I stopped looking back and focused on running, my heart thumping once, heavily, as if to accentuate the severity of my situation.
Running through the crowd like a panicked, drunken zombie caught a lot of attention. The rising heart rates of an increasing number of bystanders assaulted me from every angle, a chaotic cacophony. City lights and sounds assaulted my dulled senses as I pushed past the press of strangers. Someone in the crowd was bleeding, just a little, a scent that slapped me in the face with its sudden clarity. I staggered under the sensory overload and rising panic, my bare fingertips scraping hard along a building’s rough exterior, lending me stability, though I barely felt the physical contact.
My lack of breath suddenly caught up with me, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was suffocating. My head swam, dazed and dizzy, as I broke past the onlookers, only to be confronted with a busy street corner. Steel, glass, and lights streaked back and forth across in front of me, a wall of whizzing vehicles that barred my way forward.
Horns honked and blared viciously at me from the sidelines as I finally stumbled to a stop, dangerously near the crosswalk, but I was too caught up in my own disoriented world to even flip them off properly. I jammed on the pedestrian crossing button so hard I might have broken it, clutching at the pole it was set into as if it were a lifeline. I couldn’t hold onto it forever, though, and the world spun, driving me dizzyingly to my knees.
I almost broke down and cried, right then and there. My desperate desire to escape conflicted with how not myself I felt as I battled a tangled mess of fear, distress, and unanswered questions. Nothing felt right anymore. Where was Lori? She should have been home, but she wasn’t. Was she okay? And what was happening to me?
And somewhere behind me, a monster was coming to end my concerns.
I desperately needed help, but, without my Lori, who would help me?
Rubber screeched in protest as tires ground to a smoking halt in front of my face. A shiny white sports car blotted out my view of the road beyond, the driver’s side window already down. An alabaster face crowned by vibrant purple-and-black hair stuck out the window; big sapphire eyes—liquid, glittering and clear—stared down at me.
“Holy fuck, what are you waiting for? Get in!”
My brain rebooted as I registered the sound of the doors unlocking.
I lurched to my feet and hesitated, having sudden, understandable trust issues.
A glance over my shoulder showed me the ripples in the crowd as someone—something—made its way through it.
I got in the damn car.
5
Bathroom Adventures
I found myself crammed into the narrow back seats of a beautiful stranger’s shiny white, newest model Toyota Supra. She didn’t even seem too concerned that I might be bleeding onto her pristine, dark leather seats.
“Are you alright?” A rich, clear, definitively feminine voice cut cleanly through my thoughts. I didn’t mind; they weren’t going anywhere anyway. My panic levels were receding but not gone. I glanced out the back window again, reassuring myself once more that the nightmare creatures from my apartment weren’t still somehow following us. “I said, are you alright?” She repeated herself slowly, insistently, and clearly, peering at me over her shoulder with concern. I got the feeling this wasn’t the first time she’d repeated herself.
I gripped my spinning thoughts and emotions firmly and told them to shove it. The more she spoke, the easier it was to come back to my senses—the power of a friendly voice, I supposed. I focused on my rescuer instead, easily the second most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, her profile silhouetted by the rhythm of passing lights, her face featured in the rearview mirror.
She looked like she’d been on her way to a rave when she stopped to save my ass. She seemed about twenty or so, a little younger than myself, with luminously pale skin that contrasted sharply with her deep purple and black hair as well as the predominant blacks and reds of her midriff-exposing crop top and thigh-flashing skirt and boots. Her complexion was alabaster and utterly flawless, her only makeup consisting of ruby lips, thick ebony eyeliner, and fancy wings of glittering purple eyeshadow. Her eyes were big, crystalline, vibrantly blue, and compelling like liquid gemstones. At least, in person.
In the mirror, they were completely blank and white with no hint of their normal color, and obviously unnatural. I swallowed hard, ignoring the taste of old blood. But at this point, I hadn’t expected her to be a normal person.
Seeing me glancing back and forth between mirror-eyes and normalish ones, she smiled reassuringly, freeing a hand from the wheel and sticking it awkwardly into the backseat. “Name’s Tamara. Tamara Wild.”
Damn, she was beautiful.
I blinked. Thanks, self. Priorities, maybe?
I tried to voice something in response, maybe a plea for help, maybe a one-liner. But what I croaked out sounded more like I was struggling with a hairball or something. We blinked at each other, then I simply took her hand and gave it a quick shake, trying not to dwell on how unnaturally smooth and soft her skin was.
“But just call me Tamara,” she continued smoothly, speaking in soothing, measured tones. “You are still with me, right? Right?” As she glanced back briefly over her shoulder, her eyes met mine with a vital intensity I couldn’t match, and I turned away, peering out the window at the drab, passing shapes of buildings flying past us. Time passed quietly for a long moment before I realized the sound jolting me from my reverie was Tamara snapping her fingers. “Please? Are you okay? Miss…?”
“Ashley. Ashley Currigan.” My voice tried to fail me again, rough and parched and scraping along my vocal cords like coarse sandpaper, but I finally managed to get it out. Since I couldn’t think of a cool superhero name, I just went with the truth. “And I’m fine, I guess.” As I answered, I glanced down at my blood-streaked skin, at the spot among my ribs where a knife had gone searching for my vital fleshy bits. I put a hand to my neck, feeling the viscous fluid over ravaged flesh there, and thinking about Cam-Kong, wondering where Lori was, if she was safe from him, and why I’d found a pair of monsters at our house instead of my girlfriend.
Everything went red, and I lost it.
“You know what? No! Fuck no!” Tamara jumped and slowed the vehicle, peering back at me worriedly. “Do I fucking look alright? My girlfriend’s missing. I’ve been beaten, I’ve been stabbed, I slept in a store, I slept in garbage, I got lost, I’m bleeding way more than I’m comfortable with, and nothing about any of this makes any fucking sense. So, no, I am not okay! I feel like I need three ambulances.” I was yelling, more or less, the hoarseness of my voice betraying me more and more the longer I sustained my rant, leaving me just rasping as loudly and angrily as possible.
As soon as I paused, my vision cleared, and I instantly regretted my outburst. I was yelling at a stranger, and a helpful stranger at that. None of my horrible experiences were this woman’s fault or responsibility. She’d been nice enough to stop and help when I’d needed it the most, and here I was being the asshole.
“Dammit, I’m sorry.” I hung my head and tried to relax, the apology not as audible as I’d have liked over my vocal cords trying to crap out. “Do you want me to get out?”
To my surprise, she chuckled, giving me a smirk and a glance out of her peripheral vision, the engine of the Supra rumbling predatorily as it picked up speed again. “Considering the shape you’re in, you’d more likely fall out. But there’s no need to apologize. After all that, I’d be fucking pissed, too.” She eyed me and the road with equal attentiveness. “I know it doesn't mean much from a random stranger, but I’m sorry shit’s been so rough. This world can be a real fucker sometimes, eh? I can’t fix it, but I figure I can help you out of rock-bottom at least, you know? That probably doesn’t help too much, but try to just chill out and relax until I can get us somewhere and get you cleaned up, all right?”
It did help. More than I would have expected. If nothing else, it was just nice to meet so
meone who wasn’t a ravening asshat. After all I’d been through, a little kindness was a breath of fresh air. “I’m still sorry,” I rasped. “It’s just…I’ve definitely seen better days, you know?” I tried to grin back at her, but wasn’t very successful. “Don’t mean to take my shit luck out on you.”
She studied me, long enough for me to get concerned about her not watching the road. “You know, I’m not a doctor or anything, but I know enough first aid to give you a look over and help you get things sorted out. If you want.”
My suspicion-related defenses started going back up. I hesitated, then nodded. “Sounds better than a few hours in the ER, right?” I tried to put on my best tough girl expression, and wondered if it looked as pathetic as it felt. It sounded better than having a doctor freak out over my nearly-nonexistent heartbeat, warped senses, lack of bleeding...the whole laundry list of oddities. So far, I was holding together enough to not want to risk the padded room or worse.
“Awesome. Some light, clean water, hot food, and time to talk should do wonders.” As she spoke, I looked up, blinking at the harsh light of luminous, yellow-and-red sign glowing dutifully over the mostly-empty parking lot of one of Birmingham’s most ubiquitous 24-hour diners.
Huh. Pancake Hut.
“Um…” This seemed like a bad idea, even on my scale of bad ideas. Maybe the ER was the way to go after all. “No offense, but I’m pretty sure I look like I’ve been juggling honey badgers all day.” While making words seemed to be getting easier the more I did it, the air still seemed to grate over my vocal cords like coarse-grain sandpaper. I certainly didn’t sound like the me I was used to, not any more. “If you tow me in there now, someone’s going to call the police.”
Tamara turned around in her seat, popping the door open as she shifted to look more directly at me. “Not with me here.” Her smile turned distracting, alluring. “They won’t pay you that much attention. Just trust me.”
Trust was in short supply at the moment. The way her eyes pulled at me, big and seemingly bottomless, didn’t help. Also, super-helpful people like Tamara simply didn’t exist in the Birmingham I knew. And then, there was her reflection in the mirror… As soon as I started entertaining the suspicions, the paranoia train promptly left the station. There seemed to be more going on here than my would-be savior was letting on.
I slapped myself mentally. Of course there’s more going on here than you know, dumbass. Do you even remember what happened since last night? Like Mystery-Camo-Zombie-Frankenstein, who tried to stick you? You don’t know shit right now. I had a good point. Maybe it was better to not just blindly follow along here.
I raised my head, parting the matted black strands of hair hanging down in front of my face like a dirty, blood-clotted veil. Tamara was staring at me, her smile slightly faded and sad. “Ashley? What’s wrong?” She stepped out of the car, came around to my door and opened it for me, then knelt. “Believe me, you need help. Probably more than you realize.”
I paused to think over my words, then blurted out the first thing that popped into my head anyway. “I don’t know if I can trust you. I’m hurt and scared and nothing seems real. Everything… Nothing’s what I thought it was two days ago.” I slumped. “And I don’t know where my girlfriend is or if she’s okay.”
“Ashley…” She took my hands in hers. “Look, maybe… Maybe I know what happened to you.” Well, now she had my attention. “But if I’m right, you’re in more danger than you can possibly handle alone. I know you feel like you have no reason to trust me, especially after all you’ve been through, but if you don’t at least talk me through it, and hear me out, you’ll be facing what comes next truly blind and all alone. I don’t want that for you. I don’t think you do either.”
I chewed my lip, staring her down, trying to read her.
Her eyes were clear sapphire pools of insistent urgency, brilliant and shimmering with empathy. “Let me help you. Please.”
Something in her voice told me I could trust her. And I wanted to trust her. Besides, did I really have a choice? It didn’t seem likely that I could puzzle things out on my own, not with my fascinating lack of clues. Especially not before Happy Knife Rambo Frankenstein or some other monster showed up again.
Tamara rose, running a hand through her strikingly-dyed hair, and stepped around to the trunk. She came back a moment later with a little galaxy-print duffle bag and a first aid kit, one in each hand. She waggled them at me. “Spare clothes and bandages.” She tucked both of them under an arm before gesturing toward the restaurant, offering me a soft, hopeful, comforting smile. “So…You coming?”
And just like that, she saved my life.
I idly wondered which of the four or so Pancake Huts in the city we were at, since I’d lost my bearings during the drive. I didn’t figure Tamara was stupid enough to go to the nearest one or anything, though.
We’d gotten in easily enough, just like Tamara had promised; no 911 calls or people running madly for the door when I entered. She hadn’t given me a chance to protest; she’d simply taken my dirty, bloodstained, garbage-smelling arm in her pristine alabaster one and led me right in.
No one so much as glanced at me. Walking beside her, I wasn’t sure the patrons and workers inside even noticed me. They were all too busy staring at her.
For my part, I just tried not to get her all gross and dirty before she hauled me to the back, pushed me into the single-occupant bathroom, stepped in behind me, and securely pulled the door closed. Then she locked it, flicking the latch casually to “occupied” before turning to look me over. Slowly. “No offense, hun, but you’re a mess,” she grinned.
“You should see the other guy,” I responded reflexively. To cover my embarrassment, I shuffled over to the sink and the mirror that hung above it. Wow, was Tamara ever right.
I’d had a good look at myself back in our apartment, but things were different in the bright white light of the Pancake Hut bathroom. I had contusions all along my neck and one shoulder to match the bruising on my lower back, the whole mess already deep purple running to garish yellow-green. The dark blood caking my demolished neck was still visibly damp, trickling down in thin rivulets to saturate the collar of my t-shirt.
“Holy shit,” I croaked. All in all, it looked like I’d lost a fight with a gang of cinderblocks. But hey, at least it still didn’t hurt.
“You got that right,” Tamara nodded from beside me. “Let’s get a good look at it all, and I’ll try to help.” She stuck a thick white cloth under the faucet and flipped it on.
At Tamara’s insistence, I gathered up my courage and stripped off my shirt, acutely aware of the fact that I didn’t have anything on under it except panties. At least I wasn’t cold, but I was self-conscious. It was one thing to stand next to a pretty girl. It was another thing entirely to stand next to a highly attractive girl while mostly naked, nasty, and covered in evidence of violence.
Was I blushing? I wasn’t even sure if I still could.
“Here.” She handed me a soaked wad of cloth, giving me a reassuring, friendly smile that helped ease the tension. “You start mopping up, and I’ll take a look at this mess.” She motioned toward my neck, and I nodded.
It didn’t help matters, I supposed, that I felt so inferior to the woman reflected in the mirror alongside me. Tamara was, like Lori, everything I was attracted to most, and nothing that I was. We were about the same height, if she lost her black platforms, but that was where the similarities ended. Aside from her flawless face and skin, her generous bust put mine to shame, and her feminine hips made me look boyish by comparison—things easy enough to see, since her goth-industrial-rave clothes left little to the imagination. Where her skin was luminously pale, mine was pallid and unhealthy, dark veins still visible to anyone who took the time to look.
I was thinner than she was, but not in a healthy way, not anymore. I’d always been on the skinny side due to a combination of a high metabolism and a low income bracket, but right now I looked outright unde
rfed, perhaps even a touch malnourished. I frowned at myself in the mirror, and my mirror-self frowned back. I guess I need a waffle or something, STAT.
I took the opportunity to examine my rescuer while rinsing out towel after towel of dirt and old blood till my hands felt numb. She was effortlessly sexy in a way that clothes could only accent, never hide; not that her current outfit was in danger of harming her appearance. Her shirt was torn off just below her breasts, the stylishly tattered remnant proclaiming “Bondage: No Pain, No Gain” and flaunting a pale expanse of toned stomach. Her short skirt drew my eyes insistently and repeatedly by design, textured black leather over ruffles of lace, decorated with thin chains that complemented those running through the multiple piercings in her ears. She had a handful of facial piercings too, including a silver nose ring, a shiny black lip ring, and an ornately jeweled pentacle dangling from her navel.
Needless to say, she didn’t look like the kind of person who should even be driving alone in Birmingham after dark, much less stopping fearlessly to help blood-splattered strangers as they stumbled around, running from monsters and having emotional breakdowns. Especially when they looked mentally ill and at least two-thirds dead. Her car said money and lots of it by my standards, but her clothes said “sexy rebel punk anarchist.” It didn’t add up.
“This is a hell of a mess.” My bathroom companion tossed a red-soaked towel into the sink with a bloody wet splut, fresh from my neck. “Does this not hurt?” She took another cloth, pressing firmly at the damage. The exposed wound was the kind of thing you see on a B-movie zombie flick, something that relied more on shock value and gore than real horror. Tamara took a long look at the strip of raw, damaged meat she’d uncovered and winced, looking away.
Dead Girl's Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 1) Page 4
