Eyes at the Window Read Free

her back, knees up, Rufus jumped on top of her and laid down, head on his paws to look intently into her face. His warmth and company made her think maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
    She did manage to fall asleep, although at first she thought she would not. The wind rocked the car and the rain sounded loud on the roof. She turned on the engine twice to warm the car back up before falling into a shallow restless dream where she was running down the hallway at the offices of WKLU, trying to outrun the lights which were shutting off after her one by one with explosive pops.
    In her dream the pops turned to barks from Rufus. Miranda awoke with a start.
    “Rufus,” she called, realizing the barks were real.
    The dog was standing on her stomach, barking furiously toward the window at her feet. Thunder rumbled, followed by a flash of light, and in that brief second, she saw what had disturbed him.
    A face, white and distorted by the rain rivulets streaming down the glass, stared back at her.

Chapter 2
    Miranda screamed, scrambling for the gun on the floor, but by the time she retrieved it and sat up, the face was gone. Rufus had jumped to the front seat and still growled low in his throat, but only looked at her, as if she were the one he didn’t trust. Miranda looked out all windows, shining the flashlight as far as it would go against the night.
    Rain had puddled in the loose gravel of the driveway. Was that indentation near the door the result of someone’s footsteps as he stood and watched her sleep? A pair of gardening gloves lay on the concrete surrounding the well pump. Had they been there before?
    It wasn’t until another flash of lightening showed her an empty yard and driveway that she sat back, pulling the comforter close as if that would stop her shivering. Had it all been part of her dream? It had felt so real. Still, it wasn’t uncommon for one of her bouts of anxiety to be followed by unusually disturbing dreams.
    “That must be it.” She said the words out loud, hoping to convince herself. Her childhood phobia had invented a foe waiting in the feared darkness and in her half-awake confusion she had given the illusion the shape of reality. No actual human would be wandering around in this torrential downpour, nor would the person be able to disappear so quickly.
    Still, it would be impossible to sleep again. Miranda reached to turn on the engine to keep the cold at bay and found the book she’d picked up before leaving Chicago. Her watch told her dawn was only a couple of hours away. She could stay awake that long reading—that should keep her distracted away from thoughts of peeping toms and boogie men hiding in the shadows. She wrapped the comforter around her like a cloak, pulled her knees up under it, and turned to Chapter One. Rufus curled up at her feet, tucked his head under his tail and soon started to snore.
    Reading did, in fact, distract Miranda so well that she fell asleep without intending to. By the time she jerked awake, stiff from her curled, uncomfortable position, morning had come and the rain had stopped. The sky was still overcast and gray, but a breeze scooted the clouds quickly overhead and the sun actually managed to force a few rays through, low on the eastern horizon.
    It was too early to go into town and talk to the electric company, so Miranda decided to confront the specters of the night before by going inside and seeing what the house looked like by light of day. First, she ate some cookies and drank water from her thermos to stave off her hunger, then filled Rufus’s dish with dry kibble. Before feeding him she let him go outside and followed him slowly, stretching and looking around carefully.
    The rain, which usually left such a clean feeling in springtime, only seemed to have made the fallen leaves and trampled undergrowth look sodden and weary. Around the circular gravel driveway, the lawn had grown wild and gone to seed. The long, thick grass curved in