Stranger Danger

I looked up at where "the face" had been as my heart stopped while holding my breath. The face was gone. I looked behind me at the gate that I had come through a couple seconds ago and saw a man staring at me. He was wearing a greenish city uniform with the name Earl embroidered on the upper left chest area. He was wearing a huge sun hat and a skull bandana around his neck that sparkled and glittered in the left-0ver sun.
"Excuse me" I muttered, unsure of whether he was someone I could trust.
"You're not supposed to be here...miss" he said. There was something in the way that he added the "miss" at the end that told me that he was speaking from a place of bitter authority. I decided to be as kind and get home as fast as I could.
"Oh sorry" I stuttered "I was just getting my dog back, she got loose from me when she saw a ...squirrel and took off down here."
"Uh huh" he commented, looking me up and down, trying to rip the half truth from my lips.
He finally smiled and nodded his head as if he decided to believe most of what I was saying.
"Well then you got your dog now so you better leave before I call them cops."
I gave a nervous laugh and pulled Mugsy back up the path. I didn't take my eyes off of Earl as we walked up the path. When I got on the other side of the fence I muttered an "I'm sorry" and thanked him for his time and patience. "Uh huh" was all he said.
As I walked back down to the sidewalk I could feel him staring at the back of my neck. I was anxious to be out of his sight line so I started to run back home even though it was a half mile away. As I ran, I could hear his first statement in my mind, "You're not supposed to be here yet." "Yet." He had said the word "yet." The second time he left that part out as if he was testing me to see if I heard him.. What exactly did he mean by "yet?" I thought about it all the way home as I tried to forget every detail of him. As I rounded the final corner Mugsy took off and pulled away from me. "Home!" I commanded. She obeyed and took off towards home. When I got there she was waiting for me to open the door, obviously glad to be home. So was I. As I walked inside and locked the door I heard Earl's voice. "You're not supposed to be here yet." I jumped and my heart skipped a beat. I knew the voice had to be in my head but my heart was telling me it was something more sinister. I ran to my room, quickly closing the door behind me As my breathing slowly calmed, my eyes fell on a blue glass ring with a tiny gold symbol in the middle of it in my open jewelry box. I hadn't worn this ring or even thought about it in...years. Two decades to be more precise. I slipped it on my right middle finger and decided to do a quick inspection of my small three bedroom house.