I don’t even know what to do. The phone slips from my hand, landing on the couch next to me. Squeaker looks down at the phone as it misses her front paw by millimeters.

“No way. That’s not real. It can’t be. I turned off all the cameras. No one was there. I made sure of it!” I grab the phone and replay the message.

It’s real.

My heart beats so fast in my chest it feels like it’s one continuous beat. “Deep breaths. Deep breaths. We don’t know that she’s talking about the thing with Mike. It could be anything. Maybe it’s the fact that I broke the company mug. That could totally be it. She’s a bit of a psycho.”

Except that voicemail didn’t sound like a “you broke the mug and now you’re in trouble” kind of voicemail. I flop against the back of the couch and sigh. I don’t know what I’m going to do if she knows. She’s going to turn me in for sure. And then where will Squeaker go?

“Oh no! Squeaker!” Tears start to fall down my cheeks at the mere thought that I’m going to have to give her up when I go to prison. I squeeze her in a hug that’s apparently tighter than she likes because she wiggles to get free. I let go and she jumps down onto the floor, flopping onto her side and closing her eyes.

“I can’t jump to conclusions.”

I wipe my face off with the back of my hands, place my hands on my knees and stand up. “I need to go to bed. Maybe all the lack of sleep is getting to me.” My legs feel like they are pushing through mud as I make my way to the kitchen. The pendant light over the sink gives me just enough light so that I can get a glass of water and take my vitamin. I grab a carrot for Squeaker and flip off the light. My eyes adjust quickly as Squeaker and I make our way to the bedroom. The lamp on my nightstand illuminates the room in a yellow glow when I turn it on. Squeaker climbs her little steps up to the top of the bed and waits patiently. She knows that she’s getting a carrot. This is what we do. The thought of someone else doing this, or not doing this for her, tears my heart apart. Why did I have to do that?!?

Squeaker lays down, props the carrot up between her two front paws, and gnaws away at it while I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth and get ready for bed. When I return, there’s not even any residue that she had a carrot in bed. I climb into bed, pull the covers up and flick off the light. A car’s headlights bounce across my ceiling as Squeaker comes up and nestles next to me, laying her head on my pillow.

I try to focus on my breathing like my therapist taught me to do.

In, out.

In, out.

My heart rate is slowing down in my chest, finally, and I feel the gift of sleep wash over me, as every muscle relaxes.

My legs can’t move. I must’ve been more tired that I realize. I try to walk but it feels like my feet weigh 50 pounds each. The dirt road ahead of me is long and straight. It fades out in the distance in a dust cloud. It’s pretty here. The tall wheat-like grass glows golden in the sunlight as it sways back and forth with the gentle summer breeze. I try to keep walking, but my feet get heavier and heavier with each step until I hit the point where I can’t move at all.

The ground starts to vibrate beneath my feet. At first, it’s just a little, and then the ground moves like a wave underneath me, knocking me to the ground. Suddenly the air feels cold and there’s a strange roar coming from behind me. I try to look but I can’t turn my neck. I can feel it coming up behind me. It’s getting louder. The sky is turning black as my feet start to sink into the ground below.

I’m being swallowed whole!

A voice comes from behind me masked in the roar. “I know, Effervescent. I know.”

As the sound of the roar gets louder, so does the voice inside it.

“I KNOW! I KNOW! I KNOW!”

My legs are now deep within the earth, and I can’t budge them. The only thing I can do is brace myself against the dirt road with my arms that are increasingly getting shorter. The shorter they get, the farther in I sink.

“What do you know?!? Let me go!” My voice is a raspy flutter of words fighting against the beast in the roar.

“You know what I know. I saw you. I KNOW, EFFI!”

My waist is disappearing beneath the dirt and gravel of the road. My arms are barely half the length they are normally. Just as I feel the earth start to press into me, making it hard to breathe, a loud crash comes from my right.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Squeaker bolts to the end of the bed and starts barking. That’s when I realize the crash wasn’t part of my dream. Something broke somewhere in the house. I whip the blankets off from my sweating body, grab the baseball bat from behind the garbage can and tiptoe to the door. I really need to get an alarm system.

I listen for what feels like forever, but I don’t hear anything. The only thing I hear is Squeaker breathing next to me, and she’s not even breathing that loud. I tiptoe down the hallway and peek inside the bathroom. Should I pull back the shower curtain? Flashes of scary movie scenes pass through my mind and as much as I don’t want to do it, I know that I need to look. I tiptoe into the bathroom, my trusty cavapoo at my side, and I slowly reach a finger into the shower curtain. Carefully and quietly, I pull the shower curtain just enough that I can peek inside without tipping off the intruder that I’m onto him.

What if this is the watcher from work? Is it possible that he knows where I live? What if he followed me home and I didn’t realize it? And he was just waiting for me to go to sleep before he snuck in to slit my throat.

I really need to stop watching those movies.

As my finger pulls the shower curtain a couple of inches, I see that there’s nothing in there. Bathroom is clear.

I tiptoe out of the bathroom, and down the hall. I come to the part of the house where the kitchen is to the right of me, and the living room is to the left of me. When I look in the living room, I see that everything looks normal. The door is still closed, and I think it looks like the lock is still set but it’s kind of dark to tell for sure. The kitchen looks fine too, except, what’s that on the floor?

“Squeaker, stay. I don’t know what’s on the floor and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Squeaker sits on the carpeted floor at my feet as I take a step into the kitchen. A couple of steps in, something stabs my big toe. I reach over and flick the light on. As my eyes adjust to the violent stream of light piercing my eyes, I see shattered glass all over the floor. I look at the windows and the backdoor, but everything looks fine.

Wait. It’s very quiet in here. Something is missing.

I make my way around the small kitchen table and see Mike’s clock smashed to pieces on the floor. How did that fall off the wall? It’s been up there for years. Ever since we moved in. I’m not heartbroken, that’s for sure, but it’s still really weird that the clock fell down after all this time.

After I lean the baseball bat against the wall, I find the broom in the pantry and sweep up the shattered glass. The piece that stabbed my toe never stuck all the way in so I don’t have to clean up any blood, thankfully. I’ve had enough blood to clean up lately.

Once everything is cleaned and the clock is in the trash, I put the broom back. I grab the baseball bat on my way back through and find Squeaker asleep on the floor, which is a good sign. If there was truly anyone in here, Squeaker wouldn’t be asleep.

“C’mon Squeaks. Let’s go back to bed.” She opens one eye and looks like she’s contemplating staying on the floor. “The bed is softer, friend. C’mon.”

Squeaker groggily stands up and then follows me back to bed. I put the baseball bat behind the garbage and climb back into bed. I want to look at the clock to see what time it is, but I also know that if I do that, I’ll know how much longer I have to sleep and that might make it hard to go back to sleep. As I contemplate this whole dumb thing, my eyes close and my body relaxes. I wouldn’t even be able to look at the clock if I wanted to at this point as I slowly drift off to a dreamless sleep.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

“Gah!” I slam my hand against my alarm clock, desperate to make the sound stop even if it means hitting the snooze bar. Somehow, I accidentally changed it from radio to that horrible screaming alarm. Nothing like waking up to an alarm induced panic attack.

I roll over and ruffle Squeakers fur. It feels good to have finally slept, even though I had that terrible nightmare. And what was the deal with the clock falling off the wall in the middle of the night? So bizarre!

As I’m getting ready for work, I can’t help but worry about what Viv has to say. I know that she’s going to pull me into her office. I might as well go right up to see her and get it over with. Ugh! That’s the last thing I want to start my day with, but I know there’s no avoiding it.

Knowing that I’m going to see Viv, I attempt to look my best. I put makeup on to cover the remnants of my dark circles, it’s going to take more sleep than that, and I fix my hair so that I look almost as good as Barbie. There’s no way that I’ll ever get my hair to conform as well as hers does. I don’t even know how she does it. Maybe it’s a wig. Maybe Barbie is secretly bald, and she wears a wig every day. The thought makes me giggle and Squeaker looks up at me.

“What? It’d be kind of funny.” I shrug my shoulders and flick off the light in the bathroom. I grab a tumbler from the kitchen, shove it into my bag, and then open the fridge.

“Oh no! Squeaker, I’m so sorry! I forgot to make your Kong again. I’m a terrible mommy.” When I open the cabinets, I see there’s only a couple of cans of her wet dog food left. I’ll have to get more of that before we go to Connecticut. IF I go to Connecticut. The thought makes me sick to my stomach at the thought of someone else taking care of my Squeaker.

I scoop the filet mignon loaf into a dish, sprinkle a little turmeric on top and add a dollop of coconut oil. I set it on the floor and Squeaker is making a dent in it before I have a chance to turn around. “See you in a while, Squeaks. At least I hope I do.”

I grab my keys and phone before heading out the door. I take one last look at Squeaker and swallow the tears that are threatening to start my day. No. I worked too hard on this make-up. We don’t even know what Psycho Viv knows. It could be anything. It could even be that she knows I have to take Squeaker with us to Connecticut. Or maybe she already knows that. I honestly can’t keep track of what anyone knows, and I hope I don’t have to after today. This secret weighs a lot.

The drive in is uneventful and I hit all of the lights green. Maybe that’s a good sign? When I pull into the parking lot, Viv’s car is already here. My stomach drops and I almost feel like I’m going to faint. Maybe I should’ve just taken Squeaker and run off. I have money in the bank. I could’ve started over somewhere else. I’d have to get a new identity. Ugh! I wouldn’t even know how to do any of this stuff. Maybe Kendra will take care of Squeaker when I go to prison.

I walk into the building and the camera snaps my picture. I’m a little earlier than normal but that doesn’t work in my favor. I make it to the breakroom and start filling my tumbler with coffee when Viv calls over the intercom system, “Effi, please come to my office.”