Protector (7 page)

Blood?  Is that man dead?
Anna-Marie thinks to herself.

Her eyes sho
ot back to the man in total disbelief.  That’s when she notices for the first time the dark scarlet blood smeared on his face and the oozing bloody saliva dripping from his beard.  Every nerve in her body begins to scream. 
This is it!  This is the creature I have been searching for.
By the love of God, it appears Wilmington has a real live cannibal. 
It seems impossible, but she is sure of it. 

But
, oh my goodness, how can it be?  He is a person.
People don’t really eat other people, do they?
Anna-Marie thinks to herself as she tries to study his face even harder in the dark.  

He smiles a cruel deadly smile at her with the knowledge that he has been discovered.  That is when she notices his teeth.  He has jagged yellow teeth that look sharp enough to tear into flesh with ease, the same teeth as the man from the cemetery. 

Holy crap!  Has he been this close all along?
  Anna-Marie’s mind screams.

As she looks at his face
more closely, she realizes he isn’t the same man.  Sure, some of the features are the same, but this is definitely not the same man from the cemetery.
Two?  Is there a cult of cannibals amongst us?

Anna
-Marie slowly gets her grip back on the handle of her gun as she prepares for the war she has been craving since Dylan was killed. 

There’s no turning back.  It’s my life or his.  From what I know of this creature, there’s no way he will let me out of this alley alive.

The man notices
Anna-Marie’s subtle movements.  His grin turns even more menacing as he prepares for his own craving to be fulfilled, as if the poor bastard on the ground wasn’t enough.

It seems like everything is happening in an instant.  She sees the man lean over in an animalistic pose as if he is preparing to strike.  His eyes
, if possible, now have a hint of scarlet in them and his once round pupils are shaped into thin slits.  His nostrils begin to flare as he continues to grin. 

Anna
-Marie is petrified and still unable to move.  Her brain is yelling at her legs to run as fast as they can, but they won’t listen.  She considers screaming but her throat has gone dry.  She is helpless and about to die.  She has failed Dylan.  All she can do is close her eyes and pray that it is quick. 

Out of nowhere
, something hits Anna-Marie hard on the head; she’s not sure where it came from though.  With her eyes still closed she feels her body as she is thrown to the mouth of the alley like a discarded rag doll.   

She manages to open her eyes, but just barely.  When she is able to clear her mind enough to focus on the creature, she becomes even more confused. 
What is this?  What’s going on?
she thinks to herself as she watches as the man’s facial expressions turn from shocked to confused, than settles on amused. 

The last thing
Anna-Marie sees before the darkness of unconsciousness consumes her is not one but two figures. 

5

Anna-Marie tries to open her eyes, but can only seem to squint at the dim light of the rising sun. 

“OOWWW, what the hell happened?  My head is killing me
,” she says as she reaches her hand to her aching head.

She turns her head to the right as she tries to gather her bearings, but is suddenly shocked to find herself not in her apartment in her cozy bed but outside, on the ground at that. 

“What the hell!”

Then a picture flashes through her aching brain of scary jagged yellow teeth and hateful cold eyes.  Her eyes sh
oot open and she sits up quickly, expecting to come face to face with her cannibalistic attacker again or at the very least find extremities missing like in the movies.  That was a mistake.  The sudden movement sends her into a sudden state of vertigo, causing her to vomit on the ground beside her.

“I’m still in the alley?”
She asks herself as she wipes her mouth with her sleeve and proceeds to check her body for missing pieces, “but where did he go?”

“He?  How can that be?  He wasn’t an animal at all
, but a man.  Could a man really be the one doing this?”  Then she remembers the other man from the cemetery. 
There was two of them, which does make it more possible I guess.  Two would be able to subdue a person easier than one.

She stands up slowly this time and leans her bruised body against the cool brick wall.

“What happened?  Why didn’t he kill me?”

She assesses her head to figure out where the point of her pa
in is coming from. She feels a lump on the back of her head and winces from the pain. There’s some blood from a cut on her lip and she has scrapes on her arm from when she smashed against the brick wall, but there doesn’t seem to be anything major, except for the pounding headache.

“Hmm…he must have hit me so hard I fell and hit my head.  It’s hard to remember exactly.  That still doesn’t answer why I’m still alive.”

Remembering the victim she stands up straighter and slowly walks further into the alley where she had come face to face with the scary man.

“Where is the body?”

She knows there was a body there, but where is it now?  There’s no sign of blood or anything. 

The sun is starting to come up but the streets are still quiet at this time of the morning.  S
till she doesn’t want to look suspicious coming out of an alley in dark clothes and wearing a gun holster, so she hurries along the shadows back to her apartment before she is noticed by someone who decides to call the police.

No one would believe her story if she had to explain what she was doing; she’s not even sure she would believe herself for that matter.  The police would arrest her for sure or at least have her committed if she tried to explain the events of the night before.  After her charade last night, she might not fight it.

***

As the days go by
, Anna-Marie tries to focus more on her work.  Peggy will kill her if she doesn’t make her deadlines, but Anna-Marie’s mind keeps drifting back to that night.  Slowly her memory is coming back to her.  Bit by bit she can clearly see the man now, with his long dark dirty hair and black as night eyes with a subtle flash of scarlet.  However, what Anna-Marie can’t figure out is who hit her?  The creepy man was in front of her, so it couldn’t have been him.  She doesn’t recall seeing him move and he was still standing there in the same spot just as she was losing consciousness.

Secondly, who was that other man?  She never saw him come
, but she knows he was there, even though she can’t remember anything else about him.  Did he see the man and think she was being attacked?

“But what happened to him?” 
Anna-Marie whispers.

There was no sign of either of them when she regained consciousness. 

Anna-Marie can’t help but to think the worst …

“Anna-Marie, I need the Neuse River article done by the end of the day.  Anna-Marie?” Peggy yells from the open door.

Anna
-Maria’s mind snaps back to reality at the sound of her name coming from her office door to find Peggy standing there staring at her with a curious expression.  There isn’t anything too impressive about Peggy’s exterior, but what she lacks in looks, she makes up in personality.  She is a ballsy lady with a sharp tongue and quick mind, typical stereotype of an Irish girl from the mean streets of New York City; but Anna-Marie loves her anyway.  Peggy has worked here at the paper since she, too, graduated college a few years ahead of Anna-Marie, and once Anna-Maria got hired they became fast friends.  Peggy has proven to be just as much as a hard hitter as their head boss, Marvin, and doesn’t except anything less than the best. 

Anna
-Maria stares at her friend as she leans against the open door with her typical dress slacks and button down shirt.  Anna-Maria smiles, knowing this hard ass may appear strict and up tight at work, but when she goes out at night the stiff clothes are replaced with anything satin or lacey and her flaming red hair is dropped from its usual pulled back style over her shoulders in long layers. 

“Oh hey
, Peg.  Sorry I didn’t hear you.  What’s up?”

“Neuse River article
- by the end of the day - no excuses.”

“Oh yeah, I’m working on it right now.”
Anna-Marie says as she taps the screen on her laptop.  “I’m almost done proofreading.  I should have it finished by the end of the day.”

“Oh, well good.”

Feeling relieved, Peggy comes in and sits in the chair in front of the desk and stares at Anna-Marie. “Seriously, girl, how are you?  You look like you still haven’t been sleeping.”

“To be honest
, I’m not, but I think it’s getting better a little at a time.”

“After last week
, I thought I was getting you back.  You seemed happy for the first time in a long time.  Have you tried talking to anyone yet?”

“No!
I’m fine, really.  I just need time,” Anna-Marie says in a rush.

“Okay, well if there is anything you need
, just let me know.  You know I’m always here for you.”  Peggy pauses and smiles, “Dammit, girl!  Eventually I’m going to have to pretend I’m the boss around here.”

“I know and I am sorry.”

“You know what, why don’t you just go home to finish your article?  You can do your work just as easily there.”

“Thanks
, Peg, I think that might be a good idea.”

As Peggy stands to leave
, Anna-Marie is struck by how grateful she is to have a friend and boss as wonderful as Peggy.

“Hey
, Peg, thanks for all that you have done for me through all this.  I don’t know what I would have done without you and your friendship.  I really do hope it hasn’t been too hard on you.”

“Anytime
sweetie.  Just get better and get your butt back here, and don’t worry about Marvin.  I’ll take care of him.”

As Peggy leaves,
Anna-Marie whispers silently to the closing door, “I’m trying to.”

She throws her stuff in her briefcase and heads out the door.  She feels guilty for leaving work early because she knows she’s not going straight home to work like she told Peggy she was going to.  She wants to go see Dylan.  Last weekend was insane and she has been dying to tell him about it, no matter how mad he gets.

What has now become routine to
Anna-Marie’s visits here, she scans her surroundings for anyone looking strange or out of place before getting out of her car.  Only after she is satisfied that everything is okay does she leave the safety of her vehicle and heads for Dylan’s grave.

“Hey
, Dylan!  How was your week?” she asks in a rush.  “Mine was very strange and confusing.”  She paces in the small space in front of his grave as she goes through that night as it happened, knowing if Dylan was really here, he’d be so mad at her for going out looking for trouble. 

“I don’t know what it all means though.  How can a brutal killer, which is what he is reported to be, not kill when he has prime opportunity to?  It makes absolutely no sense at all.”

“Who knows, maybe I was seeing things.  It could very well have just been a dirty homeless man who was mad because I had the audacity to interrupt his dinner.”  She pauses and begins to chew on her lower lip. “I don’t think so though.”

After a few minutes of racking her brain, she decides to just leave.  It wasn’t doing her
, or Dylan, any good being here so distracted.

6

Michael lies down on the ground underneath the shade of the massive old Live Oak tree in the Greenacres Cemetery.  As morbid as it may seem to a normal person to find a cemetery soothing, in a bustling city like Wilmington, it is the quietest place they could find to relax in the warm sunshine on lazy days like today.

He puts his hands behind his head and closes his eyes, “Man, this is the life.”