Andy Deane

by The Sticks (epub)

  Jessica and I looked around hoping to find a clue to Alicia's mysterious disappearance. Jessica went through the kitchen door and backed out faster than a preacher accidentally entering a gay bar, her nose pinched shut with two fingers.

  "Oh God, it smells like something died in there."

  It was the last thing I wanted to hear. I stood still, not wanting to enter the kitchen for fear I'd find my ex-girlfriend's corpse stuffed into a cabinet with cans of veggies and soup or her head in the fridge beside the milk and orange juice.

  "Brian. Hey, snap out of it! Did you hear me? Something smells like hell in there." She pointed at the kitchen door.

  "This place is freaking me out a little. Guess I miss Alicia more than I thought."

  "Well miss her or not, we've got to get her trash out."

  I gave a quick nod and did my best to appear in control. "I'll get it."

  She smiled to let me know I had her support and waited for me to head into the kitchen.

  I walked slowly toward the kitchen, a sense of dread hanging over me. I opened the door and stepped inside to see just how bad the damage was, knowing that I'd be the one dealing with the mess if Alicia didn't turn up in the next thirty seconds.

  The kitchen smelled like ten pounds of spoiled beef.

  It smelled like death.

  My heart raced against my will as I tried to calm myself. I walked over to the refrigerator, closed my eyes and pulled open the door.

  "Brian, are you okay?" Jessica asked from behind me.

  "Yeah, sorry," I said, eyes still shut.

  I moved my body to block Jessica's view of the fridge's interior, because if there was something horrible in there I certainly didn't want her to see it. I mustered up all my willpower and opened my eyes.

  Food. Drinks. Condiments. Some sort of cold pack designed to fit over a person's eyes. Nothing out of the ordinary inside, and I was actually surprised. Surprised and relieved. I relaxed a bit and managed to compose myself enough to speak in full sentences.

  "Well, the good news is, nothing's gone bad in there." I stepped aside so Jessica could see for herself.

  "Alright, Brian, but you know, you're acting kind of weird right now. You sure that coming here right now was such a good idea? Because we can do this another time if you'd like."

  "No, I'm cool. It's just taking me a few minutes to get my feet under me. There are a lot of memories lurking in this place throwing my balance off."

  "Okay. Let's find out what went bad and get it out of here. That smell is killing me!"

  I nodded and smiled before turning back around to give a more thorough look through the fridge. I figured I might find some old fruit or a moldy, green hot dog.

  "Oh my god!" called Jess from the other end of the room.

  I spun around so fast I almost fell over. I just knew that Jessica had found a severed leg under the sink or a disembodied eyeball in the corner of the room.

  "What the hell is it?" I shouted.

  "It's this goddamned trashcan. It looks like Alicia had Mexican last week and missed the trash pick-up. You have to take this out or I'm gonna barf."

  I walked over to the trashcan and looked in to find a couple of discarded containers bearing the logo of a Mexican joint in town where Alicia and I used to order take-out. I breathed a sigh of relief and pulled the white trash bag from the silver can. I tied the ends of the bag together to trap the smell inside and set it down so Jessica and I could continue searching the place for any clue to Alicia's whereabouts. Jess and I split up to carry on our investigation.

  I headed into the bedroom. There were clothes strewn all over the bed. For all I knew Alicia could have been planning a big trip or just sorting her laundry. A few of her drawers were open as well, and the contents were spilling out onto the floor. It looked as if a hurricane had set down right there in the middle of the room. My stomach continued to twist into knots as I thought back on the good times Alicia and I had shared. I'd been sucker punched by nostalgia, and I think it would've put me down and out for the night if it weren't for Jess.

  I was about to call for her, but she beat me to it. I followed her voice to the bathroom and found her looking somewhat pale in the fluorescent light. The room was a complete wreck and debris and broken glass were scattered everywhere. The floor reminded me a little of the messy bed of my dad's old Ford pick-up.

  I took a deep breath and gathered myself before taking a closer look around. The mirror had shattered and a variety of sharp shapes on the floor reflected triangles of light on the ceiling and walls. The door to the medicine cabinet was hanging on by one desperate hinge and its guts had been thrown recklessly to the floor. The most alarming discovery was the bathtub. There were streaks of something that looked a good deal like blood on its white interior. Not a ton of it like you might expect to find after the shower scene in a horror film, but enough of it to raise some concern, especially down toward the drain. It had gone red-brown from sitting.

  "Shit, Brian, what do you think happened here?" Jessica's skin was going from pale to pale-green as she spoke.

  "Definitely doesn't look like a shaving accident." Under different circumstances it might have come across as a joke, but on that night my voice was grim as death. "Whatever the hell happened, we have to get the cops here right now."

  Jess nodded her head and we left the room before another word was spoken. I picked up the phone from the kitchen counter and dialed the police. Another sterile-voiced woman answered and said they'd have someone over in a few minutes and that we should stay and wait. The fifteen minutes it took for them to arrive seemed like an eternity, and Jessica and I spent the time sitting close beside one another on the leather couch in nervous silence.

  When the cops knocked on the door we sprang up like teenagers caught humping. I opened it and three men in uniform entered and made brief introductions. We told them our story and showed them what we had found. They spent some time looking around, now and then jotting down notes in small notebooks or answering calls on their walkie-talkies.

  The tallest and oldest of the three cops came over to the couch to talk with Jess and me as the other two continued scouring the apartment for evidence. This big, lean fellow, who introduced himself as Sergeant Matheson, asked us a ton of straightforward questions and seemed satisfied that we were being honest with him. His face looked like something right out of a comic book. Deep lines ran from either side of his nose to his chin, and the distance from his nose to his forehead was a little too long, making him look surprised regardless of what he was saying.

  I told Sergeant Matheson what I knew about Alicia's disappearance. He handed me a business card and told me to call if I received any information that might help with finding her, and told Jessica that went for her too. The other two officers were gathering prints and fragments from the bathroom floor.

  Jessica and I left before the investigation was over, and she sped home. Putting distance between us and Alicia's claustrophobic apartment felt damned good, like coming up for air after being under water for too long. We stayed quiet and serious as a funeral as we covered the miles of black pavement.

  When we stepped out of her car and walked to her door, a flood of relief hit us like a truckload of bowling balls, as if stepping out of the car had broken some kind of wicked spell that had snared us. It made us both a little goofy. We spent the night trying to bury thoughts of what we'd seen at Alicia's condo.

  Jessica and I sat around laughing like idiots at terrible sitcoms and laughing harder at the bad commercials that interrupted them.

  "You know, Jess," I said, "if these ads are actually working on the average person we're in some serious trouble!"

  "Yeah, there should be a law that gives us the right to shoot the ad execs that throw this crap at us!"

  "Can you believe these guys get paid for this?"

  "Well, I'll bet it beats waiting tables," Jessica laughed so loudly that she snorted.

  "How very lady-like of you," I said, a dev
ious grin on my face. "And here I was thinking I'd met the perfect southern bell."

  "Southern bells be damned! You met a redneck, plain and simple." We both erupted into laughter and settled back to watching TV.

  Usually I can't sit through a three minute block of TV ads, but that night the commercials didn't bother me so much, mainly because I had some great company to make fun of them with. Plus, the commercials were going a long way toward distracting my mind from thoughts of Alicia, and that was what I needed most. It felt great to be smiling after everything I'd been through, and I was thinking somehow that night might be a turning point for my recent bad luck.

  And then it happened. Well, it almost happened. Jess and I had been watching a rerun of The Family Guy, and were both bright red from laughing. At one point we both leaned in and our faces ended up a little too close together, and our eyes met. I could see she was looking for a kiss, and I was damn well hoping for the same thing. But she didn't move any closer, and I didn't move any closer, so nothing happened. But even though the moment was slightly uncomfortable, it felt like a promise of good things to come.

  After a few somewhat awkward seconds passed in silence Jessica stood up and got us a couple of root beers while I grabbed the remote and switched channels. I'd like to say that I wouldn't have actually gone through with the kiss if she'd pushed the issue, but I'd be lying. My mind was caught in another tug of war between guilt and desire, and guilt had won out by a narrow margin. I wasn't even one hundred percent sure I was single, and didn't want to be the guy that looks out for number one first and foremost. Making out with Jessica the same day I found Alicia's place in shambles would have been pretty low in my opinion. But anyway, that's ancient history now, and I have a lot of story left to tell.

  So yeah, the night went really well and even the almost-kiss didn't make things weird for very long. Jessica seemed fairly in tune with what I was going through. When we were too tired to do much else she asked if I'd like to crash on her couch for the night. I took her up on the offer and she turned and went into her bedroom. She came back out and hurled a blanket and pillow at my head with a laugh. With the television off and Jessica out of the room my dread returned to me like a cancer coming out of remission. My stomach ached as I lay there thinking of Alicia. I hoped like hell that she was okay, and that what I had found at her condo had a simple, rational explanation. But my gut knew better, and wouldn't let me fool myself. I lay in the darkness trying to sort out the mess that was my life until I finally dozed off.

  CHAPTER 11

  I woke up to something scratching at the window on the far side of the room. Glowing red digits on the DVD player told me that it was 3:23 AM. At first, I just turned over to try and get back to dreaming and out of reality for a while longer, but the noise was too persistent. No matter how hard I fought I couldn't keep my eyes shut, so I rolled off the couch and stayed crouched as I moved toward the source of the disturbance. My imagination took off running as I tried to figure out what was outside the house, and I was starting to get spooked. Jessica had left the porch light on and I could see rain falling outside a little heavier than a mist.

  Lines of water ran down the glass like a bunch of tiny twitching rivers. My fear grew with the shadows in the room that seemed to drift toward me, as a cloud of quiet descended on the house. The only sound was rain hitting the roof and the kreeeee, kreeee against the wet glass. I got lower to the ground and moved forward, all the time feeling foolish to be acting like a kid waking from a nightmare. Well, more like a kid who was attacked by a monster on the road a couple of days back who just woke up to some creepy sounding shit outside his room, but you get the point.

  Getting to the window seemed to take forever, and by the time I got there I was on my knees so that whatever was outside wouldn't be able to spot me. My heartbeat was getting louder and faster. It was like my heart had decided for itself that it didn't want any part of finding out what was outside and was trying to push its way through my skin to make a fast getaway.

  I thought about calling out for Jessica, and nothing would have made me feel better than to not be dealing with my fear alone, but I knew that the noise would end up being nothing worth worrying about and I'd end up looking like a frightened idiot. It's kind of funny that my fear of looking foolish in front of a girl was stronger than my fear of being eaten by a werewolf. I guess it goes to show just how damned powerful social conditioning can be. Or maybe it just shows how pathetic men can be around women. Or maybe a little of both.

  Kreeeee Kreeeeee

  The sound was becoming more persistent, and I had to work harder and harder at convincing myself to look outside.

  Kreeeee Kreeeeee Kreeeeeee

  It took me a full five minutes to gather my courage and check things out. I lifted up slowly until I could see through the window, my face so close I left a ghost of my breath on the glass. I didn't see anything unusual outside, though everything looked as creepy as the set of an old episode of The Twilight Zone. I half expected Rod Serling to chime in to let me know something fucked up was about to happen.

  A low fog hovered and swam near the ground where raindrops splashed in wild patterns. Slivers of yellow moon peaked out from behind dark clouds gliding rapidly across the night sky. Most importantly, a limb from an old pine tree next to the house was tapping and scraping against the glass, driven by the wind. With this revelation my fears began to drain away. I sighed with relief and promised myself that tree would get a pruning when the sun came up. On second thought, I figured that tree might get a talking to from my chainsaw if Jessica gave me the okay.

  I stood and looked outside, feeling stupid. I was happy that Jess had slept through the episode, because if she had woken I'd have never heard the end of it. The rain was beginning to pick up, and I wondered for a moment if I'd left the windows down on the Mustang. It'd certainly be on par for my luck.

  Then the world went white. A crack of thunder pounded the heavens and lightning flashed to reveal a hideous face.

  Kneeling just below the window outside, the werewolf stared at me, snarling through the glass not ten inches from my face. Its features were obscured by the rain on the window, but its familiar glowing eyes left an impression on me that lasted long after the night was over. I let out a yell and stumbled back across the room, tripping over an end table and falling to the floor. I scrambled to my feet, expecting this thing to burst through the glass, but when I looked back toward the window, there was only rain.

  Jessica stumbled into the room a moment later, pulling on a blue robe and calling my name. "Brian! Are you okay? What the hell happened?"

  She turned on the lights.

  "It was that thing!" I told her. "It was right outside the window! Oh my God, I almost shit myself."

  "Are you sure? It's pretty dark out there and you've been under a ton of stress lately. You sure you didn't imagine it?"

  Jess was fishing for hope. I think she wanted me to lie and say I'd dreamt of the creature, but I couldn't offer her the comfort. We both needed to recognize the gravity of our situation, and lying to ourselves about it would get us no closer to being prepared for the storm on the horizon.

  "Sorry, Jessica. It was our monster. Plain as day."

  She was visibly shaken, but I was near positive that it was the same creature that had tried to kill us on the road and she needed to know that. I asked Jessica if she had any guns in the house and she nodded before going into the bedroom to retrieve one. She came out and handed me a small pistol that she warned was loaded. In my bedroom at home I had a Colt.44 which Dirty Harry once said wouldn't just kill a guy, but would also "remove the shadows" of said dead dude. I had gotten pretty good at taking down cans and bottles on the path behind my house, but I'd never fired at anything living. Or moving for that matter.

  Jessica and I sat in the darkness of the room together waiting for whatever was outside to try to get in. I was going to make damn sure coming inside would be the worst mistake that thing ever made, and
hopefully the last. Jessica laid her head on my chest and eventually fell asleep. I lay awake until the sun began to rise, and then my eyelids got heavy as well.

  CHAPTER 12

  The next couple of days went by quietly. No monster attacks, no loved ones gone missing, no smashed apartments, and no wolf-men visiting on rainy nights. As an added bonus my car was now equipped with four functional tires and a spare in the trunk. Despite it all, I was doing a decent job of putting thoughts of the creature out of my mind.

  I had missed a few days of work without calling in, so I phoned my uncle James, who also happened to be my boss, and told him I wouldn't be on the job for a couple of weeks. I needed some time off from carrying cinderblocks and mixing mortar to get my head straight. I couldn't really afford to lose the pay, but I couldn't afford to lose my mind either. James wasn't too pissed, but he did manage to let me know that there were always other folks out there looking for work. I didn't know if this was a joke or a threat and in the end I didn't care. Either way, I was playing hooky.

  I spent a lot of time with Jess, most of it at her place. We even went so far as to bring Bronson over so that we wouldn't have to keep running back to my house to feed the little guy. I spent my nights on her couch, which was fine by me, though being in her bed would have been better. We didn't even have another almost-kiss, though I'll admit I thought about kissing her every two or three minutes.