Kiss Her Goodbye: Thriller/Romance with a shocking twist

by Kirsten Mitchell

  KISS HER GOODBYE

  Kirsten Mitchell

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  Copyright © 2018 Kirsten Mitchell

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-7752415-0-8

  www.scary.love

  Cover design by Peter O’Connor

  Copy Editing by Eliza Kirby

  CHAPTER ONE

  Monday, September 23, 2019: 8:49 a.m.

  Bullies.

  Eight-year-old Brendan Floyd had mastered the single most important art of how to avoid them. And if avoiding them wasn’t possible, he’d also mastered perhaps the even more important ninja-like art of how to escape them.

  In his two years of being the target of elementary schoolyard thugs, he’d learned a boatload of tricks of how to keep himself un-beat up. Since he’d begged his mother, and she’d conceded, to let him make the four-block walk to school, he’d always taken the side paths, never the main road, to make sure he’d run into the least amount of people. Fewer problems that way. He’d also keep his mind occupied with a little prayer, but his eyes always scanned for playground predators because he didn’t quite trust his own prayers yet.

  But on his walk to school that particular Monday morning, it was not the bullies of which he needed to be afraid. It was something far more sinister.

  While he hummed a happy song and swung a long, floppy evergreen branch in front of him, as if he were a great wizard casting a spell upon the world, a dusty black van pulled up alongside him. The window rolled down. An elderly woman with long white cotton candy hair clutched the steering wheel. Crooked round pilot sunglasses sat low on the bridge of her nose and a purple and yellow flowery bathrobe hung loosely around her. A single bright pink roller dangled from the top of her hair. She must have forgotten to take it out that morning. Or maybe it had gotten so deeply tangled that she didn’t even bother struggling with it anymore. She watched Brendan wordlessly.

  Seconds of awkward silence ticked by, her van gliding slowly beside him. Brendan could smell her nasty B.O. pulsing at his nostrils.

  “Can I help you, lady?” he finally said.

  “Are you Brendan Floyd?” Her face was long. Serious. Deeply gouged with wrinkles and scars that barely moved when she spoke. Her van was tattooed with a thousand colorful angry bumper stickers. “Mia Floyd’s son?”

  “Yeah, who wants to know?” he said. Accidentally. Remembering, milliseconds too late, that you should never tell your name to strangers. His mom had always taught him this with the greatest of strictness. Especially now that he was walking to school alone. She was the type of annoying helicopter mom who overreacted about everything, and it made his eyes roll now to even think about it. But still he didn’t intend to betray the one solemn promise he’d given her to never, ever, ever tell anyone his name. Not even little old ladies.

  But without even thinking, he’d broken his promise like it had meant nothing.

  The car braked. The old woman opened her door and staggered out in one giant clumsy step. Was she drunk? Her wrinkled bare arm hooked out at him. She snatched him by the bicep. Her talon-like nails dug into him, mauling into his flesh. “Get in the van. Now.”

  “No!” He pulled his weight away from him. Her nails dug in harder and ground slits through the thin, tattered fabric. He struggled free from her grip, leaving her to hold air in her hands like an empty bag. Then he tossed one last annoyed look at the woman before jogging down the street. Toward his school. Toward salvation.

  The woman got back in her van. Bald tires whirled up stones as she screeched ahead and chugged behind him. Her bumper tapped warningly at his calves.

  What the hell is going on? Is this crazy old bat trying to run me over?

  Brendan veered off to a side dirt path blocked by three white cement poles. She could never fit her van in here. He jogged down the path to a playground surrounded by forest. Just as he turned back to wave his triumphant farewell to her, the van’s side door slid open and a man in black exploded out of it. He sprinted down the path after Brendan. Lungs screaming, brain reeling, Brendan turned and ran. His thighs lifted and slammed down again in a blur of blue jeans that carried him toward the safety of the school playground. But the barrage of the man’s feet on the dirt path right behind him was becoming all too much closer.

  The clouds shifted in the sky, casting an ominous shadow across Brendan’s path. In the distance, a raven’s croaks lilted.

  He realized the weight of his knapsack was holding him back. He would have to lose the thing. Brendan slunk out of it and threw it at the guy chasing him, hoping he would trip on it and, maybe, hopefully, bust open his face in the process. No such luck. He merely jumped over the knapsack like it was barely a puff of smoke in his way.

  What do these people even want from me?

  Brendan begged God to give him wings to make him fly away from this situation, as he unwillingly approached the playground where most of his dreaded bullies hung out.

  “Hey! Here comes sissy-pants Brendan, running like a crippled donkey!” The bullies’ taunting voices floated over the playground as he ran toward them, the spring of bark mulch propelling beneath his feet. He realized he must look like an epic idiot running directly into the kids who wanted to beat his ass, but he little other choice, as the alternative seemed far less appealing.

  Brendan looked over his shoulder and the man in black was still chasing. Getting closer. He now clutched a long dagger in his fist.

  Oh my God. This psycho wants to kill me.

  Brendan veered to the right, taking another path through the forest that curled around the playground. Upon making this decision, he realized how moronic it was. He was trapping himself between the forest and the fence that lined the property. Unless he could outrun this man to gain enough time to hide, he would never survive this stupid decision.

  Am I going to die?

  Spotting his big chance, he jumped off the main path and into a jungle of wet ferns off to the side. He rolled through them like he’d seen soldiers do in war movies. The ferns’ soft boughs crunched below his weight, exposing him and giving him far less privacy than he had been hoping for. He scrambled out on the other side into the thick of forest beyond, terror-stricken.

  He found refuge behind a looming boulder and clambered around it. His calves scratched against the jags and pooled streams of blood down into his socks. He heard the muffled sound of someone’s radio blaring oldies just beyond the fence. A low, oblivious belch reverberated from them. Probably some dude just chilling in his backyard, secretly enjoying a beer way too early in the morning. Hiding from a nagging wife, maybe. Brendan wanted to call out to him. Beg for rescue. But doing so would only attract the attention of the maniac chasing him.

  Through the clearing of the branches, Brendan saw the man striding down the path like a grizzly bear on a rampage. He skidded to a stop. He turned to face the direction Brendan was hiding. Brendan thrust back behind the rock.

  Did he see me?

  Slow crunching steps loomed closer to Brendan’s hiding spot.

  Screw it. This was just so beyond ridiculous.

  Brendan decided to yell out to the beer drinker for help. He gathered up t
he courage to do so. In one pathetic peep, his windpipe croaked. Nothing came out of him. His mouth too parched with panic. His cry a lost, tiny squeak. Like a mouse crushed into fragments by a steel trap. He wasn’t loud enough for the man on the other side of the fence to hear over his music.

  But plenty loud for the bad man, whose walking halted.

  He heard me.

  The school bell blared. Kids shrieked. Their feet scampered away into the building. They had no idea how lucky and safe they were right now. Brendan’s blood surged with a new sick, heavy feeling of dread. He was completely alone out here now. The psycho was closing in on him. The taste of vomit waxed hard against Brendan’s tonsils.

  A lone raven perched atop a sagging fir branch nearby. The branch bounced and bowed in the wind. The bird rolled its head to lock eyes on him. Poor stupid Brendan, the bird’s gleaming back eyes seemed to mock sympathy at him. It lazily flapped a wing, like it could care less. You shouldn’t have run into the forest, huh? Shouldn’t have told that old lady your name. Looks like you’re in a sea of shit now. Guess I’ll be pecking at your rotting corpse in about thirty seconds flat.

  No, you’re wrong, Brendan wanted to yell back at the bird. I am going to be fine. This is all just a big misunderstanding. They’ve got the wrong boy. I just need to find my opportunity and then run like hell. Someone will help me. They have to.

  Brendan heard the beer-drinking man snap off his radio and then head back into his house. He crunched his empty beer can and then slammed the screen door shut behind him.

  Nah, the bird thought back. You got no chance to escape, dude. You’re totes gonna die now.

  In an instant, the man was before him. A blade gleamed down from in his knuckles. A sneer distorted the chunks of his already hideous face. He rounded the boulder to get closer to Brendan. He smiled at him.

  “Been looking for you, boy,” he said. “You shouldn’t have run away on me like that. It’s not very polite, now, is it?”

  “Get away from me.” Brendan found his voice and clambered backward on his feet and palms, like a horrified crab. His fingertips dug into stones, slashing new wounds into him. His sneakers barely found traction against the wet, sloppy ground. He looked down and saw his hands were inside giant bear tracks. “What do you want from me, mister?”

  “Get in the van and I will tell you.” He lunged down and grabbed the hood of Brendan’s gray sweatshirt with one hand. With the other hand, he swung the giant blade above his head. “You’ve got exactly three seconds to cooperate. Or else it’s adios for you.”

  “No.” Brendan spun out of his grip, breaking away from him. He stared at the shimmering metal that hovered high above him. The sick grin splayed across the man’s face. Brendan pushed out a clangorous scream that undulated like shrieking little Halloween fireworks above the treetops. He finally found his voice.

  Too late.

  The raven shook his head with bored disgust before it bounced off the branch and glided into flight. See you in hell, kid, the lazy swing of his wings seemed to say, as it pulled itself up into the bright morning sky.

  The man thrust his foot upon Brendan’s chest, nailing him to the earth floor. Brendan clawed at the man’s calf, wildly kicked his legs up at him. Screams that felt like they belonged to someone else bellowed out of him.

  If only it was just the bullies Brendan had to deal with right now. He had been so innocent, so fucking stupid, to think they were the worst possible problem a kid could have.

  The blade caught a dazzling glint of sunlight, before it crashed down into him. His body shattered into a thousand shards of agony. His hands grabbed for the blade as the man drew it out. Brendan’s own blood glopped thick and sticky like hot pancake syrup into his hands.

  He looked up and watched the raven fly high above him. Circling. Wings wide apart. Its black silhouette encompassed by a camera lens of gloom that was closing in tightly around it. The bird let out one last sarcastic snicker from up high, then took off.

  The blade came down again.

  And everything evaporated into coldness.

  CHAPTER TWO

  FOUR YEARS LATER

  Friday, September 15, 2023: 8:36 a.m.

  The familiar stench of coffee, piss, and industrial-strength cleaner tickled at her nauseated stomach. Mia Floyd had had this wobbling sensation before. In fact, she’d had it for four years. This particular morning, it had started from the moment she woke up in her bed with the vague feeling that someone had been standing in her room watching her.

  The feeling had taken a deep turn of revulsion when she’d found another death note taped to her chest. This note had been worse than all the others she’d received.

  And now the feeling of dread she carried with her everywhere had blossomed into some kind of sick monstrosity that infected her body from the inside as she sat in an investigation room at the police station, explaining her situation to a cop who didn’t believe her.

  “Can I get you a coffee?” the cop seated across the table, Penelope Barter, said. Her forearms territorially claimed as much as the table surface as humanly possible. Her beige Canadian RCMP uniform capped with a navy shirt draped loosely on her small frame. Barter always half-heartedly offered Mia coffee every week, and every week Mia declined. Mia didn’t drink coffee; it tampered too much with her nerves, and she told Constable Barter so almost every time. Mia doubted a woman as astute as Constable Barter could forget a simple detail like that after four years of weekly repetition. She was sure the cop’s wobbly hospitality wasn’t meant as a deliberately rude gesture, but at the same time, Mia had no idea why Barter would feel the need to be so impolite to her.

  “Yeah, why not?” Mia said, not sure why she was deciding to be different today. “I would love a coffee, actually.”

  Barter raised her eyebrows at Mia as though not sure how to even respond to this change of pattern. But she remained firmly in her seat, not getting up to get the coffee. It was like a dance they’d had over the years, but Mia had now forgotten her steps and so they both just awkwardly watched each other as the symbolic music marched on without them.

  “Any reason why you didn’t bother to get dressed today, Mia?” Constable Barter pierced the silence and changed the subject.

  Mia touched her hands protectively to her chest. She had rushed to the police station that morning with a death threat in hand, straight after getting out of bed. She was still wearing her pink pajamas under her beige trench coat, her long dark hair swept back in a precarious bun. She must have looked like one hell of a hot mess, but she hadn’t seen a mirror since waking so she wasn’t sure exactly how bad it was.

  “I haven’t been feeling well lately,” Mia said.

  Barter nodded and wrote something in her notepad.

  Mia hid the note in her palm, her heart hammering, not sure if she even wanted to show to the cop what she had received this morning on her pillow when she woke. The last time she had shown her a note she’d received, Barter had taken it away with a weird suspicious smirk and then tucked it in her police file. There had been no further discussion about it. After a moment of pained hesitation, Mia thought better of it and tucked the note back in her purse.

  “What you got there?” Barter’s smile faded and her gaze followed Mia’s fist as it plunged into her purse. “Something you wanted to show me?”

  “Just a shopping list. I have to remember to pick up cat food,” Mia blurted as the sting of anxiety pricked her cheeks. She didn’t even have a cat. What if the police were investigating her and knew that about her already?

  “Yeah?” Barter said. “That’s nice. What’s your cat’s name?”

  Was it a crime to lie to the police about having a cat?

  Mia gulped, “Um, Boris…”

  Barter nodded again and looked back at what she had scribbled in her notepad, barely interested. “Mia…I wanted to talk to you about something,” she said. Her perfectly executed blond bob, as always, jiggled like overcooked noodles when she spoke. “H
ave you ever noticed something unusual about these notes you’ve been receiving upon waking up over the years?”

  “You mean the fact that I find them taped to my chest?” Mia said. They hadn’t always been death threats. Some of the notes had been weird observations, cruel back-handed compliments. Disturbing, nonetheless. It had only been recently that the notes had become more sinister in nature.

  “Not only that.” Barter took her pen scribbled again mindlessly. “Something more…shall we say, coincidental.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” Mia said. “Is there something you have discovered in my case? Did you find clues about where Brendan is?”

  “No.” Barter’s notepad scribbling picked up in ferocity. “But back to the subject of your death threats. I’m no handwriting expert. But when I compare the handwriting in the notes to your own handwriting, I have discovered something…peculiar.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Mia said. Peculiar was a great word. It meant Barter cared enough to be perplexed by something. Until now, she’d had no idea the cop even cared about the notes. She’d always had the vague feeling she’d dismissed them as not relevant to Brendan’s disappearance. “Did the handwriting analyst figure out who’s been writing them? Is it a criminal you have on file already?”

  “Not exactly,” Constable Barter said. “Actually, after my discovery, I shared the samples with a handwriting analyst.” She placed her pen down on her notepad with finality and pressed her eye contact with Mia’s. “The handwriting analyst’s report says the handwriting looks identical to yours.”

  Mia blinked.

  “Almost one hundred percent identical to your own handwriting, Mia,” Barter said. “And the only fingerprints found on them is yours too.”

  “What…” Nausea danced up her throat. “Why would I write myself death threats?”

  Barter regarded Mia with the superiority of a zoologist analyzing a diseased and neurotic hyena. She picked up her pen again and scribbled some more judgmental words on her notepad with a smirk that made Mia want to lunge across the table and grab the pad to see what she was writing. But she remained with hands firmly and obediently clasped in her lap.