Stalked

It's hot. The kind of heat that distorts the scenery in the distance, making it look as if the world were melting. As Mom drives us towards our destination, I can't help but wonder if we'll slip off the road down into the molten core of the earth.

We're headed to a rental beach house for a short summer vacation. The school year just ended, and Mom decided she has more than earned a long weekend away from her soul-sucking office job. Something about the monthly financial report and a presentation during which her boss completely talked over her and yada yada yada. I tune her out when she goes on her tirades.

After nearly 6 hours of podcasts, iSpy, and the license plate game (we spotted a respectable number of 15 states, including, much to our elation, Alaska), our modest, white, one-story duplex finally comes into view. Seeing as we were just two, Mom didn't feel the need to shell out thousands of dollars for a fancy beach house with an oceanfront view. But that was fine. We'll still have our own rooms with full-sized beds, a shared bathroom, a kitchen, and a cozy living room.

We pull into the driveway to the left of the duplex, and I note that the other side is devoid of any cars out front. Selfishly, I hope it stays that way. Vacations are all about relaxing. No need to add any noisy neighbors to the mix.

As soon as Mom turns off the car, I feel the summer heat seep through the windows. Quickly, I jump out of the passenger seat and throw the back open, gathering as many bags as I can carry in one go. I run up the wooden stoop to the front door, cheerily adorned with a seashell wreath, a board running through the middle with a wavy blue "WELCOME" written across. Yelling over my shoulder, I ask Mom for the code to unlock the door and punch it in as she shouts back the numbers.

The cold blast of the AC is a sweet balm to the hot sun. I carefully toe off my new sneakers at the entrance. The scarlet red outside and stark white logo practically sparkle in the light. Shoes secured, I rush through the living room towards what I assume are the bedrooms, eager to have first dibs. By the time Mom trails in after me, I've already started unpacking.

—

I wake up in the middle of the night.

I'm not quite sure what startled me, or if it's just my body getting used to an unfamiliar space. I blink a few times, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark. Peering around the room, I can barely make out the shapes of the bedroom door, the closet, the nightstand and bedside lamp. Nothing looks out of place. Only hearing the soft buzz of the AC, I go back to sleep.

—

In the morning, Mom and I decide to go to the boardwalk. I hurry to get ready. It's already 11 am and she was hoping to get there before midday. In my rush, I don't realize what I'm missing until she's already walking out the door to cool the car down, calling after me to get my butt in gear.

My sneakers are gone, their spot at the entrance inconspicuously empty.

I upend my bags searching for them, exasperating Mom, who comes back inside at my long absence. She begrudgingly joins me in my search, if only to get us out of the house faster. After a moment, she calls to me, saying she thinks she found them, and I'm puzzled to see her come out of her own bedroom, shoes in hand. Must've gotten mixed up with her own, she says. She can be pretty scatterbrained. Strange though, as the color of my pair is clearly at odds with her neutral-toned closet.

Stranger still is that I'm pretty sure they were at the door before we went to bed. While we were lounging on the living room couch watching reruns of The Carol Burnett Show, I recall spying them out of the corner of my eye, sitting neatly at the front, side by side.

When we get back, I make a point of it to leave my shoes at the door, going as far as to announce it.

"I'm turning them to face the wall," I tell Mom, "so that it's easier to slip them on."

She waves me off, swearing that she's not interested in messing with those stinky things anyway.

—

I wake up.

My mouth is dry, and so is the glass I left sitting on the nightstand. I have an internal debate over whether to get some water or go back to sleep. My parched throat eventually wins, and with a groan I sit up and make my way out of the room.

I fill my glass at the kitchen sink. The refrigerator doesn't have a built-in filter, and I've never been a tap-water snob. I down the first cup to quench my immediate thirst before going for a refill in case I have another nightly wake-up call. As I watch the water rise, I hear a faint thud and feel light vibrations against my feet. I turn the tap off and tilt my head, hand still resting on the faucet handle. Straining my ears, I wait a bit to see if anything happens. That's when the noise starts up again, louder without the running water.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

It's repetitive.

Thump, thump, thump.

Almost like…

Thump thump thump.

I freeze as the realization hits.

Thumpthumpthump.

Footsteps. And they're headed straight towards me.

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.

Before I can make a move, the sound intensifies, roaring like thunder in my ears. Or is that my heart? The footsteps get closer and closer until the thing, whatever it is, sounds like it's right behind me. Only then am I able to will myself to spin around, slamming my back against the counter.

Nothing.

The noise has stopped.

My eyes flicker every which way, my brain screaming at me to locate the threat. Did we leave a window open? The crawlspace? A vent? Maybe someone's living in the walls. Or maybe the intruder tore through like the damn Kool-Aid Man. My thoughts flit through all sorts of fantastical ideas till I wizen up to the one main method of entering and exiting. I jerk my head towards the front door, half expecting to see it broken off its hinges. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Then, for whatever reason, I look down. And there they are: my shoes, sitting neatly side by side, pointing towards the living room.

Wait, is that right? Didn't I turn them around?

Another chilling observation hits me.

There, beyond the living room, across the threshold where the carpet turns into laminate, is my mother's bedroom door. Tucked just a little farther right down the hallway is my own.

What if my shoes didn't just get "mixed up" with Mom's? At least, not by our doing. What if there was another intended destination? What if…?

I shake my head. I must be more tired than I thought.

My breathing evens out as I come back to my senses. With a start, I realize my pants are wet, and I have the humiliating thought—was I that scared?—before I notice that it's not just my pants, it's my whole body. I look down at the glass clutched against my chest and discover I've spilled everything.

I should go back to my room and change. It takes me a few seconds to command my feet to move, but I eventually manage a timid shuffle.

As I settle back in bed in a new, dry pair of pajamas, I turn and look at the glass on the nightstand. Empty. I forgot to fill it back up.

I turn to my other side and close my eyes.

—

In the morning, I groggily climb out of bed at the smell of frying bacon. Sleep came fleetingly, and the empty glass seemed to mock me at every toss and turn.

I call out good morning to Mom as I pad my way to the kitchen. On the way, I chance a glance at the front door and am relieved to see the shoes where I left them, facing the wall as they should be.

"Glad you decided to join me," Mom says in a not-at-all-sarcastic, loving motherly tone.

As I take a seat at the counter, she follows up with some reminder to take care of my belongings, and I quickly catch on to an impending scolding. Sleep-deprived, I easily tune out her next words in the hopes she'll be done with breakfast soon.

"…And after all that fuss you made about leaving them at the door," she grumbles, cracking eggs unnecessarily hard against the counter.

Something about that statement alarms me.

Straightening in my chair, I belatedly ask, "What?"

She throws up her hands and turns to face me. "Why do you never listen to me?"

"Sorry, sorry," I apologize in a daze. "Just, can you repeat that again?"

"I said I tripped over your shoes this morning. Why would you leave them all willy-nilly at the front of the hallway like that? I had to put them back by the door."

The thunder starts up in my ears again.

—

I wake up.

I'm certain I heard something.

After lying paralyzed for what feels like hours, I finally buck up and grab my phone from the nightstand, turning the flashlight app on and shining it around the room.

Blissfully empty.

Not a single crack in the closet or bedroom doors.

Cautiously, I fold the covers back and swing my legs over the edge of the bed, deciding to check on Mom just to be safe. I go to step forward and my foot snags on something. I topple to the ground, hard. Dizzy, I look back to see what I tripped over and stop dead.

There, at the foot of the bed, are my sneakers, sitting neatly side by side.

In the dark, the scarlet red takes on a bloody hue. My vision swims as the color bleeds from the fabric and trickles onto the floor.

Suddenly, I hear shuffling from outside my room and scramble to right myself. A heavy pair of footsteps approaches fast. As they reach my door, I catch a horrifying detail I missed earlier. The button on the handle, which I'm certain I pressed before going to bed, is proudly protruding out. In the unlocked position.

Confirming all my greatest fears, the handle wiggles and turns.

I press against the opposite wall, uselessly groping the nightstand for something, anything.

The door bursts open.

My hand closes around the bedside lamp.

An urgent voice cuts through the darkness, its message struggling to reach me through the adrenaline rush.

"Are you okay?! I heard a noise."

I sag against the wall like a limp noodle.

It's just Mom.

Despite my age, I ask, "Can sleep in your bed?"

—

In the morning, I fly through the house to gather all my belongings. We were supposed to sleep in and have brunch at a cozy little diner by the coast, but after much begging, Mom relented to my requests to leave early. I can't remember what crackpot explanation I slapped together—bedbugs, a man at my window, I left the oven on at home, perhaps a combination of all three—but seeing my genuine panic, she didn't press me.

Bags swaddled in my arms, I rush out the front, determined not to make a second trip. I say a mental goodbye to whatever I must've left behind and let the door swing shut. Before I can make my way down the steps, however, I jerk back as my shirt gets caught in the doorway. I turn to yank it out, but as my gaze lifts further, a scream is caught in my throat.

The door never closed.

Instead, my shirt is being pinched between a long, pale forefinger and a stubby, wrinkly thumb. I can barely focus on the figure's shadowy face as it peers at me through a tiny sliver in the doorway. My attention is entirely snared by its eyes, wide and unblinking, nearly bulging out of its face. I'm convinced that if I stare long enough, they'll pop out like a jack in the box.

I feel a tug against my shirt, an attempt to pull me in, and I finally snap out of my trance and throw myself away. My shirt slips free, and I stumble down the stoop, barely holding onto my bags. I slide against the ground in my flimsy flip-flops, not made for any sort of quick movement. Still, I'd sooner chop off my feet than wear those possessed sneakers one more time.

At the bottom of the stairs, I peek over my shoulder, paranoid. The door is now shut tight. The seashell wreath gently sways in the summer breeze, beckoning unsuspecting visitors inside.

Mom, having witnessed my struggle from where she loads the trunk, asks me what's wrong.

I give her a wan smile, turning away from the door. "It's nothing!"

I punt my bags into the back seat and cautiously make my way back to the front of the house, to the brown and green cans sitting next to the stairs. After confirming the area is clear, I throw open the brown one and slam my shoes inside, letting the lid close with a bang.

Good riddance.

Mom and I pile into the car and start the long trip home. As we finish pulling out of the driveway, my eyes glued to the garbage bin the entire time, a glare briefly blinds me. When I finally clear my vision, I catch a glimpse of what seems to be a beat-up white station wagon peeking out from the duplex's right side. I blink a few times and lean forward to see more details, but we turn onto the main road, and the house disappears. I force my thoughts elsewhere.

The ride goes smoothly until our first stop. I get out to stretch and, upon seeing my scarcely protected feet, Mom asks why I'm not wearing my sneakers. I feign disappointment and say I couldn't find them. She gets a bit huffy, saying that she just told me I need to take better care of my things and we're too far away to turn back now (Oh no!) and yada yada yada.

As Mom rampages on, an insidious thought pops into my head. Something that my scared mind wouldn't allow me to ask til now.

What if it follows me home?

—

I don't wake until dinner.

We had arrived home early in the afternoon. The moment the car pulled into the driveway, I jumped out and tore through the house. Every room, closet, and cabinet was subjected to thorough inspection. I shone a light on every corner and underneath all furniture, especially the beds. No pillow was left unturned.

Upon declaring the environment haunted sneaker-free, I promptly collapsed in bed, only roused by the smell of baked chicken and roasted potatoes.

The meal is a quiet affair, Mom still a bit peeved at me. Suits me just fine, though. All that fretting worked up quite an appetite. I inhale everything with barely a breath to spare, only stopping when Mom gives a curt command.

"Once you're done, go finish unpacking."

My stomach twists, and my thoughts slow. I suddenly regret eating so quickly.

Isn't there something I haven't checked?

In comparison to the wild frenzy that propelled me earlier, my steps are reluctant. I reach the doorway to my bedroom and from there, I stare down at all my luggage Mom brought inside.

What if I just don't open any of it?

It's simple, really. As long as the bags stay closed, the shoes may be both in there and not in there. Schrodinger's sneakers. Therefore, the best course of action is to treat both possibilities as true and burn it all.

I don't think Mom would appreciate that, though. Something about my stuff and taking care of it or whatever.

I weigh the options.

Let's not be too hasty. Whether the shoes are there or not, isn't it better to know? The burning can always come later.

I take a breath. I decide to start small.

With trembling fingers, I open my beach bag. Then my backpack, digging through each compartment. I unzip the front pouch of my suitcase. Then the smaller one above it. Only one place left.

I unzip my suitcase.

Clear. Each and every bag is officially clear.

So why is there still a knot in my stomach?

My thoughts are interrupted by whistling. I recognize the melody and, unbidden, the lyrics play in my head.

All around the mulberry bush…

It's Mom coming down the hallway.

Normally I'd welcome her jaunty tunes, as she only whistles when she's in a good mood. She must've forgiven me. I should be happy since it usually takes much longer.

The song strikes a discordant note.

My back is to the open door, but I can feel when Mom arrives. She stands at the threshold and knocks. I can barely hear it over the thunder in my ears.

I sit still on my bedroom floor. The room is a mess, belongings strewn about. Of everything I packed, only one item is conspicuously missing.

Despite my instincts telling me not to, I turn around.

My vision is painted scarlet red.

"Look what I found!"

Mom smiles upon meeting my gaze. The expression takes on a sinister edge, her eyes open just a tad too wide. She pinches the collars of my sneakers together between her forefinger and thumb.

"They must've snuck their way into my bag," she says, mockingly.