Then the shadow disappeared. Dan’s body was no longer there. The walls were sparkling clean and the gun lay at my feet. Safety on. And, in that moment, I didn’t question where in God’s creation the shadow had come from or where It, my uncle and the bloody, horrifying mess they’d created had gone.
Melody jerked back in shock and confusion, and I picked her up off the floor, adjusting her clothing and straightening her hair. She hugged me tightly, pressing her head into my chest that grew warm with her tears as I shook with fear and reassured her as best I could, kissing her and holding her as she chewed on my shirt, completely traumatised.
We exited the house quickly, hand in hand, and when we got to the street she released herself from my grip. I stopped to scan her eyes, questioning. She looked petrified and helpless.
I told her we needed to leave, fast. That her boyfriend was, or had been, very well connected. She let me know she was aware of what he was. And she begged my forgiveness for putting me through the ordeal we’d just suffered. Telling me that what he’d said about her and everything I’d heard about her from my friends—all the things she’d done under his brutal direction—were true. Telling me that, if I could still stand to be with her, she would prove to me she wasn’t what he’d made her do, and she would be mine, just mine, for as long as I would have her. And if I really thought it was the best thing, and I insisted she leave with me that instant, she’d follow me without question. She’d leave everything behind and go with me to catch a bus. Right then and there.
As I looked into her eyes, I felt time slow and the moon made the night just a little bit brighter. I touched her face with my hand as she relaxed her cheek against it and I told her that whatever she’d done, whatever she thought she was or ever had been, didn’t change how I felt about her. That, in my eyes and in my heart, she would always be the same beautiful girl I’d loved from a distance for far too long.
I looked around my world as she smiled and kissed at my hand. And everywhere I looked, she was there. I was surrounded by things I loved. I could finally answer my uncle’s riddle, or at the very least, render its closing question impotent and illogical.
I asked her if she was sure she could get what she needed from her parents’ house and be back quickly. The light in her eyes burnt more brightly than I’d ever seen as her smile grew wide and she told me she could be back in a snap with extra money so we could get as far away as possible and I nodded my assent. She traced her hands around my face as I touched my fingers to her lips and she gave them a soft warm kiss. And she told me the only thing I’d ever wanted to hear: She was going to make me happy.
I let her know she already had, and a blissful smile drew itself across her face as she nodded and pulled me into her once more. Kissing me desperately one last time, then biting her lower lip, blushing.
We went our separate ways and, after I collected my things from my uncle’s and said goodbye to the empty house, I made it back to our meeting place at the bus terminal in record time.
And I waited. Hiding in the shadows and watching when she didn’t show up as quickly as I’d hoped. I waited for hours. And, when she still didn’t appear, I cased the location and searched the crowded streets for days. Avoiding my uncle’s watchful eyes, and the authorities who’d mistakenly classified me as a missing person for reasons I still don’t understand. But she never arrived to meet me there. She never showed up anywhere, and I waited.
And, almost as soon as I’d realised something was wrong, the shadow had come back. It followed me everywhere. Keeping me hidden. Keeping me safe, as I searched for her in vain.
And when I’d called in every favour I was owed from every friend who wasn’t too afraid to speak to me, and I tracked her down to every place they said she might be, no one I questioned could honestly claim they’d seen or heard from her since that bitter night.
And the shadow kept coming back. Consistently. Horribly. More and more violently.
As I continued to seek her out, I grew more desperate. Fearing for her safety. Fearing for her life. And a few of my impromptu interrogations nearly sealed my fate. They’d certainly gained me a reputation as someone not to be trifled with. Everyone who refused to help me find her went missing. Consumed by a darkness I didn’t fully understand and didn’t feel it necessary to at the time. And their friends and loved ones began filling up emergency rooms all over the boroughs. Too terrified to talk, even if they could somehow rationally explain the young man who’d come to ask them questions about a girl named Melody and the blackness that followed him, swallowed them whole and spat them back out.
Yet, as far as anyone else knew, she had simply disappeared. Right along with her boyfriend.
And I, at least, never saw her precious, beautiful white face again.
And I, for certain, would never ever be sure if she was safe. Or where she was. Or if she even still was at all.
And I still spend every single day, even as I take a moment to finish writing up this ridiculous assignment, remembering Melody. Remembering that beautiful coming together—that silent and singular moment—and dying inside. Odds are I’m not okay yet. No matter when you happen to note my absence.
And when the summer was over and I returned to my mom and our empty shell of a home, I took a really good look at my world.
And I asked myself: Are you surrounded by things you love? Why not?
To tell you the truth, it doesn’t make a bit of difference to me anymore. Not all questions are meant to be answered. Some are meant to bind us to a path. To break us and keep us broken.
Right now I should be balled up, crying like a baby. Because, this summer, I learnt I could realise dreams I never thought I ever would. I learnt how love was supposed to feel, and I experienced it fully. I learnt life is mostly cruel and unfair. I learnt that, if I’m ever really hurting and I need to feel Melody’s embrace, the brown poison can take away my pain for a little while. I learnt that, once upon a time, life was beautiful. But, most importantly, this summer I learnt, to depths I never fathomed possible, how not to care.
And if I don’t get a good grade on this paper, my uncle says he will be very upset. So please give me an A. If you don’t, his shadow will find you, It will take you and It will torture you without end.
It promised me.
And you’d better believe It’s fuckin’ serious.
David Fitz pushed his last balloon of brown early Friday morning. The leftover he’d stopped pocketing to maintain his and his girlfriend’s habit, and started pocketing to clock paper, over three weeks before. Quit cold turkey. As they’d both promised they would, every time they went shopping to stock up on over-the-counter medications, bananas, bread, peanut butter, soup, crackers, vitamins and everything else they’d need following their quit day. So many years ago, it seemed. Only three weeks.
Three weeks of waking up and wishing they hadn’t. Still unable to shake the memory of the first three days: Gorging on Tagemet and Imodium with grapefruit juice and water. Avoiding work, visitors and phone calls to writhe around on their apartment floor. Fighting and fucking like monkeys to keep each other from making it back to the street to score.
By the middle of the fourth day, they’d both been able to eat most of a peanut butter sandwich without vomiting. Cutting back on the anti-diarrhoeal medications and maintaining something close to regular sleep from that point on. Fighting the persistent flu-like symptoms with NyQuil and Gatorade for longer than either of them wanted to remember, though the entire process only took them completely out of the game for a half a week. Not much time, really. But the longest days either of them had ever lived.
As he walked into his claustrophobic apartment, burrowed in an alley off the streets of his claustrophobic city, he knew the eyes he’d hoped would catch him doing his deals on the side, definitely had. And the wire he’d been sitting on would be getting some use soon. That was as close to a good plan to kick the drugs forever, and escape the prison he’d help them build, as he could come u
p with.
In bed with a bent cop who was as likely to be setting him up to take a fall as help him out.
Maybe, in the end, he and his woman would bid farewell to the life. The life they’d grown to hate more than anything, for countless years, yet had still managed to suffer gladly. Most likely, though, they would die. Pathetically. Probably begging. Certainly not looking back with fondness on anything or anyone they’d be leaving behind.
Still, he couldn’t bring himself to give up hope totally. Not when his world was growing brighter with every passing second. Not when the demons that haunted him had taken leave, or at least given him peace. And not in his heart. The centre within him that always dreamt life could be better, and maybe believed it had to be, eventually. The only real question was how ‘better’ would end up being defined. The genuine joy of freedom, or a gutter funeral?
“What took you so long?” his girlfriend, Juno Conjay, called from the soiled mattress in their dark and dirty living room. “Did you get me more, like you promised? Did you?” She stood, scratching at her dirty blonde hair. Looking rough. Not a bath in days. Still anxious and unable to beat the insomnia. So beautiful, if he remembered correctly, underneath all the grime that clogged her pores. Filth that used to make the floating last a little bit longer.
“No.” He walked into their apartment, quietly closing the door behind him. “No more. If I promised you anything, I promised you that. I sold the leftover. More money. No more horsey.” He scratched behind his right ear as he made his way down the hall, past the bathroom, to hold her as she shook. “Did you eat?”
“Yeah. I’ll never get sick of the peanut butter and stale crackers, mother fucker.” She growled, almost cried, as she worked her teeth along his left shoulder. Gnawing at him. Eating away the pain. The need. She took his face in her hands and looked him in the eyes. “You promised. Why didn’t you get me more? I fuckin’ hate you.”
“Because we kicked, baby.” He ran his fingers through the dirt on her face. “We’re clean.”
“Why?” She gripped him tighter, throwing her arms around his waist and dropping to her knees. “You don’t get to make that decision for me. I’m not your property.”
“You know why. Our plan. I’ve been working it since before we started kicking. Like we agreed. We’re getting out. Away from all this. And don’t mistake me for chattel either, Juno.”
Juno: The girl who he thought he could love. The girl who’d turned to prostitution in her early twenties and barely gotten out of the game with her life when the junk made her useless. The girl who, had she not also been a slave to the dope when they met, he might not share one inch of common ground with. The girl who, now that things were going the way they’d both said they wanted, was calling their relationship quits.
“No.” She pulled into him harder. “I don’t want it. I’m not going anywhere. All this? This is over.”
“What do you mean, over?” He followed her as she turned and scurried back into the living room, finding a corner and making herself small in it. “I’ve been working with a cop. He’s going to help us. If we can take Paulie’s operation down, they’re going to get us out. That’s what you said you wanted, right? We agreed.”
“You were serious about turning on your boss?” She twitched and pulled at her night dress, yanking it from mid-thigh to knee over and over. “That’s stupid, Davey. Your head is more fucked up sober. How is this a good plan? And no.”
“Look.” She shrunk away from him as he approached and tried to touch her. “It’s not a good plan. And maybe it is twenty-four or five degrees south of whatever’s level. It’s just the only way I could see out.”
“Do what you have to. Just leave. And leave me out of it. I’m not going to die because of you.”
“Really? Three weeks ago you didn’t give a damn if the smack got you a toe tag for your birthday. And I’m not going to get killed because you don’t want to die. I did this for us.”
“There is no more us.” She made herself even smaller in the corner. “Didn’t I just say that?” Tears streamed from her eyes, making furrows in the grunge coating her cheeks as she pushed him, punching at his chest. “Look at me, Davey. Look really hard.”
“What am I supposed to see, Junie?”
“Exactly,” she snapped. “Now that we’re clean, you can’t pretend I’m someone else anymore. I don’t know why the fuck you’d want to because, let’s face it, you got better than you ever had when you landed me. But I’ll never be the girl of your dreams. I’ll never be the one. So just forget us. It shouldn’t be that hard.”
“Look,” David said. “I don’t know where you’re going with this, but I never—”
“You used to call me her name in bed, you fuckin’ asshole. When you were too jammed to keep it up any other way. I mean, God bless the bitch. It worked, but I’m not her, I never will be and I never want to be.” She punched him in the chest again. “So, I’m out of this. I’m not going down with you.”
He grabbed her by the back of the head as she crumbled into him, her hands flailing. Trying to punish him. “I’m sorry, baby.” He held her head in his hands. Knowing she was right on at least one level and desperate to get back on point. “The cop I’m working with. He’s already watching. And today it all ends. Today I tape record my weekly drop and the police pull me out. Don’t give up now. We’re almost home.” She tore at his clothes in frustration. “I understand you’re scared, but—”
“You’re being stupid. And don’t call me ‘baby’ anymore. You tricked me when we were kicking. The first three days. Maybe I promised then, but... No. I’m not doing this. You just go. Enjoy your new life. I don’t need you or your problems.”
He held her head with increasing pressure, staring deep into her eyes, as she reached to pry his hands away and he shook her. “It’s too late for that now. This has already begun and there’s no way to stop it. You don’t want to be with me anymore? Why? I’m too good? Not good enough? I don’t get it. And it doesn’t matter. They don’t know you decided we’re through. If you don’t run with me after I’m done starting Ricky and Paulie on their way out, you’ll be dead in a day. If they’re feeling generous.”
“No. You’re dead, you selfish bastard. If we run, they’ll kill us both. If you just die, then—”
He shook her head harder. “Then what?”
“I’ll figure something out. Fuck you for putting me in this position.”
“He moved his hands from the side of her head to her shoulders, guiding her up slowly into the centre of the room. “Look, here’s the truth of it. There is no way to keep you out of this. Because, no matter how I go, when I’m gone they’ll come and get you. Put you right back on the junk.”
She smirked in the middle of her crying jag. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
He cracked her across the mouth and it was right back to nothing but tears.
“They’ll get you hooked again, they’ll pimp you out and they’ll keep your tab running so you never get back to good.” He turned her to look out through the dust and dirt on their living room window. “You’ll be on the streets again, broken glass in your knees. Getting banged up and banged around like a nickel slut. And you’ll be doing it all for, maybe, a meal a day and enough flea powder to keep you from getting sick on the customers.” She tried to turn back around to look at him, but his grip was solid. “And when the sickness starts to show. When no one wants you anymore. Again. When the junk eats you alive, like it almost did before we kicked, they’ll see you die too. But not like me. I’ll be over quick. You’ll die every day for months, maybe years, until you spend your final days burning up and freezing to the bone. Shitting yourself, pissing yourself, puking, starving, and wishing you were dead. The only way your end will come any faster is if you work up the nerve to kill yourself. Because they’ll watch you twist, and they’ll love it.”
“Would that make you happy?” she asked as his grip relaxed. “To see me go like that?” She turned a
round and held on to the window sill. “You describe it so well. Is that what you want? Would that make it okay? If you got me killed, but I was just some worthless junkie whore and not the girl who dumped your pathetic ass?”
His grip began to tighten again and she pulled away, cowering against the window and holding up her hands as he shouted. “No. Just... Quit pushing my buttons. You think this isn’t hard for me too?” He went to stroke her hair and she flinched. “I’m trying to make a point. Your pride is going to put you in a very bad place. You don’t want that to happen. Don’t you remember how hard it was to kick? How painful? Do you want to do that again? I want us to get out. I want for you to be safe and I don’t want you to have to go back to being what you never wanted to be. That’s all I want. A fresh start. This is the only way. We’re done? Okay. But I still care about you, Junie. I would never hurt you.”
She touched lightly at her lips, still feeling his hand punishing her. “Except when I make you angry, right?” She smacked him in the face full force. “And you’d never put me in danger, just like you’d never hurt me? Never hit me?” She smacked at him again, missing his face and clipping his shoulder.
“Listen. All I need you to do...” He tracked her eyes, making sure she was paying attention. “All I need you to do is clean yourself up and go shopping.” He pulled a wad of twenties from his jeans pocket and threw them at the mattress on the floor. “You go out shopping. At the thrift store. We’ll come get you when it’s time. Until then, you stay away from here.”
“No,” she said. “I’m not going. Just leave.”
“If you don’t go out, I can’t guarantee you anything.” He looked into her eyes again. “I mean it when I say I care about you. When I said we’re getting out, I meant you and me. Both of us. Even if we’re over, I promised I’d get you out.”
“Like you can do anything. Those guys own you. I love you, you stupid fuck, but you’re not calling the shots. You don’t have the balls to pull this off. Not now that you can’t shoot up your courage. You’re not even man enough to handle me. Good luck with the big boys.” David’s hand raised as her eyes followed it. “So I’m not going to take a shower and go out and shop, because it’s part of your brilliant master plan to get us out of the life.” She turned around as she gave him the finger. “I’m going back to sleep. You let me know how it all turns out, you selfish prick. If I don’t hear from you by noon, I guess I’ll run. Or maybe,” she added, “maybe I’ll take a shower and go shopping. That would fix everything, right? Fuckin’ idiot. You don’t owe me anything. So just fuckin’ leave.”
fiX - A ParaBnormal Fairy Tale Page 3
