I-I-I Need Help

“A knock at the door at this hour?” Sam mumbles as she slides her feet into her fluffy slippers. She squints toward the clock on her night stand in case it’s too bright.

“2:47?” Sam had only gotten to bed almost two hours ago, after spending the day writing her upcoming novel. She seemed to not have time for anything else these days.

“I can’t, I’m too busy” replays in her head. It used to be a common phrase that left her lips. Her friends never understood her passion for horror stories. She always thought she could use better friends. Part of her wishes they didn’t give up asking.

But the issue stands. Sam is in her house alone, which isn’t new, but is something she can’t prevent from circling around her mind as she makes her way down her oak stairs to see who could be at the door.

Sam peers through the little hole. “Damn-it.” she whispers in frustration. She thinks back to the other day. realizing her porch light was out but being too wrapped up in her book to do anything about it. “Of course I did this to myself.” she thinks.

“Who is it?” She says shakily. Barely getting the words out. No answer. “Hello?” She asks, this time much clearer, to make sure she’s good to go back to bed.

As she begins to walk off, she hears a pathetic voice whimper back to her. “I-I-I need help.” He stutters. He sounds young, like he could be a teenager.

Sam isn’t naive. She knows people have claimed they need help just to get in your house and hurt you or take your things. The idea of it happening to her flashes through her mind for a second. “What do you need help with?” She says. This time, not holding back the frustration that has caught up to her since being woken up.

“There was a man following me up the street. I tried knocking on a few doors. You’re the only one that came.” Everything starts to feel a little more urgent for Sam. “Do I trust this boy or not?” She asks herself quietly.

“Why didn’t you call the police?” She asks through the door, thinking that will fend him off if he has ulterior motives. “I-I-I don’t have my phone” he seemed to stutter with the word I. She took it as some sort of lack of confidence in himself.

“I’ll call for you. Just wait outside.” She yells back to him. She hears an I. “I-I-I think he’s trying to find me. I-I-I’m scared.” Sam wishes he was on anyone else’s porch, but she can hear the fear in his voice.

Sam opens the door, just a crack. Bracing for the possibility of him pushing it open further, but he doesn’t. Her eyes take a few moments to adjust to the darkness but then she sees him. Wearing all black with a hood on. She can see tears on the parts of his cheeks that are exposed. “Come in.” She says, reluctantly.

When the boy walks into her house, his movements are slow and his head is down. “What’s your name?” She says as she walks toward the phone she has hung up in her kitchen. “Owen” he replies with a flatter voice than before. Sam assumes he feels safer in the house.

“Can you tell me exactly what happened so I can relay it to the operator?” She says in a motherly tone. Sam never wanted kids of her own. Her books are her babies. But she was never against the idea of being the most loved aunt, although she had no siblings.

“I-I-I was outside. I-I-I saw an old man staring at me. From the shadows. He didn’t move.” Owen shifts like visualizing it is making him uncomfortable. “Then he started walking towards me. When the light hit his face he had an evil grin. I-I-I started running and so did he. I-I-I just kept praying I was faster than him.”

Sam suddenly feels bad for questioning this boy. But in the back of her mind, she reassures herself by thinking of getting hurt or robbed again. “How far was this?” Sam asks. “A block or two away. Owen replies. Sam didn’t know many people in her neighborhood. She doesn’t like that about herself. If she knew people in the neighborhood maybe she could say “Oh! That’s just Edward, he has dementia, sorry he scared you”

In reality, Owen’s story scared her. She imagined how she would have reacted if she was in Owen’s shoes. She probably wouldn’t have been so calm about trying to get out of the street.

As Sam is about to dial 9-1-1, she halts as Owen speaks on the subject one more time. “Oh and his eyes were black” “black how?” She asks, hoping he just means the iris. “All black. Even the white parts.” He says back as tears start to form in his eyes again.

She thinks of a list of things she could say back, but figure none of them would make Owen feel better. She calls 9-1-1 and tells the operator everything Owen told her. “We can send someone to see if the man is still out there, but other than that, there’s not much we can do.”

Sam sighs as she tells the nasally voiced woman “That would be great.” Really, she was hoping to hear more concern about where this boy came from. She guessed it was up to her to find out.

“Do you want anything to drink” she asks and gestures him to sit in the arm chair in her living room. “Just water please” Owen says in a sweet tone. He sits in the chair and pushes the hood off of his head.

He couldn’t have been more than fifteen. With shaggy dark brown hair and brown eyes. “How old are you?” Sam asks. “I-I-I’m thirteen.” “And why were you outside?” Owen began to cry.

“I-I-I snuck out.” The only thing more pitiful than his stutter was the crack in his voice as he said it. “I-I-I’m going to get in so much trouble.” Sam reassures him. “I’m sure your parents will just be happy to know you’re okay.”

Sam glances at the clock hanging above the doorway. It had only been fifteen minutes. While waiting for a police officer, she ponders what will happen next in her book. A haunted house with a terror in every room. She had gotten to the part where the protagonist checks out the basement. “Maybe it’ll be an old man with black eyes,” she thought. “No, not scary enough.” She argued.

_Knock-knock-knock. _The sound brings her back to reality. She walks over to the door and yells through it “Hello?” A man’s voice replies “you said you needed someone to come check the area?” Perfect timing.

When she opens the door she’s greeted by an officer. He steps in and greets the boy. “How are you doing?” Owen looks down. “Well I didn’t see anyone out there. I just wanted to let you know the coast is clear.” That’s not what Sam wanted to hear and she knew it couldn’t have made Owen feel any less uneasy.

The cop says goodbye and walks out the door. Sam looks over at the boy, who still has his head down. “Oh wait.” She says out loud, meaning to have said it in her head.

She opens the door, shutting it behind her. She didn’t want Owen to hear her and feel like a burden. She jogs to the passenger side of the police cruiser. “What about that little boy? I don’t know where he lives. I thought you would take him home.” The officer looks confused.

“What little boy?” “Sir, I don’t know that boy. He’s the one that was getting chased, not me.” The officer still looks confused in a way that makes Sam angry. Do they not tell them the details of the call? “Okay, go get him.”

As Sam takes a few steps towards the door, she notices it’s open and stops in her tracks. “I could’ve sworn I closed that door.” She whispered to herself, still hoping the officer would catch on to her concern. She slowly makes her way up the stairs and peeps her head through the doorway to her living room. Gone. Owen is nowhere to be seen.

Frantically, she speeds back to the police cruiser. “Sir! Sir! He ran out! We have to look for him!” “Shit. “The officer says. Seems like his calm demeanor was boredom, now that there was a real issue going on, he had more passion in his voice. “Get in.” He says sternly.

As they start down the road, Sam’s eyes are scanning everything they meet. She feels sick to her stomach. Replaying his tears as he said he snuck out. “Maybe he didn’t want his parents to find out.” She says “that he snuck out I mean. He told me that when we were waiting for you to show up.” “That’s a possibility he says.”

“Can you give me a brief description” the cop asks. “Are you kidding me?” Sam thought to herself. “Some cop.” She mumbles under her breath. He has that same look of confusion and Sam tightens her fists.

Everything started to catch up to her. It was past 3:30 now. She was woken up to a scared boy and had to wait for authorities to show up. Now she’s outside looking for the boy and the cop can’t even do his job right. She should be asleep so she can work on her novel first thing in the morning.

“I SHOULD HAVE JUST DEALT WITH IT MYSELF!” She yells. Partially to the officer, partially to the universe. “Ma’am calm down. I can’t help you if I don’t know what the boy looks like. “YOU JUST SAW HIM. BROWN HAIR BROWN EYES. ITS NOT HARD TO REMEMBER!”

“What do you mean I just saw him?” He asks, almost laughing. “I only saw your dad.” “Sir, my dad lives in Florida.” She says in defeat. He pauses to think. “Then who was that old man?” Sam can’t answer. She doesn’t understand what’s going on and it’s hurting her head to think about.

After a few minutes they see someone walking on the side of the road. A young woman. The officer pulls over to ask her if she’d seen a boy. She doesn’t respond. Instead, she turns toward the car with a grin. Sam notices this and it makes her freeze. Her eyes make their way up to her eyes. They’re dark. “What the fuck is going on here?” She asks herself over and over as she tries to move. But she’s frozen.

“Ma’am are you alright?” The cop asks as if he’s seen something like this before. Sam doubts that he has. “I-I-I’m fine” the woman says. “What. The. Fuck.” Sam says quietly. “DRIVE!” She screams. The woman takes a step toward the car and luckily, right before she got close enough to touch the car, the cop pulls off.

Sam wants to tell him why she just yelled. She wants to tell him what’s going on but she can’t even put it into words. Then she thinks about how ironic that is.

The cop acknowledges the strangeness of the situation, but Sam doesn’t say anything other than “you can take me home now.” The officer makes her fill out a form detailing what happend.

But she didn’t include everything. Just repeated what she said on the 9-1-1 call. Sam was filled with both horror and excitement. She knew what the protagonist would come across in the basement.