"Well, you should. It's one of my favorites. Saw it for the first time when I was a kid and haven't stopped watching horror films since."
Alicia grinned at me, a beautiful smile that froze time and made me want to kiss her right then and there.
"I'll have to rent that sometime." This time her cheeks went a little red, and I figured I might just have a shot.
"Well, what's your favorite movie?" It was a lame question, but I needed to keep the conversation rolling a bit longer before making any kind of move.
"Oh, I don't know," said Alicia getting redder and cuter by the second. "I like all kinds of movies. That's why I'm here; looking for something new to watch."
That was my cue. In all her shyness, Alicia had asked me to ask her out in a subtle, roundabout way. It wasn't so much her words as the way she looked at me that gave her away.
"You know, I'm going to be watching this one later on tonight. If you'd like to see it, I certainly wouldn't mind the company." My heart beat faster as I waited to find out if I'd be rejected.
Alicia took a few seconds to answer, her shyness shining bright as the northern lights. When her smile grew and her cheeks reached a perfect fire-engine red, I knew I'd scored. "Sure, that'd be great."
We exchanged phone numbers and a hug after setting a time to meet later on. I left the store with not only one of the finest films ever made, but with a damned fine woman to watch it with. Now that was a good day. I think people a few states over could see the gleam of the sun shining off my teeth as I made my way home.
Our first date went really well, and after the movie ended Alicia confessed that she didn't know a damned thing about horror films, but that she was surprised at how good this one had been. That might have been the moment she won my heart, those great blue eyes looking into mine as she praised my favorite Fulci film. I could've cried.
We started seeing each other nearly every day, and things just seemed to fit. Before too long we were throwing around small talk about living together. I was excited about the prospect, and coming from me, a guy who values his privacy, that meant a whole lot. One of my favorite things was curling up with her on my big, fluffy couch and throwing on a scary movie. We'd pass the hours wrapped up in one another without a worry in the world.
Alicia lived in a downtown condo some ten miles from my house. When I walked into her place for the first time it seemed oddly cold, like you could crank the heat as high as it'd go and you'd still need a sweatshirt to sleep in. And I'm not talking about the temperature. It was the atmosphere that chilled the place. When I stepped through the door and onto the little grey rug that lay behind it I always felt like I needed an invitation to go any farther, and that I should've called in a reservation before showing up in the first place. There was something about the flat-white, naked walls and the matching white couch and chair that made me feel out of place. It was too empty, and I believe a person's living space speaks volumes about the person. No books, no magazines, no mess, no anything. So we didn't spend too much time there and didn't talk about it much either. We spent the majority of our nights together at my place, which was fine by me.
I never knew why her place had that kind of vibe. Maybe that was simply how she liked it, or maybe she just never finished moving in and didn't give a damn. One thing's for sure, I was so blinded by everything that girl was making me feel that I didn't dwell on it much.
Now that we were apart and the love-drug had worked its way out of my bloodstream I was better able to see the flaws in our relationship. I thought up a hundred questions I should've asked her while we were still together. Things that should've thrown up the aforementioned red flags a long time ago had somehow passed me by. I felt like an idiot. Hindsight's too clear for my own good sometimes.
In those last turbulent months of our relationship Alicia was always leaving on business trips for the rental car company she worked for. I never got any details on the ventures, just a hazy Cliff's Notes style dialogue that left me in the dark without letting me know I was in the dark. Not once had I gotten anything specific out of her, and not once had I tried to. I'm not saying she was up to anything fishy, just that I should've known where my girlfriend was going. I still can't fathom how we never managed to talk about things like that, and wonder if things would have worked out differently if we had.
And there were other oddities laid out on my desk that I never once took a good look at. They just got lost in the shuffle of paperwork that made up my life, and only the good news ever seemed to surface. Outside of her sister Kelly, and Kelly's best friend Tania, I never met any of Alicia's friends, and I rarely saw either of them. As a matter of fact, that damned party she took me to was the first place we'd gone that involved anyone else that she knew at all. And I didn't care one bit for any of them. Well, except for Jessica, but that was after the fact. At the party I had thought she was just another rich lush doing what rich lushes do. Everyone there seemed self-absorbed and materialistic as hell. I didn't care what kinds of cars these people drove or how much their designer clothes cost. It was like they were proud to have overpaid for the shit they owned, and that's the type of crap they talked about. Well, that and The Lord of the Rings.
When George kicked in with that Lord of the Rings speech I'd been thrown off, because his whole geek-thing seemed out of place. But then he got to talking about it from the perspective of an artist who knew better than the rest of us and the pieces fell right back into place. I remember everyone in the room nodding at him as if he'd just opened their eyes to something new and wonderful while I stood there cringing in my skin. I can still see the blood running down his face. Gollum statue 1, George 0.
I couldn't believe that Alicia was hanging out with these people. What did she find appealing in them that I didn't? Why had she kept quiet about them until the party? Why had she brought me to that party in the first place? I mean, she had to know I was going to hate everyone there. And why did the giant named Jeff seem to hate me the second I entered the room? Questions like these are what got me wondering about Alicia's fidelity. I wondered why she hadn't backed me up when everyone stood staring at me wiping tears from my cheeks after busting a gut laughing at George. The girl who had spent so many nights with me on my sofa would have been laughing as hard as I was, but this cold, statuesque woman in front of me was not that girl. Not by a long shot. And now they were both gone, and I didn't know why or where.
CHAPTER 8
I woke up early Sunday morning and sat around for the better part of the daytime hours thinking about the crap I'd been through over the past couple of days. When I finally gathered enough willpower to get off my ass and out of the house the sun was low in the western sky. My place was filled with relics that kept me thinking of Alicia, and that was the last thing I needed to be spending energy on. Every room had at least one thing that brought her to mind; the Pittsburgh Steelers mug she'd gotten me over the summer, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre poster above my bed, even the blanket that kept me warm at night was something she'd brought over to replace the threadbare one I'd had before.
If my old Mustang had a spare tire in the trunk I could have gone downtown for a while to get some coffee and air, but that was a big if. The flat tire on the car had at one time been the spare. I'd used it to replace the last dead tire and hadn't gotten around to buying another one. I made a mental note to pick one up first thing the next morning so that I could avoid being trapped and depressed in the house again. Until Alicia turned up it was going to be hard to keep her out of my thoughts, but dwelling on it wasn't going to bring her back any quicker.
The phone rang as I was trying to put on my right shoe. I stopped what I was doing and limped to the bedside and picked up the receiver. Jessica was on the other end, and I tell you, her voice played like the prettiest music I'd ever heard. I hadn't thought I'd ever hear from her again, but wasn't exactly disappointed to be wrong.
"Hey Brian, what's up?"
"Not too much, just sitting around the house
trying to grow moss on my back. How about you?" I guess I could have said something along the lines of, Oh, just wondering if my ex-girlfriend is dead or alive and trying to decide which would be better, but I'm guessing that wouldn't have done much toward keeping me on her good side. And I liked her good side. Hell, I liked all her sides. People rarely say what they're really thinking, and we're probably better off for it.
"Moss, huh? Interesting." Jessica laughed a bright, wonderful, infectious laugh I hoped I'd be hearing a lot more of. "You want some company? 'Cause I could come by in a while if you want," she said.
"Yeah! That'd be great. I mean, it'd be good to see you again."
"Cool. I'll see you in thirty minutes?bye." With that, she hung up.
I didn't even have time to say "bye" back, so I hung up the phone and made a mad dash to start cleaning my wreck of a house. I wasn't too messy most of the time, but I'd let the place go to hell over the last week. I threw half-full cups in the sink, dirty clothes in the hamper and balls of paper in the trashcan. I was moving so fast I broke a light sweat. Eventually I looked around and decided that my work was done, or as done as it was going to get that day.
I waited for Jessica as the shadows grew long outside, and turned on the television to find some overweight talk-show host crying about something or another while fanning her face and muttering something ridiculous like, "Stop the ugly tears, stop the ugly tears." I considered tossing a shoe at the screen but decided it wasn't really the TV's fault. It just did what it was told. I swear if it weren't for boxing and the NFL I'd have told the cable company to go fuck itself a long time ago.
There were two raps on the door before it opened. I was taken by surprise as Jessica walked right on in as if she'd grown up here and I was a trespasser in her childhood home. I was going to suggest that she knock next time, but when our eyes met I just bit my lip and smiled like an idiot. She must have seen that stupid look on a million guy's faces in her time, but at that moment I was just fine with being the latest asshole in line. It just goes to show how folks with good looks can get away with things that would get the average person shot.
"What's up?" said Jessica.
"Actually, I was just about to fall into a fit of depression before you called. You know, the whole 'my girlfriend's missing, I was attacked by a monster, my car needs a tire' line of thought. It tends to take my mood down a few notches from time to time."
Jessica laughed. "Well, I have a brand new rental car outside compliments of Allstate, and I'd be happy to drive you to get a tire if you've got the cash to buy it."
I was shocked that she'd actually managed to weasel a repair, much less a rental car, from her insurance company. "How the hell did you explain all the damage?"
"I said I hit a deer and that it jumped in the car and trashed the interior."
"A deer, are you kidding? It jumped in the car? They actually bought that load of crap?"
"My agent's been trying to get into my pants for a year now. I wore a low-cut shirt and flirted shamelessly with the poor guy. It was kind of pathetic to tell you the truth, like teasing a puppy."
"Ah, I see. This guy sounds like a complete idiot." I actually felt a hint of jealousy.
"Yeah, he's a bit of an idiot, but he's a nice enough guy. And hell, who cares? My car's getting fixed. I think I could've said a fifty foot snowman from Mars attacked the car and he would've gone along with it."
"What really happened isn't too much harder to believe. I mean, we crashed into a disgruntled werewolf. That still has me a little fucked up in the head."
"I think it's best if we just try to put the whole incident behind us. Let's not forget it was my car that got totaled, and you don't see me moping around the house. As for Alicia, I'd just let her go. She and I were pretty close before she disowned me, and I got a good chunk of her life story over the course of a few drunken heart-to-hearts. She's never gone more than a few years without making some major change in her life, and has a tendency to just pick up and leave without much notice. From what I remember, that stunt you pulled at the party might have been enough to send her over the edge again."
"Hey now! I was just laughing at that George guy for getting what he'd earned. I mean, you had the advantage of being out of the room and drunker than hell while he spent valuable hours of my life talking about elf-warriors and wizards. I hate elf-warriors and wizards! And if I remember correctly you were the one that caused the whole damned thing in the first place."
"Oh, yeah. That part of the night's a little blurry to me. George probably did deserve it. He's a douche. The people at that place were assholes, almost all of 'em. And not just assholes, but boring, arrogant assholes."
"And just why were you there?" I asked.
"I knew a couple of people there from back in my Alicia days, and they kinda called me out of the blue. Normally I'd have stayed home, but I didn't want to be alone that night. I hadn't expected to run into Alicia, and I was a little hurt at how cold she was toward me."
"Do you actually live over there in the village of the damned?"
"Oh hell no! I have a little place a few miles from where we ran into that…creature. If you take a right down route 33 I'm about fifteen miles off the beaten path. There's not a soul anywhere near the place, and I like it that way. Would you like to see?"
"Yeah," said the pathetic guy.
"Well put your other shoe on. Let's get you a tire and watch a couple movies over pizza."
"Do you mind if they're horror films?"
CHAPTER 9
She wasn't kidding. Jessica's place was secluded as hell. I don't think we passed a single car after turning on to 33, and when I stepped on to her driveway there was no sound to greet me save a gentle breeze and the rustling of leaves. Her house was a small two-bedroom cabin that stood two stories high in the middle of absolutely nothing if you didn't count the trees. I instantly fell in love with the place.
We walked down the stone path that led from the gravel driveway to the front of the house. Jessica opened the door without using a key and I noticed she hadn't bothered to lock her car either. I made a comment about it and she shrugged it off by gesturing to the landscape around us. It was a hard point to argue.
Jessica stepped inside and reached to her right for a light switch. The house was neat, but not so neat that it felt like a laboratory. There wasn't much in the way of decorations aside from two paintings hanging side by side above her deep-brown couch. The first was a winter scene with skeletal trees casting shadows against a grey, snow covered ground, the second a hundred or so year old family portrait in sepia tones.
She threw her sweater down on the back of a thick-cushioned chair beside the sofa and told me to get comfortable. She was out of the room for a couple of minutes and when she came back in she had two cups of coffee. We sat and drank while discussing this and that about our daily lives.
In truth, I could've just sat there staring at her. Jessica was definitely a looker, and now and then my unwholesome thoughts would sidetrack me and I'd miss what she was saying. Thankfully, I recovered fairly well each time and my lapses went mostly unnoticed, though I could tell that she was enjoying watching me squirm under her spell.
And now and then my old pal Guilt would sneak in and smack my brain around a bit. Here I was hoping to bed one of my girlfriend/ex-girlfriend's friends only days after she'd gone missing. Men are bastards, but at least a few of us are man enough to admit it.
Eventually, after our conversation had shifted course many times, Alicia's name came up. Jessica asked if I'd made any more attempts to track her down, and I felt like a real ass when I had to answer with a no. She gave me a disappointed look and said, "Well, why not?"
"I thought you wanted me to forget about her…move on," I said.
"Well, I don't want you dwelling on it until you fall into a suicidal depression, but I do think you'd feel a lot better if you had some answers, and I think you still care a lot about her."
"You're right. But I'm not su
re where to get started. I've never handled a missing-persons case before."
With that, Jessica grabbed the phone book and threw it in my lap. It made my balls hurt a little, but I probably deserved it.
I called the police station and the two local hospitals trying to see if Alicia had turned up anywhere. One sterile voice after another told me in the same disinterested monotone that she hadn't been seen or heard from. And finally, when there were no more calls left to make, an idea hit me that should've come knocking when Alicia first went missing.
CHAPTER 10
Jessica pulled up in front of Alicia's condo and killed the headlights. We got out of the Volvo and walked up the winding sidewalk toward Alicia's door. The street had been paved recently and the bitter smell of asphalt was strong in the air.
I took a deep breath when I reached the front door. I was nervous that Alicia wouldn't be there, and equally nervous that she would. What in the world would I say to her at this point? And what, if anything, would she say to me? I knocked and waited. There was no answer, so I pulled my key ring from my pocket and unlocked the bolt with a loud click. I found it odd that even though I'd had the key for over a year, this was only the third or fourth time I'd used it.
Nothing moved inside the silent apartment. The living room still smelled like Alicia, and my stomach cramped at missing her. I switched on a light and took a look around. I hadn't been there for quite a while, six months at the very least, but it was still familiar to me. The few times I'd stayed with Alicia at the beginning of our relationship had been amazing regardless of how much I disliked the place. Hell, there wasn't a single piece of furniture there we hadn't had sex on at one point or another.
Andy Deane Page 4
