An alarm wakes Melanie up at 7:00 AM. She snoozes it once. Twice. Three times until she finally pulls herself out of bed. This has become her routine. She could simply set an alarm for 7:30, but she has convinced herself this is the better way.
She has to shower in a rush. Any more than ten minutes, and she’ll fall behind on her morning routine. It isn’t enough time to properly condition her long, chestnut hair, but she doesn’t want to be late for work. Later than usual, that is. Almost without fail, Melanie clocks in five minutes after her shift was supposed to begin. She doesn’t see this as an issue, but her manager disagrees and has spoken to her about her tardiness on several occasions. Each time, Melanie promises to be more timely, yet she continues to snooze her alarm three times each morning.
Melanie works as a teller at a local credit union. She only makes $18 per hour, and for that price, she does not feel particularly compelled to do anything her manager asks of her. Her days are monotonous. Every week she sees the same faces, gets the same attitudes. Melanie always regards them with a polite smile, but the smile drops the moment they turn their backs.
She hates this job, but she can’t imagine what else she would do. She regrets going to that expensive private college. She regrets even more her useless degree that has forced her into an unfulfilling career just to stay afloat in the sea of debt she’s accrued. Her life is miserable. Sometimes she wishes it would just end, but she would never harm herself. No, she couldn’t do that. But sometimes she imagines getting into an accident on her way to work or getting sick with something incurable. Neither would be very pleasant ways to go out, but at least it would all finally be over.
After her daily eight hours of hell are up, Melanie walks two blocks to the parking garage and climbs the stairs to the fourth story where she parks. Some days, she’s lucky enough to find parking on the third or even the second story, but she seldom remembers this by the end of the day and winds up climbing to the fourth story anyway, only to have to climb back down.
She drives a 2001 Subaru Forester that’s been leeching her funds for years, but she can’t afford to replace it. The car is an ugly gray color with patches of rust lining the body along the bottom. One day soon, it will fall apart, then Melanie will be in serious trouble. But for now, it gets her where she needs to go, which is mostly to and from work but also to her favorite bar on Friday nights where she meets her friends. Most of her old college friends left town after graduation, leaving Melanie with only a small handful of people who care enough about her to want to spend any time with her.
Her drink of choice is a whiskey sour. After one or two of these, she feels loose enough to begin flirting with the other patrons. Most nights, she still goes home alone, but on occasion, she’ll be accompanied by a man or woman who she deemed to be worth her time. None of them end up being good enough for her in the end. Most are sent packing the morning after, but a few lucky ones have stuck around for a few weeks here and there.
There is no one in the bar tonight whom Melanie wants to strike up a conversation with. The group of young men in the corner booth is raucous and unappealing. She does her best to avoid making eye contact with any of them throughout the night. The crowd at the bar is no better. A line of pathetic looking older men with guts that suggest they spend most of their nights just like this, drowning away their miserable lives.
The two friends Melanie met at the bar tonight had already gone home with their hookups. Their standards had always been lower than Melanie’s. Nevertheless, she’s alone now, and it’s getting late. There’s little parking downtown around the bar, so she’ll have to walk a few blocks to get back to her car. There are several alleyways along the route that make her uncomfortable. She can’t see all the way down them, and she fears whoever might be lurking in the dark.
But in the end, it is not the alleyways that truly scare Melanie tonight. It is the small park across the street from her car. As she wraps around to the driver’s side door, she thinks she spots something move in the dark. It’s not clear. Just a shadow that passes behind a tree. She waits, listening for any signs that something may be amiss. Nothing comes. Perhaps it was nothing after all.
Better safe than sorry, Melanie pulls the car door open and quickly climbs inside, locking the doors as soon as she can. She redirects her gaze to the park one more time, to that tree. Again, there’s nothing. She starts the engine and pulls away, leaving the park, and whatever she thought she saw in the dark, behind her.
Melanie wakes up late Saturday morning. She checks her phone and sees that the day is approaching 12:00 PM. More disappointingly, she sees she has no messages. No one is trying to reach her. She rolls over, trying to go back to sleep, but the sun is too bright. Melanie relents, and pulls herself out of bed.
Saturdays are Melanie’s personal days, though usually not by choice. She spends most of the day lounging on the couch, absentmindedly watching television. She hopes for someone to call her and invite her to anything that will get her out of the house. This almost never happens. And thus, Melanie wastes away another Saturday.
It is nearing sunset when Melanie starts to notice something is off. There’s nothing discernibly wrong, but she can’t shake the chill on the back of her neck. She closes the blinds on all the windows and double-checks the locks, but she still cannot shake the unease. The unmistakable feeling of being watched. She returns to the couch and tries to take her mind off the feeling, but she continues to look over her shoulder periodically.
She does not sleep well that night. Tossing and turning and bolting upright with every sound. Normally, she does not bother locking her bedroom door, but she does tonight. She even checks under her bed and inside the deepest corners of her closet as if she were a child searching for bogeymen. The emptiness she finds does little to put her mind at ease. Someone is watching her. She’s certain of it. She can feel it.
Every dark corner of the room could be harboring something evil. Melanie sits up against the bed frame and clicks on the lamp on the nightstand, bathing the room in a soft yellow light. This puts her at ease somewhat. She can see now that the room is empty. She sits and stares at the walls for a long while before her eyes start to feel heavy. Eventually, she drifts off.
Melanie manages to get at least a few hours of sleep, and when she wakes up, she’s relieved to find her paranoia is gone. Perhaps she had been foolish last night. There had been no one there at all. She had simply gotten too far into her own head, and it had cost her a good night’s sleep.
She moves through her Sunday groggily, leaving the house in the afternoon to run her weekly errands. She starts by going to a coffee shop for a little pick-me-up. Then, she realizes her tank is running low, so she stops for gas. Next, she goes to the crafts store to buy three new rolls of yarn. She endeavors to make knitting a hobby but can never compel herself to work at it for more than thirty minutes at a time. Finally, she goes to the grocery store and watches miserably as the price slowly ticks up above $200 with each item the cashier runs across the scanner.
The mid-afternoon sun beats down brightly on Melanie when she leaves the store. As her eyes adjust, she doesn’t see the car backing out of the parking space next to her. The moron in the car must be blind too because he doesn’t see Melanie walking directly behind him. He hits her, not hard, but enough to knock her off balance. She loses her grip on her grocery bags, and their contents spill out across the pavement.
Suddenly, all eyes are on Melanie. Everything in the parking lot seems to come to a sudden stop as the world focuses its burning gaze on her. Her first instinct is to try to grab some of her lost groceries before they can roll too far away from her, but as she reaches for the first item, she stops cold. A tingle prickles up her spine as that feeling returns, the very same thing she felt last night. The feeling of being watched, but not just by anyone–by someone sinister. Someone with malicious intent.
Melanie is vaguely aware of the oaf who just hit her with his car barking apologies behind her, but she doesn’t care about that right now. Her eyes are busy scanning every face in the parking lot. They’re all watching her, but none of them seem to harbor anything more than concern or curiosity. A few seem entertained, but she sees no one that wants to do her harm. Yet the feeling persists. A few of the people watching Melanie begin to take notice. It’s written all over her face. She is terrified.
Melanie scoops up an armful of groceries and leaves the rest, practically running to her car. She throws them haphazardly into the backseat and gets away from the parking lot as fast as she can.
The next day, Melanie arrives to work nearly an hour late–much worse than her usual five minutes. Her manager is furious with her, but even he can see that something is very wrong with Melanie and backs off before laying into her too harshly. There are deep bags under her eyes, her hair is frayed at the ends, and her skin is pale. He must think she’s sick, but he’s wrong. In reality, Melanie has gone another night with no sleep, having spent last night barricaded in her room with a kitchen knife in her hand as she watched the door and windows intently. The lack of sleep and the stress have taken a toll on her.
Melanie gets to work right away. Clients will start coming in soon, and she needs to be ready. She races through her opening procedures and finishes just as the first client comes through the door. A man well into his sixties with a thin head of hair and heavy creases across his forehead. Melanie knows this man. He comes in almost every Monday morning, yet something feels different today. As Melanie processes his transaction, she can feel the weight of his eyes on her. She tries to speed up the process, but loses count of his bills and has to start over. The whole time, she can hear the old man’s wheezing breaths from across the counter. Her hands are shaking now. She tries to steady them to no avail. The burning heat of the old man’s gaze is throwing her into a panic. Finally, she hands him his withdrawal. Her shoulders sag with relief when he goes on his way. And then the next one comes.
One face after another, each one staring down at her with their beady eyes. Any one of these men could be the one who has been watching her. The tall ginger man, the man in the blue three piece suit, or even the middle-aged man with a slight limp on his left leg. How many faces does she see every day? Every week? There’s no telling what thoughts lurk behind their eyes. She’d never know if one of them wanted to hurt her until it was too late.
A hand lands on Melanie’s shoulder. Her coworker. Young and blonde and skinny. She probably thinks she’s prettier than Melanie, but she’s wrong. She’s come to cover Melanie’s lunch break. Melanie almost runs out of the building after she leaves the counter, but she knows she can’t afford to take the afternoon off. She doesn’t eat a single bite of the sandwich she brought for lunch. This is unwise. She needs to keep her strength up, especially in such stressful times. The clock ticks away, and Melanie dreads each second that passes until her thirty minute reprieve is up. She stands shakily and walks back to the counter.
Melanie tries not to look any of her afternoon clients in the eye. She can’t bear their eyes. Because of this, it takes her a moment to recognize him when the man in the brown leather jacket comes up to the counter. When she hears his voice, she looks up in shock at his face. What could he be doing here? In the nearly two years Melanie has worked at the bank, this man has never come in on a Monday. It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?
Melanie takes a step back from the counter as she meets the man’s eyes. They’re practically bulging out of his skull. He smiles, revealing grimy yellow teeth, and hands Melanie a check he wishes to deposit. His fingers happen to brush up against Melanie’s as she takes the check. An accident? Melanie recoils slightly, and the man’s smile falters for a moment. Then, he leans in with a smug expression. He always tries to flirt with Melanie when he comes in. It’s always made her uncomfortable but now more than ever. He stares longingly at her as she processes his transaction. Perhaps he’s wondering what she might look like without her clothes–perhaps, even, without her skin.
If there truly is someone stalking her, this man has to be the one. Who else could it be? Surely, there is no one else who could make Melanie feel this way. This afraid.
A receipt curls out of the printer. Melanie tears it away and goes to hand it to the man. As she does, he takes hold of her hand. There is no mistaking it this time. This is no accident. Melanie’s eyes go wide in shock, and before she even knows she’s doing it, she’s taken a letter opener from the behind the counter and plunged the point down into the man’s hand, pinning it to the wooden countertop.
The man in the leather jacket lets out a truly pathetic scream as his blood pools onto the counter. Melanie watches it course out from beneath his skin for only a moment before she runs. She flees out the back door and sprints to the parking garage where she’ll find her car. She’ll drive home in a frenzy, blowing through stop signs and paying no mind to the speed limit. She’s lucky to make it home without attracting the attention of the police.
When she does make it home, Melanie locks the door behind her and crashes onto the floor where she stays for hours, sobbing like a child. There is blood on her hand, and she’s getting it all over her pretty face as she tries to wipe away the tears. She waits for the police to come and take her away, but they never do. She is alone.
As far as she knows.
She does not know that I am here with her. That I am always with her. I watch her all day while she works from the skylight above. Then I follow her home and enter the house through one of the basement windows. Melanie does not realize that I have broken the lock on this window, or she would have surely gotten it fixed by now. She is responsible that way.
I sneak up the basement steps, deftly avoiding the fifth step from the top that creaks under my weight. From this point, I quietly make my way to her bedroom closet and climb up into the overhead hatch that leads to the crawlspace. Melanie has never paid any attention to this hatch. That is most fortunate for me. It gives me a place to hide, and when she’s not paying attention, I can sneak down and continue my watching.
I know everything about you, Melanie. I know what you do every day from dawn until dusk. I know what you like, and I know what you hate. I know what you think and what you feel. Our connection means a great deal to me Melanie, and I can see that you’re starting to see me, too. That makes me so happy. And so sad. Because I long for you to see me, Melanie, but I know what will happen when you do. You won’t accept me. You won’t understand. I know you well enough to say this for certain. You’ll want to call the police. You’ll want me to be taken away from you, and I just cannot allow that to happen.
So, Melanie, when you finally see me, this part of our lives will have to end. I will no longer be able to watch you, but I will keep you. I simply cannot give you up. I will keep you where no one can find you. I’m sure you’ll try to run, but you won’t make it very far once I’ve sliced your Achilles. And I’m sure you’ll try to call for help, but no one will be able to hear you once I’ve removed your vocal cords. You will be mine alone.
Until that day, I will continue to watch you. Your life brings me so much joy, even if it does not bring much to you, Melanie.