A Night Without Stars (3 page)

Since Travis was the horror movie guru, I decided to take his word for it. “If someone opens this door,” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth, “and pulls me inside you better have my back. Got it?”

“Got it.”

I felt his hand press down reassuringly on my shoulder and I took a deep breath.

 
Why are you knocking on a stranger’s door after you heard screaming coming from inside, Lola?
The rational side of my brain asked.

Because I can
, the reckless part replied.

I knocked on the door.  

CHAPTER THREE

Travis Doesn’t Listen Very Well

The door swung silently open under the weight of my fist. I jumped back like a scalded cat and bumped into Travis who went flying into a flowerbed. He must have landed on one of the creepy garden gnomes because he released a totally embarrassing high-pitched squeal before he got to his feet and staggered back over to me. From the dim overhead porch light I could see dirt smeared on his left cheek and pieces of grass clinging to his hair. Reaching out I plucked half a petunia from behind his ear and rolled my eyes.

“You would never make a good spy.”

 “That’s because I don’t
want
to be a spy,” he gritted out. “I want to be an accountant!”

“Same thing.”

“It is not the same thing at all! It is the furthest thing… from…. oh.” His voice trailed away. “Hello,” he finished weakly.

I whirled around and couldn’t help but stare. There, standing in the open doorway, was the largest man I had ever seen in my entire life.

He wasn’t large height wise. Rather, he was large all over in the way those wrestlers are on TV. You know, the ones who hit each other with chairs and make lots of grunting noises. His hair was white blond and slicked back from his face with some kind of oil. A leather jacket, totally not PETA approved, enveloped his upper body and came all the way down to his knees. Gold rings flashed on his hands when he crossed his arms in front of his barrel-sized chest and growled, “Can I help you?”

Surprisingly it was Travis who recovered first from the initial shock of seeing a real life giant. “We – uh – heard a weird – uh – noise and we’re just – uh – ”

“Why are you not in your houses?” the man interjected, narrowing blue eyes that were only a few shades darker than ice.

When Travis’ mouth gaped open and closed like a fish gasping for air, I took over. “Where is Mr. Livingston?” I demanded.

“I am Mr. Livingston.” Giant Man grinned, revealing gleaming white teeth that I instinctively flinched away from. I was trying to look him in the eyes, to show him I wasn’t afraid even though his ham sized fists could do some serious damage to my internal organs, but for some reason it physically wasn’t working. I could gaze into his ice blue eyes for half a second before something in my brain short wired and I had to look away. Within seconds my head was throbbing to beat the band and my stomach was doing greasy flips. The man’s smile widened.

“Would you like to come in the house?” he asked, gesturing broadly with one tree trunk sized arm. “You and your companion are not looking well.”

“What?” I gasped in disbelief. Did the guy think I was an
idiot
? Not that I could really blame if he did. After all, we’d started our little adventure by trying to hotwire a care and now we were standing on a complete stranger’s doormat facing down the most likely candidate for an axe murderer I’d ever seen. “Of course we’re not going inside, who do you take us for complete –”

“We would love to come in,” Travis said.

“What?” I repeated, although this time it came out as more of a strangled yelp. I tried to grab Travis’ arm but he shook free with surprising force and walked straight through the door.

“Travis Robert Henderson, you get out here THIS MINUTE!” I yelled after him.

 The man in the leather jacket laughed, winked one blue eye at me, and said, “He is gone now, little girl.”

I didn’t like the way he said ‘gone’. It wasn’t a ‘gone to the store and he’ll be right back’ kind of gone. It was a ‘he has moved to a different country and you’ll never see him again’ kind of gone. I took a wary step backwards. The man’s eyes narrowed. It was a faint movement, almost imperceptible. I retreated another step. His upper lip curled.

“You do not want to come in the house with your friend?”

I noticed his grin was a little more forced now. He almost looked… confused. As if he couldn’t understand why I had not followed Travis through the doorway. “You come out here,” I challenged, spreading my arms wide. “You want me? Come and get me.”

He didn’t like that. One booted foot stepped across the doorway. I braced myself, ready to run, but with a hiss of pain he snatched his foot back. Tiny curls of smoke swirled up from the leather toe.

“What the hell…” I breathed, staring at his boot. He snapped his teeth like a feral dog and again they glinted in the moonlight. This time I saw why.

Silver. He had fangs of silver.

I recoiled with a little shriek of alarm and landed hard on my butt. “TRAVIS!” I cried desperately as I scrambled to my feet, knocking garden gnomes over left and right. “TRAVIS, GET OUT HERE!” My heart was pounding like a drum inside my chest. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Didn’t
want
to believe it.

Grinning lewdly, the man ran his tongue across his top lip in a provocative gesture that turned my stomach. “Best run along home, little girl. You cannot save your precious Travis now.”

“Who are you?” I demanded. I almost said ‘what’ are you, but I stopped myself just in time.
Take it easy, Lola. He’s just a freak with fake teeth. Get a grip.

“I have gone by many names. I have been many things. Come inside,” he coaxed, his blue eyes filled with cunning. “Come inside and I will tell you everything you want to know.”

I actually took a step forward before I stopped myself. Part of me
wanted
to go to him. Part of me yearned to walk right into the house and the let the door close behind me. That was his power, I realized with a shudder. To create action with a mere suggestion. To coerce with an idea. That was why Travis had gone so willingly into the house. In his mind, there had not been a choice.

“I’m calling the police. I’m calling the police and they’re going to come and arrest you.” I dug my phone out of my pocket and dialed 9-1-1. The man slouched against the side of the doorframe and watched me, his expression bored.

“Hello?” I said when I heard the click of someone answering my call. “I need to report a – um – a kidnapping! At – uh – 233 Turner Street. There is a man here and I think he’s dangerous and he–”

The laughter cut me off. It cackled through the phone, raising every hair on the back of my neck. A woman’s laugh, high pitched and cruel. When the laughter stopped she whispered one word before the line went dead.

Run
.           

CHAPTER FOUR

Cowardly Lola

I ran.

I left my best friend behind and I ran for my life, not stopping until I reached my apartment complex. Gasping, shuddering, retching up long strings of saliva, I doubled over and clutched my knees. The ugly, six-story brick building I’d called home for the past eighteen months loomed in front of me. There wasn’t a doorman or a concierge, just an old keypad that didn’t work and a thick metal door my key always got stuck in.

My dad and I lived on the third floor in one of the smaller units, not that there were any that could be considered big. I heard shouting as I climbed the stairs – if you thought for a second there was an elevator, you haven’t been paying attention – but instead of frightening me the raised voices, one male, one female, were reassuring.

Tara Yates in 2B and her dirt bag baby daddy fighting again. It was annoying as hell, but it was normal and right now I wanted normal more than anything else in the world.

The familiar smell of cigarettes and cat piss followed me down the hall as I reached the third floor, nursing a side cramp and a seriously dry throat. My dad was sprawled on the sofa with the television on mute when I stepped inside our cramped, four room apartment. We greeted each other like we always did: he with a grunt, me with sullen teenage silence.

One of the best things about having a dad who didn’t give a shit was that, well, he didn’t give a shit. He also didn’t notice things, like the fact that I was sticky with sweat and covered in dirt from when I’d fallen during my mad sprint through the darkness.

I closed the door behind me. Locked it, just in case. My eyes adjusted quickly to the dim lighting, allowing me to see that the apartment was a mess.

No big surprise there.

Cartons of takeout food sat on every available flat surface. The tan carpet was coated in a layer of grime no vacuum cleaner known to man could remove. The chair next to the dilapidated sofa my dad had picked up for free on the side of the road was stacked three feet high with old car magazines.

Normally coming home to such a disgusting mess would have turned my stomach, but since my stomach was already flipped nine ways to Sunday I didn’t even pause to yell at my dad for not using a coaster for his beer can before I sprinted past him and into the kitchen.

It was worse in here. The linoleum counters were barely visible beneath random piles of crap. The sink was full. Something white and slimy was congealing on the stove. I didn’t see any of it. My attention was on the phone hanging up next to the wheezing refrigerator. Yanking the black receiver off the wall I dialed Travis’ home number and closed my eyes.

About three blocks away from the Livingston’s house – and whatever the hell that thing was inside it – I’d tried to call Travis, but I must have dropped my cell. I should have gone back and looked for it. Hell, I should have gone back for Travis. But I didn’t. I didn’t because I was a coward, and I was afraid – no, I was
terrified
– of what would have happened if I stayed a second longer.

The desire to go inside that house… It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. It pulled at me from the inside out, and I knew if I hadn’t left when I did I wouldn’t have been able to leave at all.

The phone rang once. Twice. Three times—

“Hello?”

I clutched the receiver to my ear so hard the back of my earring dug into my skull. “
Travis
?” I said incredulously. “Is that… Is that you?”

“Yeah. Who else would it be?”

I was rarely at a loss of words, but for once I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. “But you… At the house, you… That guy… How did… What happened?”

A long pause, and then: “What are you talking about, Lola?”

I bobbled the receiver. Almost dropped it. “Are you serious right now?” I hissed, darting a glance out into the living room to see if my dad was listening. He wasn’t. “You went into the house, Travis! You stupid moron. How could you
do
that? Who was that guy? What did he do? What did
you
do? How did you get out?” One question tumbled out on top of the next as I struggled to make sense of Travis’ calm, detached tone.

Why wasn’t he doing the weird, breathy whine he always did when he was really upset? Why wasn’t he freaking out?
Why was he pretending like nothing had happened
?

On the other end of the line Travis laughed. He
laughed
. And this time I really did drop the phone. I picked it up in time to hear him say, “…was Mr. Livingston. He saw what we were doing in the car and he was just playing a prank on us. No big deal, Lola.”

“No big deal?” I sputtered. “NO BIG DEAL? Travis, that—”

“Could you keep it down?” Dad yelled. “I’m trying to watch Jeopardy!”

He bumped the volume on the TV up a few notches. I bumped my voice down.

“Travis, I don’t think that was Mr. Livingston.”

“Then who was it?”

“I don’t know. I DON’T KNOW!”

“Lola…” Dad’s tone held an unmistakable warning. He took Jeopardy! very seriously, even though he was always too drunk to get the questions right.

I tried again, forcing myself to whisper. “Something was wrong with him, Travis. Did you see his teeth? He had fangs or… something.”

“Fangs? Come on, Lola. I think the adrenaline from trying to steal the car got to your head. He was messing with us. That’s all.”

“But we heard that scream—”

“That was all part of the prank. Listen, I should get going to bed. It’s late, and we have SAT prep in the morning, remember?”

A prank? Was that really all it was? Somehow I didn’t think so. “Travis, listen to me,” I said urgently. “When I tried to call 9-1-1 this woman picked up the phone and she sounded crazy and she… Travis? Travis, are you there?”

He was gone.

For the first time since we became best friends in the second grade when I stole his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, prompting him to burst into tears and me to give him the noogie of all noogies, Travis had hung up the phone on me.

I walked back into the living room in a daze. My head still throbbed, and my right knee burned. Glancing down, I saw I’d ripped a hole in my (sort of) brand new jeans.

Great.

“Dad, can I talk to you for a second?”

He didn’t even look up. “Can it wait until the commercial?”

I perched on the edge of the chair overflowing with magazines and waited. Some woman was trying for the double jeopardy, but time was running out.

“Do you have an answer?” Alex asked.

“No,” the woman said sheepishly.

“What are the Rocky Mountains.”

“Dumbass,” Dad said. It didn’t escape my notice that
he
hadn’t attempted to answer the question either. Turning the volume down to a dull roar, he set his beer aside, sat up on an elbow, and squinted across the room at me. “What’s up?”