by Ross Homer
I didn’t even have to think about it. “No. I love you and only you. I also know you’d have let me anyway or rather, allowed me a dalliance with her. But no. I can wait until you’re healthy enough to pick up where we left off. My little man is just fine with my, ahh, oars.” I waggled my right hand at her.
Surprising the hell out of me, she started crying. I’d have thought she would have laughed at my bad joke. It had been a month since either of us had shed tears and here she was, doing it. She sniffled and said, “That’s just one of the zillion reasons I love you. I would love you even if you dropped me at the house and then went back to Dewey’s and Marcella. She likes you, you know.”
“Yes, I know she does but just the same, I can wait.” To lighten things up a lot I added, “But Baby, when you’re able, you better be good and ready. Last night was perfectly okay for both of us.”
She dried her tears and smiled. It was like the sun rising and lighting up her face. “Yes, it was!”
“We can keep doing that until you are completely healthy. Okay?”
“Alright! Then we can forget Marcella.”
“Yep. You’re it and, like I said, we can wait.”
I pulled into the driveway and parked in the garage. She was right about getting too physical and up in our bedroom, I gently helped her relax and then left her to sleep. In only a moment, her eyes fluttered closed and she was sleeping.
As I changed into loose short-shorts and a light blouse, I watched the soft rise and fall of her chest for a minute and damn near cried, too. We didn’t have to worry about strenuous activity because her surgeon emphasized not doing anything of the sort every time we saw her. She did say that the climb to the second floor of my house was okay as long as Elsa took her time. No chasing each other up and down the stairs until she was healthy.
Elsa’s heart had been damaged as well as her lung. Too much too soon, and she could easily have a heart attack or stroke and be gone. As I turned to walk down to the living room, I knew that losing her would come close to killing me, too.
I sat on my chair, my head in my hands, and sobbed harder and harder. I felt a nasty headache building between my eyes as it all finally came out. In the last five weeks or so, I was positive I’d cried gallons of tears.
Thirty minutes later, I finally climbed up out of my tear-filled pool of self-pity. The headache was gone and feeling a lot better for releasing what were far too many pent-up emotions, I pulled Sela’s backpack to me.
My plan was to look for her and then order dinner. That was before I turned the backpack over and dumped the contents on my desk.
There were two pairs of rolled up jeans, different sizes, a pair of yoga tights, three t-shirts of different designs, colors, and sizes, and three sets of underwear also different sizes. What the hell? There were clothes here for three girls, not one. Were they traveling together?
Going by what I saw in Sela’s photograph, the largest pair of jeans and one of the t-shirts were hers.
There were also some toiletries and, I snatched my hand back, a small vibrator wrapped in tissues. Whoa! This kid or kids was into some things mommy didn’t know about. Next to the vibrator were three packets of birth control pills, each the ninety-day variety and each had a different number of them removed. Each of these girls was avoiding pregnancy. But then, the box of lubricated multi-colored condoms would have told me that, too.
I looked at the mélange of clothes and other things, took a seat, and picked up Sela’s t-shirt. This one was plain green, faded and stained. The shirt wasn’t clean when I sniffed it, so I guessed it would be a lot more willing to give me her location. The other two girls were going to have to wait but not long as far as I was concerned. If I was lucky, they may be together. Or at home, with mommy and daddy. These were children for crying out loud!
My anger flowed through me like a flood of hot lava and I had to put Sela’s shirt down or scream. Even without trying, I found myself being overwhelmed again with a wild number of sensations, from mostly bad to horrifying! Not again, I thought. Not another Paula and Elsa.
Picking up the shirt again, I prepared myself, I hoped, and held it against my face, ready to accept what it told me.
Like the flood of anger, the sensations from Sela were close to overwhelming. She was foremost in them but there were two girls behind her. They were alive! Thank the Goddess!
They were someplace dim and terrified of something…something sinister.
I jerked her shirt away and jumped up. I just sensed the same witch I’d encountered with Reiko! And…I walked over to the living room window and looked out into the moonlit night, it was exactly the same thing that woke me last night.
What the hell? Gaia, I didn’t want to find these girls the same way I’d found Reiko.
But this time I felt that I was prepared. I sensed this other witch and…something else. I couldn’t put my fingers on it but there was a lot more to this. As for the other girls?
Looking at Sela’s shirt, I picked up one of the smaller ones, held it to my face, and the same thing happened. I pulled it away and knew I was going to need Nissa to help with this. Of that there was no doubt. I was going to have to spend time with these clothes and she could help me stay ‘me.’
Leaving the clothes, I ordered dinner as I paced the downstairs to wait. I felt like a caged lioness as I wandered from room to room. While I waited for the food, I called Nissa and told her that I needed her for this search because of the intensity of what I’d already seen. She was all for it. Her husband was still in London for another few days and she had nothing pressing.
It helped because she remembered hearing about Sela Abbott disappearing. She’d join Elsa and me for dinner which was no problem because we always received too much and ended up with leftovers.
Nissa arrived only minutes after our dinner. The smell of pork fried rice reminded me how hungry I was. While Nissa put out some plates and chopsticks, I went up and woke Elsa. She was already up and dressed. Why did she look sexier than ever wearing faded out jeans shorts and an old flannel shirt? Her hair a disheveled mess?
We kissed and went back downstairs.
As we divvied up the egg rolls, spicy Mongolian beef, and the rice, I brought them up to date.
“Sela isn’t the only girl I’m looking for,” I said as I bit into an egg roll. I’d put just a smidge too much hot mustard on the egg roll, and it took my breath away and my eyes watered.
When I could breathe and make sense, I continued, “Whew. Did that one again. You’d think I’d learn. Anyway…she and two other girls are missing. The three of them are seventeen…I think. Before I connected with some other witch, I saw that all three were safe but in grave danger. Nissa, that’s why you’re here. I need you to help keep me grounded. Elsa, before you say anything, I want you here too, but you’re not back to a hundred percent. That includes that wonderful heart of yours.” I smiled at her, trying to make her feel like she was part of this.
She surprised me and that was rare. “Jo, I know. I can help keep you level. I think with Nissa here, the three of us can conquer the world if we need to.” She giggled and ate some of the spicy beef with extra hot mustard. Elsa had a cast iron stomach and could eat about anything that didn’t eat her first. The hotter the better. I saw her eat half a Ghost Pepper in one bite on a bet at Dewey’s one night. The worst that happened was that she took a sip of beer. She won a hundred dollars, too. Me? Just the smell of them makes my stomach burn.
I laughed too. “We don’t need to go quite that far but I was surprised to find that there were three missing.” I thought it odd that Nissa wasn’t laughing as she ate.
“What is it, Nissa? You know something we don’t, don’t you?”
“Yes. Only three girls? From as far south as Fresno, California, on to Vancouver, there are at least twenty-five girls and at least that many boys who have disappeared in recent months. They are all runaways. Some were hitching, others were at bus stops. And some were hanging out at places
where kids gather.” She sipped some wine. “These are the kids that no one cares about…cast offs from their families. That kind of thing. If you find these three, I have a terrible feeling you’ll find all those others, too.”
We finished dinner in a somber mood after that revelation.
Except for Sela’s green t-shirt, I put the other clothes back in the bag. Elsa sat on one side of me, her hand high on my thigh. I smiled as she stroked my leg. Nissa sat on my other side. She, too, put her hand high. It was higher than it should be for someone not making a move on me. I looked sharply at her hand then up at her and all she did was smile and squeeze my leg a little.
“It’s all good,” she said to me.
“Right. Well gang, let’s do this. Elsa please promise me you’ll bail if you feel the least bit overwhelmed. Please?”
“Baby, you know I will,” she replied and kissed me.
Chapter 14
With my partners sitting tight beside me, I took a breath, exhaled, and then held Sela’s t-shirt against my face.
When I inhaled through the material, I was inundated with negative sensations, much like what happened with Paula and Elsa. Fear and horror! Terror like I couldn’t imagine blew through me! Both my support people held me tighter. Nissa was there, inside my head, showing Elsa what I was seeing. I heard a short scream from Elsa, but she stayed with us.
Somewhere in my mind, the part that said I was a damn fool for doing this in the first place, I was aware that I was going to have deep bruises on my thighs when this was over. I didn’t care because along with the tight grips, I also felt their love.
Sela looked at me, eyes wide in awe, as I seemed to materialize in front of her. Two other girls cowered on a concrete floor and stared up at me. All three were naked and needed showers.
There were no windows, just raw concrete floors, walls, and ceiling. Fluorescent lights lit the room brightly, leaving no shadows to hide the repulsiveness of what I was seeing.
While still rounded, Sela wasn’t near as overweight as her picture showed. I found that curious. Her parents really didn’t think much of her. The other girls were much like her in stature and build. They too, were pretty. One was blonde and had freckles splashed across her pale skin. She wasn’t the least bit overweight or as curvy as the other two. The other one was a black girl with a model’s face and a pinup’s body. At seventeen and healthy, with the fear gone, all three were going to be traffic stoppers. This assumed I could get them out of wherever they were.
I didn’t need to be a crime scene tech to see that the floor was splashed with dried and drying blood. There were bones…I gasped…freshly gnawed bones a few feet from these three young women. I knew they were human or rather, what was left of humans.
My stomach flipped over, and I fought to keep dinner down. Sela reached for me as I slowly turned and observed more of where I was. I probably shouldn’t have done that.
As if I was in a slaughterhouse, I saw hooks descending from the ceiling. Hanging on some of the hooks were…oh lord. There were six or seven male and female bodies, the hooks shoved in the backs of their heads like sides of beef. On other hooks were…parts of humans.
I jerked the shirt away, jumped up, and ran to the downstairs bathroom. I dropped hard on my knees and knelt over the toilet and fought my gorge. It took several minutes but I managed to win. As I stood and wobbled back into the living room, I wondered if I could go back to this hideous place.
Nissa and Elsa watched me return. They hadn’t moved. Had they not seen what I saw?
“Baby,” Elsa said as if reading my mind, “I think it’s different for us. You are the one actually standing there. We’re like two people observing…like watching a horror movie on television or something. But you…we can’t leave them there. I’m so sorry! We can’t get them if we don’t know their location. You weren’t there long enough.”
I nodded and silently returned to my place between them. Their hands returned to where they’d been, too.
Whispering, I said, “You two don’t have a clue how much I appreciate what you’re doing for me. I’m ready to go back and see if I can get us a location for the police. Then we’ll go after the monster who’s doing this. Somehow or other, I don’t think it’s of our realm although we’ve had cannibals before.”
I picked up the shirt and I was there again. Sela was sitting on the floor, her face in her hands, sobbing quietly. The other two girls sat beside her and were holding on to each other tightly. I think they were too frightened to cry.
“Sela,” I said, “my name is Jocelyn. I will do everything I can to get you three out of here and any other survivors.”
She didn’t respond and that wouldn’t do. She had already given up.
The black girl spoke. “My name is Jordan Robeson. Please get us the hell out of here! Oh God! What this thing is doing to people!”
She bent over, dry heaving.
“Jordan,” I said, “I promise. And whoever is doing this will pay.”
The white girl looked up at me, her face twisted in fear. “He…it’s not from here. It’s some kind of creature and has two things with it. If…if we don’t make it, my name is Carrie Severs. Tell my mother she can kiss my lily-white ass when you find her. She doesn’t give a flying fuck about me or my friends! God, Jocelyn, I don’t want to die! This thing rips people apart and eats them! We saw what they did to that woman.” She pointed at one of the torsos hanging from a hook.
She stared at me and I could see the defeat begin to creep into her eyes.
“Please, Carrie. Hang on! I’ll get you guys out of here. Do any of you know where you are?”
Sela still didn’t respond and now fell over on her side into a puddle of congealing blood.
Carrie shook her head.
“I…I think somewhere along the coast,” said Jordan. She had fire in her eyes and would fight as long as she could.
I knelt in front of her. “I’m here as a projection, I guess would be the best way to put it. As much I would love to hold you and comfort you, I can’t. But know this; I’m as real as you three are. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “Like in a computer game.”
“Yes. That’s a good analogy. Now…is there more to this place?”
“Yes. There’s a door over there,” she pointed, “that leads up. I remember when those creatures brought us down here. We came down a short hall then down the stairs. I’m trying to make myself remember all of it.”
Suddenly she screamed long and loud. I stood and whipped around. She was dead right. A creature from a nightmare had just come through the door. It was a nightwalker, just like the one I saw at Sato’s home. It ignored her and apparently didn’t see me as it grabbed a female torso hanging off a hook and returned through the door. I heard it close but didn’t hear anything that sounded like a lock being turned.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Jordan.
She nodded.
Carrie seemed to be coming around now that she sensed there was hope. Sela continued to lay in the blood, not moving. She was clearly in shock.
“Carrie, while I check around, you and Jordan need to hold Sela between you. Your combined heat is what she needs right now. I hate to say it but lay on the floor with her. If you don’t, she’ll die from shock. That shit washes off so don’t worry about it. Keep her warm. Okay?”
“Yes. Look Jocelyn, we’re a threesome,” Jordan said as if challenging me. “Okay? Sela’s been our friend and partner since we were like…twelve. Sela even fought for me when a couple of white assholes hassled me in school.” She moved over to Sela and stretched out the full length of her body and pulled her tight. Carrie moved to Sela’s back and together they pushed tight against her. They used their arms to cushion her head.
Jordan could still see me and pleaded, “Please, Jo. Get us out of this hell hole. I don’t think there’s anyone else alive in here. Just us three…and those things.” She started crying. “Please? I love these two girls and they love
me. We…we hoped to be together the rest of our lives. I don’t want us to die today or tomorrow. Okay?”
I nodded and had to cry for the love I was seeing these two friends had for their third one.
I walked over to the door, avoiding the bodies on hooks. I think my mind may have gone a little shocky, too, from what I was walking around and, I looked down, through. Holy shit!
Pulling my eyes up, I focused on the door handle ahead of me.
Luck continued as the door wasn’t locked. I ran up the stairs and found myself in a large, well-equipped kitchen. It was sparkling clean, unlike the charnel house basement room.
I crept across the kitchen and into the dining room. I peeked in and…snatched the shirt from my face!
Elsa and Nissa stared at me, as shocked as I was.
I stuttered, “S…shit. Sweet Goddess! What the hell is it?”
Something had finally stumped Nissa. “I don’t know, Jo. God, I have no idea! I saw the two nightwalkers, but I can’t even venture a guess as to what that was.”
Elsa shook her head and said nothing. She actually looked green.
I stood and stormed around the living room angrily. I turned and faced them. “This won’t fucking do! I will find out and I will take care of its sorry ass. Assuming it has one.”
Having seen me angry more than once, Elsa said softly, “Jo. Settle the hell down. You don’t know what that is, and you might bite off more than you can chew.”
“Bullshit! Elsa, I love you more than life itself. But there are three terrified children down there, somewhere on the coast. That monster will fucking eat them! I am going to do my best to stop it or goddamnit!” I cried, “I will die trying to save them!”
She knew she wasn’t going to stop me. She got up and kissed me enough to make Nissa look away.
Nissa finally had to stop us before we got too carried away. “Jo…you have the power and ability to defeat it. I know that firsthand. Elsa and I will lend our strength if you need it.”
