Lightning sizzled through the sky, striking a tree. A horrid rending noise keened through the night as the wood splintered and a heavy branch fell with a thud. The ground shook and she nearly fell.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

More shots! People were yelling, screaming through the hail of bullets. Someone was howling miserably as if he or she, too, had been hit.

But her father lay still, his color fading to black and white.

“Dad!” she screamed again.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Kristi sat bolt upright in her chair.

Oh, God, she’d been dreaming, the nightmare vivid and terrorizing. Her heart was thundering, fear and adrenaline screaming through her blood, sweat breaking out on her skin.

She jumped, then looked at the clock and realized she was hearing the sound of firecrackers. People were ringing in the new year. Muted laughter and shrieking reached her ears. Church bells on campus peeled and over the din she heard the sound of horrible yowling, the noise she’d attributed to someone injured in the attack.

“Dear God,” she whispered, her heart still thundering.

Still a little groggy, she pushed herself up from the chair. She’d been reading about a serial killer and the imagined images still danced inside her head as she shoved her hair from her eyes and then walked to the door of her studio. Only her desk light was on, and aside from the pool of light cast from the small lamp, the room was in shadows. Peeking through the peephole in the door, she saw nothing. Just the empty stair landing where the dim bulb in the ceiling offered a hazy blue glow. Still the crying continued. Leaving the chain locked, she slid the dead bolt out of place and opened the door a crack.

Instantly a skinny black cat shot inside.

“Whoa…!” Kristi watched as the half-starved creature scurried under the daybed, the bedskirt undulating in the cat’s wake. “Oh, come on, kitty…kitty…no…” Kristi followed the scrawny animal, then got down on her knees and peered under the skirt. Two yellow eyes, round with fear, stared back at her. Somehow the damned thing had wedged itself between the top mattress and the lower trundle in a space barely wide enough for Kristi’s hand. “Come on, kitty, you really can’t be here.” She tried to reach into the tight space but the cat hissed and flattened itself deeper in the crevice, its body pressed against the wall. “I mean it, come out.” Again, she was shown a curling pink tongue and needle-sharp fangs. “Great. Okay.”