Black Water Tales: The Secret Keepers (2 page)

Please stop
, she begged silently.

The pump grew savage in response to her weak cry for mercy; it was in her stomach now swimming around. The alcohol fought with it, but was no match for what was now in her thighs causing them to tremble. Her eyes plucked open and were set on the dark cherry wood dresser that sat underneath the window and drew her to it. She stood in front of the billowing blue and white drapes and stared into the dark hills. There was something coming, in the dead, deep dark of the night, there was something coming. Nikki stared and could not see it, but she could feel it. She opened the top drawer of the dresser and pulled out a pair of white lace underwear that she had recently purchased. Nikki held the underwear up in front of her inspecting the lace that had never been worn; she then pulled out the other three pieces of new underwear, which left none behind. Balling them up between her palms, she sulked out of the bedroom and went down to the large garbage can in the kitchen where she shoved them as far down into the trash as her arm would reach. When she was done, she stood lifelessly over
the trash can in wait of the calm that would tame the wild wretch inside her and allow her to sleep through the night.

The driver of the shiny black car cursed the endless potholes that dotted the parking lot of the Backdoor Bar, which was positioned in a no-man’s-land on the outskirts of Johnson City. After pulling into a parking space, neither too close nor too far from the front door, Natalie Weston put the car in park and pulled down the visor in order to study herself in the mirror. Using bright red lipstick, she re-coated her pursed lips, then rubbed them together, ensuring that her face art was perfect. Matching red fingernails combed through her hair, then adjusted the black lace bustier top of her fitted dress to make sure that her cleavage sat at its highest. When her primping was done, she emerged from the car and broke into sultry strides toward the door.

Cigarette smoke stung her eyes as she entered the den of usual suspects and rugged outcasts. The exotic-looking, ample-bodied young woman immediately drew all the attention. Her dark hair fell down below her naked shoulders in soft curls and her alluring dark eyes, which sat under sleepy lids, crawled over each of the few patrons. The bar occupants had fallen under the temporary trance of the seductress that released them only once she passed them by, on the focused journey toward the object of her intentions. He would be waiting at the bar, but beyond that detail, her knowledge of him was slim. She needed not know much about him; it was unnecessary and, in fact, sometimes got in the way.

At the bar, there were only four men from which to choose. One was wearing jeans, a dirty T-shirt, and a baseball cap.

Nope
, she thought to herself as she passed.

The next man was wearing a wrinkled business suit, his tie had been hastily loosened at the neck, and his head rested crookedly on his palm over a watered-down whiskey.

“No”
, she whispered, moving on to the third man who wore a crisp, white-collar shirt and dark, pressed-denim jeans. It was he and there was no reason to go any farther.

“You must be Carl,” she said as she slid unto the bar stool next to the bald man who could have easily been ten years older than her.

“Lola?” he said. She smiled. “You’re beautiful.” His traveling eyes made their journey halfway down her body before he caught himself.

“Gin and tonic with lime,” she said to the bartender in a voice so melodious it almost sang.

“Nice place you chose,” her date joked, eyeing the smoky carcass of a shack that may have once been a nice bar.

“Thank you.” Her inviting eyes beamed. “It’s not much, but I like it,” she went on.

As it usually did with the salivating deviants that she met on raunchy dating Web sites, the date went by in a wanton wash of liquor, and after a couple of hours the pair burst into room 17 at the Star City Motel that sat only blocks from the Back Door. They moaned in arousing attempts to rip the clothes from one another as they clawed ferociously. With one zip, her dress hit the filthy shag carpeting, he pushed her down on the bed and the two invited each other with erotic glares before he pounced on her and they succumbed to a perverse passion that ended in the deep howling of both wretched animals. Their chests heaved up and down under a layer of carnal perspiration and they could see only the cunning outlines of the body of the other in the strip of light, hued by the red neon sign, that filtered through the gap between the scratchy drapes. She dismounted the man like an injured horse, no more good for racing and immediately he became part of her history.

“Why don’t you stay awhile?” the old horse offered as she stepped into her black costume.

Looking up, her eyes settled despondently on the stranger that was speaking to her.

“I don’t even
know
you!” Her facial expression disintegrated to aggravated disgust. After shoving her underwear into her purse, she disappeared into the night.

T
he Towers apartments were usually dismal at this hour on Sunday nights, but tonight it was especially so. Regina despised the fact that the garage at her apartment building was so lightless. Also, she hated that she had not purchased a reserved parking space for the extra $100 per month, particularly on nights like tonight where the closest parking spot still left the elevator too far for her to feel completely comfortable. As she did every time she was forced to park too far from the elevator she resolved to spring for one of those coveted parking spaces when the leasing office opened in the morning. She heaved her duffle bag from the trunk and looked up to make sure that the security cameras were watching her as they were supposed to. She was relieved to see the red light of mechanical life beating a pulse. Her footsteps sounded bristly on the dirty cement. A car door slammed somewhere in the parking lot, she turned casually but saw no one and heard nothing more; the elevator was closer now. Regina looked into the lens of the upcoming camera.

No red light
.

“Awesome,” she whispered sarcastically. Regina stopped and turned cautiously at the sound of quick-paced steps, but once she made herself silent, her immediate surroundings mimicked her silence. She shook her head, benignly attributing the footsteps to the auditory deceptions of an overworked nurse. Surely, her sense of hearing was deceiving her, but still her stride picked up incognizant speed. The elevator was deceptively close. Regina pressed the elevator button multiple times, staring into the thin black rift between the elevator doors, willing it to come faster.

Hurry
. Her inner voice summoned the dangling metal box as the pressure built against her abdomen walls. Now she was nervous; she had to pee.

Again footsteps tapped on the ground and whispers echoed off the cement walls of the parking tomb. Regina was not hallucinating. She waited impatiently for the hanging carriage to come to her rescue. The young nurse scrutinized the level full of parked cars of all colors and sizes and she felt small, as if she were just a piece in an insignificant game.

Ding

The elevator sang announcing its, by Regina’s standards, tardy arrival. She slipped inside before the doors were fully open. Her finger pressed 18 over and over until the doors began to close with a leisure that seemed unfair. The scene of empty cars condensed from her view with every passing second, when one strong hand inserted itself swiftly between the almost-closed doors; Regina was startled by the hand and her own cry. She pressed her back hard against the far wall of the elevator, but the brawny hand did not belong to the monster that Regina pictured. The clean man of average height came into full sight. He was normal or at least he seemed so, the same way that Dahmer, Gacy, and Bundy must have appeared to numerous people who then dropped their guard only to have their foolish trust dashed brutally back into their own faces. Calming blue ocean eyes lurked behind his brown-rimmed eyeglasses. Despite the fact that it had not rained in Texas in weeks the man seemed wet.

“Hey,” he greeted her as he shuffled clumsily into the elevator.

“Hey,” reluctantly, she responded. Remembering the old adage of her college roommate who was adamant about campus safety,
stranger danger
, she would always say. The concept was completely new to Regina, a girl who came from a town where hardly anyone was a stranger, where even the strangers were not strangers due to the less than one degree of separation that was prevalent in towns like hers.

In one hand he grappled with a black suitcase that he finally got to lay against one of the elevator walls, he pressed 25. Regina’s stomach flipped. On the twenty-fifth floor there was a gym, a place to play billiards and a self-serve coffee bar among a few
other amenities that entertained the young professionals that paid a ridiculous premium for the superficial diversions, but there were no apartments on twenty-five. She squeezed her thighs tighter together to relieve some of the pressure that sat in her pelvis. One by one, the numbers on the panel flashed to life as they ascended past each floor into the purple sky. The stranger appeared almost as nervous as she; Regina could tell from her sporadic glimpses at the potential psychopath. She noticed that something sat at his side, moving and making short excited noises and she finally gave into a conspicuous investigative stare to find that he carried a tiny puppy. Subtly, the watching man held the puppy out an inch more for the expected adoration, a tactic, Regina had learned from countless television shows, to disarm the unsuspecting victim. A cold Regina turned her attention back to the numbers that seemed to light themselves sluggishly now. The stranger swept two of his fingers underneath his glasses to wipe moisture from his cheek. His depraved eyes swept over her body from head to toe with skillful precision and she swallowed hard.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen
. She counted off the last three floors silently. Regina tightened her grip on the duffle bag strap that hung over her shoulder. Through the opening doors, relief tumbled into the steel box like an avalanche covering her completely. Moving out of the elevator, she felt safe until she heard the floundering behind her. Abruptly, he had decided to abandon the elevator. Regina turned to face the man in the desolate hallway; so close to her front door.

“Hey,” he called with a bizarre lull. He was standing in the hallway with one foot keeping the double doors from closing. This time Regina did not respond she just eyed him carefully and rooted her feet into the carpet positioning herself for a fight.

“Are you on television or something?” he asked, still drowning in the culpable perspiration.

“No”

“Oh, you look like an actress or something.” He moaned, trying hard to keep the conversation moving. Regina was not charmed, it was 10:15 p.m. and she was just returning home after
a long shift in the ER, the last thing that she looked like was an actress, unless she was playing the bride of Frankenstein. The seconds felt like hours as they watched each other like two boxers trapped in the ring.

“No” Regina confirmed.

Deciding at once to be the decision maker, she took several steps back, then turned and began rapidly treading down the hall toward her doorway.

As she came to the corner of the hall, she heard him yell again.

“Hey!” His voice chased and her quick stride became a frenzied gallop that carried her to her door at the end of the hall. She had her keys in hand, but had trouble unlocking the door while still watching the corner, waiting to see the shadow of the stranger emerge and catapult toward her. Her eyes toggled back and forth from the far corner of the hallway to the silver doorknob until the pinnacle moment that she felt the lock release and the door glide open. Within seconds, she was slamming the door behind her, forcefully throwing the locks, then racing to the bathroom.

Regina decided that first thing tomorrow she would talk to security about the strange man and then head straight to the leasing office for a parking space, but she knew herself and by tomorrow she would probably have reasoned that the parking space was just a waste of money and the stranger was just an awkward man doing a very bad job at coming on to her.

Considering she was never home, her apartment was immaculate that night as it usually was. She poured a glass of wine then put a frozen meal in the microwave to heat. Regina plopped down on the couch and flipped on the TV, falling asleep before getting out of her scrubs or having her late night dinner. Regina woke up on the couch several times before deciding to make the exhausted journey down the hall and bury herself in her queen-sized bed.

Two bulky, black plastic bags sat next to one another on the muddy forest ground. An array of voices filled the spaces between the trees in uneven, rhythmless tones, along with the sporadic
feedback from two-way radios. Emerging seamlessly from the fog, Regina found herself running. Her feet pounded the pavement in a stable beating sequence alongside the sound of her pulsating heart thudding against her chest. Taking long elegant strides, she could feel every part of her body.

Classical music began to fill the brisk fall air, dramatically drumming with its fantastic highs and lows to an orgasmic climax, invading every corner of her confused mind. More thuds fell rapidly on the highway behind her; someone was chasing her. Beats came faster and faster, from her heart and from two sets of hunting and hunted feet. Reducing her speed by even a second, to turn and look back was something she dared not do; there was no time. Just ahead at the edge of the forest, yellow-raincoat-draped police officers trailed in and out of the woods that sat east of the highway.

Please turn around, please look up and see me
, Regina thought, frantically trying to invade the thoughts of the focused police officers.

Regina took particular note of the trees and the way they sat, she observed the details of the highway. A deer crossing sign sat just beyond the metal railway that guarded drivers from gliding off of the cement and into the creek and there was a single bullet-hole at the bottom left corner of the bright yellow warning that had been there since she was a child. Her heart dropped as the grisly realization set in that this was the highway that guided people into the town of Black Water.