My Final Story

I awoke suddenly, the dream quickly fading from my mind.  I was tangled in the sheets and sweating profusely.  I was no longer sure what had brought me up from the depths of sleep, but I was sure it had not been a part of my dream.

I sat shivering in my bed.  The blankets were balled up at the foot of the bed and a cold breeze was blowing through the room.  I yanked the covers up to my chin, lay down, and tried to go back to sleep.

I had almost fallen asleep when I noticed something that made me practically leap out of bed.  There was a cold breeze in the room, and I never slept with the window open.  I stood by the edge of the bed, shivering, my bare feet cooling against the wood floor.  I pulled a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around my shoulders.

I stumbled forward in the dark, fumbling for the light switch.  I stopped short halfway across the room, feeling broken glass cut my feet.  I breathed in heavy gasps, wondering how to deal with the obvious intruder.

The light blinked on.  A man in black stood by the door.  "Jennifer," he said.

"Joseph," I whispered.

"You know why I'm here, correct?"  He stepped toward me.  I stepped back.

"I'm not sure, Joseph."

"Yes, you are.  You know that you insulted me in your latest article.  You degraded me to nothing more than a mass murderer, a killer with no overall purpose."

"Aren't you?"  I was still retreating slowly, ignoring the blood on my feet.

"Come, Jennifer, you know better.  You are intelligent, and you know all about me.  that's why you're dangerous.  And that's why this all ends now."

"But you don't work like that.  I get one chance to redeem myself.  One chance, right?"  I was grasping at any strands of hope I could see, though my own future looked pretty dim.

"Right.  This time, though, I pick the challenge.  You are a well-known writer for the paper.  Write for me.  Write, and redeem yourself."

I went to my computer and began to write.  I wrote of Joseph, his shoulder-length sandy hair and his bright blue eyes.  I wrote of his tatto on his left shoulder of a brown bear on its hind legs.  I wrote of the slight limp Joseph walked with, favoring his right leg.  And as I wrote, I watched his face.  I watched his thin, pale face contort with fury as he realized that I truly had outsmarted him.  I watched him carefully, studying the perfectly-aligned white teeth and he scar across his left cheek.

I began to finish the story and Joseph turned to me.  "I know what you are doing," he whispered.  "It won't work.  I will delete your description of me when you are gone."

"Then I am done for?" I said with a smile.

He grinned.  "You are right.  Sorry, but this isn't good enough."  He drew a gun from his boot where he had hidden it.  "Good-bye," he said with a sinister smile.

I smile again and even laugh.  Joseph pulls the trigger as I finish typing and push "send", e-mailing my final story to the editor of The New York Times.