The Voyeur Next Door

by Airicka Phoenix

  “Okay, but keep up.”

  I followed him to the door before remembering my manners and hurrying back into the kitchen.

  “It was nice to meet you,” I told Lydia and Jonas. “Thank you for the bean dip. It was delicious. Bye Earl.”

  With a wave, I jogged back to the door where Gabriel was standing, waiting for me.

  “You’re a strange little thing, you know that?” he said.

  I blinked. “What? Why?”

  He just shook his head. “Do you have a jacket?”

  I peered down at my sweater, jeans and sneakers. “No … we might need to make a stop at my apartment.”

  “No need. I have an extra coat in the jeep.” He bent down and grabbed a pair of gumboots off a plastic rack and set them down in front of me. “They’re Tammy’s so they should fit.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should be insulted, or flattered that he thought my feet were those of a sixteen year old. Yet, oddly enough, they fit so I made no comment.

  I tucked my jeans into the boots and hooked my shoes onto my fingers.

  The rain pounded the ground in a waterfall of pure rage, its deafening rumble muting all other sound. I contemplated the wisdom of driving in such conditions, but I knew Gabriel would go with or without me and I wouldn’t sleep that night if I let him go alone.

  “Okay, on the count of three,” I said.

  Gabriel looked at me, his brows furrowed over eyes shining with amusement. “Come on.”

  He took my hand—the one not holding my shoes—and plunged headlong into the mess. I gave an unflattering squeak as the shards of ice penetrated the wool of my sweater and plastered my clothes to my skin in the ten seconds it took to get to the jeep. My glasses fogged and I had to rely on Gabriel to get us there without faceplanting in the begonias.

  He opened my door first, propelled me into the seat before slamming it shut and disappearing in the rain. I was panting and wiping my glasses on my sweater hem when he threw himself behind the wheel. The rain continued to pummel us from all sides, sounding impossibly loud in the tight confines of the cabin.

  “Wow,” I breathed, shoving my glasses back into place on my face.

  “Yeah,” he said, stuffing a hand back through his damp tresses, shoving the thick strands away from his face.

  I watched as he punched our directions into the GPS built into the dashboard and wondered why he agreed to let me come along if he had a machine to tell him where to go. I didn’t bother pointing this fact out, not wanting him to come to his senses and leave me behind. Instead, I reached up and released the band knotting my hair. The long waves tumbled down around my face and back. I fluffed a hand through the wet strands before scooping it all back up and twisting it into its usual bun.

  “Has your hair always been…?”

  I glanced over at Gabriel’s unfinished question. “Sorry?”

  He watched my hand as I finished putting my hair up and shook his head. “Nothing. Ready?”

  I nodded and strapped in.

  We drove the first hour in silence broken only by the elements beating against the jeep and the splash of water under the tires. Most of my clothes had dried, but I continued to shiver despite the heat blasting from the vents.

  “There’s a blanket in the backseat,” he said without taking his eyes off the road.

  I shook my head. “I’ll fall asleep if I get comfortable.”

  Gabriel chuckled. “I’m going to be pulling over soon to gas up. Want anything?”

  Again, I shook my head. “Nope.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have to pee?”

  I looked at him. “Do I look five?”

  I could have sworn there was a hint of a grin twisting around his mouth. “No ma’am, you do not.”

  I didn’t know how to take that, so I said nothing.

  Sure enough, ten minutes later, he pulled into a rundown gas station and hopped out. I watched through my side mirror as he filled the tank. The overhead awning kept him dry, but he didn’t seem bothered by the lashing winds.

  He returned several minutes later with two bottles of water and two bags of chips, both original.

  “I figured you can’t go wrong with regular,” he said when I stared down at the bag he offered me. “Since I don’t know what kind you like.”

  “I don’t have a favorite,” I murmured, feeling like I was divulging something intimate.

  “Huh.” He tore open his bag and popped a chip into his mouth. “I would have pegged you for a ketchup chips type of girl.”

  “I used to like those when I was younger,” I confessed. “I liked how it would make my lips red, like lipstick.” Which, saying it out loud, made me feel really stupid. “I haven’t had chips since I was seven.”

  “Really? What made you stop?”

  My mom did by telling me the way I chomped my chips made me sound like a little rat and if I kept eating that garbage, she would have to get a crane to get my fat ass out of the house.

  “Just outgrew them, I guess,” I mumbled, feeling my gut tightening.

  “Outgrew chips?” He chuckled. “Never heard that one before.”

  But he didn’t push, to which I was eternally grateful for, nor did I open my chips.

  “We’re almost there,” he said, motioning to the GPS screen.

  “The rain is slowing down, too,” I added, noticing the thinning in clouds.

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky and be back on the road before it starts again.”

  Maybe, I thought, squinting up at the roiling smear of gray. It was barely five o’clock and already it felt like nightfall. Even if we found Tamara in time and started straight back, we would be stumbling around in the dark. I was about to tell Gabriel so, when something else stuck me.

  “Oh no!” I gasped.

  “What?” Gabriel shot me a quick, panicked glance. “What’s wrong?”

  I dug out my phone, knowing it was pointless.

  “I had to call someone tonight.”

  “Don’t you have a signal?”

  I did, but I didn’t have Q’s number. It was programmed in my house phone and the paper with the number on it was folded away in my nightstand.

  “I don’t have his number,” I mumbled, stuffing my phone back into my purse.

  He didn’t ask who, or why the call was so important and I didn’t tell him. I just made a mental note to explain what happened when I called Q tomorrow.

  The rain had slowed to a light drizzle by the time we reached the muddy little trail barely visible amongst the dense wall of trees flagging either side of the highway. Gabriel drove past it and kept going almost five minutes before pulling into a wide clearing reserved for resting. There were signs telling people not to park their vehicles there overnight and that the park wasn’t responsible for lost or damaged property. There were other cars already there, nine in total and I wondered if they belonged to Tamara’s friends.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked, unsnapping my belt.

  Gabriel did the same and yanked his keys out of the ignition. “Hike back to the trail and follow it to Tammy. Then you’re responsible to keep me from killing her and burying her body in the woods.”

  I squinted at him. “Is that why you brought me?”

  “Mostly,” he answered with a slight shrug.

  I laughed and shook my head. “We better hurry. It’s getting dark fast.”

  Nodding, he threw open his door and hopped out. I did the same and joined him on the other side as he yanked open the back door and rummaged through the assortment of garbage tossed carelessly into the backseat. He withdrew a heavy wool coat and handed it to me after shaking it out.

  It smelled like him, with a hint of Thai food and musty fabric that had been in a damp place too long. He drew out another one, shook it out once before slinging it on himself. That one smelled worse.

  “How long have these been in there?” I wondered, gingerly pushing my arm through the sleeves.
r />   He shrugged. “Since winter, maybe spring.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Ew.”

  “It’ll keep you warm,” he stated, slightly offended.

  I refrained from commenting by slinging my purse on over the jacket. I grabbed all the water bottles I could find and stuffed them into my purse, too.

  “In case,” I said when Gabriel arched a brow at me.

  He didn’t comment. Instead, he locked the car, set the alarm, and motioned me to follow.

  The scuffle of our feet broke the tranquility only found in isolated places. Gabriel seemed in no hurry. I wasn’t sure if that was because he really wasn’t in any hurry, or if he was keeping pace with me, but I was grateful either way. Tamara’s boots may have fit me, but that didn’t mean they were comfortable.

  “Tell me about when you were a kid,” I panted, scrambling up an incline made up of mud, twigs, and wet leaves.

  “Not really much to tell,” he answered, twisting his body to offer me his hand. I accepted it appreciatively and let him haul me up. “After my dad died, my mom wasn’t fit to raise me so Earl and my grandmother stepped in.”

  “Is Earl your mom’s dad?”

  “Dad’s.”

  “Did you live with him?”

  He nodded, relinquishing my hand and continuing onward over the trail. “Until I was fifteen. Then I moved back with my mom.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she needed someone to look after her.” He stopped walking and faced me, eyes narrowed. “Now that I’ve told you about me, I think you need to share some stuff about you.”

  Fuck. I hadn’t seen that coming.

  “Why are you so interested?” I muttered.

  “Why are you?” he countered. “Why do you get to ask questions, but I can’t?”

  I huffed. “Fine, but for every one question, I get to ask you one in return.”

  “Fair enough.” He started walking once more. “You’ve asked me, what? Four questions, so I get four off the bat.”

  I hated that he was smart.

  “Don’t sulk. Fair is fair.”

  “Yeah, yeah, ask already.”

  Gabriel laughed. “You really don’t like being asked questions, huh?”

  I shot him a sidelong glower. “I don’t like talking about myself.”

  “I promise to start off small.” He held back a low branch and waited for me to pass. “Where are you from?”

  “Alberta.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “School.”

  “Why did you pick a school out of the country?”

  “Are you going to use all four questions on my education?”

  “Possibly.”

  I rolled my eyes. “The experience.”

  “You’re lying. You could have gotten that same experience just by going to another province, but you chose to move out of the country. Why?”

  I was really beginning to hate this game.

  “I don’t know. I just did.”

  He glanced over at me and I looked away.

  “What’s your favorite color?”

  That momentarily threw me for a loop before I caught myself.

  “Green.”

  “Like your eyes?”

  Heat prickled my cheeks. “Jade green. That was more than four questions.”

  “Okay, your turn.”

  But I didn’t ask any more questions. I knew that if I did, he would ask questions in return and I didn’t want to answer anymore.

  “It’s getting dark,” he observed, peering up at the canopy of tree branches overhead.

  “Hold on.” I fished into my purse and came out with a flashlight. “Here. It has a built in compass.” I pointed to the spinning needle just above the button. “The GPS said we needed to go south east.”

  “You’re like a girl scout,” he mused.

  I snorted. “This is as close to nature as I have ever gotten.”

  “You’ve never been camping?”

  I thought of my mom’s idea of camping, which consisted mostly of luxury hotels with spas and white sandy beaches.

  “Not really. My mom doesn’t like nature unless it comes with a side order of low fat salad dressing.”

  Gabriel laughed and the sound made me laugh. Together, it rang through the trees.

  “Does she still live in Alberta?”

  “Oh, God no. She hated it there. Last I heard, she was somewhere in Europe. Spain, I think.”

  “Don’t talk to her much?”

  It was only when my boot caught a root and I stumbled that I realized what he was doing. It hadn’t even dawned on me that he was asking sly little questions, distracting me into answering.

  “No,” I answered. “I don’t and don’t ask me why.”

  “I wasn’t,” he said, as though expecting that. “I was going to ask if you liked seafood.”

  He was so random. I almost missed the quiet, sullen Gabriel.

  “I’m allergic to seafood,” I stated.

  “Good to know.”

  Thankfully, that was the end of our twenty questions. I think a lot of that had to do with the steep incline we had to clump our way up. He didn’t seem to have any trouble at all, while I was practically crawling to keep my footing.

  “Are you sure this is the right way?” I panted. “I don’t see a bunch of teenagers trudging their way…”

  The ground slid out from beneath my boot and I went down with enough force to knock my glasses off as I tumbled back down to the bottom. Twigs snapped beneath my weight and the world kaleidoscoped around me in a blur of darkness. Then it all stopped. I found myself on my back, staring up at a wall of black that had become the sky. My frantic breaths fanned out around my face, hot against the evening chill. I lay there, feeling the damp earth soak into my jeans and mat in my hair and tried to determine if anything was broken.

  “Ali!”

  A beam of light swung wildly overhead, mirroring the pounding of feet. Then Gabriel was there, leaning over me. The light was gone from his hands and his hands were cradling my face, brushing away hair and dirt.

  “Ali? Say something!”

  “I lost my glasses,” I blurted.

  I felt his hot exhalation wash over my face.

  “Forget your glasses, are you okay?”

  “Nothing’s broken.” I assured him. “Except maybe my pride and I think I might have fractured my dignity.”

  He chuckled. “You’re fine. Come on.”

  I let him haul me back to my feet. I even let him brush some of the dirt off with his hands, just because it felt nice. But I knew it was no good. I was a mud covered monster.

  He took the flashlight in one hand and my hand in the other and we started back up the hill.

  “Are you humming Jack and Jill?”

  I sighed. “It seemed appropriate.”

  With his help, I made it all the way to the top. Unfortunately, my glasses were gone. Even with Gabriel using the light to search, they had been swallowed by nature. That meant I had to rely on him to get us to where we needed to go, which thankfully, wasn’t too far off once we stumbled our way down the other side of the hill once more.

  The noise assured us first. It was insanely loud, like a rave without the fun lights and acid. I could just make out the shadowed humps surrounding a column of fire that crackled eight feet into the air. Ambers blew away with the wind towards some unknown location and I prayed to God it wouldn’t start a forest fire. Faces were obscured, but I could make out their silhouettes bumping and grinding to the heavy thump of bass and laughter. No one even glanced up when we stepped into the clearing. Beer cans, discarded chip bags and the occasional article of clothing littered the ground. Most of the tent flaps sat open, but the majority were zipped closed and, judging from the sounds coming from inside, were occupied.

  “How do we find her?” I wondered, squinting at the figures, trying to make out faces.

  “The normal way,” Gabriel muttered. Then, before I could ask what that meant, he sh
outed, “Tamara! Get your ass out here now, or I’ll open every tent to find you!”

  He started moving towards the tent closest to us, and for a horrified second, I honestly thought he was actually going to do it.

  “Gabe?” The tent on the other side of the fire rustled. The zipper hissed open and Tamara’s head poked out and parts of a bare shoulder. She kept the tent flap held firmly to her chin, but I had a feeling she wasn’t wearing a whole lot on the other side. “What are you doing here?”

  Abandoning me to find my own way around drunken pyros, Gabriel stalked forward.

  “Me? What the hell are you doing here? Get the hell out now!”

  “One sec!”

  She disappeared inside. There was several seconds of the tent jerking and twitching before she stumbled out, yanking on her boots. Behind her, another figure emerged.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Gabriel growled.

  “Just chill. This is Eddy,” Tamara said, as if that was going to appease him.

  “Hey, Eddy, did you know she’s only sixteen?” Gabriel bit out.

  “Look, I don’t want any trouble,” Eddy slurred out, putting both hands up.

  “How old are you, Eddy?” Gabriel pressed. “Because I’m guessing you’re not in high school.”

  “He’s twenty,” Tamara answered. “Which is only like—”

  “Statutory rape,” Gabriel finished for her. “You’re sixteen. I have every right to beat the ever loving shit out of this guy right now.”

  “Will you calm down!” Tamara cried. “We weren’t doing anything.”

  “Where’re your friends?” Gabriel swung a glance over the group now watching the show. “Tell them to come out. I’m taking you all back.”

  “It’s just me,” Tamara said. “They couldn’t get away.”

  “You mean they actually listened to their parents,” Gabriel corrected. “They stayed home where it was safe, but not you.”

  “I’ve known Eddy for like forever, okay?” Tamara waved a hand towards the guy standing next to her, swaying slightly as she did so. “He’s cool.”

  “Are you...” Gabriel grabbed Tamara’s arm and yanked her closer to him to sniff. “Were you drinking?”

  “Oh my God!” Tamara wrenched free of him. “I had like one beer! Jesus, Gabe, what’s the matter with you? You act like you didn’t have fun when you were my age.”