Lonely Girl

by Lynne Vincent McCarthy

  ‘Have you taken something?’

  She should have known Lenny would notice and knows better than to lie to him now. Especially when she needs him to trust her.

  ‘River’s in pain. I had to make sure the medication was strong enough.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be playing with meds intended for animals. You know –’

  ‘I know! I know, it was stupid. Okay?’

  Lenny backs off, returning his focus to making her sandwich whilst Ana makes a mess of pouring two big glasses of vodka. While his back is turned she takes the medication from her pocket and slips a few drops into one of the glasses.

  ‘You probably shouldn’t drink that.’

  Lenny is right behind her but hasn’t seen a thing. He reaches into the cupboard next to her head for a small plate.

  ‘Why are you here, Ana?’

  It’s now or never. Attempting a seductive air she hands him his drink. ‘I’ve been feeling bad about … you know …’

  Lenny knows exactly what she’s talking about but doesn’t help her.

  Ana takes a quick gulp of vodka but is so nervous she spills most of it over herself.

  ‘What was it exactly that you took?’ Lenny asks, grabbing a cloth from the sink. As he passes it to her Ana takes hold of his hand and places it on her breast. Lenny is shocked into silence. The two of them stand there stiffly for a moment before his resolve crumbles. With a low groan he leans into her, pushing her back against the bench, one hand moving over her body, the other pulling her closer.

  Ana’s eyes close as she gives herself over to the pure physical sensation of it, transporting herself back to the drive-through, the hard edges of the bench behind her transformed into the cold metal of the car bonnet. Her hands start to move up the back of the dark-haired stranger leaning into her, grabbing at his hair. Her face in his neck. The groan deep in his throat. The hunger inside of her. She bites down hard on the skin of his shoulder.

  ‘Jesus, Ana, what the fuck!’ Lenny pulls away, head swivelling to check if she broke the skin.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know … I’m not any good at …’ Ana looks everywhere but at Lenny, searching for the right word, her sudden rabid desire replaced by equal parts confusion and dismay.

  Lenny softens, empathy for her discomfort outweighing his own. ‘Really, I never would have guessed.’ He smiles faintly as he rubs his shoulder. ‘Do you wanna watch a film?’

  The smile Ana gives him is shaky but entirely genuine. Lenny passes her the sandwich and picks up the bottle along with his glass, leading the way into the living room. Ana considers replacing her vodka with water but she wants it for courage. She follows Lenny, who has settled himself back onto the couch, making room for Ana beside him. She hesitates a moment but then sits, taking a sip of her vodka as he hits play on the DVD.

  Lenny settles back, casually reaching for Ana’s free hand. His skin feels papery and cool against hers. Ana smiles across at him, forcing herself not to pull away as she keeps her eye on the screen, barely taking in the images in front of her.

  Lenny shifts on the couch, making a sound that unmistakably says contentment.

  It’s going to be a long night.

  He followed her once when she was with her kids. Wanted to see who she was when she wasn’t with him. She’d taken them to her local playground. While they played she tried to fit in with the line-up of clone mothers around her. Her smile forced, eyes distant.

  At one point she looked right at him but didn’t see him, her brain unable, or unwilling, to join the dots between her everyday world and that other.

  She looked harassed. Not the woman he knew at all. Not unhappy exactly. Just someone else. Somewhere else.

  The little one wouldn’t stop crying. Her tiny face pinched. Flushed almost as red as the hair bunched in a ponytail on top of her head.

  She dealt with it like any mother would and only he saw the glitch. The moment she almost lost it. It was only then that he recognised her.

  The look on her face said it all.

  Get me out of here. Please get me the fuck out of here.

  TWELVE

  Ana wakes with a scream reverberating in her head and sits bolt upright, for a moment thinking the scream is her own. The film is over and the intro on the DVD menu is going through its standard cycle, that poor woman’s death cry echoing over and over again.

  The vodka bottle sits half-empty on the coffee table. Her half-eaten sandwich on the floor by her foot.

  What time is it? Has she fucked up her plans completely?

  Lenny is snoring next to her and Ana kicks herself for having dozed off. Her brain stalls when she sees his hand has graduated from holding hers to resting on her thigh.

  Ana carefully slips out from under his grasp. His hand falls limply to the couch but he doesn’t wake. She reaches for the remote, inching the volume down.

  By the sound of the night she’s guessing it’s the early hours of the morning. She still has time.

  Ana glances back at Lenny and notices his shirt has ridden up while he’s been sleeping, exposing his soft white belly above the band of his tracksuit pants. A surge of guilt is immediately replaced by resentment.

  Is that how she made her mother feel? Guilty and inadequate in the face of another human being’s naked need? Was that why she found it so hard to love her own child?

  Ana reaches across and carefully pulls Lenny’s shirt down, restoring his dignity and her resolve. Satisfied nothing could wake him, she sneaks across to the entrance and carefully lifts his keys from the table near the door. Then she eases herself outside, shutting the door soundlessly behind her. She takes one final check through the window to make sure Lenny hasn’t moved before making her way down the stairs.

  It’s quiet and bitterly cold outside. Ana’s steps echo softly off the concrete all the way to the bottom. Skirting along the edge of the building she lets herself in the back entrance to the pharmacy, quickly tapping in the code for the alarm.

  She doesn’t dare turn the lights on, even though the combination of the vodka and River’s painkillers has made her unsteady on her feet. The light coming in from the windows at the front of the shop, along with her insider knowledge of where everything is, gets her to the drug cabinets and she uses the key to open the one she needs.

  In the darkness she’s unable to read the labels but she prepared for that too. Her hand finds the right shelf and she counts across until she locates the bottle she’s after. She cracks the seal and then pulls a plastic zip-lock bag out of her pocket, emptying the contents into it. The empty bottle she places back on the shelf, pushing it behind the others where it should go unnoticed until at least the next stocktake.

  All she needs is for Lenny not to notice anything when he opens in the morning. Whatever happens after that is irrelevant.

  *

  Lenny is still snoring when Ana lets herself back into the flat. Leaving the door ajar, she carefully returns the keys to the table without even the tiniest of chinks. She pauses there for a moment, struck by how much Lenny’s sleep face still holds the memory of the pimply-faced young man who became her only human friend. A surge of fondness rises in her. He’s the Lenny she wants to remember.

  She’s aware that she can’t control how he will remember her. He could blame himself, read her death as some sort of a statement meant for him. She hopes not.

  As she starts to back quietly away Ana feels the door sway in the wind behind her but can’t catch it before it slams shut.

  ‘Ana?’

  She forces herself to look back and meet Lenny’s eyes across the room. She can see him trying but he just can’t manage to hide how hurt and rejected he feels.

  He can see it on her face – the overwhelming desire to cut and run. It’s not something he can forgive a second time.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lenny.’

  Ana opens the door and slips away.

  *

  From the moment Ana starts the car she is hyper-aware of the pills sit
ting in their plastic bag on the seat next to her, their soft rustle audible even under the sound of the engine. The combination of River’s painkillers and the vodka still in her system, not to mention the adrenaline of having aced her plan, has her wired. It’s the darkest part of the night and she’s finding it hard to focus on the road ahead. The surface, what she can see of it, keeps blurring in front of her but it takes a moment for her to comprehend the problem.

  She is crying.

  Ana opens her window and leans her face into the cold air, trying to shock the emotion out before it can take hold. If she lets herself feel anything she might have to admit that she’s not as sure as she thinks she is. And if she admits her doubts even for a moment she’d have to admit that dying before she’s had the courage to live might be the saddest thing in the world.

  Ana is aware of the silent call of the crime scene well before her headlights pick up the sheen of the reflective tape in the darkness. Without even realising it she’s already slowed the car and it’s so easy to simply pull over onto the embankment, as if this final detour was in her mind all along. It wasn’t, at least not consciously, but as she sits there with the engine still running beneath her, she’s flooded with questions about Rebecca Marsden and her final hours.

  The moon is visible through the trees. It casts a shadowy glow over everything. She can see the loose end of the police tape flapping in the wind and as she kills the engine she hears its steady beat over the trickling melody of the river below. The sound draws her with a powerful pull, enticing her out of the car.

  She needs to see where her body was found.

  Ana moves closer to the edge of the road and peers down the incline, unaware that she left her car door wide open behind her.

  The river’s surface gives off a strange reflected light but the ground between it and the road is in shadows. She can see the police tape runs all the way down to the track by the river, partitioning off a large oblong-shaped plot of ground. Ana waits until her eyes adjust and cautiously follows the tape down, one hand skimming the edge of it to guide her. When she reaches the flat it’s immediately clear where she was found because the spot, at the base of a tree by the riverbank, is a shrine of wilting flowers. A lot of people must be mourning Rebecca.

  Ana stands over it, powerfully affected by the loss of someone she didn’t know. Without even realising what it is she’s doing she’s lowered herself into the ‘grave’, her body sinking into the cushion of flowers. She lies there gazing up through the canopy into the sky above, seeing what Rebecca’s dead eyes must have seen.

  She relaxes back, letting the sound of the river flow through her, no longer bothering to fight the tears that come. It’s eerie but she’s not scared. It’s more peaceful than anything. Like she’s become a natural part of this shadow world.

  Until the loud crack of a branch warns her she’s not alone.

  It seems the whole forest is shocked into silence and every living creature is waiting, poised to see what will happen next. Ana’s whole body is tense but she can’t bring herself to breathe now, let alone move. She forces herself to exhale and notices the cloud of vapour rising from her mouth. Only her eyes move, arcing up through the darkness until they settle on a second vapour cloud less than ten feet from where she lies. In the moonlight she can just make out the silhouette of a man hiding behind a tree, his face in partial shadow.

  She can’t see his eyes but she can feel him staring across at her, as if he too can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. Time seems to stretch, endless seconds hanging in the air between them.

  Is he even real?

  There’s a sudden splash somewhere out on the river, something moving quickly through the water. She sees him glance in that direction. Dark hair, the turn of his head.

  It’s him.

  Ana hurls herself up and makes for the incline, running as fast as she can for the safety of her car. She doesn’t dare look back but can hear the man on the move somewhere behind her, crashing like a wild animal through the undergrowth. He’s real all right but Ana has observed people for long enough to know that doesn’t mean he’s human.

  A fallen branch trips her up and she stumbles, sure he’s about to descend on her but he doesn’t. She almost cries out as she breaks free onto the road and sees her car door hanging open. For a moment she thinks he’s beaten her there, but she can still hear him moving somewhere below.

  Ana stumbles into her car, fear making her fingers clumsy as she locks all the doors and frantically closes the open window, eyes scanning the bushes, expecting him to break through onto the road at any minute.

  The engine sounds much too loud to her ears but Ana is relieved to be driving away. She doesn’t see him stumble onto the road ahead until he’s lit up in her headlights. As he lurches towards her, Ana screams and accelerates right into him, the impact sending him tumbling over her bonnet.

  She skids to a stop and looks back.

  The man lies facedown in the middle of the road. He’s not moving.

  Drive on. If you get out of this car you’re dead. Not the peaceful passing you planned with River. You’ll die in fear and he’ll die alone.

  Ana sits there frozen, one hand still gripped tightly onto the steering wheel.

  Home is so close, just another few miles further down the road. It’ll be dawn soon. If he is really hurt someone will find him. He’ll be their problem then.

  Even as her mind insists she drive on her hand is reaching for the door handle.

  Ana climbs out, leaving the headlights on. Her heart is pumping furiously in her chest as she lingers within the scant protection of the open door. She scans the road in both directions, seeing nothing but empty blackness.

  The man still hasn’t moved. He’s just a dark lump on the ground. What if she’s killed him? What if he’s dead?

  What if he’s not?

  Ana leans back into the car and emerges with her heavy flashlight, hugging it close for protection. She’s only taken her eyes off him for seconds but when she looks back she stops dead.

  Has he moved?

  She turns the flashlight on and aims it at him.

  He’s still facedown but the angle of his body is different.

  His arm. She could have sworn it was bent before.

  It could be a trick. She could end up dead in a ditch. Or worse. What would happen to River then? He’ll be sitting there waiting in the hallway, staring at the door through which she will never come.

  Ana is split right down the middle. Wanting to make herself leave but already knowing she won’t. She knows this moment. It’s the scene in Lenny’s horror movies when some young girl – it’s always the girl – does something stupid that invariably ends in her gruesome death. Ana has always scoffed but now she knows why they do it. Some unseen force drives them on. They can’t stop themselves.

  Gripping tightly onto the flashlight she creeps forward. She needs to check if he’s dead or alive. More than that, she needs to know who this man is.

  Ana carefully reaches down to turn him over but just as she touches his shoulder she feels his hand clamp onto her leg. A furious scream rips out of her, cutting into the landscape. She tries to kick him off but he won’t let go.

  Something snaps inside. She won’t be that stupid girl. Not tonight.

  Ana raises the heavy flashlight and brings it down hard on the back of his skull. It lands with a sick thud, the aftershock reverberating up her arm. He lets go but refuses to stay down. Ana grabs hold of the flashlight with both hands now, eyes locked on him as he struggles to pull himself up. One of his legs gives way underneath him. He looks wildly around, just as freaked out as she is. His eyes settle on Ana and she can see the effort to get words out, his brain not quite connecting to his mouth.

  ‘What … Who …?’

  Ana backs further off. The sound of his voice makes him too real.

  She sees the moment he gives up on the words. He cradles his head with one hand, his face full of pain and confusion, but
there’s something else. In his eyes Ana sees a perfect mirror of her own fear.

  Ana backs further towards her car, not taking her eyes off him for a second.

  He strains to stay upright.

  ‘What did you do?!’ Then he crumples to the ground.

  Ana stands there, horrified. He’s lying on his back now, face turned away.

  She inches forward, skirting in a wide arc around him until she can see him more clearly. The face she wanted so badly to see, now right in front of her. He’s not what she expected. It’s hard to tell for sure but he’s young, mid-thirties at the most. His face is rough around the edges but this man looks more like a fallen angel than a killer. He is the most breathtaking thing she has ever seen.

  What if it’s not him? What if she’s just run down and bludgeoned an innocent man? But what kind of man lurks around in the dark where a dead girl was found?

  What kind of woman does the same?

  She leans closer but the smell of him sends her reeling back; he reeks of alcohol. Rocky’s is just a few kilometres down the road. What if he just stumbled out at closing and walked the wrong way? Maybe he got lost or, like her, just found himself on the road above the crime scene. What if his crime is simply morbid curiosity? Wasn’t she herself, just a few minutes ago, lying in the spot where a woman was found dead?

  Ana quickly searches the man’s pockets, finding nothing but some small change. She spots his mobile on the road and snatches it up. It’s dead, the screen cracked.

  The unmistakable sound of a car throws her into fresh panic. Through the trees Ana gets a glimpse of headlights approaching. With her own lights blazing there’s no way they won’t have seen her. It’s too late to run now but she can’t be caught here. Not like this. If she’s hurt an innocent man they’ll lock her up and then River really will die alone.

  Throwing herself into action, Ana thrusts the phone into her pocket and grabs hold of the back of the man’s jacket, dragging him towards her car. It’s a short distance but he’s a dead weight and she’s barely made any headway when his arms slip free and she falls back hard on the road, his body splaying over her legs. She feels the heat of him pressing down into her and tries not to panic as she struggles free.