you even aware of how much you beg me?" I ask sarcastically with a smirk.

"I don't know what to do." Her eyebrows are tilted in a begging expression. "Amelia is sick and Mary had to get home to her five-year old when the baby-sitter..."

"Stop talking, of course I will help you!" I smile.

"Really? You're the best friend ever!" she gives me a big hug. "Won't Peter be upset," she asks, but I just shrug.

"He's not my boss; you are." I give her a crooked smile. "And all I say is; yes boss, of course I will work some extra hours tonight."

She glares at me. "Suck up!"

I just laugh. "Aren't you supposed to suck up to your boss?" I have an innocent look on my face and complete it with a hand over my heart, making Eddie laugh with me. "You're nuts," she says and shakes her head. "I feel so privileged to have you as my friend." She hugs me again.

"Just wait until this night is over; then you might regret that statement." I laugh and put my arm around her as we walk in towards the kitchen.

"That's no problem; I'll just fire you." She shrugs.

The day is slow and that gives us time to prepare the dessert for the night, and pack everything else needed in the company van.

When our work is done at the coffee-shop, I go home, hit the shower and an hour later Eddie comes and pick me up in the business van. "Was Peter mad at you for leaving home tonight?" Eddie frowns guilty.

"He still hasn't come home yet, so I left him a note."

Eddie snaps her head toward me with an upset look on her face. "You didn't tell him? Won't he get totally ballistic?" she asks worried. "You have to call him!"

"Are you sure you're suitable as a boss?" I tease her and get a glare back from her.

I roll my eyes and pull my phone up out of my pocket, taps Peter's name and hear him answer. "Hi, I'm sorry, I have to work late tonight; it's the catering business."

"Yeah I just saw the note..."

"So, you're home already... Good. So that means I'll see you later," I say a bit awkward. "Okay, bye!" The mood in the car is very dense after I end the call and I work hard not to look at my friend.

"Are you sure the two of you are okay?"

Reluctantly I turn and look at my friend. "Yeah sure..." I say nonchalant and shrug, not interested in going into that discussion with my friend, especially since I'm not really clear as to where I stand myself in this matter.

"Mhmm..." Eddie mutter and watches me with puckered brows. "If you say so..."

Luckily the drive ends soon thereafter and we focus on work. Mark is the owner of the restaurant we co-operate the catering-service with, and the smell from his pots and pans is already making my mouth water. He and his crew are usually a hoot to work with, no matter who the paying customer is. We're always respectful to the customers though, but behind the scenes we joke around quite roughly.

After setting everything up, I help out with serving the starters. There are a lot of people mingling around, and that makes it a little hard manoeuvring the tray of goodies for the guests.

"Sam?"

I spin around and end up almost into Milo's chest. Fortunately he grabs my upper arms for support stopping me from dropping the tray of hors'd ouevre. "Milo!" I smile and he kiss my cheeks. "Thank you for taking me home the other night."

"Any time gorgeous," he smirks. "Next time we'll go to my place," he whispers, making a chill run down my spine, before he blinks and walks away.

"Milo, stop messing with my staff." I hear Eddie call to him as I try to get my bearings straight to keep working. When our eyes meet he winks at me and a huge smile takes shape on my face.

That smile is still there when I enter the kitchen.

"Who was that hunk?" Jenny asks and I look up to see her roll her eyes upwards in delight. "He is mouthwatering!"

I laugh. "Yeah Milo is really gorgeous, but he's just a friend."

"Can I have him, please," she begs.

I simply shrug with an indifferent face. Even though I am engaged to another man and have absolutely no claim on the hunk of a man, I can't help but getting annoyed. If I can't have him, Jenny most certainly can't! It gives me a great deal of satisfaction to notice that Jenny's several attempt throughout the night to get Milo's attention is without any result at all.

Milo keep sending flirty smiles to me and nobody else.

Time flies and next time I look at the watch it's already eleven pm. Most stuff are already gathered and Mark promise to drive the dishes over to our company, cleaned and ready in the morning if we help him delivering something first.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I exclaim and kiss his cheek.

Eddie meets me. "I have to help Mark delivering this, is it okay if you meet me there?"

"Sure, that's just a couple of hundred yards," I assure her. "Go on. I just have to pack this up, and I'll see you in five." My friend nod and takes off while I head inside again and keep working.

Things take a little longer than I anticipated and when I'm done I hurry to get to the rendezvous point that Eddie and I agreed on. Due to the rush I decide to walk through the back alley instead of taking the more lit detour around the building. It doesn't take long for me to regret chosing that shortcut though. It's a dark and narrow lane and I have such a strong sense of being followed, that my skin crawls. I curse myself for being so stupid. I scurry along as fast as my high heels allow.

A sound almost makes my heart stop dead in my chest; I turn around and sigh in relief as I realize that it was only a cat, trying to find something edible. I exhale heavy and relieved tears are stinging behind my eyelids. I stumble ahead, tears blurring my vision, when I hear obvious footsteps behind me.

This time it is no cat!

The relieved feeling is vanished in an instant and transforms into sheer panic as the steps are getting closer.

Abruptly I am jerked to the side and a hand covers my mouth; all the hairs on my body stand up. "Hush!" A dark husky voice hiss in my ear and I am dragged into a dark corner of the alley. My eyes are wide and my pulse beats like crazy as panic runs through the core of me. It feels like I am about to go into cardiac arrest or something. My fear is off the roof and the last thing I am aware of is that my knees buckle before everything turns black.

* * *

When I wake up it takes some time to figure out where I am, and I have no idea what has happened. I realize that I am laying on the swing of my front porch. As I strain my mind to remember, a dark figure comes to mind; a dark figure and all my bodily hair standing on edge.

What did that man do to me?

I sit up and pad down my body, trying to check that I am completely okay; if I was hurt or perhaps got mugged. When everything seems to be in order, even my purse is standing beside me I realize that inside that purse my phone is ringing madly and my hand shakes as I reach for it.

"Sam?" I hear Eddie call and tears start to flow down my cheeks. "Where the hell are you? I've been searching and calling for you."

"I... I'm sorry I was attacked, but I'm home now." I can't keep a straight voice and Eddie hears how upset I am.

"My God, are you okay?"

"Yeah." I aim for a brave laughter, but can't even convince myself. "Somebody helped me, it was probably Milo," I say, not knowing what to think of it. I sit upright and my eyes seem to wander of their own will until they stop at the empty house across the street. "Yeah I'm fine, I'll be going inside now; I'll see you in the morning." I end the call and keep brooding over what actually happened.

Who was the man that attacked me, and what did he want from me? Why did I wake up here? Almost at its own will, my eyes seeks the house on the other side of the street again, and I think I can see a dark figure standing in the window, observing me and an electric sensation runs through me once again, making my body hair stand upright.

There is somebody watching me in that house!

My heart doesn't seem to have decided if to race or stop altogether, as I realize the body reaction is the same as in the alley.

The alley man is in that house!

With anger-fired bravery I didn't think I had in me, I stand up, take the few steps down the stairs and walk towards the old house, but the figure disappears and I stop.

'Get back inside, Samira!' A dark voice says and it sounds as if it is inside my own head. A panicked shiver runs through my body and I am frozen on the spot. 'Get inside now!' The voice growls and I turn on my heal, run inside and lock the doors on my house. I am without a doubt certain that it was the dark figure, my neighbour, but how on God's green earth could he speak to me in my own head?

I turn to look through the peephole in the door and see a black car roll into a halt in front of my neighbour's house. It is the same car that I imagined in my dream; an old veteran but with a sleek new design, feeling like a cross between an exclusive hotrod and an old timer. The door opens on my neighbour's house and the dark man walks out to the car and get in; the car turns at the cul-de-sac next to our houses and drives past my house before it drives of.

I lean heavy on the door, panting; this was exactly like my dream, but he took off instead of arriving. The huge difference is that this time I am certain that I am fully awake. So, it was for real when he moved in as well?

"Sam." One simple word and a hand on my shoulder make me jump halfway out of my own skin and almost yelp as well. "Are you okay?" Peter asks me and the waterworks starts.

"Not really." A tiny voice I hardly recognize as my own is coming from me.

Peter wraps his strong protective arms around me and I cry as all the stress leaves my body and the nightly events is blurted out of me; everything but our neighbour being involved.

* * *

The next day I glance over at what appears to be the still empty house across the street as I walk to my car. I shudder when I think about all the drama that happened the night before and how bad it could have gone. What if that black car hadn't rolled in, what if that creature had dragged me into his house instead? Suddenly it hits me; he knew my name! Surely it couldn't have been he who put me on my own front porch?

My head is still spinning with questions and possibilities when I get to work. All the logic I can master makes it look like that neighbour saved me; why would he first attack me and then save me? That doesn't make sense.

At work everybody is totally wound up, Eddie has found out what happened and told everybody and now they all want to hear my side of the story.

I, who thought I would revel in the idea of having everybody's attention, find out that I don't like that a tiny bit. I'm nothing like the attention-seeker that I thought I was. Is that because I don't know what happened?

Eventually people around me let me go and forget how bad things might have gone, and a few days later we can resume our lives without grave danger hanging between us like a ghost.

Eddie keep glancing at me now and then, as if there is something going on that she might reveal just by looking at me; as if I am some kind of puzzle to solve. Myself I do my best to keep my head in the game; focus on work and don't let anybody know that I am on to them while I keep contemplating about what happened and why.

Eventually the disturbing feeling at the club, in the forest and that horrid attack after work, is fading away.

The house across from mine is just as dark and abandoned as it ever was and I start to question my sanity; I don't seem to have a clear line anymore over what is reality and what is a figment of my own imagination.

Or could it be that this dark perpetrator just noticed an abandoned house and slid inside?

I start glancing after dark-haired guys everywhere and I start to wonder if that is how this sort of fortune psychic things works? Somebody tells you that you're supposed to meet a blond guy, and suddenly all you search for are blond guys.

I shake my head and give myself a mental slap; get a grip girl!

The thoughts, whirling around in my head are about to make me crazy however much I try to focus at work and make everybody think that I am a-okay.

Peter is the one that observes me with piercing eyes and I take my refuge down to the basement and my treadmill there. This is not the meditative action that running in the forest used to be; there is no sufficient ventilation and it gives me none of the satisfaction that an outside run gives me. Finally I drag the heavy machinery outside on the back porch and place it under the roof, overlooking the forest behind our house.

* * *

One night when Peters friends decide to meet at Noels house instead of ours, my brooding is worse than ever.

I know I have to talk about this with somebody and I take my car over to Eddie's house. Embarrassingly enough I stay seated in the car for a while, with thoughts swirling around in my head.

Would I have to admit that I went back to the psychic?

I conclude that I at least have to say some of the things that have been hijacking my mind for some time now; I take a deep breath and get out of my car.

"Can I come in?" I stand on Eddie's porch on the verge of breaking down.

"Of course you can!" My best friend step aside with a puzzled look and I walk into her lounge. "What's going on?" She asks worried as I slump down on her couch, staring at the TV. Eddie reaches for the remote on the coffee-table, just as a familiar actor enters the scene.

"Wait a minute, is that Nicholas Cage?" I ask and my mood is suddenly lifted. "Leave it on!"

Eddie sighs. "Are you still hung up on that man? He's old!"

I glare at her. "I am not hung up on him, and he is not that old!" I snap, making her giggle.

"He's fifty!"

"And besides, I'm not hung up on him, he's a great actor!" My tone is quite defensive and Eddie holds the palms of her hands up in the air in a surrendering gesture while smirking. I take one of the pillows on the couch and throw it at her. "Everybody can't be hung up on guys like Robert Pattinson." I tease her, feeling like my mood is lifted just by seeing her.

"Come on, he is hot!"

"No he's not." I giggle. Something on the TV gets my attention and I gasp. "That's the car!" I exclaim and stare at the screen as some sleek old car rolls into the scene. "That's the car that dropped my neighbour off!"

Eddie just watch me with her eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Nicholas Cage was at your neighbours?"

"No!" I glare at her. "What is this film? And who has a car like that?"

"Sorcerer's apprentice," my friend mumbles looking a bit embarrassed. "And that is Nicholas Cage's own private car," she reveals and I'm surprised that she actually knows this. "Who has cars like that, more than eccentric old actors?" I just look at her, because that was I have been thinking ever since I saw it outside my house.

"Wait a minute, has somebody finally moved into that old shanty house across from yours?"

"It is not shanty; it's just in need of some TLC." I end that sentence more of a mumble that anything else.

"TLC? Do people actually say that anymore? Wasn't that some phrase of the nineties or something?" she teases me and I grab another pillow to throw at her.

"What's he like, because it is a he, isn't it?" Eddie's eyes sparkle of curiosity and excitement. "Is he hot?"

Just thinking about him makes my whole body tense up and I try to imagine what he looks like, but comes up empty. "I don't know." I say honestly. "I've only glimpsed him during the night in the light of the full moon."

"Full moon? What is he; some kind of a vampire?" She can hardly keep a giggling fit from erupting. "If Edward Cullen has moved in next to you, I will be seriously pissed," she states and I give her a stern look.

"Edward Cullen; are you kidding me?"

"Okay, perhaps not him, but what if it's a real live vampire?" Her eyes sparkle. "What does he look like?"

I laugh out loud. "Vampire, really?" I just can't believe this woman; this calculating business woman with both her feet on the ground, and yet believing in psychic readings and now talking about vampires as if they really exists. "You need to get a grip on life girl!" I sigh.

"Just tell me what he looks like, already!" She sounds impatient.

I look at her, roll my eyes and shake my head. Then I try to think about what my new neighbour looks like and I almost come up blank. "I haven't really taken a close look at him. I've only seen him a couple of times and it's always dark."

"Vampire; what did I tell you?"

I sigh again and suppress my need to roll my eyes at her again. "He has pitch-black hair, a slim, muscular body and electric blue eyes that is totally capturing," I hear myself say.

Eddie stares at me. "You haven't seen him, huh?"

"I haven't!" I defend myself. "But I have been having dreams about him."

Wait a minute; did I say that out loud?

Eddie's eyebrows shoot high up on her forehead. "You have been dreaming of him?" She's gawking at me and suddenly a giggle burst through her closed lips.

I'm wishing I was able to erase and rewind, just to take back that statement; that is going to haunt me night and day. "Forget it," I snap and get up from my best friend's couch. "I'm not sitting here discussing dreams with you," I state and walks towards the door.

"Come on Sam! I'm just teasing you," she calls after me. "Get your ass back in here girl!" Her voice is demanding and bossy. "You can talk to me, what's on your mind?"

"Do you want me to lie down for this?" I glare at her and mock her for the therapeutic conversation starter.

"Sure if that will make this better for you," she laughs. "Wait a minute, do you want me to get a notepad or something?"

I sigh, but smile at my best friend. "What do you want to know? I mean I haven't seen him up close, haven't made out with him or any else gory details."

"What are the dreams about?" Anna asks.

"A man is standing by my bed, observing me." I reveal slowly, careful to observe my friend's expression. "It changed a while ago when he stroked away a strand of my hair."

"And you know this is your neighbour?"

I give her a pointed look. "I can't positively say that it is him, but yes, I am so sure." I raise my eyes to the ceiling to emphasise the certainty. "My whole body tingles."

Eddie's eyebrows shot up instantly in a surprised look. "Tingles," she asks mirthfully. "Really?"

"See, I know I shouldn't have told you anything." I mutter and get up from her couch again. "Thanks' for the therapy session, doc." I mutter and head out of her house, accompanied by my friend's laughter.

Isn't that a true friendship?

I contemplate in the car, during the ride home about what I told my friend. Could I really have such a detailed description of my neighbour; the same neighbour that scare the crap out of me. What does this mean?

I watch his house as I get closer to home. It's as if a dark cloud is covering that house and it looks ominous. The windows are still black like it was during those years it was abandoned; not a single ray of light is beaming from it and not a sound emanates.

Did someone move in at all?

I can't help but to glance over at the house every time I walk past one of my windows and every time I walk outside to take my car to work, but I don't get to see even the tiniest glance of that enigmatic neighbour. The house still looks abandoned and once again I question my sanity.

This guy doesn't seem to be just a creature of the darkness, but he is more like the invisible man; nowhere to be seen.

* * * * * * *

I just wanted to stop by and thank you for reading. 💕

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