Him ~ chapter nine

By Maryanna Gabriel

    A new day dawned and I was fairly skipping out of doors checking on things. I stopped. I went cold. The gates were wide open. In fact, all of the gates were open. I know I had closed everything before I went to bed because I had changed the locks.

     He'd been here.

    I phoned the RCMP. They started another case file. "This is believed to be connected to events last night," I said. "How do you know how to correlate events?" The administrator in me was puzzled. No answer to that but a constable was on his way. This was a new officer. He chuckled when I showed him. "No wonder he didn't want to leave. All this and you did laundry? I want to move in." I looked pained. There was nothing he could officially do. There was no evidence linking events. I sniffed. There was garbage strewn throughout the cottage. My main goal for the day was working on clearing the debris so that I could eliminate the smell. Several trips to the dump were in order. The mattress topper had to go. So did the rug. He had left Jehovah Witness pamphlets carefully positioned for my edification. Apparently he thought my soul needed saving. Marveling at this thought I busied myself. I bought chains and locks for the gates. More expense but I needed to sleep. 

    The following morning I came out and rails that I had used to border my property from my neighbours were thrown into the next yard. Sighing I put them back. My main mission was getting the duvets dry cleaned. They reeked. I was gone for ten minutes at the most. When I returned my jaw dropped.