A/N: I own none of the characters except Mavis, the damn creeper.

Told from Veronica's POV. Please review :)

"Bye Dad," I said with a smile.

"Good-bye Veronica," he kissed my forehead and trotted out the door. As the sheriff of our small town, it was his duty to lead manhunts. But this one was different. Dad would have been hunting this man even if he wasn't sheriff.

It's been hard on Dad since Mom left, raising me on his own, trying to play the role of both mother and father. A high school girl needs a mother, he would say, but I don't need her. She abandoned us without warning, and all she left me was a head full of empty memories and note saying that it was better this way. If Mom didn't want to continue raising the child she claimed she loved for seventeen years, then she's right, it is better that she left. It may sound like I'm hiding my grief by hating her, but I don't hate her, and I don't need her.

From the small kitchen window, I watched Dad as he got in his car, backed out of the driveway, and waved back to me before his jerky car sped off. A wave of loneliness flooded over me, here inside my quiet two bedroom home. I had never been afraid of being alone before. I had never been afraid of the dark or the boogie man under my bed. I suppose I've never had a reason to fear these things.

Now I have a reason.

That reason's name is Mavis. I became friends with him when he moved here a few months ago. The first time I saw him, he was sitting at a lunch table, under a red and white umbrella, eating alone. My boyfriend, Logan, didn't understand why I had to go sit with him. Logan joked that Mavis was creepy and resembled a blond Severus Snape. But watching him eat alone, looking around at the other high school students who were laughing and conversing, my heart went out for him.

I should have listened to Logan.

I sat with him a few days a week at lunch, but I knew he would never fit in with my friends. He was odd, telling me about his gun collection and how he loved watching war movies. He was obsessed with the Civil War, he told me, which was a bit unnerving, but I never dreamed he could be dangerous.

Until he tried to kiss me.

When he became comfortable enough around me, he had invited me to his home to 'check out his gun collection'. Surprisingly, it was enjoyable to see; he had collected many different antiques and he kept them in pristine condition. He led me into the forest behind his house, telling me he had something more to show me. He said I would love it, to come into the woods with him and see the gift he had for me. He exuded innocent, childish excitement, so I willingly followed him.

It was a mistake. The friendship that I thought we had built was more to him. It was a secret romance in his mind. The 'gift' that he had for me was a small abandoned cabin that was set deep in the forest, in a place where no one would stumble upon us, where we could be together. His delusions struck me dumb; for a moment I couldn't say a word. He used that moment to try to kiss me.

He didn't show up for school the next day. In fact, he was absent from school that entire week. When he came back, I got nervous, but I didn't tell Logan what happened because I pitied Mavis; I thought that maybe I had led him on in some way. At lunch, I would feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and turn to see him glaring at Logan and me. That glare is still so clear in my memory; I've never seen a look like that. Thinking back on it now, alone in my two bedroom apartment, it sent shivers down my spine.

I started receiving things from a "secret admirer" a few days after he came back. At first it was no big deal. I would get roses in my locker that I knew Logan didn't leave for me. I would get love poem under my chair in class. But I began getting scared when I received rose petals cut up in the mailbox of my apartment. That's when I told Logan what was going on, but I didn't feel like it was enough to tell my dad or a counselor, and I had no proof that Mavis was leaving me these things.

It only escalated from there, to the point where I would receive a new "gift" in my locker everyday, then, twice a day. My nerves were on edge, but still I had really nothing to report to my father. Then it got worse.

I found the old fashioned envelope in my mailbox exactly six days ago. It was heavy and there was no address, so I knew it was hand delivered. In the corner where a return address would have been lay a single fingerprint left in blood. When I ripped it open, bullets fell to the floor, clanging on my kitchen tile. My heart practically skipped a beat. I also pulled out a poem, written in bad cursive, about a high school boy who had a crush on a girl, but he was in distress because this girl had a boyfriend. The poem ended after the boy killed the object of his desire.

Dad has had me on lockdown since then. He told the police to bring Mavis in, but he had disappeared. He lived alone, and when the police got to his house, everything was deserted. I know I should feel safer because he's gone, but I don't. I feel like he's still here. I feel like he knows what I'm doing and where I am, like he's watching me. All week, upon opening my locker, just for a second, I expect to see the same cut up rose petals I found that day in my mailbox.

Logan has been even more protective than my dad. When he found out about the roses and the love letters, he wouldn't leave my side at school. But that was nothing compared to the threats he was making to the elusive Mavis when I received the bullets. He was the only one, besides my father, who read that violent poem. He vowed that he would never let Mavis near me again.

So I suppose the fear bubbling up in my stomach of being alone while dad ventured out to catch my stalker was legitimate. He was only a phone call away, he said, but that didn't evaporate my fear.

I went into my room to change out of my jeans. My plan was to watch my favorite movie, The Breakfast Club, to take my mind off of everything. I opened the draw that housed my favorite pair of pajama pants, and my heart dropped into my stomach. Lying there atop my heavy black pajamas was an envelope addressed: VERONICA.

I froze. There was the same blood stained return address in the upper right corner of the envelope that had petrified me when I received the bullets. With a trembling hand, I picked up the envelope, but all I could do was stare at it. How did this get into me house, into my room? Mavis must have been in here himself.

Suddenly every nerve in my body was on edge. I felt a tingling on the back of my neck, as if I was being watched from outside my window. My breathing became short and tears sprung into my eyes. Backing into a corner, I tore open the envelope and read the old fashioned, crisp paper:

Dearest Veronica,

I came to visit you today but you weren't here. I'm so sorry I missed you, Veronica. We could have spent all day together in your adorable little room, talking and laughing just like we used to. You could have gotten to know me better, like I know you.

I really loved your bed, Veronica. When I walked into your room, I didn't want to disturb all of your pretty things, but your bed just looked so inviting. I laid in it and almost fell asleep! I could have taken a nap, but I didn't want you to come home and find me here.

He was in my room. Mavis was laying in my bed. It was so hard to picture him with his shoulder length, greasy blond hair and long skinny limbs lying in my bed. I looked up at my neatly folded blankets and perfectly arranged pillows and never wanted to sleep there again.

I struggled to my feet, rushed to the window, and pulled the lock shut, not thinking about the fact that my room is on the second floor. I sprinted to the front door and dead bolted it shut. My breathing was heavy and uneven, and my heart was pounding so hard that I was surprised it remained inside my chest. I sank once more to the floor by the door, suddenly terrified of any window to the outside world. Glancing down, I realized that I still had the note clutched in my hand. Trembling, with beads of sweat trickling down my forehead, I read:

I really wish you were here Veronica. I've been waiting to talk to you ever since I left school. I didn't want to just get up and leave you especially because I know that you are stuck here, just like I was. But I was miserable, and I couldn't stand by and let those cretins at school torture me anymore. But don't worry, Ill be back for you. I'm going to rescue you from that jerk Logan. I know he's keeping you here against your will, Veronica. Don't worry; I'll be back for you soon.

With Love from Our Place in the Forest,

Mavis

Before I knew it, I was on my way to Logan's house. I had called him as soon as I finished reading the letter, and I don't even remember our conversation because it was tainted with terror. I'm sure he told me to stay in my house and that he would be there in a second to help me, but I couldn't stay there. I didn't feel like my home without my father, without my mother, without Logan. It had been cursed with the shadow of Mavis's visit, of his delusion. He thought that I wanted him to rescue me. I couldn't stay there, so my car was now speeding towards Logan's mansion.

I needed Logan now. The darkness outside my car was overpowering my mind; I was seeing things between the trees that couldn't really exist. As I drove, my heart would flutter unnaturally and my breathing would suddenly come in cold spurts into my lungs. Mavis was poisoning my brain.

I pulled into the long driveway, complete with wrought iron gates that seemed to open of their own accord as my car got closer. I drove to the very end of the winding black river until I came to the pool house where he said he'd meet me. Logan's pool house was no ordinary shed, housing moldy pool floats and that smelled of chlorine. It was more like his own personal bachelor pad, complete with a plasma television, a stereo system, and a double bed with silk sheets. I can't even count the nights we've spent here together while his dad was out on business trips; it felt a lot more like home than my empty apartment at the moment.

I pulled up the to the pool house, silhouetted against the black forest behind it. As I got out of the car, I caught a glimpse of his slender figure leaning against the doorframe. He flashed a worried smile in my direction, and the tension in my chest loosened just a bit. As I got closer, his smile got wider. He jogged to my side and wound his arms around my waist in a protective embrace. The tighter he held me, the larger the lump in my throat became.

"Breathe, Veronica" he said. I tend to forget to do that when I'm upset. I let out an exasperated breath. "I know you're freaked out, but I promise you're safe here."

"I know I am," I whispered and kissed him lightly on the lips. I turned away, but he caught my face in his hands and kissed me again. And again. And again.

"I just received a letter from my potentially dangerous and violent stalker, but my heart hasn't raced like that all night." I smiled up at him. He was significantly taller than me.

"I better not do that to you again then," he replied with a teasing smile "your under a lot of stress. I wouldn't want to push your heart over the edge." He held my hands and led me into the pool house.

"Yeah your right, I don't know if I can take all this love from you." I replied sarcastically. "It may be too much! So then, what should we do all night, play video games?" I picked up one if the many controllers by the T.V. and hit random buttons. Logan laughed at me like I was a child. "I can totally kick you ass at-!"

I didn't get to finish my taunting, because Logan tackled me playfully onto the bed. The controller fell forgotten to the floor. "I have a better idea," he said, "why don't I teach you some of Logan's famous 'get out of trouble' moves, so that if, by some crazy alignment of the planets this psycho ever gets his grubby hands on you, you'll be able to kick his ass."

"Like I couldn't already," I laughed.

"Oh, you think you're tough? Well then what would you do if he brought your hands above your head like this," Logan grabbed my wrists and pinned my hands above my head, "and forced you down with one leg on each side of your hips?" He straddled me as he described.

"Easy. I would bring my knee up and hit him where it hurts."

"And what if he flipped you on your stomach," he flipped me over, "and pinned you down." He pressed his entire body on top of mine. "What would you do then?" He whispered into my ear.

"I…I would…" I breathed.

The phone rang in the main house. Saved by the bell, I thought. Logan groaned.

"I have to get that, it might be my dad." He said as he clamored off me. "You going to be alright here?"

"Sure. Just…lock the door?" I said as I attempted to convince myself that I would be fine for a few minuets alone in this dark pool house.

"Of course." We kissed until he was out the door, and I stood and watched through the glass as he locked the door from the outside, and then disappeared into the darkness.