She placed each of her bracelets in a neatpile on the nightstand and was reaching for her watchband when shewas startled so fiercely by a noise at the window that a short,shrill scream escaped her throat before she could stifle it behindher hands.

For a long moment she sat there, cross-leggedon her bed, her hands pressed to her mouth, her heart pounding inher chest, staring wide-eyed at the window.

From her angle, she could not see what itwas, but something was there, pressed against the screen. It wasmaking an odd noise, very soft, subtle, but very distinct. It was asort of crinkling noise. It was a sound that kept her anchored tothe bed in fear long after she should have recovered from herstart.

Elsewhere, there was only silence. Her screamobviously hadn’t awakened her mother, and her father, a firemanhere in Briar Hills, would not be home from work until latetomorrow morning. The only sound to be heard over the strangecrinkling was the distant chirping of crickets.

She wished she could turn off the light.Sitting there in the seventy-five watt glow, she was in full viewof whatever stared back at her from the dark cover of the night.But the switch to the overhead fixture was located across the roomby the door.

Gradually, as the seconds ticked by andnothing more than the redundant crinkling was heard, her couragebegan to return. As silently as she could, she slipped off the bedand crept toward the window.

In the first moments of her fear, she wascertain that this thing at the window was some sort of monster,human or otherwise, attracted by the light of her window and nowstaring at her with brutal hunger, but it soon became obvious thatthe thing at the window was neither man nor beast. The crinklingsound she heard was not the gnashing of alien teeth but of plasticrustling in the breeze. Someone had wrapped a large manila envelopein a clear plastic bag, crept across her empty backyard, and fixedit to her window with a single strip of duct tape.

She peered around the package, scanning theempty yard behind it. Her parents’ comfortable, three-bedroom homewas located at the very end of Straight Creek Road near thenorthernmost city limits. A small patch of forest lay just to thenorth of the university campus and it was in these woods that herhouse was nestled. It was the darkness of this forest that made heranxious to see what might be there, but there was nothing to beseen that wasn’t there when the sun went down. The backyard wasexactly as it was supposed to be, filled with ordinary moonlightand shadow from an ordinary early October evening. There wasnothing out there except the manila envelope wrapped in plastic andtaped to the window screen.

Convinced that no ghastly beings were lurkingbeyond, she turned her attention to the envelope itself. There wasa name and address scribbled across the front in black marker, butneither was familiar to her. Perhaps whoever left it did so bymistake. The university campus was within walking distance, afterall, and it wouldn’t be the first time that a drunken student foundhis or her way this far from the dormitories.

On the other hand, there was something eerieabout the purposefulness with which this envelope was left for her.Whoever it was who had crept up to her window surely could havelooked in and seen her sitting on the bed, surely could not havemistaken her for the person to whom this envelope was addressed.For one thing the envelope was addressed to a man. Secondly, wouldsomeone so drunk or confused have been so stealthy about deliveringa package?

She quickly closed the window and then theblinds, removing the envelope from her view and wishing she couldremove it from her thoughts. A part of her wanted to know what wasinside that envelope, but a bigger part of her was afraid of whatshe might find. Perhaps it was drugs, mistakenly delivered to thewrong house. In that case, let the true owner realize the mistakeand come and get it himself. She didn’t want to get in the middleof something like that.

Or perhaps something worse waited inside.There was no limit to the awful things her imagination couldproduce if she allowed it. Countless horror movie scenarios playedthrough her mind as she backed away from the closed window with ashiver.

She turned off the overhead light andfinished removing her jewelry by the glow of her bedside lamp. Shethen crawled under the covers without changing into her usualsleepwear, switched off the lamp and tried to go to sleep.

But for a long time, she lay awake, thinkingabout the envelope, about what might be inside. Who had beencreeping around in her backyard, peering through her open window,watching her, unseen in the darkness? She wondered why someonewould choose to deliver a package in such a way. Why would someonejust slap it to the screen of her bedroom window without a word andthen run away?

And of course she wondered about the namethat was written on the envelope.

Who was Albert Cross?

# # #

About the Author:

Brian Harmon grew up in rural Missouri andnow lives in Southern Wisconsin with his wife, Guinevere, and theirtwo children.

Visit Brian Harmon online at www.HarmonUniverse.com.