Barbie & The Beast

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  Dammit! No phone. Must have dropped it.

  “Man! What Karma!”

  She eyeballed the sign and the darkness behind it, and envisioned poor old Angie’s reaction when Darin and his doggie snuck up on her from behind. Angie wouldn’t know what to make of that. She didn’t know Darin, didn’t know that this night’s date had had anything to do with a cemetery. Angie wouldn’t like the Rottweiler from hell nosing any part of her person, either.

  It wasn’t nice to allow your pals to have a fright two nights in a row because of you. Some friends would go only so far. Barbie opened the Fiat’s door. She slid her legs off the seat and placed her feet on the pavement. The best thing, she decided—no, the only thing—was to go in there after Angie, Darin, and Dog. She could soften the blow. It would have been foolish for Angie to have left the door open and the keys in the ignition, anyway. Angie loved this car. And Barbie loved Angie.

  Closing the Fiat’s door and setting her shoulders, Barbie headed for the cemetery sign at a walk, then picked up her pace to a jog. “Coming Midge!” she shouted.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “This can’t be happening,” Darin muttered as he raced over the grass. “Women!”

  Though Dog had a nose to the ground, Darin didn’t need any help finding his prey. Angie’s perfume wafted in the night as if it had been recently sprayed on, giving his own nose a twinge. Strong perfume for a strong personality? Would Barbie’s friend be as hardheaded as she? Just what he needed.

  Oh no. No.

  Sliding to a halt, Darin stared upward. A searing pain shot through his face, causing him to flinch. He wouldn’t make it. The moon was too darned bright and the trees laced too thinly. He had to let go.

  With a vocalized oath, he waited for the change to transform him. Skin slid against skin. Bones creaked. His teeth slammed shut while his face rearranged. Ten seconds now to transform, he tallied. It was getting quicker.

  Hugging his roomy coat tighter around himself, Darin took off again, this time able to run effortlessly, with larger strides and the joy of movement for movement’s sake. Like this, as the wolf, he was able to see, hear, and sense exactly which path Barbie’s friend had taken, almost as though Angie had left a trail of bread crumbs.

  What, he wondered, would he do when he found her? He couldn’t face her like this, in his wolf’s skin. He looked like a monster! He couldn’t talk.

  He would have to herd Angie in the direction of the parking lot. Chase her back to her car. Make her think something might be after her, without provoking too much of a scare.

  Wait! What’s this?

  Dropping to the ground on one knee, Darin sniffed the air. From the south came the scent of another presence, a familiar presence. He’d know this smell anywhere.

  Excitement flowed through him. Angie’s trail ceased to occupy his mind as he turned into the wind. Angie’s trail had circled back, anyway. If she knew what was good for her, she’d be heading for her car. There was something new he had to take care of.

  The beast was so easily appeased. So easily distracted.

  Barbie ran as fast as her legs would take her. Dog barked somewhere up ahead. Dog would be near to Darin. Darin would be near to Angie.

  Slowing to a jog as she reached the first gravestones, not really knowing how she had found them this time, Barbie listened, pointing herself in different directions like a GPS system homing in on an elusive address. But there was no sound now.

  Darn.

  A situation recap seemed necessary. She hadn’t done as Darin asked and stayed in the car. Angie should have been bright enough to heed the phone message and stay in the Fiat. Couldn’t Angie hear the tone of the message her friend had left? Didn’t they teach about stress in that beauty college, and all the ways to recognize it?

  The skin at the nape of her neck tingled as she took two more steps in the direction of the crypts. “Ick.” One more step, she told herself, would be fine. Surely the bodies in this cemetery had mostly been nice people.

  Besides, she had managed to stay on her feet this time. No belly flops. The crickets were chirping, which she hoped meant no bogeymen were around. All she had to do was cover ground, even if at a snail’s pace, between the marble buildings. She had to reach Angie first, or at least at the same time as Darin and Dog. Angie’s mental health depended on it.

  “Dang, Angie. The rescue is now reversed,” she grumbled. Wasn’t it so like Angie to make everything about her?

  A white thing appeared suddenly to Barbie’s right, very nearly startling the pants right off of her, until she realized it was a statue of a goddess with a bow and arrow, tall and pearlescent, made of stone. Next to the statue sat a cross, ominously pale in the moonlight. Neither was altogether freaky or unpleasant when you realized what it was, but they weren’t a welcome sight.

  Glancing up, blinking in the bright moonlight and thinking she could feel that silver light on her face, Barbie swallowed hard and continued on. She ducked low-hanging branches, straining to hear any sign of anybody. She picked her way between the tombstones and clipped hedges, thinking that if she were to spend eternity in this place, she’d want her resting place to be out here and tree shaded, not inside of anything as closed in as a mausoleum or crypt. Those places were downright eerie. Crypts and mausoleums invited strange happenings and horror-movie scripts. The film industry could never have become what it was without them. She thought an architect might have redesigned the buildings to be more homey, like small cottages with window boxes, like play houses with manicured yards, but no one seemed interested in changing their image.

  A sound in the distance. Barbie froze. The echo of a growl reached her, followed by a bark. Another growl came, louder this time, more menacing. Had the pony-sized dog found Angie? Would Angie still be breathing after it was done with her?

  Picking up her pace, Barbie skipped between the tomb-stones, anxious again. Still no Darin. No Angie. No Dog. Another marble crypt sprang at her out of nowhere. “Regular metropolis out here,” she noted. Plus, geez, the crickets had stopped their silly symphony.

  “Angie?” Barbie’s call was soft. Goose bumps sprouted on her arms.

  Did she hear a reply? Barbie darted through the surrounding shrubbery, was caught off guard by the closeness of something flying by her in the night, something big and hairy. What ever it was, it moved at light speed beneath the trees. An animal? An animal larger than Dog? Was that even possible?

  Backing up, nearly toppling over a vase of flowers propped alongside a grave marker, Barbie let out a shriek. The sound barely got past her throat as the blobby blur disappeared around the side of the crypt.

  Barbie knew she had to follow, and she started out, moving her lips in a recitation of the phrase she sincerely hoped was true. “There are no such things as ghosts or zombies. There are no such things as ghosts or zombies. There are no such things as ghosts or zombies. . ..”

  She was concentrating too hard to remember to shout for help.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Whoever had designed a wolf’s face and snout must have been drinking. It was actually quite hard to see past the nose, Darin thought as he rounded the building. Not to mention the effort it took to breathe through such a lengthy proboscis. Special focus was needed to get his eyes working together in order to see past this nose. He’d never gotten used to that.

  Whoever would have imagined that a man and a wolf were a workable combination, anyway? Why not a giraffe, or a bear? Along those same lines, who was the first to suggest a man and a woman were a workable combination? Look at the obvious and lengthy list of differences between the sexes. The vast enormity of differences, in fact.

  Still, he decided, vaulting over a tombstone, lumbering between two more crypts and making a sharp right turn, he supposed he should thank whoever the Creator was, because Barbie Bradley was worth giving thanks for—in spite of the suspicious quirks she exhibited. As he recalled, she had warned him about her anger-management issue. He should have lis
tened.

  Barbie crept past the trees, past a waterless fountain, and on toward more evergreens. How on earth did Angie get this far? she asked herself. Where had Darin gone? Was the hairy hide she had glimpsed yet another animal? Or maybe a frat boy coming off a bender.

  Holding her breath, she slunk between two narrow buildings set close together, then loped for the trees, sure she’d seen movement beneath. What she found was a whole lot of nothing, and creepier still, the insects were still silent. Either the bugs had been seriously disturbed, or Dog had eaten them for a snack.

  Beneath one of the tall trees Darin seemed to like so much, Barbie paused. Did she want to follow that thing she’d seen race deeper into the row of crypts? Not really. What she wanted to do was find Angie and skedaddle.

  “What the—?”

  A hand clamped over her mouth, a hand that had appeared from out of nowhere. It caused Barbie’s knees to buckle. Her heart burped. Her legs wriggled as she prepared to issue a round house kick and inhaled. . .Chanel No. 5?

  “Don’t say anything,” Angie warned.

  “I—” Muffled.

  “Shut up, Barbie, will you please? Just look where I’m pointing.”

  The hand covering Barbie’s mouth dropped away. Frowning, face thawing from its frozen surprise, Barbie turned around.

  “Look,” Angie commanded.

  Barbie rotated again to peer through the bushes. More pallid buildings lay ahead. They could have been the same buildings she had just passed, and they could have been different ones. Her sense of direction was virtually non ex is tent.

  Nothing moved beside the buildings. She was just about to question her pal about this, when Angie nudged her in the ribs.

  “Hey!”

  Another nudge, harder this time. Angie was pointing. “Look.”

  Barbie studied those buildings harder, and with more concentration. Dimly at first, her eyes picked out a shadow. No, not a shadow. The silhouette of a man. Darin?

  She almost called out. Stopped herself. A second silhouette appeared beside the first, standing close to the first. Very close to the first.

  A curious feeling cruised through Barbie’s guts. Though she had no idea if one of those shadowy forms could be Darin—after all, it was too dark to see clearly—she stared, transfixed. Her stomach tightened when one of those two silhouettes, the smaller one, leaned in toward the other. . .as in, their bodies were touching. In a flare of moonlight Barbie saw that the second silhouette was lighter, slimmer. Female.

  Oh. . .my. . .

  Meaning to take a step forward, Barbie stopped herself with a firm realization. She didn’t know for sure if one of these was Darin. She didn’t know if the smaller silhouette was a person at all. Maybe it was Dog, up on his hind legs for a good face slurp. Maybe Dog was where Darin got the idea for all that delectable licking business in the first place. Man’s best friend was his dog, she’d heard.

  This couldn’t be Darin, she decided. Not out here with another woman on the same night he had taken her to dinner, to bed, and had then pulled off a vanishing routine. It was inconceivable that Darin could have done this to her.

  However, her mind nagged suspiciously, Darin had made mention of something else he had to do. He had suggested that she get in the car and stay there. Was this cause for alarm? He hadn’t wanted her to see the other female? The competition?

  A great gulp of inhaled air came with hiccups as a side effect as Barbie’s insides wrenched. Who else would be out here in the graveyard besides Darin? It had to be him, didn’t it? That “something” he had to attend to might indeed involve a female. Could Darin have arranged another rendezvous? Same night, but another woman at a later hour? A twofer?

  No!

  Her own hand now clapped to her mouth to keep herself from screaming. Her hiccups were like small internal earthquakes. Two weeks, huh? she was thinking, prodded on by Darin’s own words. Darin Russell, all licky, touchy-feely, and then poof? Darin Russell, reappearing to woo someone else, on Barbie time?

  When the blood drained from her face, she felt it. Nausea rolled in her belly. If this was Darin, then somehow she had been suckered into the guy’s web of deceit. Dang if she hadn’t found that flaw she’d been looking for, right smack-dab in the middle of the cemetery: the guy was a gigolo. The man she’d thought too gorgeous to be true, was too gorgeous to be true. He was a man with an agenda, that agenda being to see how many women he could pick up at one time. How many conquests he could make in a few hours’ time?

  What better way to accomplish this than to wine and dine her, emphasis on the former, ensuring they would leave the restaurant early. Seeming the consummate gentleman, he had taken her home and had come up looking like a champ. While she, on the other hand, was looking and feeling like a chump.

  Tuck her in with a T, Darin had said. No attempt made whatsoever (not really) to get into her pants. How unlike a guy was that, anyway? How many times had this happened in her dating history? Zero. (Okay, the word history might suggest she’d actually had a past that involved getting very far with men, but what the hell.)

  Dammit! Deep down she must have known something like this would happen. With a horrid, almost morbid fascination, she peered again through the bushes. The words benefit of the doubt floated by, scorned.

  “Do you see?” Angie whispered.

  “Yeah, I see all right.”

  She sure did. There were the wide shoulders and the long hair, seen glistening in another brief flash of moonlight. If that wasn’t Darin, she’d eat her shoes. While the smaller silhouette, the one whose hand now rested on Darin’s face, was no dog. No siree. The smaller person was a. . .blonde!

  The realization struck terror into Barbie’s heart. “It can’t be,” she whimpered.

  A blonde?

  All her life she had lived with this particular little problem. This particular dilemma. Blondes. And not being one.

  Blondes had more fun.

  Blondes got the guys.

  Gentlemen preferred blondes.

  Hadn’t blonde Barbie always been a better seller in toy stores? More popular? More valuable with age? All little girls wanted blonde Barbie. Brunette Barbie didn’t cut it. Brunette Barbie paled in comparison to the honey-haired diva of dolls.

  Barbie Bradley felt herself whiten further. She was sure she might fade dead away, joining the rest of the folks in this place in a prone position.

  “Isn’t that the guy who just walked you to the lamppost?” Angie wanted to know.

  Barbie shrugged dumbly, unable to respond, thinking she should run in there and give Darin Russell a piece of her mind. Maybe a karate chop, too. Either that, or she might cry.

  “Why were you out here?” Angie whispered. “Who is that guy?”

  “He’s—”

  “Not your date?” A wheeze came from Angie’s throat. “That’s your blind date?”

  Right after Barbie’s initial heart attack came a rising steam. Anger. Temper. On top of that, tears were gathering, threatening to fall. She felt shaky all over, and kind of depressed.

  “The date who left you without saying good night?” Angie continued, fascination in her tone. “You came out here to spy?”

  Angie asked this with not only interest, but a particular kind of empathy familiar to the female gender. Barbie looked at her as the sound of Darin’s laughter carried. Angie’s head came up.

  “No way!” Angie said. “Is this the guy? The guy on the—”

  “Yes,” Barbie hissed.

  “On the—”

  “Answering machine. Yes, okay? There’s a good possibility that he is Mr. Velvet Voice, himself. A very good possibility.”

  Angie looked to the two silhouettes, still sort of huddled together, and back to Barbie. She looked a little harder at Barbie. “I can feel steam rising from your body. Temper steam. Sometimes spying is a bad thing, I’m thinking. We should go now. We really should leave.”

  “Not before full confrontation,” Barbie muttered through cl
enched teeth. “Confrontation is a good thing. Everyone says so. It provides closure.”

  “I don’t think they were talking about this kind of confrontation,” Angie warned. “Not the ‘sneak up in the dark and surprise the heck out of someone’ kind. That kind could be dangerous.”

  “How can he deny this behavior if he’s caught in the act?”

  “Honey, you need to think about this before dashing in there. You need to give him time to explain. It might not even be the guy you’re thinking it is.”

  “You saw him walk me to the car?”

  “Sure did. I had to. . .I came into the bushes to. . .you know, and. . .” Angie’s explanation faded. “He walked right by me. I thought I’d see what was up.”

  Barbie stared at her friend.

  “Doesn’t mean that’s him,” Angie said. “There could be other folks out here. Could be your guy has a brother.”

  “You see the hair on this guy?” Barbie asked.

  “Yeah. Dark and shiny and long. I saw that, for sure.”

  “Did you see his body?”

  “With hair like that, who needs a body?”

  “That’s Darin, all right. My date. He is the graveyard keeper here. No one else would be out here after dark, Angie.”

  “You mean, besides you and me and whoever that blonde is who’s touching his face?”

  Barbie’s shaking got worse, knees now refusing to hold her up. Angie grabbed hold of her elbow and hung on tightly. “Come on now. Let’s go home,” Angie said. “I stopped at the store like you asked me to. We’ve got plenty of stuff to ease the pain.”

  “You’re talking calories, Angie, not human flesh.”

  “Oh boy. Time to go. Really.” Angie tugged on Barbie’s quivering arm.

  “Pain is not good enough for that man, Angie. He really had me going.”

  “Fine, but you can’t attack now. There’s a witness.”

  Angie was right, Barbie supposed. “Still, shouldn’t this other woman be warned? Blonde or not, don’t women have to stick together?”