Three More Times

It happened again on Thursday.

Same figure, or something that looked like the same figure, at the end of Maple Street this time, which was a completely different route because Nadia had changed their route on Wednesday without telling Callum why, saying only that she wanted to go past the bakery.

The figure was at the end of Maple Street when they turned onto it. Standing still. Facing them.

Nadia grabbed Callum's sleeve.

"What?" he said.

"End of the street," she said quietly.

Callum looked. His expression shifted. "That is the same--"

"I do not know if it is the same," Nadia said. "It looks the same."

"We changed the route," Callum said. He said it slowly, working through it.

"I know," Nadia said.

They stood on the pavement. The figure stood at the end of the street. The distance between them was perhaps a hundred metres. Far enough that faces were impossible, features were impossible, but close enough that the stillness of the figure was very obvious. People who were simply waiting shifted their weight. Checked their phones. Looked around. This figure did none of those things.

"We could go back," Callum said.

"And go which way?" Nadia said.

That was the problem. They had already changed the route once. They still had to get home. There was no route that did not have an end to it, and every end was a junction, and every junction was a place to stand.

They walked down Maple Street together, close enough that their arms kept touching, and the figure at the end did not move until they were approximately thirty metres away, at which point Callum said "still there" very quietly, and then they reached the junction and turned, and when Nadia looked back the end of Maple Street was empty.

Friday: the figure at the end of Park Close, standing at the exact centre of the junction, perfectly still in the rain, not wet in the way that a person standing in rain for any length of time would be wet.

Saturday and Sunday they did not go out alone. Monday: the figure at the end of their own road, half a street from their front door, and Nadia's heart hammering so hard she could feel it in her throat, and Callum taking her hand without being asked, which he had not done since she was eight years old, which told her more about how scared he was than anything he could have said.

They ran the last fifty metres. The figure did not follow. When they got inside and Callum looked out the front window the street was empty.

"We need to tell Mum," Nadia said, breathing hard.

"Tell her what?" Callum said. "That there is someone standing at the end of streets? She will say it is just a person."

"It is not just a person," Nadia said.

"I know," Callum said. "But how do we explain that?"