Cara was terrified.

She was alone in the house (along with her two younger brothers), and night was falling.  Now that it was fall, night was coming earlier and earlier each day.  Her parents were on an Alaskan cruise; they wouldn't be back for another eight days or so, leaving Cara to take care of things (and her younger brothers) upon returning home from school.

Cara hated the dark.  

She felt safer if the lights were on ... and the more lights, the better.  

Cara had been terrified of the dark ever since her creepy old uncle had told her that ghost story that still gave her the willies every thime she thought about it.  Damn you, Uncle Frank! she raged, it's your fault that I'm scared of the dark like I am!!

Also, Cara did not like to be alone or have her parents gone.  While she was glad that she was a responsible caregiver to her little brothers (one, of whom, had special needs and was in a wheelchair), she still felt safer whenever her mother or father were there at the house with her.

Cara happened to be sitting in the kitchen this particular evening, watching her brother color a picture in his coloring book, and watching her youngest brother sitting in his wheelchair, when, all of a sudden, she heard something right outside the kitchen window.

Her heart leaped to her throat as her blue eyes searched the darkness outside the window, but to her relief, she didn't see a thing.  Maybe I'm just imagining things, she reasoned.  It must be an animal or someone walking by, a neighbor perhaps.

This was when she wished her parents weren't off on some ship, sailing towards far-off Alaska.  She wanted nothing more than for them to be home with her as well as Michael and Aden, her little brothers.

~To be continued!~