I Think My Stalker Has Found Me Again After All These Years

I always saw Marilyn walking three huge dogs in the park. She was a little 5’1 woman walking these giant bernese mountain dogs and handling it with ease. I was in love even though I didn’t know a single thing about her. 

I worked up the courage to talk to her. She was nice but hesitant. She seemed like an exceptionally wary person. 

I was patient and earned her trust. I slowly discovered she was everything I had built her up to be in my head, and then some. 

We dated for months without her ever inviting me to her place. She always said she lived at the edge of town and hated it, but it was odd, and unnerving. I spent a lot of my time wondering what the issue was? Was she married or a hoarder?

We were six months in and had too many drinks when I confronted her on never inviting me over. I wasn’t taking no for an answer, she had to bring me over, or I was breaking up with her. 

Marilyn brought me home. She wasn’t married. She wasn’t a hoarder. She did live on the other edge of town in a little house filled with her giant dogs. Nothing was out of the ordinary. 

Things didn’t stay that way. 

Marilyn’s dogs behaved strangely. They would start barking or growling at random spots and corners of the house – as if there was an intruder.

This also got worse in the middle of the night. The dogs constantly got up around 3 a.m. barking and going crazy and sniffing all around the room while we slept. 

I think I knew what scent they were picking up on. It was a male scent – musty cigarettes, sweat, and the sting of men’s deodorant trying to cover it all up. It was so strong I was getting ready to confront Marilyn on it. Did she have a man who was staying there when I wasn’t there? The power of the smell was undeniable, as was a strong presence of someone else in the house. 

I asked Marilyn about it. She was very matter of fact. She was haunted by a male spirit. It always lingered. She didn’t think it was dangerous, but it was scary, and it wasn’t the house, it was her, it had been with her for a couple years now, and different locations. 

She asked if it was a deal breaker? 

No. I was all in. I loved her. 

I could deal with ghosts. I could deal with feeling like I was always being watched. I could deal with never feeling alone. 

I wasn’t prepared to deal with what the actual reality was though. 

We spent time at Marilyn’s place. Those supernatural oddities always lingered. She explained she got the three giant dogs to protect her from whatever it was. 

Everything had become kind of second nature to me until one day when we walked into the house and Marilyn peeped right back out the living room blinds. 

“I keep seeing the same middle-aged woman everywhere I go,” Marilyn whispered. 

I had no idea at the time that sentence was the opening line to a horror movie the two of us were about to live. 

“She’s plain, always wearing a hat, sunglasses, super small, and always driving a white car, a Honda,” Marilyn went on.

I knew the car. I had seen it several times in the past few months. I also could picture a woman, hat, sunglasses, small. She always seemed to be around like an extra in a movie about my life. 

It was my time to admit something to Marilyn. I had a stalker, and apparently she was back. 

I dated a girl named Savannah for nearly a year in my early-20s. She came off as just sweet at first. Obsessed with me in the right way, then it became the wrong way. I’ll spare too much detail but I at one point found out that she was secretly recording almost everything we did in her apartment and she collected random things of mine – loose hairs, keeping socks and underwear, even nail clippings. 

She also seemed to be developing an inability to be away from me for any period of time. She was showing up at my office every day, making me go to long lunches, a couple times I was just running errands and I thought she was following me in her car. 

It was too much. We had only been together for a few months. I broke it off.

Savannah didn’t take it well. She kept calling and texting me non-stop. Kept showing up at my office, my house, she wouldn’t take no for an answer. 

I eventually threatened a restraining order and pressing charges. She was in medical school and wanted to become a doctor. She knew that kind of thing could really affect her career. She finally relented. 

I remained connected to Savannah on social media. It appeared she moved to another state, got a boyfriend, and eventually married. I mostly forgot about her. 

She was definitely the middle-aged woman who was following us though. Her build. The way she moved. It was all her, I just had never thought it was possible. She was also clearly trying to make herself look older and more plain than she really was. 

A distant friend of mine I hadn’t talked to in years was still connected to her through his girlfriend. I hit him up to see if he knew what the deal was. 

My friend provided anything but comforting information about Savannah. She hadn’t moved out of state. She wasn’t married. She didn’t have kids. As far as he knew, she still lived in the area with her parents, had dropped out of med school, and was a recluse. He also didn’t think she had social media. 

I did some investigating. The social media accounts of Savannah’s I was still connected to were flimsy – barely any friends or followers or content. I did some research of people I knew she was actually related to and it looked like the man in her life was actually her sister’s husband and the kids, her niece and nephew. She may have been maintaining them just to throw me off. 

It also started to click with me. I had seen that white car a lot even before I was with Marilyn. I had also seen a plain, middle-aged woman, with long black hair that I now thought looked like a wig, always wearing a ton of clothes, even in the summer. I just never thought to think anything of it. 

I was sure Savannah had probably been stalking me all along. It probably never stopped. She was probably just turning up the heat since she saw me get serious with Marilyn. Feeling her grip slip away. 

I was going to follow through with the restraining order this time and pursue pushing Savannah away for the full extent of the law. Only problem was, I had to prove it was her and she was doing it. Restraining orders are a lot harder to set up than you might think. 

I was always on the lookout for Savannah with my hand in my pocket – ready to whip out my phone to take a photo or video. But it was like she knew. I never saw her or her white car again. 

The only problem was the haunting and the agitation of Marilyn’s dogs in her house got more and more intense. It seemed to be all hours of the day now and more jarring – the dogs getting full on angry – the presence in her house slamming and locking doors. 

It got so intense we started setting up cameras around the house to try and capture something. It didn’t work until one of them fell behind the couch and accidentally got aimed at the backyard for a day and night. 

The first video alert hit me during the day while I was at work. A neighborhood kid walked through the yard, nothing sinister. It was so harmless I didn’t even remember to move the camera when I got home. 

The next time I woke up to a Ring notification in the middle of the night. I checked the camera and saw the neighborhood kid again – in the backyard again, but this time moving towards the back door. 

I was no longer just writing this off as an innocent neighborhood, teenage boys will be boys moment. I shot out of bed, ran out of the bedroom and took to the living room flanked by all three dogs. 

I was startled by what waited for me inside the living room, not outside. A tall young man faced the doorway – the image of his broad back, cloaked in a t-shirt flashing before my eyes for a second before he was gone. 

The dogs weren’t bothered by the flash of a presence of the man – they ran right for the door and kept erupting with barking. 

I checked the Ring app – I saw the kid walking out the backyard and disappearing into the darkness. I breathed a sigh of relief and tried to calm the dogs. 

Then I heard Marilyn scream from the bedroom. 

I rushed to the bedroom and found Marilyn standing next to the bed and looking over at the window in horror. It was the middle of summer and we were fighting the heat, sleeping with the windows open. 

I could visibly see the screen had been cut and the blinds in front of the window were swaying on a windless night. 

“Someone tried to grab me,” Marilyn whispered to me, staring at the darkness of the window. 

A thought came over me at that moment just before I started to comfort Marilyn – I wasn’t so sure it was a “neighborhood boy” who terrorized us that night. The size, the movements on the Ring camera – it all added up to Savannah, but dressed as a teenage boy.

–

I took the footage to the police and tried to get that restraining order on Savannah. They said it couldn’t be proved it was her in the videos. 

It was a failure, but it didn’t matter, because it all stopped. The appearances of Savannah and the haunting. 

Marilyn and I, and the dogs, were finally able to rest easy. We settled into life at her house. 

We made it a year with everything going perfectly. We fell full into love. 

I proposed. She said yes. I moved into her place. We slept with her giant dogs every night – safe and happy.

Then the haunting started to pick up again. 

It was intense. We would be lying in bed and hear someone walking out in the hallway or we would be in the bathroom and suddenly see a man standing behind us in the mirror. 

I had to learn to live with it though. I loved her and it just was what it was. I hoped it would get better. 

Something else unfortunate started to happen after the haunting got bad for a while though. Savannah was back.

It took a while to see it because she was changing vehicles so much and changing her looks. She had gained a ton of weight and wore shoes which made her look taller.

We went back to the process of trying to capture her in photos and videos, but again, she seemed to know when we were onto her, and disappeared. 

There was another calm for a few weeks. It didn’t feel the way the one did before though. It felt more like the eye of a storm. 

It came at night again. The haunting. 

Marilyn and I were asleep in the middle of the night. All of the lights and electronics in our bedroom flashed on. We woke right up. 

I saw the split second image of the silhouette of the man by the bedroom door. It was such second nature to me at this point I didn’t even bat an eye. 

It was different this time though. The image of the man lingered and I finally really got a look at him. He was young. Probably around 20 – dark hair, dark features, tall, thin, and a little rugged. 

I heard Marilyn whimper and looked over to her. She was crying as she looked at the young man. 

Then my attention was drawn to the door as it opened slowly. I held my breath and saw a shadow step just inside the room. 

I saw the sight of a gun emerge from around the corner. I froze like a deer in the headlights. 

Whoever was aiming that gun at Marilyn and I had a wide open shot. I could sense they were about to pull the trigger. 

I closed my eyes. In that little moment of darkness, I heard a scuffle break out. 

I opened my eyes and saw the male figure wrestling in the doorway with whoever had the gun – and the male figure was winning, forcing them out of the room. I don’t know what came over me, but I rushed in that direction, leaving Marilyn and the dogs, still frozen behind me. 

I was out in the hallway and watching the person with the gun get chased out of the house. I followed them into the living room where I saw a window broken out. 

For another time, I was able to recognize who was terrorizing us. I could see her small, frail frame, trying to fight off this powerful spirit of a young man. There was no denying it was Savannah with the gun.

I saw Savannah on the ground, trying to fight off the spirit and struggling. For a second, I kind of felt sorry for her, down there on the ground, tiny and hurt and insane. I doubt stalking us and getting pummeled by a ghost was what she had always wanted in life. She was simply sick. 

Those thoughts were running through my head when I watched Savannah slip away from the spirit and rush out the window. 

I had a feeling I was never going to actually see her again this time. 

I also had a feeling about that with the spirit of the young man as well. I looked at his back as I heard Savannah run away into the night out the broken window. 

The spirit of the young man turned to me for a brief second. I saw a sense of relief on his face for a moment. 

I felt someone approach me from behind. I was startled at first and turned around to see Marilyn and the dogs walking into the living room. 

The spirit of the young man finally turned around. I watched him meet Marilyn’s gaze. 

The two of them held eyes for a very long time. Everyone silent. Tears gushed out of Marilyn’s eyes now. 

I watched the spirit of the young man nod to her. I watched and heard Marilyn start to break down. 

I looked over again and the spirit of the young man was gone. 

Then I went to comfort Marilyn.

–

I had connected some dots before Marilyn even started mapping them out to me. The spirit which had been hovering around us and haunting us was of her older brother, Casey. 

Casey died in a snowboarding accident years before, shattering Marilyn’s young life. Her brother had been her hero and protector and he was gone suddenly when she was in her vulnerable teenage years. 

Casey had always told Marilyn he would be there for her. She thought he was actually ramping up his presence and haunting when he knew Savannah was hovering and coming for us – Casey pushing himself back into our world to protect her. 

The whole thing actually made Marilyn feel good. It gave her some comfort and resolution with Casey. 

What happened with Savannah was not comforting. We had a ton of video evidence of her and the police were finally okay with moving forward with several charges. 

Only problem was the police couldn’t find Savannah. She had moved out of her parents’ house weeks before and no one had any contact with her. 

Marilyn and I weren’t as scared as we could have been though. 

We had a feeling someone would protect us.