Twilight Guardians

Charlie didn’t go to any safe room in the basement. She went to that closet off the living room instead, and opened it and looked inside. It was lined with weapons. Guns hung in neat rows up and down its walls, crossbows in various sizes, stun guns, axes, knives and other implements she couldn’t even identify. Shelves were piled high with ammunition. She closed the closet door, stunned, and went to the window to watch her grandmother tiptoeing around outside with that giant shotgun in her arms. Roxy was completely paranoid, and she was going to shoot her new boyfriend before Charlie even had the chance to meet him.

  She went back to her bedroom, climbed up onto the bed and opened the curtains, staring outside into the darkness. The bedroom light was off, so she could see the night and the forest a little better. There didn’t seem to be anything out there except some torn up ground. But she was sure she hadn’t imagined the person she’d seen out there earlier. Maybe she’d imagined that it was him, but there had definitely been someone.

  Something came crashing through the trees so suddenly that she jumped to her feet, backing up a few steps. Then she saw that it was just a deer. It galloped halfway to the cabin and then stopped, standing there with its eyes wider than wide, breathing through a slightly open mouth and flaring nostrils. As she stared, it lifted one front hoof and slammed it into the ground repeatedly.

  She heard her grandmother come back inside. At least she thought it was her grandmother. The front door closed. “Charlie?” she called.

  Yes. It was her. Charlie reached up to close the window, but just as her hand touched it, she felt something. Just like before. An awareness of another presence, combined with a sensation like warm honey running down her spine, and a pull that was all too familiar to her. A pull that made her want to get closer. It was him, it had to be.

  But there was no one out there except the deer, its coat deep red in the darkness, its eyes like brown gemstones, shining. One ear flicked twice. Then its white tail flashed upright, and it bounded on its way, past the cabin and into the woods on the other side.

  “Charlie?”

  “I’m in here.” She closed the window and then the curtains. God, was she imagining all of this? It would almost be scarier to find out she wasn’t. Because if this was real, it was fucking weird.

  Roxy came to the bedroom door. “I told you to go to the basement.”

  “I was going to. I came to get....” She looked around the room, spotted a book on the bedside table. “Something to read,” she said. “And then I saw a deer on the lawn and realized that’s probably all it was.”

  Roxy narrowed her eyes. She looked kind of dangerous that way, and her voice was deep and low, but trembling when she spoke again. “Next time I tell you to get into the safe room, you damn well better get into the safe room.”

  Charlie couldn’t find words to reply. Her grandmother’s personality had shifted into someone she didn’t recognize. Not that she knew the woman anyway, but up until now, she’d seemed...harmless.

  This Roxy seemed downright dangerous.

  Was she even sane?

  Was Charlie really safe here at all?