Follow Her
10 May 2019Today’s prompt: “You realize you have inadvertently become a stalker.”
You are convinced the woman two houses down is a necromancer.
Her propensity for wearing dark velvets always struck you as a bit odd. But then recently you saw her at the pet store buying a package of raw bones. She didn’t have a dog with her then, and you’ve never seen her walking one around the neighborhood.
That got you suspicious, so you decided to keep an eye out for her. The next time you see her out and about, it’s at Fred Meyer. You peek into her cart. She’s got a tub of lettuce, a bag of baby carrots, and like ten candles.
Who the fuck needs that many candles?
One day while you’re taking your trash to the curb, you see her car pull out of her driveway. Perfect. As soon as she’s turned the corner, you walk nonchalantly to her house, duck quickly to her back gate, and let yourself in. It’s already twilight, so you get your phone flashlight out and walk back and forth along her backyard, scouring the lawn for dog poop. Not a trace. It could be you missed a spot in the fading light, or maybe she picked up in the backyard today, but it just doesn’t seem very likely. So if she doesn’t have a dog, what were the bones for?
About a week later, late at night, you see a light come on in one of the downstairs windows as you study the house through your binoculars. Maybe it’s those ten fucking candles. You sneak over to the side of her house, right next to the window, and listen. You hear someone chanting. I mean sure, it could be Enya. It doesn’t sound like Orinoco Flow, and that’s like the only Enya song you know, but it could be Enya. But seriously, what are the odds?
The other day when you were following her in your car, at a stop light she seemed to be adjusting her rear view mirror. You’re not sure if she saw you, so you make a conscientious effort not to follow quite so closely for the next several blocks. You let another car in front of you, making sure to watch for any turns or lane changes from her Subaru. She eventually pulls into a gas station. You drive past, but you’re pretty sure she was staring right at your car when she got out of the driver’s seat.
So now she’s on to you. Crap.
You need to know what you’re up against. You need to get inside that house. So you wait. And you watch.
One day, you see her walk out of her front door, open the garage, pull out the lawnmower and start mowing the front lawn. All while never locking the front door. You stare at her, adrenaline coursing through your veins, as she finishes mowing the front lawn and carts the lawnmower through the back gate. This is your chance. You’ve only got a couple minutes. You have to hurry.
You run down the street, open her front door, and look around quickly. You stare at a bookcase, hoping for a Necronomicon or a Malleus Maleficarum to jump out at you. You open cupboards, looking for anything suspicious, but find only pots and pans.
You hurry upstairs to glance through any bookshelves up there. You hear a door slam and you freeze. You hear footsteps. You send out a silent prayer that they walk back outside.
As silently as you can, you walk to the wall by the door and flatten yourself against it, hoping that even if she comes upstairs she won’t notice you. Maybe she just needs to grab something from another room and go back outside.
You hear the footsteps coming up the stairs. Fuck. How do you get out of this? Okay, she’s probably not really a necromancer. Maybe you can get out of this with just a restraining order.
Your neighbor leans through the doorway and levels a shotgun at your head. “Castle Doctrine, fucker,” she says.