stalked

Suspense Stories | Mar 22, 2013 | 10 min read
12 Votes, average: 4 out of 5
The man in the black t-shirt and dirty jeans was watching her. By now Tina was sure of it. She glanced up from her Sociology book, careful not to move her head, and sure enough the man was still staring at her.
Tina cleared her throat and tried to keep herself composed. This was easier thought then done, even surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the other university students around her. Would any of her fellow alumni make an attempt to save her if this man turned out to be "The Lawton Ripper?" She highly doubted it.
I'm perfectly safe right now, she thought, it's broad daylight and I'm in a central part of the campus. Not even the Ripper would be crazy enough to try anything in front of this many people. If he was that nuts he would have been caught by now.
Tina still didn't feel safe. If the man who had been watching her for at least a half hour now was the Ripper then he was capable of anything.
She tried to focus on her book but the stories of the Lawton Ripper began leaking into her thoughts like a steady blood flow from a butchers freshly used cleaver.
The Ripper's first victim Kerri Harnett was twenty one, the same age as Tina. Also like Tina she had long blonde hair and dressed in a more upscale fashion. "Preppy" was the slang term for it. Harnett was last seen drinking with friends at "Cutlers Pub." According to those who last spoke to her she was "pretty drunk." Apparently they had tried to convince her to find a sober ride home but she had refused to honor their wish. The campus and her dorm room were only a ten minute walk from Cutlers and in a small town like Lawton, Indiana she should have made it there. Instead she was found the following morning in an alleyway behind Cutlers in a sitting position with her back propped against the side of a long abandoned apartment building. Her mini skirt was around her ankles and bruises and cuts covered her body.
This was not the worst part. Kerri's face had been ravaged. Through the shreds of flesh and gore it was rumored that you could actually see her skull showing through in certain places. She had been sexually assaulted and was still alive when the Ripper began slashing.
While this atrocity still held the small Lawton community in shock, the Ripper struck again. A twenty three year old college senior named Abigail (Abby to friends) Clark was last seen in the Oak Tree Plaza shopping at a CD store. Her last human contact, other then the Ripper, was her boyfriend. Abby had sent him a text apologizing for running late and that she would be home soon. Her vehicle was found in the Oak Tree Plaza parking lot with the drivers side door still open the next day.
Lawton P.D. had run the plates and was still contacting her friends to find her when a jogger at the South Side Park beat them to it. The man jogging told police that as he was passing the north area of the park on the running track he noticed a person's leg sticking out from underneath the wooden stage they used for outside plays in the summer. He approached to see if the person needed help and discovered very quickly that he was way to late for that. Unconfirmed reports say that her long blonde hair was almost fully red with streaks of her own blood. She too had been sexually assaulted, and her face hacked beyond recognition. She had only another month before she would have graduated.
At this point the pattern was obvious. Women with long blonde hair and a classy dress style seemed to be the maniac's preferred targets. While the police had refused any speculation that the murders were done by the same man the papers screamed it in every issue.
A month went by with no leads and no murders. In a small town like Lawton however, things of the Ripper's nature were not common and hardly forgotten as quickly as they would be in a Metropolis. Citizens still screamed their outrage at the authorities for not having caught the man (most assumed it to be a man). Interviews with some of the locals showed a wide range of emotion toward the subject of the man the papers were now referring to as The Lawton Ripper; from anger, to fear, to one man's claim that it was probably "terrorist related."
Amongst the chaos and paranoia the Ripper managed to claim yet another victim. Twenty one year old Katie Marshall had been a nursing major. She planned on working in Pediatrics after graduation. Instead her college career and her life ended on a cold winter night that past February.
Katie had presumably been on her way to her clinicals at Lawton Memorial Hospital. Why she stopped or got out of her car would never be known. What was known was that at some point she had indeed stopped and whether it was voluntary or if she was forced was questionable but none the less she had exited her vehicle and ended up at the mercy of The Ripper.
The way it was done seemed the same except for one detail. The Ripper had cut Katie's blonde pony tail off and shoved it in her mouth. The coroner reported that she would have been alive when this happened and was well on her way to suffocating when The Ripper began his work.
Tina took another quick glance up with her eyes and saw with dread that the man by the tree had moved closer. He was no longer looking at her, but now he was sitting on the Lawton University Library steps. No more than twenty feet away from the picnic table where she was sitting. She felt panic begin to coarse through her veins like a venomous snakebite but managed to keep it controlled for the time being.
I have to get away from this creep somehow. Whether he is The Ripper or not he is acting too strange for my taste. There has got to be a way out of this without causing a lot of attention to myself.
One name sailed into her mind and she felt immediate relief: Brad. Bradley Throck had been her friend since her first semester, and the only person whom she bothered to become close with since starting at Lawton University a year ago. Brad had approached her after their English Comp I class and stuttering over his words asked if she would help him with an essay.
Tina usually shunned the average male college student, most of whom just wanted one thing, but she immediately felt flattered by Brad's nervous approach. His entire manner had seemed completely different than the swagger of your average overly arrogant college male. She had agreed to help him and they had gone to the L.U. library. Although her first impression of him had been that he was different she kept expecting him to lay some stupid line on her about going back to one of their dorms to finish the essay, and if he did she would gladly tell him to screw himself and leave. This didn't happen though and after the essay was finished he politely thanked her and left.
Toward the end of that semester she had approached him, as he had begun to be in her thoughts more and more often, and suggested they keep in touch. A great friendship was born from this. Since then Brad had always been their when she needed him and had never once showed any intention toward wanting more than a friendship with her. She respected that.
Without looking up, she sent Brad a text explaining that she thought she was being followed and wanted him to meet up with her so he could walk her back to the dorms. His response was quick and to the point.
Be there in a few, the text read.
Tina couldn't help but smile. Coming to her rescue with no questions asked was just so Brad. He always seemed willing to drop whatever it was he had going on to talk to her if she was having a bad day or if she was just lonely.
It didn't take him long to arrive. Tina had kept her face in her book with the occasional glance at the man on the library steps but he hadn't moved since earlier.
The look of concern on Brad's face made Tina want to grin again but she contained the urge.
"What's going on T?" He asked. The light breeze was blowing bits of his close cropped blonde hair across his forehead.
Tina nodded toward the library steps. "The guy in the black shirt, he has been staring at me for a while now, and I think he's following me. With all that's going on around here kinda makes a girl nervous."
Brad looked at the man and frowned. The man caught Brad's stare and returned it with one of his own.
Tina felt uncomfortable.
"Don't let him know anything!"
Brad continued to stare at him.
"What's his problem?"
"I don't know can we just go?"
Brad turned back to her and the frown disappeared.
"Sure. I gotta stop by the Student Union real quick though, that cool?"
"Fine let's just get out of here."
Tina gathered her books and walked beside Brad. The man at the library steps never took his eyes off them.

By the time they left the Student Union it was full dark outside. The breeze outside had picked up quite a bit as well.
They cut through the parking lot behind the building at Brad's request.
"Quicker this way, I'm tired and want to get my bodyguard duty over with." He said.
Tina walked with her head down. She was tired as well.
Suddenly, her books were sent flying and she felt a bolt of pain go through her jaw as she collapsed to the ground.
Tina groaned and was attempting to roll onto her back when she caught a glimpse of a black shoe coming from the ground and sinking itself into her stomach as all the air rushed from her lungs. Her body rolled with the kick and her back scraped the concrete upon landing.
Confused and hurt, but not yet in a panic because of the suddenness of this attack, Tina shook her head and blinked. There was a sound coming from her left. She sat up and saw Brad and the man from earlier grappling in the mouth of the alleyway she had been shoved into.
Oh my God that man really is The Ripper! The first coherent thought in her head since the sudden attack brought her back to the situation.
Tina stumbled to her feet, her only concern helping Brad. As she stood upright her stomach clenched from the earlier blow and she went back down to one knee with a shriek.
"Brad run!" She yelled.
The dark haired man had Brad by his wrist and throat and was slamming him repeatedly into the brick alley wall. Tina knew he wouldn't be able to fight much longer as the dark haired man was much bigger and more muscular. She pulled herself upright again doing her best to ignore the fire in her gut and the dazing, heavy pain in her jaw.
Brad threw a punch that knocked the dark haired man off his feet a bit, but he retaliated quickly by charging back into Brad and knocking him into the wall again.
Tina stumbled forward a bit and almost tripped. She looked down and saw her Sociology book. She took a few steps back and looked up in time to see the dark haired man pounding his fist into the side of Brad's face. Brad was losing his footing and would go down very soon.
With a shriek Tina ran forward, and in one motion grabbed the book off the ground and swung it upwards, delivering a tooth rattling uppercut into the dark haired man's chin.
Tina faintly heard something clink on the ground as the man grunted in surprise and stumbled backward.
He attempted to regain his balance but Tina swung again, this time catching him in the temple. The man fell with a groan.
She immediately dropped the book and ran to Brad, who was sitting against the alley wall breathing heavily.
"Oh Brad are you okay?"
He looked up at her and to her surprise he looked confused.
"Brad?" She whispered.
Her air was suddenly cut off as Brad's hand shot out and gripped her throat. He stood up slowly pulling her by the neck.
"Worthless bitch," he muttered. He pulled her closer to him and then shoved her forward releasing his hand. The back of her head slammed into the alley wall and she saw white light.
When her vision began to come back into place, she saw Brad picking up a shiny object from the ground. Once in full view she saw it was a scalpel.
"I don't know who the hell that idiot was but he'll have to wait his turn to have at you. I was saving you for last you know." He moved slowly toward her swaying on his feet a bit.
Tina watched helplessly, her mind unable to grasp exactly what was going on.
Brad knelt beside her and raised the scalpel above his head.
Tina closed her eyes.
"Ack!" Brad suddenly spat.
Tina opened her eyes and saw that Brad was now standing. The dark haired man had him by the wrist again, only this time he had shoved the fist holding the scalpel into Brad's chest. The dark haired man backed off a few feet. Brad glanced down at the metal handle sticking out of his heaving chest and then glared back at the man. There was a look of shock and rage on his face as he stared.
"You…you…ba..bast…" Brad fell against the brick wall.
The dark haired man caught his breath a bit and spoke, gulping as much oxygen as he could.
"My name is Jordan Reinhart. I started following you because I saw you spying on her." He waved his hand toward Tina. He was breathing heavily between words.
"I saw you behind the library spying on her. I had a feeling then but wasn't sure so I kept following you. When you hit her and threw her into the alleyway I had my evidence. I've been watching people on this campus for months now trying to find out who it was."
He stepped closer to Brad.
"Abby Clark was my girlfriend."
He lurched forward then and clutched the end of the scalpel hanging from Brad's chest. Brad screamed as he began to twist it.

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