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Chapter 9 – The Missing Girl

In the summer of the year after the Wexler thing, I realized someone was watching me through my television.

I could sense it, the way you sense someone staring at your back. A presence behind the screen, a pair of watching eyes. You know, like someone had sawed a hole in my floor and stuck their head up through my TV. Only not.

I ignored it as long as I could, telling myself no one would want to secretly watch a single 23 year-old on his couch eating Taco Bell bean burritos day after day (eighty cents apiece, two and a Coke for three bucks). But I knew better, of course. There were certain parties who had a very good reason to keep eyes on me, aside from my perfectly-sculpted Statue-Of-David buttocks.

So then, one night, with the television on some History Channel special about history’s Top Ten Deadliest War Ships or some shit, I turned away from the TV and toward the mirror on the far wall. I went to pull a brush through my free-standing hair and froze. I had glimpsed the TV, playing in the reflection over my shoulder.

I saw a face.

An oddly-shaped face, with features that were human but off. A Michael Jackson face, a face like a mask. Wide, too-large eyes, a nose not quite centered. Looking right at my back from the TV, plain as day. I spun on the television, the hair brush flying from my hand, a terrorized breath sucking through my teeth. Back to normal now, the Bismarck getting sunk in a plume of smoke. Again, I suppose most people would have feared a mental illness at that point. By now, though, mental illness would just mean some tests and a prescription. Big deal. No, my fear was of somebody actually watching me through my fucking television.

I told John about it and he came right over, as a best friend would. We cursed at the television for half an hour, then he dropped his pants and pressed his balls against the screen. Like he said, there was no need to change our routine. He suggested I get some rest, that I was stressed because Jennifer Lopez had moved out, that I wasn’t adjusting to life in the empty house. Then we drank and played Playstation hockey until the sun came up.

That became my routine for weeks after, sleeping too little and drinking too much and playing too much hockey. Things started to spin out of control. Soon we were playing without the goalies, skating six on six and scoring games 74-68. Finally, when we started both playing on the same side (Red Wings) against an inept team controlled by the computer AI and winning the games 126 to zero, I knew I had hit rock bottom.

I also knew I was still being watched. I knew this was a bad sign, that things were moving again, that the shadows were getting restless.

I threw out the bottles and shaved my face and even considered cleaning the house. I started ironing my shirts again. Somebody mailed me a little bottle of what they claimed was holy water and I kept it on my night stand. I hung a garage sale crucifix from my front door. And then, just after Christmas, things got weird again.

* * * * *

The end began when I came home from work on a frigid Friday night. I was plowing my truck through the worst winter storm the area had seen in years, the world looking like the aftermath of God’s snowcone machine explosion. I pushed in through the front door, snow melting off my leather coat. A prickly feverish sweat was breaking out all over me as my skin adjusted to the 50-degree temperature difference between my living room and the night air outside. The wind shifted, the whole house creaked, there was a tinkling of ice chips flicking off the windows.

I had just left a nightmarish 16-hour, soul-numbing double shift at Wally’s Video Rental Orifice, the night manager claiming she couldn’t get out in the storm and asking if I could please work for her, saying that she owed me big time, that I was such a sweetheart and that if I ever needed anything, anything at all, just let her know. I don’t think she meant that. But I put my head down and plowed through a 1,000-minute, dead-quiet, customer-free battle against exhaustion and my urge to beat my coworkers to death. Now I just wanted to dry off and curl up in-

I saw something out of the corner of my eye that stopped me in mid-thought. I leaned back to see through the open door of my bedroom.

The drawer on my nightstand was open.

The drawer where I keep my gun.

My buttcheeks clenched so tight that not even light could have escaped. I listened for burglar sounds. Dead quiet. I took a soft step forward, wondering if I could fake Kung-Fu if I had to. I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger kill a man in a movie once by grabbing his head and twisting it until the neck broke. Was that difficult? Could a man do it without a lot of practice?

I keep the gun in a hollowed-out copy of the Koran. And there the big book was, tossed on the bed, open and gunless. Nothing else disturbed. I mean, they actually checked my Koran to see if there was a gun inside. I knew I was dealing with a sick son of a bitch.

I stepped carefully and quietly through the bedroom doorway, glancing this way and that. Nobody here. I leaned down and checked under the bed, the sheets still smelling faintly of Girl even now, six months after I’d spent my last naked night on them with Jen. Or maybe it was my imagination.

Either way, you should probably change those sheets...

There was nobody under the bed. I checked the other rooms in the dark little house, stepping slowly across the carpet. Somebody had called, I noticed, the little red “new message” light on my answering machine blinking in the darkness like a time bomb.

Nobody here. I wandered toward the answering machine, my gut feeling full of snakes. Snow melted in my hair, a droplet of ice water running into my ear. I reached up to brush it back-

I sucked in a shocked breath. I had found the pistol. It was in my motherfucking hand. My numb fingers were curled around the plastic grip, index finger resting on the trigger.

I dropped the gun like it was made of bees. It bounced onto the sofa and I stared stupidly at it, then stared even more stupidly at my empty palm, fingers pink from the cold. What the-

Now that you ask, it’s a whole ten-foot walk from your heated truck to your front door. Why does every inch of exposed skin feel windburned? Why do you seem to have a pint of snow in your hair?

There’s that feeling, that fluttery feeling of mental weightlessness, like the times when you wake up in the dark, on the hood of a car, a bottle in your hand, no idea what day it is, some girl shouting at you in Arabic. And here I was, 90 days alcohol-free.

I tried to collect myself. Tired. Tired like a zombie. An overworked zombie, one who got hired as a salaried assistant manager at a zombie video store, only to find out “salaried” just means he doesn’t get paid for overtime. My skull pounded, my knees were ground glass. I sat down heavily on the sofa and looked over at the little beads of water standing on the sleek, chrome surface of the Smith. I glanced at my watch. Right after midnight.

Okay. You got off at eleven. You came straight home. It’s a twelve-minute drive, figure maybe twenty for the weather. You came right in. So where did the other half hour go, Dave? Did you maybe take a detour and shoot your boss?

No, if I’d shot Wally’s manager Jeff Wolflake, I wouldn’t have deprived myself by repressing the memory, would I?

I picked up the gun and ejected the magazine. Still heavy with bullets. I sighed with relief. If I had indeed stopped by Jeff’s house to murder him, I was sure I’d have emptied the gun.

This was no way to start the weekend. I punched the “play” button on the machine, listened to the message. It was John. I finished, hit “replay,” listened closer, then hit “replay” again. By the fourth time I was pretty that John had said, “bag full of fat.”

I decided to try once more:

BEEP.

“Dave? It’s me. Amy’s missing and we got what looks like a bag full of fat here. It’s weird. And I mean ‘bad’ weird, not ‘clown’ weird. It’s almost Midnight and—I guess you’re not home yet. Or maybe you’re in bed. You’re not in bed are you? I know you haven’t been sleepin.’ Are you there? Wake up, David. WAKE UP. Okay, so you’re not there. Call me tonight, when you get this, I don’t care how late. Oh, and when you come over, watch out for a jellyfish. See you.”

Click.

Bag full of fat. I picked up the phone and dialed up John on his cell. One ring, and then-

“I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE, VINNY!”

“John?”

“Oh, Dave. Sorry. I had been having a heated argument here on my phone and then I hung up in disgust. Then when the phone rang I just assumed, without checking, that it was the person I was having an argument with so I just blindly shouted insults into the phone. How embarrassing.”

“I’m getting sick of that one, John.”

“Are you on your way over?”

“I, uh, got somethin’ going on here.”

“What’s your thing?”

“I’ve got a-“

I paused, made a decision.

“-batch of brownies in the oven. I don’t want them to burn, or else they get gummy.”

“Yeah, they’ll stick, too. Did you grease the pan?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Good. Anyway, Amy is missing and the scene is weird as shit. The situation has a real Lovecraft feel to it. Though, you know, if you come over it’ll be more of an Anne Rice situation. If you know what I mean.”

“Who’s-“

“-because you’re gay.”

“Who’s missing, John?”

“AMY, Dave. A-M-Y. I think my signal’s breaking up-”

“-I don’t know any-“

“-Amy Sullivan? Big Jim’s sister?”

“Oh. You mean Cucumber.”

“Do you not feel the need to learn people’s real names, Dave?”

“We called her that in school. She was in that Special Ed class, always throwing up for some reason.”

A silent pause on John’s end.

“You know, like a sea cucumber. They’re these eels that-“

“-Anyway, Dave, we’re at her house now. The cops, too. How soon can you be here?”

How about June?

“What’d you say on my machine? Bag full of-“

“-I can’t hear you, you’re breaking up. Just get here as soon as you can, we gotta go deal with this flying jellyfish thing.”

A pause on my end now.

“What?”

“See you in a few - UNDER THE CABINET! NO, THE CABINET! THE- HERE, LET ME-“

Click. Doooooooooooooooo...

I disconnected and did what I usually do after hanging up with John, which is sit in dumbfounded silence and contemplate all of the poor choices in my life. I shrugged out of my coat, then stood and pulled off my Wally’s shirt. I smelled it, considered for a moment, then hung it back up in the bedroom closet. I ducked into the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face and put on a dry shirt. I went to the living room, took four caffeine pills from my desk drawer and washed them down with a warm, half-empty bottle of red Mountain Dew that I found on the kitchen counter. I pulled on the coat and, after a moment of hesitation, dropped the Smith & Wesson in the pocket, the weight pulling the whole left side of the coat down on my shoulder. I felt like Bruce Willis.

Is it just me, or is the barrel slightly warm?

I pushed through my front door and plunged into the cold, but made it no further than the doormat.

Footprints.

The thin blanket of white across my front lawn should have been clean, save for a single trail of prints from the driver’s side of my Bronco to the spot I was standing. Instead, there was a haphazard circle of tracks in loops around my front yard, then trailing off around the back of the house. I turned and saw where the prints emerged from the other side and eventually led to the front porch, where I was now.

I stepped off the porch and into the crunchy snow/ice shell that coated the ground. I leaned down, squinting against the storm. Boot prints, zigzag treads. I suddenly had a very dark, very lonely realization:

The prints were mine. All of them.

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Copyright © 2008 David Wong and Jason Pargin - All rights reserved. No part of this book or website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the express written consent of the author and publisher. This online book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidence.