Stalker
1440 Words
Cara scrambled up to her third floor apartment, opening the barred door with yet another key and slamming it behind her. She flicked the switch next to her, activating her high-voltage security system. She threw her purse on the nearby table, still trying to steady her breathing.
It didn’t work.
It felt like there was a rubber band wrapped around her esophagus, and the air was made of fire. Her heart was slamming so hard against her ribcage that it was painful.
The only thing that calmed her was the steady humming of electricity that reverberated from her door. That hum meant she was safe.
Safe enough to cry.
She flopped down on the couch and began to sob. There had been so many days like this over the past three years, and they were becoming more frequent. The mobs were growing more numerous. Bigger. Angrier.
The first days of the pandemic weren’t too bad, the virus wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. But then it began to mutate. To change with every host it found.
You can’t vaccinate for that.
It had left a diseased and crumbling world in its wake, civilized society hanging on by a thread. Days like this made Cara feel like the last string was about to break.
She gasped for air between heaving sobs, burying her face into the pillow as deep as she could. She wished she could just disappear into the cushions forever.
But she couldn’t. Her followers depended on her. She was their beacon of light in a dark world. As much as she resented that responsibility, it got her out of bed every day and gave her a reason to trudge through this hell of a world.
So Cara took a long, shaky breath and sat up. She brushed herself off and pulled her phone from her back pocket.
The little red dot on the bottom of the screen showed one hundred and twelve notifications.
Slow day.
She reluctantly clicked on it, scrolling through the pages and pages of empty words. A mixture of envious hate-mail and adoring fan messages. She’d gotten numb to it all. But it paid the bills.
So she willed herself off of the couch and into bathroom to fix her makeup. She smoothed her long, dark hair and concealed the tear stains under her puffy eyes. She took a step back to study her reflection.
Perfect brows, clear skin, rosy cheeks.
The image of health.
She went into her bedroom and found a silky top with a plunging neckline. A totally impractical piece in today's world, but it looked good in photos. Cara threw it on, adjusting it in the mirror until it fell perfectly over her curves.
She grabbed her phone again and turned on the camera, looking for the perfect filter and lighting.
Click.
She posed, pursing her lips delicately like she’d done a thousand times before.
Click.
She took a breath, forcing herself to smile.
Click.
She flopped back down on the couch as she edited the picture, trying to come up with an optimistic caption. Something to make her followers smile through the endless darkness of a decaying world.
Perfect day for a stroll, she captioned the photo. #freshair.
She clicked “post.” Immediately notifications started flooding in, but she didn’t bother to check them.
She wished she could quit it all, never log on to another damned social media app again, but jobs weren’t easy to come by in this world. Only essential businesses had managed to stay open after the economic collapse. No more dancing or concerts, no manicures or haircuts. That’s why everyone flocked to Cara’s online persona. She was funny, bright, carefree.
On the surface.
But nothing on social media is quite as it appears.
Both of Cara’s parents died from the virus nearly two years ago. The symptoms started with a little twitch in the eye, a symptom so benign that most people didn’t even notice it. Then as it spread, the virus attacked its victims’ nervous systems, rendering them nearly blind before paralyzing them.
So Cara’s parents died of suffocation, unable to force their own lungs to expand enough to suck in another breath.
They were the lucky ones.
Others were driven completely mad by the loss of brain tissue, turning violent and rabid, but not dying.
Those ones didn’t die. There was no recovery, no chance of healing. Only two outcomes; madness or death.
So yes, Cara’s parents were lucky. They died a good death. Even though it was slow and painful, and she couldn’t even get close enough to hug them goodbye. They were unceremoniously burned with hundreds of other corpses.
Somehow through all of that tragedy Cara trudged on. She got out of bed every day and put on her fake smile, for what choice did she have?
She walked into her kitchen and opened the fridge, scanning the sparse contents. She’d been trying to make it to the last grocery store in town when she was attacked by the Herd. She was one of the few people who could still afford the astronomical prices of food. But she still spent many nights with a rumbling pain in her gut.
She angrily slammed the fridge and stormed out of the kitchen, bracing herself for yet another hungry and lonely night. The endless isolation was enough to drive a weaker woman insane, but not Cara. She wasn't going to give up.
At that moment, her phone began to ring.
Unknown Caller, the message scrolled across the screen.
She frowned, crossing her arms across her nearly bare chest. She let the phone ring again, unsure whether or not she should answer. It could be another stalker, which would be the last thing she needed right now.
Eventually the ringing subsided and she allowed herself to relax a little. She turned the phone over so she wouldn’t have to look at the persistent notifications anymore, then grabbed the TV remote. She needed to escape this dystopian world for a little while.
Then her phone rang again.
And again.
And again.
This stalker is very persistent.
It rang again.
She groaned and turned off the television, staring at the phone.
She’d been through this before. People had become obsessive in this hopeless world, and she was often a target.
It rang again.
She stood up, ready to turn off the relentless phone.
But the lights in her living room began to flicker, then gave way to blackness.
The comforting humming from her door when silent.
She was unprotected.
She swallowed hard as the persistent ringing echoed through the darkness. These blackouts kept happening as the power grid moved closer to failure and electricians were harder to find.
But the phone kept ringing, lighting up the blackness like a firefly flashing on a summer night, it called to her.
She leaned down to look at the phone as it illuminated the abyss.
Then a sharp ding rang out. A text message.
Cara James, answer please. This is an emergency.
She bit her lip, wondering if this was real or a trap set up by a particularly desperate stalker. Or it could be worse. The Herd trying to draw her out of her safety net.
Then came the knock at her door.
It began gently, then it grew louder and louder until her door was shaking under the violent pounding.
Cara’s whole body tensed up, she froze like a deer facing an oncoming train.
The pounding grew louder by the second along with the pounding of her heart.
She was alone. She was unprotected.
Then the power flickered back on.
The steady humming vibrated through the room once more, and she finally let out the breath she’d been holding.
But the phone kept ringing.
And ringing.
The insistent sound seemed like it would never end, breaking down her sanity with every shrill buzz.
Cara couldn’t take it anymore. She groaned, threw her hands up in the air, and relinquished this battle of wills.
She clicked the wiggling green icon.
“What do you want?” She snapped into the phone.
“Cara James?” The deep voice on the other end of the phone said. She didn’t respond. After a beat, she could hear the man take a deep breath. “I need your help.”
- Writer
