Deny the Moon

by Melissa A. Graham

  Chapter 13

  July 10th 2011 3:45 a.m.

  The next few days were a blur, and I wasn’t sure if it was partly due to my newfound appreciation for Jim Beam. I hadn't talked to Liz since kicking her out of my apartment, but my phone had been going off non-stop.

  Most of the calls were from her. Calls every couple hours starting the morning after she left, voice-mail alerts, and unread texts filled the void left by her absence. I couldn't answer. I couldn't bring myself to talk to her, or listen to the many voicemails she'd left. I didn't want to hear what she had to say. Not yet. I thought I'd been ready to accept it and move on, but as it turned out, I still needed time to process this.

  Even Jackson tried to call me, and while I was itching to hear how he was doing, I knew the topic of his call would be Liz. He was the Velvet Rope's unofficial mediator. He wanted to see everyone happy. Unfortunately, I wasn’t ready to accept what I'd learned about our friend, and I couldn’t just tell Jackson why I was so upset.

  I could only imagine the explanation Liz was giving everyone for our little spat.

  I went back to work, and she was nowhere to be seen. I was able to glean from the other girls that she had called in for the next few days; family problems or something like that. I knew her family lived out of state, not sure where, but I also knew that they didn’t get along. Knowing exactly what that was like, I seriously doubted that was what was going on.

  I tried to remember what when the last full moon had been. Was that why she calling off? Maybe it was that time of month for her, a phrase which took on a whole new meaning now. Or maybe she had called off because of me.

  It wasn’t until I was cashing out that I was able to remember the moon had been just past its first quarter when she’d saved me from that wolf attack. There would still be another week or so before the full moon, which meant Liz either really did go see her family or she really was avoiding me at all costs.

  Why did that thought make the tears flow?

  "Harley, is everything okay?"

  Jackson appeared behind me. I must have been really out of it to not have heard him. A man that large should be heard coming long before I saw him.

  I turned in my stool and wrapped my arms around him, as far as they would go, and pressed my face into his chest squeezing tight. I could feel him tense under me, could feel the stiffness in his muscles before my memory snapped back to me.

  "Oh my God, Jackson! I’m sorry you’re still hurt!" I released him instantly.

  He laughed softly and relaxed with my release, shaking his head and making the large hoop earrings lining his earlobe clang against one another.

  "I can take it, angel. You don’t pack that much of a punch."

  He flashed me a wry grin before it vanished again. His large hand moved to my face and knuckles wiped at the wetness on my cheeks.

  "You should call her," he said with that mysterious understanding he always managed to have.

  I could argue that it wasn’t about Liz, but then what else would it be? It had been a hard stressful week, sure, but not having my best friend around to relax with, to cry with... It was unbearable.

  I turned away from him, wiping my tears away as I collected my tips for the night and put them into my wallet. I had been the one avoiding her calls for the last two days. So why was I so upset that she skipped work to avoid me?

  "I can’t. Not yet."

  "Harley—"

  "It’s complicated, Jackson. I know it's cliché as fuck, but it’s true. I can’t even begin to explain it to you."

  His hand rested between my shoulder blades, making me look back to him. He was smiling down at me. "You would be surprised what I can understand, angel. If you would just trust me."

  I stared up at his towering form for a few heartbeats, trying to understand what he meant. His face was impassive. Kind as always, but giving nothing away. His words nagged at me for a while, but he simply squeezed my shoulder and moved past me, disappearing behind the bar.

  What about this situation could he possibly understand?

  There was nothing else said for the rest of the night. Jackson busied himself with his closing tasks, and I finished cleaning up my locker in the back. I bid the rest of the ladies goodnight, leaving them to their after parties and hookups, and made my way outside. It was straight home and to bed for this little cock tease.

  The parking lot was pretty bare by the time I left the club. There were a few of the employees’ cars in the back lot with mine, Andre’s Navigator included, and even an abandoned car in the front lot, which usually meant either it was broken down or the owners were too drunk to drive themselves home. Most likely, it would be gone by tomorrow.

  I unlocked my driver side door and threw my oversized bag into the passenger seat. A series of short honks sounded, and I saw a glimpse of one of the other girls’ hands waving at me as she left the lot and pulled onto the street. I waved back and ducked into my car, ready to head for a date with my favorite blanket and some mind-numbing television.

  I pulled from the space slowly, but something instantly did not feel right. I lightly pressed the brake and stopped mid-turn. The parking lot was empty, eerily so, without a sign of life in sight and still something was nagging me at the back of my mind. Deciding I was losing my mind, I shifted the car into drive and made for the road, but as I accelerated more and more I felt the back end of my car begin to wobble from side to side. I hit the brakes again, cursing under my breath as my back end protested against the sudden stop.

  A flat tire? I had just gotten all four replaced two months ago.

  I got out and walked around to the back of the car. The tire on the driver’s side was fine, so I moved across the back to check the other side. The tire wasn’t just flat, it was shredded. It looked like someone had gone to town on it with a knife, slashing and ripping it over and over.

  "Fuck!" I screamed, feeling my blood begin to boil.

  Who the hell would do something like this? Even Frank wasn’t the type to just slash someone’s tires. He was more creative than that.

  My foot connected with the fender, putting a small, foot-sized dent into the side and subsequently snapping the heel clean off my shoe. A strangled scream of pure rage and frustration growled from my throat as I hobbled on my uneven shoes and bent over to grab the heel from the pavement.

  As I crouched near the back corner of my car a small dark puddle caught my eye. At first, I thought it was motor oil left behind by another car, but this was even thicker than that. Something inside me told me to touch it, to see what it was. In hindsight, my instincts are real jerks.

  My hand moved towards the dark liquid, but before I could swipe my fingertips into it another drop dripped down into it. It was coming from my car.

  I followed the source of the dripping, my feet shuffling in my crouched position to move around to the back of the car. The dark substance was sliding down the bumper through the seal of the trunk above.

  My heart went to my throat, and I stood up, looking down at the trunk. I tried to swallow but couldn’t manage. My mouth was dry, my heart beating in a rapid cadence of fear. I moved, slowly, to grasp the handle, and before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled it open.

  I jumped at the sea of red. Not the deep crimson of blood but bright and vibrant cloth. My trunk was filled with the strange fabric and it was covering something. I didn’t want to lift the cloth, to peek and find out what Pandora’s Box was hiding underneath, but my body was on autopilot. Oh God, Liz. She hadn't been at work. Oh God, no. Please, no.

  "Harley, is everything okay?"

  Jackson’s voice was distant, foggy even, as I lifted the red fabric. My voice strangled in the back of my throat, and I let the fabric drop back down into the trunk. I had uncovered enough. I swooned backward only to fall against something solid... something warm.

  Jackson’s hands wrapped around the tops of my arms, holding me steady. His breath hitched slightly as I stared at the poor deer, its throat a glis
tening shredded mess of sinew and blood. I felt my stomach twist and contort with the urge to vomit. Jackson’s grip tightened on me as he stared down over my head at the animal bleeding out in my trunk.

  "...the fuck?" he said, moments before I hurled forward and lost the entire contents of my stomach to the asphalt.

  I stood off to the side of my car, bent at the waist with hands propped on my knees to keep me from falling face first, and waited out the wave of heaves that followed. My stomach clenched threateningly, in rapid succession, trying to force out food that was no longer there. When I thought I might be safe enough to stand up again, the smell would hitch a ride on the light breeze and start it all over again. It was sickly sweet, and I remembered it was the same as in my dream. The smell of blood and carnage.

  "Jesus..." Jackson stared down at the mess in my trunk and grabbed at the red cloth, taking a look further under it. Good for him. Personally, I didn’t care to know how much worse it got.

  "And you’re sure this wasn’t here earlier? You didn’t smell anything strange when you were coming to work?"

  "I think I would remember the smell of a deer rotting in my trunk, Jackson." Choking back the retching blunted the harsh tone my voice. "Just get rid of it."

  "Who the hell would put a dead deer in your trunk?"

  My affirmation that it couldn’t have been Frank shattered with Jackson’s question. Slashing tires? No. Slashing tires so I discovered the gruesome gift in my trunk? Yes, I would have to say that was very Frank, which meant he, or one of his lackeys, had been here while I was working. They had been that close.

  Out loud I said, "I don’t know. Someone with a sick and disturbed sense of humor?"

  I could feel his stare on my back. He wasn’t buying it, but he wasn’t pressing me for the answer either. I turned and glanced over my shoulder to find him shaking his head, but he dropped it. I moved to the passenger side and opened the door to dig some mints out of my bag, hoping to mask the residual taste of vomit.

  As I dug in the hopelessly large bag, I felt the car lift slightly on its frame and knew Jackson had lifted the animal out of the car. I decided to stay right there, hunkered inside the Toyota, until he managed to drop the deer off in the surrounding wooded area. I didn’t think I could bear seeing the mutilated carcass again. It reminded me too much of the dream I had a while back. Its throat was torn out, its stomach eviscerated, just like mine had been in the nightmare. Maybe I was projecting, but I did not want to look at it again.

  After about ten minutes, I heard Jackson’s shit-kickers approaching again. I felt bad that the poor thing had to be dumped so uncaringly in the woods but it was its natural habitat, and I needed it as far away from me as possible.

  "Harley, check this out."

  I almost told him no. Hell no. I did not want to see any more. Instead I bravely peeked my head out of the open passenger door and looked down the length of the car to find Jackson carrying the red cloth the deer had been wrapped in.

  "Oh God, Jackson! Why didn’t you just leave it on that thing? It’s all covered in blood and gore and... Bambi bits."

  "Just look at it, girl. Damn."

  I groaned, but did as I was told. He held the cloth up at its full length, just at his sternum, and used one hand to lift the top up. What he held was not just some cut of fabric, as I thought, but a cloak. An honest to God red winter cloak complete with hood. It looked like something Little Red Riding Hood would wear. My throat suddenly went dry.

  "Why the fuck would they wrap it in this?" he asked, his steely eyes staring at me and swimming with as much confusion as I felt.

  I stared at the cloak as it hung from his hands, my veins icing over from the fear creeping over me. There was something else about it. Something off about the way the fabric looked in the center of the back. I stood up and turned my body towards it, letting the light from the street hit it at another angle. There was a pattern to it, something that stood out with straighter lines beside the smudges and dampness of the blood. As my eyes followed those unnatural lines of blood I felt my heart nearly stop.

  "Get rid of it," I snapped, slamming the passenger side door.

  "Well that’s a no brainer, but we need to—"

  "Get rid of it, Jackson!" I made my way around the front of my car, my keys gripped in my palm, "Throw it in the dumpster, the woods. Burn it. I don’t care, but get rid of it."

  I opened my door and turned on the car. I gave only a glance in my rearview mirror as I tore out of the parking lot. Jackson held the red cloak in his hands, and I drove until I could no longer see the heart drawn on the cloak with the deer’s blood. A love note.

  I pulled up to my apartment in record time. I wanted to be as far away from the club, as far away from that cloak and the mauled deer carcass, as quickly as possible. Hell, I barely remember getting on and off the highway.

  I grabbed my bags, made my way upstairs, and locked every deadbolt and chain I had as I shut my front door. Though I normally don’t open my windows I still went around to each one and checked, making sure it was locked tight and the curtains were drawn. At that moment, I was the poster child of paranoia.

  Once everything had been checked, I made a mad dash to my bedroom and sat on the edge of my bed with a forceful bounce. I ransacked the side table drawer until I found my emergency stash of smokes and pulled one free of the cardboard with shaky hands. I had quit a few months ago, but couldn’t bring myself to throw the leftover pack in the trash. I was praising my foresight as I lit the cigarette.

  I let the nicotine calm my nerves, a cough erupting from lungs that were out of practice. The mixture of the coughing and the nicotine hitting at once brought a nice little buzzed sensation to my brain. After a few moments, I was able to quell the coughing and breathe in the smoke easier. Just like riding a bicycle.

  Everything came crashing against me in that moment. Liz’s earth-shattering confession, our falling out, Frank’s reappearance into my life—I couldn’t tell which was worse. The image of the deer bleeding out in my car turned my stomach. That was a lie; I knew exactly which was worse.

  I still had no idea what Frank wanted from me. If this was just about his bike, then I’d greatly underestimated his need for a round of psychotherapy. "Psycho" being the keyword.

  I swiveled on my bed, bringing my legs up to lay straight in front of me and rested my head back against the wall.

  And Liz! What did she want from me? Had she really thought I wouldn’t freak out about it? I don’t know a single person in their right mind that wouldn’t have done what I did. This wasn’t her ruining my favorite skirt or bringing my car back with a mysterious dent in the fender. Hell, it didn't even bother me when she told me she was gay, but this was something I couldn’t just put in a box and shove away.

  I remembered the feeling in my stomach when I saw the blood dripping from the trunk of my car. The despair and fear creeping up my spine as I remembered she hadn't shown up for work. Just the thought of what could have been was enough to make me lose it completely.

  I fished my phone from my pocket and pressed my thumb to the little icon with her picture to dial her cell.

  A hard sigh pushed through my lips. The phone had rung long enough that I began to doubt she would pick up. Maybe she was still mad at me for how I reacted. She had told me not to freak out and that was exactly what I'd done.

  "Hello?" A small, irritated voice picked up the other end, forcing a billow of smoke out of my mouth before I had even had a chance to breathe it in properly.

  "Liz? You’re okay?"

  "What? Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?"

  I felt my heart flood with relief. Thank God. It wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be.

  "Just... hard night. Look, Liz, I just wanted to apologize." The words were so simple, but the moment I said them aloud I felt a weight lift from my shoulders.

  "Don’t bother. You can’t take it back, and I don’t want to hear it."

  That was all it took for
the moment of relief to shatter.

  "Oh, come on. I was a bitch, and I’m sorry. I freaked out. You don't understand why I'm being like this just, please. I have a really good reason for it and I'll explain everything to you."

  "Harley, just... don’t call me again."

  The phone went dead.

  I pulled the cell from my ear and stared at it in silence. She hung up on me. Okay, so I was a stupid bitch in how I handled the situation, but really?! Never talk to her again? Now who was being irrational? And, for the record, my reaction was completely rational, thanks.

  Oh, what’s that? You’re a werewolf, Liz? Well, this is a surprise. Still on for coffee?

  That would be irrational.

  The phone rang as I moved to set it on the bedside table, and my heart jumped into my throat. Maybe she realized she was being a little harsh. Without looking to the screen, I answered it.

  "Liz?"

  "Hey babe. I was hoping you‘d pick up. Voicemails are so impersonal."

  I forgot how to breathe.

  "You there, Harls?"

  "You sick fucking bastard," was all I could say. I had no need to ask who it was.

  "Ouch," he breathed. "What'd I do to deserve that one?"

  "You know what you fucking did. Quit playing head games with me, Frank. Did you think I wouldn't know it was you? Putting a dead fucking deer in my car? That's beyond sick."

  "A what?"

  "The gutted deer in the Red Riding Hood cloak, Frank!" I screamed into the phone. "Enough with the innocent act. We both know you're nothing more than a sick, disgusting piece of shit."

  Silence answered me as I sat there trying to control my breathing. For a minute I thought he'd hung up on me.

  "Harley—"

  "How did you get this number?" I managed to squeak out through the tightness in my throat. I was met with derisive laughter.

  "The hows and whys are so boring. Especially when there are more important things to discuss. Why don’t you just tell me somewhere we can meet up so we can handle business?"

  "We have nothing to talk about. I told you everything I knew about your bike. Now it’s your problem." I paused, thinking about the poor son of a bitch I’d put in his crosshairs. "You didn’t hurt the guy at the shop, did you?" I held my breath as I waited for his answer.

  "Jeez, Harls. You really do think I’m a monster, don’t you?" Most people would have sounded offended at the implication. Not Frank. He actually had an amused lilt to his voice. "He’ll think twice when he buys his bikes from now on. We’ll just leave it at that."

  I felt something burning against my fingers, red hot and painful. My cigarette had burned all the way down to the filter, leaving my fingertips burnt and my lap littered with flakes of ash.

  I snubbed the smoldering filter into an empty pop can and pushed it into the opening.

  "What the hell do you want, Frank? Obviously you got what you wanted; you got your precious bike back. So why aren’t you gone?"

  "That hurts, babe. Really. This isn’t just about the Beast, Harls. This is about reclaiming my property. All of my property," he said matter-of-factly. The humor was gone from his voice now. No more games. I could only hope.

  "I’m not yours anymore, Frank. I never was."

  "Oh, but you are so wrong about that. You were mine. You are mine. See, I picked you. Out of all the women in this world, you are the one that I chose to ride behind me. We belong together, Harley. It’s destiny. You are meant to rule beside me."

  "Rule? You really are out of your fucking mind. You can find a hundred women that would be more than willing to be your old lady. Let one of them rule with you. I’m not a part of it anymore."

  "Baby, you have no clue what you're a part of. Not even in your wildest dreams. But you will. Soon enough, you’ll see what I’m offering."

  "Please, Frank. Just let me live my life in peace. I haven’t done a damn thing to you. I haven’t told anyone what happened. Please."

  "You think I’m afraid of you calling the cops? They’re only men, Harls. Call ‘em. Let them come after me. That’s not what’s important. What’s important is you coming to your senses. You will, you know. Soon enough you’ll be ready to come back to me. All I gotta do is wait. And baby? I got all the time in the world."

  He wasn’t going to stop until I was back at his side or dead. That seemed to be the only other option he would accept. Well that wasn’t going to happen. Not without a fight.

  "Then I guess you better get settle in, because you’re in for a nice long wait."

  I didn’t wait for him to react. I hung up and tossed my phone on the bed before twisting around and sliding my hand between the headboard and wall. I fumbled around blindly for a moment before feeling the cold metal and slid it from its holster.

  I pulled my 9mm from the back of the headboard and sat back against it, cradling the gun in my hand. When I was with Frank, I had used a gun once or twice. Well, I’d held a gun. I’d only shot once and it was at a can of beer with Frank’s arms around me helping me aim. A shudder ran over my body from the memory of my back tucked in tight against him, the heat of his arms against mine, and his strong grip around my hands as we held the gun steady.

  His memory was everywhere and in everything. I couldn’t hide from it. He had completely invaded my existence until I had nothing left that was just mine and mine alone.

  No. That wasn’t true. For the last year, I’d been working to create a life for myself, and I refused to let him steal any of it from me. Damn his memories. That’s all they were.

  I’d taken it upon myself to learn how to shoot properly and had gone to the gun club downtown to practice religiously. I didn’t want to risk being at his mercy unprotected, and I knew the lessons he’d given me were bullshit. Just a false security he’d created. I realized that the second I’d started shooting at the range. He’d made me believe he was giving me power when the truth was the power was mine all along. It was something I had to find in myself, not borrow from him.

  If only I’d just been smart enough to use it then.

  I stroked the side of the chamber tentatively as I forced the memories of him away from me. This gun, and all the training behind it, was all me. I had done it, not Frank. Remembering that helped clear my head enough to breathe again.

  I reached into my nightstand and pulled out the small key that went to the trigger lock and unlocked it, tossing it and the key into the drawer. I opened the action and made a visual check of the chamber before reaching into my drawer once more.

  I pushed all of the collective crap towards the front of the drawer and shuffled around until I found my magazine and loaded it into the butt of the Beretta with a loud click. The sound of it clicking into place echoed in my empty room and made the hair on my arms stand on end. I pulled the slide back to feed one into the chamber and let out a tentative breath.

  Yes, I had been taught better than to keep a loaded gun when I wasn’t actively using it. My trainer at the gun club would be lecturing me into oblivion, but I had no idea what Frank had up his sleeve. For all I knew, he could have been watching me at that very moment. I’d rather be ready to point and shoot than get caught fumbling around for my ammo. Clicking the safety on, I slid the gun back into its holster behind my headboard, leaving the strap undone in case I had to draw it quick. No second chances.