I placed my hand on his and managed a small smile. “It’s not dumb. I’m just not entirely sure of the answer. One minute, I’m laughing and the next . . .”
“I know.”
“This is the most depressing road trip ever,” I said, frowning.
“Not true. We could be listening to Celine Dion and playing with razor blades.”
I laughed. “Good point.”
He smiled and then looked at me a little longer than was driver safe. His face grew serious. “I’m just sorry you were there.”
I looked out the window and began biting hard on the inside of my cheek, a nervous habit I’d picked up from my mother. I bit a little too deeply and tasted blood on my tongue.
He continued, “You shouldn’t have even been there. After everything that happened with your parents. After everything that happened with us . . .”
I winced. “This didn’t have anything to do with my parents or what happened between us.” My tone was a little harsher than I intended. The only thing the dead girl had in common with my parents is that they were all dead. As far as Katie-with-a-heart-over-the-“i,” she might as well have been dead, too.
“I just meant . . .”
“I know,” I said softening. “I just don’t want to talk about it. Any of it.”
I played with the tips of his fingers, lifting them one by one and watching them fall back against my leg. “I’ll be okay.”
He laced his fingers between mine and squeezed, his face collapsing in relief.
I looked over at the Maps app, shining bright from his iPhone. Less than two hours until we arrived at the “reclusive oasis in Western New York State, far from the hustle and bustle of fast-paced city life.” Well, at least according to the Living Social ad. Maybe if we drove fast enough we could outrun all the memories, especially the cold, dead one still lying at my feet.
* * *
* * *
“Where are we?” The jolt of the car stopping startled me awake. I sat up and looked at Ben who placed the car in park. I didn’t even remember falling asleep.
“Bathroom,” he said.
“Here?” I looked out the window. We had pulled into a parking spot adjacent to a gas station convenience store, surrounded on either side by overgrown wild bushes and dense trees. It looked like it was covered in a haze of dust. Remnants of the station’s name were peeling from a long, tattered signpost and blades of grass were growing from the cracks in the asphalt. A neon sign flashed the word OPEN again and again on the door. I could hear the buzzing from inside the car.
“This is as good as it gets,” he said, peering out the car.
“Be careful.” I looked out into the deep woods, imagining all the things buried in them.
Ben laughed. He was always amused by my city girl wariness. Though we met at a café in Midtown Manhattan, Ben was originally from rural Pennsylvania. He didn’t share my mistrust of uninhibited plant life and open space.
“You’ve been watching too many horror movies.”
“Um, raise your hand if you watched someone die in real life two days ago?” I put my hand up and stared at him.
His face softened.
I put my hand down, wishing I could pull the words back into my mouth. I walked myself right into that pity party. “I’m just saying, there’s a reason I don’t have the best opinion of other human beings right now.”
He nodded, looking at me in that same helpless way he had when I stood in his bathroom desperately trying to wash the dead girl’s blood off my hands. “I’ll be careful,” he said. “And I’ll be right back.” He got out and ran into the store.
I pulled the passenger seat visor down and tousled my onyx curls. My eyes were puffy and my deep brown skin looked dry. I looked horrible. I couldn’t wait to get under the covers with Ben in our “reclusive oasis in Western New York State” and not come out until the weekend was done. We’d slowly forget about Katie-with-a-heart-over-the-“i.” We’d slowly forget about the dead girl.
Dead girl.
I thought of her again. The blood pouring through her dress. The crash of her body against the ground. I could still feel the speckles of blood spray against me as she fell to my feet. I wondered if her funeral would be on a Sunday. If her body would be lowered into the ground at the same time she would normally be having brunch.
I wiped a stray tear from my eye and took a deep breath. I looked into the hazy windows of the store to see if I could make out Ben. Instead, I saw a round, balding store owner fiddling with things behind the counter. He pushed them in and out of their place before leaning forward and staring out at nothing.
That must be the most boring job ever.
Just then, a white pickup truck pulled quickly into the parking lot a few spots away from our car. It braked with a jolt. A man and woman hopped out, slamming their car doors hard before walking toward the convenience store. The woman’s long, wispy dark hair floated as she walked, and her eyes looked unfocused and confused. The man was tall and broad. He had an ivory cap pulled down tightly on his head, casting a dark shadow over his eyes. A deep scar ran from the corner of his right eye to his chin that made his face look uneven, like I was looking at him in a fun-house mirror. He walked with intense focus and big, determined strides. The woman stopped and cocked her head to the side for a moment as if someone had called her. The man said something and took her hand protectively, pulling her along into the store. I shrunk down in my seat and began gnawing at the inside of my cheek again. I bet he kidnapped her, I thought, biting harder. They were exactly the kind of creepers I expected to be in a place like this.
Maybe I do watch too many horror movies.
I leaned my head back against my seat and closed my eyes. “Take it easy, Tiff,” I mumbled to myself. I wondered what was taking Ben so long.
“Hey!”
I jumped, feeling a sharp bolt of fear. I opened my eyes and Ben was standing at the window. I sat up and rolled it down.
“It’s just me,” he said noticing he had startled me. “You okay?”
Question of the year.
I shook my head. “I’m certifiable.”
“Stopping here probably didn’t help.” He looked around the near-deserted station warily.
I nodded. “Can we go?”
“Yeah. I just wanted to see if you wanted anything from the store. They have Krispy Kreme.” He smacked his lips together to entice me.
I laughed.
Just as I was about to speak, the man and woman from the pickup truck walked out of the store. They looked in our direction and walked toward us. Ben noticed me looking behind him and turned around.
“Hey there,” the man said as they approached.
Ben leaned back against the car, partially blocking my view. “Hey.”
“Beautiful day out here, isn’t it?” the man said. I could hear the forced smile in his voice.
“Sure is.”
“I’m Paul. This is Diem.”
Ben extended his hand. “Ben,” he said shaking both of their hands. “That’s my girlfriend, Tiffany.” He leaned to the side and I waved, feeling a sudden rush of anger. Had he forgotten he’d proposed?
I hadn’t.
Diem peered at me intently through the window, and a smile crept across her face as if she was reading my mind.
“Any big plans for the weekend?”
“We’re from the city,” Ben started. “We had a rough week and needed to get away for a few days. We got a good deal on an inn not too far from here. What about you all?” He glanced back at me and smiled and I tried my best to telepathically communicate my disapproval of his sudden onset of verbal diarrhea. Knowing Ben, he was seconds away from giving them our dates of birth and social security numbers.
“We live nearby. I used to live in the city,” Paul said. “It was a little too much for us.” He looked squarely at me and I looked away uneasily.
“I get that,” Ben started.
I glanced around, tuning out their small t
alk. A breeze was moving slowly through the air, sending a used Styrofoam cup tumbling across the parking lot. The cup stopped in front of the store. I looked inside and gasped. It looked like thick red blood was pooling at the base of the counter. For a moment, I thought I was remembering her again, so I blinked and looked harder. A steady drip of blood was unmistakably falling onto the floor. I looked up and the round store owner’s body was draped awkwardly across the counter. His eyes were closed and blood was pouring from an open wound on his head.
Fear gripped my chest. “Oh my God.”
“What?” Ben stopped midsentence and turned to me.
“I was really hoping you wouldn’t see that,” Paul said, looking at me.
Ben turned back to look toward the store and I could see his face distort as his eyes fixed on the store owner. “Holy shit!” Ben backed into the car. “We don’t want any trouble, man.”
Ben put his hands up defensively and started to round the front of the car, but Paul grabbed him by the back of his shirt and flung him back against the passenger door.
“Don’t touch him!” I yelled. I looked at Diem, who was looking at Ben and Paul with thirst in her eyes.
Ben shoved him, but Paul’s large frame barely budged. Paul laughed but just as quickly grew serious. He pressed Ben into the car with one hand and pointed directly in his face. “Don’t let that happen again,” he said but after a moment continued, “ah, screw it, they never go easy.” He punched Ben hard in the face. Ben’s head flopped back like he was a rag doll and he fell unconscious to the ground.
“No, no, no.” I unbuckled my seat belt quickly, crawling my way into the driver’s seat. Paul swung open the car door and grabbed my legs, dragging me by the ankles out of the car. I kicked and screamed, trying my best to hold on to the seats. I fell out of the car hard. The side of my face smacked the concrete.
I turned on my back and held my hands up. “Do you want money? You can have our money.” I pulled the thin gold locket I was wearing from my around my neck and held it toward him. “You can take everything we have.” My voice was high-pitched and unrecognizable.
Diem walked over to stand above me. She leaned down so she was close to my face and inhaled deeply. “It’s her,” she said. She inhaled again. “It’s all over her.”
“Please,” I begged. I could feel cold tears streaming down my face.
She drew back and looked at Paul, who walked up beside her. “Are you sure?”
She nodded.
I started to speak but the words never made it out. Paul slammed his fist hard into my face, bouncing my head like a basketball off the concrete.
* * *
* * *
For a brief moment before I opened my eyes, I convinced myself that I was still in the car. I could almost feel the wind pouring in through the windows. I could almost see Ben’s profile as he stared out contentedly at the road. It’d all been a nightmare. One shitty, terrifying, sad, long, nightmare.
The pain belied my fantasy.
I felt like someone had taken a hammer to my head. It shot through me, throbbing, causing a dull ache down my spine. I was sitting. The seat felt hard beneath me. My wrists were restrained behind my back. My legs, tied at the ankles.
I peeled my eyes open and blinked slowly to bring the small, dimly lit room into focus. It smelled damp and musty. The walls were covered in peeling floral wallpaper. The ceiling had large holes and sections of it looked to be caving in. The door to the room was closed but knobless. The one window in the room looked as if it were completely shielded by shrubs. Wherever I was had been abandoned. They’d brought me here so I couldn’t be found.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move.
“Ben?” I could just make out his shoes as he sat up from where he lay on the dusty floor.
“Tiffany,” he called.
Relief washed over me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Are you?”
“I’m tied up.” Mustering all my strength, I tried to stand. My legs were like noodles beneath me. I crashed back into the seat and winced.
“Me too,” he said. He slid a little closer to me so he was just under the small stream of light that peeked through the window. His face was swollen and discolored. His arms were bound behind his back.
Just then, the door to the room swung open. Diem walked in first with a gun hanging from her hand. Paul was close behind. She stood in front of me, inhaling again. She stared at me for a moment, then slapped me hard, her face contorted in rage.
My head whipped back and then fell toward my chest. I looked up at her, filled with anger.
Paul eased his hands over Diem’s shoulders and squeezed. “It’s okay,” he whispered close to her ear.
She closed her eyes and leaned into him. “She stinks,” she said. “She stinks.”
I looked at them and then at Ben. A cocktail of fear and confusion was pulsating through my body. I tried to squeeze my hands through the ropes. They rubbed harshly and deeply into my skin.
“Why’re you doing this?” Ben said.
She looked at me and then back at Ben. “She knows.”
I shook my head, struggling to place their faces. Did I know them and just not remember? Had I wronged them in some way in the past? “How would I know why you’re doing this?”
“You left a big mess in the city,” Paul said. “All that blood.”
“I think you have the wrong people,” Ben said.
“Oh, we have the right person,” Paul said.
Diem didn’t take her eyes off me. “You stink,” she said. “I can smell her blood on you.” She leaned down inches from my face. “I know exactly what you did.”
* * *
* * *
The day I met Ben, I was planning to die. I was nestled at a corner table at a Starbucks tracing lines on my wrists with the thin brown stirrer and imagining the life draining down my palms. It was the day after my twenty-fifth birthday, the seventh anniversary of my parents’ deaths. I was feeling particularly alone in that moment. I felt insignificant and unnoticed, as if I could do a full tap routine with jazz hands on top of my table and no one would bat an eye. That seemed like a good way to go, I’d thought. My first-grade recital routine with a bullet to my head as the big finish.
“In deep thought, huh?” he’d said. He sat on the empty stool beside me and looked at me. A hot latte with his name scrawled on the side was nestled in his palm.
I put the stirrer down and looked back at him. The sun poured through the windows of the coffee shop and bounced off the flecks of hazel in his deep brown eyes. His pecan-colored skin looked warm and full of life. He was cute and not-dead. He was the first person to tell me he loved me since my parents.
When I held her number in my hand that night, with fat tears soaking my face, all I could think of was how desperately I didn’t want to go back to being her. The girl I had been. Orphaned and making suicide pacts with my cat. More than anything, I didn’t want Katie-with-a-heart-over-the-“i” to take my place.
I looked at Diem and then at Ben. His face was twisted in confusion.
“Are you talking about that girl she saw killed? Are you the ones who killed her? She didn’t see anything,” Ben said quickly. “She didn’t even know who did it.”
My heart began to beat so quickly in my chest I felt like I would vomit it out. The room was spinning and suddenly, I could barely focus on anyone’s face. A flood of memories was rushing over me and I felt like I might drown.
I’d memorized the number.
Her number.
Katie’s.
I’d known it for a month before I told Ben I’d found it.
I’d dialed it a few times to hear her voice.
“This is Katie,” she’d said at 8:00 a.m. on a Monday morning.
“This is Katie,” she’d said on a Saturday at midnight.
Her voice was sing-song and impossibly chipper. I listened for a moment to hear him. A beckon in the background or a soft groan beside
her. Even when he was beside me, I listened for him, as if a subtle sound in the background would betray he’d been there.
I’d friended her on Facebook. She had more than two thousand friends. Ben was one. Her pictures ranged from introspective selfies to candid shots caught midlaugh with her and her friends. She liked to dance to Latin music on Thursday and have brunch on Sundays with her mom. Her dad was installing new cabinets and “OMGee, it was taking soooo long.” She loved him anyway.
#DaddysGirl.
The night I confronted Ben, she couldn’t wait to go out to Deux, her favorite lounge on the Upper East Side. She had a new dress. It was salmon-colored, she’d said in her status update, and she’d just found the perfect shoes.
#winning.
That’s when I told my work friend about the number. That’s when she suggested we go out. That’s when I suggested the perfect place.
Diem looked at me as if she could hear my thoughts. She nodded in recognition and then looked over at Paul, who took a step toward me.
“We didn’t spill that blood. She did. Isn’t that right, Tiffany?” Paul said.
Ben was quiet for a moment and then he scoffed. “That’s crazy.” I could feel his eyes burning into me.
I looked at Diem and whispered, “No one saw me.”
“But I heard you,” Diem said. “I smelled you.”
The gun was in my purse. It was still in my purse. It was nestled beneath my wallet and my ginger peach lipstick. I put it in before I left because I wanted to feel safe. They could have been together at the club. If they were, I knew the perfect congratulatory gift. I’d blow myself away. Scatter my brains all over their freshly poured drinks.
It wasn’t until my friend went to the bathroom that I saw her. Katie. She swayed back and forth with a martini glass in her hand. Her friends surrounded her and took selfies incessantly. They’d laugh after each shot like it was all so fucking hysterical.
Anything but Zombies: A Short Story Anthology Page 14