Page 1 of My Mountain Man Stalker
1
Wren
I feel him before I see anything.
It’s the middle of the goddamn afternoon, bright sun cutting through the trees like a blade, but I know he’s there. Watching. Breathing. Waiting.
The air shifts when he’s near. It always does.
I freeze halfway up the dirt path to the cabin—my grandmother’s old place, long-forgotten by the rest of the world and the only spot I could run to without thinking. My boots crunch softly on the gravel, a backpack slung over one shoulder, the sting of panic still clinging to my skin like sweat. I shouldn’t have come here. But I had nowhere else.
The city was a mess—my life reduced to blood on a sidewalk and a phone that won’t stop buzzing. The texts started after the hearing. Then the photos. Then the last voicemail, the one that turned my stomach inside out.
You look good in red, Wren.
So I ran. Left my apartment with a broken lock, took the first train north, and didn’t stop until I hit the edge of these woods.
And now he’s here.
Same as always.
Same asbefore.
“I know you’re there,” I say out loud, my voice steady even though my chest is trying to cave in. “You gonna keep hiding like a creep, or are you finally gonna say something?”
Silence.
I scan the trees. Nothing. No movement. Just thick pine and twisted shadows and that heavy weight pressing against my spine.
I hate how used to it I am. How it doesn’t scare me anymore.
The first time I noticed him, I was nineteen and drunk at a lake party, stumbling barefoot into the woods to pee. I caught a flash of something—a figure behind a tree. Watching. I screamed, thought it was a perv, but no one believed me.
It kept happening. Subtle things. A feeling. A breath. One time, I found a rabbit skull on my porch. Clean, bleached, wrapped in twine.
My friends called it paranoia. My therapist called it unresolved trauma.
I call ithim.
Because he’s real. I know he is.
And he followed me all the way here.
I shoulder my bag again and push up the final slope. The cabin appears through the trees, its roof sagging, porch half-rotted, windows dusty and dark. It’s been years since anyone stayed here. I was supposed to come with my grandmother once last winter, but she passed before we made the trip. Now it’s just mine. The deed signed over, tucked into the bottom of my pack along with a Glock I barely know how to use and two burner phones.
The key’s still hidden in the busted flower pot by the steps. I unlock the door and step inside. Musty air, creaky floorboards, that old woodsmoke scent baked into the walls. It smells like childhood and grief and secrets.
I drop the bag and turn in a slow circle, every nerve buzzing.
He’s still watching.
I walk to the window and stare out at the woods.
“I’m not running anymore,” I whisper. “If you want something, come get it.”
Still nothing.
I let the curtain fall and walk away.
