Chapter Thirty-Seven
Declan
Not a mile down the road after dropping Daphne off in the park, and a pit hardens in my stomach, followed by a sudden onset of nausea. I don’t know what or where, but something's wrong.
Pulling to the side of the road, I leap out and run for the curb, where I wretch.
Fits of dry heaving follow before the world starts spinning and I become dizzy.
Flashes of flaming eyes and a repulsive meth-mouth infiltrate my thoughts.
The wind is sucked from and pushed back into my lungs.
It’s like someone else is breathing for me, and I drop to my knees.
Am I going to die? This can’t be it, not now. She’ll never know what happened.
Finally, as if someone flipped a switch, everything wanes.
I’m not sure how long I sit and deliberate the obscurity of such an event.
It’s the first time anything like that has happened outside of my home.
Sure, I’m constantly reminded of the creature that haunts me at night, but I’ve never experienced such real grief outside my bedroom, when I first wake up from the nightmare.
After a while, I’m confident that whatever passed is over, and I get back in my car and finish the trip home.
Once I reach the house, I make my way to the bathroom to check that I’m okay.
There are no visible signs of damage in the mirror.
No blood vessels have burst. No marks can be seen on any exposed parts of my body.
I fill the small cup I use to rinse my mouth after brushing my teeth and chug some water.
"What in the actual fuck, Declan," I whisper to myself as I stare myself down, searching for that thing to show its ugly face.
It’s been a long day, and most of it was great. It always is when I get to see Daphne. I wish I could make time stand still and hold us in one of those moments forever. I hear that’s how love is supposed to feel.
I’m tired, and although I usually have to work myself up to try to sleep, tonight I abandon my usual routine, assuming that whatever happened on the roadside will be it. Without reluctance, I climb into bed, pull my covers up, close my eyes and think only of her.
Within moments of passing into a deep slumber, the dream begins, as it always does, on a long foggy road. However, I’m not the one traveling through this particular dream. Oh, it’s the same dream, rest assured, but it’s Daphne, a grown adult, who appears in my place.
The dream carries on the same as always. Castle. Stairs. Ghastly demon. It’s precisely the same. She rushes to the basement, just as I always do, and when the vile being rams his blade into her gut like a serial killer stabbing his prey to feel joy, I jump out of bed, screaming Daphne’s name.
For more than half of my life, I have been accustomed to nightmares. As a matter of fact, I can’t recall the last good night’s sleep I had without any ghoulish interruption. I’m generally used to it by now. However, this wasn’t any ordinary nightmare. It was mine.
Why the change?
I try to shake the creepy-crawly feeling off my skin so I can pass back out, but as soon as I close my eyes again, I'm met with Daphne’s image.
The bloody knife protruding from her stomach like a butcher left it wedged into a premium roast while taking a customer’s order.
The look on her face is that of pure helplessness.
Shock. As if all the good in her was siphoned like gas stolen from an abandoned car.
So much for sleeping.
It’s that time again. I’m in the park waiting patiently to see her strut my way.
At this point in our relationship, I have a favorite parking space in front of my favorite bench.
It was on that bench we first got each other off in an impromptu grope-fest. We couldn’t resist one another anymore.
She was wearing one of her short skirts, and throughout our night out she’d made countless innuendoes to the paradise that was waiting for me just above the cut of the fabric.
I probably would have attempted to ravage her in my car, but no couple should have their first truly blissful moment of lust in a beat up old Dodge, regardless of the year in which it was made.
So I drove to the one place I could think of where nobody else was ever around—the bench in the park. My favorite bench.
I arrived, exited the car, and took my usual seat on the bench; I’m five minutes early, a personal goal of mine, one I’ve managed to accomplish regularly.
However, the five minutes pass, and this time I see nobody coming from the shadows; I hear nothing aside from the rustling of tree leaves in a calm evening breeze.
She’s never late. I wonder—
I think I see someone, but it’s only my eyes playing tricks.
Another five minutes pass, and then thirty, and then an hour, and before I realize it, I am met by the sun rising the following morning.
Daphne never showed. This never happens.
Recalling the vivid images from my dream, I’m engulfed in a storm of emotions.
Fear grips me, not for my own safety, but for hers.
Something is terribly wrong. Daphne wouldn't miss our date unless something prevented her from coming. Not after all these years of getting together like clockwork.
I push myself up from the bench where I've been sitting all night, my joints stiff and protesting. The trees and streetlights around me seem different in the harsh morning light. More threatening somehow. Like they hold secrets I'm not privy to.
I take one last look around, hoping against hope that she'll emerge from between the trees with that crooked smile of hers, ready to explain what happened. But I know better.
The next day passes, and I return to the park at the same time. Still, nothing. I return the next day, and the next, and the next, until a week passes. But no Daphne.
She needs my help.
A call to every local police department and hospital bears no results.
Nobody has filed a missing person’s report for Daphne, or for anyone fitting her description for that matter.
I don’t feel like I should file the report yet because the thought crosses my mind that she may only be missing from me.
Is it possible she doesn’t want to see me anymore?
I could cry at the thought. But I refuse to accept a love as real as ours can so easily be discarded. Instead, I decide to take on a seemingly impossible task. I will go door-to-door until I get some answers.
The neighborhood of Legacy is a couple hundred feet shy of two square miles in size.
I know combing through the village won’t be easy, but it must be done.
Starting at my favorite bench, I head in the direction in which Daphne always leaves.
The sidewalk curves around the back of a walled-off yard and leads me to the end of a cul-de-sac.
Every house looks the same. Each one with an off-manila exterior and reddish clay shingles on the roof.
Sure, the front door might be placed a bit differently in relation to the garage, but aside from those tiny details, there's no way to tell which house belongs to a police chief and which one hides a serial rapist.
I walk across the small, postage-stamp front yard of the first house, step onto what I suppose may qualify as a patio and deliver an authoritative knock on the door. After about ten seconds of silence, I knock again.
"I'm coming!" An older-sounding man's voice roars from the other side. A light flicks on above me as the door slowly opens. "Who are you?" the senior citizen asks.
"Hi, sir," I begin, "I'm sorry to bother you, but—"
"I don't want any," he snaps, slamming the door in my face.
"Sir, I'm not selling anything. I just need to find my friend." I knock once more and call out through the door.
The door opens again, and the old man snorts.
"Young man, if you're not a salesman, what are you, a Jesus freak?”
"No, sir," I reply. "I'm just a normal guy trying to find a friend of mine. Her name is Daphne Brooks. Do you happen to know her?"
"What?" he retorts. "Son, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know any Darby, or Dasha, or Debbie." Once again, he closes the door on me.
Convinced he isn't going to help, I move on to the next house, where there’s no answer.
Then to another where the woman who answers doesn't speak English.
It goes on like this for hours. Nobody is home.
Nobody understands what I'm talking about.
No one speaks my language. Eventually, I jot down the address of the last house I visited so I'll know where to pick things back up tomorrow, and head home.
Throughout the night, all I can think about is Daphne and what she must be going through after her disappearance.
The mere thought that something terrible might have happened to her haunts me to the point of shaking.
I barely catch a wink of sleep, and even though I can't say for certain if I'm having a nightmare, it hardly matters. In many ways, I’m living one.
The following morning, I call in sick to work. I'm not really sick. Well, not in the usual sense. I want to keep searching.
I head back to pick up where I left off. I walk to the next street over and start again at the first house, delivering a heavy knock. No time passes before the door flings open.
"Whoa!" A guy, probably in his twenties with a skater vibe, is startled to see me standing on his property. "Where’d you come from, man? How long you been here?"
"Hi," I begin, "I just got here. I’m—"
"Oh," he interrupts again. "You’re the guy, right?" He starts scratching his neck just under the left side of his jaw. "I’ve been waiting for you, man. Where you been? You got the stuff?"
"Huh?" I'm confused by what he's saying. "No, I don’t think so. Why? Who are you expecting?"
"You’re weird, man," the guy says, clearly agitated. "I’m waiting for you, aren’t I? You got it on you, man?" He reaches out and hands me a wad of cash. I don’t even count it.
"Wait," I say, giving the cash back, "I’m not that guy," referring to the drug dealer he’s expecting. "I’m looking for a friend of mine. Her name’s Daphne. Daphne Brooks. Do you know her?"
"Oh, I get it," he exclaims, still scratching. "She’s got the stuff, right?"
"No," I reply, growing frustrated. "Nobody’s got the stuff. I need to find my friend. She's about five foot nine, with light strawberry blonde hair. Gorgeous. Her name’s Daphne. Do you know her, or perhaps where she lives?"
"Dude, if you ain’t got it with you," the guy says with a one-track mind, "then you gotta bounce, bro. I need my stuff."
With this drug addict being even less useful than the old man from the night before, I decide to move on to the next house.
But, it’s no use. I move on, and on. House after house.
Day after day. Week after week. Until I reach the end of the entire village.
Nobody, not a single person, knows who Daphne Brooks is.
Sure, people know who's selling what. Who's sleeping with whom, Who's on parole. Who’s ultra-rich.
But no one can tell me anything that will help.