“You’re so good to me, Mike. I should be dating you. I’ve been really stupid, I see that now.” Back on the emotional roller coaster, Rachelle, hit a new low of sentimentality. She sounded sincere, but her slurred speech betrayed heavy intoxication. Was it the drugs talking, or Rachelle?
“I got this cool little button thingy I can push. Whenever I want more pain meds I hit the button, its aawweeesooome!” She’d obviously been hitting the button quite recently. “Will you give me another chance, Mikey? I can be a better friend. You should let me make it up to you.” Her voice held a seductive quality.
I had never heard her talk like this before. Rachelle Werner had become someone I didn’t really like. “Um … listen, Rach, I think we should talk sometime when you get back from the hospital.”
“Mikey, don’t you like me anymore? I’m not burned that badly! They said they can get rid of most of the scarring. My mom found a plastic surgeon. It’s all good.” The creep factor pegged an all-time high.
“Rach, you’re not thinking straight, they got you on too many meds.”
Nadia, watching and listening, lost patience and elbowed me, whispering in a hiss, “Tell her off!”
“Listen, I’ve got Anita now. What’s done is done. It’ll never be the way it was before. I’m really happy with Anita. I appreciate the offer, it’s flattering, but I have a girlfriend.”
“I’m sorry I treated you so badly, I was a real bitch, hunh? Can’t you give me another chance?” I suspected Rachelle was one of those girls who couldn’t stand to be alone. She had to have someone available at all times.
“Honestly, you’re not who I thought you were. I’m not interested. You’re not the girl I risked my life for on the thin ice. I’m not gonna be there anymore. You’ll have to find someone else to follow you out onto the ice, I’m done.”
“Well fuck you very much, asshole!” She hung up.
I turned to Nadia. “Was that good enough for you?”
She smiled. “A little too wordy, but I think she got the point.”
* * * *
Chapter 21
Saturday, October 30th, Halloween Party
I arrived at Anita’s at 6:30 p.m. dressed all in black: black pants, boots, t-shirt, trench coat, and a black plastic pistol in a hip holster with a leg strap. My Neo-Matrix ensemble was complete with greased hair dyed black and sunglasses. I fought to keep a straight face when Anita’s father answered the door scowling. “Hello Mr. Gomez, how are you this evening?”
Manuel Gomez tried to smile, but it didn’t quite come out right, he looked constipated. I guess it wasn’t easy for Senor Gomez to adjust to the idea of Anita dating. His little wall flower had begun to bloom. Anita looked more and more like a young woman, the change taking place almost daily. If Senor Gomez had a clue of what had been going on these past weeks, he’d lock Anita in the basement till she was twenty-one.
Anita popped up next to her father as he mumbled, “Que bueno … muy bueno.”
She was dressed in a ghetto-liscious rapper chic outfit: skin tight blue velvet pants and a loose, shiny gold top cinched at the waist by a wide black belt. She had her hair slicked back into a tight pony tail, a thick layer of juicy red lipstick, and massive Tina-Turner-in-the-Thunderdome golden hoop earrings. She looked fabulous, provocative, like a booty-shakin’ dancer in a rap music video.
“What up, dog?” She winked and licked her luscious red lips.
Senor Gomez glanced down at his daughter shaking his head with a look of resignation, “Hay mija, estás loca?”
She replied in flawless Spanish, “Si papi! Especialmente en el día de muerte!” Then she kissed him on the cheek. “Te quiero mucho! Bye!” She snagged my arm and pulled me to my car in a hasty escape.
Senor Gomez yelled at our backs, “Twelve-o-clock! Not a minute later!” Anita yelled over her shoulder with a counter offer, “One-o-clock!”
We rushed off, backing out of the driveway before her father could argue differently. In the Gomez family silence is acquiescence. Sitting in the backseat of my car was a third passenger who had magically appeared during the few minutes I spent at Anita’s door. Nadia beamed with a huge grin. She had a skimpy black witch’s costume dress, her face painted pale white and lips a vibrant shade of blood red (probably the real thing). She was, of course, a vampire dressed for Halloween as a vampire.
I snickered, “How original.”
Nadia flashed a snarl with large canine teeth.
“You know what, just let me off. I can’t deal with chompers here. Didn’t you say she threatened me?” Anita had twisted all the way around in her seat, unwilling to turn her back on the killer behind her.
I looked at her, and then to Nadia. It had never occurred to me that Anita might not accept this little murderer into her life.
Shit.
“She apologized. Our little vamp has promised to behave. No more violence. Isn’t that right Nadia?”
Nadia reached out to pat Anita’s knee affectionately. “No harm intended. I’m in character tonight.”
Anita looked at me as if I was nuts. Maybe I was. How could I forgive murder, so easily?
Nadia leaned-crawled over the seat to plant a kiss on Anita’s cheek, and then reassured her again. “Misha’s girlfriend is off limits! I promise you’re safe with me. I was only getting warmed up for my big date with Justin.” Nadia smiled another flash of gleaming fangs.
Anita squinted at her, still not convinced.
I frowned at the vampire smiling with a mouthful of teeth. “Remember our deal?”
“Yes, Misha, I remember.” She spoke patronizingly. “I’m not going to hurt him, but a girl’s entitled to a little fun on Halloween.” She licked her lips with a creepy, all too familiar, slurpy sound.
“She promised, Anita. We have an understanding. I believe we can trust her. Will you give her a chance? For me?” I tried to convince my girlfriend to give the murderer a chance, but I wasn’t really feeling the trust yet either.
Anita glared at Nadia. “Okay, but the first sign of problems, and I’m gonna drown you in holy water.” She poked at Nadia’s chest with her lacquered fingernail.
Nadia grinned with delight. “Won’t work. But if you promise to go skinny dipping with me, I’ll let you try.” She winked at Anita.
Anita cracked a grin. “You know what, that just might be fun.”
We arrived at Cleo’s house in the Montlake Terrace area just up the hill from Anita’s home. She lived in a split level with her parents and a brother who were all conveniently gone for the weekend, visiting relatives in Spokane. Cleo had weaseled out of the trip, and instead filled her family home to capacity with a bunch of skate punks and high school acquaintances. Cleo answered the front door in a cute, barely-there, French maid costume short enough to flash her white panties whenever she wiggled a certain way.
She never stopped wiggling.
True to character, Nadia hissed a greeting to Cleo, baring fangs. “Oh, sexy, let me have a bite.”
Cleo retreated several steps with a nervous smile. “Ah, how about later?” She took off fast. Nadia was a little too convincing with her act.
We mingled with the crowd, and Anita snagged a red plastic cup filled with beer from the pony keg on the back porch. I declined. “I’m driving tonight.”
I doubt I’d ever be much of a drinker. My father made sure of that.
Taylor slid past smoking a fat, pungent joint. He was dressed as an inmate, in an orange one-piece jumpsuit.
I leaned over to Anita. “That’s appropriate. He’ll be in orange at Grant County Jail soon enough.”
Taylor overheard and snickered, “Yeah, I might as well get used to it now.” He tipped back his cup full of beer and drained it all at once.
The house was packed, party in full swing. One group had a game of flipcup, chanting a line from Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, “Flip, flip, flipadelphia!” Another group played strip poker at the dining room table, several guys and girls were down to thei
r underwear.
I toured the house with Anita, checking out the costumes, enjoying the party. We had Zorro at the flipcup game, a Donnie Darko Frank Rabbit costume at the strip poker, a Glenn Danzig with a skull painted face playing against Freddy Krueger on the Tony Hawk skate game on XBOX 360. Freddy Krueger was winning the skate off. The den had become a dance floor run by a self-appointed DJ in a Bill Clinton mask. Several kids danced to Lady Gaga.
I dragged Anita into the fray. She chugged the rest of her beer and surprised me with a down and dirty, booty-shakin’ dance. She backed that thang up on me, twerking like a woman possessed.
Nadia had flitted away to parts unknown, disappeared. I danced with Anita as the music cycled through Ludacris, Eminem and Usher. Entwined in each other’s arms, we slow-danced to R & B as Justin walked past.
Justin dressed as an eighties rocker: black skinny jeans, a blond spiky wig, and an AC/DC t-shirt. He spotted me, stared for a moment, then cocked his finger-gun back and shot at me. He gave me that wicked I-got-you smile, downed his beer, and walked out of the room.
As I was thinking how Justin had a surprise coming his way, Nadia, the Fourteen Year Old From Hell, glided past in silent pursuit of her prey.
Then the vertigo hit me. “Shit, not again.” I had to sit down for a minute as a vivid vision came over me.
I was flowing along behind Nadia as she followed Justin through the party, always in the same room, watching, stalking, waiting. Then he went into the upstairs bathroom, and she slipped in right behind him.
He stood peeing at the toilet. The only noise to betray her presence was the click of the door latch. Justin looked over his shoulder while deftly maintaining his flow into the toilet. “Hey! I’m in here. Wait your turn.”
Nadia advanced on him. “I’ve been waiting all night for my turn, and now I have you all to myself.” Justin’s stream faltered with her words, but then he spit out a final spurt.
“If you insist on watching, the least you can do is give me a hand.” Justin turned to her with his cheesy pickup line, flashing Nadia with his unimpressive display.
She smirked. “Hmm, not much to it, is there?”
Justin bristled at her comment. She moved in face to face, growling in a quiet menace. “We haven’t been introduced yet. I’m Mike’s friend, Nadia.” She attacked swift and silent, snatching Justin off his feet to slam him against the rose-patterned tile wall. He cracked the back of his head on the wall with a dull thud and girly squeal of pain. Then he was airborne, thrown to the tile floor to land on his back. The air whooshed from his lungs in a wheezy grunt of pain.
She was on him in the blink of an eye, holding him down by the throat, pinned to the ceramic tile floor. Her legs straddled his chest and she leaned forward to stare in his eyes. Her left hand at his neck, her right hand reached into the open fly of his jeans, for a firm grasp on the Justin Shelby family jewels. She had him by the short and curlies, the fate of his future progeny in her claws.
Justin stared into the eyes of a predator, a killer. Understanding dawned across his face. He no longer sat at the top of the food chain. He squeaked as her claws seated into his scrotum.
“Nice to finally meet you. We have so much to discuss.” Nadia pinched tighter down below and Justin flinched. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his face scrunched up in pain. “Didn’t Mike tell you I’d be paying you a visit?”
Justin nodded and then opened his fool mouth, “But he said you were a vampire.”
Nadia unhinged her jaw and her mouth opened inhumanly wide, displaying oversized fangs on a monstrous visage. She hissed in his face and snapped her teeth closed a hair away from nose.
She growled in a deep menacing voice, “I know Mike warned you, I was there outside your house! Don’t you remember, he pointed me out?”
I could see it on his face as the memory of the hoodie girl flashed through his mind. The boy was terrified.
His bowels opened in foul sounding release. Nadia growled in revulsion as the smell of his fear permeated the bathroom.
“Please don’t kill me, please, please, please, I don’t wanna die! My parents have money, they’ll pay you. My dad has over two hundred thousand in the bank right now. I’ll never tell anyone! I promise! What do you want!”
“I want silence. You will never speak of Mike Evans!” She hissed directly in his face. The boy quivered as his eyes tracked the deadly sharp fangs a centimeter from tearing his face off.
“Anything! Just say the word and I’ll do it! You want me to give him money? I know he needs money! I have his skateboard. I’ll give it back right now. I promise!” Justin babbled, saying anything that might buy him a few more seconds of precious life.
“The police! You will convince the police you lied about Mike. There can be no suspicions towards Mike! I don’t care if your parents have to pay bribes! There can be no accusations against Mike.” Nadia squeezed a little harder, and he squealed as she drew blood in her wicked grip.
Eyes wild with fear, he cried and begged some more, “Please, oh god, it hurts, please stop! I’ll do anything you want! I’ll tell them I lied, I’ll tell everyone I know that I lied! Please don’t do this, I don’t want to die. I’m too young to die.”
She whispered threats of death and dismemberment. “You live as long as you maintain silence, and only if you convince the police to leave Mike alone. If they suspect Mike of anything, I will come for you. If you ever speak to Mike or Anita, I’ll come for you. If you ever tell a single soul about me, I will find out and come for you. I may not kill you. I’d rather castrate you, let you live as half a man. Or maybe I’ll take the other half too, leave a clean slate. Yes, that sounds better. A complete sex change.”
She removed her hand from between his legs to show him the blood on her claws, “Do you think I’m a skilled enough surgeon to take it all off and keep you alive?”
Justin shook his head and babbled, “No no no no nooooo, please no, please no.”
“Here’s a little something to remind you of your promise.” With her left hand firmly clamped down on his throat, her right hand sliced through Justin’s AC/DC T-shirt and dug her claws into his left breast.
She clamped her hand over his mouth to cut off his screams as she marked him for life. When she finished, she leaned into his screaming face and shushed him. After a moment he calmed down and she removed her hand from his mouth, but he started babbling again immediately.
“Oh God, please help me! I promise I won’t say anything, ever! I promise to never ever go near Mike for as long as I live! Please have mercy! I’ll do anything you want …” His begging ended in sobs, bawling like a child.
Nadia stood up, a look of disgust on her face.
“Look in the mirror every day. Look at that mark. Remember that keeping your promise to me is the most important thing you will ever do.” With that she was gone, leaving Justin curled in a fetal position on the floor, crying. She had cut an N shape into the skin of his chest, a scar to remember her by.
I found myself sitting on the couch, damn near hyperventilating from the intense vision. I would never make the mistake of pissing Nadia off.
Never.
“Are you okay?” Anita look worried, holding my hand, confused.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just need to catch my breath for a minute.”
Nadia slinked in next to me on the couch with a sly half smile on her lips. She looked satisfied with a job well done. She licked the red off her fingertips.
Sick little monster.
“I can’t believe you did that. I said don’t hurt him! You promised.”
“You saw that, huh? There’s just no keeping secrets from you.” She shook her head.
I stared at her in awe and shock. The little shit had no remorse.
“He’s not hurt, not really. Just a little bruised, and one itsy bitsy scar. I had to make sure he doesn’t forget his promise. No big deal. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
“Alright. I am officially done for the ni
ght. I think I’m gonna puke.”
Headed for the front door, Nadia encountered Taylor making out with a very drunk Cleo on his lap. When Nadia saw Taylor’s hand up Cleo’s little French skirt, she actually growled. Her eyes took on a feral gleam as she zeroed in on her target.
Nadia snatched Taylor’s arm whip-fast, jerking his hand from between Cleo’s legs. She pinched in good and hard with her claws. Taylor cried out in surprise, “Ow! What the hell?”
Cleo was so drunk she couldn’t even sit up straight. She slumped over in Taylor’s lap, her head flopping sideways. Nadia looked ready to skin Taylor alive. She grabbed him by the chin and pegged him with her golden stare. “It’s not nice to take advantage of drunk girls. Especially innocent girls. She’s too young! Go home before you end up arrested for rape!”
Taylor nodded his head in perfectly hypnotized agreement, and stood up to go like an obedient dog following commands. Cleo flopped over on the couch. She reached out to grab Taylor to stop him from going.
“No, stay with me,” she slurred, her eyes only half open.
As Taylor kept moving, he pulled Cleo right off the couch to land face first on the floor in an ungraceful thud, her bare rump in the air, panties down around her thighs. Taylor made the mistake of moving towards Cleo to help her up and Nadia intercepted him, yanking him back with a snarl, “Go now!” He beat a hasty retreat, favoring the arm she had pinched in her razor grip.
Nadia pulled up Cleo’s underwear, and Anita helped to haul her up on her feet. The girls walked Cleo to the upstairs hallway leading towards her bedroom. They didn’t quite make it.
Cleo started to gag.
Nadia rushed Cleo into the upstairs bathroom. I watched from the door, uncomfortable and sick to my stomach, as Cleo barely made it in time to give homage to the porcelain god. She emptied her stomach and kept going, dry heaving and crying. After Cleo cleaned out her digestive tract of every last drop, bawling and swearing she’d never drink again, the girls helped her wash up and guided her to her bedroom. Cleo was asleep in minutes.
The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels Page 80