Chapter Three
“Here we are,” the driver says to me, coming to a crawl along the curb.
“Can you drop me off in the parking lot?” I ask, gesturing to the row of cars to the right. “It’s less distance to walk.”
“Of course,” she says. “Pretty spooky out tonight. Gotta be safe, right?”
She says this all in a very apathetic voice, so I’m not sure how much she really cares, but she pulls into the parking lot and I get out by the path that will lead me to the last building in the Foothill Student Housing, where Elle lives.
It is spooky. The fog is thick tonight and the air is cold enough that I wish I wore tights under my skirt. After a warm and sunny February and March, April seems to be giving us one last blast of winter.
I gather my jean jacket closer around me, adjusting my new purse on my hip, the crossbody chain tangling with my necklaces. The parking lot is fairly well lit, but even so, the mist is heavy around the lights, obscuring the path in front of me. Feels like I’m walking into a dream, which puts my senses on high alert.
I haven’t seen my stalker recently, but that’s because I’ve been home doing nothing but studying. I finally had my exam yesterday, and I’d like to think I aced it. Every question that came up I was able to answer with confidence, so now that it’s all over, I’m able to let my hair down and relax, hence why I’m meeting Elle at her dorm, having a few drinks, then going to a house party nearby.
But even though thoughts of the stalker—and Atlas Poe—have been moved to the back of my mind, my exam taking all precedence, I know that the area around the campus and student housing can be a bit dicey sometimes. It’s considered a safe area, but you can never be too careful. There are always stories of girls getting attacked.
I walk down the path, my pace quickening. Through the fog I can barely make out the lights coming from Elle’s building, everything else disappearing into the trees.
A twig snaps behind me.
I stop and spin around.
There’s nothing there but mist, swirling around me like a cloak.
But I’m done with taking chances.
I start jogging down the path, the feeling of something dark and menacing right at my tail, until I reach the door, breathless, throwing myself inside the building.
I look back out.
Nothing there.
Just fog moving the trees.
I exhale loudly.
Even though I haven’t sensed the stalker, if I ever even had one, I can’t say things have been one hundred percent normal lately. Yes, I’ve been studying, which means I’ve been running on low sleep, eating a lot of junk, smoking a lot of weed to help me sleep, and drinking the occasional glass of wine. Sunshine is giving me migraines now, probably because I’ve been holed up in the dark, staring at a screen for hours on end.
But there’ve been some things I can’t explain.
Like the red roses dying.
Not just wilting on the stem but literally drying up, like they’d been pressed between pages of a book, like the life was sucked out of them long ago.
Then there’s the fact that I’ve been hearing strange noises in my apartment. Like my name whispered just as I’m falling asleep or waking up. Plus, out of the corner of my eye I keep seeing dark shadows or things moving, like the wall is…breathing. But when I look at things dead-on, there’s nothing at all.
I haven’t told my parents because they’d only worry and I know what they’d tell me, that I’m working too hard, that I’m not taking care of myself—and they’re probably right. In fact, they didn’t want me to come out here tonight at all, which was totally unreasonable. I mean, I’m officially done with my second year at Berkeley, been working my ass off, and I know I deserve to have a little bit of fun.
Then go and have fun, I remind myself, heading up the staircase to Elle’s floor. Quit worrying about everything.
Most of the housing at Berkeley is bright and somewhat modern and always busy with people. Elle’s door is just a few down from the staircase, but further down the hall a party has already started, people spilling out into the hall, drinking out of red plastic cups, music pumping.
I’m about to knock on Elle’s door when suddenly it opens and Meiko peers up at me. “I knew it was you,” she says, opening the door wider, showcasing the can of cider in her hand. “Come on in.”
Meiko is Elle’s roommate. She’s this gorgeous, adorable, soft-spoken girl with a sharp tongue, who keeps Elle on her toes. She’s also a ton of fun, in a more manageable way than Elle (AKA she won’t try to convince us to do a dine-n-dash at Denny’s at 3AM), and I’m glad she’s coming out with us tonight. She’s studying Landscape Architecture and she’s a big hit on Instagram and Tik Tok for combining it with makeup (don’t ask, it works).
Elle is sitting at her desk putting on liquid eyeliner that she expertly flicks on. She then twirls around in her chair and squeals at me, hands in the air. “We did it, baby!”
She springs up from the chair and runs over to me, pulling me into a hug, jumping up and down. “We did it, we did it, we did it!” she chants, and then lets go of me, pirouetting off to take Meiko in her arms and doing the same to her.
I laugh. “Okay, well how about we get me drunk so I can be in the same dimension as you.”
“Anything for you, Avril,” Elle says to me with a wink, eyeing my outfit as she goes to their mini fridge, opening it.
I look down. I’m wearing my trusty black combat boots with lug soles, a voluptuous red plaid skirt, and my denim jacket over a strappy black bodysuit. “Avril Lavigne?” I ask.
“You’re giving me those vibes,” she says, pulling out a pear and strawberry cider, handing it to me. “Don’t worry. It’s so nineties. I love it.”
I roll my eyes. I do not look like Avril Lavigne. “I was actually going for gothic Lana Del Rey.”
“Well, your tits look incredible. But I don’t know how you can wear a bodysuit,” Elle says, cracking open her can. “Wedgies galore. Ooooh! Meiko! Turn it up!” she suddenly yells at Meiko, who has climbed onto her bed and is looking on her laptop. Meiko dutifully reaches over and turns up the volume on the portable speaker beside her. “Telepathy” by +++(Crosses) comes on, getting louder. I prefer Chino Moreno in the Deftones, but this band is still hella good.
Elle starts dancing around me, bumping and grinding, cider spilling. “Hurry up and drink, baby.”
“All right, all right, stop humping me,” I tell her, cracking open the can, even though I chip off half my metallic red nail polish on my forefinger doing so. “And this bodysuit is comfortable, believe it or not.”
“I love them. Makes going to the bathroom a bitch,” Meiko says. “But it looks hot,” she adds appreciatively.
Honestly, I’m not a bodysuit kind of person, but this sucks me in in all the right places, and I don’t have to wear a bra with it—it’s got built-in underwire which really lifts the girls up.
“It’s got a snap closure crotch,” I tell her. “Better than a bathing suit.”
“Easy access.” Elle laughs. “That’s even hotter. You know we’re going to get you laid tonight, Lenore.”
I look at Meiko. “You’re in on this?”
Meiko shrugs. “Elle says you need dick. I’m telling you, women are so much easier to manage.”
“Hey, I like what I like,” I tell her, taking a sip of my cider. “But you shouldn’t put all your stock into me getting a guy tonight. I just wanna get drunk.”
Meiko laughs, getting off the bed, joining the dance around me with Elle. “Maybe we’ll all get lucky.”
“Whatever,” Elle says, rolling her eyes. “I saw the hot blonde you were with last week.”
“Exchange student,” Meiko says with a devious smile. “She already went back to Germany. I’m a free agent.”
“Then here’s to all of us,” I say, raising my can in the air. We all clink our cans against each other, Elle going in extra hard so that our cider spills over.
/> We have a couple of drinks in the room, Meiko doing the glittery finishing touches on Elle’s makeup, and then we head on out when we’re good and buzzed. It’s a busy night on campus, lots of the housing around the area overflowing with drunk students done with their exams and partying it up. The fog still hangs on the street like moving curtains, people drinking in the shadows.
The party is at a house that ten students share up on Grizzly Peak Boulevard, just above the campus, probably dangerous for us to walk tonight (not to mention all uphill), so we end up getting an Uber to split, which shows up right away.
We slide into the car, the driver looking tired of handling people like us all night.
“So, how are you?” Elle says, nudging me with her shoulder. She smells like cider. I’m sure I do too. “I mean, really.”
“Good. Great,” I say, flashing her a smile. “Awesome.”
She squints at me through her false lashes. “You sure? Because you still seem a bit stressed.”
“Maybe it takes a few days for my stress levels to go down. We can’t all be like you.”
“You see that stalker again?”
“What stalker?” Meiko cries out, leaning over Elle, her expertly curled hair falling forward. “You have a stalker?”
“No,” I say quickly. “I just felt like I did … but it was nothing.” I pause, the cider making the truth tickle on my tongue. “But I’ve been easily spooked lately.”
“Oh yeah? Spooked how?” Elle asks.
“Well, I know what you’re going to say, so before you say it, let me just tell you it’s chalked up to too little sleep, too little food, too much studying and then smoking up before bed.”
“Okay, so like, I’ve been doing the same and I haven’t been spooked. What happened?”
I sigh, looking out the window at the dark mist as the car climbs up the ridge. I tell them about the voices I’ve been hearing, the closing door, the dead roses, the shadows, and Atlas Poe.
By the time I’m done, the car is pulling up beside the party house. Cars are parked in all directions, but it really is the middle of nowhere up here, with the lights of Berkeley, Emeryville, and Oakland glittering below.
“Shit, Lenore,” Elle says to me as we scramble out of the car. “You know what your problem really is?”
“What?”
“You need to get laid.”
Then she slaps me hard on the back and starts laughing maniacally, and I have a feeling I’m going to spend the rest of the evening fending off a bunch of douchebags she’s picked out for me. She doesn’t have the best taste in men, especially when it comes to who I should be with, like she’s trying to undo my high standards.
The house is absolutely bumping and we head up the stairs to the porch, people everywhere, drinking, making out, laughing.
Inside, a remix of “Method Man” by Wu-Tang Clan is playing, the speakers making the house vibrate. I see some people I know from my classes, some of Elle’s friends, and pretty soon the three of us are drinking mystery beers and punch passed to us in an assortment of mugs and glasses, floating from room to room in the house.
I push all my worries to the back of my head and find myself in someone’s bedroom with Meiko and some girl with dreads who hands me a joint. This will help me get in the mood, turn off this stupid brain of mine. I’ve been cursed with not only the ability to intensely focus on things, but have my thoughts rattle inside my noggin at a hundred miles an hour. Weed keeps the focus at bay and the thoughts at a minimum.
A quiet mind is bliss.
It takes a few hits for it to work, to feel my brain slow down, to start feeling the good vibes of my friends, the party, the music. Everything feels like it’s going to be okay now, no matter what happens.
And that’s when my eyes are drawn to the doorway, just in time to see a man stride past the room, a man that makes my knees shake, my blood burn.
Oh my god.
It’s him!
The sexy suit guy!
What is he doing here?
“Lenore?” Meiko asks, but I’m shoving the joint back into her hands and striding over to the doorway, hoping to catch him.
I look frantically down the hall, see the back of his head above the crowd in the living room, the thick wavy dark hair, until he’s swallowed up, disappearing.
“No,” I mutter under my breath, running down the hall. It’s like I’m not even controlling my body, like every cell inside me has been magnetized, pulling me toward him, toward some sort of doom.
Because how can this be good?
How can I keep seeing this man, this stranger, and feeling the way I am?
I’m running to him, not running away.
I look around, trying to see over people’s heads. I’m about five foot four, so not terribly tall, even with the thick soles on my boots.
Then I see a flash of him, black suit, the only suit in this place, heading to the back door through the kitchen.
I’m practically pushing people out of the way, spilling drinks, leaving a trail of “Hey!” and “Watch it” as I move through the crowd until I’m at the back door, throwing open the door and stepping out into the night.
There’s nothing here except for garbage and recycling cans and a couple hard-core making out beside them, dark mist-laden trees surrounding us. I’m about to ask the couple if they saw the man leave, but I have a feeling they haven’t seen anything but each other.
And then I do something really weird.
I watch them for a bit, well past the I should look away and give them privacy stage. His hands are up her shirt, pulling down her bra, nipple hard and exposed. Her neck is arched back, hair flowing down, her fingers grasping his hard-on through his jeans. Moans fill the air as they grind into each other.
I stare and I watch and they don’t even notice.
Stop being a perv.
I blink and quickly head back inside the house, my body flushed from head to toe, my cheeks burning. Jesus, what’s gotten into me?
Nothing, except you really do need to get fucked.
I head straight to the bathroom, relieved to find it open. I lock the door and stare at myself in the mirror. My cheeks are burning red, my eyes totally dilated so that there’s only a thin hazel ring around the black. I look nuts.
I pour cold water onto my hands and then press my fingers into my cheeks and forehead, hoping to cool down. It’s not just that my skin is hot, everything inside me feels like I’m burning, and the ache between my legs is increasing. Watching that couple turned me on like nothing else.
The thought crosses my mind that since I’m in here alone, I could just get off and be done with the feeling, it would take no time at all. Picture the man in the suit who disappeared into the night, a man I think is just a manifestation of pent-up desire. Imagine him touching me, licking me, fucking me right in here. I mean that would push me into the horniest, perviest version of myself, but…
“Lenore.”
I whirl around at the sound of my name, expecting to find someone behind me, someone that wasn’t in the mirror. But there’s nothing but the bathtub with a blood red shower curtain pulled tight around it, the music from outside thumping.
“Lenore.”
I blink, stiffening. Now it sounds like it’s coming from behind the shower curtain. But is it really here or is it in my head?
I’m going crazy.
Even crazier is that I’m walking toward the shower curtain, hand outstretched, ready to pull it back, even though I’m not ready to face what might be on the other side.
I don’t even think I’m breathing.
My blood is running hot in my veins.
I curl my fingers around the curtain, rings gleaming, and then…
The lights go out.
I’m plunged into darkness.
I scream and then I’m fumbling through the black, feeling for the door, my hand catching on the rough edge of the towel rack. I cry out in pain, still moving forward until I find the doorknob, tryi
ng desperately to unlock it in time because it feels like I’m running out of time and now I hear the shower curtain moving, the scrape of the rings along the metal, the sound filling the room, filling my soul with the deepest darkest dread.
Finally the lock turns, the door flies open, and I stumble out into the party, into people, into lights and music.
“Oh, dude, I’m so sorry,” some guy says to me, coming off the wall, having leaned against the light switch, which is stupidly on the outside of the bathroom.
I stare at him but I’m not taking him in at all, my heart is doing a drumline against my ribs, my hand at my chest.
He frowns at me and hits the lights, illuminating the bathroom. “Nothing to be scared of,” he says, having a sip of his PBR.
I give him an odd look and then poke my head back into the bathroom.
The shower curtain is still closed.
Part of me wants to rip it open to put my mind at rest, but then some drunk chick bangs into me. “I gotta piss!” she yells, shutting the door in my face. I step back, trying to get my head on straight.
“Hey, you’re bleeding,” the guy says to me.
I look down at my hand that I scraped along the rough edge of the towel rack, a line of blood beading along the heel of my palm.
Ugh. Blood. I immediately close my eyes, my stomach turning. I always get squeamish around blood, even my own.
“Are you okay?” the guy asks, putting his hand on my shoulder.
I flinch at the contact, ripping away from him. “I’m fine.”
I start off toward the kitchen to rinse it off. I could go for one of the other bathrooms in the house, but I’m not about to be alone in there again. I am a horny, paranoid mess.
I pass by the hall, noticing Elle holding some guy’s hand, giggling and leading him into one of the bedrooms, closing the door. Great. With her in there, and Meiko probably with the girl with dreads, it’s just another reminder of how alone I am.
Sighing, I run my hand under the tap in the kitchen, watching the blood rinse away. It seems like a surface scratch, hopefully nothing that will require a tetanus shot because I know how dirty these student houses can get.
Black Sunshine Page 5
