Page 24 of Resurrect Me

“You know, most women would call the cops and tell them their stalker is watching them. I guess I’m not most women. Andyou’re not most stalkers. You saved my life tonight, and I’m forever indebted to you. Whoever you are.”

I smile under the mask, even though she can’t see it, and then I watch her walk down the sidewalk, barefooted, in a pair of bloody distressed jeans and a Poison t-shirt. My old T-shirt. My body and my heart yearn to be with her again.

Tacy

I call and report my kidnapping to the police, and once again, they file into my house. But this time they do actual police work, take pictures, and tape off the hallway, kitchen, and back porch. One detective yells at another to “keep the newbies off his crime scene”. I assume that means he doesn’t want cadets stomping through and disturbing any potential evidence. A female police officer throws a fuzzy orange blanket around my shoulders and leads me outside to talk.

She motions for me to sit on the rocking chair on the front porch. I oblige and collapse onto the fluffy cushion. She introduces herself, and I rock back and forth and try to answer her questions. I notice Sheriff Fred isn’t here this time.

“You say you were in the office, the back room, yesterday afternoon when you heard someone break in?”

“Yes. I was working in the office when the power went out. I got up to check the alarm in the hallway, and that’s when I heard something in my kitchen. Before I could check it out, a man was…he had forced me down to the ground and was binding my wrists together.”

She scribbles furiously on her iPad. “Okay, and then he put you in his vehicle and drove you out of the city?”

“I…I don’t know what happened after that. He knocked me out, and I don’t remember anything until I woke up in a basement.”

The female cop continues writing with her stylus, ignoring a call coming through on her walkie talkie.

“Right,” she says. “Do you know the man who kidnapped you? You know ninety percent of kidnappings involve someone the victim knows personally. Like a family friend or acquaintance.”

Do I tell her that I know Orion Starkey?KnewOrion Starkey? That he manipulated me into joining his sick cult as a teenager, abused and used me for everything I was worth? Stole my money, sodomized me, and forced me to have sex with the other members of the cult? No, that would be too much for anyone to swallow. And iftheyknew thatIknew Orion Starkey, wouldn’t that expose the deeds I did in the past? Just keep that shit to yourself.

I shake my head, “No. No I don’t know him.”

“And you say he nearly killed you and another man saved your life by shooting him?”

I nod. And rock nervously.

“Who is the man who saved you? Where is he now?”

I sigh and grip the arms of the rocking chair. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know where he is?”

“I don’t know who he is or where he is now. I’m sorry. He wore a mask the entire time.”

“Well, what did he say? He didn’t tell you anything about who he was or why he was there in the first place?”

And now’s the time for me to tell her I have a stalker, and that this man who saved my life is my stalker. And the only reasonhe was there is because he had followed the man who had kidnapped me, and therefore followed me, in the first place. Why wouldn’t I have placed a restraining order against him by now? Because I’m sick. And I love the idea of someone watching me. Admiring me from the shadows.

“He never spoke. Not a single word.”

“Hmm. That’s odd. So, he obviously doesn’t want you to know who he is,” she says and uses the tip of the stylus to scratch her hair. The clip gets stuck in her bun briefly, and she awkwardly reaches up to free it.

“Have you ever seen him before? The masked man?”

I shake my head, “Nope.”

“Well, Tacy, that’s all for now, but you’ll have to go to the hospital to get checked out, have your injuries documented. That sort of thing.”

Fuck me. Not the hospital…again. I don’t need my job finding out about this and worrying about me. I’ve already fainted twice this month. Them knowing I was kidnapped and held at knifepoint will be the icing on the shit-frosted cake. They’ll put me on permanent leave. I need my job to stay sane. And to feed my kids.

I check in with mom, who is elated to hear my voice. Even if it is three o’ clock in the morning. I ask her why she never came by the house or called the police. She explains the school called to have her pick up the kids, and that there was a note left at the front desk that I had to go somewhere for an emergency, and I’d be home late that night. That I needed her to watch the kids for me, but that everything would be okay. Very fucking weird. I left no notes. I didn’t know I was going to be pummeled and draggedfrom my home, so how would I have known to ask my mother to pick up the kids? Unless it was…

“I see the cops are there,” my stalker texts me.

I pull the stool over to the bay window, climb it, and stand on tiptoes to see over the stop sign down the street. His gray ford is still sitting there. That comforts me. Even with these cops in my house, I wouldn’t feel safe if it weren’t for my stalker sitting two blocks away.

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