Misgivings

Thunder struck outside, and Amy jumped out of her chair. She was terrified sitting alone in the house alone. It hadn’t seemed so big when she and Toby came to look at it last fall. It belonged to a couple who had both passed away earlier that year. Amy and Toby fell in love with the house from the moment they laid eyes on it. The master bedroom had a large window that looked out over the front lawn. Next to it were French doors leading out to a wrought iron balcony. A white washed porch encompassed the first floor of the house, its rails intertwined with white roses that blessed the thick summer air with their sweet aroma.
“It had seemed so welcoming then.� Amy thought to herself as she arose from the chair, wearily getting ready for bed. She pulled one of her husband’s old fraternity sweaters from one of the many boxes that were spread across the room and put it on. Amy laughed to herself as she passed by her reflection in the antique vanity mirror; the shirt hung from her small frame almost reaching down to her knees, and her long auburn hair was piled carelessly upon her head. Another crash of thunder sent her diving childishly to the safety of the king size, four post bed where she pulled the lavish wine col

“That sounds amazing, maybe we could even...”

Toby paced back and forth outside the door, his mind was racing. How could he have let her do all the unpacking by her self? He knew that she had been under a lot of stress. He should have been there for her, not out in Philadelphia wrapping up a business deal that could have been managed over the phone.

Upstairs in the house a picture frame crashed to the floor, spraying its shards of glass across the wooden floor.

“Either. Hmm, how about this, if it’s a girl we use it as the middle name and find a more girlie first name. What do you think?” she explained.

“Thanks babe, you’re my hero.” she said in a sarcastic tone.

Amy clutched his hand as they entered the hallway. It looked nothing like it had in her dream. It was brightly lit with wall lamps allowing her to see the very last door at the end of the hall. Relief came to her as they reached the inviting smell of coffee in the kitchen. Everything was as it should be. There was no trace of the warm, sickly blood on the stairs, no wintry breezes that stung her body, and no dark figure waiting for her. It was for that fact that she was most thankful. Toby pulled out two mugs from a box on the floor and filled them to the brim with rich, dark coffee. Amy curled her fingers around the warm walls of her mug and sipped at it sparingly as she told Toby about her dream. She sat in a daze, reliving the whole experience. She couldn’t remember a time when she had been so scared. Toby’s presence helped her to stay strong, comforting her through the whole thing, reassuring her that it was just a dream. When she was done he kneeled beside her chair and l!

“I’m coming for you.” the words rang through Amy’s head like a fog horn blaring through the deadly silence of a warm summer’s night.

“Damn it! Honey, you’re not going to believe this.” Amy entered the room warily. Toby was sitting on the edge of the bed nursing a bleeding foot. Blood, Amy thought as she remembered her dream once more. She began to run over to where her husband was sitting