Hannahwhere

by John McIlveen

  She wasn’t there.

  Cold fingernails sunk into the back of his neck, driving such a surge of terror through him that nearly buckled his legs. Travis leapt across the cell, blindly flailing his arms. He backed into the corner of the cell, between the observation window and the exterior window, and looked desperately around the room, willing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. As his vision adapted, she started to emerge from the shadows diagonally across the room from him, those darkness-ringed eyes accusing him.

  She vanished… and then appeared in the corner to his left… and then to his right… and then she was gone.

  Travis cowered in the corner, pleading for her to leave him alone, appealing to the sun to rise. He waited in the dark silence.

  … and waited… five minutes… ten minutes.

  She reappeared inches from his face, her eyes boring into his.

  “Travissssss,” she hissed, sounding dry as a desert wind.

  She disappeared.

  Travis catapulted to the cell door, slamming his fists and begging anyone to open it. In the hallway beyond his cell door, all remained still and silent. Outside from the window ledge, Hannah watched Travis’s breakdown and smiled.

  It hadn’t been easy finding Travis, but it had been worth it.