Cause to Fear

by Pierce, Blake

  With this thought in his head, he filled his apartment with a witch-like cackle. Giving the hamster one final look, he walked into his bedroom. It was quite tidy, as was the adjoining bathroom. He went into the bathroom and washed his hands with the efficiency of a surgeon. He then looked into the mirror and stared at his face—a face he sometimes thought of as a monster.

  There was irreparable damage on the left side of his face. It started just below his eye and reached down to his bottom lip. While most of the skin and tissue had been salvaged in his youth, there was permanent scarring and discoloring on that side of his face. His mouth always seemed to be frozen in a permanent scowl as well.

  At thirty-nine years of age, he had stopped caring about just how bad it looked. It was the hand he had been dealt. A shitty mother had resulted in a disfigured mess. But that was okay…he was working on fixing it. He looked to the mangled reflection in the mirror and smiled. It could take years to figure it out, but that was okay.

  “Hamsters are only five bucks apiece,” he said to the empty bathroom. “And those pretty college coeds are a dime a dozen.”

  He had done some reading, mainly in the forums of practicing nurses and med students. He figured if the experiment with the hamster was going to work, the heating pads needed to be on it for about forty minutes. It would be a slow thaw, one that would not too badly disrupt or shock the frozen heart.

  He spent that forty minutes watching the news. He caught a few quick blips about Patty Dearborne. He learned that Patty was attending BU with aspirations of becoming a counselor. She’d had a boyfriend and currently had loving parents mourning her. He saw the parents on TV, hugging and crying together while speaking to the media.

  He cut the TV off and walked into the kitchen. The smell of the thawing hamster was starting to fill the room…a smell he had not been expecting. He ran to the little body and threw the heating pads off of it.

  The fur was singed and the previously frozen belly was slightly charred. He swiped the tiny furry body away. When it plopped onto the kitchen floor with little trails of smoke wafting from its hide, he screamed.

  He stormed around the apartment for a while, furious. As was usually the case, his anger and absolute rage were driven by memories of an oven burner…blazing in his memories of childhood with the smell of burned flesh.

  His screams downgraded to pouting and sobbing within five minutes. Then, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, he went into the kitchen and picked up the hamster. He tossed it into the garbage as if it were just a piece of trash and washed his hands at the kitchen sink.

  He was humming by the time he was done. When he took his keys from the hook by the door, he habitually ran his free hand along the scarring along the left side of his face. He closed the door, locked up, and went down to the street. There, in the midst of an absolutely beautiful winter morning, he got into his red van and started down the road.

  Almost casually, he glanced at himself in the rearview mirror.

  That permanent scowl was still there, but he did not let that deter him.

  He had work to do.

  ***

  Sophie Lentz was done with this frat shit. For that matter, she was just about done with this college shit, too.

  Vain or not, she knew how she looked. There were girls who were prettier than her, sure. But she had the Latin thing going for her, the dark eyes and raven black hair. She could also turn the accent on and off when she needed to. She’d been born in America, raised in Arizona, but according to her mother, the Latin had never left her. The Latin had never left her parents, either…not even when they had moved to New York the week after Sophie had been accepted into Emerson.

  It was most apparent in her looks rather than her attitude and personality, though. And man, had that worked for her in Arizona. Honestly, it had worked for her in college, too. But only for her freshman year. She’d experimented then but not as badly as her mother was probably thinking. And apparently, word had gotten out: Sophie Lentz didn’t take much prodding to get into bed and when she did land in your bed, buckle up because she was a firecracker.

  She supposed there were worse reputations to have. But it had blown up in her face tonight. Some guy—she thought his name was Kevin—had started kissing her and she had let him. But when they were alone and he refused to take no for an answer…

  Sophie’s right hand still hurt. There was also still a bit of blood on her knuckle. She wiped it away on her tight jeans, recalling the sound of the asshole’s nose crunching against her fist. She was furious but, deep down, wondered if she sort of deserved it. She did not believe in karma but maybe the part of the vixen she had played last semester was catching up to her. Maybe she was reaping what she had sown.

  She walked down the streets that cut through Emerson College, heading back to her apartment. Her goodie-goodie roommate would no doubt be studying for some test tomorrow, so at least she wouldn’t be alone.

  She was three blocks away from her apartment when she started to feel a strange sort of sensation. She looked behind her, sure that she was being followed, but there was no one. She could see the shapes of people in a little coffee bar a few feet behind her, but that was it. She had a fleeting irritated thought about what kind of morons drank coffee at 11:30 at night before she started on, still fuming over Kevin or whatever the guy’s name had been.

  Up ahead at a stoplight, someone was blaring some terrible hip-hop. The car’s back bumper was rattling and the bass sounded wretched. You’re really being a bitch tonight, aren’t you, slugger? she said to herself.

  She looked to her slightly swollen right hand and grinned. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  By the time she reached the intersection where the booming car had been, the light had changed and the car raced off. She turned right at the intersection and her apartment building came into view. Again, though, she felt that creeping sensation. She turned to look behind her and again, nothing was there. A bit further down the street a couple was walking hand in hand. There were several cars parked along the street and a single red van driving down toward the stoplight she had just passed.

  Maybe she was just being paranoid because some loser had basically tried to rape her. That plus the adrenaline that was flowing through her was an unhealthy combination. She just needed to get home, wash up, and get to bed. This partying crap had to stop.

  She neared her apartment, really hoping her roommate wasn’t home. She’d be asking tons of questions about why she was home early. She did it because she was nosy and didn’t have a life of her own…not because she actually cared.

  She made her way up the steps to the building. When she opened the door and stepped inside, she looked back down the street, feeling that sensation of being watched once again. The streets were empty, though; the only thing she saw was a couple making out furiously against the side of an apartment building three doors down. She also saw that same red van. It was parked at the stoplight, just sort of idling there. Sophie wondered if there was some horny dude driving it, watching the make-out session against the apartment building.

  With a case of the creeps, Sophie headed inside. The door closed, leaving the night behind her. But that unsettling feeling remained.

  ***

  She woke up when her roommate left the next morning. The noisy bitch was probably on her way out to get more mangoes or papayas for her pretentious fruit smoothies. Sophie was pretty sure her roommate had no classes this early today. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was 10:30.

  Crap, she thought. She had class in an hour and there was no way she’d make it on time. She had to shower, throw some breakfast together, and then get to campus. She groaned, wondering how she’d let herself become this sort of girl. Was she going to be the tease now? Was she going to let her personal drama get in the way of her education and bettering her life? Was she—

  A knock at the front door broke her out of her internal reflection. She grumbled and slipped out of bed. She was only wearin
g a pair of panties and a thin cotton T-shirt, but that didn’t matter. This would almost certainly be her roommate. The idiot had probably left her wallet. Or keys. Or something…

  Another knock, soft yet insistent. Yes…it would be her roommate. Only she had that sort of annoying knock.

  “Hold your horses already,” Sophie yelled.

  She reached the door and answered it, unsetting the lock. She found herself looking at a stranger. There was something wrong with his face—that’s the first thing she noticed.

  And the last.

  The stranger stormed into the apartment, closing the door quickly. Before Sophie could let out a scream, there was a hand at her throat and a cloth over her mouth. She breathed in a heavy dose of some sort of chemical—a scent that was so strong it made her eyes water as she fought against the stranger’s grip.

  Her fighting lessened quickly. By the time any real sort of fear had the chance to settle in, the world had gone a spinning shade of black that pulled Sophie down into something much darker and more final than sleep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Nights that weren’t crammed with work or in a state of hectic hurry were not something Avery was used to. So when she found herself in the middle of one, she was never quite sure how to respond. Currently, she was sitting on her couch, holding her phone and texting Rose. She knew that if she was truly going to keep Rose in her life from now on, she was going to have to make a point to make her a priority.

  Yes, she had the case notes for the Patty Dearborne case in front of her but they were not consuming her. She also had a photocopy of the letter the killer had sent and while that kept taunting her, she did her best to place Rose above it all in that moment. In her texts to Rose, she was discovering that her daughter had been waiting for this sort of attention even if she wasn’t aware of it. She was chit-chatting like a pre-teen girl, talking about boys and movies. They were also making plans for their next outing. Avery was very careful to also let Rose know what was going on with her workload so if something came up that would interfere with those plans, it wouldn’t be out of the blue.

  As Avery got accustomed to these weird conversation schematics with her nineteen-year-old daughter, she was also enjoying another aspect of her life that she had not quite gotten used to yet: having Ramirez over most of the time.

  He was sitting on the opposite end of the couch, his legs outstretched. Their feet were tangled in one another, toes grazing lazily.

  This is sort of sad, she thought. Cute…but sad. I thought this part of my life was over…playing footsie with a handsome man on my couch. Is this my life now?

  She chuckled to herself. She couldn’t help it. Sometimes the surprises life doled out were beyond comprehension.

  Ramirez was also texting. Only his texts were a little more heated than Avery’s. He was having a dispute with his landlord. It was a dispute that had been going on for the better part of two weeks now, as Ramirez’s lease was about to expire and the landlord was asking for nearly one hundred dollars more for rent.

  “Any luck?” she asked.

  He looked up from his phone and shook his head. “No. I’ve even texted some other people in the building. He’s only upping the rent on the ones on the higher floors, but almost everyone that is affected is willing to pay. It’s just me and two other people that are griping about it.”

  “And when is the lease up?” she asked.

  “Two weeks. Which means I need to find somewhere to live, pack my stuff up, and be ready to move pretty quickly.”

  “Any area you have in mind?”

  “Yeah. My existing apartment. I love that place. I’ve been there for five years and now the landlord wants to pull this shit.”

  “Maybe we can make a Saturday of it this weekend. You and I will go apartment hunting and find you a nice place.”

  “Find me a place like yours, and you’re on,” he said.

  She smiled as her phone dinged. It was Rose again. She wanted to know if they could catch a movie Saturday. Something dramatic but not cheesy. And no explosions of any kind. Avery texted her back, letting her know that it sounded like a great plan.

  Beside her, Ramirez had set his phone down and started to sift through the case file on Patty Dearborne. She could tell that he was frustrated and maybe even a little tired. She figured he would be staying here tonight—it had been a general rule of thumb that he stayed over any afternoon where he hadn’t left by seven or so. And that was fine with Avery. She liked having him around. And it was more than just the steady conversation, the easy access to sex, and the help in the kitchen. It had been far too long since she had consistently shared a space with someone. She was starting to get back into the habit and it felt good. The way things were going with Ramirez and Rose as of late was a stark reminder of what life could be like. It didn’t have to be work all of the time, nor a need to constantly beat herself up. She was only slightly beyond forty; she still had most of her figure, her looks, and an exciting career. There was no reason to assume the best parts of her life were over when there was so much still waiting ahead.

  “Hey, so I have a thought,” Avery said, setting her phone down and looking at Ramirez.

  “What’s that?” he said, still looking at the case files.

  “Instead of apartment hunting this weekend, why don’t we just go over to your place and pack everything up?”

  “Because I’d like to know where I’m moving it to before I box it all up,” he said. He looked up from the case files, clearly confused.

  “Well, I have an idea on that. Why not just move it in here?”

  A smile slowly crept onto his face. He narrowed his eyes at her in a comical look and set the file back down on the coffee table. “What?”

  “Move in with me,” she said.

  “Um, well, I’d love to. But are you sure? We see each other almost all day at work. You wouldn’t get sick of me if you had to come home with me, too?”

  She scooted over to him, closing the distance between them on the couch. She placed a soft kiss on his mouth and shook her head. “No, I would not. And yes, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, I’d love to. It could be amazing. I just don’t want to ruin what we’ve got.”

  “So don’t,” she said.

  She then threw her right leg over so that she was straddling him while he sat. It was a playful pose as she sat her rear down on his knees and faced him. That was another great thing about him; he made her feel playful, joyful, and sexy.

  “Let’s discuss it and figure it out,” he said. “I think we can make it work, but I think we need to talk it out.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But later.”

  With that, she reached down to the hem of her shirt and lifted it up over her head. As she tossed the shirt on the floor, Ramirez pulled her closer. His hands went to her back, unfastening her bra, and after that, there was very little talking for the next hour or so.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Norman Behrens didn’t know why, but he had always thought there was something very cool about being able to just leave his beer in the back of the pickup truck and knowing it would be cold when he retrieved one. He’d put the case in the cooler two hours ago and it was already cold. He could feel it even through his gloves.

  He popped the top on his can of Budweiser and took a drink from it. Following the cooler, he then removed the other items in the back of his truck: two fishing rods, a smaller cooler with a container of minnows, and his handheld drill.

  Beside him, his friend Weldon Smith plucked a beer from the cooler as well. He also took one of the fishing rods. The two men chuckled and tapped their beer cans together.

  “You sure about this?” Weldon asked.

  “No,” Norman said. “But I never tried it and we don’t have much of anything else to do, now do we?”

  Both men looked out toward the small grove of trees ahead of them. Norman had parked his truck on the side of a dirt road that only state employees
were supposed to be able to use. But he had long ago copied that key, having swiped it from a guy that worked down at the pump station. That very same station sat less than two miles away, on the other side of the Fresh Pond Reservoir. On the other side of the trees ahead of them, the reservoir shone like a quarter. Moonlight bounced from the iced-over water beautifully as the two men made their way through the trees.

  Technically, they were trespassing. And they would definitely be trespassing after they crossed those trees. But Norman had been out here before. The dirt road he had parked on was an awesome place to deer hunt and he had always wanted to try fishing in the reservoir. Because it was so damned cold, he knew security would be lax and hey…throwing ice into the fishing equation was just one more challenge as far as Norman Behrens was concerned.

  They made it out to the edge of the concrete barrier that separated the reservoir from the grounds of the surrounding stretch of thin woodland. They walked quietly, the only sound coming from the aluminum cans slapping together in the cooler. They stopped at the edge of the concrete and walked along the boundary, heading to the far end where there were more shadows created by the trees. Out here, there was no way in hell anyone would catch them.

  Norman stopped walking and Weldon simply stood there, waiting.

  “Okay,” Weldon said. “Get out on that ice. I still don’t think it’s strong enough to hold us.”

  “Yeah it is,” Norman said. “Kids have been ice skating on it for the last few days. Watch.”

  Norman took a deep breath and cautiously stepped out on the ice. He held his beer in one hand and the handheld drill in the other. It did feel a little thin but he heard no cracks and the ice did not pitch or sink when he stepped out on it. He took a few experimental steps further out, growing more and more confident by the minute.

  He looked back at Weldon and smiled. He then raised his beer and took a long gulp. He hunkered down on his knees, set his beer to the side, and adjusted the drill bit. As he pressed the trigger on the drill and started boring into the ice, Weldon also summoned up the nerve to come out on the ice. He carried both rods and the small bucket of minnows, which they would use as bait. Neither of them had any idea what sort of fish they’d catch out here. Nor did they really care. It was an excuse to do something fun. An excuse to drink and take home a cool story.