There was someone else in the house. I knew that as surely as I knew it was dead dark. That was how I knew. My room held not a single flicker of illumination, and the doorway was merely a deeper shade in a room filled with blackness. And in my home, that was absolutely forbidden.

I lay motionless, listening. Something had awakened me. Something that had penetrated the Valium-coated walls behind which I slept. My heart was beating triple-time; my breathing sounded hideously loud to my straining ears. My chest was struggling to expand against the smothering heaviness of the dark. I swallowed slowly, and held my breath in an effort to hear more clearly.

Ru-ut. A sound I knew well, a sound that normally brought warmth and nostalgia. The deep-throated creak of bodyweight falling on a particular board in my old kitchen floor. Usually a frequent accompaniment to a supper party. Tonight, it brought undiluted terror.

The gun. I had kept a loaded-but-safetied 12-gauge shotgun tucked under my bed since my downstairs neighbor had been gang-raped last summer, after interrupting a “hot” robbery. The gun was too big for me; I could barely hoist its unwieldy length to my shoulder. But the guy at the pawn shop had said, “Just aim it in the general vicinity of the intruder and pull the trigger – he’ll go down.” That was good enough for me.

As silently as possible, I slid, shivering with fear, from beneath the bedcovers. Crouching, I shoved my hand past the bedskirt and folded my fingers around the cold, reassuring barrel of the rifle. I pulled it out slowly and clutched it to my shaking body, feeling a tiny bit of the terror subside. Easing the safety off, I rose quietly and turned toward the barely-discernible doorway across the room.

Was there someone standing there? There seemed to be a darker shape within the black rectangle. I thought with horror of the white silk chemise I slept in – was white visible in near-total darkness? Of course it was! Virtually blind myself, my nightdress was no doubt serving as a homing beacon for the intruder. Pausing only a millisecond to gauge the distance between us, I vaulted across the bed while frantically struggling to raise the rifle.

As if he knew my intentions, I heard him move and felt the press of air as he rushed toward me. Everything seemed to shift into slow-motion, yet mere seconds passed. I heard a grunt as he hurled his body after me. Rough-skinned fingers snatched at my leg, but failed to secure a grip. Desperately, I levered the heavy rifle into postion, the barrel mere inches from his head, and pulled the trigger. The blast knocked me sprawling, ears ringing from the percussion. But I knew I’d hit him. There had been the smallest sound, an “uhn!” of surprise as I’d fired. Panting, I scrambled to my feet and reached for the lamp switch.

He lay on his side, half-off the bed. There wasn’t much left of his face, just a stomach-turning mass of bloody tissue. Bits of grayish brain matter were spattered over the pillows. But I knew who he was. I had given him the pink paisley tie myself, daring him to wear it. It was a favorite of his. David. My fiancé. Numb with shock, I stared at the calendar hanging on the wall behind his body. There was a fat splash of blood partially obscuring tomorrow’s date and the note scrawled across it: David comes home!!!

He was early.