1-800-Psychic Hotline

Lydia took another sip of her Red Bull before crunching the aluminum can in her bare hand. She looked at her watch; she had almost two hours to go until quitting time. The phone in her cubicle sat there, dead silent. It sat there unmoving, yet, despite the respite from her own phone, there remained far too much noise humming all around her. The buzzing overhead lights, the chatter of colleagues, the phones ringing and the vending machines upchucking all sorts of sugary, fattening drinks and snacks to satisfy the starving gullets of the folks who worked at the cubicles for the past…eight hours. Leaning back in her chair, Lydia huffed. Her head pounded. The veins in her forehead throbbed in time with the constant hum of the bright florescent lights hovering overhead. Her stomach grumbled, but there wasn"t a thing she found in the vending machines, now so poorly stocked all that remained were a couple bags of stale pita chips and some rice crackers past their sell by date. The empty can in waste bin had been the last of its kind until the machines were restocked the next morning. Disgruntled, she looked at her watch again, and still back unsatisfied. She vaguely hoped that time had flown faster in the last few minutes since she last looked at her watch. No. Still slow as ever. Her cubicle faced the same stage production as everyone else"s. Rows of boxes turned towards a small, simple stage bedecked in the stereotypical fashion of a gypsy"s wagon interior. The star of the show, a worn-out actress supposedly from the Silver Screen days of the Hollywood of yore, though Lydia never heard of her, sat perched in a gaudy ancient chair like a flimsy throne for the old, graying broad who dictated the viewers at home to continue calling the number flashing on their screen for more of Madame Ivanka"s special help. Cameras were glued to the old crone like she was the next Natalie Portman. The pounds of make-up the producers had her covered in did little to hide the deep-set wrinkles or the drawn-on eyebrows painted in the wrong shade. Luckily, her ornamental headscarf made a bigger distraction from the slightly lopsided, mismatched eyebrows. And if the viewers got tired of her head-wrapping, they could always stare at the background behind her. Drapes of purple and red were hung with, at best, minimum care. Just one misplaced candle away from setting the stage one fire. While other cubicles were abuzz with activity, Lydia"s had remained unnaturally quiet. She wondered if her phone had been accidentally unplugged. Bending over to look underneath, Lydia checked the cords. Nope. The cord wasn"t the problem. She checked again and gave one of them a good tug, the right one. Her phone slide into the cubicle wall. Yep, the right one. Sinking into her chair, she waited aimlessly. She couldn"t very well take out her own cell phone and play Angry Birds. That was against the rules. She didn"t know if or when she"d get a call, so getting more snacks was out of the question too. More importantly, nothing else remained in the machines, nothing worthy except for the scavengers. Her manager wandered over. Aaron had his sleeves rolled up and looked just as tired as she did. He looked over at her phone and then at all the other phones ringing off the hook. He checked hers again, even ducking under the desk without so much as an "excuse me" to check the cords. Lydia scooted out of his way and pulled her chair back where it came from once he satisfied his curiosity. "That"s weird," he noted, scratching his head, "You usually get way more callers than this." Lydia didn"t know what to say. She shrugged her shoulders. "Must not be my lucky night." Aaron rubbed his chin as he stared at the silent phone on her desk. "Well, tell you what…" Lydia"s heart began to beat faster with excitement. Was he going to tell her what she thought? Was he about to say the magic words? She tried not to look too desperate to get the hell out of there. "If you don"t get any calls in the next half hour, I suppose you could—" As if right on cue, the phone chimed away. Lydia pouted and mentally gave the wretched machine the middle finger. Aaron patted her on the better as if to say, "Better luck next time" and went on his merry way to check on all the other members of her call team. She arched her brow and gave the phone the meanest glare in hopes that maybe if she looked at it hard enough, it would shut up. No such thing. The blasted thing kept ringing and ringing and ringing… Hell"s bells and damnation! Growling, Lydia pressed the "answer" button so hard with her thumb, she could have easily broke it. She took a moment to collect herself, remembering that her job relied on her being friendly and positive with the customers at the other end of the line. She took a deep breath, released it, and answered in the most charming voice she could muster. "Jersey Shore Psychic Hotline, what answers do you seek?" "It"s about time they fixed me with you. I"ve been on hold for thirty minutes. I"m not a patient man." Lydia listened closely. The caller definitely sounded like a man, a foreign one too, but she couldn"t place the accent. It sounded European, somewhere around the Mediterranean maybe? Who knows? "I"m terribly sorry about your wait, sir. Are you a first time caller?" "Yes," he grunted. Lydia could practically hear his eyes rolling into the back of his head like the question in itself annoyed him. "As a first time caller, are you aware that only first five minutes is free and after that you will be charged two dollars for every minute after that?" She reached for the digital clock on her desk. Turning on the computer from its sleep mode, she opened up the file she needed to record his credit card information, if he stayed for more than five minutes. She doubted he would. They get many calls from men. "My Visa card"s number is 436-202-4441. The expiration date is 9/19 and the card number is 667. My name is Nicholas Papadopoulos." Lydia scrunched up her face as she concentrated on the typing up the information on the receipt. She had a knack for remembering card numbers, kind of had to in this business. Names were somewhat harder to remember though, especially when you got all sorts of people calling from all over Jersey and New York City. She remembered how to spell Nicholas sure enough, but the last name… "I"m sorry, sir, but could you spell your last name for me?" The man on the other end sighed, annoyed. She could feel his exasperation rolling off his voice as he spoke. "P-A-P-A-D-O-P-O-U-L-O-S." "Thank you so much! We are all set, you"re first five minutes starts about…now." She waited until the clock struck 12:10 because she wasn"t in the mood to do anything math at this hour. Starting off every ten minutes made timing a lot easier for her. "I"ve been having some problems with work and such. I"m in the business of my own, but you see, there are some…competitors looking in on my territory." Holy s**t! Is he in the mob? Lydia stifled herself. She couldn"t come to such conclusions. The idea that a real life mobster would call a psychic hotline at midnight sounded as ridiculous in her head even as it happened in real life. Besides, he didn"t sound like a typical mobster. He sounded like the kind of man who you meet on a summer cruise in Greece and you can"t help but fall in love with him, and are at last parted when you return home to America, like one of these characters you"re more likely to meet in one of the trashy romance novels you pick at the grocery when all you need is milk, or in Lydia"s case, wine, to get you through the weekend. "These competitors of yours…are they dangerous?" Immediately, Lydia bit her tongue. She shouldn"t have asked that! So much for believing the caller wasn"t a member of the mafia. "Only to some," he chuckled. The caller seemed to have found her question more amusing than annoying. "I"m not in any immediate danger, my dear, but they do put up a nasty struggle. You see, they"re very much like rats. They seem to think that they can do whatever they want, when they want, without fear of the consequences. The trouble is, how do I make them go away without alerting either my superiors or the authorities?" Lydia felt the blood in her cheeks melt away. So much for thinking he wasn"t in the mob. He answered in only the vaguest sense, but Lydia figured he couldn"t be up to any good. There lay something hidden in his charming voice that slithered around like a snake in its undercurrents. She hoped that the boys upstairs were doing their job and recording this s**t. She certainly didn"t want to end up at the bottom of the Hudson with cement shoes. "What is it you want to know, sir?" "Call me Nick. Everybody else does." "Well, Nick," Lydia swallowed hard, "What do you need to know? What is it do you think I can see that will help you?" "Do you think you could locate them?" She bit her lip. She could possibly do that. She could lie or she could…No, no, no, she would lie. Lydia would lie through her teeth. She couldn"t put people in danger like that. Even if this was her job, she would not be an accomplice to murder! "I"m sorry, sir, but that is outside of my realm of capabilities. Maybe I could connect you with some—" "No, no, you see, that won"t do at all, Lydia." She knew that her face went ashen as she saw Aaron accidentally glance at her as he started back down the rows of cubicles. She waved him off as if everything was alright. Lydia bit her lip and looked at the clock. She had two minutes to go. She could risk it after his five minutes were up and hang up. Yeah! That"s what she would do. "I hope you realize that I just made all of that up. Consider it a little practical joke!" "There"s nothing funny about sounding like a mobster on a psychic hotline!" Lydia hissed into the speaker. "I would have thought you had a sense of humor. Although," he sighed, "I should be grateful that you didn"t hang up on me earlier." "And how about now? What would you do if I hung up on you now?" "Now, now, Lydia, my dear, you wouldn"t want to do that." "And what not?" She tapped her fingers along her desk. She was no longer afraid, but she was fuming. The longer she listened to his voice, the more she could hear his obnoxious, egotistical personality speak for itself. Mobster or not, he shouldn"t have gotten a hold of her real name. "Because you"re wondering how I know you by name. You want to know what I know. Otherwise, you would have called your superior and hung up on me by now. You need to know, don"t you?" He chuckled in her ear. "Or maybe you"re wrong? Maybe I will hang up in the next five seconds because I don"t want to continue talking to a stalker!" Her other hand clenched the phone real right. The plastic creaked under the pressure. If she continued to press too hard, she might just break it. "No, I don"t think I"m wrong," Nick answered in the most egocentric tone. Like he had all the answers of the world in the palm of his hands. "Oh," Lydia sniped, "Really?" She flung the phone back on the receiver. She folded her arms and gave herself a mental pat on the back for a job well done. Mission accomplished. She stared to rise from her chair and walk down the cubicle hall to talk to Aaron about her creepy call when the phone rang again. Without thinking, she answered the phone. "Jersey Shore Psychic Hotline, what answers do you seek?" "That was very rude, you know." Nick"s voice rang in her ear. "And before you slam that phone down again, I want you answer one very important question for me." "And what"s that?" She scoffed. "What do you know about the supernatural?" Her brows furrowed at the question. "I-I don"t understand." "C"mon. You know. What do you believe is out there?" "Well, my parents took me to Catholic school and—" "No, no, I"m not talking about what you"re parents wanted you to believe. I want you to tell me what you believe. In regards to the supernatural." "I don"t really…I don"t really believe in that stuff. It"s all just ghost stories parents tell their kids to shut them up, right?" Lydia waited an entire heart beat before he answered back. "That"s funny, a little birdie told me that you"ve got a special gift." "A special gift?" She looked around the cubicles. Nobody was looking at her. Not even Aaron came by to check on her again. He seemingly disappeared. Her heart pounded inside her chest. "Oh dear!" He gasped though it sounded fake as hell. "It seems I"ve got your pulse racing. Did I ask the wrong question or has the sound of my silky voice made you wet between your legs?" If her blood wasn"t boiling before, it was positively seething now. Gritting her teeth, Lydia thought of all the spiteful things she would shout through the phone. But there were people around People who would hear her. At the end of her shift, she would get a pretty pink slip of paper designating her immediate release from her duties. Finding this job had been hard enough, finding another in this market would prove to be her death sentence. Biting her tongue until she tasted copper and something hot ran against her teeth, Lydia took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. Her blood raged; her knuckles turned white. "Miss Lydia, don"t be alarmed." Nicholas said in a very different tone. He suddenly changed on the flip of a dime. It wasn"t a sign she hoped for. "Why not? You know my name and I"m pretty sure we never met before," she gritted through her teeth. Aaron walked past her cubicle like he had no idea what was going wrong. He didn"t so much as stop to glance at her before going back to the break room to get himself more coffee. Apparently, the stuff from the vending machine wasn"t good enough for him. "No, no, I don"t think you have." "Because you"re a serial killer and if I had, I"d be dead by now?" "Darling, nothing of the sort," he jested. The sound of his laughter gave rise to more goosebumps across her flesh. "It"s just that...we run in some very different circles, you and I." "Then how do you know my name?" Lydia was about to slam the phone back onto the receiver, but thought better about it. He would just keep calling and calling and calling until he got what he wanted. Nick hummed to himself as if trying to decide what to order off the menu. Lydia swallowed hard; she had a funny feeling that she was on that menu. Her pulse rose steadily higher as she waited for his answer. She listened to the background noises through her end of the phone. If she could get some clue as to where he made this call, surely she could get the police to track him down and arrest him for harassment. It appeared to be a stretch, but it was worth a shot, wasn"t it? She pried her ear open wide. Her caller took his sweet time making up his mind. In the mean time, Lydia picked up the sound of a bustling business in the background. Glasses clinking, distant, murmuring conversations, orders being shouted over a loud music system…A restaurant or a bar maybe? Nick finally made a decision before she could tell for sure. "For now, it"s best you don"t find out." Click. The line went dead. Lydia gawked at the phone. Growling, she threw it back on the receiver, slamming it with all of her rage and frustration behind it. She swore under her breath, calling Nick all sorts of foul names she could think of from the very top of her head. Luckily, nobody stood around to witness her hysterics. Well, at least nobody who could respond right away. Looking around, a few of her co-workers paused mid-conversation with their clients to give her puzzled and startled looks. Lydia palmed her face, covering her eyes, mouth, and nose, as if to block out the sounds threatening her sanity. She wanted to escape and drown herself in the biggest bottle of rum she could get her hands on. By the time she would leave, it was doubtful any near-by liquor store would sell her any and there might not have been enough back he apartment. Without thinking, she rushed to the bathroom where she could find some peace and quiet. Lydia locked the door from the inside after checking that nobody else was behind the stalls. Pacing in front of the mirror in the dingy bathroom, she ran her fingers through her hair, pulling out a few strands. Her thoughts were speeding through her mind at 100 miles per hour, giving her a severe migraine. Her breath was quick, her palms sweaty, and she couldn"t stop her knees from knocking. Pacing was all she could do to keep herself from turning into a mess on the floor, and she remembered how often the janitors lazily "mopped" the floor. She wasn"t going to risk getting a stomach virus or salmonella poisoning because of mental break down. She must have stayed in there long enough to worry management. Lydia stopped when she heard Pamela, one of Aaron"s new underlings, knock on the door and ask if she was okay. Lydia took a deep breath. She realized that her heart was still beating pretty fast, but she was more normal than before. The pacing must have exorcised the frantic hysteria from her body. Her legs shook as she walked to the door; well, maybe not completely exorcised. Unlocking it, Lydia passed through the door again, putting on a brave smile so Pamela wouldn"t see anything amiss. If she saw something she didn"t like, which was pretty often, Pamela might just turn on her heels and address Aaron. It wouldn"t seem like such a bad idea, if only Lydia wasn"t trying to keep her little secret on the down-low. If Aaron started asking questions about the caller, chances were that he would start asking questions as to why the mysterious, and possibly dangerous, Nicholas Papadopoulos called her in the first place. She would get this resolved herself before anybody asked those personal questions. "I"m sorry. I just felt this…stomach cramp." Lydia made up on the fly. "I was lucky that the caller hung up on me when he did. Otherwise—" "Say no more," Pamela raised her manicured hand. "I don"t need to know the details. You"re lucky your phone hasn"t gotten anymore calls tonight, Aaron might have had your ass on a platter for neglecting your job." "I"m sorry. It won"t happen again." "If you"re not feeling too good, you might as well go home now. Your line"s not busy at all. I"d rather you not have an accident while at work. That would be so embarrassing!" Pamela laughed. Pamela stood about five foot tall, but she could be mean and snarky when she wanted to be. A Yosemite Sam with t**s. She could also be nice when she wanted to be, especially when the management team were looking. Manipulative, maybe, but it couldn"t be said that she went out of her way to be mean to people. "What about Aaron? Should I tell him?" "I thought you had an upset stomach to begin with when I saw you running to the bathroom. I already gave him the word and suggested that you would probably want to head home early tonight. Unless you want to stay?" "No!" Lydia realized too late by looking at Pamela"s startled reaction that she responded too loudly and too quickly. She cleared her throat and tried again, calmer this time. "I mean, no. That"s okay. I"d much rather go home and take some Pepto before it gets any worse." Pamela eyed her. Her long, plumped lashes did nothing to hide the vague sense that the short woman gave Lydia a suspicious look, like Pamela thought Lydia started taking drugs. Instead of making a comment, Pamela waved her off before spinning on her heels and heading towards the vending machines. Lydia sighed relief and marched towards her cubicle to gather her stuff. She never bothered with the lockers the company provided; she didn"t want to risk some ass-hat breaking in and steal her stuff. Her personal effects were safest with her at her desk. She slung her canvas bag over her shoulder. Lydia glanced at the army of cubicles with their soldiers answering phone calls to people who should really find a better way to spend their money. Not that Lydia should be complaining, now or ever. This was her means of income after months of applying to several different job titles from customer service representative to house-keeping at a shady motel in downtown. Not one of them called her back after the first interview, though some of them felt very promising enough until she got slapped in the face with a rude wake-up call. She hated this job, but her reasoning wasn"t what one might expect. Lydia left the building without saying good-bye to anybody. She waved to the security officer at the front desk but anything more than that she wasn"t in the mood for. Crossing the street to the convenient parking garage, she looked all around her surroundings for a dark, spooky shadow wielding a knife. Her mind must have been playing tricks on her because every around every corner the shadows seemed to be alive. Normally, it wouldn"t have taken fifteen minutes to walk to the elevator she would ride to the second or third floor. Lydia stopped every couple of steps to make sure nobody followed her. She grabbed her keys from her bag and planted them in between her knuckles. Even though she looked scrawny, weighing less than two-hundred pounds, Lydia could brawl like the rest of them whenever her safety seemed to be jeopardy. She didn"t know if or when Nicholas might pop out from around the corner to drag her into his nondescript black van, but she wasn"t stupid enough to take her chance. She reached the elevator no problem. Nobody in sight and she was alone in the elevator for the duration of its climb to the third floor. Two minutes later, she hopped off and went in search for her car. Before doing that, Lydia peaked around the level as if something looked out to get her. When she found no human shape waiting for her in the dark, Lydia made her first cautious steps towards her car. Her red maverick, dusty, dented, and rusted in places by the fenders, gleamed like a torch of hope in the dank lights in the garage. Lydia sped towards it, nearly tripping in the process. The driver"s seat pried open for her without issue; sometimes it had the habit of sticking on her. This time Lydia thanked whatever higher power decided to play nice tonight and allowed her car door to open with ease. Once safely inside, she jammed the key into the ignition and turned the engine on. While the rest of the car looked much like a lemon, the engine still purred like a kitten. All of her old man"s hard work paid off. She settled herself inside the confines of the seat belt and adjusted the rear-view mirror. Pulling out slowly, she had no reason to worry now that she was inside her car, Lydia started to loop around the level and drive down to the lower levels. As she turned around the corner on the second floor, Lydia spotted something in the corner of her eye. It shouldn"t have been unusual to see someone in a parking garage, however she glanced through her mirror, her heart started racing. A man leaned against a pillar. He hadn"t been there before. Then again, she took the elevator instead of climbing the stairs, Lydia reasoned. Of course, she didn"t seem him before. He continued to lean against the concrete pillar with his face hidden by his black hoodie. From his lips protruded a cigarillo, the embers falling to the ground as the smoke rose. He smoked his cigarillo in spite of the "No Smoking" sign hanging not far above his head. Not that Lydia seemed to care much. She"d broken the ban once or twice after a stressful evening. She slowly drove past him. He turned towards her car. And that"s when she stomped on her brakes. Tires squealing, the heart-wrenching sound echoing under the concrete roofs, Lydia looked again in her mirror. The hooded man leaning against the pillar stared at her as if he could see directly at her, like he could pierce through her mirror. He didn"t move an inch but the sight of his eyes out from under his hood mad Lydia reach for the lock on her car door, shutting all of them down. A pair of golden yellow eyes stared back at her through her rear-view mirror. They seemed to glow from under his dark hood. A rational person might think that he wore cosmetic contact lenses for the hell of it. New Jersey and New York City each had their fair share of freaks and weirdoes, Lydia may have been amongst them with her dirty little secret. But never had she seen something like this outside of a freak show. His large eyes stared at her much like how a lion might look at its prey as it stalked the gazelle through the tall Sahara grass. The hooded man took a long drag from his cigarillo before throwing it to the ground, putting out the ember with the heel of his sneaker. He broke away from the pillar and started towards her car. Lydia put her foot on the gas without even a second thought. She couldn"t drive very fast, but she wasn"t going to let this weirdo get her. Nicholas"s phone call echoed in her brain. He knew things about her. He didn"t say it in so many words, but Lydia knew that her mysterious called tonight did not mess around. And she certainly wasn"t about to find out just how curious he was about her. Lydia reached the toll booth before long, exceeding the speed limit as fast as she could without running into things. She rolled down her window and doled out her credit card, quickly pressing the buttons. She hadn"t even bothered to put her car in park. She heard the hooded man"s footsteps echoing throughout the ground level. The machine decided to work against. "Shitty piece of junk!" Lydia screamed at the inanimate object as it took its sweet time eating up her time card and printing out her receipt. The footsteps drew nearer now. They were almost on top of her. Lydia could see the hooded man step closer to her car. His pale hands reached for his hood, revealing a disheveled head of wavy black hair and revealing the full extent of his molten eyes. In her rear-view mirror, Lydia saw how the pupils were slit like a cat"s. A red tongue darted out between his lips. He stalked towards her car while the machine aided him by stalling as long as it could. Were they in co-hoots together? Lydia didn"t want to know why of all times the blasted machine decided to malfunction when a crazed killer was edging towards her. The garage gate lifted. Lydia put her peddle to the musty floor, speeding through the exit with the man following not far behind. She sped down the corner, risking getting caught by the policemen sitting at the other side of the street, and tore through the interstate. Lydia"s eyes frequently looked in her mirrors. Though there were a couple of close calls, she saw no other signs of her stalker in the streets. Turning the air conditioning on full blast, Lydia tried to relax for the car ride home. She turned on the radio next. Rockwell"s usually catchy beat sent chills all over her skin. "People say I"m crazy/Just a little touch/But maybe showers remind me/Of Psycho too much…" "Nope," Lydia flipped the dial to a more soothing smooth jazz station before she panicked and wrecked her car crossing the bridge. She parked the maverick along the street outside her brownstone. One of few cars along the street, it stuck out but the neighborhood had very few break-ins or grand theft auto incidents that Lydia parked it without worrying too much that it"ll still be there in the morning. She worried more about herself at the moment. Lydia glanced over her shoulders twice, maybe even thrice, looking for her stalker before gliding her key into the lock. She pushed the door aside, flipped the switch, and slammed the door home. Leaning against the door, she managed to catch her breath. Lydia must have stayed there for several minutes before she finally gained a certain amount of control. Leaning away from the door at last, she locked it tight and headed towards the living room. Three lazy cats sat where she left them, giving Lydia cause to sigh with relief. If anything had been amiss, they wouldn"t be sleeping so comfortably on the carpet, the back of the couch, and in the cubby she made out of her shelf. A couple of months ago, some jerk broke into the apartment and made off with her T.V. They caught the guy, but her cats wouldn"t leave her side for weeks. The poor fur balls had been so frightened. Here they were, all chill and relaxed. They barely acknowledged her existence as she walked into the room. She glanced at the DVD player. Its demonic red lights said that the time was a little after midnight. Groaning, at the thought, Lydia knew that wasn"t likely to catch any Z"s tonight. She was far too afraid to fall asleep yet. Not without a visit from Prince Valium. She kicked off her shoes, threw her things down on the floor, and sat on the couch with a groan. Lydia propped her feet up on the coffee table. It was her coffee table after all. She could do as she pleased with it, and that included putting her sweaty, stinky sock-covered feet on there. Casanova, her black cat with a missing eye, hopped down from his perch on the back of the couch and curled in her lap. Out of all three, Casanova happened to be the most affectionate. He seemed that way because she had rescued him from a bunch of sociopathic street kids who wanted to bait him into fighting another cat. Poor Casanova already had one eye missing and he was just barely an adult when she picked him off the street. The other two, Adonis the golden tabby, and Phoebe, her gray American shorthair, remained where they were. Only occasionally did they swish their sassy tails or stretch out their limbs. It must be so hard to be a cat. Lydia flipped on the T.V in hopes of finding a boring late night program that would help ease her mind. She adjusted her glasses and pulled her hair out of the pony-tails she"d been wearing all day, tossing the elastic hair band unto the coffee table next to where her feet lay. Casanova purred as she scratched behind his ears with one hand and flipped through the channels with the other. She stayed away from the news. It would be nothing more than political back-stabbing and misery stories to occupy the air waves. She supposed she could watch yet another re-run of The Nanny, but tonight Franny Fine"s nasally voice seemed like it would just get on her nerves. It must have been closer to three in the morning by the time she decided to head upstairs. Casanova jumped off her lap when she rose from the couch. Lydia left only the standing lamp next to the couch on before she headed up to the master bedroom. Only Casanova followed her up the stairs and into the bedroom. Lydia changed and checked the other rooms in the upper floor, even the closets, to double check the safety of her own house. Any other time, she would call herself paranoid, however, between the phone call and the guy with the creepy eyes in the parking garage, Lydia didn"t want to take any chances. She flicked on the lights in the bathroom and saw nobody. She ventured into the only other bedroom in the brownstone. Still, nobody. She checked the closets, and once she satisfied her paranoia, Lydia took off her glasses to place them on her bedside table. Casanova made himself comfortable at the foot of her bed. Lydia dug out her titanium baseball bat out from under her bed, the very same one her father gave her after the break-in, and leaned it against the table, not far out of her reach should she need it. She made one more scan of her room, and finding nothing of note, she crawled into bed. Sliding under the covers, Lydia poked one arm out to turn off the lamp by her bed. Her curtains were drawn to a close, leaving the room in almost complete darkness. Uneasily, she slipped into sleep, though it wouldn"t last for very long. Lydia snapped herself awake when she heard her front door rattle. She glanced at the alarm clock on her table. It was barely five o"clock. She flicked on the lamp, slipped on her glasses, and grabbed her bat. Startled, Casanova leapt off the bed, scampering underneath it. Slowly, she crept towards her door. Slipping outside, Lydia listened carefully for the noise that woke her up. She gripped her bat tight with both hands as she made her way down the hall towards the stairs. The front door stood closest to the stairs. She could hear the door rattling all the way from her bedroom. Her heart started beating faster and faster and faster now. She crept down the steps one at a time so not to spook the would-be burglar. Faintly, she spotted a silhouette in her front door"s glass window but it wasn"t enough to get a good look at the guy. Her fingers curled even tighter around her weapon. Lydia made her way slowly towards her door as she tried to keep out of the burglar"s line of sight. She wanted to catch him off guard when she whacked him upside the head with some good ole fashioned New York-style justice. Lydia ducked and had her hand on the door knob, unlocked it, and readied to swing it open when the intruder banged his fist against the door and called. "Lydia, open up!" She released the breath she didn"t realize she had been holding. Dropping her bat, Lydia pried open the door to find her cousin standing on her porch. Scowling, she knocked him on the head. Not hard but just enough to get her point across. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"