Planet Urth Boxed Set
Page 19
“Huh, never would have thought that judging from this side of town,” her mother said with a half-smile. “But let’s get back to the hot guy.”
“What hot guy?”
“The one you just mentioned, in the courtyard or something?”
“Oh, yeah, well, he’s not worth mentioning. I don’t even know why I did. We had a smoke together and that’s it.”
“That’s it. He has eyes, this hot guy, right?”
Arianna rolled her eyes at the question before answering, “Yes.”
“And you’re hot too, right?’
“How the hell should I know? And besides, Luke has a girlfriend. She’s a bleach-blonde bombshell with a body like a playmate.”
“His name is Luke, huh? I like that name. Luke.”
“Whatever, I’ll probably never talk to him again, so this discussion is a waste of time. Mentioning him was a waste of time,” she said testily.
“Jeez, don’t go getting all worked up about it. Sorry I said anything.”
She didn’t mean to snap at her mother. It had been a frustrating day. Everything that had happened, from the comment on the steps of her school, to Cheryl, to Luke, to the mysterious man on the side of the road, to the pervert in her trailer park, the entire day had been stressful. And that was without the whole Artie incident. With him factored in, the day could be considered one for the record books.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m just…frustrated I guess. Moving again, the new school, you know, it’s hard.”
“Oh, I do know. I’ve been so depressed about Carl and me breaking up and him kicking us out and all. I don’t know where I find the strength to go on some days. I guess I’m just one of those strong, take-charge kind of people.”
Arianna had so many things she wanted to say, so many instances she wanted to hurl at her mother wherein which she had been anything but strong and in charge. Artie would have been a prime starting point. But she did not. What would have been the point? Instead she changed the subject.
“I’m starving. Is there anything to eat?”
“Umm, I went to the store last night I think. I vaguely remember chicken, but I think Artie and I took care of that.”
Arianna’s eyes scanned the small living room and she saw that an empty fast-food bucket sat atop the coffee table. Her mother’s eyes followed hers.
“Ah, there’s the empty bucket. Yep, we finished it,” her mother said peering into the tub. She then lifted an empty pretzel bag from the floor. “And we ate the pretzels too apparently. Let’s look in the fridge. I think there may be some bologna.” She watched as her mother opened the fridge and bent down to look inside. “Hmm, we have jelly. But I don’t see any bologna.”
“That’s fine. We have bread and peanut butter right?”
“Of course we do. What kind of mother would I be if I didn’t have peanut butter and jelly and white bread for my baby?”
Arianna did not answer.
“Let me make it for you,” her mother offered and began searching the drawers for a knife.
She paused and stared at her mother as she opened drawers and cupboards, unsure of what to say. Cathy Rose was not exactly Susie Homemaker and hadn’t cooked or prepared a meal for her in as long as she could remember. Dinner, if any, usually consisted of whatever either of them picked up in their travels or after work. She would have loved a home cooked meal, couldn’t really remember what one tasted like. But she had to admit, her mother’s offer felt nice.
“Okay. Thanks Mom. Mind if I go have a smoke while you make it?”
“No, you go ahead, baby. I’ll make your dinner and you go smoke.”
Her mother smiled at her warmly and her previous frustration melted away. She almost felt sorry for her.
“Thanks,” she said again then turned and riffled through her backpack until she found her pack of cigarettes and her lighter. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
“Take your time. I’ve got everything under control in here.”
She stepped outside and lit her cigarette. The sun hung low in the sky and the air had cooled. She wrapped an arm around her waist and allowed the elbow of her other to rest against it. She took a long drag from her cigarette and thought about her day. Luke popped into her head again for what felt like the hundredth time since they’d met. But it was immediately followed by his scowling girlfriend. She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. Instantly, another face appeared in her mind’s eye, one with vaguer features and attached to a larger, sturdier looking body. The man on the side of the road had also plagued her thoughts. She was not sure why, or what it had been about him that had struck her, how his eyes had followed her, and how he had disappeared. It was as though he had vanished. And there had been something oddly familiar about him. She shook her head a second time certain she was finally losing her mind. The reality of the situation was that he likely hadn’t been looking at her at all, but past her, and that he hadn’t disappeared, but had returned to whatever he had been doing in the woods previously. Hunger and sleep-deprivation had probably caught up with her and gave the illusion of a situation that simply hadn’t happened. Regardless, she felt confident she would never see the man again. She would go inside, eat her sandwich, take a hot shower and get some rest. Another day of school awaited her and was just hours away. A feeling deep inside her warned her that she’d need all the rest and strength she could get for the days ahead.
Chapter 6
Morning was announced with the continuous beeps of Arianna’s alarm clock. Normally, the sound would have been unwelcome, but on this day it had provided relief. It interrupted the nightmare she’d been having the entire night. Her sleep had been filled with terrifying images of burnt flesh and the sound of a girl screaming. She had woken several times, twisting and writhing, feeling intense heat, heat unlike any she’d ever felt before. Each time she had gone back to sleep, she’d expected the dream to have ended. But it had not. It had continued. Dreams – good or bad – had never continued for her in the past. There had been times when she’d wanted nothing more than to return to Brad Pitt who waited for her on his motorcycle, but had been unable to. Yet this one, this awful nightmare, had refused to end for the entire night. Some of it lingered still. She was wide awake, but kept with her the feeling she’d had, a panicked feeling that was laced with what could only be described as guilt. She did not know why. But now, and in her dream, she had felt somehow at fault.
In the light of day, of course, none of it made sense. Try as she may to remember the exact details of her nightmare, she could not. Disjointed pieces of it flashed in her head like black-and-white film running through an old projector. Images, horrific yet blurred, wound around her mind illogically. Determined to not dwell on a dream that was little more than brain garbage, Arianna sat up and kicked her covers off. Her pajamas felt damp and her skin felt cold. She ran a hand through her hair and found that it, too, was moist. She was covered in sweat and needed to shower again before leaving for school. She groaned aloud. Showering would set her back at least ten minutes. Ten minutes lost in the morning translated to her missing breakfast. She quickly gathered the clothes she would wear and dashed down the short hallway into the bathroom. She grabbed her toothbrush, turned on the shower and began brushing while she waited for the water to warm. As the water ran and heated, the mirror above the sink began to fog. Little by little, condensation accumulated on the lower edges of it and crept up slowly. She watched as her reflection was unhurriedly consumed by opaque vapors, and the panicked feeling she’d felt during the night returned. Her heart began to beat wildly, her mouth went dry and she refused to blink. All of a sudden, she began to feel hot. Her feet and legs blazed as if she stood submerged to her hips in a cauldron of boiling water. The feeling traveled up the length of her body slowly, insidiously. She was about to scream, the inexplicable heat she was feeling too intense to withstand a moment longer, when a knock at the door ended it all abruptly.
“Baby, you in there?” her mother calle
d.
“Uh, yeah,” she said and took a deep breath. “Who else would it be?’
“Ha, ha wiseass. Are you going to be long in there? ‘Cause I want to get an early start on my job hunting.”
Arianna breathed deeply again and opened the door, “I’ll be quick. And I’m glad you’re looking for a job today. I’m doing the same after school.”
“Good, good,” her mother said and looked at her strangely. “Are you okay? Your face and neck are all red and your hair is sweaty in front. You look like my mama when she was having a hot flash.”
Arianna ducked her head down and looked at her feet embarrassedly. “No hot flashes for me, just hot in here. I’m jumping in the shower now. I’ll be out soon,” she said and shut the door.
She stripped out of her tank top and sweatpants and stepped into the shower. Warm water, cooler than her body temperature, felt refreshing. She would have liked to relax beneath the stream for several minutes, but needed to rush. She washed her hair and body, combed in conditioner then rinsed a final time before turning off the faucet, climbing out and wrapping herself in a towel. She dressed and arranged her hair in a thick braid down her back. She would be cold going out with a wet head, but did not have time to blow-dry her hair.
“Bathroom’s all yours,” she called to her mother from the hall.
She grabbed her boots from her room, slipped into them then headed to the kitchen. A jar of peanut butter sat on the counter and she took a spoon from the drawer and scooped a heaping spoonful of it onto a piece of white bread. It wasn’t the best breakfast in the world, but it was something to put in her stomach. She ate it as she gathered her books, jacket and backpack.
“Bye,” she yelled and walked out the front door.
She shoved the last of her peanut butter sandwich in her mouth, put her helmet and backpack on and sat astride her motorcycle. Rain had fallen the night before. The sky was still cloudy and overcast and she hoped more rain had not been forecast for the day. Her bike performed well in the rain, but maneuvering it in driving rain was a challenge. It was also generally unpleasant to get soaked.
Luckily, the sun peeked through thinning clouds in some spots and promised clearing as she traveled along increasingly familiar streets. Houses and shops stood out as recognizable landmarks. She felt confident she would be acquainted with the town of Heralds Falls in no time. She passed an intersection and the stretch of road where she’d seen the mystery man. Her eyes scanned the woods for movement. Nothing stirred as far as she could tell and she felt relieved. The gas station she’d stopped at the previous morning was up ahead in less than a mile. She glanced down at her fuel gauge to see if she needed to stop. The needle hovered around the halfway mark. When her eyes returned to the road after taking them off it for a split second, a figure loomed in the distance once more.
The same figure she’d seen the previous day appeared impossibly, from nowhere, and waited, watching. She could feel his eyes on her. The fine hairs on the back of her neck rose and quivered. For reasons she could not explain, she felt afraid, threatened. She glimpsed in her side view mirrors and checked for oncoming cars before twisting the accelerator handle toward her. The bike lurched forward, and the world charged at her. Her speed increased from the forty-five miles an hour to more than sixty miles an hour. She did not look in his direction as she passed, but knew he watched her. When finally she’d passed him and was at what she felt was a safe distance from him, she decelerated slightly and twisted her upper body to look over her shoulder at him. She expected to see him standing there still, facing her expressionlessly as he had the day before. But he was gone again. He had disappeared.
Arianna’s pulse began to race. She reached for the brake lever on her right handlebar, the system that controlled her front brakes, and squeezed it gently. At the same time, she stomped down on the foot pedal the activated her rear brakes. Only something had gone wrong. She felt it immediately. She had braked too hard on her rear brakes and not enough on the front. The tires of the bike tried in vain to grip blacktop slickened from overnight rain, but skidded as the back end of it kicked out. Both the motorcycle and Arianna slid along the pavement. Metal shrieked in protest. Sparks rose and evaporated like fireflies in a night sky. Her shirt and sweater lifted and the ground tore at her skin like innumerable razor blades, slicing and chafing every exposed part of her. The world fell silent. A blur of colors rushed at her. Greens, grays and brown, all melded together in a jumbled mess. She was rolling, tumbling into wet grass and down an embankment.
The embankment was not steep and she landed hard on her back. Every part of her ached and smarted.
“Holy shit,” she said to no one, shocked that she was alive.
She lay there, still, for several seconds, afraid to move, afraid that movement would confirm she’d broken several bones. Sound returned to her and suddenly the world was alive with sound. A car horn blared, birds squawked, and fallen leaves rustled. The rustling of leaves made her heart race dangerously. She wondered if perhaps the mystery man was approaching. A sudden urge to survive superseded her fear of broken bones and she sat upright quickly. To her surprise, the stabbing pain she’d assumed would accompany serious injury did not follow. Even the blistering pain she’d felt as her bare skin had scraped along the road had dissipated. Leaves crunched again close by, too close by for comfort. She snapped her helmet off and looked to her left expecting to see the man from the side of the road, the man who’d watched her and disappeared, but saw instead a plump, gray rabbit.
“I survive a bike accident but Peter fucking Cottontail almost gave me a heart attack,” she mumbled and stood.
The rumble of a car engine and voices could be heard from the ridge she’d careened over seconds earlier. Someone approached. A slim form dressed in dark clothes dashed down the grassy hill. Arianna looked down at her clothes. She supposed she should not have felt self-conscious. After what she’d just been through, grateful should have been all that she felt. But looking down at her torn, muddied clothes, she felt vulnerable. The back of her pants had been completely shredded and revealed her thong underwear, and what was left of the back of her shirt and sweatshirt could not be used to cover her exposed skin.
As the person approached, she realized he looked familiar. She knew him. Luke rushed toward her, and stopped several yards from her, recognition touching his features.
“Holy shit! Arianna, is that you?”
“Uh, yeah, but don’t come any closer, please, my clothes are ripped to shreds and my ass is hanging out,” she said.
“I saw your bike go down. I saw you wipe out in a massive skid. How the hell are you standing? And why are you worrying about your ass?”
Arianna laughed. She couldn’t help herself. She stopped abruptly when she looked up and saw another familiar face. Blonde hair glowed like a halo backlit by emerging sunlight. Luke’s girlfriend glowered down at them from the road. Arianna felt confident she would not venture down the hill. Though the slope was not steep, her high heels were, and certainly not conducive to hiking down wet earth.
“Seriously,” Luke said and took several steps toward her. “How the hell did you survive that?”
She thought for a second. “Honestly, I have no idea.”
“How did it happen? I mean, I saw most of it. I saw someone on a motorcycle, you, just totally skid out. No other car. No collision. What happened, you lost control of it?”
Arianna wanted to tell him she’d been twisting her body dangerously to look behind her at some man who appeared and disappeared from the side of the road. Of course, that would sound ridiculous and he’d think she was insane, so she kept it to herself. Not even her nutty mother who believed in horoscopes and Ouija boards would believe her claim, much less a boy she’d just met.
“I thought I saw something, an animal I guess, and I tried to brake to avoid hitting it. I didn’t brake hard enough in front and overcompensated with the rear. Next thing I knew, I was skidding across the pavement.”
“Oh shit. What time is it?” she asked in a panic.
Luke checked his cell phone. “It’s seven forty. Why?”
“I’m going to be late on my second day,” she mumbled.
“You should be dead, or at least seriously fucked up right now, your bike is totaled, and so far you’ve worried about me seeing your ass and being late for school. Am I missing something, or are you crazy?”
She chewed her lower lip and pushed errant hairs that escaped her braid from her brow. “When you put it that way, I guess I’m crazy.”
Luke took several more steps, slowly closing the distance between them. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to get in trouble at school or anything, and I’d love to see your ass, but I don’t know, I thought you’d be more freaked out than you are.”
“I am, trust me,” she said. “The whole thing was just crazy. And I’m so very flattered by your ass remark,” she said sarcastically.
Luke laughed, and she liked the sound of it. But a quick glance up the hill reminded her that he was taken. Never one to ignore the three-hundred pound blonde gorilla in the room, Arianna decided to comment on the heavily lined eyes that watched them. “I’m sure your girlfriend wouldn’t like to hear you say that either. She looks like she’s ready to kill me just for talking to you.”
“My girlfriend?” he asked. “I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said then followed her gaze with is eyes to the road. “You mean Stephanie?”
“Is that her name?” she said and heard the edge of jealousy in her own voice. “What are you guys if she’s not your girlfriend, friends with benefits?” she asked coolly.
“Eww, no! Benefits? No! That’s gross!”