I Am Death

Forty-four

Adrenalin shot into Hunter’s veins like an angry buffalo stampede. For the moment, he disregarded what the envelope on the floor might contain and quickly positioned himself to the right of the front door, pressing his back flat against the wall. Waiting. Listening.

Thirty seconds.

Nothing.

Sixty.

Not a sound.

Ninety.

Dead quiet.

One hundred and twenty.

The lights outside were still off.

With his left hand, Hunter undid the security chain before turning the key in the lock, keeping it all as quiet as he could. When that was done, he waited another ten seconds before turning the handle and pulling the door open. Immediately, the motion sensor outside picked up the door movement and activated the lights.

Hunter’s apartment was the last one down the corridor, at the opposite end from where the elevator and stairs were. Being the last door on the left meant that there was nothing to the right of his front door except a solid wall. No one could hide there. With that in mind, and still with his back flat against the wall on the inside of his door, Hunter stretched his neck and looked down the corridor, in the direction of the stairs.

There was no one there.

Holding his weapon with a firm two-hand grip, Hunter finally stepped out of his apartment and into the corridor, his aim moving left then right, searching for a target.

He found none. The hallway was empty.

From his position, he could see that the elevator was on the ground floor. As far as he could see, the stairs also looked clear. Whoever had slid that envelope under his door was now long gone.

Hunter breathed out and thumbed the safety back on, but the tenseness in his muscles remained. Once he breathed in again, he felt an awkward surge of emotions rush through his body, as if he had breathed in more than just oxygen. He felt exactly as he had done so many times, as he stepped into a brutal crime scene for the first time. He felt like he was standing where evil had once been.

Back inside his apartment, with the door safely locked behind him, Hunter grabbed a pair of latex gloves from the bathroom and finally turned his attention to the envelope on the floor. At the back of it, there was no sender’s address.

Hunter got back into his living room and lifted the envelope against the floor lamp. The only thing he could make out was a folded-in-half sheet of paper. The color was uniform throughout it, which indicated that there was nothing else in there other than the sheet of paper.

Hunter walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a knife from the drawer before carefully tearing the envelope open at the top. A couple of seconds later, he began reading the killer’s new note.