Chapter 20

POV Coraline

Nyx greeted me without much enthusiasm that night. She was much more interested in destroying the stuffed kitten she had stolen from my bed. When she saw me, she merely meowed in recognition of my presence and returned to using her claws to pull at the threads of the little toy.

I went to the kitchen and made a sandwich. I was hungry, but had no desire to cook. After I finished eating, I went to the fridge to get a glass of water. That’s when the power went out, shutting off all the lights. I let out a little squeal of surprise. I thought about going to a neighbor's house to see if it was just in mine, but they lived too far away. Feeling resigned, I grabbed two candles from the drawer in the cupboard and placed them in the holder I bought after the last power outage — which had happened ages ago.

The police knocked on my door shortly afterward.

"Miss Hazelwood, is everything okay?"

I opened the door and came face to face with one of them.

"Yes, why?"

"There was a power outage; we saw it from outside."

"Oh, it’s fine." I smiled. "I’m going to go inside and take a shower. It should be back on soon."

He seemed satisfied seeing that I was calm and went back to the car. The truth was, I almost forgot about their existence because, except when I entered through the front door and passed by them, I never saw them. In fact, this was one of the first times they checked on me.

After I went upstairs and took a quick shower, I went straight to my room and sat at my desk, placing both candles next to my typewriter. I had started a new manuscript a few weeks ago, just a rough outline for a future story, but hadn’t progressed more than a few pages. With the crimes happening, the book had been abandoned, and I had no desire to go back to working on it. When I touched the machine, the image of the dismembered body on the grass came back forcefully, provoking a wave of nausea. The truth was, despite my desire to write, I couldn’t produce anything once the deaths started. This was my third attempt, but even though the words were all piled up in my head, that was all I had. Words.

Writing made me think of him.

I felt somewhat responsible for each of the deaths because they never would have happened if I hadn’t written them. I still didn’t know why I had been chosen, but regardless of the reason, my stories held some significance for him, something that drove him to make them real, and that terrified me. Having something in me that inspired him terrified me.

Still, I forced myself to write something.

I ran my fingers across the keys, remembering the feeling of finishing a story. It was always so pleasurable and, at the same time, disheartening because when I was done, I needed to write again. I wasn’t addicted to drugs, sex, or food; I was addicted to words and the power they had to build — or destroy — everything. Above all, I was addicted to the sensation that writing gave me.

In my books, I had the power.

I grabbed a handful of new sheets and put them in place. Without thinking much, I wrote the first things that came to my mind. In the past, before I became a storyteller, I used to just write to become a person again. It was with words that I meant who I was; it was through them that my feelings ceased to be a tangled mess of threads and became something tangible.

I wrote less than a page before giving in to exhaustion. On some days, I could fill twenty pages without even noticing, but on others, every word hurt like a bullet. In the end, it didn’t matter much if I wanted to write or not because, with or without a killer, I still didn’t have enough money to afford to write whenever and however much I wanted; writing was an emotional and material need, and it was far from giving me a life as comfortable as the one I dreamed of.

Emotionally drained, I got up and went to bed. A crackling sound cut through the air, startling me. It was the radio the police gave me, which had been untouched under the pillow for a long time. It had never made a sound before, which made me answer urgently, as it might be important. I held the walkie-talkie like a talisman. Somehow, knowing that all I had to do was press the button and ask for help brought a sense of security. I waited for someone to speak, but only the crackling continued. As the officer instructed, I pressed the side button and brought the speaker to my mouth.

"Is anyone there?"

I released the button and waited.

After a moment, a low voice came through the static.

"I see you, Coraline."

My heart skipped a beat and I froze, as if he were right there, beside me. My hands trembled so much that I almost dropped the device.

"Are you scared, darling? I thought you’d be safer now."

The voice dragged, filled with mockery and something darker, a kind of twisted enjoyment that made my blood run cold.

Slowly, I pressed the button, trying to keep my voice steady.

"You shouldn’t be doing this."

The response came as a low laugh.

Silence.

The emptiness in the silence was more terrifying than hearing him speak, though his voice was the peak of my torment. I sat on the bed, still holding the radio, and waited. I could hear his breathing. That night, something felt different. There was none of his cruel humor, none of his mysterious and annoying monologues, no provocation. There was only silence. Suddenly, the candles went out. In the dark, I could barely make out the shapes in my room. I fumbled for the dresser, trying to find anything I could use, but before I could do anything, he spoke again.

"I see you, Coraline."

I was panting.

"No, you don’t."

Without haste, I opened the first drawer of the dresser and searched for an item. When I found it, I gripped it tightly and hid it at my waist, between my skin and the waistband of my underwear.

"Every night, I see you walking around the house in the dark and I know you can’t sleep."

Suddenly, I had a clear impression that I had heard footsteps.

"You’re trying to scare me," I whispered.

Again, I heard footsteps behind me, but when I looked around, there was nothing but darkness. I made my way to the door and locked it.

"I still see you."

That scared me in ways I couldn’t put into words. I felt unprotected, cornered, and hunted. It was as if his presence was accumulated in the walls, at the corners of the room, beneath the furniture, behind it. Every shadowy nook in the room made me feel afraid.

"Are you looking for me?" he asked.

"No."

I was alone at home. Completely alone. If I screamed loudly enough, maybe the officers on patrol outside could hear me, but it was a high-risk bet. I had locked the room, meaning he couldn’t get in without making noise, so I took a deep breath and tried not to cower.

"You seem calmer," he spoke again. "You think I can’t get into your house, don’t you?"

"You can’t," I retorted.

I sat on the bed and let my hair down. I was so nervous that even the elastic holding it felt painful.

"You might be right, but I don’t think I need to enter if I’m already here, do I?"

When he said that, I shivered. I refused to believe what he was saying because I knew I had locked all the doors before leaving and closed them when I entered. I knew the officers were outside, watching the front of the house, and the back was locked and well-secured. I knew, but...

Still, I couldn’t imagine a man like him bluffing.

"I’m locked in my room," I warned. "I don’t think you can pass through a door, can you?"

"No," he whispered. "Can you?"

"What?"

"Can you pass through the door?" he asked. "Because if you can’t, you’ll have to open the lock very quickly."

"I don’t know what you mean."

"Coraline, Coraline..." My skin crawled when I heard my name again. "You worried so much about keeping the doors locked, but if you can’t open them, how will you escape what’s inside your room?"

Inside my room?

When I understood what he was saying, I dropped the radio and ran to the door, trying to insert the key into the lock, but I heard another door open, and behind me, a voice said:

"I told you I was watching you."

The only door he could have opened was the closet.

In a panic, I realized my stalker had been there all along.

A surge of adrenaline rushed through me; it was the same voice that spoke to me on the phone. I didn’t respond. I stayed facing away, motionless, even though the instinct to run was overwhelming. In the dark, at least I could focus on details that might have been overlooked in the light. The first impression that took over my senses was his smell. Different from what I had imagined when thinking of him, the man behind me wore perfume. It was subtle, almost nonexistent, as if the scent had been applied to his clothes in the morning, and now, at the height of the night, only a faint trace of it remained. It was strong, though. Masculine. I had never smelled it before, but I had no doubt it was an expensive perfume.