The Neighbour(Short Story)
I arrive home from school each day at around 3:30 or 3:45 and every time I look at the window which belongs to the house next to mine, there is a cloaked figure that watches me.
The town I live in is small so everyone knows each other but I don’t know the person who lives next door to me. As far as I know an old woman lives in that house and moved in a few months ago but she has never been seen walking around the streets or coming out of her house.
Most of the time I ignore her staring at me thinking that she is looking at something near me. Other times I would stare at her back until she looked away.
One day I was walking back from school on the last day of the school year before the summer holidays and as soon as I stepped foot into my house, the old lady was there.
As soon as I saw her face I tried to run out the front door but she grabbed my arm and kept a firm grip on it.
“Where do you think you're going?”
“Running away from you.” I say.
“Tell me the name of your mother. Her full name.”
I remain silent. The old lady takes a knife out of her pocket and holds it against my throat. My hands start to shake and I shove them in my pocket to hide them. She can’t know what I’m feeling. She might use that against me.
“Tell me or I will slit your throat.”
I still remain silent. How much would I be willing to risk my life on the refusal of not giving my mother’s name? My starts racing of all the possible ways she could kill me and torture me. She won’t really kill me, right? She ‘s just doing it to make me talk right? Do I really want to find out? It is just a name she is asking for. What harm could that do?
“Do you really want to find out whether or not I’ll do it young lady because trust me it will not be a quick death. It will be slow and painful.”
I take a deep breath. I force my voice to not to break or sound shaky whilst I speak. “My mother’s name is Ava Black.”
“My mortal nemesis.” Says the old lady.
“Huh?”
“None of your business child just stay silent whilst I search the house.”
She walks off. I take my phone out of my pocket and I call my mum.
“Hello?” My mum says.
“Hello.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The old lady from the next door is here. She threatened me into giving your name and now she is searching the house.”
“There's something I need to tell you about….” Something cold and hard comes into contact with my head and I fall to the floor. The last thing I heard was a loud bang sound when my phone hit the floor.