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It was the front of her house – taken at night. Cindy saw herself in the bedroom window, checking the street for him.

She began to cry, fresh tears sprinkled across the keyboard. Deciding that things had gone far enough, Cindy deleted the picture and called 911.

As it rang, she realized that it was the first time she had ever had to do it. I should consider myself lucky, she thought, trying to calm her nerves.

The call didn’t sound right. The normal rings had been replaced by a series of inconsistent clicks, like an old time switchboard operator trying to make an overseas connection.

"Hello?" Cindy called into the receiver when the line went clear. "Is anyone there?"

"I’m here." The man spoke in a hushed whisper, words strung out as if he were singing.

"Who is this?" Cindy stole a glance back down the darkened hallway

"You know, for all their advanced technology, cell phones are surprisingly easy to format. You’d be amazed at how quickly they can be reprogrammed so that any dialed number, like your mother, or your sister Anne in Illinois... or the police can be routed directly to me instead. Go ahead, try it. It all comes back," he tapped his phone. "Right here." He laughed in that same whisper – sounding like a demon.

"What do you want?" Cindy asked through tears.

"I told you, I just want to talk."

"Fuck you maniac!" Cindy screamed and slammed the phone shut.

There was still a land line in the kitchen. She had been thinking of canceling her home phone all together – they seemed irrelevant in the age of cell phones, but she had decided to keep it just in case of emergency.

Cindy crept down the hall, wishing for the first time that she had a gun in the house despite her usual support for more government control over them. She found it ironic that the creaks of the floorboards beneath her feet sounded like gunshots echoing off the walls.

She placed the phone to her ear, it was a cordless model made popular in the early 80’s, but was unable to get a dial tone. Perhaps the lines were down, she thought. Possible, but not likely.

Cindy cursed silently and slammed the phone back down into its cradle. Fresh tears fell from her eyes – equal parts fear and frustration. She wanted nothing more than to lock herself in the bathroom, curl up in the fetal position, and wait for the first lights of dawn.

But she would not give the spineless little prick the satisfaction.

Her kitchen and family room were attached – more like one big room instead of a pair, separated only by a small step down. There was a medium-sized plush love seat along the far wall, next to a sliding glass door that led to the patio. Cindy’s favorite seat was an oversized Lazy-Boy with the fireplace on one side and a small end table on the other.

 Her laptop sat on the table, its sleep mode fan gently breaking the silence in the room.

She recently installed a new program that allowed her to make phone calls over the computer network. It was a welcome respite from the long distance charges after repeated calls to her sister, who had recently gotten a job at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital in Illinois.

The program worked like a charm after a few initial bugs were worked out and Cindy would cheer with delight whenever her sister’s voice boomed over the computer microphone – sounding like she was right there in the room.

It also could be used to contact any emergency service, including the Warren County Sheriff’s Department.

She sunk down into the Lazy-Boy and flipped open the laptop, trying to will the start up along.

As the computer blazed to life something scraped along the kitchen window. Probably a squirrel, she hoped. But the noise was forgotten as soon as she looked at the screen.

Her wallpaper photo had been changed.

The Florida beach sunset had been replaced with a picture from inside her bedroom. Cindy was asleep on the bed with the covers strewn down around her feet revealing pink flannel pajama pants and a New England Patriots tee shirt.

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