Number Four
I had always felt him watching me.
Well, not him, but someone. I hadn’t even really known he existed until the day that he had killed my best friend.
There were signs that someone was watching me. Sometimes, the signs were obvious: a flower left on my car, or a little note left in my mailbox. Others were not so obvious. It had taken me almost a week to notice that my favorite perfume was gone, and then there was the situation of the website.
My best friend Laura had shown me the website. Someone had linked it to her, and then she pulled me aside, a grim look on her face.
“Em,” she said. “You need to see this.”
On her computer screen was pictures of me. A lot of pictures of me. Some were of me and my friends walking to class or eating lunch. Others were of just me. There were a few of me sitting in class doodling in my notebook, and others of me brushing out my hair, still wet from the shower. I could feel chills going down my spine as I looked at the pictures. They had to have gone back at least a year, because I haven’t had the light brown hair since last April.
I slammed the computer lid shut and pushed it away from me, disgusted. I wish I had studied the images a little closer. They might have told me who took them, though I would find out shortly anyway.
As Laura and I were walking back to my dorm room that night, I felt paranoid. Every car that slowed down got me panicking. I nearly had a heart attack when one stopped ahead of us, but Laura urged me on.
“They won’t try anything out in the open,” she said, attempting to reassure me.
How wrong she was. As we got closer to the car, the door opened. An older man, about 30 or so, stepped out and smiled at us. He asked if we could give him directions to the local Wal-Mart. Laura, being a trusting soul, walked over to help him. As she got close, he grabbed her and twisted her neck. I heard a snap and screamed. As he looked to me, whispering “Emily…,” I ran away, still screaming. One of the Campus Security heard me and came to help. I told him what happened and turned to indicate the guy, but he was gone.
They found him later that night, using video surveillance in the area. When they raided his house, they found pictures and videos of me. They also found about 20 notebooks filled with sick, twisted thoughts this man had about me. I was asked to come in and identify him in a lineup. I walked in and stood behind the one-way glass. As the men filed in, there he stood.
“Number four,” I said, feeling nauseated. “Number four.”
Then I turned and got sick on the floor.
