Title: Haunted
Disclaimer: I don't own Jewel or Gilmore Girls.
A/N: This story is based on the vaguest of spoilers, so even if you read it and don't like spoilers, you can't tell. If you know the spoilers, you can probably spot the spoilers, but maybe not.
Oh! Summary: Based on Jewel's song Haunted from her new CD, "0304", this story is a preposterously funny one about stalkers.
Lorelai is being stalked.
But…by whom?
I wonder….
Song lyrics are in italics. I hope.
~~
Luke's is
dark, but I can just make his figure out behind the counter, so I pull the car
to a stop at the curb and get out.
The door, of course, is locked, so I use my purse to pound against it. I see
Luke look up, and I can just imagine his rolling eyes as he makes his way to
the door.
"Hi!" I say cheerfully, pushing past him to the counter.
"It's almost eleven," he grumbles, moving behind the counter to start
a pot of coffee. I have him trained so well.
"Yeah, I know. Shouldn't you be in bed?"
This time I see his eyes roll. "How was your date?" he forces out,
turned around to fiddle with coffee.
"It was okay. I just wish my parents would get off my back."
"Right, you've mentioned that before."
"Yeah."
He sets my coffee in front of me, and we make some more mindless small talk,
before I get up, wave, and exit the diner. Luke makes some weird comment, like,
"Don't let the boogeyman get you" or something, and it seems like a
throwback to something my boyfriend had been talking about on our date. He'd
mentioned something about a co-worker of his who'd supposedly been "stalked"...and
he'd scoffed at how ridiculous that was.
And then, of course, on the way back into town, Jewel's song
"Haunted" played about twenty times on the radio.
It's dark as I leave the diner, and it's such a nice night that I think I'll
just leave my car where it is and walk home. As I walk down the sidewalk past
the large picture window of Luke's, his upstairs lights go off, shutting off
the only lights into the street. I jump, slightly, a little creeped now that
I'm all alone in the dark.
I hear a footstep behind me and jump around...no one there. I pull my arms
around me as tightly as I can and continue walking.
I
Will come to you
In the still
Of the night.
And I
Will crush you
With the burden of sight.
And you
Will understand
The shadows
In my heart.
A shadow appears behind my own on the ground in front of me, thrown by the
streetlamp directly behind me. It gets closer and closer. I spin around. No
one. I turn back around, slowly. The shadow's gone. I shake my head and
continue.
The fury of my conviction
Will cause your heart to quicken
And then, my dear,
You will see
You want me here.
And when
You wake up
You will see yourself in my eyes.
And when
You break up
You'll understand
Why it
is I cry.
I'm tempted to call my boyfriend, but remember what he said about that woman at
his work who was being stalked. He'd probably think I was a wuss and make fun
of me, and I don't need that right now.
I'll call Rory.
I dig through my purse, only to realize my cell phone's not in there. I suddenly
remember I left it in my car, charging. I curse myself, and then stop,
imagining that I hear something behind me. Or...am I imagining? I don't know.
Let
Me speak quietly
So
Your heart
Can hear.
I
will hypnotize and mesmerize you with the sound
Of
Your own fear.
And when
You wake up
You will see yourself in my eyes.
And when
You break up
You'll understand why it is I cry.
I focus on my own breathing, in, out, in, out, in through the nose, out through
the mouth, in with the good, out with the bad....
God, I can still hear my heart going a thousand miles a millisecond. I can't
even pretend to separate the beats.
From behind me--real or imagined, it's utterly creepy and seems very very
close--a dinstinctively male voice starts singing softly...but it crashes
through my ears as loudly as an extremely microphoned group of a hundred men.
I just wanna get along; this is your song
I wrote it in my head but the melody's all wrong
And it's driving me crazy
Not having ya, baby
To keep my company in my own private world
You're my one true girl and I won't be stoppin' just cause your knees are
knockin'
When I decide to drop in so don't make a sound
'Cause there's no one around
To come between us now; I'm gonna haunt you girl
The voice fades out. I burst into my house, where apparently I kept my radio
on, because Jewel's song is playing.
And
When you wake up
You will finally see yourself
Oh, you will see yourself through my eyes
And when you break up
Oh, Oh, you will realize why it is I cry
I'll come to you
In the still
Of the night.
The singing stops, and the instrumental/moaning section kicks in. I run into
the living room to turn off the damn song. As I reach the radio and touch the
knob, I realize it's off. There's a note on the top of the radio, written with
a dark red marker on a torn of sheet of loose leaf that reads "I'm gonna
haunt you, girl."
I jump to high heaven as the phone rings.
I slowly edge towards it.
I pick it up.
I ask, with trepidation, "Hello?"
"Oh, my God, she's driving me crazy!" my daughter says.
I breathe a sigh of relief, and we settle into a conversation.
I look back to the note on the radio.
Gone.
Did I just imagine it?
~~
Luke locked the door to his diner behind him and started towards his apartment,
leaving on the counter one dark red marker, a notebook opened to a torn out
page, and the lyrics to the bridge of Jewel's song "Haunted".
Coincidence?
