I always knew to look out for myself, I never knew I would have to like on a serious level. A couple of months ago I started to get these weird letters in the mail saying

  “I know where you are, always…forever..” I usually just threw them in the trash and forgot about them...the person never signed their name, it was always the words with no address, name, or anything else. I had told my friends about it but they told me to ignore it, so I did.

  Then a few weeks passed and I was still getting the letters saying weird and creepy things. I started to worry that this person was not just playing some kind of sick joke….The next day I decided I needed to do something about this, I had a plan.

  I put a tiny camera in the back of my mailbox to see who was putting these letters in, I honestly was not expecting the footage I got. I just saw this black figure putting their hand inside the mailbox and placing a letter in there, then they took the camera OUT of the mailbox and looked at it, but it wasn’t a face the camera was pointed at, it was some kind of creepy mask, it was white and it had eye holes in it, their eyes were just staring into the camera and my soul. Their eyes were dark and it was hard to tell what color they were; they almost seemed to be just black eyeballs. I was shaken up by the whole thing. I called my best friend, Jeremey,

  “Jeremey…um I have to tell you something,” I told him over the phone,

  “Yeah? What's the matter?” His voice came through a little scratchy. Probably just a bad signal.

  “Actually can you just come over?” I ask,

  “Um ok sure..” He said a little confused.

  Later he came over and I told him the whole story about the letters and the camera in the mailbox, he could tell I was frightened. Jeremey put his arm around me,

  “Hey, hey, it's going to be alright, You’re going to be fine. It's probably some idiot playing some joke..” That made me feel a little better, knowing what he said might be true.

  Jeremey had dinner with me at my house and we watched a movie, it was getting kind of late by then so he decided just to stay the night, I went into my room to get my pajamas, then I heard Jeremey scream…..I’ve never heard him scream before so I was panicking at that point. I ran out to the living room and saw him…..the person who had been leaving those letters in the mailbox…..they were holding Jeremey by the arm, Jeremey looked at me with wide eyes and he was breathing heavily. I looked back at him, completely confuzzled. I moved my eyes slowly onto the dark figure, he was looking straight at me with his eyes darkened by the mask.

  I opened my mouth to say something but nothing came out. He let go of Jeremy's arm and dropped him on the floor with a thud. I tried to back away but they grabbed me before I could, I was finally able to tell that the person was a guy. I could hear his breathing behind his mask, I was breathing heavily too. The stranger just held me in front of him for a second, then just dropped me on the wood floor,

  “Ow..”I say to myself rubbing my rear. The guy looked at me, grabbed Jeremey again, and ran out the door with him. I stumbled up on my feet and ran to the door to find nothing out there, I was still breathing heavily and I just stared off into space for a minute before I snapped to my senses, I grabbed my phone and dialed 911.

  The police arrived a little later and asked all sorts of questions. They said they couldn’t do anything about it because there was no way to track the guy and I didn’t have a good enough description of him. I was filled with anger but also worried about Jeremey. I begged the police to do something but had no luck, I eventually gave up. The police finished asking questions, packed up their stuff and left. I walked back inside and checked twice that I locked all the doors, I called my friends to tell them about Jeremey. They all had pretty much the same reaction as me, even though I didn’t want to think about it, I just kinda assumed Jeremey was…well ya know....dead by now, I didn’t know what else to think. Though I still prayed everything was going to be ok. I lay down on my bed and stared at the ceiling, I closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep.

  I fall asleep for a bit, but then I hear tapping on my window, my eyes flutter open and I see a dark outline of someone outside my curtain then they disappear like a ghost, I open my eyes wide and stare at the window. I noticed that the thing out there opened my window, as the cold wind flowed in my room so did a paper airplane onto my bed. I Freeze and look at it, I slowly sit up and just stare at the folded piece of paper. I come out of my daze and start slowly crawling to the end of my bed, still checking on the window every couple seconds. I sit back down on the edge of my bed with my feet hanging down, I nervously open up the letter, I’m shocked to see there’s a lot more writing than the other letters, it read

  “Are you not going to come find me Holly?--” My heart almost stops

  “How does he know my name?” I whisper to myself, I continue reading the letter and get more and more scared as I’m reading,

  “I know where you are, you can’t escape me. I know I took your friend Jeremey, he’s still alive…I would give him back but I need something in return….” It didn’t say anything after that, just a splatter of ink, I’m pretty sure he used a quill, I didn’t know people still used those. I sat there looking at the letter, reading it over and over again, I felt something brush against my foot, and a chill ran through my entire body.

  I brought my legs up as fast as I could and I crawled back to the head of my bed and sat there to catch my breath. I stare at the edge of the bed, I finally muster up enough courage to go back to the edge of the bed, I hesitate but my curiosity gets the best of me and I look under my bed. I honestly feel like a little kid again, looking under my bed for monsters and stuff but this is serious. I look under my bed, I just had to make it worse by remembering that a PERSON can fit under my bed…ugh…I peek under the bed frame and I see a pair of white eyes staring right at me, they are glowing a bit, it's the only thing I can make out in the darkness.

  I scream, jump off my bed and run into the bathroom. I thankfully remember to put my phone in my pants pocket, I lock the bathroom door and hide behind the shower curtains. I sit down on the bathtub floor. I want to call my friend so badly to tell her what is happening, just to hear her voice would calm me down, she’s like one of those therapy friends the ones you can say anything to and they won't laugh at you or make fun of you, but I know I have to stay silent or else the person, or thing, wouldn’t hear me. I instead text her, I feel bad it’s like 1 or 2 in the morning, and in my frantic texting I almost didn’t hear the FOOTSTEPS going down my hall to the bathroom. I freeze and listen to the footsteps getting closer to me.

  I sit and wait, there's nothing else I can do at that point. I hear the lock being picked and the door slowly creaked open, I’m shaking with fear now, “Hollyyy…” The guy says quietly, my hearts racing and I’m still shaking, “I know you're in heree..” he says again moving closer to the shower, he reaches the shower and pulls back the curtain, “I GOT YOU- wait what” hes surprised to see I’m not there, haha, while he pulled back the curtain i slipped out the other side and, as quiet as I could ran out of the bathroom and back into my room locked the door, and climbed out my window and into my backyard. I’m pretty sure that my friend will understand why I’m calling her so early once I explain, I try and use my shaking fingers to call my friend…The phone rings for a while…., and then she FINALLY picks up

  “Martha? Martha? Omg, I’m so glad you picked up..” I say my voice trembling

  “Holly? What's going on? Why are you calling me so early” Martha said in a groggy voice,

  “Ok I know this sounds crazy, but there's somebody in my house, I’m pretty sure it’s the guy who took Jeremey…..” I stay silent waiting for her to respond,

  “......I…ok well….I’m going to come over and pick you up and you can stay with me for a while, go to your front yard and wait for me….” She explains.

  “O-ok, I’ll go..” I hang up the phone and sneak to the front of the house. I can still hear the guy inside the house trying to find me, I sit down on the curb and wait for Martha to get here. A little later I see a car pull up, she unlocks the car and I get in quickly and shut the door, it’s a pretty silent ride until Marhta speaks.

  “So..how did this happen?” She questioned, I stayed silent for a minute,

  “I-I don’t know…it just started happening all of a sudden” I murmured.

  “Oh, that’s odd…well I’ll do everything I can to catch this guy.” she replied smiling a bit, I smiled a bit too.

  The rest of the ride was silent, I looked out the window pretty much the whole time. We arrive at Martha’s house, we get inside and both of us head to bed, I go into the guest room, lay down, and try, once again, to fall asleep.

  I woke up the next morning to Martha shaking me awake,

  “W-what? What is it?” I say still trying to wake up,

  “You have to come here, there's another letter, I found it on the kitchen table this morning” She explains. I get out of bed and stumble tiredly out into the kitchen, I look at the table and there it is…another letter….with my name on it. I stare at the letter then at Martha, then back at the letter again. I move slowly to the table and pick up the letter with my uneasy hands, I open it and there are only a few words

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  “Something in exchange for Jeremey back” I read aloud for Martha to hear too, she moves closer to me, and puts an arm around me. I drop the letter and watch it slowly fall to the ground, suddenly we hear a knock at the door, and I turn my head to the door. The knocking not coming from the front door though it is coming from the back….We both slowly walk over to the back door and peer out the window to see nothing there, I look down at the step in front of the door and find I’m staring at a blank piece of paper and a pen sitting there. I move away from the curtains and open the door then quickly grab the paper and pen off the step. I bring it to the kitchen table and look at them,

  “What’s that?” Martha questions,

  “I’m not sure…” I think for a moment

  “What if he wants me to write back…you know, as a way to communicate” I look at Martha, she has an understanding look and gestures to the paper for me to start writing. I pick up the pen and write: OK I don’t know who you are or what you want with me, but I just want you to leave me alone and give Jeremey back, please… I fold up the paper and put it back on the step outside, I make sure to put the pen back too, who knows it might be his favorite pen.

  We wait for a while then we hear knocking again at the back door, I look out the glass door and see a letter there, with writing on it this time.

  I picked that one up and read it. You're so funny…thinking I would just give you Jeremey back just like that, you are going to have to come and find me if you ever want to see your friend again. I hold it a second longer then rip it up into pieces and let them all fall to the ground, I sit down on the step outside, Martha comes out and sits next to me. She hugs me, and that does make me feel better. After talking outside for a bit we go back into the house and get ready for the day.

  We decide to go out and just get away from all the worry so we go around shopping and other things, but when we get home we both drop our bags on the floor and look at each other. The house is a total mess. Chairs flipped over couch cushions on the floor, it looks like a tornado went through.

  We walk around and look at the rest of the house, all the other rooms are a complete wreck. We walk into the kitchen and put two chairs back into place and of course is another letter….

  “Oh well lookie there…” I sigh, Martha looks over at me and sees the letter. I opened it and we both read it.

  As you might have suspected I wrecked the house, I will not stop tormenting you until you come and find me and give me what I want...

  “What is this guy's problem!” I shouted,

  “I just don’t understand….this is just so sudden and weird that this happened from what you told me,” Martha said. I didn't respond for a second,

  “Well maybe we can try and figure out who it is ourselves, like research” I suggested, Martha nodded her head and so we cleaned up the house, when we finished we sat down at Martha’s desk and turned on her computer and started searching for people.

  We didn’t come across anything. Just when we thought that we weren’t going to figure this out we heard the doorbell ring, both our heads turned and we got up and walked to the door. I looked out the peephole and didn’t see anyone there but I saw the little flag on Martha’s mailbox up. I slowly opened the door and walked over. I assumed it was probably just another letter but I was surprised to see a little package in there. I looked around then took the package out, and hurried back inside, I set the box down on the table, I looked at her and she nodded her head towards the box for me to open it. I take a deep breath and slowly open the top. There's a note, as I suspected, but underneath was a crochet-looking doll and it was ME. The doll looked just like me. I take the doll out of the box and set it on the table and I look over to the note.

  I opened it and the letter said, I know you're looking for me now, you're getting brave aren’t you? I always knew you were brave though. I’ll give you a hint about who I am, I live in your neighborhood...

  I dropped the letter and stared at the table, Martha picked up the letter and read it. She was just as stunned as I was.

  “That means I have been around this guy almost my whole life.” I mumble,

  “Well maybe think of someone weird to you or suspicious.” She suggested, I think for a minute then I realized the only person who always acted weird around me was my neighbor, Chris.

  “Oh my god, Martha I think this guy is...Chris” I shudder just thinking about it, living next to some psycho doesn’t sit well.

  “Well let's go then,” She says

  “Where?” I ask,

  “To his house of course”

  “Why would we do that?” I say confused.

  “To try and find evidence or something, he can’t be at his house right now, it would be too obvious, and you would have noticed something, like noises or whatever.” I think about what she said, and I reluctantly agree. We get in Martha’s car and drive over to my house.

  She parks and we get out of the car,

  “Um, can I go check my house? I just want to see it real quick…” I say to Martha,

  “Ok, just don’t take too long” She instructs, I nod my head and walk up the steps to my front door and turn the doorknob. Everything looks to be about the same until I go into the dining room. On the table, there is a candle, two plates of food, and two drinks.

  “Uh, Martha..” I yell out to her, just as I finish calling to her someone grabs me from behind and puts this strange smelling piece of cloth up to my nose, as soon as I notice I had already breathed in whatever it was and I blacked out.

  I woke up roped to a chair and duct tape over my mouth, I'm sitting at the dining table facing the man sitting on the other side, my eyes widen as soon as I was able to realize my situation, I look at the man and he’s just staring at me, he finally speaks and says,

  “I found you….I’ve always wanted to have a nice dinner with you, but you were always too ‘busy’ to hang out with me, but now I have you here and you can’t escape me now…” That was Chris, it was his voice I knew it was. He just continued staring at me and I couldn’t move or anything so I just stared back. He breaks the silence by coming over to me

  “Here let me help you with that,” He says as gets dangerously close to my face and he takes off the tape from my mouth, I am relieved to finally be able to breathe better,

  “What's wrong with you…” I say he doesn’t respond, he just goes and sits back down. I hear somebody walking through the house, just then Martha walks into the room and screams then covers her mouth,

  “Great you just had to come in and ruin the party,” Chris says agitated. She walks over the the kitchen counter and grabs something, Chris is watching her as she moves away, and then she comes around from the wall and hits him in the head with a pan, Chris falls from his chair and thuds on the ground. Martha runs over to me and quickly unties me from the chair, we both embrace each other,

  “Im so sorry I made you come here” She said, I just rub her back as a reassuring thing.

  “Wait I have an idea..” I look over at Chris on the floor and grab the ropes, Martha seems to get where this is going so she helps me lift Chris onto the chair and we tie him up. We wait for him to wake up, and a minute later he wakes up, we immediately go over to him and stand there looking at him.

  “Um hi? What happened?” He said as he noticed he was the one roped to the chair now.

  “Where is Jeremey…” I say sternly,

  “You think you're going to get that out of me that easily?” He says obnoxiously, Matha raises the pan again,

  “Ok, ok, fine I'll tell you, he’s in my house somewhere, that's all i'm telling you” He moves around in the chair some more,

  “Ok thanks bye” Martha and I turn around and walk out, we hear Chris sigh behind us, we both smiled as we walked out the door. We made our way next door and walked up the front porch, I slowly opened the door and walked in. Everything looked somewhat normal at first but then I turned on the light switch and on the walls was written Hollyeverywhere around us in the color green, my favorite color….and there were other girls' names written on the walls, all in different colors. So I must not have been the first girl he’s done this too, they probably weren’t as lucky in the end though.

  My breath gets faster and Martha’s did too, though she was trying to hide it more than me. I honestly couldn’t tell if Chris was obsessed with getting together with me, or wanting to kill me. I looked around some more moving around slowly looking for Jeremey, we reached the back of the house to Chris’ room, we checked around and finally met the closet Martha do I stared at each other then at the closet. We reached out our hands and took both handles on each door, and opened the closet carefully, at first all we saw where clothes and boxes and other things, then we saw shoes but they were sticking up like someone was wearing them.

  I crouched down and moved the shirts away from the area above the shoes, when I moved the shirts I saw a face, Jeremey’s face…. I stumbled back onto the floor with a gasp. I sat there and looked up at Martha. She nodded and I got back up and moved over once again to the closet, and sure enough it was Jeremey. His lifeless-looking face staring at the ground with his eyes shut and all tied up with duct tape around his mouth, I urged Martha to come down next to me. She crouched down too and looked at him. She put her hand over her mouth and her eyes got misty. We both used our strength to pull out Jeremey from the closet, he was lying on the floor now and thankfully he was still breathing but he looked extremely weak with no food and water for at least a week or so. We started to untie him and took the tape off of his mouth,

  “Jeremey?” I whispered with tears in my eyes, I shook him a bit hoping that would wake him maybe.

  “Jeremey please…” I pleaded. Martha held my hand and shook her head. I started to cry “No-no…he can’t be gone, he was breathing, he can’t be…” I shouted. Jeremey’s breathing was getting slow but not stopping, either he was going or he was still holding on. I held his hand to my chest, tears falling down my face. Then I feel his fingers move a bit, I open my eyes to see his eyes fluttering open, and I start crying again but tears of relief and joy this time.

  “Jeremey? Are you ok?” Martha whispered,

  “I” cough cough “think so, i'm just tired and hungry….and thirsty,” He said, still coughing a bit. “Martha, take care of Jeremey…..I’m going to go deal with Chris on my own, I need to do this.” I say standing up and wiping away my tears. She nodded her head and propped Jeremey up with his back against the wall. I walk out the door and head back over to my house.

  I open the door and see the house is still pretty dark but the candles are still lit in the kitchen. I walk over to the room Chris is tied up in and he’s still sitting there, asleep though. I walk over and look at him before I kick his leg.

  “Wake up..” I tell him.

  “Huh? What?” He says looking around the room, then his eyes meet mine,

  “Ok you know I am going to call the police right?” I ask,

  “Well yeah Isn’t that kinda obvious..” He says. I roll my eyes and walk over to get my phone, just as I’m about to grab it I hear the rope drop on the floor. I whip my head around to see Chris now standing up,

  “How did you–?” I say to myself. He starts to walk over to me, I look around for something to protect myself, and then I see the same pan that Martha hit him with on the ground, I bend down and pick it up,

  “What did you just pick up?” Chris asks, not being able to see clearly because of how dim the room is.

  “Oh nothing, I just uh dropped my ring..” I lie,

  “Ok–” Chris continues getting closer to me when he’s about a foot in front of me, I swing the pan up and hit him again, I watch as he plops on the floor. I turn around and grab my home phone and dial 911.

  The police get there around the same time Chris wakes up, which I guess is a nice good morning. The police asked me some questions, but then I recognized one of the cops from when I called them the first time when Jeremey got taken.

  He walks over to me because I guess he recognized me too,

  “Hello ma’am… sorry we couldn’t get this guy sooner,” He apologizes,

  “It’s ok, I seemed to have handled this pretty well on my own.” I say with a chuckle.

  “You sure did..” He chuckles too.

  The police left and I watched the cars drive down my street. Martha ran over to me and gave me a big hug, I was so glad both of us were ok. I go inside Chris’ house again and find Jeremey on the couch with water and some food. I walk over and sit down next to him and give him a big hug too.

  It’s now a few weeks later and all of us are doing ok and moving on with our lives. I do always get a little nervous about getting my mail, but it's gotten better. I just hope Chris is in prison for life, I never want to see him again.