Forsaken

by R. M. Gilmore

  “I’ll get a hold of you tomorrow morning. And you can contact Mr. Petersen?”

  “Detective. It’s Detective Petersen.” I smiled a bit through tears as though I was wholly proud of that. If I was going to get away with anything, Mike had to be my pride and joy. Fuck. In my desperation to save his life, or at the very least his soul, I’d been a complete cunt. I tried to hide the fear rolling up the back of my throat.

  “Yes. Right.” He smiled back and took one last glance around the room before making his way to the door.

  I stopped in the middle of the room, key still digging into my hand. “Sir, before you stick that thing up, can I grab one thing? I know I won’t be able to come back for a while and there is one thing I’d like to have. Just something to get us all by without her.” I set my face to plead.

  He nodded and I wasted no time. As morose as I could muster, I booked it to her bedroom. There was one thing I needed, but he didn’t need to know what that was. I slid open her nightstand drawer and pulled out the butterfly knife I’d given her. She hated guns and said pepper spray was for wimps. The only weapon in that house was a gift from me and also illegal. It was trivial, but I didn’t need anything fucking up my freedom or her good name. ‘Good’ was relative, obviously. I shoved the knife in my waistband and snatched a framed photo of her and me and Mike from a drunken night of idiocy during the time Mike and I were still a thing. My ruse.

  “Thank you,” I said to the officer and held up the photo.

  He nodded like he’d done a dozen times in the ten minutes I’d known him. I couldn’t tell if his silence was casual or suspicious. I flipped off the light and closed the door behind us. Using the spare key, I locked the door. My hand stung from where it’d been jamming into my skin.

  “Miss.” The detective stuck his beefy hand in my direction. Reluctantly, I handed him the key.

  The crime scene notice stood out like a macabre sore thumb against the trim of the pink house. It was a sickening sight. I did well holding back the bile while the composed officer and I said our goodbyes and I promised to meet him in the morning. He asked for directions back to the freeway and I gave them.

  Locked out of my silent sanctuary, there was nothing else to be done. I’d tossed aside my only confidante and possible ally. The only other help I had was ass-deep in vampire posers and a new leadership role he wasn’t cut out for. I had a decision to make. Tuck my ass, go home, and grovel to Mike, or head to Embrace and do my best to grab the attention of a very distracted ‘vampire’ king.

  I sighed and longed for the days my hardest choice was diet or regular. Heading toward the freeway, I realized in the end, there was only one choice. There had always been only one.

  Me.

  Chapter 6

  The sun blared in my face through a split in the curtains. I squinted one eye tightly and groaned over the sound of a ghostly voice yapping her blonde head off. I couldn’t understand what she was saying; my half-awake brain didn’t have the room to decipher the rambling. It sucked waking up to a person I couldn’t see, but I was grateful the voice was safe and familiar, not some kind of devil or voodoo bitch out to get me.

  “If you were any kind of friendly ghost, you’d Casper your ass over there and fix that curtain,” I said to the ever-talking voice, and it stopped. “Then go fetch me a triple shot with half and half.” I hadn’t been awake enough to comprehend what she was saying before she stopped. Surprised to hear silence, I opened my eyes hoping to see a set of neatly closed drapes. My hopes were shattered when the glaring light hit my unready eyes. “Agh!” I cried out and pulled the covers over my face. “This is pointless!” I yelled from under the covers.

  “The only thing pointless here are your pencils,” Tatum said finally, sounding even more muffled than she had been and not really herself.

  “What the fuck does that even mean?” I opened my eyes under the white sheet and saw only my own hands over my face.

  “Mean? You’re the mean one. You and your unsharpened pencils.” The muffled voice didn’t sound like my girl and drew my attention.

  I moved my hands away from my face. “Gah!” I screamed.

  Tatum’s blonde hair laid around her head like a halo. She wasn’t looking at me, and in fact looked more like a mannequin in the bed with me than a human. Or what used to be a human. Still as the dead, I supposed.

  “I can see you.” My voice was low and skeptical. It’d been almost a week since I’d first heard the voice of my dead best friend from beyond the grave, or morgue, whatever, and not once had I seen her on my own. It took magical hallucinogens to illicit a vision of the girl, and that ended in a gory mess. I was a little afraid of where this vision was headed, especially in my white sheets.

  “Your eyes are open, aren’t they?” She asked the same question she had the last time I’d seen her.

  “Can’t you say anything else? Please, T, I need you to help me. I know this is all my fault, and if you had any kind of conscious awareness you’d have every right to pop up in my bed and drag me right to Hell, but please, I’m dying right along with you. What am I supposed to do now? I can’t stay here. People will get hurt where I’m involved, I know it; I can feel it in my gut. Where am I supposed to go?” My questions spurted out frantically.

  “You’re right here,” she said without turning in my direction.

  “Here is fucked! Where the hell do I go when all I have left in the world is right where I am?”

  “In your head, fucking dunce. Jeez,” she repeated her words like I was hearing a recording of the last time I’d seen her in the not-so-living flesh.

  On her back, Tatum’s body began to wriggle downward and toward the edge of the bed. She never looked at me, just moved on her back using her feet to pull her along. When she reached the edge of the bed, I thought she’d fall off. Her arms did nothing in her quest to the edge and it didn’t look like they were jumping on board anytime soon.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Without looking at me, she lifted her hands above her head and out from underneath the sheet. “I never get to go anywhere.”

  With the same sound of clicking and shuffling, Tatum scurried off the bed on her back, her movements inhuman. Something like a backbend pulled her off the bed and onto the floor, long legs slinking off the bed last. I jumped up and crawled to the edge of the bed. Tatum was gone. My heart raced with fear, but I swallowed it down and looked under the bed. Tatum’s crystal-blue eyes nearly glowed in the dark while she crouched in an awkward prone position under the bed.

  “Why are you down there?”

  “I’m down there.” Her words, as far as I could recall, were unchanged, and in order, the only difference being setting and inflection. They seemed to fit the conversation perfectly.

  “I love you,” I said, frantic for more contact and attempting to test the theory I’d pulled out of my ass about her record-player script.

  “Or mine,” she said, and with a ticking shuffle that turned my stomach, she scurried backward and out of sight.

  As fast as I could, I made my way across the bed and poked my head under. Meeting my eyes dead-on were the piercing orbs that had stared at me from above Mike’s shoulder. I screeched and flipped off the edge of the bed headfirst. Too close to the dark chasm, which once was a mundane place for single socks and left shoes, I moved as fast as my fat, injured ass could carry me. It wasn’t fast at all. Like a dream, the floor suddenly felt like putty, too malleable to maneuver quickly over, sucking at my heavy hands with its pliability. Screams shot from my open mouth over and over, without my will. I couldn’t hear them so much as feel them scrape across my larynx.

  Knees to armpits, the gangly limbs of the monster carried it quickly across the carpet I was sinking into. The thing, hiding in the place where Tatum had gone, ticked and clicked its way out from the dark space under my bed and into the wash of light which peered through the curtains.

  It was the thing that had
chased me down my white hall, only it didn’t have my face. It didn’t have much of a face at all to speak of; just black, all black, except those two penetrating eyes. I pulled myself backward on my butt and it inched closer. My back hit the wall. Moving quickly and never taking my eyes off the beast at my feet, I tried to steer away from my hindrance, jamming my hand into something thick and gooey. Taking a moment to see what I’d touched, I looked down to see my pale hand in the stump of Tatum’s head.

  Her body was nowhere to be found, but that head stayed put like it was part of the foundation. I screamed again, and this time I heard it and felt my throat tear away at the seams. The beast ticked and clicked up my petrified legs. I’d been in more than one death-defying situation, but inches deep in the bloody stump of my dead friend’s decapitated head took the cake.

  Having nearly no mass, more like a shadow, it felt oddly heavy on my immovable limbs. My chest rose and fell, heavy and hard as it crept closer. Inches from my nose I could hear its rattling breath, feel its hot air on my skin, and smell its putrid stench. If there was a Hell, I was in it, and the thing breathing against my skin was its ruler.

  “I…I can’t.” I didn’t know what else to say. Really, I didn’t want to say anything, but me being me, it was nearly unavoidable. Surely I’d think of something clever, which would make Dirty Harry proud, but in that moment, my snark was too chicken to come out and play.

  The black beast slowly tilted its head as if it were examining me. Its eyes locked on mine and it smiled. Stark white teeth jutted from its black gums in such a way it appeared someone had jammed those many sharp things in at random. The creature’s pointed chin tucked against its chest and it closed its eyes slowly before opening them again. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said it was making googley eyes at me. Before I could make a move to climb over Tatum’s stump, the beast touched the tip of its nose to mine. It felt hot, like I’d stuck my face into a hot oven. I closed my eyes and pulled my face as tight against my chest as possible.

  The thing clicked and ticked over my face, taking in a thick breath. The air that rattled around in its chest released a bellowing wave of a stench so foul it smelled like Satan himself had taken a shit on my face. The moment reminded me of the night an unseen beast had chased me home.

  Two girls, one cup: Occult edition.

  “God, help me,” I muttered to a deity I wasn’t sure existed.

  Abruptly, the wall holding my quivering body upright, fell away. My heavy frame careened backward without a chance to save myself, leaving the beastie behind. I flipped ass over teakettle into a black pit which had taken the place of my off-white wall.

  Like Alice through a fucked-up looking glass, I fell. Long and dark and never-ending, the pit swallowed me whole as my arms and legs flailed about. Grasping in the darkness for anything to stop my descent, my hands only found thick, hot air. I closed my eyes—they were useless anyway—and reached one last time for anything hidden away to save my life. Rough fabric touched the tips of my fingers and I clasped my hand down as quickly as I could. I had no other choice but to fling my body toward the thing in my hand. With the strength of my weak girly hands and my injured gimpy arm, I clutched the rough fabric. My body stopped falling sharply and my legs flung in the opposite direction, nearly pulling me from my protector.

  Strong warmth wrapped about my body and the falling stopped completely. My hands clung tightly, but they didn’t need to; something was holding me up. I opened my terrified eyes to meet my savior.

  The blaring southern California sun seared my eyeballs and I closed them tightly again. Seeing nothing but bright white light, it was impossible to know where I was exactly or what had a hold of me. I leaned my body closer to the animal, mineral, or vegetable that held me. A familiar scent on the fabric brought me to reality.

  I took the chance and opened my eyes again. Seeing only faded denim, my eyes were happy to not be blinded, and I hoped I wasn’t in the strong arms of a denim-wearing rutabaga. Conscious again and fairly aware of the world around me, I moved my head and hoped my mind was being honest with me. Fear tinged around the edges and thoughts that I might come face to face with the snarling black beast held my racing heart at speed.

  “What in the holy hell just happened?” Mike asked, his bellowing voice deeper in the center of his stomach.

  His strong arms lifted me up and leaned me against something which held my body upright. My eyes clearing, I realized I wasn’t in my bedroom with the sunlight peering through the curtains. I was in the driver’s seat of my Geo, parked in front of Mike’s house.

  “I wish you could answer that question for me,” I said, my voice sounding like I’d eaten four or five healthy toads.

  I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. My head throbbed and my body ached. I hadn’t been drinking or I’d have said I was supremely hungover. Somehow, I’d ended up unconscious in front of my ex-boyfriend’s house. The last memory I could drudge up was meeting Detective Colorado at Tatum’s house. I searched my brain but came up flat. Judging by the brightness of the sun, it was well after sunrise. Anything could have happened in that time. It was unlikely, however, that my meeting with Tatum had truly been the last thing that happened to me.

  “Why are you here?” he asked curtly.

  It took a minute to remember why he was talking to me like I’d shit in his Wheaties. I swallowed hard. “I have no idea.”

  “Then can you tell me why you were flailing around in here? I thought you were having a seizure.”

  Nope, just falling to my doom. Nothing to see here, just Dylan’s life as usual.

  “Why didn’t you just leave me here?” I said, low and mumbled, too pathetic for my own good.

  “Your spasms were honking the horn over and over again. The neighbors started to complain.” He picked up my arm and held it in front of my face. “And what in the hell is this?”

  A stark black tattoo glared at me from my pale arm. The marking was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Azelie’s chicken scratch had been more chicken-scratchy than my new ink, so it was safe to assume it wasn’t something voodoo-related. Honestly, I hoped it wasn’t and then lied to myself that I knew for sure it wasn’t. For the most part, I didn’t really know anything for sure. Except that eventually, I’d die. That, I could take to the bank.

  “I have no idea,” I said, inspecting the symbol.

  “You left me to go get a new tattoo?” His expression was sad and angry and hurt, all balled into one handsome, aging expression. “And an evil looking thing to boot.”

  “Ugh.” I let my head hit the lumpy headrest. “No, I didn’t leave you to get a tattoo. I’m telling you I have no idea where it came from, how it got there, and why the fuck I can’t remember any of it. I don’t even know why I’m here. I was asleep in my bed according to my last memory.” I didn’t want to tell him the rest. I trusted him to keep me alive, but I didn’t trust he wouldn’t lock me away in a tower to ensure that fact.

  “Are you on drugs?” he asked as though he didn’t know the answer already.

  I looked at him without moving my head. “Are you serious?”

  “I mean real drugs.”

  I closed my eyes. “Nope. Just those death-defying mystical hallucinogens.”

  “Dylan.” He paused for a long time, crouched by my open door. “I think it’s time you let me handle things.”

  “Ha!” I picked up my head. “Handle what? This isn’t a homicide case, Mike. This is shit I can’t even deal with. I thought I was the Scully of this team going into this mess, but I was wrong. I have slowly but surely Mulder-ed out. I went full Mulder!” My pop culture name-drop hit a chord when everything else I’d said for a week had gone over his head. “Even Scully got with the program eventually. Get with the fucking program, Dana.”

  “I meant handle you.” His voice was low and fatherly.

  My heart sank. He was already thinking about it. He was considering me as something that needed handling. Mental handling. “I’m fine, M
ike,” I squeaked, terrified of what he had in mind. “As fine as I can be in this whirlwind of shit. If you’re thinking I’ve gone off the deep end, stop it. The sooner you realize what’s really going on here, the sooner we can get to the bottom of things and get my ass out of the flames.”

  I could see him shake his head from the corner of my eye. His logical brain would have a hard time wrapping itself around the occult goings-on happening right under his nose. Even I had to give up on my stubborn sensibilities and give in to the truth, which had been carefully shoved up my ass.

  “I know you’re having a hard time. I talked to your mom–"

  “Fuck me running,” I groaned.

  “Seriously, we’re worried. More than worried, we’re –"

  The jingling of my phone cut him off in the nick of time as it rattled against the cheap plastic in my cup holder. I answered it hurriedly, not wanting to hear any more about how he and my naïve mother had plotted my committal in my absence.

  “Hello?” I answered, too excited to be on the phone at whatever likely ungodly hour it was.

  “Ms. Hart?” a deep, southern drawl asked from the other line.

  “Yes, Detective Colorado.” I let my eyes slide in Mike’s direction. He was at attention and leaned closer to my head to hear the other end of the call.

  “I’d like to meet up with you and your friend, Mr. Petersen this morning.” He referred to Mike as ‘mister’ for the second time since I’d met him.

  “It’s Detective,” I insisted, falsely proud. “I’ll get him on the line in a bit. Where’d you like to meet?”

  “I’m at the Days Inn near the airport. Let’s meet in the lobby café.” His cadence was slow and nearly lost my attention from the beginning of a sentence to its end.

  “Give me an hour?” I wanted more time, but I didn’t bother pressing my luck.