Chapter 12
Ignition off. Quiet. I always felt uneasy on this street. Maybe it was the willows with their leafy bows turned downwards and the shadows they cast. Maybe it was the quiet. I just never liked being outside on the street for very long.
I stepped out of my car, the breeze passed over my ears and through my hair and sent a chill down my back and I shivered. Maybe it was from nervousness to see her, maybe it was the unsettled feeling. I don't know. I locked the car and walked up to her house.
A feeling of Déjà vu came over me…
Even though it was midday and the sun was high in the sky, there was still barely any light on this street. It's a bit eerie really.
Eyes staring into infinity, the slit in her neck opening and closing with every thrust...
The door opened before I could knock and she stood in the doorway with a smile.
God she's beautiful.
Black wavy hair, fair skin, delicate features. A beauty uncorrupted by the pollution and pain of this world.
“Hey you! My God, you look like you haven't slept in days...”
I just stood there gawking.
“Are you gonna come in?”
I snapped myself out of it and faintly returned her smile.
“Of course,” I replied.
She turned and led me into the living room. There were some magazines and an almost empty coffee mug on the coffee table.
The table was living up to its name I guess.
“Here, have a seat. You look exhausted.”
She motioned for me to sit on the sofa and I did so. I could feel every aching muscle in my body sighing with relief as I sunk into the cushions.
“Want anything to drink?” She asked as she glided to the kitchen.
“Water please.”
I could hear the faucet turn on, filling up a glass. She returned with the water and sat it in front of me on the table before lying back on the couch, and stretching out with the graceful elegance of a swan.
“So where have you been hmm? You don’t call, you don’t write, no smoke signals...”
I lifted the cool glass of water to my lips and set it back on the table.
“I've just been busy,” I said, looking at the glass of water. I couldn't look her in the eyes as I told a flat out lie. Busy? Doing what exac—
“Busy? Doing what exactly?”
Damn she’s quick.
“Have you found a job yet? Last I heard you were still looking,” she continued.
Job? I don't know. Had I found a job?
“Uh yeah I got a job. They've been having me stay late. Hence the tired,” I tried looking at her while I said this but I quickly turned away.
“You're lying.”
Wow. Not even five minutes into the conversation and she's already calling me out.
“Tell me what's wrong, you know I can tell when you're lying. And you suck at hiding things.”
She sat up and moved closer to me. I always knew she was listening one hundred percent when she did this. Not that she wasn't any other time. But somehow the gesture seemed to let me know without a doubt.
I knew I could be honest with her. I could tell her I killed someone and she would guard the secret. Hell, she’d probably even be my attorney. I knew this and yet, at the same time I felt like I had to choose my wording carefully. Like she was psychoanalyzing everything I was saying. She always seemed to know things about me that I didn't know about myself. And I didn't always like to hear what she had to say, even though she was always right.
“Do you know Charles Green?” I asked.
Bemusement mixed with puzzled interest spilled out on her face.
“The one who was killed yesterday?”
“Yeah. Did you know him?”
“No not really. I mean I knew who he was. He always would go shopping at the Wonder Mart. I saw him a few times.”
Charles Green...
I looked up to her. I had never seen a beauty like hers. She wasn't perfect by any means. But who is? There was just something about her, something that changed any imperfections she had into perfections.
I looked back at my water…
…and instead found myself looking out of the front windshield of my car.
I was in the parking lot of the Wonder Mart. Wonder Mart. What a stupid name. The car was off and I was sitting with the windows cracked.
What day was it?
Did I need to get something from here? What was I doing?
I had a good view of the main entrance of the Wonder Mart from where I was parked. Upon noticing this, something clicked and I remembered I was looking for something. Someone maybe?
Did I need to get out of my car? Or was I looking for something in the parking lot?
Shoppers passed in and out of the automatic sliding doors. Carts empty going in and full carts or baskets coming out. A mother with a toddler in the front seat of a full shopping cart came out the doors. She was visibly at the end of her wits. The toddler squirmed around in his seat, his face red from the screaming he must be doing. I couldn't hear him but I could see his face. Mouth open eyes closed, face red, little fists clenched tight. The temper-tantrum pose.
From behind her came a man with a little hand basket. He caught my attention for some reason. He didn't appear to be anything special or out of the ordinary, but my eyes immediately locked on him.
He was a meek, middle-aged man.He struggled to carry his small hand basket. It looked like it had a quart of milk and a loaf of bread stuck out from the top of one of the bags. Only two or three bags at most and the poor guy was having a hard time. He had a receding hairline, and the remainder of his thinned hair was combed back. Thick-framed glasses sat atop his small, round nose. Even from where I was, I could see how magnified his eyes were by the goofy looking glasses.
He headed down the aisle to my right and stopped at a faded, to the point of being pink, red sub-compact car. He popped the hatch and set his groceries in the trunk, closed it and walked back to the entrance of the store to return the basket.
How considerate.
After returning the basket he went back to his car, clearly out of breath. He opened the driver's side door, entered and closed it behind him. A couple seconds later I saw the brake lights come on and he backed slowly from the spot and drove towards the exit of the shopping center.
I started my own car and…
…was now sitting back on her sofa looking at the glass of water on the coffee table.
What was I doing again?
“Hey, you OK?”
Her voice was far away and I could barely understand it, a foreign language to my ears. I turned my head in the direction of the voice and my eyes focused on her. My god she's beautiful.
“Hey. Are you alright? You kinda spaced out on me.”
I blinked a few times and shook my head a little bit.
“Yeah, sorry. I'm just tired.”
“When was the last time you slept?”
When was the last time I had slept? Actually slept, or just nodded off?
“I slept some last night. Not much though.”
“Why did you want to know about Charles Green?”
“I don't know, just saw it in the paper this morning. Thought he might have been a friend of yours or something.”
A friend? Why the hell would she be friends with him?
“Nope. So what's the real reason you wanted to meet so bad? I know you didn't come over here just for that.”
She already wants to get to the nitty gritty.
“What, I'm not allowed to want to see you after it's been so long?”
Basic diversion tactic. I used it a lot.
“Don't give me that. I can tell when you have something on your mind, so what is it?”
A flat direct tone. She meant business. I loved that tone of hers for some reason.
“Something is happening to me,” I started, “I don't know what it is. But I can't remember things very well. I'm having these, thes
e nightmares and I haven't been able to sleep because of them. I feel like I’m awake, but everything just starts going wrong and it feels so real. And sometimes when I am awake, when I know I’m awake, it still happens. I’ll be sitting on my couch or something and suddenly I’m somewhere else. You have no idea how real it is, I can feel my body interacting with stuff, touching, feeling the new place I end up and the things in that place.”
That was surprisingly honest. And she wasn’t judging me or thinking that I’m insane, even though I did. In fact, her “I Mean Business” face slowly melted away into her “Why Didn't You Tell Me Sooner I'm Really Concerned” face.
“And,” I continued, “I'm scared. The things I've been seeing are really starting to freak me out. I can’t control when it happens. I’ve even been in my car a couple times when its happened. I think I’m losing my mind.”
“In your car? You could have gotten hurt, or killed! You need to see someone about this. Like a professional.”
I was about to get defensive but she cut me off.
“I don’t think you’re crazy. Maybe you’re stressed and this is your body’s response to the stress, the dreams. Combine that with your lack of sleep which can really mess with you, and it just compounds the problem. You have to figure out a way to stop the cycle. Seriously, you’re going to kill yourself if you keep this up.”
“They’re not stress dreams…”
“How do you know? What have you been dreaming about?”
I don't know was the first thought in my head when she asked this. Dreams, dreams... What was I dreaming about? Was I even having dreams?
I couldn't remember what I had even come here for. What did I think would happen? That she was going to magically make things better?
Make what better?
I don't know.
What was I even telling her about?
“Can we go to my house instead? This street weirds me out. There's no light outside and it’s,” I looked for the clock. There was one hanging in view in the kitchen. The clock read 2:13 P.M. “And its after two o' clock. Come on, that just isn't right.” I smiled at her and added, “And besides, I'm not used to such high class,” I said as I looked around her impressively sized and decorated house.
She laughed, such a beautiful sound.
“At least you’ve still got your sarcasm. Fine, but when we get there will you tell me what's going on? You worry me, you know that?”
I nodded in agreement, “I'll tell you everything when we get there.”
Everything. That's funny. Even with a whole day I don't think I'd even be able to scratch the surface of all the things I wanted to talk to her about.
“Good. We’ll figure it out. If you can’t find a way to stop for yourself, at least do it for me.”
Déjà vu again. Why did that sound so familiar?
Chapter 13
She was a goddess, stunning to look at. I could barely concentrate on driving. I almost wished the drive between our houses was longer just so that I could stay here next to her a bit more. We didn't talk the whole way, she just kept giving me these quick little side glances and I could see the worry on her expression. She was trying to analyze everything she had heard, process it and come up with a solution.
I parked the car in the driveway and got out and she followed me to the door. I must have forgotten to lock it because the door was open.
“It’s a little chilly in here,” she said as she walked in.
“Yeah I know, there's been something weird going on with the air conditioner,” I replied. I walked down the hall and looked at the thermostat. It read 75 degrees.
Son of a bitch. I need to get that thing fixed.
She had already sat down on the couch and I followed, knowing I was going to have to start explaining. No more stall tactics.
“So, what's really going on? You promised you’d tell me everything, what you’re dreaming of.”
Right on cue.
“I don't really know, there’s been so many of them, it’s hard to pick just one.”
That was vague enough.
“Well pick one of them at least. I know you can remember at least one. Just tell me. You know I'm here because I want to listen and help you, but you always do this where you try and stall and dance around the subject. How am I supposed to help if you don't tell me?”
The concern was genuine in her voice and it comforted me. I was just about to start when there was a knock at the door.
“I'll get it,” she said already standing up. “Why is someone knocking on your door this late?” she asked as she headed towards the door.
I just wanted to know why she was answering my door.
Wait, this late? It was just after two o' clock. I looked towards the clock. Big hand is on the eight, little hand was in between the eleven and the twelve.
Almost nine o' clock?
“Hey! Come on in!”
I looked to the door as she invited in an older man. Receding hairline, thick-rimmed glasses and a very noticeable gap in between his two front teeth as he smiled at me.
He held out his hand for me to shake as he walked towards me.
“Charles Green, nice to finally meet you,” he said in between a large toothy smile. I could have shown a light in between his two front teeth.
I held my hand out and shook his. Something was obviously wrong with this whole situation. She came back to the couch and sat down right next me, Charles on the other side of her.
“We were just about to start talking about you,” she said casually, looking from me to him.
“Oh nothing bad I hope,” chuckling as he said it.
She laughed with him and looked back to me.
“Well, what were you going to say?” she asked, looking me in the eye as she said so.
“Oops, hang on a second. I left something in my car,” Charles said standing back up and walking to my door, “hold that thought!”
He shut the door behind him and I looked at her in pure confusion.
“What's he doing here?”
“Well, you wanted to know about him so I invited him over.”
The door opened up before I had a chance to ask her what the hell was going on.
“I found what I was looking for!” He announced, holding a baseball bat over his shoulder with one hand, in his other, several feet of chain.
I stood up, startled, and backed away, tripping over the coffee table. She didn't even have a chance to scream as he butted her in the forehead with the end of the bat, knocking her backwards over the coffee table and landing at my feet. Blood seeped from a knot, already forming, just above her right eye.
He smiled as he walked towards me, raising the bat above his head. Gone was the meek looking old man. The figure in front of me was the very definition of sinister.
“Now pay attention!”
He swung the bat down with one arm, connecting squarely on the top of my head.
I fell to a heap immediately. The room spun and my ears rang. I saw doubles of him bending over and binding her feet with chains.
“No,” I murmured, clawing out for his legs but missing by a mile. The words sounded fuzzy as they left my lips. My head throbbed, pulsing in pain and my thoughts were jumbled. He just flashed his toothy smile.
After he finished binding her legs up, he stood and dragged her lifeless body away from me by the other end of the chain.
“Now you just sit here like a good boy while we have a nice little chat.”
The words hit my ears through a haze and didn't register for a second. He dragged her behind the sofa and down the halls towards my room.
“Don't worry, I'll take better care of her than you did,” he spat, slamming my bed room door shut.
Chapter 14
It was late. I wasn't sure quite what time, maybe eight or nine o' clock. I had just got home and I felt drained, exhausted to the point of collapsing. Tear stains streaked my face.
I needed… I actually needed… A friend. A compani
on. Someone. I needed someone. Just a human connection, a real one, just for a little while.
What was I doing here? I stood at my front door, suddenly not remembering why I was outside in the first place. A chill in the air nipped at me and I didn’t have a jacket.
Keys, I needed my keys. I dug around my pant pockets until I found my keys and unlocked the door, staggering past the entryway and slumping over my sofa, legs hanging off the edge of the arm rest.
The adrenaline was wearing off and I felt my body crashing. I've never felt more exhausted in my life. I just lay there on the couch for a while, not sure for how long. My muscles ached and screamed at me and I was panting, out of breath for some reason. I just stared at the patterns on my sofa until the morphed and molded into shapes, faces and… Other things.
I rolled my face over towards the coffee table. It was cluttered with magazines, a plate with a few crumbs on it and a red cup were on the left corner. I should probably take those to the sink and wash them. I wasn't sure how long they had been there.
Forcing myself to stand, I bent over and picked up the plate and cup and walked into the kitchen, but when I got there, I couldn’t remember why.
Oh yeah, sink.
I sat them both in the sink, noticing the other dishes that had piled up on the counter. I should probably wash those too. I put the plug in the drain, opened the cabinet under the sink to grab the dish soap and poured some into the sink.
I watched the water fill up the sink, suds foaming up so that I couldn't see through them. I picked up the sponge from behind the faucet and dunked it, squeezing and releasing, letting it fill up with soapy water.
The first dish I grabbed was a bowl with little bits of cereal stuck to the rim. I didn't remember eating cereal. Not this week at least.
Gross.
I turned the faucet off and dipped the bowl under the water. It was warm and felt good after being outside in the cold. You have to enjoy the simple things like the feeling of warm water on a cold night. I should take a shower after I'm done, that would hit the spot. I scraped the cereal out of the bowl with the sponge and finished washing it. I grabbed a towel off of the oven handle behind me and dried the dish and placed it into the cabinet by the pantry.
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