#FridayFlash - Don't Look Back

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A man broke into our house when I was nine. My dad was away on business - at least, that's what Mom told me. I found out later he was visiting his new girlfriend in Hackensack. Anyway. This man broke in. Turned out he'd been stalking Mom for weeks - the papers later called him the Machete Killer. They were never imaginative with names. He chased her around the house, and the noise woke me up. Mom tried to get me to leave, to go and get help. I ran across the lawn, lights already coming on in the neighbouring houses. Mom screamed and I looked back. I saw why they called him the Machete Killer.

At Mom's funeral, some mad aunt I'd never met before told me the story of Lot and his wife, as if I was somehow to blame for looking back. That guy would have killed my mom whether I was looking or not but I got the point. Don't look back. I never have.

I blamed my dad for not being there, so I went to live with my uncle. He took little interest in me so I sort of drifted through life. I walked out of high school on the last day - everyone else was hanging around, making plans for things to do. I left and never looked back. I met a girl in college, dated her for a while, but she couldn't decide between me and the captain of the football team. I broke up with her in the street, and left her crying on the sidewalk. I never looked back. I got a job in a law firm, did reasonably well, and after a couple of years, decided I wanted to be a writer. I quit, and packed up my few things in a cardboard box. I walked out of the building, and didn't look back.

I got a job in an occult bookstore to pay the rent while I worked on my novel. The owner did weird stuff in the backroom while I minded the store. I never asked what - I just didn't care, as long as I got paid. Earlier today I accidentally walked in while he was busy, found him stood in the centre of a circle of salt, chanting mumbo jumbo and waving something around that looked like a thigh bone.

I just left work, and I'm walking towards the subway. Footsteps echo in the street behind me, footsteps that match mine. I speed up, they speed up. I slow down, they slow down. I cross the street, they cross the street. Except now they're getting closer. I can feel hot breath on the back of my neck, hot breath that smells like something crawled into a hole and died.

But it's okay. If I don't see it, it isn't there.

I won't look back.

(Original photo by ColinBroug, edits by me)