Terror always tiptoes around

It all started the day Claudia finished her wolf rug. It was a beautiful little rug, just the right size to put on the floor in front of her television set. Start to finish the project had taken her a bit over two months to complete because she had never before done latchhook. It took awhile to master the correct way to hold the hook and to grab the yarn and pull it through the mesh without shredding the yarn. It was a good thing she had purchased extra yarn. But once she got the hang of it, it was fun to watch the image come to life. The completed rug had two wolves on it, one of which was baying at the moon.

She lived in a tiny mountain town having relocated there five years previous from a big city. The town had a quiet ambience to it. It was high enough up the mountain that the trees changed colors in autumn but not so high that it got snowed in during the winter.

Claudia's house was small, just a two-bedroom, two-bath in a quiet neighborhood not too far off the town's center. She had turned one of the bedrooms into a den. In it was her television set, her desk and a craft table. It also had a futon that she used as a lounger. Being a loner, this is where she spent her afternoons, working on any one of her many projects while watching one of her favorite shows.

Once she'd shaken all the loose yarn bits from her finished wolf rug she placed it on the floor in front of the television set. Gee it looks great there, she thought. That's when her front doorbell rang.

Claudia went to the door and peered through the peephole to see Misty, her next door neighbor standing on the porch. She opened the door. "Hi Misty, what's up?" she asked. Claudia and Misty were friends who would meet up for coffee a couple of times of month at the town's cafe, along with a couple other of their neighbors.

Misty seemed strangely uncomfortable. "Claudia, there is a suspicious package wrapped in brown paper left on my doorstep. It's addressed to you and next to it was this." Misty handed Claudia a white sheet of paper.

Claudia took the paper. It seemed to have been handwritten; black marker in block letters. She gave Misty a speculative look then read the note:

Claudia, keep the package but don't open the package.

"Misty, did you see who left this at your house?" she asked her neighbor.

"No, I didn't," said Misty. "I found it when I opened the door to go down the drive to check my mail. This is rather mysterious, isn't it?" Misty gave a small nervous laugh.

"Well, where's the package?" asked Claudia.

"Oh, sorry, I'll get it." Misty walked over to her own house to retrieve the curious package. When she returned she handed it to Claudia, frankly glad to be rid of it.

"Why, it has no return address on it, and it is so sloppily wrapped, just tied with string!" exclaimed Claudia. "How very strange." She thanked Misty and, with the package and note in hand, returned to her house.

She laid the package on her dining table and was just going to the sideboard for a pair of scissors with which to cut the strings around the package, when her doorbell rang yet again. What now, she thought.

Laying the scissors down she walked to the door and once again peered through the little hole in the door. Standing there was Frank, the town's mail carrier. Claudia opened the door.

"Hi Frank!" she said. "You didn't have to walk all the way up the road to deliver my mail..." her voice trailed off because she saw what he held in his hands.

"Hi Claudia. Funny thing," he said looking at her, "this package was sitting on the seat of my mail truck when I came out of the cafe from lunch. Had this note with it so I thought I'd better bring it to you rather than leave it in your box. Besides the package won't fit in your box." He gave her a half smile and said," funny, it has no return address on it. Only your name."

Claudia took the package and the note from Frank, thanked him and closed the door. She was dumbfounded. What the heck? she thought. She took the second suspicious package wrapped in brown paper to her dining table and placed it by the first one. Then she opened the note. It read:

Claudia, saw the scissors. Don't open the packages.

Claudia was now getting a bit upset. One package was odd. The note that came with it was odd. But two packages and two notes? And the second note seemed to imply that she was being watched. A shiver went up her spine. Should she be scared? Maybe call somebody? But Claudia had never backed down from anything in her life. Before her early retirement, she'd been the chief financial officer of a large corporation. Back then her friends would joke that Claudia ate stress for breakfast.

Claudia gave a sigh and again picked up the scissors. Now she was determined to find out what was in these plain brown wrappers. As the blades of the scissors touched the first string on the first package her cell rang. She hesitated. Who could be calling her? Her cell phone was sitting right there on the table so she bent to check the caller ID. Sam, from two doors down.

"Hello, Sam, what's up?" she asked as she answered the phone, after once again putting down the scissors.

"Hey Claudia," he said, "have a question for you. Do you have a couple of suspicious looking packages wrapped in brown paper and string?"

Claudia was surprised at his question. "How can you possibly know about this?"

"Well, I've got one here at my house too. It has your name on it and there is a note."

Her hands shaking just a bit, she said, "Sam, would you do me a favor and just read the note to me? Please? I'm being plagued by suspicious notes and packages today and have almost reached my limit."

"Okay, no problem," he said. Claudia heard a rustle of paper in the background and then Sam said, "okay, the note says 'Claudia if you want to know what this is all about come to Sam's house and bring the other two packages.' That's all it says. Why don't you bring what you've got and we can figure this out." Sam was retired military and Claudia had no problem with that suggestion - she had to admit that her nerves were beginning to be rattled.

It took all of eight minutes to walk to Sam's front door. She rang the bell. In just a moment it was opened by Sam's wife Peggy who invited her to come into their living room. "Hi Claudia, Sam's in there." As Peggy rounded the short hallway from the front door of Sam and Peggy's home to their living room she heard a murmur of sound begin to swell.

Happy Birthday, Claudia!

There must have been twenty people packed into the room, all smiling and laughing, undoubtedly because of the look of astonishment on her face. Misty stepped out from the group and, rather sheepishly, took the two packages that Claudia had carried from her house and added them to a pile that covered a table in the center of the room. All the packages were wrapped in plain brown paper and string.

After a bit, when the cake had been cut and champagne poured, Claudia sat with Misty. "Misty," asked Claudia, "what was all the mystery about those packages for? I was starting to get seriously creeped out!"

"Sorry about that," said Misty, "but we thought, what with your penchant for mystery shows, we would treat you to a bit of 'live tv,' so-to-speak. What do you think now?"

Taking a sip of her champagne, Claudia said, "It was well done. A perfect birthday for the likes of me."