Here's how last night panned out

I have a Creative Writing Assignment due tomorrow, a memoir between 800-1000 words. At the beginning of the semester I would have relished this assignment; now, I'm annoyed. Recently everything I've tried writing has become this huge story, taking me places I had no idea it would go. I've discovered an appreciation for writing fiction, which is the complete opposite of my writing only a week ago.

Here is the piece I started today. I know exactly where I want it to go, but I have to go to class and don't have time to finish it right now. Enjoy the cliffhanger. I swear I'll finish it later.

p.s. NIKKI- DON'T READ THIS. It is scary, and you live alone, so you don't like scary things. Just a heads up.

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The latest band her roommate had “discovered” hummed behind her, and she padded barefoot on the thin blue carpet in perfect time. Turning the corner towards the kitchen, one hand on the plain white wall for guidance, she stared into the black apartment hallway and passed the three doors of her roommates in silence. Once she felt cold, gritty linoleum under her small square toes, she reached up and flicked the switch without having to feel for it first.
There, on the left of the kitchen bar which separated it from the entryway, stood a man of 6’4’’ or so.
Fifteen seconds passed with neither of them speaking, each one making the girl, 5’5’’ and 120 lbs, more aware of his size. He did not move or look directly at her; instead, he studied the pantry with wide brown eyes.
Her deep intake of breath, brought on by the realization that she was about to pass out, caused him to look up at her.
“Is, uh, Natalie here?” he asked in a voice too young for someone who looked at least 30.
“No one named Natalie lives here,” she replied evenly, taking in his height and weight, and factoring in his wind resistance mixed with her self defense classes.
“Ha! Oh!” he chuckled, “I’m so sorry!” He smiled an expensive, beautiful smile, gazed blankly at the pantry, then turned and was gone into the black winter night.
--
Earlier that day the girl, Kate, had been standing in the same place in the kitchen, hands on hips, regarding the space with indignation. Where could it be, she wondered in annoyance. Her habit of losing her phone was costing her very important social opportunities, as was living with three girls she hardly knew. Wasn’t making friends in college supposed to be easy? Turns out no. Two of them barely spoke English, and the third one was nice but never around.
Outside, her third roommate was leaning against the front door, sweating and shaking. After two deep breaths, she walked in and saw Kate.
“Hey girl,” she called out casually, with a slight tremor in her voice.
“Aubrey what happened to your forehead?” Kate said in a solemn whisper, pointing up at her face. Her skin was swelling and bleeding around a thick red dent, something she hadn’t felt or noticed.
“Oh, that?” was her light response as she touched her yellow leather gloves to the red liquid on her face, “That should teach you to never take me to the batting cages. Stupid boys thinking I enjoy sports.” She laughed in a high, pulsing pitch, but her features were cold and lifeless. Kate noticed the bruising on her collarbone but said nothing.
“Aren’t you missing class right now?”
“Geeze, lady, stalking me or something?” she smiled and pushed Kate gently. “Knock on my door if you feel like making me food.” Back in her room, she began sucking in great heaves of air and pulling off her gloves. She rushed into her bathroom and began washing the blood from underneath each fingernail.
After the man left the apartment, Kate immediately walked to the door, locked it, then turned to stare at the living room window. Their apartment was at the end of a hallway, the light of which was always on. This window, even with the blinds closed, alerted them of any guests coming or going with an obvious shadow.
--
That morning Aubrey had paced the poorly decorated living room, occasionally peeking out and heaving an impatient sigh. She was waiting for her ride to take her to school, since she hated driving in any kind of snow and she was only one more ticket away from getting her license revoked.
“Any more screw ups and we’re pulling your funding,” her step father had decreed before the semester, his style of speaking to her always awkward and formal. The man didn’t know how to be a parent. Even though he’d been married to her mother for two years now, he was still using terms like ‘pulling your funding,’ like he was a benefactor, not a stepdad. Screw that guy, she thought bitterly, remembering his presence in her life. Just thinking about him made her want to blast sludge metal and wear her skull and bones t-shirts to church. He always looooved that. Ten more minutes passed without her ride arriving or answering his phone. After changing into a Mastadon t-shirt and pocketing her iPod, she snatched keys off the bar and walked out into the dirty snow, hopping into her red convertible.
--
Andrew held his fiancee’s hand the same afternoon, pushing the ring he gave her back and forth over her delicate, tan knuckle. “You know that was my grandmother’s ring,” he said proudly. His grandmother was so relieved he was actually getting married, she offered it as early inheritance. “Thirty three isn’t so old,” he had argued. Staring at the perfect woman before he, he can’t believe he waited so long. “I love you, Andrew.” He bent his tall frame to lean in and kiss her perfect, pouting mouth.
--
That night, still staring at the window, Kate was again unintentionally holding her breath. At the pace he exited the apartment, a shadow should have passed by now. She held her face up to the peephole and saw nothing but an empty apartment. Since that shadow still had not passed, and she couldn’t see him, she knew he was still there, standing somewhere in the three foot stretch of hallway between the door and the window.
Backing away from the door, she painfully sucked the thin air into her lungs. Where is that stupid phone?! She screamed at herself and at humanity for not inventing cell phone lo-jacks. Backing away. He is still out there. No shadow on the window. She ran her hand across the bar for balance as she passed it. Suddenly the chilled linoleum floor was much colder than usual for a winter night. Lifting her feet, she realized they were damp. Two seconds after looking down, she was clutching at the kitchen bar and sagging to the ground. A thin trail of blood was leaking from the open pantry, the candy apple red color now covering her feet and the hem of her pajamas. The bottom shelf of the pantry was two feet wide and four feet thick, usually held nothing but an occasional case of water bottles. Kate’s eyes were now following the trail of blood, up to the source: Aubrey’s face was pale and relaxed, the blood from her neck covering the left cheek and the entire floor of the pantry. Her expression was so relieved and tired that Kate was transfixed, and didn’t hear the front door opening slowly.