15. Damien
Damien
Luci had insisted she wasn’t tired. She’d made it exactly fifteen minutes, just long enough to cross the town line. I glanced over just in time to watch her head slowly tip toward the window. She blinked once, twice, then surrendered. A tiny sigh escaped her as sleep claimed her completely.
I smiled to myself. It filled me with satisfaction that she felt comfortable enough to fall asleep with me. Her knees were tucked toward the dashboard, one hand curled beneath her cheek. Strands of dark hair spilled across her face, rising and falling with every slow breath.
I’d spent the evening watching her laugh, watching her run, watching her feed crows and look at my family’s park as though she’d stumbled into magic… now I watched her sleep.
For reasons I couldn’t quite explain, this somehow felt even more intimate than when we were tangled limbs and breathless kisses. She trusted me enough to fall asleep beside me. She simply closed her eyes and knew I would get her some safely.
The GPS quietly announced the next turn.
Continue for twelve miles.
I rested one hand on the wheel while the other tapped lightly against the worn leather.
The farther we drove, the quieter the roads became.
Streetlights gave way to old stone walls.
Pumpkin displays. Farm stands long since closed for the night.
New England looked different after midnight in October.
The GPS chimed again.
In one thousand feet, turn right onto Hemlock Circle.
Hemlock Circle.
I couldn’t help smiling. Luci had punched her address into my phone’s GPS before we left the park, but I didn’t know until this very moment the name of her street.
The neighborhood was small. There were Cape-style homes tucked beneath towering maples, mostly every yard was decorated for Halloween.
She must love living here, I thought to myself.
Ghosts swayed gently from tree branches, plastic gravestones lined front yards, and one house had enough orange lights I swear it had to be visible from space.
Then the GPS spoke again.
You have arrived.
I looked up. Number thirteen. Of course.
A laugh escaped before I could stop it.
“Thirteen Hemlock Circle.”
I looked from the numbers on the mailbox to the house itself.
It was a small white Cape with black shutters.
There was an orange porch light glowing above the front steps.
And in the front yard were two skeletons.
One had to be twelve feet tall, the other was just a few feet shorter.
Their bony fingers were linked together as though they were taking an evening stroll.
Between them trotted a skeleton dog with an oversized grin.
I leaned back in my seat and chuckled. It was perfect.
Two weathered gargoyle statues guarded the front steps like silent sentries. Black mums overflowed from planters beside the porch. It looked like her. Spooky, but welcoming.
I switched off the engine and silence settled in the car. Luci hadn’t moved. I walked around to the passenger side and opened the door as quietly as I could. Cool night air drifted into the car and she stirred just enough to wrinkle her nose.
I smiled. Leaning down, I brushed the back of my fingers gently along her arm.
“Hey, Luci.”
Nothing.
A little louder.
“Good morning, little bird.”
Her eyelashes fluttered. God was she pretty.
“We’re here, baby,” I told her.
The term of endearment slipped out as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
She didn’t say anything coherent but answered me with a sleepy little, “hmmph.”
“I was going to carry you inside but I can’t if your front door’s locked,” I told her. “And I hope your door’s locked.”
She frowned thoughtfully, as though solving the world’s most difficult puzzle.
“The…” A yawn interrupted her. “hide-a-key…”
“Mhm?” I waited for her to finish her thought.
“under…” she paused again and sighed sleepily.
“Where’s the key, little bird?” I said gently trying to coax the answer out of her.
“Under Jason,” she said.
I blinked. There’s no way I heard her right.
“Jason?” I repeated.
“The gnome.”
She was asleep again before the sentence finished.
I laughed quietly. “Of course.”
I eased the passenger door shut and wandered until I was on the side of the house.
Sure enough, nestled in a raised bed of little sugar pumpkins sat an entire collection of horror-themed garden gnomes.
Freddy, Ghostface, Michael Myers, Pennywise, and, the man of the hour himself, Jason Voorhees.
I crouched beside the hockey-masked little psychopath and lifted the ceramic figure.
Covered in soil was a gold key. I picked it up, brushed the dirt off of it and made my way back around her house.
I unlocked the front door and then carefully returned the key beneath its terrifying little guardian.
When I returned to the car, Luci hadn’t moved. I slipped one arm beneath her knees, and the other around her back. She melted against me before I’d even lifted her fully from the seat. Instinctively, her arms slid around my neck and she nuzzled into the crook of my neck.
“You smell good,” she murmured.
The front door opened with only the faintest creak and warm air wrapped around us immediately. The house smelled like vanilla candles, old books, and something baking earlier in the day.
“Hallway,” she mumbled.
A sleepy finger pointed vaguely to the right. I followed the narrow hall until I got to the end. Two doors waited, so I looked in the one that was open the most.
“Wow.”
It wasn’t her bedroom and it was so much more than her office.
It was a love letter to horror. Vintage movie posters covered the walls and shelves overflowed with worn VHS tapes.
A black coffin-shaped bookshelf reached nearly to the ceiling, crammed with novels whose spines had clearly been loved.
Developed photographs were pinned to corkboards.
Every inch of the room told the story of someone who had turned passion into a career.
I wanted to walk inside. I wanted to spend hours asking about every poster, every tape, every photograph she’d ever taken. But, instead, I looked down at the woman sleeping against my chest. Maybe later.
The second room was unmistakably hers. There were deep charcoal walls and heavy velvet curtains.
Candles, unlit now, rested atop antique furniture.
A massive black four-poster bed dominated the room, draped in sheer fabric that hung like shadows from the ceiling.
It looked less like a bedroom and more like a vampire had hired an interior designer.
I crossed the room and lowered her carefully onto black silk sheets.
She barely stirred. I knelt long enough to untie her Vans and slipped them gently from her feet before setting them neatly beside the bed. One loose strand of hair had fallen across her face. I tucked it behind her ear, then leaned down and placed a soft kiss against her forehead.
“Sleep well, little bird.”
I turned to leave, but warm fingers wrapped gently around my wrist. I stopped and looked down at her. Her brown eyes were only half open, still heavy with sleep. She didn’t tug, she didn’t plead. She simply looked at me.
“Stay.”