Beth considered her house her castle. If the HOA hadn't been watching her so closely she might have built a moat to keep riffraff out. The skateboarders and porch thieves and Cindy Harper who lived next door and kept trying to get Beth to join her knitting group, Stich and Pray. She imagined them all drowning in dirty water, nails scraping as they struggled to spit

and breathe.

She eyed the package UPS Dave just dropped off. She'd had to sternly tell the boy to come to the door each time and not just leave it without her being home. Pirates were everywhere, ready to snatch any box that looked unattended. At least now she might be able to do something about it.

She adjusted her thick silver glasses, peering at the instructions. Seemed simple enough to install a video doorbell. Her son Reggie could do it if he weren't so lazy. Or if he ever answered his phone.

A few screws later and she had it affixed to the outside of her door. The directions said to set it up on her cell phone but she never approved of a phone that traveled with you. She used the ancient laptop she'd gotten a few years ago at a garage sale instead.

Her wrinkled face smiled in delight as her front porch lit up on her computer screen.

"Finally I can catch the bastards."

Almost every night for months now one of the neighborhood brats had been leaving an unopened can of tuna at her front door. Her cupboards overflowed. Her trash became too heavy to move.

The police laughed at her, asking if she'd just forgotten she'd bought the cans. As if Beth was so old she kept purchasing cases and cases of tuna fish. In oil no less. So nasty.

What she needed was proof and she'd get it, damn their eyes. If the police wouldn't help her she'd do it herself. Reggie had left a .44 when he'd last visited ages ago. She'd done a bit of bird shooting when she was in high school. She could still hit what she aimed at. Most of the time.

She went to bed a little after eight, unable to wait the whole night.

In the morning, she found another can of tuna. No letter. No footprints. Just a single tin, shining dully in the morning sun.

Beth checked her camera feed.

"I bet it was that pimply Darrel Winthrop. He has shifty eyes."

The boy was fifteen and half black. She'd caught him snipping a rose from one of her pink lady's for mother's day. Rude.

She fast forwarded , squinting at the screen. Around ten, a figure in shadow knelt by her front door, placing a single can on her welcome mat. The figure paused and looked up. Beth leaned in. The figure's eyes glinted mirror-like in the dark. The rest of his face was shadowed behind a dark hoodie.

"Ghost," Beth whispered then shook her head. No such thing. If there were ghosts her beloved Harry would have come back to haunt her for strangling him on the toilet.

It was his fault anyway, he knew how Beth felt about her roses. He'd pissed on them! Brute.

She called Reggie, her gnarled fingers moving on her pink rotary phone.

He answered on the seventeenth ring.

"Ma I don't have time for this, the kids are late for school."

"Why are you watching them for? Rosalee left you again?" Beth said.

Reggie sighed. "What is it again Ma? Did Kathleen leave you a note again? You know you gotta stop harassing that woman. It's not her fault your paint is peeling."

Beth pursed her lips. "It is her fault. She makes that barbeque every Sunday and the propane is eating my siding. I ain't calling about that. I caught the tuna man on my doorbell camera and I'm gonna shoot him."

"Ma you're not shooting anyone. You'll go deaf or shoot yourself in the foot."

"I know how to shoot! Your daddy took me out duck hunting for years," Beth grumbled.

"Just call the police next time. I gotta go."

Beth listened to the dial tone for a long while. Her own son couldn't stand to talk to her for more than a few minutes. Ungrateful.

She loaded her gun. She was reasonably sure she could shoot the tuna miscreant on her porch. Stand your ground and all.

Reggie knocked on her door a few days later, early in the morning. He found her collapsed just inside her front door. Her floral nightgown was down around her fuzzy slippers. She held a .44 in her hand.

"Ma?" He knelt, nudging her cold body. "Shit did you shoot yourself?"

He looked but couldn't find a wound. Her wide open eyes scared him. She'd always scared him but now she seemed to be silently screaming. An unopened can of tuna was left at her feet. It had a single bullet imbedded on the side, spilling foul smelling meat. He gagged, kicking it outside but the smell lingered.

He saw her laptop on the living room coffee table. She had that doorbell camera. Maybe something was on it. He thought about calling the police but she'd been dead for a while. They could wait.

He watched the night before and the night before that. On screen, his mother opened the door, brandishing her weapon at nothing. She shot the tuna can and fell back inside.

A dark figure appeared, pulling the door shut. The porch was so shadowed he couldn't see a face at first. It wasn't until the figure knelt to put another perfect can of tuna on her welcome mat that he saw inside the hoodie. His mother's face looked back at him and hissed, exposing two sharp fangs.