Black Sunshine

by Halle, Karina

  “Lenore.”

  Okay, this time I really am hearing a voice.

  A familiar one at that.

  I turn around to see Beth, Matt’s girlfriend, staring at me, arms crossed.

  Oh shit.

  I turn off the tap and shake out my wet hand, giving her a fake smile.

  “Hey, Beth. What are you doing here? Is Matt with you?”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  My smile falters. “Sorry?”

  She takes a step toward me until I’m backed up against the sink. “Matt. He told me what you did.”

  My eyes go wide. “What I did?”

  “Don’t play stupid. He wouldn’t lie to me.”

  “Beth, honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I don’t want to throw Matt under the bus if I don’t have to.

  “You kissed him,” she says with a sneer, loud enough that the people in the kitchen all look over.

  “Fight, fight, fight!” someone starts chanting.

  “Take off your tops and settle it like women!” a dude yells.

  I give him the dirtiest look. “Go fuck yourself.” I look back at Beth. “And I didn’t kiss your boyfriend. He kissed me.”

  I push past her, not wanting to get into this here, or anywhere really. I knew Beth went to school here, but I honestly didn’t expect to see her at a house party. This isn’t Matt’s scene.

  She reaches out and grabs me roughly by the elbow.

  “I don’t want you seeing him.”

  I rip myself out of her grasp. I am not a violent person, but my blood is already boiling at the fact that Matt lied to her about me, and with all that’s been happening tonight and the last week, I don’t trust myself. I’m certainly not in the mood to be pushed around.

  “Won’t be a problem, Beth,” I tell her, moving through the party now, needing to get out of here before I do something stupid. I know I should find Elle and Meiko first, but honestly I can’t stick around here any longer.

  I pull up the Uber app and secure a car, then step outside into the fresh air. I walk down the steps, down the path to the curb, and then raise my face to the mist, taking a moment to breathe in deep, clear the cobwebs.

  What a fucking bullshit night.

  I wait a few minutes for the Uber, texting Elle, telling her I’m leaving, wishing I had Meiko’s number to do the same. I know I should go back in there, but I don’t know how long they’re going to be, and after that confrontation with Beth, I just want to go home and go to bed where I feel safe. Something about it all makes me feel so undone and unraveled, and I hate myself for being so sensitive.

  A black car pulls up, a guy rolling down the window. It’s the first car I’ve seen on the road in the last couple of minutes.

  Please let this be my ride.

  “Lenore Warwick?” he asks.

  I breathe a sigh of relief. “Yeah, that’s me.”

  I open the back door and slide on in. It’s nice, leather seats, and smells like cologne, though I’m disappointed to not find any bottled water or mints.

  “To the city?” the driver asks me.

  I look up and meet his eyes in the rearview mirror. He’s actually pretty cute, dark hair that curls over his forehead and intense dark brown eyes that don’t seem to blink.

  “Yup,” I tell him, doing my seatbelt.

  He does a U-turn on the road and starts driving up the hill.

  “Wha…” I say, looking behind me for a moment. “Isn’t it easier to go down into Berkeley?”

  “There’s an accident down below,” he says. And then he reaches over and turns up the volume on the radio. Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand” is playing from the speakers.

  “Oh,” I say, sitting back.

  A wave of uneasiness slinks through my gut.

  The driver gestures to his Waze app that he has running on his iPad mounted to the dash, but I can’t make heads or tails of it.

  The music seems to keep repeating over and over again from the stereo, making me feel like I’m in a hypnotic time loop. I start nodding off.

  Stay awake, a voice says in my head. Stay alert.

  I open my eyes, focusing on the scene. I’m still in the back of the Uber, still climbing up the road, from the glances down below it looks like civilization is dropping away behind us.

  I glance up at the rearview mirror and catch the eyes of the driver.

  He’s looking right at me.

  Eyes so dark they’re almost black.

  I quickly look away, pull out my phone, going to text Elle.

  I have zero bars. No reception.

  Fuck.

  You’re being paranoid again, I tell myself. He’s taking you to the highway. You can loop into the city that way.

  Still, I have to be sure. “You’re taking me to the city, right?”

  He keeps staring at me. No expression on his face. Eventually he says, “San Francisco? I have you at 280 Lily Street.”

  I nod. “Yeah, that’s it.”

  He watches me for a moment, face impassive, then looks back to the road. His hand goes to the radio and switches the channel. Over and over again. Snippets of music coming out and then changing ad nauseum.

  Honestly, it’s driving me crazy, but I don’t want to tell him to stop. I’m scared. I probably shouldn’t be, but I am. It’s disorienting to say the least.

  I pull up the Uber app, even though I know I don’t have reception, wanting to make a note of whose car I’m in.

  But when I see the picture, my heart sinks.

  This isn’t fifty-year old Daniel Lee with his silver Ford Focus and five-star rating.

  I’m in the wrong car.

  My heart sinks, panic starting to spark along my limbs like Roman candles, my hand going to my mouth.

  He knew my name. This man knew my name.

  Think, Lenore, think, I tell myself. What do you do? What do you do?

  I need to play it cool. He’s not my Uber, but there’s still a small chance that he’ll drop me off where I need to be. Maybe there’s a glitch in the system, maybe Daniel cancelled the ride and then this guy picked it up and the lack of reception is showing the lag. I mean, how else did he know my address?

  And that’s when it hits me.

  I know who this is.

  I look back into the rearview mirror and his eyes are right there.

  Watching me.

  Yet this guy is different from my stalker. I’ve only seen him from this angle, but he’s not as tall, not as broad shouldered. His vibe is different too…though not any less dangerous.

  What the fuck is going on?

  And then the road opens up a bit. The rugged terrain and wilderness dissipate for a moment. The lights of Highway 24 sparkling gloriously to my left, cars whizzing underneath us going into the tunnel that will pop them out into north Oakland.

  I hold my breath, waiting, praying, for him to take the car to the left, to do a U-turn, to do anything to connect us onto that highway that will take us over the Bay Bridge and into San Francisco.

  Please, please, please.

  I’m almost in tears, my heart clenched in my chest.

  But when he should turn left, he turns right.

  Onto Old Tunnel Road.

  A narrow one-lane that disappears into the foggy oak trees.

  Into the narrow ridges of the hills.

  Away from…everything.

  Chapter Four

  I suck in my breath, trying not to panic but it’s too late. I’m panicking.

  What do I do, what do I do?

  Oh my god! Fuck, someone please help me.

  I can’t pretend anymore that I haven’t noticed, can’t pretend I don’t know what’s happening. I have to say something, I have to do something.

  “Excuse me,” I tell him, my voice sounding so terribly scared and small. “The highway was right there. We need to turn around.”

  The man doesn’t say anything for a moment, just stares at me
in the mirror, his dark eyes seeming to take over my vision.

  “Shortcut,” he says roughly.

  “No,” I say, surprised by my bravery. “This isn’t a shortcut. This is the wrong way. You need to turn around now. Please.”

  Please. Please listen to me, please, please.

  He cocks his brow.

  Looks back to the road.

  Keeps driving down the deserted road.

  I’m fucked. I’m so fucked.

  I’m this close to crying, to screaming, to losing it.

  My phone still has no reception, but it doesn’t stop me from dialing 911, holding it up to my ear, hoping someone will hear me.

  “Yeah, hi, Elle,” I say into the phone, my voice shaking, even though there’s no sound coming from it at all. “That Uber I’m in, he’s refusing to take me the right way. That’s right. Oh, you’re not far? Yeah, we went up Grizzly Peak Road. We’re on Old Tunnel Road.”

  I’m saying all this, trembling inside and out, the dread clawing up my throat like an animal. He’s not going to believe me, believe this. He knows there’s no reception, he knows it’s just a desperate act.

  Tears spring to my eyes.

  “Okay,” I say into the phone, talking to no one, trying so hard to sound confident and real but god, how I’m nothing at all. Hopeless. Helpless. “Call me back.”

  I glance at the door handle.

  I could open it, jump out of the car. We’re not going that fast. I know I could roll onto the ground and then get up, run into the trees. It’d hurt, but I could do it. He might have a gun, he might find me, but it’s the best chance I have. Now I know that the worst-case scenario is upon me, the thing that every woman dreads when they step into an Uber. The nightmare is happening.

  It’s happening.

  Oh god, please help me.

  I was so stupid. How could I not have checked the car before I got in? I guess because I was so happy to leave, he was the only car on the road, and he knew my name. That’s how.

  I take in a deep breath, trying to prepare myself for what I’m about to do.

  I need to just open the door.

  Roll onto my shoulder.

  And run.

  Run.

  I slowly place my hand on the door handle just as I meet his eyes.

  He smirks at me.

  Touches a button.

  And then the doors all lock with a loud, coordinated click.

  NO!

  I gasp sharply, trying the door handle, but it’s too late.

  I’m locked in here.

  “No use fighting it, Lenore,” the man says to me.

  And the car keeps disappearing into the night.

  I don’t know what to do.

  Because of my ability to focus and think clearly, I always thought I’d be good in a crisis situation. I’ve imagined being attacked by someone at night, working out how I’d fight them. I’ve imagined a plane crashing, how I’d get out, who I’d try to save. I’ve imagined another huge earthquake hitting the Bay Area, what I’d do, the steps that I’d take to survive.

  But now that I’m in an actual crisis, kidnapped in the back of an Uber, being driven toward what I think is a quarry in the middle of nowhere, I can’t think at all.

  I have no plan of escape, nothing.

  What are you supposed to do? I keep checking my phone, keep hitting the emergency call button, but nothing is happening. Am I supposed to negotiate? Plead for my life? Make him see me as human so he’s less likely to rape and murder me?

  All I know is when I get the chance to fight back, I’m going to fight back.

  In fact…

  I eye the back of his head.

  If I could get him in a chokehold or stick my fingers in his eye sockets or something, pull his hair, anything to make him loose control of the car, I could get it to crash. Maybe the door would unlock, maybe he’d be hurt enough for me to get free.

  I have to do something.

  I take in a deep breath, carefully reaching over to unbuckle my seatbelt as silently as possible, wincing when I hear the click.

  I look up to the rearview, see the man look at me, alert.

  There’s no time.

  I spring forward, jamming my body in between the two front seats, trying desperately to rip out his hair, claw at his eyes, screaming and screaming, panic tearing out of my lungs, filling the car.

  He yelps, my fingers close to his eyes, feeling skin under my nails.

  Then he takes his elbow, throws it back at my face until it collides with my cheek in an explosion of stars and pain.

  I’m thrown in the back of the seat, slumped over, unable to…unable to …

  Everything goes fuzzy, the pain spreading from my cheek, seeping into my veins until the agony is all I feel. Blood trickles from my nose and onto the seat.

  “Fucking crazy,” the driver mutters under his breath. “Just crazy.”

  I almost laugh but it hurts. I’m crazy?

  God, but maybe I am.

  Maybe none of this is really happening, just a figment of my imagination.

  But as much as I wish that were true, I know it’s real, just as the pain is real.

  I’m going to die here.

  I don’t know how long I lie like this in the backseat, hair over my face, feeling like the leather is going to swallow me whole.

  But eventually the car slows, then stops, like I knew it eventually would.

  Every ride must come to an end.

  Even mine.

  “Wait here,” the man says as he turns off the car, as if I have a choice.

  I almost laugh again, getting just enough power to push myself up and look. He leaves the car, locking the door, and then strides off toward the mist. I’m not sure where we are, the quarry maybe. I can barely make out the forest on either side of the car, but in front of us is a wide-open space covered with fast-moving fog.

  The man keeps walking forward into the mist and stops, back to me.

  Then out of the fog comes a shadow, a tall man in a long coat.

  The two of them have a conversation, lit by the fog lights from the car.

  The tall man keeps looking my way, and it’s then that I know for sure it’s the man I saw under the streetlight in Upper Haight.

  My stalker.

  But when he starts striding toward me, his coat flowing behind him, followed by my driver, that’s when I realize the truth.

  And the truth feels like horror.

  In the wavering headlights his face comes into focus.

  The face that once took my breath away, that compelled me to follow him like a hound after a scent.

  My stalker is the sexy-suit man.

  They are one and the same.

  How could I have been so stupid?

  How could one person give me such separate feelings, fear and terror in one version of him, and desire and lust in the other?

  It doesn’t really matter now though.

  The lust and desire are gone.

  All I feel is fear.

  He walks toward the car, eyes on me the whole time as if he can clearly see me, his strides elegant and powerful, like a panther. The graceful walk before they pounce.

  I’m trapped in the back of the car, beaten, the driver offering me to him like freshly caught prey.

  Is there a point where I’ll chew my own leg off to escape?

  He stops outside the back window, crouching forward, hands on his thighs, peering in at me.

  His gaze meets mine and I don’t think I can move, even if I wanted to, even if I had a plan. His expression is darkening by the moment, his bright blue eyes turning cold, dark arched brows furrowing together in a hard line.

  Suddenly he opens the door, as if it’s been unlocked this whole time, and every part of me wants to jump back but I can’t move, my limbs frozen in place like the nerves aren’t communicating with my brain.

  He comes halfway inside to look at me, and the closer he comes, annoyance flitting over his brow, the less I can
breathe, like my lungs have stopped working too.

  He frowns at my face, meets my eyes for a moment with an expression I can’t read, then ducks out of the car.

  “Disgraceful,” he says to the driver, eyes cutting into him. “I specifically said not to touch her.”

  His voice makes my body erupt in goosebumps—a low, rich baritone with an elegant edge and a slight British tinge that sinks into me like a shot of strong alcohol. Completely at odds with the rest of me that’s high on adrenaline, trying to battle through the constant fear.

  “I had to,” the driver mumbles. “She tried to attack me, crash the car. Look.” He points to his eye.

  “There’s nothing there,” the stalker says calmly. “Anything else go wrong?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No, sir? Oh, Ezra, you’re finding your manners again. Why did I think I could send a boy to do a man’s job?”

  Ezra. Okay, so the driver has a name. That’s helpful.

  Although what’s not helpful is the fact that they’re using names, no masks, nothing to disguise themselves. Which means no matter what they have planned for me, whether beating me up is on the menu or not, they definitely don’t intend to let me live.

  “Sorry,” Ezra says, even though he doesn’t sound like he means it.

  My heart sinks, down, down, down.

  They’re going to kill me here, aren’t they?

  The stalker turns his attention back to me.

  Stares at me.

  Eyes so hypnotic that I can’t look away.

  What do you want with me? I ask in my head.

  A corner of his mouth curls up, as if he heard my thought.

  “Are you sure it’s her?” Ezra asks.

  He nods slowly, the abbreviated smile staying. “I do now.”

  Then he leans into the car, large hands reaching for my bare thighs, his skin cold as it makes contact with mine, then quickly heating up. “I just don’t know what we’re dealing with yet.”

  I try to yelp, to scream, to make some kind of sound, but it’s caught in my throat, and as he grips my thighs, his fingers powerful and bruising my tender flesh, I’m still completely powerless.

  He moves me so that I’m twisted around, facing him, though without the full backrest, I’m slumped forward.

  He reaches out and puts his hand at the back of my neck, holding tight, cold and hot, my skin feeling like I’m jumping from ice water into a fire. He makes me keep my head up, makes me look at him.