But they could not stay at her house. Too many people came and went from it. Moreover, he had seen Gabriel loafing about on the rooftop of her garage just beyond her bedroom window not long ago. He had been there once and he was confident he would return. After all, their kind could not afford to shun friends. He could not risk Gabriel returning and taking her from him. He realized that they needed to leave.
He decided to take her with him to the house next door.
The faceless man bent down and wrapped his arms around Melissa’s waist then stood erect effortlessly. With her slung over his shoulder, he descended the staircase and walked to the door in the family room at the rear of her house. He crossed her property and went directly to her neighbor’s back door.
Once inside, he began to panic. He worried she would shriek, or attack him with a mop, or a rolling pin. He worried she’d be cruel. He simply did not want a repeat of any of the negative incidents he had survived. He did not want to get hurt again. He wanted an opportunity to demonstrate that he was a friend; that he was going to be her best friend. She would love him and see he would never harm her. But he needed time to exhibit such sentiments. His inability to speak slowed his ability to communicate effectively.
Then an idea evolved in his mind, one he considered a rather good idea.
He rested Melissa on a lumpy couch in the living room careful to turn her on her side and elevate her head then scrambled to the garage. He scanned the area for rope, did not see it right away. He began to dig through a variety of gardening tools. He moved a wheelbarrow, gardening gloves, a watering can and a stack of dust-covered issues of Gardening Digest before happening upon a neatly coiled length of rope.
The faceless man smiled and returned to the living room.
He lifted Melissa and placed her in a wooden rocking chair that sat alongside the lumpy couch. He tied her hands behind her back and bound her feet together. In such a position, she would pose less of a threat to him, she could not hurt him.
He regretted tethering her like an animal but he needed time and wanted to avoid being attacked again. He did not want history to repeat itself.
He seated himself on the couch and watched as her eyes began to dart behind her eyelids. She started to stir. She moved her head from side to side and her eyes opened wide with fright.
Panic seized the faceless man. He dove over the back of the couch and hid behind it. He closed his eyes and pulled his knees to his chest and silently hoped she would accept him. She was his last chance.
***
Melissa regained consciousness and immediately recoiled from the nightmarish presence before her. She attempted to raise her hands to protect her head that smarted from the beast before her but realized they were bound behind her back. Then, for reasons unknown to her, the beast darted behind the couch.
She did not know how much time had passed or what exactly had happened to her, only that a monster had tied her to a rocking chair and that the back of her head throbbed. She looked around and attempted to search for clues that would divulge her whereabouts.
Her eyes studied the room, sweeping from left to right. A pair of upturned orthopedic shoes in the far corner of the room caught her attention. She squinted her eyes against the weak lighting of the room and saw that the orthopedic shoes were worn by plump legs that lay inert surrounded by a pool of dark fluid. Sheer panic set in as Melissa realized that her kindly next-door neighbor, Miss Harriet, was facedown, dead.
Her mind shut down, refused to acknowledge or process what was happening. She suppressed the urge to scream, but instinct suggested it would do no good. Furthermore, she did not want the creature to spring from his hiding place and attack her. She needed to act subtly and try to free herself.
She wiggled and rubbed her arms in an up-and-down motion and felt a slight give in the roping. While she manipulated her arms, she caught a glimpse of the creature cowering behind the couch. It poked its awful head up and looked at her, then hid again. It repeated this twice and resembled a hideous version of the beloved whack-a-mole game offered at carnivals, except she did not have a mallet with which to strike and doubted she possessed the speed and strength required to dominate it.
The creature persisted peeking at her intermittently for quite some time. She did not understand the purpose of its perpetual peeping and disappearing. It almost seemed afraid of her. But such a notion seemed nonsensical. After all, it had murdered Miss Harriet.
Each time it spied from the concealment of Miss Harriet’s bumpy couch, it lingered longer and longer, revealing more details of its construct. She began to detect something very familiar about it.
And then it hit her. Recognition and realization gelled. She knew where she’d see it before. Five months ago in the underground laboratory of Dr. Franklin Terzini, she and Gabriel had seen a partially formed human being in a stainless-steel development tank. Its face had haunted her since. She wondered why she hadn’t recognized it immediately. She supposed some protective measure rooted deeply in her brain engaged itself and forbade her from connecting the two occurrences. She never imagined she would see the creature again save for her mind’s eye, wouldn’t have needed to; its image was seared into her memory. It had resembled a gigantic fetus in its eighth week of development.
Now, however, only insignificant changes had occurred. Gauzy-looking skin barely sheathed the veins and capillaries that bulged in an elaborate matrix throughout his body. Small, thinly lidded eyes had been tightly shut when in the tank but now spied at her through a thick, milky film that shrouded them. She did not remember if it had a nose then, did not see one now; just two holes she guessed functioned as nasal passages. It did not appear to have lips either, though a line that formed where they should have resided implied some type of opening existed beyond it.
As the creature continued its game of peekaboo with her, she pondered whether Terzini had released it early from its fluid-filled development tank to kill her. But her question only gave rise to another question. If it had been released and dispatched to kill her, then why was she still alive?
Question after question swirled in her head. She was stunned when she realized it had emerged from its hiding place behind Miss Harriet’s sofa. It moved toward her slowly, cautiously, with its arms extended in front of it, hands up with palms facing her in a gesture of surrender. It looked even worse out of the tank than it had in it. Its torso was large and curved, lending it the overall impression of crouching as it advanced. Melissa wanted desperately to scream, to cry out in fear. Its webbed fingers, though raised submissively, were attached to formidable hands, dangerous hands. It approached slowly, but she knew it was capable of far swifter movements, its body betrayed its strength. Its flimsy-looking skin did little to hide the thick, ropey muscles in his arms, legs and torso.
She wondered why it didn’t simply kill her, why it was drawing out her death, prolonging the moment before it struck.
A fleeting thought crossed her mind. She didn’t believe it had much merit, but still wondered whether Dr. Terzini had left it behind or whether it had escaped. Such a thought seemed implausible, impossible. Why would it come to her if it had been left behind or had escaped Terzini?
Suddenly she heard herself addressing it in a calm, rational tone that sounded contradictory to what she was feeling.
“Are you going to kill me? Did Terzini send you for me?”
The creature responded with shock initially, narrowing its eyes and creasing the space between them as its head shot back as if upset by the mere implication. Clearly astounded and possibly hurt by her queries, it began shaking its head from side to side in disagreement.
Melissa realized it could not communicate verbally, that gestures and its facial expression would have to suffice. More importantly, it did not appear to want to hurt her. In fact, it looked pathetic.
“Untie me,” she ordered the creature. “I have to leave. Why are you keeping me prisoner?” she asked, but knew he could not explain.
I
t immediately began pacing. Her question had clearly raised conflict within him; its back and forth walking in the limited space between the couch and rocking chair indicated as such. It scrunched its meager features as it strode, appeared genuinely distraught.
“Please, people are going to be looking for me. I cannot stay here.”
To Melissa’s surprise, it dropped to its knees and placed its two hands together in front of it. Though she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t praying to some foreign deity Terzini had manufactured in his lab, she felt confident his body language was beseeching, that he was begging her to stay. Then it rose to its feet and gestured with one hand in a scooping motion as if digging into an imaginary bowl it held in the other. From these signals its movement transitioned to motions that asked. It was asking her if she was hungry.
Melissa could not believe it had the audacity to think she wanted to eat! She had been kidnapped and tied to her murdered neighbor’s rocking chair. Food was the farthest thing from her mind.
Survival instinct overtook her. She began thrashing, tilting the rocking chair from side to side rather than back and forth.
“No! I do not want to eat! I want to leave! Let me go!” she screamed.
The creature briefly looked as though it had been slapped. Stunned stillness then precipitated a wounded expression on face. Its posture suggested that her outburst had hurt it. Its shoulders slumped dejectedly. It lowered its head woefully.
Slowly, it walked past her, picked up a remote control that sat atop the coffee table and turned on the television then ran from the room like a child.
Melissa’s mind felt as though it were teetering on the apex of great precipice, that at any moment it would plunge into an unfathomable void from which the was no return. People created in tanks with superior DNA, genius geneticists who sought to transform humanity, a monster that wanted to feed her and keep her like a pet, all of it was madness, an incalculable departure from sanity. She could not, and would not, remain where she was. She began feverishly rubbing her arms together to loosen her restraints but to no avail. They were tightly knotted. The minuscule give she felt was for her comfort and nothing else.
After several moments passed and the creature didn’t return, she called out to it, asked it to come back. When it did, she begged it to let her go, to release her. It did not gesture or wave. It ran away from her.
She wobbled wildly once again and toppled the rocking chair. From her position on the floor, she was afforded a clearer view of the late Miss Harriet. Melissa began to cry. She sobbed for quite some time, she was uncertain of how long. Mercifully, mental exhaustion overtook her and she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 20
Gabriel awakened several times during the night. His sleep was fitful, filled with the same dream that repeated continually, looping like a film reel until finally interrupted by the sound of his own protests.
In his sleep, he would see her clearly. She sat atop a picnic table, bathed in a golden glow. The natural highlights in her hair shimmered, haloing her like a gilded crown. Her eyes blazed green as emeralds fired by sunlight. She was breathtaking. Before her lay rolling hills colored in shades of red, yellow and orange. He knew the place, had been there with her in the fall less than half a year earlier. But in his dreams, it was not he that was with Melissa. She was with another. She sat with her knees nearly touching him, the tall and thin boy with dark hair.
Gabriel called to her to get her attention and let her know he was there but she did not hear him. He moved closer, stood right beside her and called to her once again. Still, she did not respond. He reached out and tried to touch her only his hand passed through as powerless and weightless as a shadow. He called out to the boy with the dark hair, called him by name. Eric heard him and turned his head. As he looked to Gabriel, his face was not Eric’s. Instead, he had feline features. Widely spaced eyes the color of honey stared at him challengingly and his thin mouth twisted into a cruel smile. He reached his hands out and grabbed Melissa by the throat and began to squeeze. Melissa did not fight. Gabriel swung at him but his blows were ineffective, nonexistent.
Each time he woke he was screaming, drenched in perspiration and left with the same sinking feeling. He was certain Eugene had not been the person he saw with Melissa in her bedroom the night before. He did not believe Eric intended to choke her. But the thought of Eric’s arms around her, and hers around him, gave him an unparalleled feeling of dread, of misery. He did not blame her for moving on. He could not fault her for seeking comfort from someone else. He had been gone for a long time. After what they had been through together, after the traumatic events leading up to his departure, he understood her need for protection, for warmth. What he did not understand was her decision to be with Eric. Eric and his friends were who he had fought, who he had protected her from. For Melissa to have Eric as her boyfriend, she would have had to forgive him of his long list of transgressions against her. Gabriel knew Melissa to be a sympathetic and compassionate person, but marveled at the notion that even she could possess the capacity to overlook the things Eric had done to her.
The sun had not yet risen when Gabriel finally gave up on sleep and resigned to shower and dress for the day. A few hours later, Yoshi woke and knocked on his motel room door. After a quick breakfast, complements of the motel and a trip to the mall, they drove back to Harbingers Falls and parked in the lot behind Harbingers High School and waited.
From the driver’s side of the Cherokee, Gabriel watched as former classmates came and went. No one recognized him as they passed, despite his rather unoriginal disguise. Dark sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead served as his concealment.
Seeing students he used to socialize with in his early days at Harbingers High School caused an unexpected pang of sadness. Their faces and the hustle and bustle of racing to class brought to mind the first time he saw Melissa, how she stood out among them. The pang quickly transitioned to a squeezing feeling in his chest that traveled the length of his neck and constricted his throat.
His reaction was suspended as he saw Yoshi’s small frame moving against the tide of students that swelled toward the rear entrance just as the bell rang signaling the end of lunch. He bobbed like a buoy in breakers, his face expressive, his gestures animated. When finally freed from the chaos of the crowd, Yoshi looked over his shoulder in exasperation then climbed in to Gabriel’s waiting SUV.
“She’s not in there,” Yoshi declared. “I spoke to a few people and no one had seen her. Two of the kids I talked to had classes with her this morning but she never showed.”
“Why wouldn’t she be in school today?” Gabriel said more to himself that Yoshi. “If something happened to her,” he did not finish his sentence and instead slammed his fist against the steering wheel.
“I hate to say this, but I also asked about that Eric Sala kid and he isn’t in school today either.”
Though the realization that both Melissa and Eric’s absences coincided with one another, he felt the slightest modicum of relief that she was likely skipping school with her boyfriend and was probably fine. Gabriel felt the sinking feeling return and silently chastised himself for being so ill-equipped to deal with her moving on.
“Sorry man,” Yoshi began but was immediately distracted. “Whoa, who’s that?” he asked but Gabriel didn’t bother turning. He was descending into a dark, depressive depth he’d never been before.
“She’s the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever seen,” Yoshi admired. “I’ve seen the beautiful women of America, you know, the actresses and models, but she is, wow, she’s gorgeous.”
Gabriel was only half listening to his friend as a flash of black streaked past him. He would have missed it if he hadn’t looked up at the moment he did. Lengths of raven hair trailed a female figure, a familiar figure, just two cars away. He lowered his window and heard a string of profanities issued and instantly knew who it was.
Alexandra Geogopolous huddled against her red 2010 Ford Musta
ng and swore as she fumbled for her keys. Gabriel couldn’t help but laugh. Alexandra was unaccustomed to the responsibility of key location, and car possession in general because, despite having the car for some time, Alexandra continually lost her privilege to drive it as a result of her foul mouth and resistance to the imposition of her parent’s rules, or at least that’s what Melissa had told him when he’d asked about her frequent presence in Daniella’s front seat.
On impulse, he got out of the car with Yoshi in tow and approached her. Yoshi’s mouth stood open, his eyes wide as he walked toward her.
“Close your mouth, Yoshi. You’re embarrassing yourself,” Gabriel warned.
She looked up and recognized him. With a broad smile, she embraced him then promptly stepped back.
“Gabriel!” she said excitedly. “What the fuck, you’re back? Where’s Melissa?”
“She’s not with me. She must be with her boyfriend,” Gabriel said as diplomatically as he could.
“Boyfriend? What boyfriend?”
“Come on, Alex, you don’t have to pretend. I know about him and I’m not thrilled, but I get it.”
“Hold on, Gabriel. You may think you know something, but you are way off,” she said testily.
“It’s okay, Alex, you don’t have to lie for my benefit.”
“First of all, I am not a liar, and second of all, how dare you even say that about Melissa when all she’s done for the last five months is whine and moan about you, waiting for you to come back.”
Planet Urth Boxed Set Page 112