Captivated

by Deb Apodaca

  “Cool!” I put my head through the strap and looked through them. “What else do you have in that bag?”

  “Just some snacks.” He pulled out some chips and soda cans. A bad idea for me. I was trying to eat healthy and junk food was the only thing he brought. I was certain I could resist the temptation.

  “I also brought you this.” Markus pulled out a miniature spray can.

  “Thanks.” I didn’t know what the thing was. Wait…it looked like-

  “It’s mace, Mindy,” he continued, “I don’t want you to freak out or anything. I just wanted you to be ready...in case something happens.” He put it in my hand and smiled. “Do you know how to use it?” he asked.

  “Of course. You just grab it like this…” I wrapped my hand around the base and put my finger on the spray nozzle. I pointed it in front of me and turned towards Markus, the mace following.

  “Whoa!” He ducked down and pushed my arm away. I swear, that had to be the fastest I’ve seen him move. Ninja mode!

  “Chill out. It’s not a gun or anything.” I said.

  “Well don’t wave it around like a baton.” He let go of my hand and sat back up. “I want you to keep it with you,” he suggested.

  “The binoculars, too?” Excitement filled my voice.

  “No!” He shot out. “If anything happens to you again, you take this and without any hesitation…spray the whole can in the jerk-off’s eyes. It leaves a red dye all over the target. So after you empty it on him call the cops and they’ll be able to find him easier because of the red markings.” he informed me.

  “So they can’t scrub it off or anything?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Thanks. You really didn’t have to, but thanks.” I looked down at it in appreciation. He’d never given me anything before. Well, aside from birthday and Christmas gifts.

  “Yeah yeah,” he said, shyly. “Just don’t go spraying me with it.”

  He must have really cared about me to have given me something like this. How sweet. Markus started searching the ground below us with his binoculars after raising them up to his eyes. I did the same. Nothing much was going on though. All I saw was a cute couple making out beside a dumpster. Not a place I would pick to do that, but hey, people do crazy stuff. Further down, I spotted an orange cat that was digging through a dumpster behind a different building. There had to be at least thirteen of them set across from each other. Every building’s back entrance had a wall that divided the dumpster from the door. It looked like a little room with a wall knocked down as an opening. A bit of debris was floating on the ground, with help from the wind. But nothing else was going on.

  “So how long are we going to be here?” I sighed.

  “There you go,” he murmured.

  “What!” I screeched.

  “You get bored way too easily. We’re going to be here all night, Mindy.” He stated.

  “It was just a question. Geeeesh!” I let my binoculars hang from my neck and then I grabbed the bag of chips. Before opening it, I read the nutritional facts on the back of the package. “I don’t know how you can eat this stuff.” Actually, I did know. Every bite was filled with the crunchy goodness of super cheesy bursts of flavor. And that savory tang had every single taste bud on your tongue rejoicing in delight. Before I knew it, I was placing a chip in my mouth. Darn! The temptation got to me. Markus looked at me and shook his head, knowing exactly what was going to happen.

  I didn’t know how many hours had passed since we’d been on the roof, but time seemed to be dragging. All we were looking at was the same couple hiding behind walls and making out. I was beginning to feel like a pervert.

  “How long have we been here?” I wondered out loud. I hoped he didn’t hear me.

  “Only a couple of hours.” Markus mumbled. Crap! He did hear me.

  “I don’t think he’s coming tonight,” I said.

  “The night is young.” Markus was still looking through the binoculars. “He’ll show up any minute now.” he assured me.

  “I have to be home by eleven tonight.” I informed.

  “Me too.” he said while looking at his watch. “My dad’s just looking for an excuse to ground me.”

  “Why?” I asked, not surprised.

  “You know the millions of bushes in my front yard?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” I nodded.

  “Well, they need some major trimming and he’s waiting until I mess up so it can be my punishment.” he said begrudgingly.

  “Don’t you guys take turns? I thought you did them last time.” I mentioned.

  “I did. It’s his turn, but he keeps pushing it off on purpose, waiting…” Markus said.

  The alley remained empty and quiet, other than the one couple. The same couple that had been out here forever. I zoomed in on them and from what I could see, the guy was good-looking. Other than needing a tan, he had very nice features. I couldn’t see the girls face but that was probably because her boyfriend was giving her a ridiculously long hickey.

  Out of sheer boredom, I started fiddling with my new weapon of destruction-my mace.

  “There he is!” Markus whispered suddenly.

  “Finally.” I brought my binoculars back up to my eyes and sure enough, there Dean was. Man, did he look good. Tanya would be drooling if she were here so it’s only appropriate that I drool for her. Once again, he had on a black shirt that hugged every ripple of muscle. I liked that color on him because it matched his jet black hair. What! I liked? Wait a minute, what’s going on here? Shouldn’t I have been paying attention to the giant sword thing he had in his hand? The blade was black and dangerously sharp from what I could see. He was dragging it behind him and the steel was scraping the concrete he was walking on. Slowly, he made his way to the make-out couple and stopped in front of them.

  The guy detached himself from the hickey attack he was giving and looked up at Dean. And he looked scared. He dropped the girl on the floor. The motionless girl. What the heck was going on? I wanted to get a closer look, so I started adjusting the settings. But I was actually making it worse. Everything was blurry! Crap! Not again! Crap! Markus stood up.

  “Are you watching this?” he desperately asked, still keeping his voice low enough for only me to hear.

  “I can’t adjust this stupid thing!” I quietly cried out. I banged on it as if that would even work.

  “My God!” He whimpered out.

  I tried squinting to get a better look at what was going on but it was impossible for me to see. The distance between us was too great and with my bad eyesight, I would never be able to make anything out anyway. I calmly tried adjusting the binoculars again. It was always better to calmly do things than to frantically do it. Like if I was hurriedly writing something, I did it way too sloppy. I turned the zoom nozzle slowly to the right, then slightly to the left. There. Now it was focused. I quickly looked through them again and found that the make-out couple was no longer there. Not even the girl that was lying on the floor was there. Dean was the only one in sight, standing in front of what seemed to be a pile of clothes and staring at the ground in front of him. He swung the sword thing around. It looked pretty heavy to me, but he was able to handle it like it was made out of light plastic. Still holding onto the handle, he threw it over his shoulder and slid it into a strap on his back.

  “Where did the couple go?” I asked Markus. Since I got so used to adjusting the zoom, I zoomed in a little more on Dean. I couldn’t help but stare at his ripped triceps. They were flexing up and down as he dusted his pants.

  “Markus?” I asked while still looking through the binoculars. It was more like gawking than it was looking, to be honest. “Markus?” I turned to him. He was sitting down with his hands at his sides holding the surface for balance. He was breathing quickly… much too quickly. His eyes were wide and his face was drenched in fear. I dropped the binoculars against my chest and crawled over to him. I put my hand on his shoulder and slightly shook him. There was no response. My hea
rt started pounding. What had he seen? I was starting to get scared and I didn’t know what to do. I shook him harder. And harder still. He slowly turned to me.

  “Did you see?” he asked shakily. His lips trembled. And his eyes were blank. Even though he was looking right at me, his eyes weren’t seeing me at all.

  “No. What happened? Are you okay?” I hated the suspense. Why couldn’t he just blurt things out when they happened?

  “They disappeared. Both of them…” he whispered, “…poof.” His voice broke.

  “Are you sure?” I turned back to where it happened. I squinted to see if Dean was still there, but I couldn’t see any figure down there. He was gone. Removing my hand from his shoulder, I grabbed the binoculars and searched for the couple. People just didn’t disappear like that. They just didn’t.

  “You won’t find them. They’re gone.” he assured me.

  He had to be crazy. I couldn’t believe it. I most definitely couldn’t believe him. No one would. A person disappearing is simply impossible. He probably got distracted and they went inside. That had to be it. They high-tailed it when they saw someone with a freakin’ sword, threw their clothes at him as a distraction, and ran to the nearest door. I wouldn’t stick around either.

  “Why did Dean have that sword? People didn’t carry those things around. I knew Austin, Texas had crazy people, but come on, a sword?” I drawled.

  “We have to get out of here.” he prompted.

  “No. You always do this! Tell me what you saw!” I demanded.

  “You don’t want to know!” he raised his voice. “You can’t handle it. I know you, Mindy.” he lashed out in a whisper.

  “And what if I did see what happened. What were you going to do? Block my view? This is bull!” I shouted at him. Taking a deep breath, I calmly said to him, “we’re in this together. Please. You can trust me.” I placed my hand on his shoulder in an attempt to ease him.

  After a long moment of silence, Markus finally spoke. “He fought the guy and ended it by slicing his head off with the sword. Then both the body and head disappeared.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Dean stood there, staring at the girl on the ground. He was majorly focused on her. She got up. She actually got up as if nothing had happened to her. The girl slammed into Dean, clawing at him. I think… I think she was trying to bite him. He threw her against the brick wall and sliced her head off too.” Markus put his head down. “Then she disappeared.” he finished.

  This was insane! Seriously insane! I didn’t know what to believe. In one hand, I had my best friend, who had never come even close to lying to me, tell me this crazy, unbelievable story. And on the other hand, I had the truth of reality-people didn’t disappear. Markus had always been superstitious and suspicious of certain behaviors. He would always try to analyze every given situation. Like if there was a car wreck we passed by, he would study every single thing and tell me what he thought had happened sparing no detail. Everyone probably guessed that stuff, but he always was determined to thoroughly think those types of situations out. But I thought he was going overboard here. His obsession was getting to him and making him go crazy.

  “What about the blood?” I pointed in the direction of the ‘murder scene.’ “There’s no blood down there,” I added, hoping that he would start to realize how crazy this all was.

  He sighed and pressed his lips together. “It also disappeared.” he said half out loud, like he himself didn’t believe any of it.

  Markus started packing his bag. With his arm stretched out towards me, he nonverbally asked for the pair of binoculars hanging off of my neck. I slowly took it off and handed it to him. There were a couple of nacho bags I had emptied laying next to me. I picked them up and stuffed them in my pocket. Markus stood up and headed towards the ladder while I rose to my feet and studied him. I took a step to follow and felt my foot land on something hard and small. It was the mace Markus had given me earlier. I picked it up and blankly stared at it in my hand. Markus needed me. I didn’t know how I would help him but I’d be damned if I was going to let him go through this on his own. I clenched the mace and slipped it into my front pocket.

  The ride home was quiet. There had never been an awkward moment around Markus, but there was a first for everything. We pulled up to my house and he sat there, quiet still.

  “See you Monday?” I asked, breaking the silence.

  “I’ll be there,” he said faintly.

  I jiggled the handle, but couldn’t open the door. I was making enough noise with it to be able to get his attention, but he didn’t even flinch. I didn’t want to bother Markus, but I turned to him anyway.

  Not a single reaction.

  His normal jumping out of the car and rushing to my door routine wasn’t happening. This was just too strange. At least the window was big enough for me to fit through. I looked over at Markus, still staring straight ahead, pensive. The window was already opened, so I climbed through it and walked up to the house without looking back. He needed some time alone. It was the way he functioned. Every time he was going through something, I had to back off a little, then, before I knew it, he would be at my door wanting to talk.

  I opened the door and walked into the pitch black living room. The only light I saw was the one coming from my mother’s bedroom. I quickly flipped open my cell phone to look at the time. Only ten minutes late. What a relief! I walked up to her room to check myself in and saw she had the door open so I was able to see she was lying on her bed reading a romance novel. As a professional writer, she loved reading fictional books because she said it always took her out of reality.

  She could have had any guy she wanted back in her day. But instead, she chose my dad. I would have given up anything, even my very existence, for her to have chosen a different guy. Anyone but him. As a child, I remembered the day she found out he was gone. He didn’t even take his things-he just left her. For years she suffered, thinking maybe he was taken or kidnapped. Until one night, when she went out with her sisters, she saw him again. He acted like he didn’t even know her. And then she went back to being heartbroken.

  “Knock, knock.” I said while poking my head through the opening.

  “Well hey there! How was your night?” my mom asked. She placed a bookmark on the page she was on and closed it on her lap.

  “It was all right.” I wanted to tell her everything. But I couldn’t do that. She would worry too much and wouldn’t let me out of the house for my own safety. “Nothing interesting happened,” I regrettably lied.

  “How’s Markus doing? He usually comes in when he drops you off…” she commented.

  “Oh. He had the same curfew as me tonight so he had to hurry home.” I explained.

  “Are you going to go with me tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Where?” I asked. Inviting myself in, I plopped on her bed.

  “To the pound. I want a dog.” she said. “First, I want to go to your aunt’s house and then to the pet store to get some supplies.”

  “Okay.” I said. “What time?”

  “Early afternoon.” she said. My mom placed the book on her night stand and took off her reading glasses.

  “Do you think we’ll be back in time for my run?” I asked.

  “I think so. We can try.” She insisted.

  “Ok. Good night, mom.” I walked back to the door and closed it behind me.

  “Good night!” she called out before I could completely shut it.

  As I turned around to head to my room, the light from my mom’s room went out. The only light I had to guide me to my room was the night light in the hallway. When I got there, I turned on the light switch and kicked off my shoes. Just looking at my bed was making me sleepy so I hastily grabbed my pajamas from the drawer and slipped them on. I was too tired to shower, so I just washed my face and brushed my teeth. I leaped into my sheets, bringing them up so high that only my face was exposed. As soon as I closed my eyes, I was out.

  “Mindy! Wake up! Your alarm is going off.
” My mom opened the door and turned off the buzzing alarm beside it. “I still don’t understand why you have it by the door instead of by your bed,” she muttered.

  “Cause if it’s by my bed I’ll just hit the snooze button and go back to sleep…” I croaked.

  “But I’m always the one turning it off for you,” she complained.

  “You hear it before I do.” I mumbled while shoving my face in the pillow.

  “Well get ready cause we’re leaving as soon as you’re done.” she announced.

  “Blaaahhhh.” I wailed out. I wasn’t ready to get up. I wanted to sleep in some more. But my body started moving off the bed, eyes still closed. I zombied my way to the hall bathroom and shut the door behind me. The warm water falling on me woke me up a little. Just a little.

  My mom knocked on the door.

  “You want some coffee?” she yelled out.

  “YES!” Excitement filled my voice. That’s precisely what I needed.

  After my shower, I put my wet hair up in a ponytail and did my makeup. I wrapped the towel around myself and went to my room to dress. We would probably make it home just in time for me to go running before it got dark. I threw on some workout clothes so I wouldn’t have to come home and change.