“Wha’daya think?”

Mona wrapped her finger around her hair thoughtfully then shrugged.

“Shelby I don’t know what you want me to say. Do you want me to say that there is some lunatic after you? ‘Cus I would be lying.” Mona sighed and continued, “Look, you can trust me right?”

Shelby nodded.

“Okay then. There is no one after you. No one is stalking you and trying to get your phone number so they can call you. You have no secret admirer or anything. Just go about your life like nothing is wrong, because really…nothing is wrong. It’s probably just some random people that all look the same in the dark. I mean seriously, who would want to follow you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that no one would want to follow you. No one wants to follow any of the rest of us either.” Mona shrugged again and stared off, distracted by some gorgeous guy, Shelby assumed. Mona was always looking at boys.

“I’ll tell you what,” Mona said after a while, “I’ll come with you to your brother’s restaurant today and do homework with you for a couple of hours. If you see some suspicious person, you can let me know. If you do, I’ll do whatever I can to help you figure this guy out. I’ll even report him to the police with you. If we don’t see anyone, we can still say we accomplished something because we would have proven that there is no one following you and you can stop worrying.”

The bell rang five times, signaling for the students to go to fifth period.

“That sounds awesome,” replied Shelby, between slurps of her milk. “I’ll meet you by the front of the school five minutes after school gets out. I have to take care of something with a teacher.”

“Sure, sounds great,” said Mona as she gathered her things and stood up.

“Alright, bye,” Shelby said, and both friends went their different ways.

Three minutes after three o’clock, Mona and Shelby met up near the entrance to the school and set off for the restaurant. It was called Shifty’s and was owned by Shelby’s oldest brother Brian. The restaurant was never crowded right after school, and Shelby always went there after school to work on homework and bug Brian about his newest girlfriend.

The twosome finally reached the entrance and strode into the restaurant. The juke box was playing a jazzy tune which brought a sort of low mood to the room. The employees expressions didn’t help much either; the lot of them were either playing poker or cleaning the numerous wads of gum off the bottoms of the tables. Not one of them was smiling. This was what Brian called “the dead hours”.

Shelby smiled when she saw Brian was one of those cleaning the gum of the tables. She knew when he first opened the restaurant he would never have done this. But as the years went by, not many were still willing to work at a small budget restaurant in the middle of the city where there were tons of other bigger and better places. Good help was hard to come by these days, at least, for this little place.

“Well well well, if it isn’t the two whirly girlies. What are you doing here today, Monalynn?”

“Dude, lose the stupid nickname for us. It makes no sense! And what I’m doing here is none of your business.” Mona pretended to be annoyed, but the red in her cheeks gave it away. Even though they were all too old for her and ALL out of her league, Mona had a crush on each of Shelby’s brothers. It was kind of awkward, but Shelby dealt with it because she realized early on, when Mona had first met her brothers, that none of them really liked her. In that way. Yet no one (not even Shelby) was allowed to call Mona by her full name. No one, that is, except Shelby’s brothers.

Grabbing her by the arm, Mona dragged Shelby to a table on the far side of the little diner. “Okay,” she started, “can you answer some questions for me?”

“Mona, I already told you, Brian needs his privacy and---”

“SHHHHH!” Mona clasped her hand over Shelby’s mouth. “I wasn’t talking about…about Brian. I was talking about who you think is ‘following you’.” Mona sighed and took her hand off of Shelby’s lips.

“Oh, sure. Ask away.”

“Alright. so, is there anyone here suspicious looking?”

“No, these are all Brian’s employees.”

“Well I knew that, but…never mind. Okay next question. Do you ever see him…I mean her….Do you ever see it around here? Like, around the restaurant?”

“Yea, but strangely he isn’t here today.” Shelby paused and thought. “Maybe you scared him off,” she added quietly.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, continue.”

Mona flashed Shelby a suspicious look and then continued. “How often do you see it?”

Shelby thought. “Around seven times a day I would guess.”

Mona stared in disbelief. “Seven times a day?”

“Yes.”

“That can’t be!”

“Why not?” It was Shelby’s turn to look suspicious now.

“Uh…oh it’s nothing, just…nothing, never mind. But how come you never told me this before?!”

“You never asked!” Mona replied in a loud whisper. “Look, I told you what I could tell you at school. I’m really worried about this, I think someone is actually following me. What if someone’s going to kidnap me? What if I have a stalker who is constantly thinking about raping me or something!?”

“Shelby calm down!” Mona said, sounding a bit worried. “Calm down, it’s not like any of this is going to happen. Listen to me, mkay? Uhh who gives you advice all the time? Didn’t I get you your first boyfriend?”
Shelby nodded, feeling happier. “Yea, sorry Mona, I don’t know what I was so worried about.”

“Don’t I always tell the truth Shelby?” asked Mona.

“Yea.” Shelby smiled. “Yea you do.”

By the time Shelby was on her way home in Brian’s car that night, she felt completely assured and completely safe. It was just like Mona said: everything was normal, there was no one following her. She was sure of it.

Shelby watched as the buildings went by, thinking about that day in school.

“Hey Shelby, don’t you need to go to the store to get some things from Mom?” Brian asked.

“Um…” Shelby thought for a moment, then replied, “She never told me she wanted anything.

“Oh, well, she told me to have you go get some things. You should get out here and turn down that---” he pointed, “alley way.” Brian pulled the car over and came to a stop. Shelby hopped out, closed the door, and turned to look through the open window of the car door.

“Why do I need to go down that alley?” Shelby asked.

“Uh, it’s the fastest way to the store. Believe me, I’ve taken that way before.”

“You know I need money right?”

“Oh, right.” Brian pulled out his wallet and gave Shelby a twenty.

“Okay, and what am I supposed to get?”

“Get? Um…” Brian stopped to think. After a minute, he replied, “Just get some bread and a box of noodles.” Shelby just stood there looking at him. “It’s for dinner tonight,” Brian added when he noticed that Shelby wasn’t buying it.

“Okay, whatever you say,” Shelby sighed. She walked away and turned down the alley which Brian had pointed to.

This alley led to two more which led to a few more which led to even more and on and on until it was just a maze of alleys. If she had calculated right (and she was quite good at math), Shelby had to walk down the alley about thirty houses or so, turn left, and there would be the grocery store right there. It was quiet in the alley compared to the busy street Shelby had just been walking on; it almost reminded her of the graveyard, just without the tombstones and such. She hummed a tune she remembered from band practice that day to liven the place up a bit.

“Do do do do do dodo dooo do do DO do dododoooo do do do do do dodo dooo do do DO do dododoooo DAAAA DOOOO do do do-----” She stopped abruptly when she thought she heard a footstep in the alleyway. Shelby turned around, but with no one in sight, she continued on, this time without whistling. She figured it was probably just someone going into their house, but even so, it had scared her a bit. In five seconds she was over it and began to fool around as she walked, jumping in puddles and spinning around. After all, there were no guys here for her to act all sexy and mature for. She could do what she wanted.

The sound of another footstep echoed off the pavement and Shelby spun around to catch sight of the person. But once again, not a soul occupied the alleyway but her. This place really did seem like a graveyard. It became hard for her to imagine what the noisy streets sounded like and what the glow of the lamps looked like on the pavement.

Then Shelby recalled with fear that if it had merely been someone going inside their house, she would have heard a door close. She started to feel fear, the same kind of fear she had felt when she told everything to Mona earlier that day in the restaurant. Shelby took a few steps backwards to see if anything would appear, like a rat. Maybe it was a rat that scurried away when she turned around. It was possible. After passing three houses while walking backwards, Shelby reluctantly turned around and continued to walk forwards towards her goal, walking faster than before. Another footstep sounded and she turned quickly, only to find no one there. Her fear rose and she began to panic. Turning back around she began to run through the alleyway, but she didn’t get far before the sound of a door closing rang in her ears. Shelby stopped and thanked the Lord that she had heard that sound; that meant that it was really someone who was going into their house after all and there was nothing to worry about, just like Mona had said. Shelby turned around, expecting to find the alley empty and maybe a screen door swinging on its hinges.

There was a man standing right behind her.

The man thrust his hand at Shelby and grabbed her hair. Shelby screeched and twisted herself out of his grip, almost stumbling as she pulled away. Then she watched in fear as the man almost fell over as well. Only one thought came to her head. Run.

And run she did. Shelby ran down the alley and turned down another. When she turned her head around, she saw that the man was pursuing her. Shelby gathered all the strength in her body, pushed it down to her legs, and ran as fast as they could carry her. Her heart felt like it was beating a hundred times faster than normal, and she could hear the heavy footsteps of the man as he chased after her. Turning down this alley and that alley, Shelby lost track and became lost. But on she ran, hoping to lose the man in the maze of alleys that they both sped through.

Just as she heard his footsteps slowing, just as she thought she had finally lost him, the man grabbed her by the waist and hit her across the back of her head with his elbow. As everything began to sink into blackness, Shelby’s thoughts were, I told you so Mona.

Shelby didn’t want to open her eyes. Judging by the rope digging into her wrists and ankles, she figured that she was tied up. But she opened her eyes anyways.

Not much could be seen of the room yet, but as Shelby’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw it all. There were two wooden tables and one padded operating table, all covered in blood. On the two wooden tables, there was a chainsaw, a few hack saws, and some sort of a hand gun. On the floor over in the corner was a rusted bucket filled with a dark red liquid and next to it, a rag splotched with spots of red. Blood. And on the walls---oh, the walls---there were hundreds of knives and drills and chains and wires. There were even doctor’s tools used for surgery, crusted with dried blood. Then, Shelby noticed what was right in front of her. Messages, on the floor, painted in blood. Escape if you can. You are going to die. Don’t let him come near you with the chainsaw. Don’t scream.

Tears streamed down Shelby’s face as she looked at all of this. She raised both of her hands to the back of her head and found it wet and sticky. So it had begun already, her blood was already being shed. She could feel blood dripping down from the ties on her wrists and ankles. And she cried. She sobbed and moaned and rocked back and forth. This was really the end then. She would never see her family again, she would never see Mona again. Mona, poor Mona, how she would hate herself for Shelby’s death. She thought nothing was wrong; she thought she would see Shelby at school the next day. Now she would never see her again. She looked back up at the tables and the walls and realized: her blood would next cover those weapons, along with the blood of God knows how many others.

Just as Shelby was trying to get up, the door opened and shut. Shelby fell over with a thump, and looked up to behold the face of her murderer. But she still couldn’t see his face. He spoke.

“Shall we begin, my dear?” The voice was sexless, yet clever sounding.

“Begin what?” Shelby choked.

“Why, my work, dear child. This is what I do for a living, and it is time to begin my work.” It walked over to one of the wooden tables and picked up the chainsaw.

For a brief moment, Shelby remembered the messages on the floor. Escape if you can. Shelby couldn’t escape this man. You are going to die. She was going to die. Don’t let him come near you with the chainsaw. The man approached her with the chainsaw. Don’t scream. Shelby screamed.