"Murder Madness" by Cache` Petters-Matthews

         In the spring of 2014, I moved into a new home. I had been living there for about a month when I finally decided to go down into the basement and set up my washer and dryer. I had been going to the laundromat until I decided to set it up. As I was cleaning out the basement, I came across a diary. It still looked fairly new and I wasn't sure what happened to the owner. I knew the house had been unoccupied for many months. What follows is the content of the diary. I did not alter in any way:

I

                There is someone following me. I decided to write down the events of the next few weeks in case I go missing. There has to be something left behind when my stalker inevitably kills me.

II

                I was walking to the hardware store today, when I saw the fleeing shadow. My stalker! He was following me, turned and left! I felt scared and pulled the small knife I began to carry in my pocket closer. I looked around at everyone, feeling unsafe before walking into the store.

III

                A week passed before I saw signs of my stalker again. I don’t know what he looks like, but I see the same shape of shadow every time. However, whenever I turn around, he isn’t there! The same feeling of being unsafe comes over me and makes me want to curl up in my bed. I’ve told my mother about my feelings and she slept over once. I was annoyed by her and kept shooing her away from the basement. Why does she always want to wash my clothes?

IV

                The next few weeks my feelings of anxiety increased. I couldn’t go outside my room without feeling like someone was watching me and documenting everything I do. Does my stalker know that I like orange juice with bacon? Does my stalker know the times I shower and pee? Every time I think of that, I want to cry.

V

                I was walking past the window today and saw something behind the blinds. A person? I looked and saw nothing but my own reflection. I opened the window, looked left and right, and didn’t see any running shadows or anything. Looking down I saw my pocketknife lying on the grass. What was it doing outside? I went outside, walking close to the house, and picked it up. There was blood on it. I touched it and a droplet was on my finger. I licked it and shuddered. It tasted like metal and what scared me the most was…I liked it.

VI

                I barely go outside anymore. I can’t trust anything or anyone. When a UPS man came, I cracked the door open and signed it that way. He was looking at me strangely, with a sinister expression. Was he my stalker? I threw the board and pen at him, grabbed the box, shut and locked the door. I didn’t move until I heard him walk away, get into the car and drive away. I breathed a sigh of relief when he left and went to the kitchen to open the package.

                I grabbed a pair of scissors and that’s when I noticed there was blood on the edge of the blade. Did I cut myself? I looked down at my finger and I had! There was a dinosaur bandage on my finger. Dinosaur? When did I cut myself? Pushing it out my mind, I opened the box to find blades. They were long and sharp. I took one out and saw my reflection in it…and someone else. I turned around, the blade clattering to the ground. There wasn’t anyone there.

                I didn’t remember ordering any blades. I packaged it away and put it by the basement door. I resolved not to think about it and decided to sleep to get away from my stalker.

VII

                I woke one morning and went into the bathroom. I looked into the mirror and didn’t recognize myself. My eyes were red and puffy and there was blood all over my face and chest. I started screaming immediately and rushed to lock the door. Was there someone in my house? Was it my stalker? How did he get in? I could’ve sworn I locked and triple-checked all the doors and windows before I went to sleep. I stayed in the bathroom for a long while. I heard the phone ringing and ignored it. I heard someone knocking on the front door and ignored it. I rocked back and forth on the cold floor in my bathroom, trying to understand what was happening to me.

                I spent most of the day in there, alternating between sleeping and crying. I banged my head against the door a few times, liking the pain. When night fell and everything went silent, I crawled out the bathroom and checked the house. All the doors were locked, nothing was out of place. Could the stalker have a key to my house? He must’ve locked up and straightened before he left. Whose blood did he drop onto me?

                Something pulled me to the basement door. It was clean and the box of blades was gone. I put my hand on the doorknob but something told me to walk away. So I did. I cleaned myself up and tried to ignore the stalker.

VIII

                Today was the first day I went outside in weeks. As soon as I left I immediately wanted to go back inside. My neighbor next door was mowing his lawn. He waved to me and made a joke about me becoming my house. I watched him, saw the way he sized me up. Was I the blade of grass to his lawnmower? I wouldn’t be his next victim. I hurried away without waving back.

                Everywhere I walked I felt people’s eyes on me; the feeling of someone following me intensified by a thousand. I passed by a flyer on a post and stopped immediately. It read Missing: Johnny Evergreen. It showed a picture of a little blond boy playing with toys. It listed the number and address in case there was any information. I had seen that little boy running around the neighborhood a few weeks back. He was missing? Could my stalker have taken him? But why go from a six-year old boy to a twenty –year old woman? It just didn’t make any sense. Looking closer at the picture, I saw a dinosaur band aid on his index finger. Immediately, I turned and walked away, pushing everything out my mind.

                That feeling of being followed came back immediately. I pulled my jacket closer around me and sped up.

IX

                My mother is worried about me. She came over yesterday and I barely opened my door to let her in. She squeezed through with food in her hand and chastised me about the smell in my house. Smell? She said it smelled like dead bodies.

                We walked to the kitchen where she opened the food and put a huge helping on my plate. She opened the refrigerator and told me I desperately needed to go shopping. The refrigerator was bare and the few items in there had long since gone bad. My mother told me my neighbor had called her and told her about my weirdness. How I never went out anymore and how the other day when I did, I acted strange.

                She switched from my neighbor to the missing boy from my neighborhood. That’s when I noticed how my mother was staring at me. That look in her eyes…it was igniting the feeling I got whenever my stalker was following me. I realized then that we were alone in this house. Only my father knew she was here and he was probably in on it. Was my mother my stalker?

                I stood up slowly and my mother slowly stopped talking. She asked me if I was alright and I screamed and tackled her.

                “You’re my stalker!” I screamed, slamming her head against the floor. I continued to do that until she was quiet. I felt for her pulse. It was still going.

X

                She wasn’t my stalker.

XI

                My mother has gone missing and I don’t know where she is. My father says she was here last but I can’t recall her ever being here. He told me she was coming over here, but I think he was just trying to get into my house and kill me. I told him she never came over and hurriedly ended the call; I couldn’t trust anyone. How did I know they haven’t been planning this since I was born? Waiting until I was older to kill me and eat my remains. She must’ve gotten snatched on the way over here, it was the only reasonable explanation.

XII

                One day when I was watching TV and flipping through bridal magazines, I heard my stalker walking around the house. I clutched the magazines to my chest and my mind immediately went to little Johnny. I had refused to think about the dinosaur Band-Aid but now it was all I could think about. Why was I wearing a Band-Aid similar to his? It couldn’t be his? Looking at my finger I realized it was no longer there. Where did it go? Where was little Johnny? I heard his mother was terribly distraught and had threatened to kill herself.

                And my mother. Where had she gone? I didn’t know and I was worried. She was my rock, there for me when I had the depression in my teens. I took some pills and got better. Just recently I had gotten off them. She told me I had done some weird things before I had gone on the pills, but my memory was a little blurry. I needed her here with me always.

XIII

                It occurred to me one day when I was reading Nicholas Sparks that my stalker 

knew a lot of the people connected to me. Every place I went, he followed. Every haunt I went to I saw missing posters and just knew my stalker was trailing me and finding people to kill. Was he killing them? I certainly hoped little Johnny was still alive. Still, the idea of him being dead didn’t displease me. I didn’t enjoy watching him and his family be happy together. Still, it wasn’t right that my stalker was using my life and connections to pick his victims. I still didn’t know who it was.

XIV

                I couldn’t trust anyone. They all looked at me like they wanted to kill me and eat me. It was like they knew all my secrets. It made me feel unclean. Were they going to eat me? Was that their game plan? Did everyone know who my stalker was? Were they just waiting for him to kill me? I wouldn’t let him! I wouldn’t let him!

XV

I lay awake one night and heard muffled screams from the basement. I slipped out of bed and went downstairs. I placed my hand on the doorknob only to remember I mustn’t go down there. The screams got louder, pounding into my head. Was that my stalker? Was he down there, making that noise so I’d be lured down there? I snatched my hand away like the doorknob was on fire. I went to the kitchen and grabbed the blades that came in the mail. There was some dried blood on them. Ignoring that, I kicked the basement door open and went downstairs.

                In that moment, everything came flooding back.

    I was the stalker.