Stalked

Robin Wrigley

 

a dirty martini

Mandy hung up her flight attendant’s jacket on the back of the kitchen door, took four miniature bottles of wine from her flight bag and opened one. She emptied the contents of the bottle into a glass that had been left to dry on the draining board, sitting down at the breakfast table she kicked off her shoes and took a sip of the wine.

     She looked idly around the room noting the calendar was still on last month’s page, she took a packet of cigarettes from the table pulled one out and lit it. Exhaling loudly, she made the ninety-ninth mental promise to give up when the door-bell rang.

     ‘Oh shit, who the hell can that be?’ She uttered bad-temperedly to the empty room, lodged her cigarette on an ashtray and moved to the front door.

     There was a sheet of porridge-coloured cardboard sticking out of the letterbox; she could see through the glass panels of the door there was no-one outside. She pulled the sheet out turned it over and gasped in horror.

     It was made up of letters cut from a newspaper, rather like the sort of message crooks use for extortion or blackmail-letters in movies. Walking back to the kitchen she mouthed each word as she went.

      She slumped down into the chair, put her elbows on the table, her head in her hands and quietly started to sob.

He was back, the bastard was back. Her life was not worth living.