The Man in the Window

Hallie is doing dishes when a shadow passes behind the blinds. Panic creeps from her stomach as her hand freezes, scrubbing the plate. After drying her hands, she looks behind the blinds. Hallie screams, gripping her chest as she backs away from the window. It’s the neighbor.

David, the neighbor, is smoking and doesn’t react to her terror. He stares at her with mild interest, as if she’s an exotic bird in a cage, before taking his leave off her porch.

Three months ago, she had moved into the Victorian split into two homes. The home boasted a sprawling front porch split by a divider for each side. Her neighbor, David, often strolled around her front porch smoking. He watched her. His beady eyes against her backside as she came home from work. Sometimes he would greet her evening or morning, but he stared in a solid, unwavering way most of the time.

He has a wife; he often yelled at her from the front porch. While her husband stared, she was the opposite, darting her eyes away. Unsure of what the older woman’s voice sounded like, Hallie would often see her walking her dogs at dawn. If Hallie were running, they would nod their heads at one another, an unspoken alliance shaped from discomfort.

********

Tired from work and the two-hour meeting that swallowed her afternoon whole, she’s eager for a night home alone. And uneager to have another run-in with her neighbor. When the curtains of the neighbor’s half move, Hallie sighs.

As she gathers her coffee mug and work bag, the neighbor’s door opens. David walks out, lighting a cigarette, eyes trained on her. Uncomfortable under his stare, Hallie locks her car and makes her way up the sprawling shared front porch to her door. He leans over the railing dividing the porch, smoke hovering in the air.

“Evening,” David said, his eyes watching her behind his glasses. “Some of your mail was mixed in with ours today.” He extends his arm out, showing her a white envelope and grocery store flyer. While spying her name, Hallie reaches over to grab it, offering a polite smile and muttering thanks.

With the door locked, she breathes relief at the blanket of privacy on her. Hallie climbed the stairs to change out of her work clothes. She froze as she walked into the bedroom at the sight of the open blinds. Compulsively, she checks every window before leaving the room. A habit from her youth, when her worst nightmare lurked behind the window. The kind that wakes you as if someone dumps a bucket of ice water on you. A shiver runs down her spine. From the window, she sees the neighbor leaning on his truck, glancing up as she lowers the blinds with a crash. Hallie undresses in the dark.

Later, Hallie finds herself lost in gaming when she hears a thump. Her hands freeze on the controller, and her body tenses as she finishes the match, listening for a repeat. Hallie leaves the game and creeps up the stairs like an intruder.

The door is open, and the shadows look to be harboring secrets. Hallie’s hand flips the light switch, and the first thing she notices is that her closet door is open. Fear creeps down her spine; she knows it was closed.

With her heart in her throat, she looks inside. The cord to the attic hatch is swinging like a pendulum. Hallie tries to soothe her nerves by reminding herself it’s an old house. The rest of the closet is ordinary, clothes on hangers, shoe rack on the bottom, nothing to cause alarm.

It’s after midnight when Hallie awakens to the unmistakable sound of a cough. Hallie sits up in bed, heart thundering as she looks around the moonlit room. The only sounds are a distant dog bark and the sound of a branch tapping her window, nothing from inside the room. Minutes pass as she sits in the dark before she lies down. Eventually, she sinks into a troubled sleep.

That night, she dreams a man is watching her in bed. Shadows obscure his facial features; only his outline is visible. Frozen to her bed, unable to move, she watches him crawl into the closet. When morning arrives, fear is gripping her still as she sees the cracked closet door. That day at work, the nightmare will creep into her mind until she’s not sure it was a nightmare.

The first day Hallie moved in, she knew that her new neighbors were nosy. The wife watched from the window, and he stepped out, introducing himself and trying to walk into the house with her. Wade, her older brother, intervened and chatted with him as the movers began carrying her furniture in. Her brother reported he was a busybody but harmless.

“Why are your blinds always closed?” He asked her one day as she was unlocking her door.

“Excuse me,” she had said, confused by the abrupt question.

“Your blinds, you never have them open, you a vampire or something?” he had asked Hallie on a brilliantly bright summer afternoon.

“Don’t throw holy water on me. It’s a preference,” Hallie had said with a shrug.

********

After work, Hallie pulls up to see the neighbor sweeping her side of the porch. The wife sits on a chair by their front door, sipping a glass of iced tea. When Hallie opens her car door, the wife ducks inside the house, the screen door banging shut behind her.

“Evening, Hallie,” David said. Tobacco hung heavy around him, making Hallie nauseous. “I figured I would take care of your side while I was doing my own.”

The irrational part of Hallie wanted to scream, “Get off my porch,” but the rational side said, “I appreciate it, but I’ll do it from now on.”

“Now that I’m laid off, I need to keep myself busy,” he said, watching her. “I don’t mind taking care of your side, Hallie.”

“I’m exhausted. I'm going to head inside,” Hallie said. Once the door was closed behind her, she sunk to the ground, leaning on the door. After some time, his retreating steps, each one melting a fraction of her anxiety until she looked around the room.

Every window had the blinds rolled up. Fear gripped her as she walked around, pulling the cords, letting the shades drop, careful not to look outside. Who could do this? How were they getting inside?

While she slept, the nightmares of her childhood returned. She dreamed of the man who looked in her bedroom window as a child. The man was always gone when her screams attracted her mother or brother. Her therapist convinced them it was a coping mechanism over the loss of her father. Hallie knew the man was real and not sprung from her imagination. After her mother’s murder, Wade knew too.

Thump. Startled awake, Hallie sees the closet door open, and the blood roars in her ears. Leaping from her bed as if it’s on fire, she lands on the cold floor, peering into the closet. The latch is down, the ladder reaching up into the darkness above. Fighting against the urge to scream, she pulls the ladder back up and slams the door. She moves her dresser, sliding against the wood floor, not caring if it scrapes or not until it juts against the door. But it was for nothing; she doesn’t sleep another wink.

*********

Wade groans and stretches, “Maybe, you should call out of work, little sister. You look exhausted.”

Hallie shakes her head. “It’s Friday, and I’m going in late. I’ll catch up on z’s tonight.”

Last night it had frightened Hallie into calling her big brother. He had come over to sit up cameras facing the closet and front door.

“Suit yourself, Halliebug,” he said using her childhood nickname as she poured them both an additional cup of coffee, wishing she could hook herself up to a caffeine IV. “Does this have anything to do with mom?”

Hallie stiffens, eyeing her curly-haired brother. “No,” she said, scraping the word from her tongue. Wade’s face softens, and Hallie feels a surge of affection for her big brother. “I’m okay, Wade. I’ll be okay. I’ve survived a home stalker before.” A playful tone, or so she thought.

“I think it’s a mistake not to call the police,” Wade said for the tenth time since she had called him this morning.

Hallie squeezed his hand. “If something happens, we will call. Let’s just see what the camera’s catch.”

“I’m sorry, we didn’t believe you,” Wade said, taking a sip of coffee. “At the time, we were all dealing with the massive loss of dad, and it seemed fantastical that a man was looking in your window, and none of us were ever able to see him.”

“Trust me. I wish someone else would have seen the window creeper. Maybe mom would still be here.”

“Not a person on this planet could have predicted that Halliebug,” Wade said, squeezing her hand back.

“How did we not know someone was creeping around our home all this time? We never noticed the piles of cigarettes under the windows?” she said, shaking her head. “And the fact he’s still out there somewhere makes my skin crawl.”

Hallie locks eyes with made as tears mist her eyes. Her beloved mother finally saw the man in the window and released an earth-shattering scream before the man dressed head to toe in black wearing a ski mask and gloves stabbed their mother 47 times, ending Hallie’s childhood.

“Halliebug, you have to stop doing this to yourself.” He pulls her into a hug. “I have to get to work. Remember, if the closet or front door camera detects motion, it will send an alert to your phone.”

“Thank you, Wade,” she said, hugging him.

“You know I got your back, little sis,” he said.

She waved goodbye from her door, watching him back out, shuddering when the cigarette smoke wafted open. Pretending she didn’t notice him leaning over the porch divider, she firmly closed the door.

As soon as the door closes, Hallie bursts into tears. Crying for her mother’s life cut short, and the terror burned into her. The fear that remains permeates her life, making her terrified of windows without shades. When the last tear falls, she gathers her strength and leaves for work.

Driving home from work, the last breakfast they had as a family plays repeatedly. Mom baked blueberry muffins, and they laughed until their bellies hurt when Wade got a blueberry stuck between his two front teeth. The echoes of mom’s laughter make her feel an odd mix of happy and sad.

When she unlocks her front door, she’s still lost in this thought until the neighbor’s voice slices through her cherished memory.

“Home on a Friday night?” he said, leaning on the railing, cigarette smoke hanging in the air.

Hallie resists the urge to ignore him by replying, “Seems that way.”

“I saw you had a gentleman over this morning,” he said, eyes locked on her.

“My brother,” Hallie replies tightly, opening her door.

“Well, you have a good evening, girl.”

“You as well,” she said, closing the door and exhaling in the quiet of her home.

A quiet evening was just what the doctor ordered. Hallie has plans with a book and wine. The cameras detected no movement during the day, and she came home to the blinds all drawn. Wade sends a text letting her know his friend can install a security system if she feels inclined to do so.

When darkness falls, and sleep calls her name, she looks under her bed and checks the closet door is closed. Convinced she’s safe, she lets Mr. Sandman take her away.

That night, she dreams she’s creeping through the woods. Her boots smash down the piles of leaves as she comes into the clearing facing her childhood home. The lights are blazing, and she can see herself, Wade, and mom eating dinner. The image blurs and strengthens again, and she sees the three of them decorating the Christmas tree, singing Mariah Carey at the top of their lungs. It merges into yet another picture, this time of her in her bedroom doing her homework at her desk. She can tell by her hair length, she’s 14, and it’s only weeks before her mother’s untimely death. A black-gloved hand touches the window watching her brush her hair. Her young eyes grow wide as saucers when they spot the gloved hand. She screams.

Hallie awakes, covered in sweat, trembling from the nightmare. Picking up her phone, she confirms that no motion was detected while she slept, no doors opened, and all shades are down. Hallie opens the double window, squinting in the bright morning sunshine. With a smile, she grabs her running shoes, thinking a run will be just the ticket.

Hallie is stretching on her front porch when she notices the handprint on the window above her kitchen sink. Despite the sun warming her back, she feels cold all over, remembering her nightmare from last night. She takes off down the road, feet pounding on the pavement, welcoming the endorphins.

She sees the neighbor’s wife carrying a giant suitcase to her opened trunk when she returns home. For the first time, she looks at Hallie, causing her steps to slow as she approaches.

“Hello,” Hallie said, caution in her tone.

“Hi,” she said, looking down at her shoes.

“Are you going on a trip?”

“I’m leaving, David,” she said, looking up. Hallie swallows, not knowing how to reply.

“Thirty-four years, we have been married,” the neighbor said, looking behind her. “That’s enough time for him. There is only so much pain a woman can take. He disappears for hours at night, saying he is going for a drive, but David’s not; I’ve seen the types of things he leaves in his truck. Obsession. He is obsessed with obsession. Spying on people is his favorite hobby, and I’m not going to sit by and deal with it anymore.”

Horror clutches Hallie at her words. Sadness hangs heavy on the woman’s face. They stare at each other for a moment, the pain they always hold visible.

“You have to move,” the woman said abruptly. “Our attic’s connected to yours, and he can get into your place, easy peasy.”

“What?” Hallie feels as if the ground beneath her is giving away. She sees spots floating behind her eyes, and the desire to call Wade pumps through her. As Hallie’s world tilts, tears trickle down the woman’s face as she gives her a limp wave and starts her car, slowly driving down the street, leaving Hallie in the driveway.

Once the shock subsides, she races inside to grab her phone. She sees multiple notifications on her phone; camera alerts of motion, but she’s more concerned by Wade’s messages and missed phone calls. Before she can call Wade back, a text from him arrives.

GET OUT OF THE HOUSE NOW!

Ice stabs her stomach as she stumbles outside onto the front porch, trying to figure out her next move.

Relief floods her when she glances up and spies her brother’s truck coming down the road. Wade parks haphazardly and jumps out.

“Hallie!”

She can’t remember the last time she saw him this afraid.

“He came through your attic and took the cameras, among other stuff,” Wade said. “I’m calling the police.”

“Hold on”

“Halliebug, we are not holding on!”

“Wade, I want to go in the attic first.”

Wade shakes his head and dials. Hallie walks back into the house, listening to Wade talk to 911 as she climbs the stairs to her room. Moments later, Hallie hears Wade pounding up the steps behind her. By the time he’s reached her, she has the attic door opened, and she’s on the ladder.

“Hallie, stop! Wait for me at least,” Wade said, using his big brother tone.

For a moment, she struggles to see in the attic’s gloom, but her eyes adjust, and she sees a cardboard box shoved in the back corner. Wade reaches the top step as she opens the box. Inside, she finds fragments of a nightmare.

Hundreds of photographs of her sleeping in her bed, doing yoga in her family room, mowing the lawn, and carrying groceries. Horror freezes her as she digs deeper into the box. She finds things from her trash like a shopping list with peanut butter smeared on it and a snickers wrapper. Wade picks up a lock of hair and holds it to his sister’s head. It’s undeniable. It’s hers. She keeps digging up evidence her nightmare is absolute.

Hallie, as a child, swinging wearing a pink coat and being pushed by her father. Hallie is in a pink tutu and playing soccer. School photos in chronological order. Her diary from 7th grade. Napkins with lipstick smeared on them and a pair of her underwear. As the cops pull into the driveway, Wade and Hallie open an envelope and find pictures only their mother’s killer could possess. Next door, David knows prison is coming and chokes on the gun barrel. The gunshot rings out as Hallie faints while pulling out a black ski mask from the box.