Stalkers: A Dark Romance Anthology

by Ally Vance

  “Yeah I’ll be there,” He said. I clicked off the walkie and walked to my dresser. Hidden underneath my underwear was a pack of matches, and at my feet, I grabbed my illicit purchase from my backpack.

  Hiding the matches in my pocket and keeping my hands behind my back, I made my way downstairs.

  “Annibel Marie,” my mothers shrill voice hollered my name. “That better be a ghost coming down the stairs. You’re grounded young lady.”

  “I don’t fucking think so,” I calmly whispered back.

  I could feel my mothers shock at my words, and I listened as she got up off the sofa and marched into the kitchen. As soon as she appeared in front of me I lifted my hand.

  Bang

  Blood sprayed everywhere, like a fountain of red juice. Splatters of brain coated the kitchen walls. It was a glorious and beautiful mess. I wanted to make a blood angel in it, but there was another person in the house.

  “Annie? What have you done?”

  “Hi Dad,” I smiled before pulling the trigger again.

  For ten beautiful minutes, I surveyed the scene in front of me. The teapot hollered from the stove, begging to be taken off the heat, but I didn’t budge. I was transfixed.

  I knew I needed to move though. Leon was set to meet me out back any minute, and I didn’t want him peeking in the windows and running off to tell his family. I stowed my gun under my jean hem in the back and pulled my shirt over it.

  I tiptoed around the carcasses of my makers, and headed out the sliding glass door. Leon was already waiting. I put on my best sad face and ran to him, my body covered in blood.

  “Annie? What the hell?” He screamed, grabbing me by the shoulders and yanking me off of him. “Is that blood?”

  “Quick, Leon you have to come. Right now!” I shrieked at him.

  Grabbing his shaking hand and running back towards my house, I could hear the hysterics coming from him but it only sounded like harmonious cacophony in my rage addled brain. His later screams added to the chorus creating a song that would never leave my head for as long as I lived.

  I stopped just outside of the sliding glass door and let Leon go in first, following in directly behind him. Just like the pussy he was, as soon as he saw my parents, he turned around and vomited, unable to hide his horror. When he finally looked up at the cheshire cat smile planted on my face, only then did he know he was in trouble.

  “Sit down, Leon?” My cool and collected voice whispering my command.

  “You get the fuck away from me, you psycho?” Leon stammered, attempting to take a step towards the door.

  I grabbed my gun and aimed it at his foot. Pulling the trigger, he went down like a sack of potatoes. I had only grazed him, but he screamed like a little girl.

  “I said, sit the fuck down,” my gun pointed at his face.

  Leon howled from the pain and I revelled in his screaming, silently thanking my deceased father for installing so much sound barrier insulation to drown out his wretched guitar playing from the complaining neighbors.

  “Ok, ok” Leon cried out, putting his hands out and hobbling his way up onto a kitchen chair.

  With my gun still aimed at his head, I walked backwards a few feet to my fathers notorious junk drawer. Rummaging inside, I found the object of need. A zip tie. That would do nicely.

  I walked back to Leon and stood on his shot foot with my sneakers. “Put your hands behind your back.”

  Like a smart boy, my old crush did what he was told. Quickly and efficiently I wrapped Leon’s hands around the zip tie and fastened it to the chair in which he sat.

  “Why are you doing this?” He bellowed and I laughed. Even at fourteen I had seen enough movies to know that it was a silly question, but as I have stated before, Leon was a bit soft in the head.

  The question was, should I answer him? Did he deserve to know why he was destined to die that day? A part of me wanted to scream and cry and tell him I had heard everything, but an even bigger part of me wanted him to die slowly, painfully, and without any reason why.

  Once the youngest brother was securely fastened, I walked over to the sink and reached underneath for the bottle of gasoline my father kept for grilling. Shaking it, I smiled. A new bottle.

  I popped it open and inhaled the familiar scent. Ignoring Leon’s pleas for release, I took the bottle over to my parents bodies. Blood continued to ooze out of them like a festering sore and I doused them in the foul smelling liquid. Keeping the nozzle down, I created a direct path to the chair in which Leon sat, carefully avoiding him or his chair.

  I circled around, creating a pool of gas before tilting the container up with just enough in it for my departure.

  I looked into the watery, redding eyes of the boy I had loved for almost a decade.

  “No one will ever love you like I did, Leon. No one.”

  I leaned over and kissed his lips, a single tear falling from my eye and landing on his cheek.

  I turned the bottle upside down again over the pool at his feet and trailed it outside onto the porch. I reached in my back pocket and grabbed the matches.

  “Goodbye my love.”

  Chapter One

  “Ugh. Annie Anne. I’m gonna miss you so fucking much, girl,” my cellmate and the only broad in this dump allowed to call me Annie Ann, cried out. From the second I had gotten into the Northville Correctional Facility for Girls, Stabby was the only person I entrusted. Stabby’s real name was Mya, but no one was allowed to call her that. If you tried, you were usually the lucky recipient of finding out why her nickname was as such. Both of us were luckily transferred to the same maximum prison when we turned eighteen and somehow we got put into the same cell.

  Most people called me Flames, but Stabby said my red hair reminded her of her old Raggedy Anne doll. As soon as I got out from behind these bars though, the red would be gone forever. I needed a new identity, and the first thing to change had to be what people knew me for. I had been in the juvenile prison for four years and real prison for another ten. It probably should have been more, but my public defender, an overworked, goody two shoes, trying to become a judge, pleaded temporary insanity. The judge must have taken some kind of pity on me as well when it came to sentencing.

  For the first four years, I spent countless hours in therapy. No one could seem to grasp that what I had done wasn’t a moment of weakness but rather a moment in which I took back my own strength. No longer would I have parents who controlled my every movement. No longer would I be saddled with feelings of inadequacy, unable to live up to their high expectations. Pulling that trigger was my version of freedom, and given the choice, I wouldn’t have done a damn thing differently.

  I was twenty-eight now, and when the bars closed behind me, instead of in front of me, I took my first deep breath. I was finally free. Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Aren’t you on parole? Sure. If they can find me.

  The public bus picked me up about a mile from the prison gates, and I rode it until it ended. For tonight, I was going to stay in the cheapest motel in the heart of Detroit. Tomorrow, my life was going to change.

  “Last stop,” the driver yelled and I nodded to him, exiting out of the back doors. Spotting a rent-by-the-hour just a few blocks down, I paid the skeevy guy behind the glass and took my room key. My temporary accommodations were exactly what you would expect for $25 but I didn’t care. I wanted a shower where I could control the temperature, and there wouldn’t be ten other pairs of eyes roaming down my dripping body.

  It was only seven when I was back to being fully clothed and I grabbed the phone off the nightstand.

  “Yeah,” the front desk greeted me.

  “Where’s the closest drug store?”

  “Two blocks west and one block north.”

  I hung up. Not too far at all.

  I grabbed my bag and opened my wallet. My money was stuffed in there and I was sure it wouldn’t fit another dollar. I smiled wildly. Mr. and Mrs. Annie Anne had a will and trust, leaving everything to the
ir only daughter upon their untimely demise. Since neither of them had siblings, and the only living relative was my dearly departed mothers grandmother, who at ninety-seven couldn’t remember her own freaking name, when I turned eighteen, everything was left to me. No one was there to contest it. Now I’m not saying my parents were unGodly rich or anything, but I am saying there was a reason we could afford a half million dollar home in one of the most glamorous parts of Eastern Michigan.

  I shoved my wallet back into my bag and retrieved my room key, locking the door tight behind me. I knew I probably shouldn’t have been walking around with this much cash, but if prison had taught me one thing, it was if you didn’t want it stolen, keep it on your person.

  The walk to the drug store was quick and I picked up all of the essentials I would need. Hair dye was first and foremost, and it felt fitting that I would decide on a solid black. I picked out some new makeup, also in the darker shades, and a pair of shears. I wasn’t adverse to cutting my own hair. It wouldn’t be the first time. Along with a few personal hygiene items and some snacks to get me through the night, the last thing I needed was a disposable phone. There was a phone call I was dying to make and I needed to do it soon.

  After I checked out and made my way back to my hotel, I grabbed a bag of chips out of my bag and began to think. Now that I was free there was so much that I wanted to do, but it would all have to wait. My top priority was finishing what I had started fourteen years ago, and I would be damned if anyone was going to stop me this time.

  I let my mind wander to that night, all of those years ago. After I had lit the match, I should have taken off, but something kept me grounded to my spot in the backyard. I heard the sirens of the fire trucks and the police, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the roaring hellfire in front of me. The sweet heat of revenge was all consuming and even as they handcuffed me and drug me away, I watched the fires burn hot around the brick and mortar of my old prison, and its jailers. I couldn’t stop the smile spreading across my face at the vivid memory behind my eyes.

  I had fourteen years to plan my revenge on the family next door who poisoned my childhood love with their words and who called the police that night. Both of Leon’s parents were dead, I had kept track, but his seven brothers were alive and well….for now.

  Chapter Two

  Setting up this wretched phone made me feel a murderous rage, one I hadn’t felt in almost fourteen years, but I used my therapy training from prison to calm myself and get through it. I needed to hear his voice, feel his soothing words wash over me like a bucket of hot spring water on a cold day. I needed his words of guidance and reassurance and praise. I needed Victor.

  Shortly after I had been transferred to maximum security with the other adult inmates, I got over my childhood ways and started thinking like a grownup. I was going to get out of jail at some point and I knew if I started planning soon enough, I would be ready for when that day came. I made a plan. I needed to gain contact with someone from the outside world, but who? I had no family to speak of, Leon had been my only real friend, and any person I might have considered an acquaintance at school all thought I was a raging psychopath. Not that I blamed them, of course.

  For weeks, I went through my mental rolodex of every single person I had ever met, and every time, I came up with the same person. Leon’s family lawyer, Mr. Putnam, had been my fathers lawyer for as long as I could remember. I originally thought he would have been the one to represent me during my case, but as it was, he had a hard time looking at me throughout the entire trial. I couldn’t say that I blamed him either. Afterall, he and my father had also been best friends through college.

  I thought long and hard about what I wanted to say in my letter to him. For weeks, I wrote and rewrote words on paper before crumpling it up and trying again and again. My approach had to feel sincere if my plan were to work. Finally, I told my head to shut it, and I let my heart do the talking. I called on every empathetic emotion I could muster, and I thought about the rich blue color of Leon’s eyes, and my pen flew away.

  Mr. Putnaam,

  Firstly., I would like to say thank you for opening this letter. I know this was probably highly unexpected, and I would be insane to think you didn’t immediately consider tossing this envelope into the fire. For that I am exceedingly grateful.

  Secondly, before I get into the heart of my letter, I would like to offer you my sincerest apologies for what I have done to not only you, but your family. I know how much my father meant to you and your wife, and I cannot put into words the amount of times I have grieved for what I have put you and everyone through. I know I do not deserve it, but I beg for your forgiveness.

  Since entering juvi and subsequently prison, I have worked hard to figure out what was wrong with me. I’ve been to countless doctors and therapists, and while I don’t believe that my unstable mental health is an excuse for the actions of my fourteen year old self, I do believe that I have changed for the better. I won’t lie and say that I’m cured and no longer have certain unexplainable urges at times, but I have learned to work through them, and not for them. I have found the Lord within inside of these metal bars, and everyday I continue to grow and become stronger in my faith and my resolve.

  What I ask from you isn’t fair, and for that I offer my deepest apologies, but I have attached within this correspondence an additional letter for the Walker family, for Leon’s family. I need to attempt to make amends. I need to try and right my wrongs in the only way that I can, and I need your help to do it.

  Please, I’m begging you. From the bottom of my heart, please forward this letter on to Mr. and Mr.s Walker.

  Thank you,

  Annie

  When I had finished the letter I smiled wide. There was no way he would refuse my request. Mr. Putnam was a man of God, and anyone who asked for forgiveness was sure to get it. My only hopes were that he opened it, and that when he eventually forwarded on the other letter, the Walkers would open it.

  Several weeks went by with no news, and I began to doubt my ability to feign innocence and reformation. Being a loner meant I never got mail as it was, but waiting for something and never getting it was, by far, even more torturous.

  Then one day it happened. As I sat in my cell, staring up into the metal grain of the bunk above me, what I had been longing to hear finally appeared, but not in the way I had hoped for, but one that was destined to change my life forever.

  “Ross,” a guard called out and I rolled my eyes. I hated them referring to me by my last name. “You got a letter.”

  I jumped out of my bed and snatched the opened envelope.

  “Annie? Who is it from?” Stabby jumped down from the top bunk, peering over my shoulder.

  I flipped the envelope over. No forwarding address. Probably smart on the Walker’s part not including their current address.

  I pulled the letter out and threw the envelope to the side. Very quickly I realized, this mail had not come from the Walkers or Mr. Putnam, but from someone else entirely.

  My dearest Annie,

  I know you do not know me, but I fear I know you better than yourself. My name is Victor and I’m your biggest fan.

  I grunted and simultaneously rolled my eyes. Fans of serial killers were not uncommon or unheard of in prison. I just never thought I would have one, and I certainly didn’t want one. I took a deep breath and continued.

  I want you to know that, even while you sit in a ten by ten room, I wait for you here on the outside. I long for the day I get to take you into my arms and hold you close to my chest., The day that I get to proclaim you as mine for the world to see. You shall be my queen, and I, your humble servant.

  Was this guy for real? I considered balling up the piece of paper in my hands, but something stopped me. Divine intervention seeped into my brain and made me keep reading.

  I know what you want, Annie, and I want to help. I know your true hearts desire. Eight became seven, and together, seven shall become one.

&n
bsp; I will write to you everyday. I will wait for your response, and if you choose not to love me, I will love you for the both of us.

  I look forward to hearing from you.

  Always yours,

  Victor.

  “Eight becomes seven becomes one? That doesn’t even make a lick of sense,” Stabby proclaimed, bored of the eavesdropping.

  What Stabby didn’t know was, Eight becomes seven, becomes one made complete and absolute sense, but how in the world could this faceless man know that? How did he know my deepest and darkest desires? I didn’t know, but I had to find out.

  Over the course of the next nine and a half years, Victor and I wrote back and forth to each other almost every day. I begged him to come see me, but he refused. He said the timing had to be right. We spoke in code as often as we could to avoid detection as each letter, coming and going were read by the guards.

  When it was evident I would finally be leaving my jailers behind, Victor and I made a plan. Freedom, followed by a new identity, a first meeting, and revenge. We had spent so much time planning, I hardly couldn’t believe step two was in process and step three would be happening within twenty four hours.

  I pulled myself from my memories and looked down at the phone in my hand. With deft fingers I punched in the only number I had ever memorized in life and held my breath.

  Ring…

  Ring…

  Ring…

  “Hello,” the man on the other side greeted me, a hint of knowing in his deep bass.

  “Victor?” I whispered, my heart in my throat.

  “Yes, Annie. It’s me. Where are you?”

  Chapter Three

  As the blackened water swirled down the drain at my feet, I silently mourned the loss of my spiraling identity. Yes, I was still Annie, and that was never going to change, and while I hated my red hair, and where it had come from, it had been my identifying feature since the day I had been born.