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Someone was knocking at the door. Upstairs, Lindsay paused by the bed, her hands gripping a pearl and sapphire necklace. She tried to remember if Alex said he would come tonight. But wouldn't he call instead of knocking and possibly waking the neighbors? As Lindsay went to pull out her phone, she heard a loud crash in the kitchen, as if several pots and pans had been thrown to the floor. She dropped the necklace and ran out of the bedroom, stopping at the top of the stairs.

The lights were still off. Lindsay held her breath and strained to hear if anyone was moving downstairs. Slowly she placed one foot after the other on the carpeted steps, until she reached the bottom. Everything was quiet. What had crashed? The Kripowskis had no pets and no one was supposed to be home for another week. Lindsay went for her phone again but it wasn't in any of her pockets. She searched her bag. She looked up at the stairs, uncertain whether to go back up or creep into the kitchen. As she turned to climb back up to the bedroom, she felt a hand on her back. She whipped around and lost her balance, falling hard on her elbows.

"Who's there?? Alex??" She jumped up quick, too unnerved to notice the pain. The house looked darker, as if the streetlights outside had dimmed. "I have a gun!" She lied. She decided to dash out, to leave her phone and if the Kripowskis found it, she could always say she must have left it when she babysat that one night. The front door looked so far away for some reason. She moved forward and sharp pain hammered at her left ankle, causing Lindsay to smash against the couch, then bounce onto the floor. On her hands and knees, hardly pausing to make sense of what happened, she crawled as fast as she could to the door. She reached up and grabbed the knob. It wouldn't turn. Gripping with both hands, she twisted and turned both the door knob and the lock but nothing. The door wouldn't budge.

She glanced around the room, trying to find an appropriate window to possibly use as an escape. Too big a risk to jump out a window, she thought. Lindsay would need to go through the kitchen in order to go out the back door. She crawled over to the couch and hoisted herself up on her feet. Excruciating pain in her ankle made it difficult to walk, let alone run. She held her breath again. Silence enveloped the house. She thought perhaps her conscience was getting the better of her. I won't steal anymore, she silently pleaded to no one.

Lindsay hopped to the kitchen. She stood in the doorway, trying to make out shapes in the dark. Biting her lip, she flicked on the light. No one was there. Nothing seemed to be displaced. What had crashed? Was that all in my head? Lindsay thought. With a hand on the counter for balance, she began to hop toward the back door. She reached the door and closed her eyes as she pressed down on the handle. Lindsay let out a huge sigh of relief as the door moved. Then she opened her eyes and became overwhelmed with terror.

Before she could turn around and jump back into the house, gnarled grey hands gripped her legs, pulling her into a black pit. Lindsay clung to the entry way, her finger tips becoming bloody and raw. She had never felt such an icy sensation, cold air like the inside of a freezer swept over her body. Lindsay couldn't hold on and as she lost her grip and was dragged into the ground, she thought she saw Alex in the kitchen, turning off the light, waving goodbye.