After Midnight Read Online Free PDF

WANT TO REPORT A PROWLER!”
    “Huh?” Tony asked. “A prowler?”
    The stranger writhed against the glass, licked it, rubbed it with his body and open hands as if making believe it was me.
    From where I stood, it looked like me.
    My reflection was superimposed over him.
    He couldn’t see that, though. And didn’t need to, because he had a great view of the real me.
    “YES! HE’S IN THE YARD! HE’S TRYING TO FORCE HIS WAY IN. THIS IS 3838 WOODSIDE LANE. YOU’VE GOT TO GET OVER HERE RIGHT AWAY!”
    “Who is this? This isn’t Judy?”
    “HE’S A WHITE MALE, ABOUT TWENTY YEARS OLD, SIX FEET TALL, A HUNDRED AND EIGHTY POUNDS, WITH SHORT BLOND HAIR.”
    “Is this for real? Do you really have a prowler?”
    “YES! AND HE’S NAKED, AND HE’S TRYING TO GET IN! YOU’VE GOT TO SEND A SQUAD CAR RIGHT AWAY!”
    “Holy shit,” Tony said.
    “PLEASE HURRY!”
    “Do you want me to hang up and call the police?”
    Taking the phone away from my mouth, I yelled at the man, “THE COPS ARE ON THE WAY, YOU SICK BASTARD! THEY’LL BE HERE IN TWO MINUTES!”
    I know he heard me, but he seemed to be lost in his own world of skin and glass and me.
    Watching him, I saw myself. I looked like a ghost being molested by a mad, drooling mime. He writhed against me, caressed me, kissed me, then suddenly went rigid and started to jerk, shaking the door in its frame. For a moment, I thought he was having a seizure.
    In a way, he was.
    When I realized what was going on, I gasped and turned my head away.
    My eyes met the light switch.
    I shot my hand out and flipped it down. Darkness clamped down on the room.
    The door stopped shaking.
    I looked.
    The stranger took a few steps backward, then whirled around. He ran to the edge of the pool, dived in, and swam for the other side.
    While I watched him, I heard Tony’s tiny, faint voice coming from the phone’s earpiece down by my side.
    The stranger boosted himself out of the pool, scurried over the concrete, swooped down and snatched up his shorts. He didn’t put them on. Clutching them in one hand, he dashed onto the lawn and ran toward the woods.
    I lifted the phone.
    Tony sounded frantic.“…okay? Hello? What’s happening?”
    “I’m here,” I said.
    “What happened? What’s going on?”
    “I think it’s all right now. He just ran away.”
    “You’d better call the cops.”
    “He thinks I just did. That’s what scared him off.”
    “Maybe you’d better call them for real.”
    “I don’t know. He’s gone now.”
    “How do you know he won’t come back?”
    “Thanks a lot, Tony.”
    “Sorry. Are you okay?”
    “Just a little shook up. I’m all by myself, and he came sneaking out of the woods behind the house.”
    “You said he was naked?”
    “Yeah. Well, he took off his shorts and started swimming in the pool.”
    “Weird. You don’t have any idea who he was?”
    “Not a clue. Just some guy who came out of the woods.”
    “Miller’s Woods?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s bad. A lot of real oddballs hang around in there.”
    “This is the first time anyone ever came sneaking out to use the pool. That I know about, anyway.”
    “You’re lucky that’s all he did.”
    “Yeah,” I said. I thought about what he’d done on the door, but kept my mouth shut about it.
    “You really should call the cops,” Tony told me.
    “I know. You’re probably right.”
    “They keep finding bodies in those woods.”
    He wasn’t telling me anything new. “Now and then,” I said. “But most of them weren’t killed there. They were just dropped off, you know? It’s not like there’s necessarily a homicidal maniac hanging around in the woods.”
    “ I sure wouldn’t want to live near them.”
    “Well, I don’t mind. I like it, normally. It’s nice and peaceful.”
    “You live there alone? ”
    “I’m alone tonight.”
    “Maybe you shouldn’t be. I know you don’t want to hear this, but you really can’t be sure he won’t come back.”
    “I wish you’d