The house was warm. Or maybe it just felt that way to me, because my metabolism was out of whack. The heat and the tiredness of the day made my eyes blink shut. My head fell back against the sofa cushions, and I slept. I had disturbing dreams of being ten years old again, of running through the woods with an invisible monster in the darkness behind me. I kept calling for help, from my father, from my brother, from Darrell, from Tom. No one came to rescue me. I woke up with a start just as I felt the beast’s claws on my skin.

The house was definitely not warm anymore. My unreliable furnace had gone out while I slept. I sat on the sofa, trembling with chill. I checked my watch and saw that I’d missed the whole evening. It was just after midnight.

Around me, something felt wrong. I didn’t know what it was. Call it an instinct. A sensation of dread, as if my nightmare had followed me into real life. Except when I studied the room, I saw nothing to explain it. Everything looked the same.

But something was different.

What?

I struggled my way off the sofa and stood up. Outside, the street was dark. My neighbors were asleep. A fall rain had begun, and the wind blew wet leaves from the big oak tree onto the windows. I checked to make sure that the windows were locked, which they were. I still did that every day, part-habit, part-precaution. I always kept the front door locked, too.

Or had I forgotten tonight?

I returned to the foyer and checked. The door was locked, as it should have been. I opened it and stepped onto the covered porch in my stockinged feet. The rain made a gentle, steady music on the overhang and in the street beyond. The rain on fall nights could last for hours. I listened. I eyed the shadows. I smelled the air for something other than peaty dampness, like a cigarette, or car exhaust, or gasoline. But the entire neighborhood felt normal, a night like any other.

Inside, I locked the door again, but my nervousness refused to go away. If anything, it grew worse. I went to each of the downstairs rooms and checked the other windows, but they were locked, too. So was the door to the backyard. The basement had a dead bolt that was undisturbed, and when I put my ear to the door, I heard nothing. It seemed impossible that anyone could have gotten inside without me being aware of it. And yet that was what I felt.

A presence.