by Dan Padavona
At the second floor landing, she spared a quick glance at two closed apartment doors. Murk spread into the corridor, and soon the darkness would be absolute. She continued up the stairs to the third floor, and here her instincts told her she would find what she sought. Turning down the corridor, she passed the first apartment door and stopped in front of the second . A screw had come loose, and the apartment’s number—four—hung upside-down. But that wasn’t what caught her eye. More intriguing were the two heavy-duty locks none of the other apartments owned. Excitement tingled through her.
Why would the apartment owner need so many locks? Probably because there is something valuable hidden inside.
She considered the crowbar in her hand, wondering if it could pry the door open or if the locks were too strong to overcome. She twisted the knob.
Locked.
Slipping the crowbar’s edge into the crack between the door and jamb, she yanked on the bar. Wood crackled, and she felt the door give way slightly. She pulled harder, and the door splintered and fissured. Varicose vein-like cracks ran up and down the door, yet the locks held. As darkness crept through the corridor and into the stairwell, she wondered—
Why this door? What makes me believe this apartment dweller trafficked drugs?
The formidable locks were a strong clue, and the voice in her head screaming she had found the right apartment grew louder. Sweat poured down her forehead, matting long strands of black hair against her face. She tugged harder on the bar, yanking free a chunk of wood. No matter how much care the apartment owner had taken to reinforce the door with extra locks, the door itself appeared flimsy. Given an hour to work with, she felt certain she could tear the door open piece-by-piece. But she didn’t have an hour. Already the corridor morphed into a black dungeon passageway. The door, the jamb, and the crowbar were little more than hazy shapes in the dark.
She slid the crowbar up the frame toward the locks. She pulled and pulled, her neck muscles ridging against her skin. The wood splintered, but the door held firm. She leaned backward, and when the added leverage still proved insufficient, she put one leg against the wall and pulled harder. Her muscles quivered. Her face turned the color of aged red wine, the door crackling like a forest fire.
Suddenly the door gave way with dual pops like gunshots. The sounds echoed down the stairwell, and a third sound—
The click of the stairwell door opening?
—drifted up to meet her. The crowbar flew from her hand and clanged against the peeling linoleum floor. Melody tumbled into the opposite wall, smacking her head against the plaster. For several seconds, the corridor spun past like a spinning wheel, and then she lay against the wall, regaining her bearings. Inky darkness spilled out from the cracked-open doorway.
I should have brought a flashlight. Jesus, I should have done this in the middle of the day.
After pulling herself to her feet, she peered into the unknown, her raspy breathing echoing down the corridor. She retrieved the crowbar, taking small solace that at least she had a makeshift weapon if something attacked her in the dark apartment.
Melody pushed open the door, and the hinges groaned like moaning wraiths. As she stepped inside the apartment, she noticed the first blues of twilight spilling around drawn shades in the kitchen and living room. She pulled down on the first shade, and it rocketed upward with a bang, letting in precious, but quickly fading light. In the kitchen, she opened the second shade. Cool, shadowy tones tinted the apartment interior as rotting dairy products wafted from the refrigerator.
She crossed the kitchen into a hallway with two closed doors. Edging open the first door, she cautiously looked through the crack. A bathroom. The medicine cabinet doors stood open, and a multitude of pill bottles lined the shelves. Certainly she could find something in the cabinet to take the edge off her nerves, but better game lay waiting down the hallway.
The drugs are in the bedroom.
How can I possibly know this? Why am I so sure?
Down the hallway, she paused at the closed door. The bedroom. She touched the brass doorknob, then pulled her hand back as if she expected a trap—her intuition told her she had been led here, coerced by someone with a vested interest in her obtaining drugs. But who? The idea sounded insane to her, and yet the gravitational-like pull of the apartment complex seemed too potent to be explained away as pure chance or a hunch. She hoped the bedroom would not hold drugs so she could put the idea of coercion out of her head.
Holding her breath, she turned the knob, and the door swung open. Stale, hot air met her at the threshold. She immediately smelled marijuana.
That doesn’t mean anything. Everyone smokes a joint now and then.
She glanced down at her trembling hands. A dresser stood off to the left. In front of her rested a water bed with the sheets and blankets ruffled. Someone lay down last Saturday and never woke up again. A closed closet door waited in the corner.
Her sneakers sinking into plush carpet, she crossed the bedroom, the hair standing on the back of her neck. Something felt wrong.
I’m not alone in the apartment.
She whirled around, the crowbar raised over her head. The open doorway looked back at her, and beyond that, the deepening dark of the hallway. Her fingers tightened around the weapon.
The windows were shut and locked, the buzz and purr of appliances a faded memory. Heavy silence weighed on the apartment’s atmosphere. Listening, she expected to hear a footstep or the groan of a floorboard, but heard only silence. Yet she sensed someone following her, perhaps hidden in the kitchen or at the end of the hallway.
Someone with a butcher knife.
I’m making myself crazy. I need to find the drugs and get the hell out of here.
Melody turned back toward the closet, wishing for eyes in the back of her head. She crept across the room, and then the closet door stood before her. She reached for the doorknob, her breath held deep inside her chest.
The door opened, and her eyes widened. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined such a fortune. While her heart thumped faster and harder, she knelt down beside enough narcotics to keep all of Florida Bliss high for the next several years. She reached out toward the treasure to prove it was not a mirage, that she was not dreaming—
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
Melody squealed. Before her yell finished resonating through the apartment, she turned to see the silhouette of a man in the doorway. She clutched the crowbar to her chest, her head swimming.
“I said, ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’” Laughter. “You know drugs will lead you to an early grave, don’t you?”
Melody squinted. The man’s face was enshrouded by the room’s shadow, but she saw his fit, muscular contours.
“Remember what Nancy Reagan said? Just say no. Oh, I suppose you don’t even know who Nancy Reagan was. You’re just a babe in the woods. A pretty one, too.”
The man stepped toward her.
“Stay away from me, fucker.” She raised the crowbar over her shoulder, prepared to take the intruder’s head off if he came an inch closer.
He stopped, arms extended out from his torso and hands open to prove he carried no weapon. In the dark, the silhouetted man appeared as an animated scarecrow, or a corrupted Christ figure on the cross.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I don’t give a shit what you are here for. I found the drugs first, and if you try to take them from me—”
“I don’t want your drugs, Melody.”
Stunned, she fumbled the crowbar as it slipped through her fingers, and she barely snatched it out of the air before losing it in the gloom.
“How did you know—”
“You are Melody Ailmen, right?” Silence. “Because if you aren’t, I’m going to feel pretty embarrassed. And, of course, I’ll have to kill you. So I’ll ask you one more time…are you Melody Ailmen?”
“Yes.” Her mouth went dry, her whisper sounding more like a question than an a
nswer.
“I thought so.”
He lurched toward her. She swung the crowbar, but he was too fast. He caught the bar in his hand and twisted it until she thought her wrists might snap, and she dropped the crowbar with a yelp.
A strong hand gripped her neck and pulled her into him. She smelled strong cologne. She beat her fists against his chest and arms, but he stood quietly, seemingly unaffected, letting her exhaust herself.
“Are you through?” He was too strong. Her arms dropped to her side, her breaths wheezing in the stale air. When he reached behind him, she gasped.
Here comes the knife. He’s gonna kill me.
From his back pocket, he produced not a knife, but a small flashlight. He flicked it on and spread the beam toward the treasure of narcotics in the closet.
“The first thing we need to do is find a box or a bag, because I’m not touching that shit.” He gestured toward syringes, vials, and baggies full of powders.
“Who are you?”
He pointed the flashlight up into his face. Lit from below, he looked like a ghoul.
“I’m Mickey Keller.”
An hour later, Mickey loaded the final duffel bag of narcotics into the back of Melody’s Jeep. A diamond mine of stars sparkled above, the street appearing coated in silver.
“Tell me again why the person who sent you wanted me to find the drugs.”
Mickey’s teeth reflected the starlight, and when he grinned, he reminded her of an animatronic funhouse monster.
“Because he wants you to be happy. He wants you to have everything you ever dreamed of having.”
Who the hell is this person, and how does he know who I am?
“Yeah? And what’s in it for him?”
“Information. He wants to know everything about your neighbors: how many people live in the community, who the leaders are. If anyone has weaponry, or—”
“Are you for real? They’re just a bunch of boring old farts. Sure, a few probably have rifles or handguns, but if you think they are building an army or something, you’re out of your mind.”
“Just information, Melody.”
“I don’t exactly hang out with any of them. They aren’t my type of people.”
“If it makes you happy, go ahead and hide inside your house with your supply of narcotics from now until the end of the time. But get out enough to meet your neighbors, and keep your ear to the ground. If you hear or see anything unusual, I want you to tell me.”
“How will I contact you?”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll come to you.”
What does he mean by ‘he’ll come to me?’ Melody pictured herself coming awake in the dead of night and seeing Mickey leering over her bed. She shivered.
Mickey turned to leave and then spoke over his shoulder.
“Oh. You’ll want to keep your eyes open for a teenage girl.” Mickey grinned again, but the smile did not reach his eyes. “She’ll be accompanied by a boy.”
Melody thought hard. Having hidden inside all day and missed Tori’s and Blake’s arrival, Melody couldn’t think of any young couples at Florida Bliss.
“I’m the only teenager there so far.”
“And you already own your own home. What a success story you are. Your parents would be proud, wherever they are.”
“How will I recognize these teenagers if they show up? There have to be plenty of teens still left in the world.”
Mickey told her she would recognize the girl by her fiery red hair, unmistakable and striking. “She’s rather special, and I’d very much like to see her again someday.”
He walked away into the darkness toward an old pickup truck with a wooden bed. That’s the truck I saw turn the corner. Mickey might pretend to be on her side, but he was a razor blade, a sharp-edged danger. Her mouth went dry.
“I’ll see you soon, Melody Ailmen.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Beach House
Viper cracked open a warm beer and leaned back in a deck chair. His feet rested on the deck rail, crossed at the ankles. Attached to the beach home, one hundred feet of rope extended to a 12-pack of beer like an ogre’s fishing line. The beer lay wedged in wet sand, occasionally floating from side-to-side when the tide came in higher, as dusk set in indigo blue. Finishing half of the can in four gulps, he watched the moonlit breakers pound the shoreline. A few hundred feet up the beach, a kaleidoscope of colorful beach towels and sand pails dotted the sand, where several hundred vacationers had fallen asleep on the beach and simply disappeared a little over a week ago.
Twenty yards below the deck, the sweet scent of burned wood blew back to him as the sea-to-land breeze thickened. The remnants of his fire pit slowly disappeared under blowing sand.
As he drifted off to sleep, wondering what had become of Lorna and Will, the CB radio crackled.
The entire world disappears, and still there are people who won’t let me get a little shuteye.
“Viper? You got your ears on?”
Hank’s voice. Viper reached down and picked up the radio.
“I’m here, Hank. Gotcha loud and clear. But why are you talking like some half-ass trucker? You fixin’ to deliver me a wagon load of cold brewskies?”
The crackle of static answered him.
“Hank? You still there?”
“Yeah. I’m here, Viper.”
“What’s up? Those folks at the complex got you repairing everything under the sun?”
“Here and there. Viper, I found out something about my daughter.”
Viper stared at the radio. When Hank told him the crazy story about two kids at Florida Bliss carrying Amy’s picture, and how they found the photograph in a Camaro stolen from Ricky, Viper spit out his beer and started to cough.
“Are you shitting me? Our Ricky?”
“It sure sounded like him.”
“So the little punk finally scored his dream car. But how did he get hold of that picture?”
“He must have broken into my house after we left. The picture came from her bedroom nightstand.”
“Jesus.”
“You don’t think he did anything crazy to the house, do you, Viper?”
Viper considered the question. Hell, yes, he thought Ricky had done something crazy. Nothing that jackass did could surprise him, but he wasn’t about to worry Hank.
“Nah. He’s a stupid kid, but I don’t reckon he’s crazy-stupid.” To hell with that. The damn kid probably took the Camaro back to Chardray and drove donuts around Hank’s living room. “I realize it’s a crazy-ass coincidence, but what do you really have to worry about? It’s not like he has Amy’s address in Atlanta.”
“What if she came back to Chardray, looking for me? I’m worried Ricky did something to her.”
Viper watched the tide push halfway up the sand. Soon it would pull his fire pit out to sea.
What if Hank is right and Amy really is alive? Is Ricky crazy enough to stalk her?
“Tell me more about the run-in these kids had with Ricky and how they ended up with his Camaro.”
“All I know is there was some trouble with Ricky and the two other men he ran with.”
“And you don’t think these kids were shitting you?”
“No. They seem like honest kids to me. They didn’t tell me much, but I got the feeling maybe Ricky and the other men tried to hurt those kids.”
What in the hell has Ricky gotten himself into? Who are these guys he was with, and why would they want to hurt a couple of kids?
“Okay, bud. I’m listening. What do you intend to do?”
“I’m driving back to Chardray.”
“No. That’s no good, Hank. We had this discussion already. If your daughter is out there looking for you, she’s just as likely to follow the signs to Florida as everyone else. What happens if you drive back to South Carolina and Amy shows up at Florida Bliss looking for you?”
“If I sit here doing nothing, I’m liable to pull my hair out.”
“I hear ya, partner
. But she’s a smart girl—you’ve said so, yourself. What did you do when she went away to college and when she moved to Atlanta? Did you trust her to make good decisions and take care of herself?”
“Yeah. I suppose I did.”
“Well, this time ain’t no different, Hank.”
“It still doesn’t feel right. I swear, if that kid laid a hand on her—”
“If he did, then I’ll be next in line to whoop his sorry ass after you finish with him. So I’ll ask you, do you need me to drive over to Bliss? Just say the word, and I’ll ride with ya back to Chardray.”
The radio fell quiet, and Viper imagined Hank struggling to decide what he should do.
“No. You’re right. If she’s trying to find me, I won’t do her any favors by leaving.”
“You made the right decision.” After a moment of silence, Viper asked, “Everything else okay over there?”
“I suppose so. New people coming in every day. It’s starting to look like a real neighborhood.”
“And I bet you’re the only one who knows his ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to fixin’ stuff.”
“There’s one guy—Mitch Bloom. Everyone calls him Indiana. He’s got a good head on his shoulders. Another guy…Lance Benin. Former marine who lost his eyesight in Iraq. Indiana says the guy waded through half-a-mile of alligator-infested swamps just to make it to the interstate.”
“That’s one tough son-of-a-bitch.”
“You’d like both of them.”
“I reckon I would, but it’s like I told ya—I ain’t much into having neighbors. Besides, I could sit here all day and night, drinkin’ beer and watchin’ the tide roll in. Which is what I’m fixin’ to do. You keep me up to date on your daughter, and if you need anything, you holler over the radio. Okay, Hank?”
“Okay, Viper. I’ll check in with you soon.”
Viper put down the radio and sipped at his beer, while the tide overtook his fire pit and dragged the charred remnants into the sea. The crashing of breakers up and down the beach merged into a continuous rush of sound and fury. He thought about Ricky. He could picture the jackass kid breaking into Hank’s house. But what made Ricky obsessed enough to steal one of Amy’s pictures? And who were these guys who attacked the kids?