The Lynnie Russell Trilogy (12 page)

Alright, fuck this joker. So what, he killed people. I’ll be the badass bitch who takes him down. That’s right, fuck him.

I stuck my chest out and threw my shoulders back. With a final nod of my head I was off on my own. I walked with purpose toward the area where I knew the body would be located. I moved around the police cruisers blocking the action, gave a nod to the officers standing around doing nothing, closed my eyes, and walked straight ahead.

Bare legs stuck out from behind a dumpster no more than ten feet ahead of me.  From this angle it could have been anybody. Tatum included.

Just do it pussy!
 

My legs carried me faster than I intended. I was standing next to the dumpster before I knew it.  I looked down quickly toward the pale legs at my feet. Purple toenail polish with glitter adorned the nicely manicured toes. Tatum had just gone in for a pedicure. I hadn’t even bothered to check out her newest polish color. Also, purple glitter didn’t exactly scream little misses Goth queen if you ask me.

Just look. If you’re right, if this is the girl that left with Cyrus last night, you have to tell Mike. And if it’s Tatum, then, well…I dunno. Just look.

I shuffled my feet as close as I could to the dumpster as I could without touching the legs that protruded and leaned over. I stretched my neck and bent my body around to see the face of this mystery girl. To my surprise, her head was turned toward the brick wall that lined the alley, hair flipped over the left side of her face. Mike had said she was in an awkward position; he wasn’t fucking around.

Damn it!

I groaned and rolled my eyes. I was going to have to walk around to the business end of the mess. I glanced back at Mike who was paying no attention to me. I could have been raping his crime scene blind of evidence and he’d never be the wiser. He must really trust me, or he’s really stupid. I scooted around the blue dumpster, trying very hard not to touch anything on my way. This time I wasn’t going to fuck around, I was going to just look.

Yeah, right
.

I stopped dead at the other end. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see what lay at my feet. I prayed to whatever was listening that this girl was not one of
my
girls. I prayed that this girl was in a better place whoever she was. But most importantly, I prayed I wasn’t going to look down and see my best friend dead behind a fucking dumpster. No matter how improbable that may be. Also, that the man I had a major Jones for hadn’t slaughtered her. But that one was on the bottom of the prayer list.

A sick pain sunk deep into my gut as I poked my head around the dumpster to view the face of the deceased. I could not see her full face with her hair thrown over it. The hair was the same color as my best friend, a bit disheveled from the act of death, but otherwise could have been her. Then again, there was still a distinct possibility this was Cyrus’ eighth victim. Trying not to think of the decaying corpse as being someone I loved, I huffed and puffed and pulled a latex glove from my pocket. I bent over her head cautiously. From this distance I was able to catch a sporadic odor of death wafting up from the corpse. Trying hard to only breathe from my mouth I pushed myself to continue.

As gently as I could I moved the girl’s corn silk tresses from her face.  She was looking toward the brick wall. Her left side was exposed; flaunting the large incisions along her neck.  Her eyes were open, wide, and the look of terror was left on her pretty face. She must have bled out fast. I didn’t want to see this anymore, but I couldn’t make out her features from this angle. I shimmied around the girls head, avoiding her hair lying across the pavement, and squatted down next to the brick wall she was staring at. The hair seemed too long to be Tatum’s but I had to be sure. I leaned down, and looked the dead girl directly in the eyes. They were green. I let out a sigh of relief that the eyes I was staring into weren’t the beautiful crystal blue of Tatum’s eyes.  She was pretty, but also not the girl Cyrus took home.

A wave of confused emotions swept over me. I was utterly relieved that my thoughts were wrong and my best friend wasn’t dead. My sensibility had told me it couldn’t be her from the moment I had thought it. But my recent irrational paranoia wouldn’t let me accept it until I saw it with my own eyes. For once I was happy to be wrong. Similarly, I hadn’t wanted Cyrus to be a psychopath; in fact I had prayed to God that he wasn’t. Yet, I was surprisingly not completely relieved. In fact, I was slightly disappointed. Maybe I was ready to rat him out and end this whole thing. I guess deep down, I wanted payback. Now, I had to face the facts that Cyrus left a bar very schmooze-y with some random blonde girl, we were no closer to stopping all of this, and the dead girl eerily resembled my best friend.  I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cool brick of the wall behind me.

Fuck.

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Endless Night

Dylan Hart Odyssey of The Occult book two

It always feels awkward being in Mike’s house. Standing in his living room, looking at pictures of us hanging on every wall, posted on every surface. It was weird to think he walked around in this house everyday with my face staring at him from every angle. I always wondered why he never took them down. I’d hung most of them there when we moved in and I left them right where they hung the day I walked out.  Apparently, so did he.

“You never know.” Mike said from the bathroom.

I looked in the direction of his voice to see a sliver of light around the door jamb; he hadn’t bothered closing the door.  I have to admit, it felt very natural talking to him through a crack in the bathroom door. Like nothing had ever changed. I leaned against the edge of the couch just down the hall from the bathroom and listened to the water running in the shower.

“Never know what?” I asked loud enough he could hear me over the running water.

Small wafts of steam puffed out from the opening in the door and with it the smell of his soap. I hadn’t had the pleasure of that smell in a long time. I closed my eyes and breathed in deep.

“The truth.” He said just after he turned the water off.

I could hear him moving around the small room. Clanking his toothbrush in the cup, opening and closing the medicine cabinet, all the little mundane tasks we take for granted every day.  Those little sounds of daily life pulled me back into a time I thought I’d almost forgotten. A time I was in love. A time I was safe and happy. A time I could never get back.

“And you do? Does anyone ever really know what’s real?” I asked, looking at a picture of the two of us that hung on the wall only inches from my head. We looked so happy. Big smiling faces and bright eyes. 

“Not usually, no. But you could, if you wanted to.” His voice came much clearer than it had before. I looked away from our shining faces to see Mike emerge from the bathroom, shower wet and towel clad.

He never met my eyes when he turned from the bathroom and walked away from me. The expanse of his thick shoulders lay totally exposed and the deep indent that trailed from between his shoulder blades to the small of his back shifted and moved with every step. I hadn’t forgotten what his body looked like, I just hadn’t thought about it in a while. An unconscious smirk and tweak of my brow reminded me of every moment I’d laid eyes on the better half of that man. Mike walked the short space between the bathroom and his bedroom door wearing only a small stark white towel around his waist. He seemed to not care a lick that I was in perfect eyeshot of his half-naked body. There was a part of me that was quite pleased with the situation. Then there was a part of me, the logical part, which said there is no way in hell this is ever going to happen. I happily ignored that part and enjoyed the view.

A few steps before he reached the privacy of his room, he pulled the towel from around his waist and brought it up to dry his wet hair. In that tiny second I caught a lovely glimpse of the back side I’d been missing for damn near two years.  Two dimples sat just above his nicely round cheeks and just below the curve of his back. My throat made a small noise before I caught it and moved on. The sight of something so long missed can wreak havoc on your psyche and that was the last damn thing I needed.

“What is it that you want?” I wasn’t sure where he was going with this conversation.  And seeing all that he had to offer, well, not all, but a lot, made me forget why I was standing in his living room in the first place.

“The same thing you do.” He came out of his room and walked down the hall toward me. He’d put on pants but not much else. His hair was still wet and messy from the shower.

He stopped a few feet from me, but I could still smell his soap. I tried hard not to look at the expanse of his chest and shoulders. He wasn’t a chiseled master piece, not even close. But he had the look of someone who could scoop you up in their arms and carry you to safety. Not that he’d ever tried to pick my fat ass up, but you get the idea. I tried to look him straight in the face as I had always been able to do, but all I could think about were those two little divots just above his ass. I my eyes jerked away and moved down his body more and caught at eyeful of the line of hair that led from the top of his jeans to his belly button.

Holy moly.

My breath caught in my throat, but I managed to squeak out, “What is it you think I want?” I decided looking at his face was probably the best idea.

He smiled and stepped closer. I like his smile. It makes his eyes crinkle on the sides.  Standing this close to Mike felt as natural as putting my shoes on, but I knew it wasn’t right. I knew there was no way this was a good thing. He was acting like nothing has changed. Like we were still…us.

“What’s wrong, babe?” He said looking down at me from his six foot three stature.

I just shook my head. I had no idea what to say. He’d never put me in this position before. Not in a long time had he been so…naked. I’d thought for so long it was completely over. That I was done with it. With us. I’d come to terms with it and moved on. My tenacity was the only reason we were able to stay some kind of friends.

He carried a look on his face that I hadn’t seen in so long. He looked like he was seeing straight into me. Like he was planning every moment with me from here on out. Like he’d never leave me. He’d die for me.

The muscles in his chest flexed and his hand came up and wrapped around the base of my neck. My heart literally stopped beating. I watched his face intently looking for some kind of motive. Waiting for the truth to rear its ugly head.

“When you run, I’m here.” He said confidently, as if it wasn’t a seriously weird thing to say. “Believe in nothing you can’t reach out and touch.”

Out of sheer compulsion, I reached out and touched his chest then. He was warm and solid.

“I love you, Dylan Hart.” His mouth said those words without hesitation, without an ounce of regret. He crooked his head and leaned down toward me then. The smell of his soap so strong I thought I’d climbed inside of him. Drops of water fell from his wet hair onto my face and trickled down my cheek like tears. Maybe they were. I didn’t care. I waited, ready, for him to kiss me. Wanting to remember so terribly what those kisses felt like and waiting for him to remind me.

I could feel the heat from his breathe touch my mouth. My breathing was heavy and my heart was pounding from my chest. I lifted myself up onto my tiptoes eagerly forcing my lips to meet his.

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Welcome to the End of the World

Apocalypse: An Anthology

It was a dark and stormy night.

Well, it might’ve been. I actually had no idea. I’d been shut away in my basement for damn near a week. At least, I think so. Can’t really tell day or night when you’re stuck underground. Something in your body has a general idea about the passing of time, but there is no sure way to measure time when there is no power and no sun.

A little over a week ago the earth decided to shift at its core. That’s what the last news flash that came through on TV had said anyway. This triggered massive earthquakes that demolished buildings, tore open the ground at our feet, and caused the cataclysmic eruption of a multitude of volatile volcanoes all over the world. What the molten lava didn’t destroy the earthquakes had. It took just over twenty-four hours to turn our beautiful earth to smoldering rubble. What humans and animals had survived were left strangled by black ash that floated through every inch of air and snuffed out the sun.

By some Godly miracle my husband and I survived. The earthquakes hadn’t touched our area with enough intensity to demolish our home completely and we are lucky enough to live at elevations high enough to protect us from the flowing lava. There were floods in other areas of the world from what I’d heard on a quick blurb of newscast over our tiny radio in the kitchen before the power cut out completely but, thankfully, that was nowhere near here.

When the sun hadn’t come back after a few days he and I made the rash decision to hole up in the basement and wait it out. Our neighbors, what were left of them, were showing signs of hysteria and began fighting amongst themselves. Food was scarce and water was almost nonexistent. Some people were smart enough to fill their bathtubs or stock pile bottled water for such an event, but those people were few and far between.

My husband and I were grabbing what we could while we watched out our kitchen window. Someone we didn’t recognize was wandering the neighborhood, he was tall and lean, and carrying a large scythe as a weapon.  

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