Real Shadows - M.E. Clayton Page 0,2

if I was ever going to amount to anything in my life.

The only thing I’d had of any sentimental value, during those younger years, had been a ratted, torn, grey bunny rabbit that had either been given to me my first day in foster care, or had been a toy from the time in my life where I’d had a family; a time before my parents had been killed by a drunk driver.

That rabbit had been named Silver, and he had withstood years and years of house shuffling, bullying, neglect, and abuse. I had held on to that piece of…consistency all my life until he came up missing one day when I had just turned sixteen-years-old. I remember tearing up the entire orphanage looking for him, but I never did find him. And everyone I had asked had claimed not to have known what happened to him.

But one of them had lied.

I wouldn’t know that until six years later, when I had walked into my one-bedroom apartment after working the closing shift as a bartender at Drink This, a local college bar in northern California. I hadn’t been able to swing college no matter how good my grades had been, so I opted at being happy to just be able to hold down a good job that could support me without the need for government assistance. I’d never been proud, but I had wanted more in life than what foster care had showed me. However, I’ll never forget walking into my apartment and heading towards my bedroom to see the grey, worn, stuffed bunny rabbit sitting proudly in the middle of my bed.

For months, before the rabbit had appeared on my bed, I had thought my mind was playing tricks on me. I had thought I was under adult-life stress or something. I’d come home to small items being misplaced or slightly skewed in one way or another. It had been small things that had made me think, oh, hey, I must have forgotten to put it back.

It had never been anything huge or obvious. There were times I’d get in my car and the seat was slightly pushed back, or a window rolled down; stuff like that. It had all been minor incidences that could easily be explained away by carelessness or just not thinking. It had never occurred to me that it might be something more until I had seen that rabbit on my bed.

My rabbit.

The shock of seeing it had rendered me immobile for a few incomprehensive minutes before I did what we all yell at the stupid girl in the movie for. Instead of calling the police and making sure I didn’t touch anything, I had snapped out of my shock, walked towards my bed, and had picked up the rabbit to verify if it was, indeed, the one from my childhood.

Holding the rabbit in my hand had brought on real feelings of fright and violation. Never having had experienced anything like a stalker before, the knowledge that this hadn’t just any old stalker, but someone from my past and was still fixated on me all these years later, had been numbing.

And like every time since then, I had called the police. And while they had taken my fright seriously, they hadn’t taken the crime seriously. I had gotten a whole bunch of nothing. They had taken the rabbit as ‘evidence’, but politely reminded me that there was nothing they could do without proof of something more.

I had remained in that apartment for two more months before the paranoia had pushed me to the edge of insanity. I had moved, and I’ve been moving every time he’s found me. Or, hell, it could be a she for all I knew.

Over the years, some officers have been compassionate, and some have been assholes. An invisible stalker was not high on their priority list. And I got it. I really did. This was a personal crime that only affected me and, so far, I hadn’t been harmed physically. Police officers had real crime they had to deal with every day. There were murders, rapes, robberies, and shootings they had to deal with. My random intruder, who liked to misplace my ceramic rabbit, was hardly a national tragedy.

But my fear?

That was real.

I had done everything, short of changing my name, to escape this…person. I’ve changed so many jobs and cities and appearances over the years, I no longer knew what there was left to do. So, I had called