His mind was going a thousand miles per hour after his talk with the sheriff. His feeling of dread grew as he saw the relative safety of the sun disappear over the horizon leaving darkness to envelope his refuge. The family man jumped at the sound of every noise outside the house, every settling of their home causing him to cower in fear wondering if the mysterious killer was coming for him. Try as he might, he couldn’t hide his deep-seated terror of the unknown. His face was telling on him. “You’re jumpy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers tonight,” his wife declared. “How much coffee did you drink today?” Stevie didn’t need any coffee to be hyper alert. Fear alone was keeping him vigilant. His wife, eyeing him over the cover of the paperback she was reading in the living room, made him realize his paranoia was apparent. He didn’t want her to catch the scent that something was wrong. “Yeah, that’s it,” Stevie agreed. “I must have had one too many I guess.”
