“What kind of bad things?” I asked her.
Holly caught the smile I’d tried to suppress and glared at me. “Imagine you being the skeptic. You should read your own blog, Draith.”
“I suppose I should, but tell me what you mean, anyway.”
She went on to describe a frightening scenario. In her imagination, strange shadows were being drawn to this spot like insects gathering around a flickering bulb at night. This had all started years ago, she believed. There had been stories…small things at first. People disappeared, but that was not unusual, especially in Vegas. Soon, the disappearances had turned into outright murders—weird ones. These weren’t just simple gangland killings—there had always been people beaten to death with baseball bats, shot and left for dead on the Strip, hookers found in garbage cans—no, this was worse than all that. These crimes were…disturbing, unusual, even bizarre.
“It’s almost as if the city is under—I don’t know, some kind of attack, I guess,” she said.
“From demons, aliens, or evil scientists?”
“You write about this stuff, and you are making fun of me?”
“Sorry,” I said.
We talked on in this vein for another hour. At last we finished our drinks, and I had grown very weary. She let me have the sole bed in the place. She wasn’t tired. She went out into the living room where she had a computer and spent her time on the web. I heard her moving all around the apartment when the door was closed down to a crack. She was probably hiding cash here and there, squirreling it away so no one intruder could get all of it. As I was passing out, she left, telling me she had a few bills to pay.
“Take care of yourself,” I slurred.
She looked surprised, like no one had said that to her in a long time.
I awoke with a start from a dream about a world full of cement walls and shadowy people who resisted illumination despite the harsh glare of fluorescent lights. The shadowy people talked to me, but I could not make out what they were saying.
It was dark again. I’d slept the entire day away. I got up with a bone-weary groan. I wondered why sleeping for great lengths of time made a man’s body more sore than when he lay down.
I felt around for the sunglasses, the gun, and the wad of cash. They were all still there. I was happy about that. I’d taken a chance with Holly, and it had paid off. Or maybe she was too happy with all the money I’d helped gather for her to rob me right off. But I knew her kind. If she ever ran out of cash, that was when she would become dangerous.
After a quick shower and shampoo, which left me smelling overpoweringly fruity, I roamed the tiny apartment. I couldn’t help but smirk when I found a few crumpled twenties stuffed inside the sugar jar and three more tucked underneath the plastic silverware tray. I left them there and made myself coffee.
The fridge had next to nothing in it. I unhappily spooned some orange créme yogurt out of a plastic cup and chewed on a stick of celery filled with peanut butter. It was skinny-chick food, but better than nothing.
I spent the next hour on her computer. I found my own blog quickly. The content startled me. Was I a wack-job, a con man, or a person haunted by the bizarre? Murders, disappearances, and equally alarming reappearances of missing persons were listed. The stories presented were told in a flatfooted, matter-of-fact style. One stood out among them to me, a recent entry.
Heath Anderson was a mild-mannered street person known to this author. He was found in a downtown alley off Garces Ave., burning to death. Covered in flames, the man remained lucid and smiling. Even as the victim’s skin curled, he explained that the fire didn’t hurt. A group of onlookers including myself gathered to help or simply to watch. We tried to splash water on him and beat at the flames, to no avail. The man smiled until the end when he slumped down into a heap indistinguishable from a pile of ash. He remained calm throughout, even gesturing for the crowd to relax. It is unknown if Anderson had relations in the area.
A photo accompanied the entry. I saw a pile of gray ash mounded up against a sooty brick wall. A single item stood untouched in the middle of the remains: a gleaming metal flask. I supposed no one had had the guts to steal it.
Holly came back with a bag of groceries an hour later and froze when she saw me sitting there on the couch.
“You’re still here,” she said.
I looked up. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been awake long. I should have cleared out.”
“No,” she said. “No, no—that’s cool. Did you get some coffee?”
I tipped my mug as evidence that I had.
“I didn’t mean…” she began. “Never mind. I didn’t mean I wanted you out right away. You just seemed like the kind of guy who would take off while I was out.”
I nodded slowly. “I hear you. I’ll be leaving soon, don’t worry.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry. Where are you going to go?”
“First, I’m going to check out my own home.”