Blackened

by Tim McWhorter

  A half an hour later, after we’d had a beer with the band and listened to Raun pontificate on how commercial acts like Marilyn Manson gave the culture a bad name, the girls and I found ourselves an arm’s length away from the stage, swept up in what could only be described as a sea of teenage angst all grown up. As a guy from a small Midwestern town, it didn’t take long to figure out this wasn’t exactly my crowd. With the loud synth music and blinding strobe lights, the uneasiness that started in my stomach out in the alley only worsened. Then, when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did.

  “I have to use the little girls’ room.”

  Mackenzie screamed the words from where she stood on the other side of Claire. I barely heard them, and was hoping I’d heard wrong, but considering Mackenzie was already on her third beer, it wasn’t surprising. Claire must have heard her just fine, though, because she nodded to her friend before turning to me.

  “We’ll be right back,” Claire yelled into my ear, and just like that, I was left alone in a mass of black leather, fishnet and chains, a definitive stranger in a strange land in my jeans and faded blue t-shirt.

  They’d only been gone for a few minutes when the frantic bass thumping from the DJ’s turntable came to an abrupt halt. The black, windowless walls absorbed the flashing lights, and when the flashing strobe lights died in the silence, the already gloomy room was plunged into near darkness. The only light at all came from a red exit sign mounted above a door, and a couple of small flashlights moving around on the elevated stage.

  White smoke started hazing the flashlights, thickening until they eventually obscured the lights completely, and the crowd erupted into cheers and whistles. The energy level in the room went through the proverbial roof, and I could feel bodies all around me start to jump up and down.

  The frenzy escalated, taking my anxiety along for the ride. Claustrophobia settled in as my personal space shrank to just enough to scratch myself. This had been a mistake, and the last type of situation I needed to be putting myself in. But it was too late to do anything about it until Claire and Mackenzie returned.

  Purple and green lights slowly awakened above the stage and the sound of low, somewhat eerie keyboards started flowing from the speakers. Drawing all attention in the room, including my own, the mesmerizing lights mixed with the fog and took on lives of their own, silhouetting the five men taking the stage. One by one, as the fans saw what was happening, the cheering rose to new heights. The music grew with it. It got to the point where the keyboards were now embracing the crowd, pulling it closer to the stage. In a matter of seconds, there were no more individuals, only one solid being.

  Taking a few steps back, I watched the sea part, and then blend seamlessly back together in my wake. I kept retreating, working away from the melee, until I found myself on the outskirts of the throbbing horde, watching the stage come alive from the back of the room.

  Despite the fact that I neither fit in with the crowd, nor would normally consider frequenting this kind of place, I actually found the music itself to my liking. When the drums and guitar started creeping their way into the fold, my head started bobbing up and down. It wasn’t until Raun approached the front of the stage, and a narrow shaft of light spotlighted him, that I stopped bobbing and lost focus on the music altogether.

  Bones. Long and thin, naked and white. An entire string of them made up the roughly five-foot tall microphone stand he stood before. Whether they were arm bones or leg bones, I didn’t know. Hell, I didn’t even know if they were animal or, God forbid, human. All I knew was that they sent a shiver up my spine. The tuna casserole I’d thrown down for dinner began to harden into a lump that suddenly was not sitting well in my stomach. Maybe to Raun and his fans, a mic stand made up entirely of bones was just a cool piece of craftsmanship, nothing more than a decorative piece that added to the overall theme they were trying to convey.

  But for me, it was something else altogether.

  It wound me so tight that when someone grabbed my arm, I pulled it back and spun around, nearly clocking Claire in the face with my elbow. Even in the disorienting mix of alternating darkness and flashing colored lights, I could see the strange look on her face. Concern. I immediately wondered if she and Mackenzie had also seen the microphone stand and become just as unsettled by it as me. But then Claire said something that made me wish it were as simple as that, something that surprisingly enough, took my mind off the bones.

  “Mackenzie’s gone.”

  Chapter 37

  Cutting our way through the throng of dancing people, logic told me that, most likely, Claire’s roommate had probably seen someone else she knew and wandered off. Maybe she’d run into a girlfriend of one of the other band members, and they’d made their way backstage again. Maybe the three beers she’d had in less than an hour had simply caused her to forget about Claire and me. I’d just met the woman, and had no idea how well she held her alcohol, but that much beer in that little time would affect a lot of men who weighed a lot more. I was sure that, even if that wasn’t the issue, there was a reasonable explanation.

  Still, I couldn’t silence that nagging voice in the back of my mind that whispered one name: Corwin Barnes.

  It seemed like a ridiculous notion, making such a mountain of an assumption out of a molehill of evidence. But again, anything and everything out of the ordinary anymore brought him to mind. Especially since if there was one thing I’d come to terms with over the last couple weeks, it was that Barnes could be following me at any given time. He had proven this fact more than once. It also didn’t help that, despite being a year or two older, Mackenzie fit the profile of the missing New Paris girls. The ones Barnes kidnapped and brutally slaughtered. The ones like Becca.

  Holding Claire’s hand, I led the search with renewed enthusiasm.

  “Where’d you see her last?” I shouted above the music. My eyes scanned the crowd, looking beyond the sea of nameless faces for one in particular. Maybe two. I needed to keep an eye out for Mackenzie’s as well.

  “Right around here,” Claire said, looking out over the crowd.

  I knew we could have covered more ground if we’d separated, but I wasn’t about to let Claire out of my sight. Already wracked with tension from everything else that was going on, my alert level had bumped up a notch in the past couple of minutes, and it wasn’t necessarily for Mackenzie’s well-being. I didn’t share the same level of concern for her as I did Claire. Chivalrous, yes, but when it came to Barnes, Mackenzie wasn’t exactly a target. But would he take her to get at me?

  The crowd erupted with applause as Shadows of Misery wrapped up a song. I couldn’t decide which was more deafening, the music or the reaction to it. Both added to a chaotic marriage of sights and sounds, and I knew my ears would be ringing for the foreseeable future.

  “Did you try texting her?” I asked, just as the band launched into another song.

  Claire was standing on her toes looking all around, and I wasn’t sure if she heard me. I was about to ask again when I took a hard shove from behind that nearly knocked me off my feet. I had to take a step forward to maintain my balance, and once I had, I spun around with both fear and anger at the helm.

  “What the –”

  “Hey, sorry, man,” the guy interrupted. “Girlfriend’s passed out. What are ya gonna do, right?” He laughed about it then, which seemed odd, but at least he wasn’t lying. Not only was his drunken date draped over him like a lifeless corpse, but she had the makeup to match.

  As I stood there with my heart racing and my fists balled, I felt Claire’s hand go to my chest. It was the move she resorted to when she was trying to calm me without speaking the words. With my guard already up, my jaw was starting to ache from being clenched. It was the warmth of Claire’s touch that helped ease it just a little. I took a deep breath and watched the guy dressed head to toe in black practically drag his girlfriend through the crowd toward the stage. It was the exact opposite direction he should have been heading,
and I could only shake my head.

  “Baby, let it go,” Claire whispered, her lips brushing my ear. “He’s drunk.”

  With more resignation than anything, I looked at Claire. I still didn’t like what I saw on her face. Her eyes had a strangeness to them; her brow was creased in a place I wasn’t used to seeing creased. In fact, the last time I’d even seen that level of concern from her was when I was first consigned to the hospital for therapy. That was a year ago.

  “She wouldn’t have just wandered off,” I stated, knowing full well it was possible. And it wasn’t like I could say it was out of character for her. I barely knew the girl.

  “She might have,” Claire said, her eyes once again scanning the crowd, but now with less eagerness and more reconciliation. “Probably. But the look in your eyes has me more worried than anything. I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t think it has anything to do with him, Luke. This isn’t about Barnes. It’s about my drunk roommate who’s not being very considerate of us at the moment. And right now, the way this is all affecting you is worrying me more than not being able to find Mackenzie.”

  “How do you know he’s not involved?” I asked, my attention drawn to the faces of two young ladies walking by. Neither of them was Mackenzie, and they sure as hell weren’t Barnes.

  But it didn’t matter. The discussion was over. Claire didn’t have to say another word. Her face did the pleading for her, and for the first time since she told me she’d lost Mackenzie, I started to see how much I was overreacting. Maybe it was the music and the chaotic flashing lights. Maybe the shop break-in was the final straw, and I was just losing it, letting this whole Barnes situation get the best of me. I was a nuclear reactor on the verge of meltdown. Between my heart racing and my adrenalin pumping nonstop, I was surprised I hadn’t turned around and punched that guy in the face. And it would have been a hell of a release, even if fighting wasn’t in my nature.

  “What about Mackenzie?” I asked, leaning in and forcing the rigidity in my voice to ease. I didn’t want to worry Claire any more than she already was.

  “She was planning on going home with Raun anyway,” she said. “I’ll touch base with her later. I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “Okay,” I said, but only after thinking on it for another minute. For the most part, I had to defer to Claire, my own brain being unreliable at the moment. Mackenzie’s disappearance probably had nothing to do with Barnes. Still, I hated taking the chance. If Claire wanted to leave, though, I sure as hell wasn’t going to object. But we weren’t going out the same way we came in. I took her hand and started cutting through the crowd in the direction of the front door.

  Fifteen minutes later, we were parked at a bus stop parking lot beside the river making love in the back seat of the Prius, which was a feat in and of itself considering the tight quarters. But like a craving that consumes you and becomes all you can think about, it was just something we both needed, right then and there.

  Chapter 38

  I must have gotten the first text when Claire and I were standing in my driveway. Leaning against her car, basking in the afterglow, I must have been too engaged to notice. I had her safely in my arms, with her head on my chest, and I was dreading letting her go. At one point, my nose was nuzzled so deeply in her soft hair that I could have survived off the scent of her alone. But it was getting late and she still had the hour-long drive to her parent’s house in New Paris.

  I hated that she had to make the drive by herself. I’d been thinking about getting an apartment and asking Claire to move in with me, but I hadn’t yet broached the subject. Partly because she was still in school, which meant she lived three hours away eight months out of the year. The other part of it was that I wasn’t sure I could afford an apartment on my own while she was. In the meantime, we’d worked it out where she always texted when she got home so that I knew she was safe. A woman of her word, she never let me down. So I said goodbye and went inside.

  I was lying on my bed later that evening, searching through one of Dallas’ car magazines for rims, when my cell phone vibrated on the nightstand beside my bed. My parents were home and had yet to give in to the convenience of texting me from the living room over climbing the stairs and summoning me personally. So I was fairly certain it wasn’t them. Judging by the time, I figured it must be Claire. I snatched the phone up and not only did I not recognize the number, but I had two texts waiting on me from whoever it belonged to. Both messages simply said, “hey man.”

  A tiny alarm started going off in my head, but it wasn’t very loud. At least not yet. Ordinarily, receiving a text from an unknown number isn’t cause for concern. But my life was far from ordinary lately.

  With just a hint of apprehension, I responded with my own text asking who it was. A moment later, I was relieved with the answer I got and allowed the building tension in my shoulders to back off.

  “hey, Arashk, how’s it going?” I spoke the words as I typed them, a habit I had. Like my previous question, his answer was once again immediate.

  “got the tickets. can we meet?”

  Sitting up on my bed, I swung my legs over the edge and set my feet on the floor. The stress from the situation at the club, not to mention the lovemaking, had drained me of energy. But mentally, I was still alert and wouldn’t be able to sleep anytime soon anyway. Besides, I’d already told my father about the tickets and he’d been excited.

  “where. when,” I typed.

  “i’m actually over here at an elementary school. I think it’s by your house.”

  From where I sat I looked up at my window, but I was too low to see the school through it. There were probably thirty elementary schools in a city this size; how would he know it’s the one by me? More importantly, how did he know where I lived? Maybe I’d mentioned it at some point. I didn’t know. Maybe, but something nagged at me to push further.

  “wanna just drop ’em off?”

  It took a minute or two for the answer to hit my phone. Suddenly, his responses weren’t coming as quickly as they had been.

  “really pressed for time. can you just meet me real quick?”

  The entire conversation felt a little strange, reviving that same prickly apprehension I'd been feeling a lot lately. It was getting more difficult all the time to sort things out in my head, and I’d been doing more than my share of jumping to paranoid conclusions lately. Despite my reservations, I vowed not to read too much into things this time. Being continually paranoid of everything is no way to live, I told myself.

  “be there in 5”

  Chapter 39

  None of the houses in my neighborhood had fences surrounding their back yards. It was some sort of homeowner’s association bylaw or something. A couple of the properties had a line of shrubs along the edge or in the corners to help separate theirs from their neighbors, but most of the backyards simply blended into one another. Generally, the only way to tell where one property ended and the other started was by the different patterns created when the homeowners mowed.

  As for my father, he liked it that way. He said fences only chopped up the landscape, making it look unnatural, and that people shouldn’t want to separate themselves from each other so much anyway. For me, I didn’t really have an opinion on the matter. All I knew is that it made it much easier to get from my house to the school, even in the dark.

  By the faint light of the quarter moon, I made my way around the Richter’s clump of boxwoods and down the embankment of the narrow creek that served as the boundary separating the school grounds from the housing development. Luckily, the stream hadn’t fully recovered from the drier than usual winter so the amount of water flowing through at the time was minimal. Even with my lack of athletic prowess, in part due to my ankle, I jumped across the water and scaled the embankment on the other side without any problem.

  I crossed the outfield of the small baseball diamond, then a patch of blacktop where a pair of tetherball poles slept. It was only about a hundred feet to the point whe
re the blacktop gave way to the mulched surface of the playground. A floodlight on the corner of the brick school building illuminated not quite all the way across the playground, leaving the swings where I saw The Napa Guy sitting in the gloom. That’s what Arashk was referred to as at the shop: The Napa Guy.

  “What’s up, man?” Arashk said as I approached. Even in the shadows I could make out his awkward smile.

  “Not much,” I said, taking his extended hand and shaking it. He seemed to hold onto my hand a little longer than normal, but he was from another country and maybe that was their custom. Paranoia was going to be the end of me. “Just hangin’ out.”

  “Yeah,” he said, his arms wide, “me, too.” He laughed a little, then looked around. Despite the late hour, he still wore his uniform clothes, and I wondered if he was one of those guys who wore his uniform at all times, proud of his position in life.

  “You live around here, too?”

  “Nah,” he said. “Just drivin’ by. Long day so I thought I’d stop and chill for a bit.”

  “Really long day,” I said, checking the time on my cell. It was almost midnight.

  There was an awkward silence then, and I spent it watching Arashk. His darting eyes were constantly looking around. Every few seconds, it seemed, he was wiping the palms of his hands on his dark grey pants. He seemed nervous. Agitated, even, like an addict coming up on withdrawal. His foot never stopped tapping.

  After only a few seconds, he was already making me nervous. After about a minute, I started thinking that maybe I didn’t know this guy well enough to be meeting up with him on a darkened playground in the middle of the night.