Chapter Two: Stalkings
By: Devi D.
You know that feeling that you get when someone is watching you? Most people do, and if you do not that makes you a very lucky person. But do you know what it's like to have someone you fear more than a small retarded yellow Sponge watching you? It is, before you answer in the negative (and I hope you would for your own sake), the scariest thing you have ever felt in your life.
It had been months since I had seen Johnny C., but I had the feeling that it was only hours between hours that he didn't see me. Just when I thought that I had locked every door and barred every window, I would get the feeling that I was on a ship that was taking on water and I would feel a shadowy sinking. I'd grab the cordless phone and a can of mace and lock myself in the bathroom of my apartment, the only room without windows. I didn't want him to see me, and I certainly didn't want to see him.
Johnny was stalking me. At least I assumed it. Ever since I escaped his little house of horrors I knew that he wasn't just going to let me go. If you knew Johnny the way I thought I knew him, you would know that he is a very determined person. And if you knew Johnny the way I've come to know him, through the wrong end of a knife blade, well, you'd know something was not quite right in his attic (and we're not just talking pest control up there).
Then, suddenly, the feeling stopped. I went about my business for days without feeling his eyes on me no matter where I hid. Maybe he had given up? I thought. Maybe he killed himself? It was entirely possible, and despite my fear of and loathing for what he had become to me, the idea brought out a twinge of pain. But just a twinge.
Could I really dare to leave my apartment after all of these months in seclusion? Against all better judgment, I did.
I had long since lost my job at the bookstore because I no longer had the guts to leave my apartment. I had been living off of savings and the charity of my roommate. I didn't go out to look for a job, I was hardly ready for that, I just wanted to test my ship, which really felt more like a tiny row boat at this time. I swallowed and shook and went in and out of cold sweats for over an hour before I worked up the courage to even touch the doorknob. I closed my eyes and opened the door as fast as I could, afraid I'd lose my nerve.
To my surprise and relief that the English language, especially in its current degraded form, could not hope to express, no knives shot into my body when the door opened. I was not slashed or gutted or maimed or shot. I was merely standing alone in the hallway outside my own door. Even the dim lights of the hall seemed to be the shining of some heavenly chorus after months in my dark seclusion. Tears stung my eyes. I could find freedom yet.
I closed my door and walked slowly down the hall passed the other rooms, moving like I was in a trance or seeing something from a very old dream. Nothing. When the fat psychic lady from down the hall abruptly slammed open her door and began screaming something incoherent, I hit a wall of adrenaline and spun, delivering a large, painful spray of mace right to her bloated eyes. She screamed and fell to the floor, howling and rolling in pain. After the panic died down with a few deep breaths, it was actually quite amusing.
I continued down the musty hallway without a backward glance, slightly more confident thanks to my obviously adept mace wielding skills. Still, I had to force my self to open the door of the apartment building.
I stepped into the dying- no that is a very bad choice of words right now. Let me try again. I stepped into the fading afternoon sun and was nearly floored by the brightness of the outside world. If the weak light of the hall had been heaven, the darkening light of the real world had to be some kind of one hundred million watt hell. Despite pain and cursing, I was alive. Would I still be if I dared to walk a block or two? I wondered.
Moving half-blind through my blurry dream world, I made it to the closest corner, crossed the street, and walked to the next. There were no eyes burning into me, the street was only filled with your average jerks going to and from work, the pub, etc. I remember testing the weight of my backpack every few steps to make sure the twelve cans of mace in it were still there. At first it seemed so light, as though it would never be full enough to give me any peace. But as I got farther and farther, became a little braver, I became aware that it was actually very heavy.
It was at this time as I was becoming aware of my burden, that I also became aware of my surroundings. I had made it seven blocks from my apartment and was now standing in the middle of the small park near the city center. I slumped down onto a bench, tears quietly running from my eyes. It was a moment of sheer relief and a small victory. I must have sat there for a quarter of an hour, just smiling up at the sky like a fool while a few of the local crazy hobos that slept in the park stared at me without blinking. I didn't notice them until one of them began yelling at a black clad figure in a tree above him a little ways off. I made out very little of the ranting, but enough to know the hobo was quite upset and that the figure was not really paying him much mind.
"Shmoo! Leave my wife alone creepy happy man!" The hobo yelled at the man in the tree (his "wife" was actually just a disgruntled squirrel that was chirping in an annoyed fashion at the intruder in its tree).
The man in the tree ignored them both as though they were not even there, swinging his legs in a content way while apparently sucking on a brainfreezy. After several minutes of the hobo's yelling he finally looked down at him. "Meow." He said with a smile, and went back to his brainfreezy.
The hobo twitched and began yelling again. "I don't care if you are the creator of Happy Noodle Boy, spooky squirrel boy! Get down or I shall call upon my friends from the French Revolution! Viva la France! Mange pousson avec mio!" At this point the obviously crazy hobo began slobbering and barking like a dog between splurges of fractured French.
Happy Noodle Boy? Wasn't that the comic that Johnny had told me that he drew and distributed to the crazy hobos in the city because they liked it so much? A familiar and agonizing dread gripped me as I suddenly realized who was in the tree. I stood, though I don't remember standing, and began to back up slowly. I must have knocked over a trashcan or something because the next thing I knew I was on my back and every one in the park was looking at me, even the man in the tree.
"Devi…?" Johnny said, wide eyed.
And I ran. I panicked, forgot about my cool and my backpack full of mace and ran. I didn't have the guts enough to look back. I felt my heart sink and knew that he had jumped out of the tree and was running after me as the hobo howled like a wolf at the glowing sunset. He didn't call after me again, didn't try to slow me down, he just ran after me at a maddening pace. He finally yelled my name when I was almost hit by a car as I tried to dart across a busy street. But I didn't notice the car, the street, or the traffic. All I knew was that I had to get away.
I ran until my chest burned, my lungs felt useless and like they were full of broken glass, but I knew Johnny hadn't stopped at the street. I heard him jump from one car roof to another and nearly land on an old woman with groceries who responded first by screaming and then by swearing at him. I saw the street in front of me jumbled with flashbacks of the night I had gone on my first and only date with the maniac now chasing me. I remembered all the things I hadn't noticed at the time: The noose hanging in the corner from the ceiling of his living room, the blood stain half hidden under his couch, the red and brown mold along most all of the edges of the walls, and the low, constant moaning from some distant buried room in a far away place under the house. But most of all, I remembered how fluidly he had come at me from across the room, joy in his smile and my spilt blood on his mind, with two curved blades in either hand. There had never been anything so… frightening, for lack of a better word (Remember, the English language). What could he want now but the same? I had to run, but I was running out of strength. The only other thing to do was hide.
Up ahead of me we the old library. No one ever went there and the way to it was all but forgotten really. I had lived within walking distance of it for most of my life but never been there. I hoped Johnny didn't know it any better than I did as I pushed myself to climb the short stairs to it without slowing or tripping. Strange as it may seem, I could swear I was watching myself from outside my body as I threw myself at the huge double doors. It was a long moment and I can still feel the pound of every footfall and the ragged breath catching in my throat as I stumbled into the grand old building, suddenly surrounded by what seemed to be a world within a world of forsaken literature. It would have been sadly beautiful if I had had half the mind to care at the time. Panting, I dove for the cover of the labyrinth of books…
Author's Note: Woohoo! Short and crazy! Sorry if the style didn't match the same way, but Devi isn't like Liza or Johnny, so her writing style would in theory be different anyway. If this is starting to look like a normal fan fiction, please e-mail me so I can fix it P. And yes, my dear sadistic fiends, friends… whatever, the next installment will be from our darling maniac's perspective. Review please. I need all the advice I can get… seriously. Love, or not, Grim.
Betas Note: Once again this Author amazes me. With the exception that she is blonde and "scary" you can't help but just look at and say "Does she like cheese? Wait… wrong thing… oops… does she have a double brain of sorts in her "attic" or does she have a one Jhonen Vasquez locked in there naked except for a small leather… better stop myself before the dirty heterosexual thoughts come into my mind.