Turn Darkly (7 page)

Lily hesitated and then nodded. “See you then.”

“Bye.” Regan walked back to her van, feelings of disappointment and confusion swirling in her.

It was after seven. The sky was dark, except for the moon that hung low in the eastern sky. Regan drove back toward Howell, irritated and hurt by her conversation with Lily. She knew it was foolish to expect a woman she hardly knew to trigger a family feud on her behalf.
I’m going to be gone in a month. Did I really think she would risk her relationship with her brother for me?

Regan wiped at her tear streaked face with the back of her hand.
No, but I wanted to matter enough to her that she would.
She rolled her eyes at how pathetic she was, hating herself for becoming attached to Lily so quickly.
You’re lonely and beyond tragic, Andrews. Get over it.

Pushing the van’s accelerator closer to the floor, Regan sped toward Howell, resolved to keep her head down and her heart protected until she could get back to her
real
life.

It had been over a week since Regan had talked to Lily. The morning after Lily’s decidedly lackluster response to her brother breaking into Regan’s room, Regan had gone to Hobb’s Market and stocked up on a variety of cereals, protein bars and sandwich fixings. She had resolved to minimize her interactions with Lily at the restaurant, and avoid her brother altogether.

Standing in the observatory’s small break room, Regan rubbed the back of her neck as she poured a third cup of coffee. Glancing up at the digital clock hanging on the wall, the bright red numbers told her it was after one in the morning.

Her mind felt sluggish, and she had been trying to calculate an adjustment to the facility’s low resolution mass spectrograph for over an hour. Returning to her desk, she took a drink of the bitter coffee and cringed, missing her French press back in Howell.

Looking at her scribblings from earlier, Regan began entering in a series of formulas to adjust the mass defect value of the spectrograph.

“Don’t forget to show your work.” Jason’s amused voice broke through Regan’s thin thread of concentration.

Looking up, the dazed woman rubbed her eyes. “That’s pretty unlikely tonight.” She leaned back in her chair, stretching her arms over her head.

“All kidding aside, what’s up?” Jason pulled a chair over, and sat down.

“I’m having resolution issues with the spectrograph, and I think it’s a calculation issue with the atmospheric height measurements.” Regan picked up her pencil and began jotting down formulas on a legal pad.

The man laughed. “I was only kidding about showing your work.”

Shrugging, Regan tossed the pencil down. “There’s no point anyway. I’m fried.”

Jason nodded. “I’ve noticed you’ve been coming in earlier - staying later.”

Smirking, Regan looked at him. “Then so have you.”

“Yeah, but I’m ridiculously dedicated.” Her co-worker grinned broadly. “You always struck me as someone with a life.”

Shaking her head, Regan rested her elbow on the desk. “Not in this neck of the woods, my friend. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of f-ing nowhere.”

“A hazard of the trade.”

“Yeah.” Regan turned her attention back to her laptop.

Jason stood up, and then hesitated before moving the chair back. “I wonder if a night out wouldn’t do you some good?”

Regan glanced up, and seeing the man chewing nervously on his lower lip, felt a rush of embarrassment on both their parts. “Oh.” She closed the screen on her laptop, and gave her anxious colleague her undivided attention.

“Maybe a road trip into Marfa, or even Alpine? They have an independent baseball team that isn’t half bad. We could catch a game.” A slight smile found Jason’s lips as he looked hopefully at Regan.

Over the years, Regan had managed to gently disappoint several men with ambitions to date her, but Jason was the first colleague. The situation was even more risky since she had another three weeks working in proximity to him.

“Were you thinking a date or a friendly outing?” Regan had found getting straight to the point was best, and saved everyone confusion and heartache.

Jason’s eyes widened. “A date?”

Regan couldn’t help but smile at the man’s nervousness. She had been in his position many times when trying to work up the courage to ask a woman out. “I’m gay, so a friendly outing would be better for both of us.” She kept her tone light as she didn’t want Jason feeling uncomfortable. “Is that cool?”

There were several awkward seconds as Jason looked blankly at Regan. She had seen that look before. It was laden with self-doubt and confusion. He was more than likely wondering how he missed the fact she was a lesbian, and how he could be attracted to her.

“Friendly is good too. Not great, but good.” Jason smiled.

Regan nodded, confident any serious uncomfortableness had been avoided. “When’s the next game?”

“I’ll go check the schedule right now, and we can set something up.” He slid the chair back under the adjacent desk and hurried from the room.

Regan smiled. She had grown to like Jason over the past month. He was always a good conversationalist, and a pleasant distraction from the drudgery of research. In spite of the rather crappy week, she was looking forward to the change of pace and scenery.

The moon was full as Regan drove from the observatory back toward Howell. Jason and she had met there, gone to Alpine to see a very spirited game of baseball, and eaten their weight in hot dogs. As evenings went, this one hadn’t sucked.

She wasn’t tired at all, and knew the supply of books and magazines she had brought along with her was running low. The thought had occurred to her to stay at the observatory and work, but her energy felt more social than academic.

One possibility kept creeping into her head. Her route took her past Lily’s house, and she could see if the woman was home. They hadn’t parted on bad terms necessarily, just
no
terms really. The time and distance had lessened the sting of Lily’s behavior, and also given Regan some perspective.

She and the woman were friendly and clearly attracted to each other, but it wasn’t anything serious or long term. Lily didn’t owe Regan anything, and she had said she would talk to Trent about the intrusion. Since then, Regan hadn’t even seen the man around town, much less in her room.

Regan retrieved her cell phone from the passenger seat. She wanted to call Lily rather than just show up unannounced on her door step.

“Damn.” Regan tossed the phone back into the seat. As usual, she didn’t have a signal, and was now faced with a dilemma. She wanted to see Lily, but didn’t want to make the woman uncomfortable by just showing up.

Deciding worst case, Lily would ask her to leave, Regan slowed the van down. Turning onto the narrow road, she followed it back to Lily’s house. The woman’s truck was parked next to the guest house. Scanning the darkness, Regan didn’t see any other vehicles.

Turning the van off, Regan walked up the stone path to the front door. Knocking, she stepped back, sliding her hands into the pockets of her khaki shorts. After a minute, she knocked again. There was no answer, but the sound of grinding metal came from the side of the house.

Worried Lily had fallen, or someone was trying to get into her house, Regan followed the lighted path around the house. Two wooden cellar doors jutted out from the side of the house, with a thick metal rope chain wrapped around the door handles. Lifting the lock that secured the chain, Regan was confident no one was getting in the house through the cellar.

As she turned to walk back toward her van, the sound of someone struggling from the basement reached her. Stopping, she turned back toward the cellar doors. “Lily?” Turning her head to the side, she listened carefully, but the noise had stopped.

Crouching next to the doors, Regan knocked on the thick pine boards. “Is someone there?”

After several seconds of silence, Regan heard the unmistakable sound of a woman crying. Standing, she ran around to the front of the house and toward her van. Her adrenaline was surging, causing her hand to shake as she reached for the crowbar in the back of her van.

A minute later, Regan was kneeling next to the cellar doors, and having wedged the crowbar between the padlock and the doors’ metal handle, was pushing with all her strength to dislodge the lock. The lock didn’t give, but the wood under one of the metal handles splintered, and Regan was able to pry it free of the door.

Pulling the door open, the scent of wet wood, sweat, and musk wafted over her. It reminded her of the Austin zoo on a hot July morning. Crowbar in hand, Regan descended the stairs, guided by a faint light coming from a far corner of the cellar.

The walls of the room were limestone, the floor was just bare packed earth, and the ceiling low, giving the space a cave feel. Rounding the corner of a wall she assumed led to the stairs, Regan stopped.

Her eyes narrowed in disbelief as her brain struggled to process what she was seeing. A small cell had been constructed in the furthest corner of the basement. Thick metal bars ran the length of an opening that had been carved out of the rock wall. Curled up at the back of the cell was a naked, trembling Lily.

“Lily?” Regan took a tentative step toward the woman.

Lily’s head shot up, her short hair matted to her head with a sweat that coated her entire body. “Regan?”

The woman got to her knees, and crawled toward the metal bars as Regan rushed toward her. “What the hell is happening?” Regan began scanning the cage for a latch or lock to release the woman.

Lily looked over Regan’s shoulder at the open cellar door. The moonlight was dimly lighting the wooden stairs. “You need to leave.”

“Screw that. I need to get you out of here.” Regan found the hinges of the cell door, and wedged the crowbar into the small crease.

“Stop!” Lily’s voice verged on a growl. “Leave me. Please!”

A chill ran up Regan’s spine. Lily’s voice was raw and guttural. “Why are you in there?”

Shaking her head, the woman slid toward the back of the cage. “It doesn’t matter. Just go.”

Regan gasped. In the darkness of the cage, Lily’s blue eyes had begun to glow an iridescent yellow. “Lily, I -”

Before Regan could process what was happening, Lily lunged toward the bars of the cage. Her jaw was elongated as the teeth in her mouth appeared to be multiplying. Her tan skin looked red and flushed as the muscles under it shifted and moved before Regan’s stunned eyes.

“Leave!” The growl of Lily’s command filled the cellar, and instinct took over for Regan. Sprinting up the stairs, she practically jumped into the driver’s seat of her van, and sent dirt and gravel flying as she sped away from the house.

The jarring from the van hitting the metal cattle guard near the main road brought Regan back to reality. The van skidded as she steered it onto the blacktop, and toward Howell.

Regan’s hands were still trembling as she struggled to get the key into the store’s lock. Her knees felt unhinged as she ran up the stairs to her room, being sure to lock both the downstairs and upstairs doors behind her.

Her breath was coming in short bursts as she backed away from the door, beads of sweat trickling down her forehead. Scanning the room, Regan pulled the only sizable piece of furniture she had toward the door.

The bed’s metal spindles creaked and squealed as the woman slid the foot of the bed flush against the wooden door. Swallowing hard, Regan’s throat felt like sandpaper, dry and tight. She moved to the small kitchen and took a bottle of water from the refrigerator. Nearly emptying the bottle in a series of rapid gulps, Regan felt lightheaded and stumbled to the bed.

Lying back on the soft mattress, the woman took long, even breaths in an attempt to stay off fainting. She looked at her watch, and couldn’t believe it was only ten o’clock at night. The night, and the shocking revelations it had been riddled with, had seemed to stretch on forever.

Sitting up, Regan drank the last of the water, and dropped the bottle to the floor. A gnawing sense of disbelief was slowly spreading across her mind. Shaking her head, Regan stood. The room was silent except for the low hum of the refrigerator.

Her memory skittered and finally settled on the night she had got the flat on the way back from the observatory. Remembering the growls, and then the yellow eyes glaring at her through the darkness, Regan sank back down onto the bed, her mouth dry again with fear.
Oh, god.

“You won’t get a refund.” Vera sat behind the counter of the shop, a copy of the
Big Bend Sentinel
obscuring her face, plumes of cigarette smoke rising into the air as Regan went back and forth with the few boxes she had.

“That’s fine.” Regan didn’t care about the money. She had decided at three in the morning, when sleep had given way to cold sweats and nightmares, that she would rather sleep in her van outside the observatory then stay in Howell another night.

Vera shrugged, and turned her attention back to the paper. “No skin off my back.”

Regan was arranging the last of her boxes in the back of the van, when a shadow fell over her. Standing up, she came face-to-face with Trent.