A man is staring at me.

He sat across from me at the bar. I only noticed after a few hours. Every time I stood up to dance or use the bathroom his gaze seemed to follow.

He never stood up but even sitting down he was tall. He sat a head taller than anyone else in the room. I moved seats and his eyes followed me as I walked across the room and sat down.

He didn’t turn his head when I looked right at him but he didn’t meet my gaze directly. He stared at some point past my left shoulder.

I finished my drink and decided I was leaving, but before that I was going to confront the man. I stood up and he watched me stomp towards him.

His clothes were baggy, a black jacket and ripped jeans. He had short grey hair and as I got closer I noticed his eyes were bright green.

I asked why he was staring at me. He told me,

“You’re the one I came to see.”.

I had to lean in to hear as he was whispering.

Up close his skin was pulled tight against his features as if it were a size too small. I backed away and asked him what he meant. He whispered something else I couldn’t hear.

I left.

I ran to the bus stop and waited very impatiently for the bus.

He didn’t follow.

I got on a bus home and checked he wasn’t on board somehow. I convinced myself I was being paranoid. Twenty minutes later I stepped onto my street and took a deep breath smelling the sweet autumn air.

He was sitting at the bus stop.

I didn’t say a word and walked in the opposite direction from my house. I checked over my shoulder as I walked away and he wasn’t there. I called my friend Sarah. I took the long way home and by the time I got back to the house her car was parked out front.

She was standing beside the car. I ran up to her and gave her a hug.

“You’re drunk.”. She declared flatly.

She hugged me back. We went inside and I locked every door and window in the house. Afterwards we sat down and I explained to her what happened.

She asked how much I’d had to drink and if I was sure it was the same man at the bus stop. I told her I was sure.

She tried to press me for an answer to her first question when there was a knock at the door.

I froze.

Sarah stood up and walked towards the door, she asked who was there loudly enough to be heard on the other side.

The only reply was another knock, the same three, sharp knocks that echo through the quiet house.

Sarah looked through the peep hole.

The same knock sounded again but this time from a window to my right. I turned and saw him staring at me again. He was smiling this time.

I called the police and we pulled all the blinds shut. The knocking continued. It started downstairs and ended upstairs after several louder, more forceful knocks on a window upstairs.

The police found an upstairs bathroom window partially open. They found the man in my bedroom.

He had thrown several boxes of my belongings on the floor that usually were kept under my bed.

He had tried to crawl underneath.

I still remember the sight of four Officers leading him out, he had to bend down low to fit through the door. They pushed him to the police car and he was almost lying sideways once inside.

He was staring at me again.

I didn’t stay at home for a few weeks, Sarah let me sleep on her couch. After a while I missed sleeping in an actual bed, and he had been caught so Sarah agreed I had nothing to worry about.

I got home and slept with all the lights on. A few boxes from under my bed were thrown about the floor but I didn’t have the energy to clean them up and flopped onto my bed.

I didn’t sleep long. I woke up to a dark house. That wasn’t what woke me, it was a sound.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

It was coming from my closet door.

My heart stopped. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark so I couldn’t see anything. All I heard was a drawn out creak as the door slowly pushed open.

By the time I heard footsteps walking towards me I could make out the vague shape of a tall man in my room.

He stopped at the foot of my bed. He didn’t say anything, neither did I.

I could still see his eyes and in the moonlight they were still strikingly green.

I went to get out of bed, slowly. He spoke.

“Sleep, I’m here to watch.”

He whispered again and each word was accompanied by a wheeze. I almost kept moving and ran, but he reached two long arms down and grabbed my covers. He pulled them up to my shoulders and tucked me in.

I just lay there all night with my eyes closed. I could hear him walking around the bed throughout. I didn’t dare open my eyes.

It was five PM the next day I finally opened my eyes. I hadn’t heard his breathing or his footsteps in a long enough time to say it was safe to get up.

I left and called the police, they said the man had never even made it to the station. He had simply disappeared from the backseat of the car.

Sarah kicked me out after the third night of knocking at her house.

I haven’t slept in days. I can feel my heart beating in my chest with a mix of adrenaline and caffeine. I was driving on the interstate I10 going west. I don’t know how far I made it or exactly what state I’m in.

I’m inside a gas station. I just paid for another tank of fuel but outside, sitting in the passenger seat of my car, is a tall grey haired man.

His neck and shoulders are at an awkward angle to fit inside.

He’s staring right at me.