My Love Eternal

by Liz Strange

  I tried to laugh it off because there was no way I could make someone else understand something I couldn’t understand myself. “Maybe, I guess. More like he was lost, and was being nice?” It sounded lame, even to me.

  “Jeez, girl. You are so out of it you don’t even know when someone’s making a pass at you any more.” She drank the last of her tea, and slammed her cup down with a dramatic bang. “That’s it. We are going shopping. We’re finding you something sexy, and you’re coming to the club tonight. I won’t take no for an answer. Maybe we’ll even get you laid.”

  Inwardly, I groaned. Every time I went to the club with Shannon, I alternated between standing by myself or fighting off her drunken rejects. She was the light all males swarmed to by instinct. Sometimes there were a few other female friends I could latch onto, but I had a feeling that tonight would not be one of those lucky times. I let myself be dragged from store to store, bought an outrageously expensive pair of shoes that killed my feet, and a dress that barely covered me from chest to crotch.

  After much primping, flat-ironing, and excessive coats of makeup, Shannon deemed me worthy of breaking hearts. She was gorgeous in leather pants that fit like a second skin and showed off her mile-long legs. Her red halter-top and dark hair complemented her light complexion. I had to admit, she had done an awesome job with my appearance too. My large blue eyes popped against my fair complexion, and my dyed-red hair was smooth and shiny. Even the shade of lipstick she chose was perfect.

  We got to the place before it opened, and I was allowed an hour to myself in her office while she went through the opening procedures. For all her faults, Shannon was an excellent manager. She always had hot bands, a full house, and the place made good money. Shannon slipped in a few minutes later, and placed a rye and ginger before me, with strict orders to drink it. What the hell, why not?

  When the music thundered on, I wandered out to the main bar, grabbed a stool and ordered another drink. Another perk of Shannon managing the place was that I never had to pay. Shannon flitted back and forth while I chatted with the bartenders— one a life-sized version of Barbie, and one body-builder, who was short but definitely in shape. I couldn’t remember his name though he had worked there for quite some time.

  I spotted a girl I knew from the hospital, at about the same time I had apparently been spotted myself. The guy heading in my direction had obviously been drinking for quite a while— and hard. He lumbered up to the bar, squeezing between me and the guy on the stool next to me. He had that blurry-eyed look of someone one drink past the point of where he should have stopped, and smelled hot and very male. I tried to make eye contact with the male bartender, but he was busy flirting with a cute brunette at the other end of the bar.

  “Hey, wanna dance?” His words were slurred and he leant in way too close for my liking. I was not a touchy person by nature, especially with drunken men who only wanted to get in my pants.

  “No, thanks. It’s against my religion.”

  He took a swig from the beer in his one hand, and made a grab for my arm with the other. “C’mon.” Then he gave me what I guessed he thought was a sexy look.

  I pulled my arm back. “I said no thanks,” I returned with the dirtiest look I could muster.

  He frowned, looking at me with his bleary eyes. “Whatever.” As he sauntered away, he managed to spill his beer down the front of my new dress.

  I jumped up in disgust, but the crowd had already swallowed him. I made my way to the ladies’ room, cursing my existence the entire way. As I hastily walked by a set of booths closest to the washroom, my gaze was drawn to a man on his own. He stood casually next to a table full of rowdy girls, barely past the legal drinking age. The four of them were checking him out, all the while hilariously trying to seem as though they weren’t. Just as I was about to pass, I realised who the object of their attention was— the stranger from the hospital.

  My heart jumped and the alcohol I’d consumed lurched in my stomach. I remembered the conversation I’d had with Allen, and the four deaths, and still found myself walking in his direction. I wanted to confront him, but about what? The words played out in my mind, Hello weird, gorgeous guy, who may or may not have been hitting on me. Did you come to the hospital last night to kill four seriously sick or injured persons, then casually wander away to chat me up? What was it I should ask him?

  “Hello again.” That curious, and indiscernible accent again. As soon as the words came out of his mouth, my resolve faltered. He looked harmless. Wonderful actually.

  “Hello.”

  “Having some trouble?” He indicated in the direction of the bar.

  I looked down at my dress and shrugged. “About par for course. Are you here alone?”

  “I told you I was new in town.”

  “That you did.”

  “And you? Certainly a girl like you is not alone.” His seemed to be teasing, but I couldn’t be certain.

  I looked around, but Shannon was nowhere to be seen. “I’m here with my roommate. She’s the manager and drags me here sometimes.”

  “Not your cup of tea?”

  We looked at each other and that strange mixture of feelings tugged at me again— fear, desire and lustful anxiety. God he was lovely, but it was something more than that, something dark.

  He leant in close and his lips brushed my ear when he spoke. “Maybe you should head home then.” His presence stirred something warm in the lower regions of my anatomy. He took my arm and we started to walk from the bar. I should have ripped my arm out of his grasp, but again he was not doing anything that could be construed as threatening. How he could be influencing me I was not sure, and at that moment I wasn’t sure I cared.

  As we neared the door, we passed Shannon, who was talking to one of her employees. Instead of approaching, she gave me the thumbs up, surmising I’d scored. She mouthed “Wow” then we were outside. The night whispered gently, but still had a bite of cool autumn air. We took a few steps from the club, and it was as though I was watching what was happening from outside my body. I wasn’t drunk by any stretch, but I felt so out of it. He was just smiling, and holding my arm lightly in a way most men didn’t anymore. I wasn’t even bothered by the dampness of my dress against my skin.

  He turned to face me then, and noticed for the first time that he wasn’t very tall, maybe five foot eight or nine, and slim, but in a solid, masculine way. Dressed in jeans, and a dark t-shirt, the whiteness of his arms caught in the moonlight. My breathing was very loud, almost louder than the music from the club. Tainted Love was playing inside, and the sound hovered just on the edge of my awareness. I could smell the sweetness of the rain though it wasn’t falling, and tasted liquor on my tongue. My body throbbed to the tempo of the music, or my heart, and I couldn’t be sure which. I was warm though the air was cool, and more aware of the night than I had ever been before.

  Slowly, he moved in toward me, and I was paralysed. He was so close I thought he would kiss me, but instead he spoke with that soft, seductive voice of his. “You are so beautiful. I have thought of no one else since I saw you last night.” His hand slid up my arm, and into my hair. His lips were soft against my throat. I’d never been so aroused in my life. I was trembling and hungry for his body.

  He hesitated, then looked me in the eyes once more. “It’s like I can feel you in my head. I will see you again. You have touched me… but I’m conflicted. I should just leave you alone, yet I don’t seem to want to. I’ll be watching.” Then his lips brushed against mine, the night swirled, and there was nothing else but his touch. I swayed and closed my eyes against the dizziness.

  When I opened my eyes, he was gone.

  Chapter 2

  “You are so beautiful. Your vision haunts me, I have thought of no one else since I first saw you last night. I will see you again. You have touched me… and I’ll be watching.”

  The next few days passed in a haze. Every time I closed my eyes I saw his face, and my mind slipped off to replay his words
over and over again.

  What the hell were those words supposed to mean? Why did I find them appealing, even flattering, instead of disturbing? I checked in with Allen on a few occasions, but the stranger was never seen around the hospital again.

  I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I analysed every word, every gesture, which played in my mind in vivid, Technicolor perfection. I was obsessing about the situation, but I couldn’t stop myself. The whole exchange probably didn’t last more than five minutes, but it was the most intense experience I had ever had. The more I thought about it, the more impossible it seemed, and yet the more certain I was it had happened. I didn’t even know his name.

  When at work I busied myself at the computer, but often stared off into space, sometimes for as long as fifteen minutes. More than once, when I returned to reality, I found the new girl looking at me with the strangest expression on her face. She must have thought that I was the biggest ditz, or that I’d been smoking something funny before coming to work. I surmised by her demeanour that we wouldn’t become chums any time soon.

  One night, while logging patient death record statistics, I encountered a statement in one that I had never seen before. It was from the file of a forty-two-year-old male cancer victim, who had passed a few weeks earlier. Near the bottom of the report was this odd statement: Blood volume less than three litres. No discernible cause of blood loss. Then, later on, Cause of Death: advanced pancreatic cancer.

  I wasn’t a doctor, but those two statements didn’t seem to add up. For some reason that turned a light bulb on, rattling loose some uneasiness inside of me. I quickly flipped back to the front page of the report and looked for the date: October 15. Interesting. That was the night I met my mystery man, and four patients died at the hospital. I would bet money this man was one of the four.

  After that first report, I found two more with the same date, and similar notations about inexplicable blood loss. I bet the fourth was in the pile beside my fellow employee, but I couldn’t think of a casual way of getting the information from her. She already thought I was strange, and I didn’t want to push it. I’d have to sneak a look when she went for her break later.

  This new information tickled at a suspicion I was trying to convince myself could not possibly be true. I chewed on it the rest of the night, making little headway with the remaining reports on my desk.

  As my mind ran through endless streams of what-ifs, the feeling I had been pushing aside churned up again. I tried to block out his face, his words, but the memories were too intense to ignore.

  “I’m taking my break now, Rachel,” Elinor said, making me realise my mind had wandered again. She was standing right beside my desk when I looked up, clearly annoyed, but I couldn’t blame her. I was acting like a flake. Get a grip, Rachel.

  “Right. Guess it’s about that time.” I tried to sound cheery, which was difficult to do with my mind racing as it was.

  “Uh-huh.” She left me alone. It took everything in me not to stick my tongue out at her receding figure. I waited a few minutes to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything then jumped from my chair. I rifled through the pile of papers on her desk until I found what I was looking for. The fourth report, and unsurprisingly, there was mention of blood loss. I put the paper back where I found it, and sat back at my own desk. It couldn’t mean what I thought it did, could it?

  On my way out that night, I saw a man with dark hair hurrying to the parking lot ahead of me. My heart skipped a beat. I stormed up to him, intending to demand an explanation for what kind of game he was playing. Instead of the stranger, I found another man before me, and I departed quickly after a mumbled, embarrassed apology. The experience left me shaken, confused and angry.

  After that night, it became almost impossible to sleep. Even when the house was quiet, and I was physically exhausted, I would toss and turn with the strangest thoughts churning through my mind. I was restless and uncontrollably anxious. My encounters with this stranger had changed everything. My perception of the world had shifted and, for the first time in my life, the blinders were off and I could see how things really were. Everything I had once held dear now seemed pointless. I knew I was wasting time, wasting myself when fate was calling.

  Shannon was somehow being pushed aside in all this. She knew something was going on, and I saw the concern in her face, but I could do or say nothing. I wanted to let her know I was okay, but some part of me knew what I was going through was for me and me alone. I had become detached from everything except uncovering the truth.

  On my way home from work one morning, about a week after discovering the reports, another odd experience occurred. I was reliving the look in his eyes that night in front of the club, where the lights were a halo behind his dark mane of hair. Softly, rain started to fall on the windshield, and I smiled as I rolled down the window. I inhaled, feeling the smell of it not only fill my lungs, but triggering a memory.

  “I’ll be watching… ”

  I shivered, not from cold, but from the sense of anticipation. I felt his hands like feathers across the skin on my arms, my neck.

  Then abruptly the scene changed. One moment it was the dark road in front of me, and the next I was in a completely different place. I stood in a driveway or an alley across the street from a silent house. The morning was still dark, a few hours from sunrise. As the rain touched my skin, I looked up into the sky with eyes that were not my own.

  A strange longing and excitement coursed through me, something I couldn’t quite understand. My body tensed, my senses sharp and alert. Then someone appeared in my line of sight. A young man was walking home alone. He started up a drive and, for just a moment, he hesitated, as though he understood what was about to happen. He turned away, reaching into his pocket for his keys. Before he even had a chance to pull his hand free, I was there. The movement was unbelievably quick, like a crack of lightning. One moment I was in the shadows, the next I held the frightened, bewildered man in my hands.

  The look on his face was something I could never forget. His eyes revealed his terror, staring wildly. His mouth opened in a wide “O” of surprise. He didn’t utter a sound, but his heart pounded like a jackhammer. He didn’t struggle, or speak. He just stared in astonishment, body locked in complete and total fear. I moved my face closer, drunk on his terror. When we were close enough to kiss, there was a moment of recognition reflected from his eyes.

  It wasn’t me looking back, it was him. It wasn’t the face of the angel I had come to adore looking back out at me. It was the face of a monster. His beautiful features were twisted up with pain and longing. For the briefest moment, I saw the comprehension. I knew he was aware of what I was somehow witnessing. I saw a smile cross his bloody face, and a shiver rode my body from feet to head.

  Then as quickly as the vision came, it was gone. I pulled haphazardly off to the side of the road, my hands clenched around the steering wheel. My body ached in a way I could not identify. I wasn’t in pain. More like intense hunger. My panties were damp and warm between my legs. What the hell was happening to me? My head ached from trying to understand what was going on.

  As I shifted the car into drive I had a chilling thought. Though I was shaken, I was surprisingly not frightened or upset by what I had just seen. What the heck did that mean?

  By the time I arrived home, it was almost four-thirty in the morning and the house was full of people. A few lurked on the front step, bottles in hand as I pulled into the driveway. As I entered the house, I spied a pile of coats and shoes in the hallway. People were drinking and smoking everywhere I looked, and music filled the small condo. A scowl pulled at my features as I wound my way through the throng of drunken partiers, angrier with Shannon than I had ever been for this kind of thing.

  I found her in the third bedroom of the condo that had been converted into an office guest room. A folding table had been set up, and she was playing cards with a bunch of unfamiliar people. She smiled when she saw me in the doorway, waving me into the
already crowded room.

  I leant over her and spoke loudly into her ear, to be heard over the music. “What’s going on? Why are there so many people here?”

  She looked surprised at the sound of anger in my voice. “I thought a little party would cheer you up. You’ve been such a bitch lately.”

  “I’m not being a bitch, Shannon. I’ve been going through some stuff. I have things to figure out that you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Relax. What’s got your panties in a bunch tonight? You never get mad when I have people over.”

  “I’m tired, I have things to think about, and coming home to a hundred obnoxious, drunk assholes doesn’t help my mood.”

  Shannon rolled her lovely eyes at me, and laid a card on the table. “Have it your way. Be miserable if you want to be, but these people are here now, so you may as well make the best of it. They’ll clear out soon, and you can be mad at me tomorrow.”

  Jesus, she didn’t get anything. Nothing was serious to her. It was all parties, drinking and shopping, like there wasn’t a care in the world. It was just more proof that she couldn’t understand me. Who could I talk to about this?

  I left Shannon to her cards, and wandered from room to room, trying to find a semi-quiet place to sit. There was no chance I was going to fall asleep. I didn’t even bother trying to lie down and I couldn’t shake the eerie feeling from the vision— or dream— I’d had earlier. I finally wandered out to the front, which was by then thankfully deserted. I sat on the cold step, taking deep breaths of damp air.

  Not even five minutes later a police car made its way around the corner of our street, moving slowly until it stopped before our unit. I should have known someone would call the police with the noise and the people coming and going. I was going to kill Shannon for making me deal with this.

  I stood as one of the officers emerged from the car and walked to the front door. “Do you live here?”