Light danced across the carpet of wet leaves that hid the sidewalk as the man walked, dipping and weaving through the cloud of cigarette smoke as he blew out after another long drag. You stink up the whole house when you do that, his wife’s voice nagged in his head you said you would quit last year. She was right but telling her that wouldn’t do him any good. She was insufferable when she knew she was right.

The shouting that had started up, like it had so many times recently, had stopped almost as soon as he had slammed the door behind him. Sure, she had shouted that he couldn’t come back until he was done acting like a teenage brat, but that usually just meant he could come back when she was asleep and would have to spend the night on the couch. He took another drag of his cigarette. He hated when his daughter had to come downstairs and see him sprawled out on that couch, he hated it, even more, when he realized she had gotten used to it.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his phone ringing in his pocket. The shrill mechanical tones cut through the silence of the night like a knife. The man lifted the phone to his ear, bracing for another wave of half-drunken beratement from his supposed better half. He pulled the small cellular device out of his pocket, its pale glow illuminating the blocky unregistered caller in place of a name.

Quizzically, the man picked up.The voice that spoke on the other end was thin and rough as if the person speaking had never drank anything in their life,

“Every step you take away is a step I take closer, the rafters remember how you smell.”

The phone promptly hung up, leaving the man in his bewilderment. A prank call, he told himself, it had to have been. His neighbors had kids, or at least he thought they did, one of them must have gotten his number and called him. But what kind of punk kid knows how to avoid caller I.D.?

The man sucked in another long drag, letting the smoke pour out of his nostrils in a nervous sigh. It had to have been a prank call. It just had to be! What kind of line was every step you take away is a step I take closer anyway? The man sighed again, feeling his pulse begin to slow to normal. Someone’s kid must have seen him storm out of his house and decided to have a bit of fun at his expense. Yes, he thought, that was it. He crushed the butt of his cigarette underfoot and lit another, shielding the flame of his lighter from the growing breeze.

The trees creaked in the wind above him, their branches throwing frantic wooden talons of shadow across the light of the street lamps. The man remembered how his roof would creak like those branches, every time a storm would pelt the house with rain and wind they would hear it. The beams that his better half said his cough nails were stinking up would shift and shudder all night so hard that even the boards between their bedroom and the attic would groan.

The shriek of his ringtone scattered the man’s thoughts for the second time that night as his phone buzzed to life once again. It hadn't even occurred to him that he had forgotten to return the device to his pocket. He brought the phone to his ear as he tried to will his heart to stop pounding against his ribs,

“Every step you take away is a step I take closer, your daughter doesn’t like it when mommy and daddy yell, it makes her want to hide!” The line went dead as abruptly as before. It had been the same thin, dry voice, the same kind of cryptic message.

The man lowered the phone to his side in a shaky white-knuckled hand, focusing intently on putting one foot in front of the other. The darkened windows of houses seemed to glare at him from either side of the road, the streetlamps casting their accusing gazes down on him as he continued to walk. A quivering hand brought his cigarette back to his mouth, the butt skipping off of his lips several times before finding its mark. His mind refused to make any sort of sense of what was going on. He wondered about calling the police. But what would he say ‘someone keeps calling me and saying cryptic lines before hanging up,’ what kind of sense did that make? He could call his wife, no, not that, she would almost certainly take that as a win. He pulled his hand away from his face and realized he had been stroking the hard line of his wedding band for some time. He sighed out a mouth full of smoke, questions still swirling around in his head. If he turned back for home, and could somehow get past the smug satisfaction of his wife, what would bringing up the calls do but scare their little girl more than she already was? He heaved another sigh and took another drag, steadying one hand with the other as his heart hammered against his ribs with just a bit less force and then again a bit softer still.

The ring of his phone this time was enough to make the man jump out of his skin, sending his cigarette drawing yellow circles through the air as his sharp exhale blew it several feet ahead of him. A shaky hand lifted the phone to his ear.

“What do you want you bastard!” the man shouted, his voice reverberating through the cool autumn night.

“Every step you take away is a step I take closer, your wife drinks wine whenever you leave like this, it smells so sweet!” silence followed the thin voice’s final word for the third time.

Forgetting his walk, forgetting everything else, the man turned and bolted for home. His thumping heart certainly hadn’t done him any favors, he thought. His lungs began to burn almost immediately. Best he could remember, he hadn’t run like this since high school. He tore down the street toward his house, adrenalin and dread twisting his gut in knots as he bounded over rotting piles of leaves that muffled his footsteps as he went.

No time for keys, he thought as he bolted across his yard toward his front door. The rusted deadbolt he had called someone to fix months ago gave way to the weight of him throwing himself against it. Pain tore through his body as he spilled across the floor of his mud room. His arm ached, his head throbbed, he stood and steadied himself against the wall.

Blood, so much blood, soaked his coat and pants from where he had rolled through it. The walls were painted scarlet with it. The man lurched forward toward his living room but fell to his knees in the doorway. The sight in front of him was enough to cause him to dry heave. In the midst of his retching came the buzz and jungle of his phone ringing. As if pulled by invisible strings, phone and shaking hand rose up to his ear,

When the voice spoke this time, the man heard it both through the phone and directly above him,

“You’re home!”