Scared Yet? by Jaye Ford

and loss and pain.
    â€˜I’m staying on my feet, Dad.’ She wanted to believe it. She didn’t want to disappoint him. But it was getting harder and harder with every hit she took.
    She stayed with him for an hour, left when she could see he was tiring. She knew he’d never admit to exhaustion. That had never been a valid excuse. Keep going until you can’t go any longer then do it a bit more . He’d yelled that around the gym until he was hoarse. A few weeks ago, she’d been with him when his doctor tried to tell him there would come a point when it would be better to stop fighting the disease. She’d watched her father’s face and knew it was a concept he’d never understand.
    She scanned the parking area from the entrance before walking back to her car. It was getting close to hospital visiting hours – there were more parked cars out there and others driving around, pulling into spaces. People, too. Singles and small groups. She should feel better about that but she watched warily, looking for bruised faces, checking her wiper blades for another note.
    Home was in a suburban subdivision dense with townhouses and villas occupied by retirees and divorcees – as Liv would be officially in a month. It’d been a hasty purchase, bought for the location – a ten-minute drive to work, a five-minute run to the park – and four weeks in residence hadn’t given her much more to like about it.
    Her hand ached from holding the steering wheel as she turned into the long driveway and passed the first two identical residences. Waiting tiredly for the automatic door on the two-car garage to finish its rise, she looked across at the front entry with no sense of homecoming, no comfortable familiarity, no solace from her own private space. As townhouses went, there was nothing wrong with it – twelve years old, a little battered by previous owners, functional kitchen and bathroom. The flat above her dad’s gym had been a dive in comparison. It just wasn’t the family home she’d dreamed of. She’d had that. And when Thomas screwed it up, she’d put it on the market, sold it for less than it was worth, needing to finish quickly what he’d started. Slicing off the dead flesh before it poisoned the rest of her.
    She parked next to the double row of removal boxes stacked like a hedge in the other parking bay. The auto-doorrolled back down as she collected her bag and by the time she eased out of the car, she was shut in and the sunshine was gone. There were three small windows set high in one wall but the second storey of the neighbouring townhouse was so close that they let in little more than deep shade. It was light enough to see, dark enough to cause a twinge of apprehension as she looked over at the boxes.
    The removalists had suggested she stack them against the wall but she’d wanted them in the middle so she could walk all the way around, make it easier to find whichever box she was searching for. Cameron had hidden behind them one day last week, sprung up and shouted, ‘Boo!’ as she’d walked from the car. After recovering from the shock of it, she’d laughed and chased him round the stack. The thought of someone crouching behind there now made the hairs on the back of her neck rise.
    Did the bastard with the balaclava know where she lived? Had he followed her home before he’d waited for her in the car park?
    She shut the car door, turned, saw a movement.
    And a pale face.

9
    Liv gasped, slammed back against the car. And saw herself, bruised and dishevelled, in a mirror on an old wardrobe. Fuck. Her heart was a sledgehammer, her mouth dry and she looked like an idiot spread-eagled against the chassis.
    Calm down, Liv. This will not keep you on your feet. She smoothed her hair, tugged down her shirt, gripped her keys like a weapon and walked to the stack of boxes. Walked all the way around. No one