Located
by Kathleen Gunnuscio
Ava crouched to get to her dorm room desk under her loft bed. Her roommate Charlie stood behind her, packing for a trip to visit her family for New Year’s.
Their shared room was a cramped, small space with peeling wallpaper and carpet gross enough to give you a staph infection if you looked at it for too long. To Ava, living in this place felt like living in a shoe closet, only this shoe closet boasted loft beds, an ancient wardrobe, and a mini fridge. Charlie and Ava left the fridge unplugged at almost all times due to its dying, wounded-animal-sounding motor that robbed all within earshot of sleep and peace of mind.
Ava turned to see her roommate showing off the three-dollar “2018” party glasses she’d scored at the CVS near campus. She was treating the hot pink and bedazzled plastic glasses like they were made of gold. She loved this about Charlie: Small things seemed to thrill her.
Ava smiled. “This is gonna be the first time since we got on campus I’ll be here alone for more than a day.”
Charlie looked at Ava, dropping the cheap glasses into her overflowing suitcase. “You gonna be alright?”
Ava nodded. “I’ll be fine. Have fun in Florida. Go to Disney and fight an alligator or whatever hell you do there,” Ava says. She always pokes fun at Charlie and her Florida-man family.
Charlie laughed. “Ah, yes, the mighty right of passage of fighting an alligator—something every young Floridian must do before graduating kindergarten.”
Ava and Charlie laughed and joked, and eventually the evening grew into a comforting quiet. Charlie went back to packing, and Ava turned to her phone, messaging a few friends between social media scrolls.
Recently, Charlie had won the battle to get Ava onto Snapchat. Ava hadn’t been able to understand why the app made Charlie happy, but she’d found it easier to contact Charlie through Snapchat than any other way, so she’d take the change as a win.
Ava looked up from her phone. “Hey, Charlie?”
Charlie looked up. “Hm?”
“When do you have to leave for your flight?”
“Umm.” Charlie checked her schedule. “7:30 am. Why?”
Ava shrugged. “Curious.”
Charlie nodded and returned to packing.
#
The next morning, Charlie was gone. Everyone else had places to be during break. Ava had to be at work.
Ava checked her phone. 10:53 AM. She groaned and crawled onto the ladder, tripping over her own feet and almost tumbling off.
Her shift at the gas station was due to start soon. She put on her ugly blue button-up shirt, the gas station’s logo and her nametag front and center. As she left her dorm room, the door creaked loudly, as always, as she opened and closed it. She double-checked the door was locked—the latch had an annoying habit of jamming.
She biked hard over the half mile through the bustling city to get to Junior’s gas station and clock in on time.
Midway through her shift, a man of around fifty or sixty years entered the shop. His gray and thinning hair revealed a scalp patterned with bald patches. He analyzed her. His eyes reminded Ava of a doll’s glass eyes, the scleras of each eyeball yellowish in hue. His pale white skin rendered blue veins visible through a thinner-than-paper membrane. His almost unnaturally emaciated body was one of god’s mistakes. Those who said skinwalkers weren’t real would surely change their mind upon seeing this man.
“Excuse me, miss… Can I get that carton of smokes?” The man’s voice was broken and shaky.
Ava turned, keeping half an eye on him in the overhead, convex mirror. When she turned back to him, he had his phone out, and his head was tilted down at whatever was on his screen. He smiled. The grin on his face didn’t reach his glassy eyes, but as he lifted his face to look at Ava again, his features on display as though he moved in slow motion, what stood out were his teeth. They rotted in his mouth, and those few teeth spared by cavities were yellowed deeply and almost brightly.
Ava, chilled by his grotesque smile, fought to ignore the queasy feeling building in her stomach, instead focusing on scanning his cigarettes into the register.
“Will that be all, sir?” she asked, her own voice quavering slightly.
The old man nodded, returning his phone to his pocket.
Ava rang him up, but he didn’t leave right away.
Instead, he questioned her. “Do you attend the university?” he asked. His eyes scanned her body.
Ava shifted in discomfort. “Um, yes.” She hoped the old man would leave if she just answered.
The old man nodded. “I guess you live nearby.” He glanced outside. “Do you know the nearest bus stop?”
Ava gave the pale old man instructions, and he hung on her every word.
Just as she would have expected him to leave, he pulled out his phone. “Can I get your number?” His phone’s screen was cracked and caked in a brownish-grayish sludge.
Ava recoiled in disgust and stopped herself from gagging at the perfume the man and his phone emitted. “I don’t give my number out to customers.”
The old man’s smile faded into an emotionless grimace. “I get it,” he said. Then, more slowly and in a deeper voice: “Can’t be too careful.” His glass-like eyes darkened.
The old man left with his cigarettes.
Ava was on edge the rest of the work day. On her way home, she found herself riding faster than usual. The corners and buildings she rolled by and that she’d never glanced twice at now loomed dangerously.
Once safe in her dorm, Ava tried to relax, but her anxiety lingered. She swapped her uniform for pajama pants and a black band tee, hoping its soft fabric would help. She then sat at her desk to study, hoping it would distract her from the growing vine of anxiety choking her mind and heart, its tendrils squeezing and tearing into muscle. She reviewed notes and read from her textbook. Eventually, her mind was brought to ease in the familiarity, and she forgot the man, if only momentarily.
An alert pinged her phone.
Charlie posted to her Snapchat story. Ava glanced at it: a photo of Charlie holding her four-year-old niece, making paper crowns, the photo tagged “Arts and Crafts.” Ava smiled.
Ava spent much of the next day alone in her dorm, lying in bed, watching algorithm-inspired YouTube videos, comforted by blankets and conspiracy theories. At one point, a notification popped up on the screen. She checked it. It’s a friend request from Charlie. Ava sighed in annoyance, assuming Charlie got logged out and couldn’t remember her password, and made yet another account. Ava accepted the request and went back to her video.
Hours later, Ava sat in the common area half-watching television. Her phone buzzed. She checked it, it was Charlie—but her old account. Ava stared at it, confused.
She quickly messaged Charlie. “Hey, I thought you lost your account?” She waited impatiently for a response.
Charlie responded a few minutes later. “No, why?”
Ava looked at the message, confused. “I accepted a friend request from you a little while ago. I assumed you made a new account.”
Charlie sent a confused emoji. “No, I didn’t.” Then, “Must be a scam.”
Ava responded. “K. I’ll unfriend it then.”
Charlie quickly messaged back. “I wanna see it! Kinda makes me feel special, like someone is pretending to be me just to send you spam. Sort of flattering.”
Ava looked at the message, puzzled. “I’ll send a screenshot.”
Charlie responded, “No, wait. My phone is being weird and won’t let me open photos in my messages. Wait till I get back and show me just don’t click on any links or anything.”
Ava sighed.
#
Over the next few days, Ava felt she was being watched, but she reminded herself Charlie would be back soon. She had to make it three more days, and she wouldn’t be alone anymore.
Ava sat in the common area watching TV when her phone buzzed. She checked it, read Charlie, opened it mindlessly, then froze in fear. It’s the imposter-Charlie account.
“See you tomorrow!” Attached to the message are photos of her folding laundry snapped through the window of the laundromat. The next is Ava at work, and then there’s one of her walking around the city.
Ava stood. Dread washed over her. She grabbed her bike and headed for the police station, finding it hard to keep her balance. She was unable to focus on the ride, instead praying to whatever god there was to please—if one existed—to make this a sick joke. The day blurred.
After what felt like an eon but must not have been, she’d arrived. Ava didn’t have the time nor capacity to care about following traffic laws. All of that stuff felt meaningless under the circumstances. She nearly threw her bike down outside the station and ran in toward the front desk, her vision going in and out of focus. Her worst dreams were coming true.
A man sat behind the duty desk.
Ava was breathless. “Can someone help? I got this weird message. I think…” She inhaled deeply. “I think I’m being stalked.” Ava’s voice shook. Tears welled in her eyes. You never think you could wind up being one of those girls who’s become the subject of a true crime podcast.
The officer looked up at her. He must have read panic on her face. “A message? Can I see your phone?” the officer asked, reaching over the desk for Ava’s phone.
Ava took another quivering breath and fumbled at pulling her phone from her pocket. She nearly dropped it as she unlocked it for him. “Here.” Her hand trembled as she pulled away.
The officer looked through the messages, his face turned into a grimace. He gave a small nod and wrote something down then handed her back his phone. “Do you have any idea who this might be?”
Ava shook her head.
The officer sighed. He covered his mouth and thought for a second. “Where do you live?” the officer looked up and asked.
“The UC dorms, Building B, Room 307. My roommate is in Florida with her family, and I’m alone.” Ava started spiraling, but the officer was quick to stop her plunge, snapping his fingers to get her attention back on him. She stared at this man in uniform, who leaned back in his chair, making a creaking noise that cut through the tense silence.
“I want to help you, but—” He sighed. “There’s not much I can do until this jerk breaks a law. These messages are weird, I’ll grant it. If this person threatens your life, or—or if you can tell us who it is and we can catch him actually doing something, we can do more.”
The man must have read her emotion on her face because he added, “I’ll tell you what. We’ll make a report, and I’ll let campus security know to look out for you. If you can collect more information about this guy—safely—I’ll be better positioned to help you with your case,” he said.
Tears ran down Ava’s face. “Please, there has to be something else you can do… I’m scared.”
The officer gave Ava a sympathetic look. “I wish I could do more. I really do.”
Ava gave her statement through shaky tears. The cop helped her fill it out and then offered to have an officer escort her to the nearest bus stop. She accepted.
Forty minutes later, Ava returned to the dorm, defeated as well as emotionally and physically exhausted.
Ava couldn’t sleep and didn’t leave her room. She paced. She was stuck in constant panic, eyeing her phone on the desk and looking out the window, preparing for the worst. Hours passed. At one point, shechecked the time. 10:00 PM. At that instant, a notification from Snapchat materialized, reading, “A friend of yours is close by! Say hi?”
Charlie.
Ava opened the notification. Her blood froze. This wasn’t Charlie. It was the imposter. Ava peeked out of the window.
The man from the gas station, the unforgettable rotten smile and emaciated appearance, stood under her window, staring up at the building, looking directly at her through dim light. He must’ve spotted Ava’s silhouette against the curtain.
Their eyes locked, and Ava nearly choked on her breath as he waved at her from the dimly lit courtyard. She jerked the curtains closed in a panic, her breath shallow. A moment later, she peeled back the fabric against the window. Nothing there.
Ava felt the bile rising from her stomach, , the unmistakable feeling of nausea made stronger by sheer terror. She stepped slowly away from the windows. Her back hit the door. She heard it—him, the sound of footsteps echoing along the vacant, stretching hallway.
Ava turned the lock of the door behind her, and she stumbled to hide in the old wardrobe. She climbed in and slammed the door closed. She covered her mouth, muffling her breathing, and reached for her phone to dial 911, but she had left it on her desk. She was alone in the dark, the silence screaming as she sat and waited for an eternity. Then, like a hot blade cutting through butter, a click sliced through the suffocating silence, and a creak echoed from a squeaky hinge through her room and the hallway beyond.
Kathleen Gunnuscio is a sixteen-year-old, neurodivergent, queer writer. “Located” is her first publication. She lives in Utah with her friends, family, and pets. When not sitting at her desk writing, she can be found filling sketchbooks, riding horses, or reading.
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