The Letter "D"

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Continued from 'Blue'

Jane froze at the sight of the balloon, marooned on her gate. Tentatively she stepped towards it, brows furrowed, pulling her jacket around her closely. 

She reached the gate and looked towards both sides of her street. Nothing. The guy had followed her home, that much was true but she didn't understand what his objective was. He could have just been a creep trying to freak her out but in this age, he could be dangerous or at least intending on doing something malicious. 

She strode over to her door, opened it as quickly as her shaking hands would allow and threw her bags into the hallway, slamming the door behind her. Picking up her handbag, she emptied it on the floor and her phone crashed to the ground. She slid her finger across the screen and watched as it dialled Lisa's number. 

"Hey there sugarbum" Lisa joked, waiting for the purpose of the call to be announced. 

"Where are you guys, that guy from earlier followed me home. I don't want to be alone" Jane whispered, not really knowing why.

"We've just paid... Are you sure?" came the reply.

"I'm sure Lisa, hurry home" Jane said, ending the call and gathering her bags. 

She sat in the kitchen, waiting impatiently for her friends to return home so she could either take her mind off the guy or at least feel safer. After what felt like an eternity, she heard a key being inserted into the front door and the friendly faces of Lisa and Laura greeted her from the hallway. "This was randomly tied to the gate" shrugged Lisa, dragging the ominous blue balloon behind her. 

"That's what I'm talking about, the guy who was following us earlier, he was carrying that balloon" Jane shot back, not understanding why they weren't taking this as seriously as she was.

"What guy Jane? Are you ok?" frowned Laura.

"Yes I'm fine, except for the fact that this huge guy was following us around all afternoon holding THAT balloon and when I get home THAT balloon is tied to my gate" she retorted, all patience lost.

"Ok, so we'll call the police if we see him again but we didn't see the guy Jane" Lisa hugged her, trying to calm her down. "Let's have a drink and then we'll take all the stuff upstairs" she continued, turning to Laura with a puzzled look on her face. 

They sat down whilst Laura found an open bottle of white wine sitting in the fridge, emptying it into three glasses for them to take the edge off the situation. They sat and enjoyed the wine, the balloon floating slowly across the floor. One bottle turned into two and soon enough, the tall man had been forgotten, replaced with an impromptu fashion show starring the three tipsy ladies. 

Jane, having been handed a little more wine than the other two, had pulled on her new glitzy gold dress and slipped on Laura's stilettos. She began to strut across the kitchen floor, pouting every few seconds to make her friends laugh. The shoes were a little too high for her however and as her feet found the string from the balloon, she felt herself slip and she crashed to the floor.

"Oh jeez, Jane are you ok?" worried Laura, with Lisa laughing in the background. She rushed to her side, pulling her up. 

"I'm fine" Jane laughed, standing herself up and kicking off her friend's shoes. "Help me carry this stuff to my room" she motioned to them both.

They each picked up a few bags and chuckled their way to the stairs. Lisa led the way, turning on the light to the hallway as night had drawn in. "It's cold up here, we should put the heating on" she noted, turning to Jane and Laura. "It is on" Jane replied, still laughing with Laura. 

They reached Jane's door but all three of them stopped. The air was freezing and none of them wanted to open the door. They looked at each other, confused as to what it was holding them back. The tipsy giggles left Jane and the events of the day came rushing back to the forefront of her memory, filling her with dread.

"Guys, stay there" she said, giving them her bags.

Placing her hand on the door handle, she took in a breath and pushed the door open swiftly. Nothing. They all laughed in unison, "Damn Jane, you have us all paranoid" Lisa joked. Jane turned to to push her friend but missed as Lisa had moved and flipped on the light to her room. 

As the light flooded the area, Jane went to grab the bags from her friend's hands when she realised they were just standing open mouthed staring at her. Frowning she asked "What?". Their reply was to continue staring at her, faces seemingly white. She realised that they were not staring at her, but behind her and it dawned on her. He was here.

She slowly turned to face her fate and was relieved to find noone behind her. Her relief was quickly replaced with fear as she saw what had grabbed her friends' attention.

Her eyes scanned the letter 'D' painted across her wall in red paint. At least, she had hoped it was red paint.

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12:01am

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"5 minutes left everyone, find your someone special!"

Sarah rolled her eyes, the University had been extra cruel with her timetabling this year and her exams were to start on the 4th January which not only meant that she was taking a test on a Saturday but that she was also stuck in the library on New Years Eve. Her friends had tried to lure her to the impromptu street party that had sprung up outside the dorms but this exam was much too important. Her first round of exams hadn't gone so well and she was expected to resit in order to catch up. 

She wasn't the only one with her head in the books that night, Amy, her course-mate (if that's what you could call her), was also expected to resit in order to pull her up from a fail to a pass. Sarah had struggled with the workload, leading to her fail, but her fellow library-goer for the night simply never turned up to lectures.

Sarah had hoped that Amy wouldn't base her study operation too close to her own area for the night, expecting that she'd be asked countless questions about course content. Thankfully, Amy contained herself in the private study area, leaving Sarah to revise in peace. A guy Sarah didn't recognise had also entered the library that night but she hadn't seen him since he first arrived a few hours earlier. They'd exchanged polite smiles and left it at that. 

Slamming her hefty book closed on the sleek new tables the University had installed during its "modernisation period", she circled her fingertips against her temples attempting to subdue what felt like the beginnings of a headache. The revelers in the street had increased in decibel as the clock drew closer to midnight, so she stuck her hand into her mess of a handbag and fumbled around for her phone. Locating the device, she clicked in the side button and sure enough the time read 11:59pm. Deciding to at least acknowledge the impending new year, she wandered over to the window to partake in the festivities (even if it was from the silence of the library). 

"3... 2... 1... Happy New Year!"

Making sure she was truly alone in her little area of the library that night, she did a jig of sorts to celebrate the arrival of 2014 and just as quickly regained her composure readying up for the next couple of hours of studying. 

Stealing one last glance at the party in the street, which had broken into song with Auld Lang Syne, she headed back to her table. Spotting her phone dancing around dangerously close to the edge of the table, she realised someone had managed to fight through the millions of phone calls being made at that precise moment and get through to wish her a happy new year. Catching it just as it was about to drop onto the thinly carpeted floor, she frowned at the unknown number message flashing in her hand. 12:01am on New Year's Day, it must be someone she knew,so she slid her thumb across the screen and answered. 

"Happy New Year!" She exclaimed, expecting a familiar voice to identify themselves on the other end to no luck. The crowd had gotten louder with the second rendition of Auld Lang Syne so she blocked her other ear with her finger in an attempt to hear her caller.

"I can't hear you, speak up." she said, frowning at the festivities now. Still nothing. Moving to the corner of the room she could just about pick up a faint thumping noise on the other end. Realising this was quite possibly a pocket dial, she shouted "HELLO" down the phone to try to gain the attention of her midnight dialler. She could just hang up but it was 2014 and she wanted at least one person to talk to for a few minutes. Pushing her call control buttons on screen, she changed the call to speakerphone to try to figure out who it was. 

Almost on cue, the drunken party-goers had grown tired of singing and had resumed normal celebrations for the night. 

Still thumping on the other end of the phone. It didn't really fit the profile of a pocket dial, which usually featured some heavy rustling and voices on the other end. This call was silent except for that thump, thump, thump noise. Resigning herself to defeat, she was about to hang up when a new noise filled the air. A dragging sound.

She frowned. What on earth is this call about? And then footsteps. It dawned on her that someone was dragging something on the other end of the line and for some reason this made her very nervous. Setting the phone back to its normal call mode, she decided to go find her course-mate and get a second opinion. That and to calm herself down. Something just didn't sound right, she didn't know what but it had freaked her out a little.

She made her way across the main library floor to the stairs which lead to the private study area. For some reason she was creeping down the steps one by one but she didn't stop herself. The air felt tense around her despite the celebrations happening outside. She found her way to the area that her course-mate had said she was headed and pushed through the door letting it swing shut behind her, to alert Amy to the fact that she was coming (and partly just to break the silence that was making her nervous). 

Deciding she was only freaking herself out, she called out "Amy" before she came to the private area. Just as rounded the corner, she stopped. Every single hair on her body stood on end and dread filled her limbs. The smiling guy from earlier was dancing around with one of Amy's arms in hand, leaving a dark stain of blood across the carpet as he dragged her.

"You finally joined the party, come, dance."

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