The phobias that have bloomed inside of me over the course of my life had eventually heated themselves up in a pot, stirred themselves, and melted into one general, unidentifiable WARINESS of my surroundings. Needless to say, some of that wariness wasn't irrational. The helminthophobia is maybe a little off-center, but the acrophobia and the anthropophobia definitely had their catalysts.
A month or so before the box was left on my welcome mat, I began noticing the staring. Though it has always made me somewhat uncomfortable and, on rare occasions, angry, people staring at me has always been something I've dealt with. But this particular staring was more than just a curiosity about why my eye had fallen victim to gravity, or why my forehead was a little higher than Tyra Banks'. No, this was more like an alarming, oh-shit-there-he-is-what-do-I-do kind of stare. The kind of stare you expect to be followed by a quiet whisper into a watch phone, stating your location:
"I'm in the liquor store, subject just left. He's coming around your corner."
Not just one or two people either. Over the course of a few days, I got more stares than I had received in years. From bus drivers in their rear-view mirrors. From solo housewives in the supermarket. Even from children, stopping their swings and looking at each other as I pass the park on 19th. And after a few more days, I would even catch my NAME being tossed around in conversations I could only half-hear on the bus, or at the video store, or at least, I THINK I heard my name. But when I would turn around to aim my ear in the direction of the conversation, it would stop, or change subjects. Bums and drunks were the worst, though, spouting out shit to me that, normally, I would disregard as banter, but when it contained the words "Chadam", and "or else", I couldn't help but dwell over it, considering that my name isn't the most popular name for strangers to mutter. I asked Sandy (and even Ripley) about this, but she just said I was paranoid, and that she hasn't heard anyone talking about me, and that I might just need a girlfriend. "No shit", I told her. Regardless, I became suspicious of everything around me, although I felt no particular danger.
Until 4 days before the knocks.
I was returning from work, passing The Sandman on foot, looking at the ground, creating pictures from the cracks and debris so chaotically evolved throughout the concrete. The combination of crevasses, stains, and muted out color build-up from years of smog and spit that Mother Nature painted on the cement were more beautiful than half of the art I've seen at the MOMA. Someday I hope to frame my favorite sidewalk squares and hang them throughout the walls of my apartment. There was a fairly big puddle that took residence in the middle of the square I was walking through, and I saw a sudden shift of objects and colors in the reflection of the water, causing me to halt and tilt my head back up, startled. The police were struggling to arrest a balding man in a wheelchair about 2 feet in front of me. As I was backing up away from the scuffle, the 2 police yanked him out of his chair to detain him, and the man's eyes widened, looked right at me, and gruffly shouted, "DON'T LET THEM IN, CHADAM, DON'T LET TH-…". He was cut short by the cops, throwing him into the Crown Victoria like an overstuffed bag of garbage into a compactor and shutting the door. The police sped off before I could even muster up enough conscious thought to ask what was going on. There was no one else around.
I rushed out the following day and bought 3 more locks for my door, not really knowing WHY, it just…felt like it couldn't hurt.
The duct tape on the door frame was just as an added annoyance, as I figured if anyone was going to come in blazing, I would at least hold 'em off for an extra 30 seconds.

Standing in front of a flock of possibly undead birds, holding a burning box of who-knows-what in one hand and a hammer in the other, knowing that a wheelchair-bound man warned me of something, and that everyone else seems to knows something that I don't know, it was hard for me to hide my fear. But I didn't want Ripley to know I was too scared to protect her. It probably doesn't take much to prove you're tough to a 6-year old, but I was for sure going to try. I told her to stand in the kitchen, but it looked like she joined the "Things Chadam Doesn't Know" club, because while I was doing my best attempt at acting brave, she assertively said, "Why? They won't hurt you, Chadam."
I responded, my eyes still glued on the flock of zombies with wings, "Wha…how do you know that?"
With every arrogant twitch of one of the pigeon's green and lilac necks, my hammer-filled hand cocked farther back. I have never hurt anything with a heartbeat, but I don't feel like getting pecked by a ton of broken beaks and possibly infected by whatever fucking thing makes the dead walk.
"Because", Ripley said, "they told me they wouldn't. They just said to make sure you got that boxy-thing."
Great, I thought, she can talk to animals. I'm babysitting Aquaman's fucking daughter, and I'm scared shitless, about to commit a pigeon hate-crime out of pure confusion…