Elias - 35 Years Old #4
One bottle of water, well that’s dinner. I twisted the cap free and took a long drink. Tomorrow I'll buy groceries. My phone buzzed against the counter.
Canine Transport Services
Delivery updated: Between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m.
I looked toward the folded dog bed leaning against the living room wall.
"You'll hate the drive," I muttered.
"But the yard should make up for it."
Silence answered. The house still felt borrowed. I looked toward the archive box waiting on the kitchen table. One more look. I sighed.
"Fuck it."
I spread the photographs across the table again. The porch light reflected softly across the glossy photographs. My notebook lay open beside them. A single word stared back at me.
When.
Every disappearance, must have had a time of the disappearance, must have been in the dark but why did no fucking cameras seem to be working between that time.
Coincidence? Maybe. I didn’t fucking believe in coincidence.
I believed in patterns people overlooked.
I rubbed my thumb across the bridge of my nose. The clock on the microwave blinked.
10:41 p.m.
Enough. The files would still be there tomorrow. I gathered everything again carefully, sliding each photograph back into its folder before closing the archive box. The house settled around me with quiet creaks.
SCRAAAAPE…
I stopped.
SCRAAAAPE…
The sound came again. The fuck is that noise. The noise must belong to something heavy and must have been dragged across the gravel to create that sound. Not an animal, too rhythmic, not a vehicle, too fucking slow.
Someone…
Fuck someone was outside.
Instinct took over before thought did. I crossed the living room without making a sound, my hand reaching for my gun as I reached the front window. The porch light illuminated only part of the yard.
Nothing.
Another scrape echoed through the night.
Closer this time. Curiosity won. I unlocked the front door and stepped onto the porch.
Checking my surroundings. Front. Back. Side.
Car. Cool air brushed against my face. The neighbourhood lay mostly dark.
One porch light glowed farther down the lane. Wind stirred the maple leaves overhead.
Another scrape. This time from next door. I followed the sound.
A woman stood in the driveway beside a small hatchback, wrestling with what had to be the brightest suitcase I’d ever seen.
Pink, sparkly and painfully fucking pink.
Putting my gun back in my holster as it bounced over the gravel before refusing to move another inch. She stopped. Hands on her hips. Stared at it.
She was…
Unexpected.
Young too fucking young. Early twenties, maybe.
Twenty-three. Twenty-four at most. Young enough that I almost wondered if she'd taken a wrong turn on her way to a university campus instead of moving into the cottage next door. Shorter than I’d imagined and a bit curvy.
Not the kind of woman magazines put on their covers.
The kind real people couldn’t stop looking at.
Soft cream sweater slipping off one shoulder.
Fitted jeans dusted with gravel near the hems. A pair of heels she was rapidly beginning to regret by the looks of it.
Dark curls spilled over her shoulders in complete defiance of whatever brush she’d attempted to use earlier that day.
The moon caught the black strands woven through the hair resembling white stripes through the hair, making them glow every time she moved.
She was beautiful and not in the polished, intimidating way magazine covers tried to manufacture.
She looked… Alive. Like she’d laughed recently and cried during sad movies.
Like she’d absolutely argue with strangers over whether pineapple belonged on pizza.
Warm and bright, making me almost want to squint my eyes.
“…You’re doing this on purpose.”
Silence. Then she nodded.
“I knew it.”
I frowned. I looked around, pretty fucking sure we we’re the only ones here. The fuck she talking to? She wasn’t talking to herself. Right? She was looking… At two garden gnomes sitting on the dashboard of her car. She pointed a finger toward them.
“No, Gerald, I am not buying the black suitcase.”
What. The. Fuck. Just what I thought, every town has a crazy lady… They’re usually old but looks like the crazy lady of this town is my fucking neighbour. Who the fuck was Gerald?
I blinked once. The woman folded her arms.
“The black one was ugly.”
Another pause. She sighed dramatically.
“Well, excuse me for wanting to sparkle in my life.”
My eyes drifted slowly toward the dashboard again. The gnomes remained exactly where garden gnomes usually remained. Perfectly still, ceramic and expressionless. I looked back at her. She looked completely serious.
“…Fucking crazy people,” I muttered.
She bent to grab the suitcase again. It refused to cooperate. The wheels caught another stone.
THUNK.
She groaned loud enough for the entire neighbourhood to hear.
“I hate you.”
She was talking to the suitcase now.
“I am lifting with my knees!”
Another pause.
“…You’re both incredibly unsupportive.”