#stalker!soap

The next morning you wake to the stream of sunlight coming through your window, not remembering when you had finally fallen asleep, but at least thankful that you did. Stepping out of your bed and into a pair of sweatpants, you grab a sweatshirt on the way out of your room, prepared to go outside and check for damage the storm might’ve left for you. As you pull the sweater over your head, you don’t notice the light to the bathroom had already been turned off.

Stepping into your boots, you open the front door, and covering your eyes from the blinding sunlight as you schlep down the front stairs.

“Good morning, bonnie”

You hear from your right, looking over you see your neighbor John smiling down on you from his elevated lawn.

“Good morning, John, how’d the storm hit you last night?” You ask him with your hand still covering your eyes from the sun.

“Eh, nothing bad over here hen, how about you?”

“Inside was fine, thankfully didn’t lose power, but the branches were so loud on my roof last night, sounded like someone was right above me, it was crazy” you say with a chuckle, pretending like it didn’t downright scare you. “Might have to get up on a ladder sometime today and make sure there’s no damage up there.”

“Ach, I’m not letting you up there bonnie, let me get my ladder, I can go up there and check it out for you.”

“Are you sure? You don’t have to do that for me.”

“Aye, it’s no worries, looks like you’ve got some fallen branches in the backyard. I’ll let you handle those, and I can go up to the roof,” John says with finality towards you, but the same smile pointed down at you “let me look out for you hen, yeah?”

You smile and nodded back at him, even though you know he wasn’t leaving much of a choice. “Thanks John.”

---

A couple of days later you woke up with a stretch and a groan, noticing that your room had a more noticeable chill to it than normal. When you opened your eyes, you noticed that the door to your bedroom was left open. Huh? You pause. You always shut your door before you go to bed, never having been able to sleep with the door to your bedroom open before. 

You did sleep with the window open last night and the fan on in the window, the wind could’ve picked up last night, creating a wind tunnel that pulled the door open, you try to reason with yourself. That has happened to you before while you’ve been in your room doing chores, only when you don’t fully shut the door, you brain reminds you, and you always fully shut your door before bed, double and triple checking. 

You try not think anything of it, the fan in the open window giving you enough reason to believe that wind must’ve picked up last night and the change in pressure must’ve pulled the door open last night, even if the storm y weather had already moved through the area a couple of days prior.

It wasn’t until you were at your dresser applying skincare, after washing your face, that you notice something is off from your normal tray of items. Your favorite purple lighter is missing from next to your candle, hm, you huff in confusion trying to remember where you might’ve taken it. It’s probably just in the living room, you think, you have other lighters down there with your other candle, but this purple was easier to use since you had pulled of the safety, so it makes sense you would’ve moved it, you reason.

---

“Thank you again John for helping me get this old freezer out of the basement” you say stepping down the basement steps looking over your shoulder to John, him falling in behind you, matching your steps and smile.

“Aye no worries, hen. I meant it when I told you I’d look out for you, whatever you need.”

You step off the steps into the finished basement looking over at John and saying “I really do appreciate it though” John just smiles and waves you off like it’s no big deal, so you continue “I unplugged it a couple of days ago, so hopefully that means all of the ice has melted” as you open and step through the door into the unfinished side of the basement. 

You stop though, caught off guard by what you see. “Everything alright bonnie?” You hear John ask behind you. 

“Yeah” you pause but John can hear the apprehension in your voice “I just…I swear I left the board in front of that door”. You say as you walk over the walk over to the door leading to the outside, and noticing that the plank of wood that normally lays in the metal arms across the door, is just leaning up against the wall to the side of the door instead. But the glass window in the door hasn’t been broken, someone couldn’t have removed it from the outside, so “I must’ve just forgotten to put it back up last time I was down here” right?

“Ah” John pauses “that makes sense, hen, you were just doing yard work back there the other day, probably forgot to put it back up then.”

---

Your brain was still hung up on trying to remember if you had gone through the basement door when working on the backyard at the beginning of the week, but you swear you went through the front door on the main floor and walked around instead. John had helped you bring the old freezer out the other day, and afterwards made sure to remind you to put the board back across the door this time, like it was a small joke now. You appreciated him for trying to help you lighten the situation, but it still weighed heavy on you, each of these weird things around the house on their own could be a coincidence, but together? It felt all too much.

Carrying your basket of laundry up the stairs to fold on your bed, you know your already anxious brain is on edge, scanning everything in sight. You tell yourself it’s so you can confirm nothing’s out of place, but part of you knows you are just looking for something to be outside of the norm to confirm your suspicions and unfortunately for you, you find something else. The string to the ladder leading up to your attic was tied into a loop, pulling between the hole in the door and then through the edge of the cutout back into the hatch on the ceiling. 

That’s not how you left it, you never tied the string, the previous owner had never tied it. Any other day you could’ve convinced yourself you had made the change, but with your limited time in the attic already and the basement door left without the board, the sight made your stomach drop.

Part of you was ready to walk into your bedroom, shut the door and fold your laundry like nothing happened, but something had happened. You drop the laundry basket, and reach for the string, pulling the hatch down slowly, scared something might jump out at you, but when met with silence you pulled the ladder fully down.

As you crawl up the ladder to your attic, not much stands out to you, letting your brain fall into a false sense of security. See? Your brain says to your anxiety. Nothings up here, you were freaked out for nothing. 

But your phone’s flashlight catches onto something in the corner. Rushing over there’s a small pile of miscellaneous items: a small flashlight, an old plastic water bottle that became a makeshift ashtray and an open pack of Marlboro Golds. But that’s not what scares you the most. Off to the side there’s a small hand-held drill, debris, and a small hole in the plywood, the same width as the drill bit. The hair on your arms stands up and you take a quick spin in the attic with your flashlight to make you are alone, before you lean down to look through the hole in the ground. You feel like you are going to be sick as you realize the pin size hole give you a perfect view of your bedroom. You sit back up on your knees, swallowing bile as you look around. A couple feet over there’s another small pile of debris, and a few feet over another pile, and then another a couple further from there. You get to your feet, sickness washing over you as you realize there’s small holes drilled into the plywood all throughout your attic’s floor board, giving viewership to each room in your room on your second floor. 

You pound on John’s door, hoping his car in the front driveway means he’s home, you don’t know where else you’d go right now if he wasn’t and you can’t see yourself going back int your house alone. John opens the door with a confused look, but smiles when he sees you there. “Bon-“he starts but you cut him off before he can get the term of endearment out.

“John, please I just need to talk someone right now, I thought I was going crazy but I think someone has been breaking into my house” John’s face drops at your startled state, pulling you through the door into his home

“Aye it’s not a problem hen, let’s get you settled, let me get you something to drink, tea alright?” You nod as John guides you to sit on his couch, rubbing your shoulders soothingly before stepping away into the kitchen.

“I feel crazy John, I don’t know what to do. There’s been all of these weird things happening around the house, and at first, I thought it was just weird coincidences, like things getting misplaced, the basement door being uncovered, doors being left open” you say as he emerges from the kitchen with a mug of tea for you, handing it to you with a soft smile as you lean back into his couch, trying to get comfortable, despite your racing heart and anxiety building in your stomach. John sits next to you, matching your body language. 

“What do you mean?” he asks leaning his head to the side, rubbing your shoulder soothingly as you take a sip of the tea.

“I don’t know,” you start again, your frustration and fear building, tears beginning to build along your eyeline “pieces of my laundry have been going missing, but I figured it was just my washer or dryer eating them. And then little things around the house have been going missing, like I don’t know where my favorite lighter is, which is so miniscule but I always leave it in my room” you heave out, the weight in your chest building as you finally begin to acknowledge the true depth of the situation. Someone in your home, in your room.

“And I know that all sounds stupid, but I noticed the string to the attic was messed up earlier, so I went up there and I- “

You pause, something on John’s coffee table catching your eye, and your stomach drops, unable to continue your train of thought. 

“And what bonnie?” John asks but then follows your line of site to the plate of items on his coffee table, not much standing out besides the purple lighter in tray that visibly had the safety pulled off. Your frozen in place, clutching to the mug, as you feel him turn to you, hum softly, place a hand of your knee, rubbing soothingly before saying