Chapter 1 - The Creaking DoorThe doorknob turned with a faint, metallic click that sounded like a gunshot in the midnight silence of the house.
I kept my eyelids clamped shut, regulating my breathing so it sounded heavy, deep, and entirely fabricated by sleep. Every nerve ending in my body was stretched to a razor-thin wire. My palms, resting flat against the cotton sheets, were slick with cold sweat. For months, I had prided myself on being a heavy sleeper—a byproduct of long, exhausting hours managing a logistics firm in downtown Seattle. But tonight, that exhaustion felt less like a natural state and more like a carefully engineered weakness.
The door drifted open.
A wave of cold air spilled into the bedroom, carrying with it a scent that didn’t belong in our home: a faint, sharp trace of cedarwood cologne and expensive rain. It wasn't Emily’s floral perfume. It was something entirely foreign, yet chillingly deliberate.
Slow, measured footsteps padded across the hardwood floor.
They weren't rushing. Whoever had entered our sanctuary moved with the supreme, terrifying confidence of someone who believed they owned the space. The floorboards groaned beneath a heavy stride—definitely a man’s weight, heavier than mine, or at least carrying a different posture.
The footsteps stopped right beside the bed.
Right beside my side of the mattress.
I forced every muscle in my body to remain limp, ignoring the violent hammering of my heart against my ribs. A shadow fell over my closed eyelids, blocking out the faint ambient glow of the streetlights filtering through the blinds. Someone was leaning over me. I could feel the heat radiating off them, could almost sense the chilling intensity of a gaze fixed entirely on my face.
Then, the shadow shifted.
It moved slowly toward the other side of the bed—toward Emily.
I risked a millimeter-wide gap between my eyelashes, just enough to pierce the darkness.
Emily was lying on her back, her face partially illuminated by the digital clock on the nightstand. Her eyes were open. She wasn't sleeping. She was staring up at the ceiling with a wide, blank expression of terrifying compliance. And standing right beside her, leaning down with a familiarity that made my stomach violently churn, was a tall, broad-shouldered silhouette.
The man reached out a gloved hand, his fingers gently brushing a strand of hair away from Emily’s forehead.
She didn't flinch. She didn't scream.
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Instead, her lips parted in a ghost of a whisper, too quiet for me to catch across the mattress, but clear enough to confirm the worst horror a husband could ever imagine:
She knew he was coming. She had been waiting for him.
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