1
LENA
Ishould be dead.
Live footage of a fire fills my tiny computer screen. I go completely numb as I stare at an online broadcast of the local news.
“A house fire continues to rage tonight in the suburbs of Chicago.” The reporter’s somber voice fills the tiny room. “Firefighters have been on the scene since this afternoon but, as you can see behind me, they have not been able to fully extinguish the fire.”
I was halfway down the block when the news alert flashed on my phone. The headline sent me running back to my apartment. I didn’t stop to turn on the lights or take off my coat, I just attacked my computer until I found a livestream of the local news.
On the screen, flames lick out of the side of the house where I know the kitchen used to be.
I lose my grip on my keys and violin, barely registering the sicktwangthat comes from inside the instrument case when it hits the ground.
I have to call her.
My hands are shaking so badly it takes me three tries before I find the right buttons on my phone. “Please, Aunt Mable, pick up. Pick up.”
There’s a click and I hold my breath, waiting—praying—to hear her voice. Instead, the call goes straight to voicemail. “No, no,no.” I hang up and try again.
Again, straight to voicemail.
Cold sweat breaks across my skin as I repeat the process. Call, pray, hang up, try again.
The lights of an ambulance flash on the screen, forcing a tiny red glow into the darkness around me.
With numb fingers I tap the computer volume to max as the reporter continues, “An explosion rocked the quiet suburban neighborhood of Cortland at approximately four o’clock this afternoon, multiple neighbors calling 911 as a fire raged in the house belonging to an older woman. Police are not releasing her name to the public, but according to neighbors, she lived alone.”
I watch, shaking, as paramedics gather on the scene. They’re in the background, too blurry for me to see clearly, but I can tell that the firefighters are holding them back. It isn’t safe for them to go anywhere near the house. And the firemen haven’t brought out any survivors.
Helpless, the paramedics are forced to stand by as the house—and the woman presumed to be inside—burn.
I’m supposed to be in that house. With Aunt Mable. Ishouldbe in that house, except I canceled my visit this afternoon.
Oh, God.
Four o’clock. That’s when the news anchor said the fire started, ignited by some sort of explosion.
At four o’clock Aunt Mable and I would’ve been in the kitchen. There wouldn’t have been a lot of conversation. There never really is between us. But we would’ve been laying out ingredients in companionable silence, preparing to make herfamous Shepard’s pie. She loves to make it this time of year. The perfect food to shake off the January chill, she always says. When I called to cancel, she’d pointed out that she’d already bought all the ingredients, that it would be a shame to let them go to waste.
I’d apologized, told her I couldn’t miss this audition. The spot had opened up so last minute, I explained. I’ve been waiting three years for the chance to audition for this orchestra, I couldn’t possibly miss it.
The last thing I heard before we said goodbye was her resigned sigh, the one she uses for the adopted niece she’s never really understood. I don’t even know if she heard my promise to make it up to her, to visit next weekend.
The news camera zooms in on the fire. Heat seems to pulse off the computer screen as I watch Aunt Mable’s house burn from miles and miles away.
It isn’t until a commercial breaks through the roaring in my ears that I realize I need to do something. Anything.
I need to call the police, try to get information about what’s happening. I click my computer off, the screen going dark, and I’m reaching for my phone when I see it.
No, not anit.
Ahim. A man’s reflection is on the screen.
He’s a looming shadow, completely silent and so close behind me the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
For a breathless moment, neither of us moves. He is little more than a black, ominous shape on my blank screen, but I swear our eyes lock in the reflection and the temperature in my already cold apartment drops another twenty degrees.