by Glaze, JH
“An excellent idea, John. Deal. You know, I threw everything together so fast I don’t even know what I packed.” She looked at the bulging suitcase sitting next to the wall.
“I’ll be right back.” He went into the bedroom and, in such a small apartment, she could hear as he crashed around in his closet and scraped things across the floor. Emily thought it sounded like he was tearing the room apart.
While waiting, she took the opportunity to walk slowly around the room. She looked, touched and snooped her way through his things. John had a bookshelf filled with books that ranged from science fiction, to textbooks, and other books on topics related to paranormal experiences and investigations.
She was reading the titles of each one when she noticed a piece of paper sticking out of a large hardbound book on the lowest shelf. She pulled the book out, and lifted it up to open it. It was immediately obvious that the piece of paper wasn’t a piece of paper at all. It was a dog-eared photo of an attractive red-haired woman in a bikini with a piece of tape holding a strip of paper over part of the picture.
Carefully she lifted the strip and saw the man standing beside the woman. The photo looked as though it had been through a fire or something. She turned it over to see if there was anything written on the back just as John came back into the room.
“Find anything interesting?” He set the large backpack on the sofa.
“Uh, sorry. I didn’t mean to be nosy.” She blushed as she lied. “I was just looking at your books and this photo fell out.” She held up the photo. “An old girlfriend?”
“Not exactly,” John walked over and took the photo from her hand, placed it back in the book and put the book back on the shelf. “She was the murder suspect in the case I spoke about earlier. Back when I was a detective of plain old normal crimes.”
“She’s very attractive for a killer.”
“Well, I never quite figured out if she was the perpetrator or not, to tell ya the truth. She didn’t live long enough for me to even question her. It’s a long story. Maybe we can add that to the list of things to talk about up in the woods. For now, we should get your stuff into that backpack, and then we should think about getting some sleep.”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” she said, lifting her suitcase from the floor and laying it on the sofa next to the backpack. She opened it and a mouse-shaped cat toy fell out onto the floor.
John picked it up, looked at it carefully and handed it to her. “An old boyfriend?” he inquired, smiling.
She smiled back at him. “Really, John. It was nothing like that. Just a minor fling, although we did sleep together frequently!” She laughed. “He was a bit furrier than I like my men to be.”
She laughed again, and he began to appreciate how attractive she was. He was still smiling as he opened the pack.
Twenty
It was one o’clock in the morning and Eddie was lying in bed beside Karla watching her sleep. He felt so lucky to be there in that moment. He thought about how all the decisions he had made in his career had enabled him to earn enough money so he could afford the finer things in life. If you asked any of Eddie’s friends, they’d agree that Karla was one of the finer things indeed.
Tomorrow, he would leave with her on one of the biggest adventures he’d ever undertaken. They’d go together into the national forests of the Northwest, sharing a tent, the excitement of the wilderness and the unknown. He was looking forward to two entire weeks of exclusive access to the girl of his dreams. The thought of it made it difficult for him to fall asleep.
Suddenly Karla snorted loudly and rolled over onto her back. The movement left the sheet pulled down to her waist completely exposing her perfect breasts. Eddie felt the tightening in his boxers as an erection sprang up.
He wasn’t sure if it was normal for breasts that size to point straight at the ceiling or not. He’d never been fortunate enough before to be with someone who was so beautifully endowed. The girls he’d been with before were much closer to average size.
Karla was definitely not average. Had he looked just a bit closer, he’d see the tiny scars from her implant surgery and he would know why the ‘girls,’ as she called them, always stood at attention. Not that it would have mattered to him if they were real or not.
Eddie stretched out and stared at the ceiling. This was the first time she had allowed him to sleep with her. She had insisted he keep his underwear on, “to keep things respectable,” and she had slept in her skimpy little panties as well.
Eddie had whined about her “being naked at the club in front of all those other guys,” but she had shut him down with a logical statement. “Yeah, but if they try to touch me, the bouncers will toss them out on their ass. There’s no bouncer here, Eddie. And who knows? If you’re gentle with me, maybe your dreams really will come true.” How could he argue with her when she was batting those eyes and flashing that smile?
Like so many of her other promises, his dreams had not come true. Here he was in bed with the object of his desire, his greatest obsession, and he was no better off than he was in the club. He could look, but not touch and it was driving him crazy.
He rolled back over to look at her again. Now, he was multiplying those dreams with every moment he spent studying every inch of her. He was so deep inside his fantasies that he didn’t even notice when she opened her eyes. “See anything you like, baby?”
Eddie’s face reddened. “You know how I feel about those gorgeous twins of yours. I don’t think I’ve ever been so near to them in such an up close and private kind of way. You know, it makes me want to...” He closed his eyes and moved in closer to her as he reached for one of her breasts, hand outstretched.
“Get hold of yourself Eddie,” she said, taking hold of his arm and moving it back to lay it down along his side. “We need to get some rest for tomorrow. We’re going to be carrying those backpacks fully loaded for the first time, and we’re gonna need our strength.” She nodded her head toward the backpacks leaning against the wall.
She was right about that. Over the past few days, she had been carefully sorting her ‘supplies’ by weight. The heavy things went in one pile and the lightest things in the other. When she had finished sorting hers, she went to work on Eddie’s.
She spent hours, filling her pack with items from the lightweight pile, mixing her and Eddie’s things carefully together so she would be able to find them quickly if necessary. When her pack was nearly full she had tested the weight by trying it on. Since she had put almost everything that was heavy into Eddie’s pile, she felt hers was light enough to carry, at least for short distances.
Meanwhile Eddie had been packing the heavy things into his backpack. When he had stuffed in the last item, he fastened the buckles on the pack’s flaps and tried it on. He groaned and bent his knees as he lifted it into place. The hardest part of the lift was getting it up high enough to adjust the straps. Once it was in place, it wasn’t so bad, but it was like having the weight of another person on his back.
He wasn’t too happy with the prospect of a long haul carrying that much, but figured he’d get used to it after a couple of days, and they’d be eating their way through some of it. Anyway, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make if it meant he could finally be with Karla, and maybe get into her pants and relieve all his pent up passion.
Just now, lying in the bed beside her, his back was still a little sore. When Karla was gesturing toward the packs, he’d looked over at them with apprehension. Carrying that thing was going to be hell and she knew it. She had watched him as he eyed the packs and she could sense he was having second thoughts about carrying all of the heavy stuff.
This trip was the final part of her grade, and she needed it to graduate the class. If Eddie backed out now, she would be forced to carry all of her own stuff. There was no fucking way she could carry that much weight, not for two weeks. She needed a mule, and there was no time to find a substitute. She was going to have to do something to give him incentive to carry out
their plan.
“Lay on your back, baby. Momma’s gonna give you a little present.” She used her most sultry club voice, and looked straight into his eyes as she quite affectively diverted his attention.
“Really?” Eddie sounded surprised, but the expression on his face transformed to one of happy surprise.
Karla didn’t answer him as she moved into position. Instead she forced a very large, seductive stripper’s smile and slid her hand under the blanket where the full force of Eddie’s desire was screaming for attention. As far as Eddie was concerned, this was the moment he’d been waiting for, and he was more than ready.
Twenty-One
Macy’s eyes were already open when the alarm went off at 6 a.m. She lay in her bed with her eyes closed, thinking. She had been so focused on her own mission for this trip. Now she was experiencing the anxiety of wondering if she had forgotten any small detail that could prove fatal while they were in the wilderness.
It had been a restless night indeed. Every time she had fallen asleep, she had begun dreaming, and each time, she would wake up in a cold sweat, screaming. The dreams had most likely sprung from her earlier encounter with her sister’s apparition. She had been left awash in a wave of memories from childhood.
Once during the night she had relived the terror of being lifted out of her childhood bed by her ankles. It wasn’t the first time she’d dreamt about it. It was the same every time and real enough to feel the cold rough skin of an alien hand scraping against her while she dangled in the darkness. She was afraid of what was coming next, unable to move or resist what was happening to her.
She could feel the cool breeze as she floated out the window and into the glimmering silver pod-like craft that was hovering just outside her family’s house. Macy remembered hearing the futile attempts to speak and muffled sobs of her equally terrified sister as she was being carried behind her.
Aside from the obvious effects of fright, Macy often wondered if their inability to call out might have been caused by some partial paralysis of their vocal chords. Not only that, she hadn’t dared to scream for fear of letting all the air escape from her lungs. She remembered feeling that she might not be able to take another breath and would suffocate in her state of immobility.
She had smelled the stench of rotting flesh as they carried her through hallways that had been used for such a purpose for many years. She recalled seeing evidence of fellow captives who possibly had not survived. Those who met their demise were either ejected into space or left to rot in some cavity within the ship.
The aliens had carried her into the dark interior of the ship where they laid her on a platform, which was unusually warm given the low temperature of the dimly lit room. It seemed to quiver and move beneath the weight of her small body. It had seemed to form around her to create snug contours that held her in place. She had lain immobilized as her eyes darted from side to side watching several glowing objects that had drifted into place, hovering above her for a moment before ropelike tentacles shot out and burrowed themselves painfully into her skin in several places.
Macy winced as she remembered the screaming. It was as though her cries had come from deep inside a great pit of darkness, clawing their way to the surface, and finally breaking through to an opening in a room that was stark and brightly lit. It was at that point, she had suddenly awakened back in her bedroom, shaken and wet with sweat, but free of the terror of the night.
These were no mere dreams that had interrupted her sleep. This was her reality, and had been for many years. This morning, the sounding of the alarm clock had released her from the futile attempts to get some rest. It was the starting bell for a journey she had been anticipating in some way or another for many years.
Macy burst out from under the sheets as she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She took a deep breath and dangled her feet there for just a moment, allowing them to hover just above the floor. Then she slid off the mattress and walked into the bathroom to begin her morning routine.
Fresh from her nice warm shower, Macy felt ready to conquer the world as she stepped into the kitchen to prepare her last bowl of cornflakes. No morning routine, no cornflakes, for the next two weeks. She had saved a nice ripe banana just for the occasion. Humming the theme song from Snakes on a Plane, she got everything out, lining up the utensils and ingredients on the counter. With everything in its place, she put her breakfast together just as she always had every day for the last twenty years though maybe with a bit more attitude than usual.
She sat down at the table and shoveled large spoonfuls of cereal into her mouth. While savoring her flakes, she grabbed the remote control lying on the table and turned on the television. The local news anchor was spewing out reports of robberies and murders as she typically did every morning about this time, but one report caught Macy’s attention.
“A body of a man has been discovered in the warehouse district. He appears to have been shot execution style, in the back of the head. As yet his identity is unknown and police have no clues, but gang activity is suspected.”
As terrible as it was, Macy had no clue why that particular report would jump out at her, but she didn’t really give it much thought. A very loud commercial came on for a furniture company who was having a big sale over the weekend with the manager of a store yelling about the great deals. It grated on Macy’s nerves so she pressed the power button on the remote and turned it off.
“I fucking hate loud, screaming people.” She mumbled to herself through a mouthful of cereal, but the truth was, she just hated people. Period.
Twenty-Two
John rolled over to turn off his alarm clock and rolled right into Emily. She seemed oblivious to the wake up music as she continued to snore. He always kept the alarm on the opposite side of the bed from where he slept. That way he would have to move out of his warm, comfortable spot to shut it off. It helped wake him up and made it easier to get on with his day.
This morning he would have to get out of bed and walk around, which didn’t sound too appealing. He decided to try to crawl over Emily and shut it off. It was the bumping and cover pulling as he went over that woke her up.
“Good morning.” She smiled up at him as he was halfway to the alarm and he froze. “You know you look pretty good in the morning with that beard stubble, kind of that 80’s TV detective look.” She reached up and touched his jaw with the back of her hand.
“Oh yeah?” He smiled back at her. “Let me get this alarm turned off and I’ll put my handcuffs on you for some in-depth interrogation.” He reached over and hit the off button, then lay down beside her.
“I don’t know what got into us last night, but I’m glad it did,” he started.
“Me too. Yesterday was such a stressful day, it was great to release all that tension.” She was still smiling as she spoke.
“Anytime, ma’am.” He chuckled. “I haven’t been with anyone like that since…” He tried to remember the last time he had slept with someone. “Since...”
She cut him off again. “Shouldn’t we be getting ready? I wanted to get a shower before we leave. It sounds like it will be my last chance for a couple of weeks.”
“Yeah, I guess I should be doing the same,” he said, hoping he might be able to share the shower with her and have a little fun before they left.
“I’ll go first!” she said, leaping out of the bed and running into the bathroom, her naked butt a flash of tan line and lightly browned skin as she slammed the door behind her. He heard her turn on the shower to let the water warm up and he figured if he waited a few minutes, maybe he could slip into the bathroom and join her. He sat up on the edge of the bed, feet on the floor, and prepared to make his move until he heard the ‘click’ of the lock on the door and his hopes were dashed to hell. “Damn!”
Emily was starting to hum a tune as he got up and headed into his tiny kitchen area. He wondered where things would stand with her after two weeks together in the wilderness. After all, she didn�
��t have a tent or a sleeping bag, so she’d need to bunk with somebody once they got up into the woods. What better bunk mate than a strapping ex-marine, ex-military, ex-police detective who could protect her fragile self if a big ole badass bear came wandering into their camp looking for a snack in the middle of the night?
Well, out of the group that was going, the obvious answer was ‘nobody but me.’ He was sure he could convince her to share his tent, but he had to be careful how he handled this. Her obvious determination to shower alone this morning let him know that it was not a done deal. So the question at the moment was where to start? The answer was staring him in the face, start by making her breakfast.
He stood like a zombie looking into his refrigerator. Unlike most single men he knew, John actually had food. Most of his friends might have a couple of twelve packs and a bottle of ketchup, but John had an absolute feast waiting to happen: fresh eggs, bacon, bread, butter, jelly, orange juice, and to top it all off, a couple of strawberries to add color to the plate.
Getting right to work, he put the bacon on the stove, the bread in the toaster, and set two places at the table. He walked quietly over and leaned up to the bathroom door to hear whether or not Emily was finished. Sounded like he had just enough time to get everything ready for her. She would step out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her hair and one around her body, and voilà! sit down to a wonderful spread.
When the bacon was brown and crisp, he put the strips on a paper towel to drain and placed them in the oven to keep warm. He poured the grease out of the pan and cracked the eggs on the countertop and poured them in carefully. While they sizzled, he took the toast from the toaster and buttered each slice, put them together and cut them diagonally. Then he flipped the eggs, let them cook for a second and grabbed a plate from the strainer on the sink.
