Every step you take towards the toll booth, the ringing of the flip phone becomes first audible, then louder, ringing at full volume once you stand in its shadow.
… You can’t get the toll collector’s attention, no matter what you try; there’s no way you have enough to pay. They won’t even give you a proper rejection.
There’s a desperate resolution as you answer the phone call. An older man’s voice speaks:
“Sarah Gibson has lived alone since her kids moved out. Never remarried. No neighbors, keeps to herself. How hard can it be? You’ve always been a creative kid.”
—
The estate the widowed Ms. Gibson owns is a ways out of town on an otherwise empty road, which means the shape of the man in a hoodie goes unseen as he walks along the ditch by the road, the glow of flickering streetlights not quite reaching him.
cw: animals eating people
They see a few nights pass in a few moments, snippets of nights with different phases of the moon; the man walks by and tosses bags over the wall. A few nights in, they see coyotes slipping in through the fence and tearing cuts of meat out of the bags.
On the final night, they see him stepping out of the house, dragging a blond woman by the hair to dump in the yard, out by the treeline. As he leaves, the animals close in, knowing what they’ll find.
The gnashing and howling is relatively quiet from where you stand. You can faintly hear it as the night sky and moon fills your vision.
—
(tldr: he has to visit the house a few consecutive nights; when everything’s right, he breaks in and kills her)
