Like me, Valerie was sitting at a desk. Albeit, a clean one. It looked generic with nothing on its surface; she was obviously still in her hotel room. Behind her, I could see the silhouette of a queen-sized bed in the dark. Blankets and sheets crumpled up like blobby white ghosts.
Billowy white curtains blew behind her, too … the room was dark, shadows dancing across the walls … Valerie’s face, pale and ghoulish, stared back at me through the screen.
She must still be feeling sick.
Her expression was grim, a tightness to her cheeks and eyes I’d never seen before. I’d never seen her look so … unfiltered.
“I don’t know if it’s this stomach bug, or what … I could be losing my mind. I went out for dinner and a movie by myself tonight, and once again, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being followed. I don’t talk much about my personal life here, but mental illness does run in my family … anyways, pray for me, will ya? I mean, if that’s your thing … okay? I have a flight to catch in the morning and I need to get my head on straight before I head out.”
A shadow shifted in the room behind her, giving my stomach a jolt. There was something moving behind the curtains in the background!
What the hell is that?
Valerie kept on talking, oblivious, but I could no longer hear the words … my eyes were glued to the spot where the shadow had been.
She’d left the window open …
“I’ll check in tomorrow once I land in Louisiana. Good night, world.”
And just like that, the shadow moved. For a brief second, I caught a clear glimpse of a man’s face peeking out from between the curtains. My heart fluttered in my chest. He was looking through her hotel window!
“Behind you …” I breathed, a chill running from the top of my scalp down to my toes. But then the video came to an end. I stared at the blank, dark screen, a rattle of fear in my bones.
The video wasn’t live. She posted this eight hours ago, I realized in horror.
And a quick scan through her pages revealed that she hadn’t posted anything else since.
Did I really see what I thought I saw, or am I losing my mind just like Valerie thought she was losing hers?
I re-played the video again and again, slowing it down as much as I possibly could. There was no doubt in my mind—a man was looking in at Valerie while she had her back turned to the window. It was too clear not to be real. Not a trick of the shadows … or my mind, for that matter.
And although his face was dark and a little fuzzy, there was something familiar about it too …
The man in the window looks like Chris.
A knock of fear jerked me out of my seat. I stood up, pacing back and forth in front of the computer. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen the Chris-lookalike either. It’s impossible—I know it’s not Chris. But damn, he does look a whole lot like him. It’s unsettling.
I’d noticed him in another one of Valerie’s posts … but which one?
The reason the man stood out to me the first time was because he did sort of look like Chris, although, rationally, I knew it wasn’t him.
I sat back down, clicking through her old photos and posts … thousands and thousands of photos! Too many …
But then, a few minutes later, I found exactly what I’d been looking for …
There!
It was an old post, from before I’d started following her every move … but I’d scrolled through these old photos so many times …
There.
He was standing two rows behind her at an outdoor concert in Ohio. Valerie was smiling, extending the camera with one hand and holding up the other to show a bracelet—a backstage VIP band circling her wrist. It was a hodge-podge of alternative bands, but she’d specifically referenced a Marilyn Manson song in her caption: #RockisDead.
The reason the man had caught my attention the first time, besides the fact that he kind of looked like Chris, was because he was staring so intensely into the camera from several rows back, almost like he’d accidentally looked at the wrong moment and gotten captured in Valerie’s photo forever … a classic photo-bomb. Annoying, but not uncommon. All the smudgy little faces in the background of her videos and pictures … unassuming strangers, or are they?
I just assumed it was an accident, an odd guy looking in the background, his serious spot-on gaze captured by the lens …
And there! Another pic in Florida—he looked like any other guy you’d see … just a man having a drink at a tiki bar, enjoying his vacation while some girl—Valerie—snapped a selfie of her bikini-clad self, holding a sugary-rimmed margarita. It was a sideview of his face at the bar … it might not be him.
But it sure as hell looked like him. And I couldn’t shake the eerie realization that he looked so similar to Chris … the slope of his jaw, that slightly off-center nose … even the blue-black, closely cropped hair was the same.
Valerie was the kind of girl that was prone to admirers.
But that face in the window … that went way beyond normal obsession.
Valerie had a stalker besides me. A real one.
What if she’s in serious danger?
It was warm for October, the wind whispering through the trees behind my apartment, circulating stuffy puffs of air through the open window above my bed. The sill was covered in dust, the window practically jammed shut as I’d fought to wrench it open … it’d been so long since I’d opened a window. Since I’d let the world inside.
But I needed the extra air. My room was too itchy, too tight. And I couldn’t shake off my concerns … What I really can’t shake off is Valerie Hutchens.
After I’d spotted the mystery man in Valerie’s video, I’d called the cops, jumped in my dad’s old Chevy truck, and raced all the way to Kentucky to save her … no. No, I didn’t.
But what I did do was play out all these fantasy, next-move scenarios. They rolled through my head in waves, playing out like a black-and-white, made-for-TV movie, reverberating in my ears. Shouldawouldacoulda … what should I do?!
Every scenario had the same outcome … me: the hero. Valerie: the damsel in distress. Cue credits …
But the truth was, Valerie hadn’t posted anything in two days. Nothing at all since the creepy video with the Chris lookalike in the background. She hadn’t gone two days, or even one day, without posting in months. Not until recently.
I’d carried my laptop from the living room to my bedroom, so I could sulk under the covers and wonder what she was up to …
I couldn’t help thinking about that video she’d posted the night before I saw the man … about a stalker following her home, and that speech about needing a hero. Valerie knew she was in danger, so why didn’t she call the cops?
No stupid quotes, no videos, no pics … no responses to my messages either.
I’d scanned the comments beneath the latest video, quietly hoping and wishing that one of her many followers would also spot the man in the window.
No