Collide, page 16
“Speaking of seeing things, I’m impressed with your gypsy ensemble,” Ryan said and stroked his chin as he gazed at my colorful self.
“Thank you!” I said. “I have to confess, I have no idea where the skirt or the coin scarf came from, but they’re fun to wear and the scarf makes some rather nice sounds and give the costume just the right touch.”
“Not bad for a quickie,” Jeff said.
Kat opened her mouth and had just started to quip “That’s what” when everyone else nearly jumped on her and yelled “DON’T SAY IT!!!” She subsided with a grump, and I looked at the floor to find that a small pile of glitter had started to form around everyone’s feet. Great, I’d have to vacuum after they left, but first things first!
“All right, I’m in a costume, where’s my candy?” I demanded.
“Now is that any way to ask?” Danny teased. “You know the magic phrase.”
“Ugh. Fine, fine. Trick-or-treat!” I said. “Now gimme!”
I was the proud owner of several pieces of my favorite chocolate and peanut butter candies after a round of teasing laughter. The group stayed for a little bit, but soon succumbed to the lure of more sugar and chocolate to be had, and they left in a cloud of glitter. I sighed with a fond smile and went hunting for the ancient vacuum cleaner that Mr. Baker kept on hand in case of “unfortunate events”. And I felt sure that a massive invasion of glitter would be considered an Unfortunate Event of Epic Proportions. What I didn’t know was just how difficult glitter was to get out of carpet, so it took me a while before I felt confident enough to put away the vacuum. Every now and then a small sparkle would show up in the rug as proof of the group’s Ghetto Sparkly passing, but it wasn’t too noticeable unless you were looking for it.
A few more costumed customers came in, but not many, and I was able to close up shop on time. A sharp wind had risen and it blew through me with a chill that reached all the way through my skin and deep into the bone as I locked the door behind me. It made the walk to my car a little more unnerving than usual as leaves began to drift through the air and a few bare branches rattled against each other. Slightly spooked, I glanced behind me into the trees, but saw nothing more than shadows.
I fought a shudder and climbed behind the wheel and heaved a sigh of relief as I engaged the locks and called Mom to let her know I was on my way home. True to Mom form during Halloween, she warned me about making sure I didn’t run over any trick-or-treaters.
“Mom, it’s eleven on a school night. I highly doubt there are going to be many trick-or-treaters out at this time. Most of them should be in bed by now.”
“You never know. I’ve seen teenagers still out and about, though they’re usually finishing up.”
“All right,” I said, “you made your point. I’ll be extra . . .,” I was interrupted when my phone beeped and signaled an in coming call. “Can you hold on? Someone’s calling in and it might be Maria.”
“Sure, honey, let me know if it’s her,” Mom said, and my heart warmed at the knowledge that Mom took no offense to me having to cut her off in case Maria was calling.
“Hello?” I answered when I switched over to the other call.
“Oh thank god, Jane, have you seen Maria?”
I barely recognized Mrs. Dupree’s voice, because it had a frantic, breathless quality to it that I had never heard before. The woman just didn’t DO frantic. Even when one of her many caterers were behind schedule for one of her famous parties her voice always remained cool and collected. My stomach immediately cramped in response.
“No, Mrs. Dupree, I haven’t seen her. She left the house?” I asked, fighting to keep down my own rising panic.
“She was feeling a little better today, and said she wanted to take a walk around the block. I made sure she had her cell phone with her, and she called me a few times to let me know where she was, but I haven’t heard from her in over an hour. I keep calling, but it just goes straight into voice mail. You really haven’t seen her?”
“No ma’am, I haven’t,” I said and my stomach dropped further and further. “But I’m going to drive around and check all her old favorite places, see if I can spot her.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said, and I was horrified when I heard her voice hitch on a sob.
“Have you called the police?”
“I did, but they said she hadn’t been gone long enough to warrant a search. They promised that they’d alert the cars already on patrol and tell them to keep an eye out for her, though. I’m going to drive around the other side of town, see if I can find her. Call me if you see her?”
“Yes ma’am, no problem,” I said and switched back over to Mom. I quickly filled her in, and she had me promise to keep in touch with her as I searched.
“I wish I could help, but I can’t leave the boys alone,” she said, her voice thin and worried.
“It’s all right, Mom, they’d probably set the house on fire if you left. And you can’t take them with you, because they’d never settle down. I just . . . I’m scared.”
“Oh, sweetie, I know you are. You’ll find her; I’m sure she probably got overly tired on her walk and had to sit down somewhere. Maybe she dozed off or something. Easy enough to do if her phone battery is dead.”
“I know, that’s what I keep telling myself, but it’s hard. And I keep thinking that, if she IS passed out somewhere, someone’s going to walk by and try to hurt her.”
“I know. Let’s go ahead and say good-bye so that you can concentrate on searching, and I can prevent the boys from blowing up their room again.”
“The chemistry set?”
“The chemistry set.”
I managed to choke out a laugh. The twins had gotten a chemistry set for their last birthday and instead of following along with the experiments that came in the instruction booklet, they were determined to forge their own path. Unfortunately, their own path had the potential of causing massive amounts of property damage and Mom was constantly running interference to prevent them from giving the house a new skylight. We said good-bye and hung up, and I turned my attention to finding my missing friend.
I lost track of how long I slowly drove up and down the streets, eyes squinting into the darkness in a desperate attempt to separate a small, human shaped shadow amongst all the other strangely shaped shadows. The random streetlights scattered about were no help at all. Whenever my eyes would adjust to the darkness I’d come upon one and would suffer from temporary blindness as my eyes fought to readjust to the sudden light, only to have said light vanish again.
It was painfully obvious that Maria wasn’t anywhere in the neighborhoods that I searched, so I quickly turned and headed back towards Baker’s and the park. It was a long shot, but I was desperate. A sick, nauseous feeling had taken up residence in my stomach, and if someone had picked her up and meant her harm, then the park was the best place to go as a good portion of it was well secluded and distanced from prying eyes.
I parked and climbed out. The cold wind that had been my companion when I left the store still made a nuisance of itself and I rubbed my hands over my arms in a bid for warmth. I reached into my car’s trunk and pulled out one of the jackets that seemed to collect there whenever I wasn’t looking. Half the time I was convinced that they bred more jackets under the cover of darkness, but I had yet to prove it.
I buttoned it up before I shoved my purse into my book bag, and then shoved my book bag into the trunk and locked the doors. I turned and gazed at the darkened park, unable to suppress a slight shiver as it ran down my spine, but I sucked it up, squared my shoulders, checked to be sure my cell phone was in my jacket pocket and made my way into the darkness. I found that the jacket muffled the clinking sound of the coined scarf I had tied around my waist. I should have left it in the car since the tinkle-clank was jarring in the dark silence, but this way the noise was minimized and I was able to keep my ears focused for a response to my occasional call of Maria’s name.
The longer I walked, the more I began to both worry and despair about my friend. Blood dripped from the ends of my fingers as I scraped them raw with my nails, the pain a small distraction from my increasingly dark thoughts. I eventually stopped calling Maria’s name, nervous that I was going to attract the wrong kind of attention since people that tended to hang out in a heavily wooded park at eleven thirty at night were usually up to no good. I mentally kicked myself for venturing out without some kind of weapon, especially since I knew from my many walks through here that the park was one of those weird cell phone “roving dead zones” where no one, no matter who their carrier was, could get a signal in certain areas.
A soft scuffling sound off to my right made me freeze in place as I held my breath. The woods were denser around me than before, the shadows darker, which told me I had wandered into the fringe of the park, where the maintained foot paths and grassy areas gave way to the wilder undergrowth of the forest. The wind had died down, and while the chances of that slight scuffle having been made by some small animal were high, I still strained to hear if it repeated.
I was about to give up and move on when I heard the sound again, slightly louder and accompanied this time by a vaguely familiar voice. I narrowed my eyes and tried to place it, but the only thing I could really tell was that it was male and I knew I had heard it at least once. If Maria was in the woods with a guy, it could only mean trouble.
That raised a very big problem, though, and it all came back to the fact that I didn’t have a single weapon. I set about to remedy the issue, and quickly found a baseball bat sized branch that I was able to fit my hands comfortably around. I gave it an experimental swing and winced a little at the way the rough bark bit into my skin, but I didn’t have time to dwell on minor pains when my friend was possibly in danger. Nor was I going to dwell on the fact that I might be going head to head with a man who would be larger and stronger than me if it came down to a fight.
I drew in a deep, shaky breath, and set off in the direction the sounds had come from. I took care to hug the shadows and tried to avoid anything that would make noise. This slowed me down, but I figured if Maria were in trouble then I wanted surprise to be on my side and not alert anyone to my presence.
The voice got louder, and I could make out a few words here and there, but it was still too low for me to really make out much of what was being said. I rounded a tree, and froze. I was still hidden in the shadows, but I felt as if every single part of me were exposed by a spotlight.
Standing in profile roughly ten yards away from me was the large bulky build of the gas station cashier. He had his hands on Maria’s shoulders, and alternated between running them up and down her arms and passing them over her chest. Maria stood placidly in front of him, with her chin hanging tilted forwards and her shoulders slightly hunched. She didn’t show any sign that she was aware of what was going on. If this was one of her “blank out” periods, then it was the first one I had seen while she was standing up. She resembled a large, life-sized doll instead of the warm and vibrant friend that I had known for so long, and the fact that she showed no signs of “waking up” despite what the brute of a man was doing to her terrified me.
I began to shake, fine tremors that started in my hands and worked their way up my arms made me almost drop my “weapon” as every single nerve in my body fired up and began to demand that I run, run, run as far and as fast as I could. My stomach roiled with nausea, but I forced myself to take one step forward. One step turned into two, and then I was running at him with the branch held over my head at the same time he reached forward and began to mess with Maria’s pants.
Luck, surprise, I don’t know what it was, but something was on my side and the monster was unaware of my approach until it was too late. I swung with all of my strength at him, and the branch jarred in my hands when it smashed into his shoulder. Bark bit into my skin, but I didn’t waste time. As he roared with pain and surprise I pulled back and swung again, hitting him under his arm and across the ribs as he whirled in my direction.
“Maria!! MARIA!!” I screamed as I pulled back and swung again. Why wouldn’t she wake up???
The man moved away from me, a lot faster than his bulk would suggest, and I shifted around until I was in front of my friend. I held the branch out and I refused to take my eyes off of him.
“Maria!” I called again and backed up until I barely touched her. There was no response.
“My, my,” came the mocking voice that had haunted my nightmares for weeks. “If it isn’t the little lady that gives good head. I had wondered where you had been, thought you might come back for another round.”
“Shut up,” I snarled. “You’re disgusting.”
“I’m disgustin’?” He threw back his head and laughed, a deep, ugly noise that made my hackles rise at the same time I took advantage of his lack of attention and glanced back at my friend. What I saw horrified me, for her eyes were that strange, milky color, but instead of glaring at me, they showed no signs of life what so ever.
“I’m not the one who bartered a blow job for not callin’ the police, little princess,” he sneered. “But I suppose all you privileged bitches are the same. If there’s even a slight hint that you’re goin’ to get into trouble you start snivelin’ and beggin’ to do ‘anythin’, anythin’ at all’ to get out of trouble, but when I make my demands you start weepin’ and wailin’, even though the bargain was already struck.”
I fought down the urge to vomit as my stomach heaved violently. If what he was insinuation was true then . . . “How many,” I whispered. He cocked his head as if he were deep in thought, then grinned.
“You were the first to say ‘within reason’ on the ‘anythin’ at all’ plea, which I will admit was rather clever. All the others had to be ‘convinced’ to keep their bargain, but they always gave in and I always kept my end of it.”
“How many have you raped?!” I screamed as my knees started to tremble.
“From here or from other places I’ve been?” he asked, his voice so casual and smug that my horror escalated. “I suppose once I’m done with you and your little zombie like friend there, it’ll be time for me to move on again. My welcome here is gettin’ a little cold, and I’ve been feelin’ eyes watchin’ me.”
“You . . . you . . .,” words failed me as my hands clinched on the branch so hard I felt a splinter of wood pierce my palm. “I won’t let you get NEAR us!”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he purred, and the silky sound caused bile to rise into my throat, “I’m goin’ to get nearer to you than anyone else ever will.”
He darted forward and I swung my branch wildly in surprise. I aimed for his head, but he was expecting that and threw up his hand, blocking my makeshift club with his forearm as he grabbed the front of my jacket with his other hand. I screeched when he twisted the arm he had used to block my attack and grabbed one of my wrists, squeezing until I was forced to release the branch or run the risk of having my wrist snapped. He jerked me towards him, his face leering at me as he twisted one of my arms behind my back. I arched in pain, and the movement brought me into contact with him in such a way that all of my muscles locked up.
“Now then,” he said as he twisted my other arm back and caged both wrists with one hand. “I think we should finish what we started that night in the gas station.”
I was frozen, my thoughts sluggish as he unbuttoned my jacket and reached inside. I sucked in a breath when he touched me. He ran his hand down my front until he reached the knot of the scarf I had tied around my waist. He untied it with an amused sounding grunt and let it fall to the ground.
The sound of the coins clinking together jerked me out of the stupor that I had found myself in, and I gave a violent jerk of my body, screaming when my arms wrenched painfully, but I succeeded in distracting him just enough that I could haul up my right leg and slammed my knee into his groin. He made a high-pitched choking noise and his hands dropped from my body as he stumbled backwards and clutched himself.
I backed away from him, my shoulders and arms aching and I knew my wrists would be sporting some horrible bruises from the way that they throbbed. I didn’t take my eyes off of him as I reached behind my back and grabbed one of Maria’s hands. I tugged and let out the breath I had no idea I’d been holding when she placidly moved in the direction I was leading her.
“You little bitch,” the man snarled, and if I hadn’t been staring right at him I would have thought that a completely different person had taken his place. There was something wrong with his voice. It sounded deep and mushy, like he was talking through a mouth full of marbles. He stood up and I tightened my hand on Maria with every intention of running away until he looked at us. I opened my mouth to scream, but only a harsh whisper escaped as sheer terror pulsed ice through my veins.
He changed right before my eyes. His hair grew long and shaggy underneath his baseball cap, huge, tusk like teeth lengthened out between his lips with the horrible sound of grinding enamel. His small eyes became even more beady and sunken as his eyebrows grew thicker. He smiled, something that looked beyond grotesque as the rest of his teeth had lengthened considerably and they all now ended in very sharp points, though none were as long as the two tusks that curved down and out from his upper jaw. I managed to drag my eyes away from those horrible points when he reached up with a hand that was now tipped with sharp talons and tugged on the brim of his baseball cap. The moon gave just enough light to show that his skin had warped, too. As I stared in horrified fascination, the pigment changed from pale, chalky white into a deeper color that looked almost black in the weak light, but that I somehow knew would be a deep, vibrant red in the sunlight. I knew, even though my mind fought with everything that I was seeing in front of me, exactly what he was before he finished pulling the baseball cap off his now shaggy mane of hair to reveal two pointed horns on top of his head.
I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t WANT to believe it, even though the proof lived, breathed, and glared at me from a distance of a few yards. My mind screamed, my nerves had gone into overdrive, logic buried its head in the sand in the face of myth turned reality and my throat closed up as deep, primitive instincts began beating on the back of my head for attention.
