I didn’t leave my house for almost an entire week.
The only reason I didn’t stay indoors for longer is that I had an important exam in one of my classes that I absolutely had to be present for.
That also didn’t help with the anxiety I was feeling. As I drove to campus I kept my eyes glued to my surroundings, almost running two stop signs and a red light. I kept expecting Jack— or fake Jack I suppose—to pop out randomly on the side of the road, or in the car next to me, or the car behind me. I constantly glanced at my rearview mirror trying to figure out if the black truck behind me had been there this whole time or if it was different than the one I had seen ten minutes ago.
I hadn’t told him where I went to school so maybe he wouldn’t know. Then again, I hadn’t told him where I lived either, and he seemed to figure that one out rather quickly.
I hadn’t texted the real Jack since the incident had happened. I mean, I didn’t even know what I was supposed to say.
“Oops I didn’t follow all your rules and now there’s a weird look-alike of yours running around the city”?
My plan, as foolish as it was, was to act as if all was well. I wasn’t going to stir the pot by telling him I had already fucked up, so instead, I was going to wait until he realized that something was wrong. Hopefully, he wouldn’t.
I will admit that not telling him was more difficult than I had thought, and I found myself constantly checking my phone for texts from Jack, but none appeared.
I finished my exam that day, sure that I had failed due to my lack of focus, and drove back home where I found Julio standing in my driveway. He was looking down at his phone, and I attempted to keep driving down the street before he saw me, but I wasn’t fast enough.
He glanced and began walking towards my car as I slowly pulled into the driveway, locking my doors and trying to remain calm. Instead of shifting into park, I kept my foot on the brake and shifted into reverse, fully ready in case I needed to make a quick getaway.
I sat in the driver’s seat, looking forward, at my front door. I wondered for a second if I would be able to get inside and lock the door before Julio got to me. Suddenly, he leaned down and knocked on the window, making me jump.
I turned to look at him and said nothing.
“Roll your window down.” He said, motioning for me to lower the window.
I pressed the button for a split second, making only a tiny crack of open space.
“You know, it’s not me you should be afraid of.”
I looked at him, and glanced at my rearview mirrors, trying to see if any of my neighbors were outside. But they weren’t and I was alone with no witnesses.
“You fucked it up,” he said, leaning against my car. “I told you to watch out, and you didn’t. You managed to fuck up the rules in one night. They always miss at least one.”
They?
I looked up at him but said nothing because I honestly had no clue what to say.
“Get out of the car, we’re going inside.” He tapped his hand on the roof of my car and walked towards my front door.
I thought about driving away, but I wasn’t sure where I would go, and a part of me wanted to hear him out. So, I found myself parking the car, turning off the engine, and letting Julio into my house.
He took a seat on my couch and glanced around my living room. “This is fancy for a college student. You buy this with Jack’s money?” He asked.
I rolled my eyes as I stood in front of him. “Why did you want to come in?”
“Alright, touchy subject,” he said, shrugging. “I need to talk to you about Jack.”
“Which Jack? The one I’ve been talking to or the one who appeared in the house?”
“What?” He snapped, leaning over and resting his elbows on his knees.
“What?”
“What do you mean, the one who appeared in the house? Jack isn’t back yet. I came here to tell you that you forgot to lock the door after your little house-sitting gig, which Jack won’t be pleased about. He’s very particular about his stuff. He’s gotten rid of girls for much pettier shit than this.”
I said nothing and stared at Julio while he stared back, waiting for me to explain myself. His use of the words ‘gotten rid of’ made me nervous and I wondered what he meant by that. Surely he wouldn’t kill me over a mistake, right?
“Was there someone else in the house?” He asked after a few seconds of silence.
“J-Jack. Jack was in the house that morning before I left.”
“How do you suppose that happened? Because Jack hasn’t come back from his trip yet.”
I shrugged, not really knowing what to say.
Julio stood up, sighing in annoyance. “Fine. You know what? I originally came over here to ask you for a share of the cash you got for your poor house-sitting job, but it seems to me that you probably fucked up more than I originally thought, so I’m just going to stay out of whatever this is. Good luck.”
He walked over and opened my front door, waving to me as he left, leaving me standing in my empty house.
I ran to the door and locked it as soon as he was gone, and started to freak out once again. I thought about what I was going to do if Jack came back from his trip and found out that I had messed up. What if Julio was right and someone had broken into the house and robbed him? Maybe I just thought I saw Jack, but maybe it was just some other stranger who looked like him. My mind was going a mile a minute as I tried to figure out what to do.
I paced around my house for a few hours before I finally decided that I was going to drive back to Jack’s house and make sure that no one had broken in. If they had, I would simply make an anonymous police report or something. Besides, the only way he would ever know that it was my fault would be if Julio snitched on me, which it didn’t seem like he was planning on doing anymore.
I made the drive over in silence, trying to control my breathing so that I didn’t have a meltdown on the highway. I finally pulled into the driveway and turned the engine off, but I couldn’t work up the courage to get out of the car. I sat there for a few minutes, staring at the giant house, trying to force myself to unbuckle my seatbelt, open the door, and get out of the car.
The house, which once looked impressive, now made me feel anxious and out of place. I couldn’t stop myself from imagining all sorts of horrible scenarios that I could stumble upon once I opened the door. I thought about how many possible hiding places there were in a house that large.
I don’t know how long I sat there before I finally decided to get out of the car and walk towards the front door. I hesitated for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and pushing the door open. Only it didn’t open, because it was locked.
I assumed that Julio had probably locked it and looked for the key on my keychain. I unlocked the door and stepped into the living room, taking a look around.
Everything looked normal enough. There were no signs of breaking and entering or anything like that, and I was glad that Julio had come over and realized my mistake before someone else had. I closed the door behind me, this time double-checking that I locked it, and began to make my way further into the house.
I went into the library first, which looked the same as it had when I left it. Next, I made my way through the living room, glancing around to see if anything was out of place, but nothing was.
I was starting to feel better now that I had confirmed that no one had broken in and ruined the place.
That feeling was short-lived however when I walked into the kitchen.
It was a complete mess. Both the fridge and the freezer were wide open, all the containers of food emptied out. There were empty boxes of frozen foods tossed inside the freezer and on the kitchen floor. There were a few trays of meat that were laying out on the table and the counters, and some of the red juice from the meats had been spilled inside the fridge and now dripped down onto the floor.
I noticed that while there hadn’t been much food in there in the first place, it was all gone. As I got closer to the fridge, I realized that it wasn’t cool, and the light inside the fridge wasn’t working either. I assumed that whoever ate all the food also unplugged it for some odd reason.
I stepped over an empty carton of orange juice and an empty crate of eggs as I made my way towards the stove where I found stacks of unwashed pans. One of them was still hot, meaning that it was only recently taken off the burner. There were eggshells all over the counter and I thought back to that morning when Jack, or whoever that was, had made me eggs for breakfast.
I walked back out of the kitchen, careful not to step on the mess that littered the floor, and made my way down the hallway.
I spotted the door at the end of the hall, and this time it was closed. As I continued to walk down the hall, I couldn’t help but notice how eerily quiet it was in the house. I couldn’t even hear the sound of the heater running. As I passed the thermostat in the hallway, I saw that it wasn’t working. The screen was off and there was nothing on it like it had been turned off or something. I leaned forward and pressed a few of the buttons but none of them worked.
I poked my head into the study, but that was also empty, although I did see that the landline had been used recently, and whoever used it didn’t put it back. The handheld part was hanging off the side of the desk, and I stepped in, grabbing the phone and holding it up to my ear, but there was only silence.
I put it back and followed the cord with my eyes. It was connected to the wall, but it seemed like there was no power in the house, which explained the refrigerator and the thermostat. I walked out of the study and headed down the hall again, but I froze in my tracks when I noticed that the door at the end of the hall was open now.
Someone was in the house.
I reached into my back pocket and grabbed my phone, checking to see if maybe I had missed a text from Jack, but I had no signal inside the house. I held my phone in my hand anyway, hoping I’d pick up enough signal to call for help, and began to back away from the door, listening carefully for any footsteps or noises that would let me know where the intruder was.
As I spun around, I found myself face-to-face with Jack. Or whoever it was that I was looking at.
I knew he was the same man I had seen that morning, but no I had no idea who he really was.
“Sorry!” I said, startled.
“Which one are you?” He asked, squinting at me.
He was dressed in a stained gray t-shirt and old pajama bottoms that looked like they had been purchased thirty years ago.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re the new one, right? The one from the other day? You’re the one who forgot to turn the television on.”
“Yeah, I’m so sorry. I thought I was being careful I didn’t mean to-”
I stopped talking as he started laughing.
“Sorry?” He asked, grinning. “I should be thanking you!”
“Who are you?” I asked him.
I stared at his face, and he looked exactly like Jack, but I couldn’t figure out why he was here when he said he was still on his trip.
“I’m Jack.” He replied as if he were stating the obvious.
“But Jack said he wouldn’t be back for a few days.”
His expression changed and he narrowed his eyes at me. “Did he tell you when he would be back? The exact date?”
I shook my head, confused, and thinking about how I was going to get past this man and get out of this damn house.
“But you can ask him, right?”
“I-I don’t know, he hasn’t contacted me in a few days.”
“Damnit, I was hoping it wouldn’t be that bad.”
“Can you explain to me what the hell is going on?” I asked him.
“You shouldn’t have come back here.”
Something felt off to me, and chills shook my entire body. Part of me regretted not going with my original plan of acting like everything was okay. I didn’t want to stay in the house any longer, and there was really nothing that I could do anyway. Besides, I was getting a bad feeling from this guy claiming to be Jack. I slowly stepped past him, glancing back behind me as I continued to walk into the living room and towards the front door.
I found myself walking faster and faster until I was basically running and throwing myself at the front door. I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen if I stayed in this house any longer.
I unlocked the door, but just as I was about to open it, I heard the lock slide back into place; only it sounded a lot louder than usual. I jiggled the doorknob and realized that while the doorknob wasn’t locked, something else was, and it was keeping me from opening the door.
I began to freak out as I pulled on the door urgently, trying to get it to open but something was keeping it shut.
“What the fuck?” I said out loud.
I glanced towards the hall as I heard another noise, but I quickly realized that it was the sound of air flowing through the vents. It seemed like the power was back, and somehow, some sort of security system had activated at the same time.
I looked down at my phone and not only did I have a signal now, but I also had three messages from Jack.
I’m back.
What happened?
I know you’re in the house.
I looked around the room, trying to find him or any security cameras in the room that would be alerting him of my presence in the house. I didn’t see any and grabbed my phone to text him back.
Are you here?
I held my phone in my hands as I made my way back towards the hallway to find the other Jack that I had seen earlier. If he even was another Jack. Maybe this was all the same person and he was just messing with me for some reason.
A part of me thought that perhaps I deserved all of this for doing all of this in the first place. I mean, why was I so quick to agree to run random errands for a random man that I had never met? Sure, I needed the money, but going into a stranger’s house has got to be on the list of the top ten dumbest things you could ever do. Especially considering the fact that no one knew where I was, and I didn’t have a weapon to defend myself if I needed to.
I stood in front of the closed door for a second, before making my way over to a window. I tried to open it, but the security system had locked the windows shut as well. I thought about breaking the window open, and I grabbed a sturdy-looking vase. I took a few steps back and then threw it at the window as hard as I could.
The vase shattered as it made contact with the window glass, but the window was fine, unscratched.
The only way I was getting out of here was through the door, but first, I had to disarm the security system somehow.
I walked back to where I had left Jack, but he was gone and nowhere to be found.
“Jack?” I called, my voice echoing throughout the house.
The door at the end of the hall was closed once again, and I began to walk towards it, peeking into each room as I passed it, but there was no one else in the house.
As I reached the door, my phone buzzed in my hand.
You were supposed to follow the rules.
I stood in front of the door, trying to work up the courage to open it and see what was in the room.
I know, I’m sorry. I came back to make sure everything was okay.
I reached out and grabbed the doorknob, taking deep breaths. The buzzing in my hand startled me and I ignored it as I turned the doorknob and pulled the door open.
I stood in the threshold, at the top of a wooden staircase. Below it was a badly lit basement. I slowly walked down the stairs, glancing at my phone.
You should’ve stayed away. You’re really going to regret this.
I didn’t reply and kept walking until I was at the bottom of the stairs. While I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, it wasn’t the normal-looking basement apartment that I had stumbled into. I found Jack sitting on the couch against one of the walls. He was reading a magazine and glanced up when he heard me step off the stairs.
“What are you doing!?” He shot to his feet, as he shouted at me.
“The door locked, I can’t get out!” I replied.
“You’re so fucking stupid!” He exclaimed, walking over to me.
“That’s rude, how was I supposed to know the doors would lock when the power came back on?”
“You weren’t supposed to come back!” He shouted, his face turning an angry shade of red as he yelled.
“I wanted to make sure everything was fine,” I replied.
“Who cares?! You got a thousand dollars for house sitting! Why didn’t you take it and leave?”
“Why are you so angry? Why are you even here? You’re clearly not Jack.” I snapped, annoyed.
“How do you know?” He asked, in a calmer tone.
“What?”
“How do you know I’m not Jack? I look like the pictures you’ve seen, don’t I?”
“Yeah, but Jack is on vacation,” I replied.
“How do you know?” He repeated.
“What are you talking about?”
“Have you ever met Jack in person? Have you ever talked to him on the phone? Video call? Anything other than a text message every few days?”
I didn’t reply, staring at him. He was right, he did look exactly like the photos I had seen on the Tinder profile.
“That’s what I thought.” He replied to my silence.
“What are you saying exactly?” I asked as I heard my phone buzz once again.
“How do you know that the person you’ve been talking to is a real person? As a matter of fact, how do you know that it’s not me? Maybe this was my plan all along, to lure you here.”
At that point, it finally hit me. He was right; I didn’t know if I was talking to a real person. All that I was doing random favors for someone with an internet profile who wanted to pay me money to do these things for some reason. I guess I had always felt that there was something off about a sugar daddy who was willing to pay someone to do things other than having sex with them, but I needed to money too badly to spend too much time questioning it.
I was feeling even more scared now, and my palms were cold and sweaty as I stood there, waiting for him to do something. I could run back upstairs, but I didn’t think I was fast enough to get out of there and find something to jam the door and keep him downstairs.
I took a shaky deep breath as I tried my hardest not to make it seem like I was scared. If Jack was dangerous, I didn’t want to alert him of my plans to try and run.
After a few seconds of silence, I glanced down at my phone to read the most recent text, but there were no new notifications.
“That wasn’t your phone,” Jack said, breaking the silence.
I looked up at him and glanced at the phone sitting on a nearby table.
Suddenly, he jumped towards me and I attempted to jump out of the way but I was too slow. I saw Jack grab my arms and my phone fell out of my hands, and then everything went black.
When I came to, I was on the living room couch and Jack was standing above me, looking down.
“What happened?” I asked.
I attempted to sit up but I noticed that I was incredibly dizzy, and my left arm felt sore when I tried to prop myself up. I remembered Jack grabbing me earlier, and I figured he had gripped my arm too tight and must have bruised it in the process.
“You’re finally up, good.” He said.
I slowly managed to sit up, wincing as I put weight on my left arm. I looked up at Jack, who was now standing a few feet away, with a bandage wrapped around his right bicep.
“What happened?” I asked, looking at the bandage, noticing that there was blood seeping through.
“You really shouldn’t have come back.”
I tried to shift my position on the couch and winced in pain as I put weight on my left arm again. I turned to look at it, trying to see if I had injured it somehow, and noticed that it was also wrapped in a bandage similar to Jack’s.
“What happened?” I repeated, looked down at my arm.
I slowly reached over and started to unwrap the bandage until It came off and I was left staring at crudely done stitches on the inside of my bicep.
“What the fuck is this?!” I snapped, looking at Jack.
“Sorry Ivy, but you really shouldn’t have come back. Although, I’m kind of glad you did. I didn’t really want to do this, but I need to get out of here.”
He began to back away from me, heading towards the front door. I watched as he easily opened it, and wondered how he disabled the lock and if he had been the one to activate it in the first place.
He stepped out of the door and turned back to look at me. “Good luck, I helped you out a bit while you were out,” he said, motioning towards my phone which he had set down on the couch next to me.
I stood up and went after him. Surprisingly, he didn’t try to run or back up and simply stood about a foot away from the front door, watching me.
As I attempted to step outside, a stabbing pain erupted in my left arm, traveling throughout the rest of my body until I felt like I was being stabbed everywhere at once. I fell to the floor crying out in pain. Once I was back in the house, the pain went away and I laid on the floor shaking in the aftermath as I stared up at Jack.
“What did you do to me?” I asked.
“I had to get out. It’s been eight months. I’m sorry, you were just the first one to come back this time. I’m sure you’re a good person but I’m sorry, I can’t be here.”
“You’re just going to leave me here?!” I shouted.
“Julio will come by to give you food. And by the way, don’t try to cut that thing out of your arm, this place is covered in cameras. If you do anything suspicious Julio will see you, and he won’t hesitate to stop you. I learned that the hard way.”
I didn’t know what to say, and I stood there in shock as I watched Jack walk over to my car and get in it, starting the engine and disappearing down the street.
I finally shut the front door and locked it, turning back to face the empty house. I glanced at my phone, which was still on the couch, and remembered what Jack said before he left.
I walked over, trying not to move my arm too much as I picked it up and turned it on. My Tinder profile was open, only it had been changed and now my profile bio read: Looking for a sugar baby. $700 weekly. No sex.
On the table next to it, there was a list of house-sitting rules, similar to the ones that I had found on the day that I had been here. At the bottom of the page there was a lime green sticky note that read: Sorry, I hope you’re able to get out soon. Don’t worry, maybe you won’t be here for long. They almost always forget one of the rules. Good luck—Jack.