Anger management

The man looked around just to check if someone was watching. The door handle shrieked as he pressed it down and then he turned around and opened the door. He entered the apartment in complete silence. First he looked at all the valuable things, but he didn't look interested at all, then he sat down in her sofa and grabbed a pillow and stroke the fuzzy surface totally focused on its softness.

   She crept up behind him holding a big kitchen knife steady in her right hand while tears were running down her cheek. The perfect make-up she had worn an hour ago was now spread all over her face. She noticed that the front door was still open. Would she have time to run out and call for help or would he notice before she even reached the door?

   The man sat motionless on the sofa as he heard her fast breathing behind him but still he didn't move an inch. A satisfied smile spread over his face, and by the facial expression it looked like as if he enjoyed the moment. He continued stroking the pillow, and suddenly Anna's mobilephone rung. He picked it up and answered.

"Hello, who is this?" a woman's voice said. Anna recognized the voice; it was her best friend Isabel who was calling back.

"Hi, I am nobody special", the man answered. She noticed that his pronunciation was really bad and she felt like she had heard it before.

"What are you doing there?" the woman yelled and asked for the person whos living in the house.

"I'm a friend, she is in the shower. I go now, bye." he recalled and looked really angry, and threw the mobilephone against the wall. It smashed into pieces at the same place where the other phone was lying.

"You have weird friends", he said and turned around to look at her. She recoiled and looked at him in shock and dropped the knife on the floor.

   He stood up and walked up to her, looked at her face for a moment, and then he stroked the bare skin on her arms. She was completely paralysed.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked with an irritating but calm voice. "Maybe a long lost lover, don´t you remember?"

   After saying those words she finally remembered who he was, an expression of fear spread over her already paled face. She remembered the little boy he once was, the chubby medium dark skinned boy with the thick glasses whom she and some other people bullied in third grade because of his feeling for Anna.

He lovingly stroked the skin on her neck with his soiled hands and looked her deeply in her eyes.

"I have been waiting for so long to do this!"

"Do what?" She cried out as his hands moved towards her throat.

   His hands closed around her neck. She tried to gasp for air but couldn't, then she felt as if the room was spinning around very fast. Suddenly it stopped and everything slowly faded to a bright white light.

The man walked slowly out from the apartment, he stopped on the porch and picked up a small pice of paper from the front pocket of his trousers. He picked up a pen and stroke over a name, after reviewing the paper once more he put it back in his pocket and walked further on.

The End...

Anna ran as fast as she could and cursed the sun for going down so early in the winter. She had been on her work and she had to work over for a while to finish her report. But now she was finaly on her way home. Suddenly she stoped, gasping for air and had to make a choice. Either way she had to take the longer way where the cars drove and had lights all the way or she she could cross the dark wood and she'd be home in a couple of minutes.

   The night was comming in and she decided to run into the wood although her huge phobia against the dark, but she would at least be home in about a second.

   In the middle of the wood she got an eeire feeling, like a shiver in the spine, like something was following her but as she turned her head around nothing, or nobody was there.

    When she got out on the other side she felt relieved, but terrified.

Her hands were trembling while she picked up the bunch of keys from her bag, searched for the right key and tried to hit the keyhole. The keys were rattling against the lock as she opened the door, and the soft metallic noise echoed across the staircase. The apartment was pitching black as she entered and she walked slowly across the room and tried to find the light switch. The whole ritual was obligatory because of her extreme horror against the dark, only when all the lights were on could she calm down a bit.

   First the floor lamp in the hallway, then the small one with the brown lamp shade and at last the night light standing beside the bed. As the lights were all turned on she started to make herself at ease by turning on the stereo at full strength.

   She walked into the kitchen and noticed that the dirty dishes from today's breakfast were still lying around, not that it mattered very much; she hadn't washed the dishes by herself at all the past year. That's what becomes of some people who inherit money, they lose their ability to do things by themselves, and all she has to do now is to pay the cleaning lady who comes once a week.

   She lay down drowsy on the sofa, her eyelids were feeling really heavy, but as usual she always picked up her phone, and called some random people just to have a chat with someone. Before bedtime, it can get very lonely when you live all by yourself.

   While chatting she herd some strage sounds, as if someone lurked outside her front door. Her body froze to ice and she got wide awake.

"Wait a minute", she whispered in the phone and softly dropped it onto the sofa,

"Hey where did you go?" a soft scared voice called from the phone receiver.

   She picked up the phone and yelled at her friend.

"SHUT UP! I'm trying to concentrate here", in her anger she threw the phone at the wall, and then the only thing that was heard was a silent beep.

   Anna tried to focus on the front door, and in a sudden all the lights went out. All she could see now was the shadow of a narrow figure standing outside creeping in under the door.The only thing that she could hear was her own fast inhalations.

   A man was lurking outside a door. Who he was and what his business there was could nobody knew. He did not move very much, he just stood there as if he was waiting for something, perhaps the opportune moment, but for what?

   He had heard a young girl yell inside and a bang as she threw something against the wall, but he did not move, not an inch. He just stood there. The man was about middle age, maybe not even 30 but his pale face and the wrinkles on his forehead made him look old. His trousers were torn and the shirt he wore looked as if it used to be white, now all it resembled was something that had been found lying in a dumpster.

The man looked confused and nervous and he was constantly biting on his nails. Anna did almost not dare to move, the fear was so overwhelming that she almost fainted every time she tried to rise. What was she going to do? She looked around as if she was looking for something, then she started to crawl into the kitchen. She supported herself against the kitchen sink and stood up.