Stay where you are

Stepping to the very edge of the road to keep from getting run over, you wait for the police cars to reach you. As the headlights finally flash over you, the leading car slams on its brakes, the tires squealing and sliding in the loose gravel. You jump back as it slides to stop just a few feet from you. The second car flies past, bathing you in a cloud of **** dust.

As you cough and try to clear the dry, gritty taste from your mouth, the doors of the cop car fly open and two officers jump out, weapons drawn.

"Don't move!" one of them shouts. "Hands in the air!"

After a tense few minutes where you are repeatedly questioned and thoroughly patted down, they decide that you're not a threat. You tell them that you heard a noise and ask what is going on, but they won't say. They put you in the back of the police car and drive you back to Aunt Margie's house, pulling away as you head up the front walk. You're almost to the door when you remember that you went out the back, and have to walk all the way around the yard to get in through the back gate.

You find the sliding glass door slightly ajar and grimace at your own carelessness. The house is probably full of moths and mosquitoes now. You turn on the kitchen light and glance around the ceiling, but you don't see any. Thank goodness.

What you do see is a large, dark drop of blood on the linoleum floor. You look down at the blackberry scratches on your legs, but they're just red and stinging, not bleeding.