by M. Leighton
His lips left mine to kiss a trail to my ear then down my neck. I turned my head to the side to allow him better access. I was lost in a sea of sensation when a familiar and disturbing smell teased my nose. It took several seconds for it to penetrate the haze of passion that had settled over me. But finally it did.
My eyes flew open and met the dull black eyes of a tall blonde man that stood in the shadows at the edge of the trees. I couldn’t stop the startled squeal that bubbled up out of my throat.
Before I could blink, Derek was on his feet, crouched beside me, alert and battle-ready. He scanned the tree line, looking for the threat, but it was already gone. In the half second that Derek had interrupted my line of sight to roll off me, the man had disappeared.
“What is it? What did you see?” Evidently he hadn’t seen what I had. Derek rose to a standing position, his posture a little less tense.
“There was a man standing in the shadows.”
“Where?”
“Over there,” I said, pointing to where I’d seen him.
“What did he look like?”
I described the man as a huge, handsome man with long blonde hair and coal black eyes. He was wearing a creamy button-up shirt, untucked, over faded blue jeans and cowboy boots.
“That’s a lot of detail for a couple of seconds,” Derek said curtly.
I just shrugged, a little shaken and a little creeped out. He’d been watching us and, for some reason, I got the feeling he was enjoying it, like he was mentally licking his lips and waiting for us to start peeling each other’s clothes off.
But the most bothersome part was the smell. “Derek, I- he- there was a smell.”
I saw the understanding in Derek’s eyes even though he still asked, “What kind of smell?”
“The same kind that I smelled that night in the clearing.”
“Fahl,” he spat.
“But it looked nothing like—”
“He rarely ever looks the same, Carson. You just have to trust your gut. Even if you can’t smell him, you can feel him. Trust that.”
“I just- I didn’t…”
“I know. I should’ve felt him, but I was…well…” Derek grinned. At least it hadn’t totally ruined his favorable mood. It was a good sign that he could joke about missing something that important.
Needless to say, that curtailed our romantic tryst so we shook out and packed up the blanket and set out across the water in the boat.
When we were about half way to the dock, I realized that all the tiki torches still burned. “Derek, the torches,” I said, pointing to the island.
Though Derek didn’t even glance back at the island, the words had only just left my lips when I heard the pitter patter of a hard rain as it hit the lake’s surface. After about a minute, the torch flames were extinguished and the rain had ceased.
I couldn’t help but smile. “You’re pretty handy to have around,” I said.
Derek turned his head to throw me a provocative look. “You have no idea,” he said. His wicked grin conjured up all sorts of seductive images that had me warming up inside again. I smiled back at him and let my mind wander off to places I hadn’t yet been, but that I’d imagined in fairly great detail. Our trip home was extremely stimulating.
********
The next day, Leah and I enjoyed an unseasonably warm walk home from school. I’d already begun my daily goodbye followed by my newest excuse why I couldn’t stay for dinner.
As we neared her mailbox, we saw a young girl standing on Leah’s front steps.
“Isn’t it a little early for cookies?” Leah asked, no doubt referring to the girl’s beige and green wilderness uniform.
I thought it a little odd, too, but didn’t become really wary until we took a few more steps and I saw the woman standing beside the girl, leaning against the house beside Leah’s front door. The way she smiled at me started a thread of apprehension weaving its way down my spine.
“It sure is,” I agreed absently. “Come on,” I said, urging Leah up her driveway. “I wouldn’t mind having some cookies for the holidays.”
As we approached, the young girl turned toward us, smiling in the overly cheerful way that salespersons usually do.
“Would you like to buy some cookies?” The child directed her question to Leah.
She looked to be about twelve years old. Her rusty red hair sprang from under her cap in a frizzy tangle. Her features were nondescript other than the smattering of particularly large freckles across her pert nose. She was cute and looked absolutely nothing like the woman who accompanied her.
About fifty or so, the woman’s sable hair was cut in a chic chin-length bob that was longer in the front and shorter in the back. Her long, oval face was sheathed in skin so pale it appeared translucent. Her dark eyes held the shrewd look of a business woman and she was dressed for the part, her curvaceous body wrapped in a tight black skirt and matching blouse.
“Yum, I’d love some,” Leah said lightly. “Give me just a minute.”
Leah moved past the girl to her front door. She swung the storm door open wide, nearly hitting the woman behind it. Neither of them flinched.
“Would you like to buy some, too?” The little girl looked toward me, smiling hopefully.
As I looked down on her, the wind blew softly, rustling in the girl’s copper curls. It carried a hint of something unpleasant in its cool blanket, some sickeningly sweet, putrid smell that swirled around my face. I froze.
“Hello, Carson,” the woman said, pushing herself away from where she leaned up against the house. Her ruby-red lips turned up at the corners. “You’re looking particularly fetching today.” Though her voice was distinctly feminine, it had the sultry, husky sound of a smoker. And something about it made my skin crawl in recognition.
“What are you looking at?” The child’s question startled me. When I dropped my eyes to her, she was looking toward the woman blankly. Then she raised her confused blue eyes to me.
She wasn’t the only one that was confused. I stood, rooted to my spot, with no idea what to do, looking back and forth between the woman and the girl.
Just then Leah returned with some money. “All I could find was ten bucks,” she said, stepping out onto the stoop in front of the girl. “Are they still five dollars a box?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the girl said with a sweet grin.
Then the woman spoke, “Such a sweet and pretty girl, isn’t she? Leah, I mean.”
Leah and the child exchanged money and information, the little girl writing it on her order sheet. They both acted as if they hadn’t heard the woman speak.
“It would be a shame for her to fall into harm’s way, wouldn’t it?”
My heart lurched. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Huh?” Both Leah and the girl were looking at me in confusion.
“Just that as long as you don’t do anything reckless, Leah will be enjoying her cookies by Christmas,” the woman said, her chilling smile widening to reveal perfectly straight, glaringly white teeth.
Leah was still looking at me strangely. “Carson?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Would you like some cookies, too?”
“I, um,” I said, looking back and forth between Leah and the woman who’d moved to stand right behind Leah. “I, uh, I don’t think so. I- I changed my mind, but thank you.”
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Sorry,” I said, shaking my head, trying to ignore the woman as she raised her hand to pinch one of Leah’s dark curls between her scarlet-tipped fingers. “I was just thinking about something else. I’ll just see you tomorrow, k?”
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Yep,” I said as lightly as I could manage. That seemed to have helped. Leah’s wrinkled brow smoothed somewhat at my response.
I turned and made my way down the driveway. As I turned onto the sidewalk, I looked back up at Leah. The woman was gone; only Leah and the little girl remained on t
he stoop.
Hurrying home, I quelled the urge to run, knowing Leah could see me if she stepped out into her yard. When I reached my mailbox, I got the mail and continued up my driveway as was my habit. The garage door was closed, but I silently prayed that Derek’s bike was hiding behind it.
And it must have been because when I turned the front door knob, it was already unlocked and Derek sat in the living room floor cleaning my father’s Glock. Relief flooded me.
I closed the front door and leaned back against it, closing my eyes.
“What’s wrong?” The question was innocuous enough, but I could hear the sharpness of anxiety in his voice.
“Fahl was at Leah’s.”
Derek was on his feet in an instant. “What? What happened?”
I described the encounter to him, leaving nothing out. The furrow in his brow grew deeper and deeper as I spoke.
“What could that possibly mean?”
His only response was a humph.
“Why am I seeing him? And now in the light?”
“He can travel outside the shadows. He’s dead, but he’s also… something else.”
“What do you think it means? Why is he stalking me?”
Derek watched me carefully, his expression unfathomable. “Your time might be coming.”
“What?” My heart sank. “So soon?”
“It’s impossible to know when, but…”
“How long do I have?”
Derek shrugged in that way that I loved. “Hard to say.”
I fought against that claustrophobic feeling that the world was closing in on me. I reminded myself that I was a survivor and that I wasn’t going down without a fight. My confidence was wavering, though, with the idea that my time might be imminent.
We ate dinner that night in silence, both of us lost in thought. Later, in the wee hours of the morning, I stirred at the sound of my bedside lamp switch clicking off. Fear rose inside me at the darkness that surrounded my bed until I felt Derek’s weight as he sank into the mattress beside me.
Wordlessly, he wrapped his arms around me and I snuggled into his bare chest, reveling in the intoxicating scent of him. And though his presence was comforting, he’d never been in my bed before and I felt the significance of it, like a nail of finality in the coffin of my circumstance.
The days that followed drifted by in a haze of desperation and awareness. There might as well have been a giant clock with glowing red numbers hanging over my head, counting down the days to my summons. Only the invisible clock that ticked away inside me had no numbers, no way of letting me know exactly how long I had left and, crazy as it might sound, that was the most disconcerting thing of all—not knowing.
********
Two weeks later, I sat in front of the Christmas tree, drinking my coffee, staring at the single, cheerfully-wrapped package that lay beneath it. My curiosity was at fever pitch. The gift had arrived last night. I’d noticed it when I’d come into the living room looking for Derek. He was gone when I woke up.
He’d left sometime while I slept, like he was doing more often of late. I never knew where he went, what he was doing or how long he was gone. I just knew that it was making me more and more uncomfortable as the days went by. At this point, I’d shifted from uncomfortable to downright suspicious.
Just then, I heard the roar of Derek’s bike as he zoomed up the driveway. I didn’t move, choosing to wait patiently where I was for him to come inside. And he did.
He came through the front door, carrying a bag with golden arches on the side. He smiled when he saw me sitting in front of the Christmas tree. “You’re up early. Aren’t you supposed to sleep in when school’s out?”
I smiled a sleepy smile in response.
Dropping a quick kiss on my lips as he passed, Derek took the bag into the kitchen. “Want some breakfast?”
“I’m not very hungry,” I said flatly.
I heard Derek’s boots clacking on the linoleum as he crossed the kitchen back toward the living room. “Is something wrong?” He asked, poking his head around the corner to look at me.
I said nothing at first, knowing that I wouldn’t get a straight answer if I asked the question that was always hovering at the back of my mind. Instead, I said, “Where’d this package come from?”
“The store,” he said with a mischievous grin.
“Duh,” I said, trying a brighter smile in return. I failed miserably, though. It’s not an easy task when your heart is heavy.
“You’ll just have to wait and see when you open it,” he said, turning back into the kitchen. “Come and eat.”
As I listened to the crackle of the fast food bag, I tried to push the doubts and reservations from my mind and pull out my most convincing “normal” demeanor. When I felt like I had been moderately successful, I reluctantly got up and went into the kitchen.
Over a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit, I did my best to smile a lot and chat about all the things I might normally chat about. But behind my attentive eyes and easy laugh I was elsewhere, hatching a plan. And though it gave me a modicum of comfort to be in control of something, I could feel my mood growing darker and darker as the day wore on.
By the time the sun had set, I was extremely anxious and my heart felt like lead in my chest. I had let myself care far too much for Derek, especially considering that I hardly knew anything about him. I’d let my emotions have free reign and now that misstep was coming back to bite me. And it had nasty teeth.
I was not to be deterred, however, so that night, true to the habit we’d fallen into, I got ready for bed and laid down, leaving my bedside lamp to shine brightly into the corners. I turned on my side and closed my eyes. I slowed my breathing as much as I could and purposely relaxed my muscles, pretending to fall asleep. But inside, I was a bundle of nerves. I just hoped that if Derek could feel my anxiety, he’d attribute it to something else. It’s not like there was a lack of sources of turmoil in my life.
About two hours after I’d gone to bed, I heard Derek’s footsteps. They padded softly across my bedroom floor and stopped beside the bed. He must’ve been watching me because there was a full minute’s delay before he turned off the light and slid into bed beside me.
As usual, he pulled me into his arms and, as usual, I went willingly. His lips brushed my forehead and he whispered something I couldn’t quite make out before he stilled. I lay perfectly motionless until I heard his breathing become deep and even.
I don’t know how long we lay like that. I must’ve dozed off at some point because I came awake when Derek gently shifted and pulled away. I let him rearrange my limbs, making them as heavy and limp as possible. Then I listened as he quietly made his way from my room.
As soon as I heard the door from the kitchen open and close, I leapt up and threw on the jeans and sweatshirt that I had readied just inside my closet. I pushed my feet into my shoes and hurried to the door.
Derek quietly slid the garage door open and I watched as he pushed his bike down the driveway. I grabbed the Camaro keys from the hook beside the door and stepped out into the garage.
When he fired up the motorcycle’s engine, I ran to the car and started it as well. As soon as he was out of sight, I backed out of the driveway and flew down the street after him.
I reached the stop sign and said a silent prayer that he took a left. That was the direction that most everything was from my house so I figured that’s the way he’d go. I made the turn and sped up, looking for the single tail light of his bike.
Finally, it came into view. I slowed to avoid him paying too much attention to who was behind him. I just needed to keep him barely in sight, just enough to see if and when he turned.
We made several turns. Never did he drive any differently or let on that he knew I was back there. I could only assume that I had remained undetected.
After a few minutes, I found that I was anticipating his moves and that was because the roads were familiar to me. I knew where he was going.
; Derek made the final right turn that would take him to the forks. I hung back so that he could drive ahead and not see me stop behind him. I killed the lights, pulled the car onto the shoulder and parked, climbing out quickly and making my way across the road and into the forest. I assumed he was going to the clearing and decided I would take a slightly different path to it so that he wouldn’t hear me following him.
It took me a bit longer to get there from my convoluted approach, but when I reached the small open area in the woods, my suspicion was confirmed. There, standing in the middle of the bare trees, was Derek. He was perfectly still and silent, as if he was waiting, but for what I didn’t know.