The Arborist

by P. T. Phronk

  Stan nodded.

  “A-sap,” she said, then giggled a dreamy, girlish giggle.

  “Okay,” said Stan. It was his turn to shiver.

  He held the door for her to enter the bar. She curtsied as she passed.

  Bar None was busy for a Monday. It was full of the usual: a couple grabbing a late-night snack, a smattering of young hipsters, and a few frat boys getting wasted on cheap drinks at the bar. The angry-faced bartender nodded at Stan from in front of the mirrored wall of liqueurs. Stan waved. The bartender winked when he saw the woman.

  The woman—Stan realized he still didn’t know her name—took a look around, then hurried to the back of the bar. She sidled into a booth, and drummed her fingers on the tabletop. Stan sat across from her.

  “I haven’t caught your name,” he said.

  “Dalla,” she said. She continued to tap her fingers. Her gaze flicked from the front door, to the ceiling, to the bar, to the back door.

  “Are you all right?” asked Stan.

  “I don’t like public places.” She took a deep breath, then turned to Stan.

  Dalla was pretty in the same way that Bloody was cute. Her stunning blue—nearly gray—eyes were too big for her face. Her bulb-tipped nose didn’t go with her pointed cheekbones. Her lips formed a tight, thin gash on her face. Still, the overall package wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Stan had slept with worse.

  “Dalla. Let me get you a drink.” He started to stand.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t drink alcohol.” She pulled an envelope and a pen from a beaded purse.

  “Wait, first, tell me what happened. What happened to the couple you ran over? I know, I know, it must be difficult to talk about, but it’s been eating at me since that day,”

  For the first time since entering the bar, her thin lips curled into a smile. “Oh, them? No don’t fret, it’s nothing, they’re fine.” She swished her hand back and forth. “Just peachy. Walked away with barely a scratch.”

  “But I saw—” The bartender arrived beside their table.

  “Stan,” said the wiry red-haired man. “What’s the what my friend?”

  “Just keepin’ on keepin’ on,” said Stan as he shook the man’s hand. He introduced Dalla, then ordered a gin and tonic. The thought of more beer made him queasy.

  “Oh, a drink you say?” said Dalla when he asked her what she wanted. “Bring me a soda; Coca Cola, I suppose.”

  When the bartender left, Stan leaned over the table.

  “I saw blood,” he whispered sternly. “And do you know who those people were?”

  She broke into a grin. “David Letterman. It was an absolute delight to meet him; nicest fellow you could imagine. The young woman he was with, well, I wasn’t as fond of her. I’m sure you’re aware of who she was? So you can understand why he’s chosen to keep the whole bang-up hush-hush?”

  Stan thought about it for a moment. It was plausible enough, but he couldn’t shake the memory of that lifeless hand flopped beside the car.

  “Poor man is still quite rattled, I imagine,” she said with some concern, though the corners of her lips remained curled. “Won’t be able to host the show for a short while.”

  Whether Letterman was alive or dead was of no real consequence. Well, unless Stan could sell the last pictures of him alive. Come to think of it, maybe he could do it all anonymously. Go through the back channels. It wouldn’t net as much cash, but anything would be better than living off of cold pizza in his cold apartment.

  Dalla stared at him while he was lost in his own thoughts. She licked her thin lips. Stan shivered. He wasn’t sure if he was more disturbed by the woman, or his own horrible thought process.

  The drinks arrived. Stan downed half of his gin and tonic in one gulp. Dalla stirred her Coke with the straw.

  “Dammit,” said Stan. “I’ve got questions, but this is just … it’s too fucked up. Just give me those papers.”

  She handed over the envelope. He took out half a dozen pages of dense text.

  “It says that myself and the law are absolving you of any responsibility in the crash. I can’t collect insurance without it. The second part absolves me of any responsibility for damage to your car.”

  “Wait a second,” said Stan. “Shouldn’t you be paying for my broken tail light? And,” he rolled his head around on his shoulders. “My neck still hurts. I might have some hefty medical bills, lady.”

  She stared at him with those icy eyes. “Do we really want to have to go through all that?”

  No. No of course not, he supposed, it was more trouble than it was worth.

  Those eyes continued to glow in the corner of his vision as he read the papers. They followed his finger, moving back and forth across the page, as she stirred her drink.

  “You need to read every detail.” She sounded curious, rather than angry.

  “Suppose I do.”

  She smiled, nodded. Damn. Maybe it was the gin talking, but if this whole situation wasn’t so bizarre, she really would be pretty.

  After Stan signed the forms, he motioned to the bartender. Dalla rummaged through her purse, digging for change to hand to the bartender one coin at a time. She pulled out a keychain and placed it on the table. A plastic fob—a mini picture frame—hung from the keychain. In the frame was a picture of Damien Fox, topless.

  When the bartender had left, Stan gestured at the picture. “Hah, big Damien Fox fan are you?”

  “Oh, him? Well, yes. I suppose I am embarrassed, that you have pointed that out.” It was impossible to tell if she was blushing, with her cheeks already red. She laughed a high-pitched girlish giggle.

  “Nothing to be embarrassed about. He’s been People’s sexiest man alive three years in a row, so you’re in good company. Heck, I used to have a poster of Jessica Alba in my bedroom. I think I was in love. You know, before she got all pregnant and motherly.”

  She smiled. For once she seemed to be genuinely amused. She leaned close, over the table, as if she had a secret. Stan was beginning to suspect that she had many.

  “I know something about Damien Fox,” she said. She leaned back, a finger to her mouth, smirking.

  Stan leaned forward. “What?”

  “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

  He crossed his fingers and held them up. “Promise.”

  She giggled. “Honey, it’s hard to believe that a professional paparazzi won’t tell.”

  “How did you kn—”

  “I know lots of things.” She sighed. “I’ll tell you anyway, because …” She stirred her drink around more. She still hadn’t taken a sip of it. “… because you seem sweet.”

  Stan felt his face get hot. He adjusted his glasses. He hadn’t had a compliment from a woman in months. Years, maybe.

  “You know how Hillary Miller disappeared after that greatest hits album?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Stan. “But what does that have to do w—”

  Dalla held up her hand. Stan shut his mouth.

  “Everybody’s talking, saying she holed herself up in a cabin in the woods to focus on her music. Work on her big comeback.

  “Well,” she said with a mischievous grin, “everyone is wrong. She’s holed up, sure, but only because she got knocked up. By Damien Fox.”

  “She’s pregnant?”

  “All P.G.”

  “Why would she hide that?”

  “To avoid people like you. This is Damien’s child, and Miller is a fine specimen of a young lady too, I suppose. You could say. Can you imagine how beautiful that child is going to be?” She fanned herself with the envelope full of forms. An ice cube in her untouched drink crackled. “You media folks would kill for a piece of it, wouldn’t you? They won’t be able to take the child to swim class without a swarm of photographers buzzing behind them.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Got myself a computer a few weeks ago. Did you know, on the world wide web, there are entire communities devoted to Damien Fox? Communitiesss,�
�� she hissed. “More than one. Hundreds of people gathering for no other purpose than to discuss his every move. Found the address of one of Damien’s acting buddies, so I gave him a visit. He ended up spilling the beans. I can be quite convincing.”

  “I noticed. So where is the happy couple holed up then?” Stan could practically hear the cha-ching of the cash he could net if she were telling the truth.

  She lowered her head and out came that disconcerting giggle. “Doozy of a question, Stanley Lightfoot. That is not something he told even his closest friends.”

  “Convenient,” he said. He forced out a chuckle. “Well lady, it’s quite the story, but I gotta get some sleep.” He stood to leave.

  Dalla was on her feet. “You don’t believe me,” she said, glaring at him with those eyes.

  “Doesn’t matter if I do or not,” he said, but already he was trying to remember how much signed Damien Fox merch went for on eBay. Just in case.

  He waved goodbye to the bartender, then walked away. Dalla followed silently, close behind him. He swore he could feel her breath on the back of his neck. He zipped up his coat, then crossed the street to the door of his apartment building. When he turned around, Dalla was inches from his face. Her eyes bored into him. Her tongue caressed her thin lips.

  “Invite me up for a cup of tea?”

  Every fibre of Stan’s being told him to call it a night, go to bed, and never see the bizarre woman again. Every fibre except the ones in his penis.

  “Okay,” he said.

  He paused outside his apartment. He could hear Bloody sniffing at the other side of the door.

  “It’s kind of a mess in there.”

  “Oh!” she said. “Oh, no worries, hun. I can’t very well judge you; you’ve already outed me as a crazy ninny who obsesses over a celebrity.”

  “Guess we’re not so different then. Hey thanks for telling me all that, even though you already knew, you know, what I do for a living.”

  He got out his keys. His hands were shaking. He hadn’t been with a woman in a long time, and she seemed to be—what? Flirting? He couldn’t really be sure what was going on in her head.

  She smiled at him. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, tried to smile back, then turned to unlock the door. It took a few tries to get the trembling key in the lock. “You know, I wasn’t sure what to make of you at first,” he babbled. “Kinda thought you might even be, you know, dangerous.”

  “Oh, honey,” she said, her breath on his neck. “Dangerous doesn’t even begin to describe me.”

  He turned his head. Those eyes, those lips, they were inches from his.

  Suddenly, she tossed her purse halfway down the hallway.

  “Why did you—” he began.

  “It’s Michael Kors. Don’t want to get blood on it.”

  Her teeth were buried in the side of his neck. A trickle of heat ran down the back of his shirt.

  As he fell into her grip, he kicked against the door to throw her off balance. Instead, the door swung open. Bloody was a streak of grayish fur, then she clamped on the woman’s leg.

  “Get her,” he said weakly. He felt weak, his muscles refusing to work, as if he’d just woken from a long nap.

  Dalla unclenched her jaw and pulled away, her mouth dripping with blood that looked black in the flickering blue light. A quartet of fangs, two in the top and two in the bottom, occupied most of her mouth.

  She stooped to wrench Bloody from her leg. When her grip momentarily weakened, Stan toppled forward, then scrambled into his apartment. “C’mon, Bloody, c’mon,” he mumbled.

  She tossed the dog against the wall. Bloody yelped in pain and hit the floor with a thud. Dalla made to stomp on her with an ugly purple high-heeled shoe, but Bloody sprung to her feet. She deked one way, then the other, avoiding the foot coming down on her. A gray streak again, she was between Dalla’s legs then in the apartment.

  Stan slammed the door. He flicked the deadbolt and fastened the chain. Gripping his stinging neck, he stumbled across the apartment, collapsed on the couch, and reached for the phone beside it. His arms felt incredibly heavy.

  He had time to dial 9 before the door was kicked in. He rolled off the couch just in time to avoid the door, torn from its hinges, crashing down half on the couch, half on the table beside it. There was a faint bong from underneath as the telephone smashed to pieces.

  Bloody ran to cower by Stan’s side. Silhouetted by the fluorescent hall lights, Stan’s blackish blood splattered down the front of her flowery dress, the vampire crouched, hissing like an animal.

  END OF PREVIEW

  The full novel is available in most online stores, or here:

  http://forestcitypulp.com/books/stars-and-other-monsters-by-phronk/