by P. J. Burgy
Her brows knit and she tilted her head to peer at him from the corners of her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, would you like something to, ah, eat? Or drink?” He blinked at her once. “I didn’t even ask if you’d had dinner. I’m so rude.”
“I ate before I came, but, ah, I am thirsty.”
“Come on, let’s go to the kitchen. Come, come.” He ushered her to follow him, stalking out of the room.
His kitchen was gigantic, the floor grimier than she’d expected. A fine layer of dust covered the counters, the walls water damaged and cracked. The tablecloth across the long, wide table had once been white but was now gray. She pondered over the unused oven top as he fretted audibly in the walk-in pantry, frantically rearranging the contents.
“Ah-hah!” he exclaimed. Martin exited the pantry clutching a can of soda and proudly offered it to her.
Lizzie took it. It wasn’t even cold. She looked over the can and saw that the expiration date had passed a year ago. Glancing up at his face, she saw his brows furrow deeply and his expression grow worried. It occurred to Lizzie that she’d read a thing about soda and how long it lasted past the date on the bottom. She smiled and cracked it open, sipping it with a smile on her face. “Thanks.”
He visibly relaxed, grinning. “Grand.”
“Maybe a glass of water too…”
“The water is still a little… dirty.” He grimaced, his handsome face momentarily childlike. “Sorry.”
She took another sip of the soda. “It’s okay. It has to be a pain though in the meantime. Not having water.”
“Yes.” He nodded.
“Where else are you hanging the paintings?” she asked, licking her lips.
“Upstairs.”
Her breath caught. “Ah, I see.”
“I’d like to show you the rooms there too.”
“Sure.”
He led her up the steps and to the second level. More dark rooms. He flicked on lights and gave her a brief tour, showing off chambers with covered furniture or barren insides. Lizzie blinked, a question beginning to form in her head, and eventually, when they reached the dusty bathroom with the claw footed tub, she asked it.
“Where do you sleep, Martin? None of these rooms look… lived in and I haven’t seen a bedroom.”
He turned to her, standing halfway in the bathroom. A few seconds of silence followed. “In… the cellar.”
“In the cellar?”
“Yes.”
“Your bed is in the cellar?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” She nodded, finishing off her warm soda with one last gulp. “Interesting.”
“There’s a good reason for it, I assure you.”
“It’s not my business, ah. But, um, why?” She swayed in the hall before him, intrigued and trying to hide that fact.
He gestured loosely in the air with a waving hand. “I like to sleep in the dark. And it’s very dark in the cellar. It’s nice and cool too. Dry. Sealed. Safe. No sun gets in.”
“No sun? What are you, a vampire?”
“Yes.”
She couldn’t stifle a small laugh. “It’s fine, Martin, hah. I’m not judging.”
He gazed at her, his blue eyes fixed on her face. “You’re… not bothered?”
“I used to sleep under the bed when I was a kid, you know,” Lizzie said, lowering her head. “I thought it was safer there for some reason.”
“Safer from what?”
“Monsters,” she replied, meeting his eyes. She felt trapped and allowed herself to revel in it for that moment. “I was petrified of them. Hah… Which didn’t make sense in hindsight, eh, because you’re told monsters live under the bed, right? But they weren’t there, so I was. I was a weird kid. So, there you go.”
“You should have never been afraid.” He seemed genuinely upset. “I’m sorry that you were. You’re safe now.”
“I mean, I know.” Her eyes went to the floor before she could fall into him. His gravity tugged hard on her, pulling her closer. She fought to stand her ground. “That was a long time ago. I’m just saying… you do you, Martin. Be who you are.”
He touched his chest, clearly affected. “Thank you.”
“Did you want any paintings in your bedroom?” she asked, smiling softly up at him.
“Maybe one. But… let’s just sit and talk in the new entertainment room for a time, yes? I think you’ve got a good idea of the layout.” He grinned again. “I’d like to talk about those chapters you sent me, if that’s all right.”
“Oh, sure…” She nodded.
They’d been sitting on the creaky couch for maybe an hour before Lizzie realized that she could barely keep her eyes open. He kept asking questions and listening to her answers with rapt attention. Her characters. Their backgrounds. The worlds they visited and how they operated. Why her main character seemed so heartless at times when she’d made poor choices steeped in sentiment at crucial junctures earlier. Why the second-in-command was so awful.
He had a list in his head, his posture intense as he leaned, hands clasped and elbows on his knees. “Which leads me to the next point…”
“Hmm?”
“This David character – the second-in-command – is he based on anyone you know in real life?”
“Ah…”
“You can tell me.”
She laughed. “He’s, ah, well, loosely based on Tommy – my boyfriend. Loosely! Shit, I’m tired. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Does he mind that?”
“Tommy doesn’t know. He’s never read my first book and he’ll never read the sequel. He’s not big into reading.”
Martin balked. “That’s terrible. I’m sorry.” He touched his chest, top lip lifting.
“I’m used to it…”
“Well, that leads me to my next question.”
“Actually, Martin, I’m pretty tired. Would you mind if I…”
“You need sleep. That’s fine. It is late for you,” he said. “Another night then? Will you come back?”
“I will, but you’ll have to have something other than soda for me. Maybe a bottle of water. Put it in the fridge?” She smirked, averting her eyes when he laughed.
“Of course. Come on. I’ll walk you out.”
She drove in silence, feeling fatigued and confused. Her heart began to pound as soon as she’d left his driveway, almost as if she’d been running the entire time there. Dread crept into her, and Lizzie almost pushed the gas pedal to the floor when she turned onto the road.
Pulling over, she panted, wide eyed as if waking from a bad dream. Sweat beaded and trickled down her temples. White knuckled, her fingers trembling even as they gripped the wheel, she caught her breath.
She sat there in her car for many long minutes, unable to speak or think, her mouth dry again. It felt like she was a moth that had just pulled itself out of a spider web. She’d seen the looming, eight-legged thing from the corner of her eye and had thrashed and thrashed until she’d yanked herself out of the trap.
The trees on either side of the road grew bigger, darker, and the streetlights dimmed, their warm glow swallowed up by the shadows creeping in. Something had followed her and waited close by, watching. Perhaps it was above her, training its sights on the top of her car.
Lizzie pulled out onto the road again and drove home, shaking violently for the next mile. She began to calm, her pulse slowing, and she bit her bottom lip.
Chapter 6
Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she found herself on her side, her blanket clutched close to her chest. She could hear her own breathing. Reaching up, she felt the familiar metal rings of her bed frame. She was under the bed, curled up like a little bug in a rug.
The bug under the rug, more like it.
Lizzie searched for a reason why she’d be under the bed and came out empty. It occurred to her their bed didn’t have a space under it. They’d gotten one with drawers included in the frame. She gripped her blanket, confused a
nd afraid.
She heard a rustling sound behind her.
Slowly, carefully, she began to turn to look. What felt like an eternity passed until she found herself staring into the shadows in the corner of the room. Her bed had been in the corner, hadn’t it? She was under her old childhood bed.
Two little lights, white pinpricks, appeared in the darkness. Eyes. They stared at her, transfixed. The face formed after, ghastly and thin with wide cheekbones. Pale skin with slender, black veins stretched over a skull.
The mouth opened and the fangs, too many of them, gleamed like knives.
“Lizzie,” it said, voice low and rough.
She screamed.
Lizzie woke up kicking and nearly sent a fist into Tommy’s face. He grabbed her wrists, holding her still until she stopped thrashing around. When she came to, she saw his face above hers, his eyes wide.
“Lizzie!” he cried. “Lizzie, wake up!”
“Tommy?”
“You haven’t had a nightmare like that in forever, holy shit. You scared me to death. Fuck!” He released her hands and plopped back onto the bed.
Her heart pounding, she lied on her back and swallowed, eyes on the ceiling. It was dark in the room, still night. She heard him grumble and she checked on the time, fumbling for her phone. Three in the morning. She flopped back down onto her back.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?”
She exhaled. “You remember how I told you I used to sleep under my bed when I was little, right?”
“Yeah. To hide from the monsters. Why?”
“Just had a weird dream about it, is all. I’m too old to be getting spooked by monsters.” Lizzie laughed softly.
“Probably a stress dream. Try to get back to sleep.”
“Yeah…”
Falling asleep again didn’t seem like an option. She lied there anyway, staring at the ceiling. The thin blinds on the window shivered when the heat kicked on and lines of dim lights shifted on the ceiling. She rolled out of bed, aware of Tommy’s snoring as he passed out again. Lucky SOB.
Parting the blinds with her fingers, she peered out into the street. No snow that night. She looked at her car and the streetlights. The stump in the yard. Trees across the street on the neighbor’s property. The world seemed so still and peaceful outside of her room while her heart raced, and her bones shivered.
Her eyes closed. The voice in her dream had reminded her of Martin’s. She thought of the expired soda and how she’d drank it, her mind wandering over the possible ill effects of such a poor choice.
Still, her stomach didn’t hurt. It was an unease in the back of her mind that lingered now. Like she’d stared too long into the shadows and begun to imagine she saw faces and shapes there. She’d scared herself silly as a kid doing that sort of thing. Monsters in the dark. Shapes in the void.
Her paintings were manifestations of those fears, weren’t they? She put them down on canvas to get them out of her head. They weren’t real. They couldn’t hurt her. Why then was she so afraid?
Lizzie saw a police car parked on the street in front of Kat’s Corner and slowed to stare at it. The driver’s seat was empty. She pulled into the lot, parked, and hid her purse under the jacket. Checking for her keys, she locked the car and tried the handles.
Careful not to trip, she rushed to the sidewalk, entering the store with cautious eyes as she caught sight of a young police officer standing at the counter with Kate.
“Lizzie,” Kate began. “Good to see you. This officer came in thirty minutes ago. Told him you’d be here around four.”
“Ah, yeah,” the officer said, turning to Lizzie. “I’m Officer Behrens with the Yocum County Sheriff’s Department. Just need to ask you a few questions.”
Lizzie stiffened. “Yocum?”
“Do you have a few minutes, ma’am?”
“Sure.”
He flipped open a notepad. “Sunday, just passed, ah, a little after noon, you had two customers enter your store. They were from out of town. Do you remember them?”
“A man and a woman, yes.” Lizzie nodded. “Some friends of Margo. Margo Jenkins. They were in town for an art gallery. Must have been around for the weekend.”
“Can you tell me about Sunday, when they came in?” he asked.
“Um, I mean, they came in and bought a necklace and then left. Weren’t here long. Why?” She wrung her hands, glancing at Kate now and again as the officer wrote in his notepad. “Did something happen?”
“Did anything stand out? Did they say they were going anywhere? Mention anything that seemed strange?” The officer blinked at her. He looked tired.
“Not really. Just picking out places to eat later.”
“Where did they say they’d go?”
“Ah, The Blue Room. It’s a fancy joint in town. I mean, fancy for Puhtipstie, ah…”
“It opens at five, right?” he asked.
“Ah, yeah.”
“A little after noon on Sunday, Tina Summerset made a social media post about this bookstore. At six-thirty, she made another one about The Blue Room. Nothing after that,” he said. “Not for two days. They didn’t arrive home when expected. This morning, we found their car in Yocum County. We also found Tina.”
Her brows knit. “Oh? What do you mean?”
“Local hunters found her body in the woods. Franklin Summerset is still missing. Thing is, we don’t know what they were doing out there that far.” He cleared his throat. “Did they mention doing more sightseeing?”
“I…”
“Did you sense any strain between them? Any tension?”
“I didn’t, no. And they were going to go home after dinner, I think. They were nice. The man, uh Frank, just wanted to go home, but…”
“He didn’t seem angry with her? No animosity?”
“No, just annoyed to be here in town, that’s all.”
The officer nodded. “All right. Thank you. That’s all I needed.”
Lizzie let out a low breath, her lungs feeling weak. “Okay. No problem.”
He fidgeted and excused himself, tipping his peaked cap as he stepped out. The bell tinkled as the door opened and again when it closed. Silence followed, hanging heavy in the store.
Lizzie stared forward. “Oh my God.”
“A serial killer in this area?” Kate asked, arms folded over her chest. “Or just a second murder in one week?”
Her eyes closed. “Margo… I have to talk to Margo. Those were her friends. The police must have spoken to her first, right? She’ll know already.”
“Did you want to talk to her, Lizzie? I can close up early tonight if you need to see your friend,” Kate said.
“If… if you wouldn’t mind…”
Kate nodded, walking to the door and reaching for the lock. She paused, staring outside at the darkening sky, and backed up a bit as someone entered. The bell chimed twice.
Lizzie turned, face warm and breath staggered, to see a vaguely familiar gray-haired fellow in a black shirt and clergy collar. She watched him smile to Kate and the two exchanged a brief greeting. Lizzie pulled her phone from her back pocket, holding off on making any calls.
“Father Alvin, hello,” Kate said. “For what do I owe this honor?”
“Were you about to close up?” he asked.
“There’s been an incident. Calling it an early day.” Kate gestured toward Lizzie. “Why don’t you head out? I’ll stay and finish up here.”
“In a second… You heard about it, didn’t you?”
“The body in Yocum? That’s what you’re talking about?” Father Alvin tilted his head. “The police were here.”
“Yeah. Is that why you’re here?” Kate pushed a few strands of her long, white hair out of her face and set her hands on her hips. “Doesn’t seem like church work.”
“Ah, no, actually,” he said, glancing between Lizzie and Kate. “I’m here because of the Millers.”
“Teddy and Helen
a? What did they do now?” She turned and locked the front door, flipping the sign to ‘closed’.
“They were trying to fill bottles from the font. Claimed that they needed a weapon against the undead.” He frowned, shaking his head. “Said you two would know what they were on about.”
Lizzie groaned. “Oh jeez.”
“That’s the problem with dark ideas. They twist the imagination. Those kids have been spending a bit too much time in your store, I think. Or at that arcade playing violent games. Might need to lay down a ban for a few months, Kate. At least until they catch the killer,” Father Alvin said. “Those two need better hobbies.”
“I was about to go check on someone. That woman they found, that was her friend,” Lizzie said. “I’m sorry about the Miller kids, Father. Since I first met them in this store, almost a year ago, they’ve been pretty, ah, eccentric. They’re harmless though. Just kids. Big imaginations.”
He sighed. “I just don’t want to have to get them in any trouble, is all. They wanted me to help them. I had to shoo them out. Should’ve seen the look on their faces. Like I’d betrayed them. I baptized those two, you know. They used to come in every Sunday with both parents until their mother passed. I couldn’t bear to see their father suffer any more than he already has these last few years.”
“I’m sorry.” Lizzie held her phone tightly and swayed.
“Ah, you go on. I’m leaving anyway. Didn’t mean to hold you up. Just a bit concerned.” He shrugged and allowed Kate to pass him so she might let him out.
As soon as he left, Lizzie grimaced. “I’ll head over now. I’m sorry, Kate.”
“Don’t be. Check in on your friend.”
Lizzie sent a message out to Margo on her way out the door, stepping into the evening street and walking around the building to her car parked in the lot.
Margo Jenkins wept openly, her mascara running messy rivers down her cheeks from her swollen eyes. She clung to Lizzie, heaving and coughing on her own saliva.
Still in her red nightgown, the busty blonde sobbed and held onto her friend for dear life. The both of them sat on her king-sized bed, surrounded by disheveled satin sheets. “How could this happen, Lizzieeee…”