Zombie Mountain

by J. R. Rain

  I shake my head. “She lives with her family in Montana. Last I heard, she’s living a fairly normal life, just with HIV.”

  What I don’t tell Eddie is that she doesn’t talk to me, which I find hard to believe. She’s ruined me, but I’m not worthy of a phone call?

  She didn’t ruin you, asshole.

  I know this. I have to take ownership of this. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do: taking responsibility for my AIDS. A hundred times a day, I’d wish I’d never met her, I’d wish I’d never pressed her for sex, I’d wish I’d never developed a relationship with her, I’d wish the condoms had stayed on, I’d wish I hadn’t been so reckless.

  I’d wished for a lot of things. Now I wish for nothing.

  That’s the funny thing when you’re given a few months to live. You quit wishing. You quit hoping. You quit dreaming. There’s not enough time for dreams to come true, and if they did, there isn’t enough time to enjoy them.

  Dreams are dead to me. Hope is dead. All I want is my morning latte.

  The day isn’t half over and I’m already losing my strength. I need to sleep, and badly. A week ago, I could make it until evening. At this rate, I will soon not be able to even get out of bed.

  Numi sees this. Numi sees everything. He’s always watching me, studying me, monitoring me. In Numi’s eyes, Eddie is wasting my time and energy, neither of which I have in spades. Although Numi has okayed this meeting for reasons I still do not comprehend, Numi doesn’t like the way things are progressing. I know this, because I know Numi, too. As well as he knows me.

  “What do you need, Eddie?” asks Numi.

  Eddie looks at him, blinks, and realizes for the first time that when you talk to me, you also talk to Numi. Eddie looks back at me, and seems to size me up again. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking, but it can’t be good.

  “Maybe this is a bad idea,” he says.

  “The man is on borrowed time,” says Numi, leaning forward. “Maybe we can waste a little more of it?”

  Eddie is a smart guy and gets Numi’s drift: Get to the point or get the get the hell out of here.

  “Right, sorry. Shit. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need your help, Jimmy. Wait, that didn’t come out right. I mean, I should have been here anyway. I’m a shitty friend.”

  He is a shitty friend but I don’t kick a man when he’s down. I look over at Numi, a very un-shitty friend. Numi is sitting back again, eyes half-closed, looking somewhere beyond the table and into eternity, for all I know.

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  My friend is acting strange. My friend is generally the picture of cool. Or, at least, that’s what he always projected in the past. Now, not so much. His eyes seem unhinged, moving around in his skull like a compass going apeshit. He’s having trouble focusing on any one thing. He runs his fingers through his greasy hair. I’ve never known Eddie to have greasy hair. The Eddie I remember cared a lot about his looks. Too much, perhaps. His knee is bouncing, too. I figure Eddie is either on something or something’s really wrong.

  He finally nods to himself, looks down. Then he closes his eyes, which is probably a good idea since he can’t seem to focus on anything longer than a nanosecond. He takes in some air, holds it, and then says, “Olivia is missing.”

  I sit forward. Or try to. My sitting forward consists of a minor tremor that runs through my body, followed by virtually no movement at all. Sitting forward, or other such wasted movements, is a luxury for the healthy.

  Even though I have not seen Olivia since my disease reared its ugly head, she had kept in touch with me via text or e-mail or even Facebook. Whether or not Eddie knew we kept in touch, I didn’t know or care. The e-mail exchanges were light and frivolous, rarely touching on anything heavy, other than she missed seeing me and was sorry I was going through what I was going through. Her concern seemed genuine, and I always appreciated hearing from her. I knew she cared about me and she knew I cared about her. That she never stopped by to see me was, I figured, more Eddie’s doing than hers.

  “What do you mean by missing?” I finally ask.

  Eddie looks from me to Numi and says, “It means I haven’t seen or heard from her in almost forty-eight hours.”

  Chapter Three

  “What happened between you two in the forty-eight hours just before Olivia disappeared?” I ask. This information is important to any missing person investigation. I squelch down my sense of panic that Olivia is missing and turn on my private-eye persona. I give him my most serious no-bullshit glare.

  He looks away. “Remember my friend Jewel?”

  I do. I also remember that Eddie had cheated on Olivia with Jewel… on more than one occasion. How and why Olivia stays with him, I still don’t entirely know. But she has.

  “I remember Jewel.” I say evenly.

  My skin is burning now, actually reddening. Still, I don’t move my arm. The burning makes me feel alive, and for all I know this might be my last sunburn.

  Numi stares impassively forward, but his attention is still on me, even if he isn’t looking directly at me. He is like a dog who keeps its ears directed towards its owner, ever alert for walks or treats or both. If I should make any movement, Numi’s eyes will snap around to me. So I make no movement. No indication that the sun is burning me. Numi would adjust the umbrella, or insist we sit inside. I enjoyed it more than I should.

  A small wind blows over us, although I am perhaps the only one who feels it. I close my eyes for a few seconds and feel the sun and I briefly feel more connected to the earth than I ever have.

  I relish these small moments. I wish I had relished them more when I wasn’t living on borrowed time.

  My private-eye instincts kick into high gear, and so I ask, “What does Jewel have to do with Olivia’s disappearance?”

  Eddie answers casually, as if he is talking about the weather, “Two weeks ago, Jewel committed suicide.”

  The word hit me like a gut punch. Even Numi turns his head slightly to regard Eddie. For the stoic Nigerian, this is akin to a cartoonish double take.

  “What do the police say?” I ask when I’m over the shock. I look at Eddie’s face for signs of grief that his on-again, off-again mistress took her own life. He dips his head away from my intent gaze and when he lifts it again, his expression is neutral.

  “I haven’t mentioned Jewel’s suicide to the police yet.”

  This surprises me. I have to wait a second or two to find energy for my next question. “Why not?”

  Eddie takes in a lot of air and leans forward. I can tell he doesn’t like leaning forward. Leaning forward puts him that much closer to me. He lowers his voice when he speaks, “Lately… Olivia’s been pretty vocal about me not seeing Jewel anymore, even as friends.”

  “Do you blame her?” My question has a double meaning but he doesn’t catch it.

  Eddie shrugs. He doesn’t like talking about it. I honestly think Eddie thinks cheating isn’t a big deal. God, how was I ever friends with him? Maybe it is a godsend that he’s not in my life anymore.

  He says, “I guess not.”

  “Had you been cheating with her?”

  “No, not for a few years.”

  “So, what prompted Olivia’s change of heart?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  I wait. There’s more to the story, I can tell. Numi waits too. Numi can outwait a polar shift.

  Eddie’s knee continues to bounce. Perhaps faster than before. Finally, he adds, “Well, maybe Jewel and I had been hanging out more often than usual.”

  I know Eddie well enough to guess, but I ask anyway, “Did you sleep with her?”

  Eddie shrugs, clearly a defensive gesture that I hadn’t known about my friend. Perhaps a new defensive gesture. Perhaps now he has something to be defensive about. “Yeah, I did.”

  “Did Olivia find out?”

  “I’m thinking she did.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  “No. She ne
ver mentioned anything.”

  “Do you think Olivia killed Jewel, that it wasn’t a suicide?”

  Eddie shrugs and seems to consider this for the first time. His knee stops bouncing. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Jimmy. That’s why I’m here.”

  I nod, or I think I nod. “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Help me find Olivia. It’s not like her to be gone so long, or for me not to hear from her.”

  I know Olivia has left Eddie before. I know this because on one such occasion she stayed with me. Eddie hadn’t liked that, but Eddie didn’t have a choice. I had been a perfect gentleman during her stay, but Olivia and I had, once again, shared some quiet moments together.

  I think about my words carefully before I say, “Do you think there’s a possibility that Olivia left you because you’re a lying, cheating scumbag?”

  Eddie looks up sharply. “That’s a shitty thing to say.”

  “Maybe,” I say, “But these days I speak my mind. I figure what’s the point in holding back?”

  “Well, it’s still shitty of you to say it like that. Even if you’re right, why would she leave now? Jewel’s dead. Cheating on Olivia with her is moot.”

  “Maybe she’s had enough of your shit, Eddie. Maybe she sees herself ending up like Jewel. I don’t know, but I do know one thing.”

  “What?”

  “She deserves better than you.”

  Eddie rises to his feet, chair scraping back. I don’t know what he intends to do, but he doesn’t get far. Numi grabs Eddie by the forearm. Numi makes no other movement. Hell, even his eyes are still half-closed as he stares ahead. He looks, if anything, bored. It’s a well-cultivated illusion. Numi, I know, sees everything.

  “Sit down, cowboy,” he says.

  Eddie doesn’t like to be grabbed, and he doesn’t like Numi, either. I see him look away and contemplate leaving. If he leaves now I know I will never see my friend again, and perhaps I will never see Olivia again either. I had always assumed I would see her at least one more time. At least, I want to see her again to say good-bye.

  “I probably shouldn’t have said what I said Eddie, but you know how I feel about you cheating on her.”

  “Because you love her.”

  “Because I care about her,” I correct. “Sit down.”

  He doesn’t sit immediately, and Numi hasn’t released him either. Finally, he shrugs off my Nigerian friend and sits again, folding his arms over his chest.

  “Good,” I say. “Who saw her last?”

  “The friend she was staying with.”

  “When?”

  “Almost two days ago. She told a friend she was going to take a hike in Elysian Park.”

  “When did she leave you?”

  He thinks about it. “Eight days ago.”

  “She had been with her friend the entire time?”

  “Yes, as far as I know.”

  “What’s her friend’s name?”

  “Karen Fitch.”

  “Do you know where she lives?”

  “Yes, in Echo Park. I can get the address for you.”

  He lapses into silence and so do I. All of us know that Elysian Park is where my brother disappeared some twenty-two years ago. My brother was nine years old. Eddie must have told Numi this, which is why Numi allowed Eddie to see me. Numi, my watchdog.

  I think my face might have twitched, but I try to keep it together when I ask, “Did she go alone?”

  “Yes.” Eddie is watching my face carefully. He knows how closely this is hitting me. Too damn closely.

  “I count back down two days. That would have been July 5th. If she had gone to Elysian Park on the Fourth, I would have understood. People hiked and picnicked there to watch the fireworks at Dodger Stadium. I have done so a few times myself. Back in another lifetime.

  “Did she hike there often?” I ask. The question spills out before I can correct it. I’m already using the past tense for Olivia. That gut feeling.

  “Yes…she loves to hike. You know that.”

  “I haven’t seen her in two years, Eddie. I’m not sure what she likes anymore.”

  Eddie just nods. I can tell he’s reminding himself what a shitty friend he has been. I wonder if Eddie knows that Olivia and I had been Facebook friends. I chide myself for thinking in the past tense again.

  I nod to Numi. My friend picks up his notebook and pen. I ask Eddie a few brief questions. Numi begins writing. Eddie answers my questions as Numi takes notes for me. When I’ve gotten the most I can out of Eddie, I lapse into silence. I’m completely spent. More than spent. I’m nearly catatonic.

  “Meetings over,” says Numi.

  “What?” says Eddie, startled. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” says Numi. “The man needs rest.”

  Eddie looks at me and I nod, or try to nod. He gets it. As he stands he says, “Help me find her, Jimmy. I don’t know who else to turn to.”

  “I will,” I say, and mean it.

  Eddie considers shaking my hand, decides against it. He settles for a half nod and says, “I’m sorry this happened to you, Jimmy.”

  “So am I.”

  He’s about to say something else, scratches it, then turns and walks away.

  Numi watches him go, then looks at me, then at my reddening arm. He makes a small, disapproving sound. He moves over and adjusts the umbrella above us so that the shade now falls across my forearm.

  Silent Echo

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  About the Authors:

  Elizabeth Basque lives in southern California with her two children. She’s the author of Sharpened Edges, the first in a paranormal mystery series. She’s presently hard at work on her next novel. Please find her on Facebook.

  J.R. Rain is an ex-private investigator who now writes full-time in the Pacific Northwest. He lives in a small house on a small island with his small dog, Sadie, who has more energy than Robin Williams.

  Please visit him at www.jrrain.com.

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