Stalker Problems - Chapter 7 - Literally Dying
"Okay, weirdo, let's say they did inject you with something. What are your symptoms?" asked Chastity.
I lay back on my couch and put a pillow over my eyes. I was too young to die. There were still so many smoothie flavors I had to try. "My head hurts. And my teeth. I think I have a cavity."
"Which tooth?"
I pushed my tongue against my front teeth. "My front ones."
"What?” Chastity pulled the pillow away from my face. “How would you even get a cavity in your front teeth?"
"I don't know. Maybe that's a side effect of being injected with embalming fluid."
"They definitely did not do that." Chastity plopped onto the couch next to me as she scrolled through more articles on WebMD. "You'd be dead."
"I wish I was dead. It would be better than suffering through this slow, painful torture. What else would cause head and tooth aches?"
"I don't know. You look it up." She tossed me her phone.
I bobbled it like a hot potato and sent it flying back at her. "I can't."
She just stared at me. "It's pretty simple. You just go to the symptom checker..."
"Oh no, I definitely know how. I'm just not allowed."
"Says who?"
"My mom. Sophomore year I had a mole on my head. I looked it up on WebMD. The next day I had scheduled appointments with a dermatologist, oncologist, gynecologist, and podiatrist."
"Podiatrist?" asked Chastity, sounding more shocked than I’d expected. "Aren't those people that molest children?"
No. That’s a pedophile. "I guess if a kid with a foot fetish went to one it could get a little sketchy, but generally, no. Anyway, who knows what would have happened if my mom hadn't stepped in. I think I would have just made them amputate."
"Your head?"
I shrugged. "I was convinced it was the only option.
" And it still might need to be done. My hand wandered up to the little bump on the back of my head.
The dermatologist had assured me it was just a normal mole, but I had a feeling she was lying.
It was definitely skin cancer. And it had been haunting me for years.
"Alrighty then," said Chastity. "Maybe it's best if we log out of WebMD for a bit and attack this from a different angle. What possible reason could they have had for injecting you with something?"
"To murder me. God, I should have listened to my gut.
Creepy letters that keep showing up unexpectedly have serial killer written all over them.
" My stalker was definitely involved in this. I hadn’t been in my normal spot on Tuesday, so he must have freaked out and gone full serial killer on me. I knew he was nuts.
"Okay, that's one option. What else?"
"To kidnap me. Redheads are probably a hot commodity in the human slave trade in Casablanca."
Chastity shook her head. "Unlikely. Highly unlikely. With over 14 million Berbers in Morocco, redheads are actually quite common there. I'd put my money on natural blondes being worth the most."
"Since when do you know about the demographics of Morocco?"
"I mean, it's kind of impossible to fully grasp the geopolitical climate of Northern Africa without studying the Berbers."
Where the hell is this coming from?
"And I’ve heard the Berbers have really big dicks."
I nodded. Now it all makes sense. "Back to the topic of my impending death.
What if they're using me as a guinea pig for some new drug?
Any minute now it'll probably kick in and I'll suddenly think I'm an orange and start peeling myself.
" Actually, now that I think about it...
I kind of do feel like an orange. I pulled on a strand of my hair and looked at it.
Orange! I let go and blew it out of my face.
"If you were their lab rat, they'd need some way of following up. As far as I can tell, they have no way of getting you to ever come back. Especially now that you're pissed at them for injecting you."
"Maybe they just didn't think it all the way through."
"So they didn’t consider basic things like that, but they took the time to make elaborate letters and envelopes? That doesn't make sense."
"Okay then, genius," I said. "What do you propose they injected me with?"
"Maybe it was some sort of relaxing serum. For all we know that's a perfectly normal part of a Moroccan massage."
"Shouldn't you know that, Miss Berber Facts?"
Chastity rolled her eyes. "Berbers are nomads, not wax techs."
"Okay, then you'll have to trust me. Injections are definitely not part of a Moroccan massage. They lured me there for a reason..."
Chastity snapped her fingers. "That's it!"
"What?"
"The letters. The Society. It all goes back to that. If we can find information on the Society, then we'll know what they're up to."
That was actually a good idea. I ran over to my laptop and googled the Society .
The first result was for something called The Society International , which the website claimed was a brotherhood created by a New York Times bestselling author.
The site was fairly vague, so at first I thought it might be it, but then I noticed that the branding didn't match the letters. The font wasn’t the same, and there was no sign of the logo that had been pressed into the wax.
And there was nothing about injecting innocent women with random drugs.
The next link went to the homepage for a branch of the Church of England.
"I think that's them!" said Chastity.
"The Church of England?"
"Yeah. They lured you to the spa so they could molest you. Those filthy podiatrists."
I stifled a laugh. "First, that's Catholics. Second, podiatrists deal with feet."
Chastity scrunched up her nose. "Ew. I knew they molested little boys, but I didn't realize they were foot freaks. That's just sick. Jesus would not approve."
"It's good to know that Jesus draws the line at foot fetishism.
Moving on..." I clicked back to Google and went to the third result, which brought me to the website for some hoity-toity NYC modeling agency.
Forcing women to get bikini waxes was most certainly something they did, but I doubted it would be performed in a seedy Moroccan spa.
Their models probably got waxed while sipping on Mimosas in a penthouse.
More importantly, I was me. I was awkward, short, and had a big ass.
Not exactly model material, even if I did believe I could rock it on the runway in my yoga pants and sneakers.
I scrolled through a few more pages of results and then kicked my chair back from my desk. "It really would have been helpful if they’d picked a more specific name than the Society. "
Chastity tossed her phone on the couch. "Yeah, I didn't find anything either. I think that's kind of what they were hoping for."
“What else do you know about the Society?”
“I’ve just heard rumors. Some say that it’s a secret sex club at the top of a skyscraper.”
“One57?”
Chastity shrugged. “Other people claim that the Society rents out places to have wild sex parties. And some people even claim it’s an international organization. Really, the only thing that’s clear is that it’s super exclusive and super secretive.”
A lot of help that is. "I need to call my doctor." I hated doctors. But the situation was dire. They could have given me Ebola. Blood could start pouring out of my orifices at any moment. Do people ever confuse Ebola with having their periods? I felt like I was going to be sick.
"Are you okay?" asked Chastity. "Oh no, do you think you're an orange? Whatever you do, do not peel yourself." She jumped up and grabbed a coat out of the closet. "Where's the duct tape?"
"Why do you need duct tape?"
"I'm making an emergency straitjacket. Just sit tight..."
If I hadn't been freaking out about the Ebola coursing through my veins, I would have giggled at her unintentional pun. "I'm not going to peel myself. I was just thinking about Ebola and periods."
"Oh thank God. I mean, that's a horrible comparison. But I'm glad you're not going to peel yourself."
"Right. Back to doctor calling." I looked down at my phone and was about to scroll through the contacts when I saw the time. 7:30. "Shit!"
"What's wrong now?" asked Chastity. She had found the duct tape and looked to be about halfway through making a definitely-not-functional straitjacket with my winter coat. "I promise your front teeth can't get cavities."
"I'm going to miss my stalk...spin class."
"Did you say stalk? Oh no. You think your Jack and the Bean Stalk fantasy is finally coming true. It's not. I repeat: do not climb out the window. There is no magic beanstalk." She frantically taped the second sleeve shut.
"Chastity, I appreciate your concern, but I'm fine.
Some spinning is just what I need to clear my head.
" Really I need my stalker. I bet he would know exactly how to handle this situation . Especially since he was probably the one behind the injection. Dirty stalker. He was probably waiting for me to appear tonight at 8 o’clock so he could kidnap me.
And the injection was some kind of slow-release sedative.
God, he was seriously deranged. He was definitely going to cut me up into little pieces as soon as he got me back to his lair.
No. Bad fantasy. I tried again, convincing myself he could help me instead of hurt me.
He probably had a private doctor at his beck and call.
Or maybe he had a fancy medical pod like in those sci-fi movies.
He'd just tell me to lie down in the pod and it would scan my body and know exactly what was wrong.
There was no time to daydream about that, though. I was going to be late! Just the thought of it made my front-tooth cavity flare-up.