by Stella Noir
I just happened to have a few quarts of type O blood that I had siphoned off that guy … you know … the one I had here … a couple weeks ago,” he stammered, clearly realizing that he shouldn’t say much more in front of Avery. “Anyway, I set up my operating room, sewed you up, got you going on some antibiotics, and hoped for the best. I think I did a pretty good job considering I didn’t have any help,” he said as he folded his arms and nodded his head at himself.
“You’re a surgeon?” Avery asked as she looked up at him.
“Yeah, I was head surgeon at the hospital on the east side for years, but now I just freelance,” he said with a big smile.
“I don’t think Avery is going to appreciate your weird doctor jokes, Landen,” I said as I looked back at her. She was laying right next to me on the bed and I looked down at the hand she had resting on my arm.
“How did you get here?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’d like to know. Some good you are keeping my house a secret, dude,” Landen said as he nudged my arm.
“I didn’t tell her how to find this place. I don’t understand how she even …”
“Don’t worry about it. She looks trustworthy. I have a feeling if she came all this way to find you she’s not planning on turning us in,” he said with another big smile.
“Hey, Avery, is everything ok?” another woman asked from the doorway. I recognized her, she was the one that came to my house asking me questions about Avery.
“Hey, I didn’t realize we were going to have a party in here,” Landen said as he looked back at her. “You know Barbara, right,” Landen said as he turned back to me.
“Yeah, I think I’ve seen her around,” I said as I noticed the petrified look on her face. She didn’t seem like she was very happy to be here at all.
“Ok, so, I think we really need to let our man rest a bit. He’s just woken up and he’s got a lot of recovery time ahead of him. Why don’t the three of us go out into the kitchen and I’ll fix us all something to eat. Then I’ll bring some broth back in here for you in a little while. How does that sound?”
“Sounds good,” I said with the faint smile. “Thanks a million, man. I can’t believe you saved my life.”
“Hey, it’s not anything you wouldn’t have done for me, don’t even think about it.”
Landen got up off the bed walked toward the door and the closer he got to Barbara the bigger her eyes got. I would have laughed if I wasn’t so worried that she was going to call the police the second she left here.
“I’m gonna stay in here for a couple more minutes, ok?” I heard Avery say to Landen.
“Sure, but don’t make it too long, and don’t let him get too excited.”
“It’s ok, Barbara. I’ll be out in a few minutes,” Avery said to her friend, who looked like she had no intention of going out into the hall with Landen. She must have really thought he was going to do something to her.
“Sure,” she said with the panicked look still on her face as she looked back at Landen. I watched him gesture for her to walk ahead of him through the door and as he went through behind her I heard him talking to her.
“Barbara’s such a great retro name. Has anyone ever called you Barbie?”
“No,” I heard her say just before the door closed.
I turned my head and looked into Avery’s eyes.
“How did you get out of the house? How did you find me? I … I still can’t believe you’re here.”
“I can’t believe I’m here either. I don’t know what to say. The longer you were gone the more I wanted to see you, and I guess I just stopped caring about everything else. I barely slept every night you were gone. I just kept imagining what it would be like to feel the weight of your body on the bed and what it would feel like to have your arms wrapped around me, and then every night you didn’t come back I got more and more worried.”
I couldn’t believe what she was saying to me. I couldn’t believe she came all the way through the tunnels to find me.
“How long was I gone?”
“Three nights.”
“Oh God,” I said as I closed my eyes. I hadn’t even considered that something might happen to me and that she would be trapped there in that room.
“I don’t understand though. How did you know where I was?”
“I didn’t. I just took a chance. I remembered that diagram on the wall in the basement and you told me that you talked to your friend Landen everyday, so I just took a wild guess and figured if I was meant to find you then I would.”
My eyes started burning and I could feel tears fall down my cheeks, but I didn’t want Avery to see me cry. Then I felt her hands wrap around my face and her lips on my forehead and I lost it. I could feel her head resting next to mine and her fingers in my hair and I just laid there with her, letting myself feel what I had wanted to feel my whole life. The touch of someone that cared about me.
“What is it that you see in me? I don’t understand,” I said when I was finally able to talk.
“I see your sweetness and your kindness, and I see that you’ve been hurt a lot, and that maybe you do things that you don’t really want to in order to try and find a little bit of happiness. And I see someone who might even have a bigger heart than most people of the I’ve known in my life.”
“I don’t deserve to be with someone like you, Avery. After everything that I’ve done, I don’t deserve you. Just go home. You’re free now, you shouldn’t be wasting your time here with me.”
“What is it that you think you do deserve? And what about what I deserve? Do you think you’re the one that gets to decide that?”
“I don’t know what I deserve or what I believe. I don’t even know who or what I can trust. This sort of thing may not be a big deal to you, but it has been for me. It’s been the biggest deal in my life and I feel like every single thing I’ve done with you has dug me into a deeper and deeper hole that I don’t have any idea how to get out of. I don’t have relationships, Avery, I just don’t.”
“But what about Landen? You’re in a relationship with him. You talk to him. You can’t be afraid of feeling something because it didn’t work out for you in the past. Everyone does something to protect themselves and sometimes you have to look past the things they do to see the real person behind the pain. You have to decide what’s important though, and sometimes you have to change your beliefs in order to see what’s really there. I should know. I’ve had to change a lot of what I thought made someone a good person recently.
You’re the one that has to decide for yourself if this relationship is more impossible than the one you have with Landen. And you’re the one that has to decide if it is or isn’t the one you had with your mother. But I’m not Landen or your mother and this relationship is between you and me … nobody else.”
I felt like what Avery was saying to me was too easy and I was too exhausted to argue, with her or with myself. It didn’t seem possible that I could be the one that decides what’s true and isn’t. But if it wasn’t me who decided, then who was it?
“I’m the one that was put in a cage and locked up in a room for the last few weeks. How is it that I’m the one that has to convince you to give this relationship a shot?” I asked with a smile. “It seems like it should be the other way around.”
I looked back at her for a long time and then felt my heart jump into my throat as I watched her face move closer and closer, until her lips were gently brushing up against mine.
20. Avery
When I walked out into the hall and looked around I wasn’t quite sure where to go because the house was enormous and kind of maze-like, but I heard voices coming from the far end of a long hall and as I got closer I could hear Landen excitedly telling Barbara what sounded like the synopsis of an old movie.
“So, basically the storm has made it impossible for anyone to drive up to the house and they’re stuck there. And then the phone lines go dead, of course, and they know that the killer is somewhere in the area.�
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I walked up to an open doorway with a bright light streaming out into the hall and when I peeked around the corner I saw Barbara sitting at a kitchen table with her back completely straight and her hands gripping the sides of her chair while Landen was telling her a story and chopping up something on the counter. It almost made me laugh to see the two of them together and as soon as Barbara realized that I was standing there she turned her head and looked at me with her big eyes.
“And so, there’s these two nurses in the house that think the killer is outside, but the twist is …” Landen looked up and saw that Barbara was looking over at me instead of listening to his story.
“Oh, hey Avery. I was just telling Barbara about one of my fave episodes of an old TV show. Are you still into it?” he asked her. “I mean, it’s cool if you’re not. I totally get it.”
Barbara shifted her hilariously terrified look from me back to Landen and said “No, go ahead. I’m listening.” Then she looked back at me.
“Why don’t you come in here and sit down, Avery. Landen was just telling me about an old TV show where there are some women trapped in a house with a deranged killer,” she said with as close to a normal voice as she could, but her eyes were glaring at me like she was trying to send me a very clear message. Something like, let’s get the hell out of here, I imagined, as I sat down at the kitchen table.
“Well, they’re not just women. They’re nurses. That’s the awesome twist! The killer only kills nurses, and in the end he’s actually dressed up as one of the nurses. So, he was in the house the whole time and no one knew. Isn’t that cool?”
“Yeah, that sounds really cool,” Barbara said as she looked at me again.
I couldn’t help but smile at her because, although I knew exactly why she looked so terrified, I really didn’t believe that there was any reason for either one of us to be scared of these guys. Maybe I was delusional. Maybe I had completely gone off the deep end and Barbara was right when she said I was a total victim of Stockholm Syndrome and had fallen in love with my captor. But, honestly, if that was the case that would be fine with me. I’d rather be happily living in a fantasy world with a syndrome that didn’t allow me to realize that I was in danger, than completely petrified of being killed or dismembered.
“Do you like spaghetti, Avery? I thought I’d whip some up for us. I’m sure you’re both starving.”
“Yeah, that sounds really good. Thank you, Landen”
“No problem,” he said as he smiled at me, then walked off through another doorway in the kitchen. “I’ll be right back, I gotta get something from the pantry.”
Barbara looked at me and gripped my arm, then said in a low voice, “We need to get the hell out of here. Were you serious about eating dinner here? I just want to go home. You found Colin. He’s fine. Now let’s go.”
“Barbara, I don’t want to leave yet.”
“But why? You’re free now. We can leave and you can actually come back to your own home.”
“Well, first of all, he’s not fine. He’s still recovering. And I am really hungry. Why don’t we just stay for dinner?”
“Ok, Avery, I know you think that you’re in love with this guy or something, but I’m telling you, it’s not possible. I am so close to calling the cops right now it’s not even funny. Let’s just go. Spend some time away from these lunatics and you’ll see that it was all just in your mind.”
“Barbara, you are not calling the cops. You have to promise me …”
Just then Landen walked back into the room and set a can of stewed tomatoes on the counter.
“I can take you two home anytime you like. Don’t feel like you have to stay for dinner,” he said as he opened up the can and poured them into a pot on the stove.
“Thank you, Landen I would like to stay … and I hope Barbara decides to stay as well,” I said as I looked over at her.
“Ok, I’ll stay for dinner, but I do really need to get back. That weirdo on the first floor is watching Joey and I don’t know about that guy. His apartment smells weird,” she said as she scrunched up her nose.
“Good, I’m glad you’re staying,” Landen said as he looked back over at us, but mostly at Barbara.
“Ok, well, is there a bathroom around here I can use.”
“Sure, if you go out and to the right it’s across the hall and two doors down. I can show you if you like.”
“No, I think I got it.” She said as she got up from the table. “I’ll be right back,” she said as she looked right at me, like she couldn’t imagine that I wasn’t as paranoid in this guy’s house as she was.
“Ok,” I said with a shrug. At first I thought maybe she wanted me to go with her, but she eventually left the room on her own.
After she had disappeared around the corner, Landen turned to me and leaned against the counter. I could tell he wanted to say something to me, but he just stood there and looked at me for a few seconds before he started talking.
“I couldn’t help but overhear your guys’ conversation from in there and I want you to know that you are more than welcome to stay here for as long as you want. I imagine that you probably want to get home, since you haven’t been back there in a few weeks, but if you want to stay while Colin is recuperating, you are more than welcome.
Colin has talked to me about you, about what has gone on over the last couple weeks and I know that he cares about you a lot. And I care about Colin, a lot. He’s very special to me, like a little brother. In fact, that is exactly the way I view him and I’m very protective of him. He’s a very special person, way more sensitive and kind than most people. And, yes I realize how that must sound, coming from a lunatic like me, and may be kind of hard for you to grasp, but it’s the truth.”
“I do believe that about him,” I said as I realized by the way he emphasized the word lunatics that he had heard everything Barbara and I had said.
“I’m glad. You seem like a pretty smart girl. You found my house somehow, a feat that I am still pretty impressed with, and you seem like a genuinely nice person. But I just want you to know that I will not take kindly to you, or anyone, messing with Colin. This isn’t a warning, it’s a fact. If you mess with him there will be very dire consequences. And I would advise your friend Barbara to chill out on the calling the cops talk. I really like her, but she should know that this isn’t a game. This is my life.”
I felt every hair on my body stand on end as I listened to what Landen was saying to me. From the small amount of time I had spent with him I found him to be funny and charming, but I was coming to the realization that he had a scary side too, but for some reason I wasn’t afraid of him. I understood what he was saying to me, and how he felt about Colin, and believed that he had no intention of hurting me or Barbara. I was continually surprised by how my beliefs kept changing recently, old beliefs and assumptions about who people were based on information that had no real basis in reality.
And what he said didn’t change the way I felt about Colin, in fact, it made me want to stay here with him even more.
“I honestly don’t understand what it is that I’m feeling, but I think that I’ve seen a part of Colin that not too many people get to see, that I’m one of the lucky ones who’s been allowed to see who he really is. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t things that he did … or parts of him that I didn’t like. I don’t like to think about what I saw in his basement, and I don’t like to think about all the girls that he did that to before her, but I feel like being around Colin is making me realize something about people that I guess I hadn’t really articulated to myself before.
That the bad things that people do don’t actually define them. It seems like everyone is so quick to put other people in boxes but then when they do the person becomes this one-dimensional thing. And the title they are given doesn’t leave any room for them to be seen as anything else.
It was hard at first for me to think that Colin was anything more than a killer, but he is. He’s so much more. I
don’t like that he’s killed people, and I don’t know if he’s going to keep doing it, but I can’t ignore the fact that I’ve fallen in love with the other parts of him that don’t seem to want to continue to do that.”
“Did you tell him how you felt?”
“That I’m in love with him? No. I guess I’m still scared of what it means; that I’m in love with someone who has intentionally killed a whole bunch of women. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it.”
“Wow. You’re becoming more impressive the more I get to know you. I’ve been in quite a few relationships throughout my life; some with women who knew what I did and some with women who didn’t, and I’ve never met a woman who was as genuinely thoughtful as you are. Colin is right, you two really do seem to have some sort of invisible connection, or an unspoken understanding of each other. I’m kind of jealous,” he said with a smile as he looked up at Barbara as she came back into the room and sat back down at the table.
“This is some place you’ve got here. Does every room have a laundry chute or a secret little door?”
“Oh, so you’ve been casing the joint?” Landen said as he turned around and gave Barbara the sly smile.
“No, no! I wasn’t snooping or anything. I … I just noticed in the bathroom … the laundry chute and the little door that looks like the cupboard but goes further to what looks like some kind of passageway. This place is just really interesting. Sorry I opened up your secret cupboard.”
“That’s quite alright. I don’t have anything out on this floor of the house that I want to keep from prying eyes anyway. And you’re right, this house is very interesting. It took me years to find a place like this and I had absolutely no idea how many secret passageways and rooms this house had when I bought it. I’ve lived here for almost twenty years and every once in a while I find some new feature that had previously been hidden and I absolutely love it.
You wouldn’t believe all the hidden passageways this house has. If you’re interested sometime I’ll show you around” Landen said as he raised his eyebrows, looking like he hoped she would accept his offer. He really seemed to be taken with Barbara and I found it really sweet. I mean, I didn’t know him at all, just what Colin had told me and his little speech about how much Colin meant to him. And even though I didn’t know what his deal was as far as his freelance surgery past time, and his intensity that was way scarier than Colin’s, there was a part of me that kind of wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt too.