She stood, voiceless, watching the sixteen men surround the fallen corpse. She wanted to cry out, to run and call a policeman, to do something, but when she moved a lithe hand clasped her over the mouth and around the shoulders.

“Watch and listen,” a muffled voice in her ear whispered, rough and decadent. “Let it sear you. Let it tear you. Let it stretch your spirit to breaking, but bring yourself back from the edge.” She could not breath as the arms squeezed around her torso and face. Her ribs creaked painfully, and her head was pulled back. She was frozen as the sixteen turned of one accord in her direction, and she saw that not a one possessed a face. She pulled away as the hidden figure let her free, and turned, and ran, and sobbed.

*** Sam Rose spasmed as she woke, gasping, soaked in sweat and late for work. She put a hand to her chest as she breathed deeply, feeling her heart pounding in response to the helpless terror that was now blessedly fading from her mind. Just a dream. That dream, yeah, but nothing to worry about right now. As Sam showered and dressed and gnawed on a half-thawed toaster waffle, she thought back to Ms. York, her counselor in high school. “You won’t have me any more soon,” she’d said in that patronizing way, both knobby hands clasping one of Sam’s across the table. “Make sure to see someone. You don’t need to live with this.” She hadn’t, of course. Bad dreams don’t mean anything.

Well, of course they meant something, but it wasn’t anything Sam needed to dwell on. She hopped onto her bike outside the apartment, wrapping her blue-and-red checkered scarf about her neck and mouth to keep away the autumn morning chill, and began the fifteen minute ride to work. Not as if I’m the only fucking girl to ever lose her father, she thought as she walked her bike across an intersection. How am I supposed to do all this moving on stuff if I can’t get over something that happened thirteen fucking years ago?

Far later than she should have, Sam locked her bike in the rack outside her workplace, the board game store Two and Twenty. She looked up at its stylized sign portraying a cartoon skeleton fanning out a deck of cards, a letter or numeral on each card spelling out the store’s odd name. The new coat of paint last month really did wonders, making the sign’s tiny details really pop, even if you could only see the filigree and shading up close. Not exactly useful for a storefront on the streets of bustling Manchester, but then the sign was much older than the storefront itself. According to Mr. Norrid, the owner, the sign originally belonged to an old Austrian pub before Grandpa Norrid brought it over with him in the thirties when his family emigrated to the States.

Mr. Norrid’s Austrian glare made Sam wilt as she stepped through the door, pulling off her scarf and peacoat, excuses wilting in her throat. “S-sorry,” she said, glancing at the half-dozen customers Mr. Norrid was tending to by himself. “The power outage kicked my clock. I didn’t have any batteries in it, so…”

“Hmm.” The store owner stood six-foot-four in dress that on anyone smaller could have been called hipster. His checkered shirt and calf-length lederhosen were bridged (despite the built-in suspenders) by a thick leather belt that held an assortment small tools and, incongruently, a smartphone holster. His feet and calves were covered by woolen socks and leather shoes. Even in the blouse and skirt (Mr. Norris insisted his employees present themselves well) that were more formal than anything she wore at school, Sam always felt underdressed next to the beefy Austrian. “Make sure,” he said, “you take care of that tonight. It would be most convenient if this weren’t to happen again.”

“Yessir!” she said, scurrying behind the counter and scanning the needle whereupon all the store’s receipts were skewered. “Okay day today, huh?”

“Mmhm. The new Catan set is doing well. I have ordered another six copies, and three base copies.”

“Thanks.” Sam hated dealing with the distributors. There always seemed to be some miscommunication when she was the one on the phone, and then they ended up with an unsellable case of Minions Fluxx or the demo copy of the newest game ended up going to the wrong address. Mocha was a lot better at that stuff, which suited Sam just fine. “Oh, is Mocha late, too?”

“Out sick,” said Mr. Norrid. “Bad fish last night.”

“You don’t look sick, Mr. Norrid.”

“I don’t get sick.”

“Right.” The man did seem to have some almost supernatural resistance to everything ranging from the common cold to hangovers on New Years Day. That incredible gene, it seemed, had not been passed down to his daughter Mocha.

“Well,” said Sam, “she’s got a better excuse than me. I can stay to close up tonight, you go on home.”

“Thank you. I will.”

Sam gave a strained smile as her boss left, the little bell over the door ringing as he did so. Mr. Norrid always seemed so calm and formal. She was surprised people actually bought stuff from such an emotionless guy. Aggressive Mocha and (in her mind, at least) bubbly Sam were far better faces for the store! Well, at least having cute girls didn’t hurt the store’s image.

The current glut of customers left without buying anything, and Sam wished them a good day. Once alone, however, her composure dropped. She had really been hoping for someone else to talk with, someone to provide a voice to drown out that of the sultry whisperer she still heard in her ear.

Let it sear you. Let it tear you. Let it stretch your spirit to breaking, but bring yourself back from the edge.

She grabbed the broom from the corner. The vacuum was working again, yeah, but Sam needed something to do. Something to grip. Something she could swing, if it came to that.

*** Early afternoon was pretty busy, but it dwindled down as the day dragged on. By the time seven rolled around, Sam decided to close an hour early. “Not as if we’re gonna be missing out on much,” she grumbled as she turned the thermostat to 50F and snapped off all the lights. Of course, she had to close out the register, too. That was usually Mocha’s job. She was the one who was good with numbers. Sam made a couple rough guesses and decided she’d take it up with Mr. Norrid in the morning.

Sam yawned as she looked over the counter, through the dark store, at the city lights in the distance… and at the tall, hooded figure standing there, pressed almost completely against the glass. Sam froze, deposit bag in hand, mouth still half-open. In the dark of the store, she couldn’t make out any details of the figure’s face. “We’re closed!” she shouted. “Sorry! Had to… close early. Stuff happening. Come back at nine. Tomorrow. Won’t be open tonight.” Her voice trailed off as the figure pulled away from the window, turned, and walked out of sight. Sam shivered, falling back against one of the fragrant cedar beams supporting the structure of the century-old building. “Fucking creep,” she mumbled. Probably a crackhead.

Sam briefly wished she’d taken that gun glass with Mocha last year, but they terrified her. “That’s the point!” Mocha had said. “You’re not supposed to be scared of them! That’s how you get yourself killed, Sam Rose!” Mocha always had that habit of calling Sam by her full name when she was annoyed, as though she was Sam’s mom or something.

Didn’t really matter now. Sam didn’t take the class, and regardless of how it might have helped her unease, she was still afraid of guns, and anyways didn’t carry one. The closest thing to a weapon in the store was a tiny, loose box cutter that their product distributer had tossed in with an order last year. Better than nothing, Sam thought. She’d already changed back into jeans for the ride home, so she slipped the box cutter into her side pocket. Clutching the store’s deposit bag tightly to herself underneath her peacoat, Sam locked the front door, gave one last look around in case the crackhead was still around (he wasn’t), and began the ride to the bank.

*** She sat on her bed, kitchen knife clutched tightly in a white-knuckled hand, phone ready to call the cops. They wouldn’t come fast enough if she needed them, of course, but she just needed to have the possibility at hand. Her breaths were shallow and fast. She was alone. For now. She wouldn’t be, any minute, but for now she was. Mocha wouldn’t answer, and the lights were out in the Norrids’ apartment. There was no one. She was alone.

The crackhead—or crackheads—had come back. He had watched from an out-of-the-way corner as Sam dropped off the deposit. With the money safe, she felt a bit better, and had quickly raced away on her bike, but there he was again two blocks away when she stopped to cross the street. Well, it couldn’t have been him, but Sam had sworn it was. The same dirty, ratty sneakers, stained, shadowed hoodie, torn jeans, tall, crooked shape. And he’d been there again when she passed under the bridge.

And finally across the street, standing right under the street light, as Sam frantically unlocked and scurried inside her dingy apartment on twenty-first street. Sam bolted the door, stuck a chair under the knob, snatched the biggest knife from the kitchen, and fled to her bedroom. Thank God the bedroom didn’t have any windows. It occurred to Sam she probably should have taken the whole knife block with her, but the thought of going back out there where that pervert could look right at her through the window made her breath catch, as though someone had a hand on her mouth and a constricting arm around her chest.

Let it sear you.

There was a knock, frantic and sharp, and Sam shrieked.

Let it tear you.

She grabbed at her phone, but it was inexplicably dead. No, no no no.

Let it stretch your spirit to breaking.

A splintering crash made Sam press herself against the corner furthest from the door. The knife shook. Footsteps approached. The walls seemed to shimmer, the light to dim.

Bring yourself back from the edge.

The doorknob rattled, and something snapped inside Sam’s mind. She screamed and rushed at the opening door, stabbing at chest-height the dark figure who entered the room, waves of red miasma pulsing around the edges of its silhouette, the light of the naked bulb overhead shying away like a cornered, threatened child.

Sam’s knife sunk inches into the figure’s chest, and hot blood sprayed Sam in the face. Something wheezed or gasped inside the figure’s shadow, and then a pair of arms as strong as bands of steel grasped Sam’s wrists and forced them apart. The figure pushed Sam back slowly but steadily as she screeched and kicked and thrashed, but Sam finally found herself pinned against the wall, arms spread wide, her kitchen knife protruding from the figure’s chest.

A grim Mask fashioned in the form of a blindfolded young woman leered into her face. “Sam Rose,” came a weary, wet, familiar voice. “I need you to calm the fuck down.”