Like, Follow, Kill

by Carissa Ann Lynch

  So, I’m not alone with the fruit-man, after all. I was starting to feel like a guest at the Bates Motel. “Where the hell are you, Valerie?” I mumbled under my breath.

  Before letting myself in the room, I sent yet another message:

  I’m here. Where are you? I’m getting worried. The manager said you left with some guy … you’re coming back, aren’t ya? Why are you scared? Tell me what’s going on.

  I stared down at the message for a few seconds, then clicked send.

  Slowly, I opened the door to room 14. It was dark inside.

  I stepped in and closed the door back behind me. I dropped my bag and stumbled around, flipping on every light switch I could find. This place is too fucking quiet.

  A queen-sized bed with an off-white comforter sat in the center of the room. The bed was unmade.

  To the left of the bed was a wooden desk. To the right: a window with long, billowy curtains that looked white at first glance, but were stained with several years’ worth of nicotine and dust.

  I stared at the desk. If I were sitting there, the bed would be behind me … and the window … the window where the man was looking in. This is it—this is the room she was in when she made the video.

  Seeing Valerie’s hotel room in-person was different than seeing it in the video. The room had looked glamorous, but only because she had been sitting inside it, and only because that’s what I had expected to see. In reality, the room was shit. The carpet was brown and frayed, the air moldy with old smoke and something else … rotten food, maybe?

  The manager had mentioned her “stuff” she’d left behind, but I couldn’t see what he meant. I ventured further into the room, holding my breath.

  In front of the bed, there was a stand with a small smart TV and a mini-fridge built in below. I opened the fridge, surprised to find Styrofoam leftover boxes and two half-drunk bottles of Vitamin Water.

  I took one of the bottles out and gripped it in my hand, trying to imagine Valerie standing in this exact same spot … her lips soft as rose petals caressing the mouth of the bottle …

  Sighing, I put the water back and closed the fridge. Down a short hallway, there was a small bathroom. The mirror above the sink was smudged with what looked like fingerprints. There was a soft pink toothbrush beside the sink, and a bottle of hair spray. I found a damp black T-shirt draped over the shower bar and a sponge hanging on the hot-water nozzle.

  Valerie is gone. I know she’s gone because this can’t be all her stuff. A T-shirt and a toothbrush? I don’t think so. Valerie probably travels with a huge suitcase stuffed with makeup and other beauty supplies. Her T-shirt is still damp … surely, that means she hasn’t been gone that long …

  I stared at my face in the mirror, fingers brushing across the scars I’d never get used to. Did Valerie stare at herself in this mirror, too? Oh, how it must feel to look in the mirror and like what you see …

  But Valerie wasn’t the only one who liked what she saw … she also had an admirer.

  I went back to the window. There were no blinds, only the drab, semi-see-through curtains, and through the window pane, I was startled by what I saw.

  An empty field behind the hotel, and beyond that, wild trees and shrubbery grew around what looked like remnants of old state fair equipment.

  A rusty old Ferris wheel glittered in the distance—it wasn’t huge, like some I’d seen, but a small-ish one that you might see at a county fair. There was another dilapidated metal contraption, too. It looked like a spider, with spindly metal legs; the tip of each crooked leg was a bucket seat for someone to ride in. They obviously hadn’t been used in years; roots and tree limbs growing all around them like they were trying to consume the old rides …

  Why the fuck would Valerie stay in this creepy-ass place? I wondered. Nothing about this makes sense.

  I gulped down a handful of meds, swallowing them with water from the sink.

  I sat on the bed, my mind whirling like that old, creaky Ferris wheel out back.

  What should I do now? She’s obviously not here. And although my intentions were good, I couldn’t help feeling like I was the creep, coming here on a whim.

  But she told me to come … although I still don’t know why …

  I kicked my boots off and stretched out on the bed. With my head on the soft white pillow, I willed Valerie’s previous thoughts to seep through the fibers and drift into mine … Tell me where you are so I can help you.

  I glanced over at the window again, instantly chilled at the thought of someone watching her … watching me …

  If some psycho followed her from that bar, he easily could have hidden behind the building and watched her …

  And since room 14 was on the end, it would have been easy to slide around the curl of the building and break into the room. Or hell, maybe he just came in through the window.

  The window had been open, because I’d seen the curtains rustling in the breeze behind her. And that face … he was standing right there, staring in at her … quietly waiting, watching …

  I searched for a bar called Cavern on my phone but came up with nothing. It can’t be far from here. Maybe that’s where she went?

  The sun was setting outside the window, dusk settling over the already dark field behind the motel. The thought of going out and walking down this deserted stretch of road in search of that bar by myself was terrifying.

  I instantly thought about the man I’d met earlier today … Lincoln. Compared to the weirdo manager, he seemed like a decent person to ask to accompany me.

  Feelings of guilt rose up … Why do I feel guilty? Because I’m going to ask another man to take me to a bar so I can try to find my friend?

  I stood up and went over to my bag, removing the box of Chris’s ashes once more. “You’d rather me go there with someone, right? To make sure I’m safe?”

  I set the box on the bedside table, my mind wandering back to the mystery man in the window. Who is he? And what does he want with Valerie?

  And if a man paid Valerie’s bill, did he take her with him? A terrible thought was licking at my brain … What if he hurt her … killed her? What if I was too late?

  I laid back on the bed, the room spinning as it usually did when my meds first kicked in. The pain pills dulled the physical and emotional pain; the anxiety pills quieted the scream inside me. And it had been so long since I’d last taken my dose … or did I take a dose earlier? For some reason, I couldn’t remember. I’m losing track, taking too many sometimes, and other times, not enough. Just like I did with the booze.

  I clutched my phone to my chest, wishing—willing—Valerie to respond. Finally, I sent a message to Lincoln: Hey, it’s Camilla. We met at the library today. Could you take me to a bar in town called Cavern? lmk.

  ***

  The next time I opened my eyes, it was completely pitch-black outside the motel room. I jolted up in bed, too fast, my head spinning. The lightbulb in the lamp beside the bed flickered once, then twice.

  What time is it? I wondered, groggily.

  Remembering the text I’d sent earlier, I reached for my phone that had fallen on the floor beside the bed.

  It was almost ten. Valerie had still not written me back. Where the fuck is she?!

  However, I did have a message from Lincoln. He’d sent it nearly two hours ago …

  Lincoln: Sure, what time?

  Fuck.

  I wrote back quickly:

  Me: Hey, so sorry. I fell asleep at the motel. I’m at The Rest EZ. You know it? I was tired from driving, I guess. You still awake? Want to make a late-night trip to that bar, Cavern? My friend might be there … I’m hoping I can find out more information about her whereabouts. I know it’s late, so if you can’t, I understand.

  I felt lost as I looked around the motel room, the fog that often accompanied waking up after overmedicating hanging around my head like an invisible bubble. How many pills did I take?

  I picked up my pill bottles and twisted off the caps. Three
shiny white pills rattled around inside. I turned the bottles on their sides and read the labels.

  No refills.

  I haven’t been to see Dr. Norris in almost three months … I wonder if I call her, maybe she’ll refill …?

  But I already knew the answer to that: even if I did have more refills, it wouldn’t be time yet to fill them. I’d been taking too many lately, not considering what I’d do when I ran out … some days forgetting to take them completely, while other days popping two or three at a time to compensate for the missed dose. They used to make me feel relaxed, less sad … but now … now I just take them not to feel like shit, really.

  Somewhere between the sheets, my phone was buzzing. I wrestled with the blankets, practically pouncing on the phone when I saw it.

  “Hello?”

  “Um … is this Camilla?”

  I smiled, instantly recognizing Lincoln’s soft-spoken voice on the other end.

  “It’s me. Look, I’m sorry for texting back so late. I fell asleep.”

  Lincoln coughed loudly on the other end, and I wrenched the phone away from my ear until he was done.

  “That’s alright. I was still awake.” But I could tell by the phlegm in his throat and the foggy shape of his words that he’d just woken up.

  “You still want to go? I can be there in ten or fifteen minutes … listen, don’t walk down there. That’s not the nicest part of town. I thought you were going to stay at the Marriott?” He was nervous, rambling, and for some reason, I was smiling cheesily, as I balanced the phone between my ear and shoulder. I shimmied my boots onto my feet.

  “Yeah, if you’re up for it. I’m in room 14. I came here because this is where my friend was staying, the one I told you about … but she’s not here. I can’t figure out where she is.”

  “Oh.” He sounded far away for a moment, then his voice was muffled on the other end. “See you soon, Camilla.”

  I hung up, my heart knocking around in my chest. It seemed stupid, crazy, to trust a stranger. But he was a librarian. Librarians are trustworthy, right?

  Under the headache-inducing phosphorescent lights in the bathroom, I brushed my teeth and rubbed some powder onto my cheeks. It wasn’t enough to cover up the scars, but it helped a little bit.

  I pulled a raggedy Bengals sweatshirt over my head. If I’d had nicer clothes, I would have brought them … but ever since the accident and the bloating weight gain from my meds, I couldn’t fit into much besides old tops and pants. My face had gone to shit, and now my mind and body were, too.

  I was just stepping outside to smoke when a royal-blue Jeep came rumbling through the parking lot, kicking up gravel dust.

  I stared into the blinding headlights as the Jeep parked right in front of my room. When the lights popped off, I was relieved to see Lincoln’s face, although some part of me was hoping it was Valerie.

  Lincoln looked wide awake now, his hair shiny and combed neatly to one side. When he got out, I noticed that he looked different from how he had at the library, more relaxed. He was wearing loose-fitting stonewashed jeans and a plain white T-shirt. Through his shirt, I could see curls of dark chest hair and a muscular torso. I looked away, blushing.

  “How are you?” he asked, looking me in the eye like a normal person.

  I stubbed my cigarette out, fingers jittery.

  “Fine. I need to grab my ID and cash.”

  A few minutes later, we were pulling away from The Rest EZ, drifting down the poorly lit, mostly abandoned street.

  “What do you know about Cavern?” I asked him, scanning the broken sidewalks lining each side of the street, looking for Valerie’s ghost in the moonlit shadows.

  “Me?” Lincoln sounded surprised by the question. “Next to nothing, really. I’ve never been there. I’ve only lived in Paducah for a few years now. I’ve heard about it, but I don’t think it’s all that popular.”

  “Definitely not the kind of place you meet doctors or health associates to wine and dine them and discuss your latest drug products, right?” I asked, the question more to myself than to him.

  “I don’t think so,” Lincoln said, tentatively. “Are you sure that’s what she was here for?”

  “I’m not really sure of anything these days,” I said.

  He made a hard right turn into a quiet industrial complex. Through an open gate, he parked in front of a solid gray building with no cars out front.

  “It’s here, or it’s supposed to be …”

  For the second time in the past few hours, I thought to myself: This place is too fucking quiet.

  “Why do you think this is it?” I asked, suddenly hesitant to be in the car with a stranger, but also hesitant to step out into the empty, dark lot.

  He looked over at me, his cheeks reddening. “I called a friend of mine and asked. I’m not much of a partier, but he told me it was here.”

  “Well … I guess we could get out and look,” I said, doubtfully.

  “You want to stay here while I check it out?” Lincoln offered.

  I shook my head. As chivalrous as his offer was, the thought of staying in the Jeep by myself was nerve-racking too. “I want to go.”

  I wrenched the door to the Jeep open, and together, we approached the two steel doors. There were no signs on the doors, no indication that this place was anything other than an old industrial building not in use.

  Lincoln tugged on the door. “Locked.”

  I tried the other door (also locked) while he took out his phone and started texting. A few minutes later, he said, “Okay, I just asked Tommy. I think I got it. Follow me.”

  I followed him around the side of the building and down a skinny alleyway littered with cigarette butts and broken beer bottles. Finally, we stopped side by side at the top of a stone staircase that seemed to lead down to some sort of basement or cellar beneath the building.

  “This is where we go in,” he said.

  “You sure? Where are all the cars?” I said, looking around the empty alleyway, nervous.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d had earlier of being at the Bates Motel. Only now, this was starting to feel like something scarier, like I was heading down to some sort of serial killer’s secret dungeon.

  “I don’t know,” Lincoln said. “I’ll go first.” Slowly, I descended the stairs, sticking close to his backside. At the bottom was another closed, steel door. I expected it to be locked.

  “Let’s hope this one opens. Or … maybe it’s better if it doesn’t,” I muttered under my breath. But now that we were standing in front of it, I could hear the unmistakable thrum of music on the other side of the door.

  Lincoln opened the door with ease, and I followed him into the darkness.

  Chapter 11

  The first thing the beefy, bald bouncer did was ask for the keys to the Jeep.

  “It’s illegal to park out there. Valet will move you to the lot next door. Here’s your ticket.” He thrust a small paper ticket, the size of a Chuckie Cheese stamp, into Lincoln’s outstretched palm.

  Lincoln pocketed the ticket and glanced back at me, warily. He looked just as sketched out as I felt.

  Together, we winded through a dark, narrow hallway that opened into a massive room with exposed pipes and beams overhead. I was shocked to find the floor crowded with people—more people than I ever could have imagined lived in Paducah. A cloud of smoke rose through the crowd, either from cigarettes or fog machines, I couldn’t tell.

  Electronica music boomed from the speakers, vibrating my back and brain. People were dancing or standing around in clusters, some nicely dressed in business-y attire, others in casual shirts and jeans. A double-sided bar extended the entire length of the room; on one side of the bar, there were girls in black shorts and lacy, black bras dancing, and on the other side, a man with a mohawk and a girl with a stubby black ponytail were serving drinks.

  We stood at the edge of the dance floor, staring. The lighting was strange, coating the patrons’ skin in a green, ghoulish lig
ht and making their teeth ultra-white. I couldn’t imagine what it was doing to my scars …

  “Wow. Just wow.” Lincoln was standing beside me, surveying the room with shock. “I had no idea this was here,” he said, his eyes and teeth so white they were blinding.

  “Best-kept secret in Paducah, honey,” came a purr from behind us. A girl with long, dark braids, wearing what looked like a latex suit, swooped in front of us. She was carrying a tiny tray of neon-green Jell-O shots. She held them under our noses like miniature Christmas presents.

  “Care for a shot, darlin’?” she directed this question at me.

  “No, thank you.” It seemed strange, refusing a drink when asked, but then again, I’d never been much of a Jell-O shot person.

  “Want to get a drink at the bar? Maybe ask the bartender if he’s seen your friend …?” Lincoln suggested.

  “Sure. Okay,” I said, giving the waitress an apologetic smile.

  Lincoln took my hand, his palm like a slippery wet fish in my fingers. He led the way, weaving through the crowd and keeping me connected to him.

  It had been over a year since I’d been inside a bar, and I’d never really been in one sober. I had always been the nervous type … the kind of girl who drinks too much before she makes it to the bar in the first place.

  The whole place felt alive, electricity in the air, my chest and back vibrating in tune with the music.

  Lincoln found an open spot and signaled the man with the mohawk. I couldn’t take my eyes off the dancing girls on the other side, their shorts cutting off right below their bottoms, long, tan legs smoothed to perfection. Most were dark-headed, but one was blonde. She whipped her hair side-to-side like a shampoo commercial, lost to the rhythm of the song, and for a brief moment I imagined it was Valerie up there, magnetizing the room with her whiplash hair and haunting charisma …

  “You have her picture?” Lincoln shouted, trying to reach me over the music. He was watching me watch the girls, giving me a funny look. Numbly, I nodded.

  “What can I get you guys?” The bartender approached us, not smiling. He looked distracted, angry, or both. His eyes were scanning the room behind us. Probably averting his eyes from my scars, I thought, self-consciously. I couldn’t imagine how pronounced they were under the heady glow of the lights …