Stalked by Shadows

by Lissa Kasey

  There was also not enough room to stand up, which explained why there were no chairs in the loft space. There were pillows set in specific areas that seemed to fit that section. Like one near the sewing machine that had a little back to it, likely to help Micah while he sat at the machine working. Another was a beanbag type. And two others seemed to be big floor pillows that I’d seen while dining at a restaurant or two in Japan.

  In a set of cloth-covered chests near the stairs I found the pillows for the bed, and a handful of very beautiful and fun looking quilts. One of them was covered in spooky Halloween fabrics with skeletons, ravens, and witches. Another was a panel sort of quilt with pinups dressed as witches, zombies, and sexy maids on one side, the other side had half naked men fishing, camping, firefighting, and swimming.

  I brought them both down in case Micah didn’t want to share blankets. When I slept, I tended to burrow myself into the blankets, until nothing was left uncovered but the top of my head. It wasn’t due to being cold, but more a comfort of the weight of the blanket. Both the quilts were thin, but big enough that I hoped they’d be that perfect wrap.

  Lukas had bought a special blanket for me as a gift when I’d finally gotten out of the hospital. It was one of those weighted things that was supposed to help with anxiety. Which I really liked, but it was sort of small, so I couldn’t wrap myself in it the way I liked. Usually it ended up pooled at my feet while some cheap Walmart quilt snuggled me like a burrito.

  Jet jumped onto the futon and sat in the cat loaf-of-bread pose, staring at me intently. I reached out and stroked down his back, which he seemed to like. At least he wasn’t growling or biting me. When I sat down beside him on the bed, he curled up next to me.

  Micah emerged a few minutes later, clean, his hair very dark when wet, and wearing a pair of his bikini briefs. He pointed to the bathroom. “All yours. I put out towels for you, along with a fresh shower scrub, and toothbrush.”

  “Thank you.” I leapt up from my perch on the edge of the futon and headed toward the bathroom trying not to stare at Micah. I couldn’t help that my body responded to him. It hadn’t done anything in months, and now it was doing the happy dance for one man who didn’t seem to realize the effect he had on me. Not that he had to care, my body was my problem, I reminded myself. I darted past him and into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.

  The bathroom was big for the space of the apartment, with a full-sized sink with drawers, a linen cupboard, a toilet with a lot of buttons, and a large, white, claw-foot, soaker tub. The walls and floors were tiled in bright sky blue, white, and a patchwork of colored mini-squares running in strips of three around the upper portion of the walls, and while there was a curtain strung on a rod hanging from the ceiling, it only covered a small portion of the bathtub/shower combo. The towels and stuff sat on a small bamboo bench near the shower. I used the toilet, figuring out that the buttons ran different for a number one or a number two, and there was even a bidet, which I’d never used before, but had seen overseas enough to recognize. Nice.

  I made my way to the shower. Would there be hot water in a place this tiny after Micah had already used it? I turned on the spray and it was warm and soothing. I sighed, stripped out of my clothes, leaving them in a pile on the lush blue rug beside the shower. When I stepped under the spray, I worried for a few seconds that the liquid bandage wouldn’t hold, but with the heat washing away the grime, I didn’t care right then. The water turned pink and brown at my feet.

  I used his shampoo and body wash, both smelling of honey and frankincense, sort of reminding me of Christmas. Once the water finally ran clear, I turned off the spray and dried off, using the action to focus my thoughts. The racing of my heart had eased, and exhaustion was tugging at me hard. But I felt… safe? Which was odd as I was in an unfamiliar place and ever since the day my base had been decimated, I’d never liked being someplace unfamiliar.

  I tugged on the boxers, folding up the rest, then brushed my teeth and tried to work through the tangle of my hair. Surprisingly the wide-toothed comb Micah had left out for me slid through my hair like a hot knife through butter. What was this magic? There was a small tube of some sort of hair thing next to the comb. I glanced at the back of it, browsing the instructions, before adding a bit to my hair and working it through. It smelled nice, and seemed to ease some of the tight tension of my curls and soften my hair.

  I gathered the mess into a ponytail, pulling it back as tight as I could. I’d have an afro in the morning anyway, but I was too tired to care right then.

  When I left the bathroom, the overhead light was off and Micah was curled up on the futon, wrapped up in one of the two blankets much like I planned to do myself. Jet sat at his feet, and the multicolored lights from outside filtered through the curtains on the windows, leaving the room pretty bright in a rainbow array despite the late hour.

  I set my clothes on the chair with the bag and made my way to the bed. Micah held out a black piece of cloth for me. I stared at it for a minute trying to make it out.

  “Eye mask,” Micah said. “Helps with the lights.”

  I wondered why he didn’t turn them off, but maybe the main house had control? Or maybe he didn’t like waking up in the middle of the night to complete darkness. I took the mask, slid it on my head, resting the eye parts on my forehead and climbed in beside Micah. It took only a few minutes burrowed up in the blanket, listening to his soft breathing, and smelling the delicate Christmas scent of his body wash, before I fell asleep.

  Chapter 9

  The sound of some sort of animal chittering woke me. At first I struggled to figure out where I was. The black mask over my eyes blocked most of the room until I shoved it up and realized I was at Micah’s. He was still sound asleep. His own eye mask firmly in place, and Jet curled around his head on his pillow, also sound asleep.

  So what was that noise?

  I sat up and pulled the eye mask off. The digital clock on the microwave read after three a.m., and it was still dark. The filtered lights still wafted through the curtains, making me wonder why Micah hadn’t put room darkening ones in, though I imagined in the small space it might make it feel a bit like a cave.

  The sound came again. A weird chittering I didn’t recognize from anything I’d ever heard in my life. Not from years camping, or from the time spent serving my country. It was almost like a monkey, but that didn’t sound right either. Was there such a thing as a hyena monkey?

  I stared at the windows, searching the length of the curtains for a gap, only there was none. They were shut tight, even fastened at the edges with little hooks and strips of fabric. No real shape came through the curtains, only a hint of the lights in the distance. I stared for another minute before lying down again and pulling my blankets up. I hadn’t been in New Orleans long. Maybe it was some weird bird or something. Would Lukas know? His apartment was in the middle of the French Quarter, up the stairs on the second floor of a row of apartments above art galleries and coffee shops. There were no trees or greenery to attract wildlife, just cobblestones and French architecture. He didn’t have time for landscaping and gardens. So he might not know. The sound was more than a little unsettling, making goosebumps rise on my skin and my stomach flip a little with anxiety.

  I stared at the window out front a little longer. Long enough to feel myself begin to fall asleep again. As my eyes began to close, a shadow rolled across the curtains outside, blocking the lights for a few seconds. I shot up, ready to race to the window and throw back the curtains.

  Micah caught my wrist, nearly giving me a heart attack.

  “Fuck,” I said, pressing a hand to my chest.

  “Shh,” Micah said. “Come back to bed.”

  “Something is outside.”

  “Yes, and it needs to stay there.” He had pushed the mask up on his forehead, and held my wrist tightly in his grasp.

  “What is it? A bird? One of your neighbors?”

  He sighed. “It’s a discussion for another day,
I think. Your brother doesn’t want me putting thoughts in your head.” He tugged at my arm again, and I gave in, sliding down beside him and turning to stare into his pale blue eyes, which looked like ice in the dim light of the room. The chittering came again, which made me tense. He didn’t react at all. “You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

  “Is it something that could hurt us?” I probably sounded like a little kid to him, but after the year I’d survived, the whole world seemed like a fucking death trap to me.

  “Not really.”

  “That’s not very reassuring.”

  He let go of my wrist and stroked my face. “We are safe. You are safe here with me. It’s only a weird noise. You can think of this as a dream if it helps.”

  I shivered as the same feeling of that day in the desert filled my gut.

  Micah lifted his blanket and curled closer to me, adding his quilt over mine. He wrapped an arm around my waist and tucked his face into my pillow beside mine. The warmth of his breath on my face was soothing.

  “Put your mask back on,” he instructed. I tugged it into place, sad that I couldn’t stare at him while I drifted off to sleep again. If I could sleep after the weird noises continued outside.

  “Lukas isn’t here,” I whispered.

  “No. He’s not,” agreed Micah. “But the middle of the night is not a good time to put things in people’s heads. Our brains are too vulnerable from sleep to process correctly. How about tomorrow when the sun is out and we have both had coffee and food, we discuss it?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he promised.

  The sound changed, becoming more like a scream, an animal in pain. I tensed, fearing it was Jet for a minute. “Jet?”

  “He’s right beside us,” Micah said, his arm tightening around me. “Reach up and feel him if you need to, but leave the mask on.”

  I did reach up, petting Jet’s wide flank and receiving a few licks in return. Was he unaffected by the noise? He didn’t seem alarmed, though he stayed curled up on Micah’s pillow.

  “Focus on me and Jet,” Micah said. “The more you think of the sounds the more they intensify.”

  “Self-persuasion?” I wondered. Was this more shit from in my head? No that couldn’t be right, Micah heard it too.

  “Only a little, but that doesn’t matter. Now close your eyes. You’re safe. I’m here. You’re not alone. Sleep,” Micah instructed.

  I don’t know if it was magic or something else, but I did close my eyes, sucked in a deep breath filled with the scent of him, the weight of his arm around me comforting, and I fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

  Knocking woke me the second time, only when I shoved the eye mask off light filled the flat and the clock said it was almost eleven a.m. “Wow,” I grumbled and looked toward the door.

  Micah sleepily got up, pulling his own eye mask off and heading to the door, not seeming to care at all that he was wearing only undies.

  He opened it and stood there, framed in the glory of the morning sun and I took a few seconds to admire his ass, the soft bubble sweetness that it was before looking beyond him through the doorway. The man that stood there was closer to my height, but other than that was very average looking, brown hair, brown eyes, wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. A younger man stood behind him wearing shorts and a tee. The second man looked barely legal, hair a pale chocolate brown falling into his eyes and around his chin. His eyes were brown too, but he was pretty in a noticeable way.

  “Tim,” Micah grumbled, “Brad. Come in.”

  The younger of the two held up a bag, “Brought you breakfast.” His smile was infectious. They came in and I rolled over to sit up and rub my face. “Hello,” the young one said. “You’re Alex, right? I’m Brad.”

  “Good morning, Brad,” I said without much emotion. I’d need coffee before I could be intelligent and civil. It was still my drug of choice. Then my brain kicked in and began to work. Tim had to be Timothy; the guy Micah used to make videos with. And the young guy had to be the new boyfriend. Wow.

  A dozen things snapped into place in that second. First, that while Brad was cute in a very young and unfinished way, Micah was plain hot in a cute real way. I examined the two of them, making a thousand comparisons and then tried to figure out what had been so great about Timothy. Well, other than the fact that he’d had a great cock. It was funny how jealous I was in that moment, like he had some hold on Micah’s life, or that I did. A hundred things went through my head and I had to bite my tongue to keep them from spilling out. Stupid, broken filter.

  “Coffee?” I asked as Brad set the bag down on the small table, pulling out bagels and cream cheese.

  Micah went to the kitchen and opened a cupboard to reveal a coffee maker. It was one of the small drip kinds with a four-cup pot. “A cup or want a whole pot?”

  “Oh my God, a whole pot or twelve maybe,” I begged.

  He filled the pot with water and grounds, something from a fancy looking bag I couldn’t identify, and then pushed the ‘on’ button, then he vanished into the bathroom for a minute.

  “You’re hot,” Brad said to me.

  I blinked at him. “Thanks, I think. Sorry. I’m not awake before coffee.”

  “That’s okay. We aren’t staying long. Micah texted me earlier to see if I could open the shop for him. You guys are all over the local news. Maybe national since that girl is missing,” Tim said. “Can’t believe Mark is dead. He was a total twatwaffle though. Always up in Micah’s business because Micah does his own tours.”

  I processed that. Sarah was missing. Mark was dead. So the body had been Mark’s? Did Micah know? The coffee pot made a gurgling, almost finished noise, and I got up to make my way to it and look for a cup. I found something that looked like a soup mug and poured the entire contents of the pot into it. There was also a batch of almond milk creamer in the tiny fridge so I added that until it became a nice tan. The smell was divine. Not the Folgers crap Lukas kept at home and drank by the bucket full, but something with a butterscotch scent that made me sigh before taking a sip. The flavor of it rolled over my tongue, a sweet but smooth hint of butterscotch under the firm bite of a good bean.

  I groaned. “Oh shit, that’s good.”

  “That was hot,” Brad said. “You ever do movies? Porn?”

  I could feel his gaze on me. Did I have morning wood? I glanced down, no that was still not working, or maybe it had been the abrupt awakening that had dampened it.

  “You’d be great in porn. I heard you were in the military. Do you still have a uniform? Those draw viewers in like a magnet. Plus you’re good looking, thin, and only a little hairy. Lots of great muscle definition.”

  I gaped at him, the old Southern boy my mother raised waking up in me like a cat being rubbed the wrong way. “Haven’t you heard? I’m crazy. Certified and everything by good old Uncle Sam.” I took another long sip of the heavenly coffee, thinking I would have to interrogate Micah later about where to get some. “Wasn’t useful anymore. Wouldn’t make porn on a bet.” Couldn’t seem to get it up unless I was fantasizing about inappropriate things about my new boss.

  “You know about Micah, right?” Tim asked.

  “About his old job?” I asked.

  “About what happened to him,” Tim corrected. Was he implying Micah was crazy too? Because he’d vanished for a while? Was that why they’d broken up? Or was it because Tim had found a younger model?

  “I know what I need to,” I told him. What Micah wanted me to know was what I knew. The rest was up to him to share, even if I had been a little nosey and read a book with a story about his disappearance in it.

  Micah reappeared with his hair pulled back in a ponytail and he’d found pants and a T-shirt somewhere.

  “Did you want some?” I asked him, realizing I’d taken the entire pot of coffee. “Sorry… this is good shit. I took the whole pot.” I offered the cup to him. He actually took it and took a long gulp before giving it back and going to the table of off
ered food.

  “Is it true you found a body?” Brad asked him as Micah picked a bagel that appeared to be covered in salt then dug through the cream cheese for a minute.

  “Almond cream cheese is there,” Tim said. He pointed to the blue container. Micah picked it up and opened it to slather his bagel in it.

  “Yes, there was a body. No, it wasn’t pretty,” Micah said before he took a huge bite of bagel. He sighed much the way I had with the coffee. He chewed and swallowed for a minute. “I can’t tell you anything because the police are investigating.”

  “Was it gross?” Brad wanted to know.

  “Yes,” Micah assured him.

  “Cool. Maybe there will be a real ghost in St. Louis Number One now.”

  Micah sighed. I wondered if I’d ever been that young, but in truth I had been, before my first tour. By the third, bodies were a regular thing even if I couldn’t stomach them anymore. Some of those nightmares came back just when I thought I’d finally forgotten them. That last attack the most vivid of all. Sometimes I wish I could forget their faces, their names, and their deaths.

  “Did you guys drive over?” Micah asked.

  “Yep,” Tim said. “Do you have stuff you want us to take to the store too?”

  “If you don’t mind. There are half a dozen bags, a couple of shawls, a box of soap, and another box of candles.”

  “Sure,” Tim agreed. “I don’t know how you find time to do all that.”

  “It’s stress relief,” Micah said.

  Tim looked me over, seeming to frown at my lack of attire, but I probably had major bed hair too. He turned to study Micah. “You okay?”