Flypaper: Dark Psychological Thriller - Book 1

by C. K. Vile

  “Jesus, what’s wrong with you? Seriously. Is there a name for it?”

  “Me?” Danielle put her face in his. It took every inch of discipline he had not to smack her. He’d never hit a girl before. He’d never hit anyone. But his fight-or-flight instincts were fully engaged and he was far too hung-over to run. “You’re the one I found passed out drunk on the balcony. You’re the one who ruined your breakfast. What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?”

  Nick shoved her. “You shouldn’t have found me. You’re not supposed to fucking be here. Do you get that?” He shoved her again. “You can’t be here. We are not together.”

  Danielle grabbed him by the shirt. “Yes we are. Yes we are, Nick. You and me. That’s how it’s supposed to be. Why can’t you see that?”

  “Get off me.” Nick pushed her away.

  Her eyes ignited. They were little A-bombs and they were pointed straight at him. She hauled back and slapped the ever-loving shit out of him. The world went white, and when it came back into focus, Danielle had tears streaming down her cheeks.

  She lunged at him, and he braced for another attack.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him repeatedly, apologizing between pecks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please don’t hate me. I love you, please, I’m sorry.”

  Nick shoved her off and she fell onto her ass. She sat there, dazed, as if trying to accept the reality of the situation but at great difficulty. Guilt stung him. He wanted to help her up, to apologize, but decided to do so would only invite more unwanted affection—or terror.

  Still, he couldn’t help but see the girl he’d had dinner with at the Spicy Meatball.

  Smoke and mirrors, he reminded himself.

  “I’m telling you for the last time. Get out. And don’t ever come back.”

  Danielle stood up and sniffled. She got it now. It was over between them. Christ, please let her have gotten it.

  She straightened her shirt and cracked her neck. Nick held his breath, waiting for her to make the next move.

  “There are still some eggs on the stove,” she said. She brushed off her skirt and casually walked back into the house like she owned the place.

  He held his breath and watched her cross the living room, locking the door as soon as she left. He locked the balcony door and checked the windows. Locked tight. He punched the code into his alarm system.

  If Danielle made it back into his house, it wouldn’t be from a lack of effort on his part.

  The sound of an incoming text caught his ears. It was muffled, but came from the living room. He lumbered to the couch and dropped to the floor. Nothing underneath it, aside from his DVD of High Tension. So that’s where that had gone.

  He dug between the couch cushions.

  Jackpot.

  Three missed calls and a voice-mail from CorpseFlower. That was unusual.

  The last text came from Danielle.

  Your surprise should arrive sometime today. Enjoy. Love you.

  Chapter 16

  Madness. Pure, unadulterated madness.

  CorpseFlower had warned him. She sent him a link to Myiasis, but in the same message, she warned him: Don’t fall too deep into this, yo. Shit’ll keep you up at night.

  But he couldn’t help it. He sat at his laptop on the kitchen table and clicked thread after thread, post after post. It was like a car accident. There were mangled body-parts scattered across the side of the road, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away.

  There was a message thread eight pages long, filled with people who debated the merits of eating Nick’s brain. Not whether or not it would be right or wrong, but whether a person would gain his ability to write by doing so. The general consensus: “Not a bad idea, but it probably wouldn’t be as good.”

  Nick sipped from a glass of water. His kingdom for a hangover cure.

  He clicked on another post, this one titled “Dawkins Lizard Dream.” The original poster had dreamed Nick appeared to him as a giant lizard, molted his skin, and let him wear it as a cloak that protected him from the demon in his wall. He took it as a sign from God.

  The post ended, “the olny thig that keps me san e is the knwlege that worstcasescenario Forest Down is only 2 hrs away”

  Knock knock.

  Nick shot straight up. His chair landed with a crack on the tile below. He dropped the glass of water and it crushed into a thousand pieces. The shards covered his floor like a layer of razor-sharp snow.

  This is who he was now. Jumping at every noise.

  He tried to step over the broken glass. Crunch. He was mostly successful.

  Knock knock knock

  He ignored the tiny barbs that dug into his heel as he walked. His immediate concern lay with who was on the other side of his door. Sheriff Reed had said she’d be around to take a statement from him about Danielle’s intrusion, but it wouldn’t be until late that night, on her way home.

  That meant it was more likely Danielle, or a delivery person with her ‘surprise’. As late into the evening as it’d gotten, he hoped whatever she sent him had made its way to postal purgatory.

  Maybe it was another one of the thousands of people who spent their days pouring over his work, internalizing and interpreting it in the worst way possible.

  Maybe it was a Jehovah’s Witness. That would be wonderful.

  Knock knock knock.

  He hobbled to the door and looked through the peephole.

  It was a woman. All he could see was the back of her head as she looked around his yard. She seemed unsure if she was in the right place. It definitely wasn’t Danielle; that much was certain. She was noticeably taller, and her hair was more of a sandy-blonde.

  Avon lady? Candygram? Brain-eater?

  He unlocked the door, but not the chain that held it in place. He cracked it open.

  The woman turned, and the floor fell from under his feet. Space and time twisted as past and present collided around him. He’d prefer Lizard-Dreamer was at his door instead.

  “Mom?”

  He heard Danielle in his head. “Surprise!”

  She smiled and raised her hand to her mouth. “Nick?”

  How? How had she found him? Stupid question. He knew how she’d found him. He asked her anyway.

  “Oh, it wasn’t hard to find, your fiancé gave me excellent directions.”

  ‘Fiancé’ it was now. He rubbed his face so hard it provided a pleasant distraction from the pieces of glass buried in his foot.

  Meredith Dawkins fidgeted excitedly. She was under the impression she’d been properly invited. He couldn’t send her on her way. Danielle had known it. The only upside here was that straight-up murder wasn’t a part of the Munchausen’s by proxy repertoire. The damage someone like his mother wanted to do was far more insidiously inflicted.

  In theory, everything would be fine so long as he kept her out of the kitchen. And threw out the food and drink left in the house after she’d gone.

  His hand trembled as he unlatched the door.

  Meredith burst over the threshold and hugged Nick. She squeezed over twenty years of missed hugs into one. Nick had to put all of his weight on his glass-pocked foot to keep from being toppled over. Pain shot through his leg.

  “Gyyyaaaaah.” He gritted his teeth.

  His mother touched the side of his face. “Dear, what is it, what’s wrong?”

  He lifted his foot and quickly waved her in and locked the door. One unstable person at a time, please.

  “I’m fine. I broke a glass; got a little in my foot.”

  He limped toward the bathroom.

  “Oh dear, do you need help?”

  The nausea returned full-force. “No, go sit. There in the living room.”

  He swallowed, refusing to vomit; he wouldn’t give his mother the satisfaction. He settled for retrieving the first-aid kit.

  Meredith sat slowly on the couch. Nick wasn’t sure if she tried to avoid sudden movements for his sake, or if she’d been spooked by the sp
ectacle his living room had become. Empty whiskey bottle. Busted TV. Cracked sliding glass door. From the state of things, she’d be forgiven if she thought her son had grown into a stereotype—the drunken writer who couldn’t keep his shit together. And based on the past couple of days, she wouldn’t be far off.

  He sat in a smaller chair across the living room and turned his attention to the bottom of his foot.

  “Where’s your fiancé? She said she’d be here.”

  Nick winced. And not from the piece of glass he removed from his foot.

  “She’s not my fiancé. Or my girlfriend. She’s a loon, that’s it. She shouldn’t have invited you here. I only let you in because you’re still my mom, and because I figure I’m safe so long as I don’t let you into the kitchen.”

  Meredith said nothing, even the hands she had been twisting together had stilled. Nick looked up at her. She was about to cry.

  The nausea and anger in his stomach engaged in a battle for supremacy. “No. Don’t. You don’t get to cry, not after what you did.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know I can never make things up to you.”

  Nick pulled what he hoped would be the last shard from his heel. “Damn straight. That’s right. You can never make it up to me. Ever. I can’t even look at another person cooking without wanting to puke. You did that to me.”

  Meredith tugged at a strand of her hair. “I know, Nicky, I—I don’t know what to say.”

  Nick glared at her for several seconds before he spoke. “I don’t understand how you could do it. I don’t. I know why you did it. They tried to explain it to me the best they could when they took you away. And when I got older, I read articles. So I get the supposed reasoning behind it. What I don’t get, as clichéd as it sounds, is how could you?”

  His mother wiped a tear from her eye. She looked around the room nervously, at anything except him. “I don’t know if I can explain it.”

  Nick dabbed rubbing alcohol onto a piece of gauze and applied it to his foot. He could have sworn he’d set it on fire.

  “Try,” he growled through gritted teeth.

  She nodded sheepishly, her hands twisting together again.

  “I know you don’t remember your father. I wish you could. He was a good man. Funny. Strange sense of humor. Like you.”

  Nick listened and unwrapped a band-aid. Meredith continued while looking at the balcony door. “He took such good care of me. Of us. He was a loving man.”

  Nick stuck the band-aid to his foot and unwrapped another one.

  “I’m hearing a lot of talk about Dad. Get to the part where you tried to kill me.”

  Meredith shook her head. “Baby, I never tried to kill you. I didn’t. You know that, right?”

  Nick rolled his eyes. “Semantics, Mom. Jesus Christ.”

  Meredith looked at him. “I don’t know what that word means.”

  He stood up and half-limped toward the kitchen. His foot already felt a little better. “It means it doesn’t matter what you call it, you fed me stuff that could have killed me.”

  He stepped carefully around the glass and tossed the band-aid wrappers in the garbage. “It means when you take away the labels and the fancy names, you put bleach in your kid’s food.”

  Nick turned and saw his mother had followed him. He exploded with anger.

  “Stop. You don’t come in—”

  He covered his mouth. Bile backed up into it, but he swallowed it back down.

  Meredith backed away, hands in front of her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Look, I’m staying out of the kitchen.”

  Nick was furious. His mother was at the door of his kitchen and he could barely keep it together. A few days ago he’d have considered this a worst-case nightmare scenario. And now here it was, in the flesh. That was how abruptly and how badly things had fallen apart.

  And he had Danielle to thank for it.

  “You were never supposed to come here.”

  Meredith tried to calm him. “But I’m better now, baby. I’ve been in therapy. Things will be wonderful from here on out, I promise.” She could have saved her breath. She would have had better luck trying to talk down a tornado.

  “No. Things are not going to be wonderful. Are you fucking insane? Wait, don’t answer that.” He scratched his head and pulled down his hand in horror. First his song, then the joy of scratching his head. Danielle was systematically taking everything from him.

  That stoked his anger. “No. You’re hitting the bricks. I have enough crazy in my life right now, you have no idea. Get the fuck out.”

  “Nicky, please. Please, I’ll do anything.”

  Nick stomped back into the living room, walking off the pain in his foot. “Good, you can leave.”

  He looked around the room. On second thought, between Danielle and his ghoulish fan club, the last thing he wanted was to be alone in this middle-of-nowhere house. At least until he could build a moat or something. Mom could have it all to herself.

  “On second thought, Mom, be my guest. You stay here. I’m leaving. The house is all yours for the night. At least for the night.”

  Nick moved to his bedroom and pulled a bag from the closet.

  Meredith followed him. “I don’t understand baby, where are you going?”

  “The fuck away from here.” He stuffed a few items of clothing into the bag.

  He ignored how badly his foot still hurt as he breezed past his mother and out of his room. She reached for him and he jerked away from her.

  “No. You don’t get to touch me.”

  “But Nicky, what am I supposed to do?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care. Leave. Stay. But if you hang around, I’d lock up tight. Danielle might come around. On second thought, if that happens, make her some of your ‘special’ pancakes. She loves breakfast-for-dinner.”

  He glanced at the kitchen as he slipped his shoes on. “But I wouldn’t walk around barefoot.”

  She pleaded for him to stay. “Nicky, please don’t go.”

  “Good visit, Mom.”

  He slammed the door behind him.

  ***

  Nick stood at the front desk of The Shady Thicket Inn. The night clerk swiped his credit card and it could have been Nick’s imagination, but he thought he caught a whiff of peanut-butter.

  He shuddered. Some things could never be unseen.

  The desk clerk handed Nick his room key. He moved toward the stairs, eager to wash his hands.

  His hands. Damn. They were empty. He’d left his bag in the back seat of his car. He waved at the clerk. “Left my bag. Be back in a jiffy.”

  Nick snickered at his own cleverness the moment he was safely outside. “Jiffy.” Holy shit, that was gold. Even with everything gone to hell around him, it was the little things.

  “What’s so funny?”

  The voice made the hairs on his neck stand up. They were the only thing moving; he was frozen in place.

  Danielle shut the door to her car, parked right behind his. She walked around toward him.

  “Nick, I go to all the trouble to reunite you with your mom and you leave her alone?”

  Nick saw red. Nothing but red and her. The girl who’d rallied an entire community of lunatics around her. The psycho he’d welcomed into his life, only to have her drag his sick and twisted mother along. He stormed toward her.

  “You.”

  “Hey, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s sweet you wanted to revisit our first date, but it’s kind of rude to her, don’t you think?”

  “How could you? How could you do that to me?” He towered over her small frame. She didn’t even flinch.

  “Nick, geez, calm down.” She motioned at the gas station next door, where a couple of semi-trucks were parked. Their drivers stood near the pumps, chatting. “You’re going to make a scene.”

  “You of all people. You saw me throwing up. You were there. You watched me puking my guts up. That’s what she did to me. Do you understand?” But that wasn’t what hurt the most.r />
  “I trusted you!” There it was.

  Danielle lifted a hand and touched the side of Nick’s face. “What I saw was a guy who missed his mother. You said so yourself. It was actually very sweet.”

  He slapped her hand away. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

  Danielle jabbed a finger into Nick’s chest. “Hey. You should be more grateful. At least she wants to be a part of your life. My parents probably haven’t sobered up enough to realize I’m gone. And besides, you’re going to need her. Our kids are going to want to meet their grandmother.”

  Nick punched the hood of Danielle’s car. It was stupid. He hoped he hadn’t broken something, which was a distinct possibility.

  Danielle produced her Taser. “I love you, Nick, but I won’t let you get shovey with me again. Back off.”

  “Back off?” Nick grabbed her wrist and she dropped the Taser to the ground. “You’re telling me to back off?” He let go of her. “I’m done playing with you. You need to leave before you get hurt. I’m fucking serious.”

  He turned to go back inside.

  “Don’t you walk away from me!” Danielle punched him in the kidney, or at least what he assumed was a kidney. Whatever she hit felt important.

  That was it. He spun around and grabbed her by the throat. “You stalk me for months. Years. Break into my home. Hit me.” He squeezed so hard he shook. She did nothing to fight it.

  “You brought her back into my life.”

  Danielle started to turn deep red. He breathed so hard spit flew out of his mouth and onto her face.

  All he had to do was keep squeezing. Keep squeezing and she’d be gone. Like she was never there.

  Somewhere outside the roar of blood in his ears, he heard another voice.

  “Hey!”

  A tear rolled down her purpling cheek as Danielle tried to talk. It was barely a squeak, but he understood it loud and clear.

  “I still love you.”

  The rage in him fell away and he let go. Danielle dropped to the ground and gasped for air.

  The world around Nick came back into focus. The other voice again, closer this time.

  “Hey, you son of a bitch, leave her alone!”