To: Liberty Porter
From: Nora Black
Date: 06/16/2017
Subject: Untitled
It’s following me.
It’s following me and I don’t know how long I’ve got to say this.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Calm down Nora, What’s following you, and I wish I knew what it was.
I first noticed it when my husband and I were on our honeymoon in Costa Rica. We were getting off the plane and there, far in the distance was this thing. It was a giant, wearing a long patchwork cloak against the sea of streetwear. Its hat looked like a chimney, like one of those cartoon chimneys, bent and almost mangled and adding to the height of its slumped body. And then my husband pulled me along.
It was easy to convince myself it was my imagination. Ever since I was a kid I’d had nightmares and it was a late flight. I thought I was tired. But then it was in the hotel, on the other side of the long hallway while I was getting ice and Raymond was probably flipping through channels in the room. Just looking at it felt wrong. Like something had been chewed up and spit back out, it pulls at your heartstrings to see it, to go and look underneath the high collar that obscured its face. But just as quickly I felt my stomach drop when I took a single step towards it. I walked back to my room quickly, the hairs on my arms standing like needles as I occasionally looked back to see if it was following me. It wasn’t. It didn’t seem particularly aware of me.
The rest of the honeymoon was good. Raymond and I, we didn’t do much. Went swimming, ate at fancy restaurants. It didn’t show up again until last night. Raymond and I, getting back from some massages at the resort spa, tried swiping our keycard into our room, but after a few times of no response from the automated lock, Raymond forced his way in with the handle, which easily fell off the door.
Inside, our room had been torn down. The bedding was all over the place, sheets thrown across the room. Raymond’s clothes were in a pile on one side while mine were thrown about awkwardly and at seemingly random. Raymond and I immediately went to the front desk to move rooms, we weren’t dumb, we knew someone had broken in. The concierge got the manager and we walked back to observe the damage. While Raymond and the manager looked over the room I stood by the closet at the front and just took it all in. At that point though, my body had been filled with a kind of magnetism and, realizing what it was, I broke out into a cold sweat. I could feel it, on the other side of the screen-door, watching and breathing frantic, quiet breathes as it tried to conceal itself. I could feel myself opening the door, welcoming it into the light, until the manager walked by with Raymond to usher us off to a new room.
I’m writing you this just in case. I don’t know what that thing is but I have to know. I have to. I know that if I don’t go see it I’ll never forgive myself. Just in case anything happens, Libby, please take care of Raymond for me.
-Sis
