Chapter 5
I ate dinner, went to bed, and woke up the next morning with a more resigned attitude. If my fate was to be alone then I'd need to make the best of it, and that included not moping for the rest of my life. Moping just wasn't my style, and it made my back hurt from being so droopy. I drove to work and arrived with plenty of time to spare. My cubicle awaited me. I plopped down in my chair and turned on the power to the tower, but was slow on the dark screen. I reached out for the power button and pressed it in just as I saw the face of the stranger reflected in the screen just over my shoulder.
Wait, what?
I swung around, but I was alone. I swiveled again and stared at my computer. The screen was on now, but I swore I saw his face in the machine.
I clutched my head in my hand and sighed. "Don't start hallucinating now," I scolded myself.
"What was that?" came the unwelcome voice of my boss. I swiveled around to find Lenin standing in the entrance with his cute eyebrows crashed down and his cold eyes narrowed.
"Um, just talking to myself," I replied.
"About hallucinations?" he questioned me.
I sheepishly smiled and shrugged. "Just a trick of the screen," I told him.
He wasn't amused. "Do I need to remind you that any dangerous medical conditions not reported to the company could result in your removal from your position?" he asked me.
"No, sir, but I was just joking with myself," I insisted.
"Then keep those kind of jokes to yourself and get to work," he ordered me.
"Yes, sir," I replied, and he marched off to harass somebody else.
When he left I stuck my tongue out at his empty spot and turned back to the screen. There was still the same old desktop still waiting for me to get to work. Ah, the drudgeries of a paycheck. My only consolation was it was Friday and Tiffany had promised me that dinner tonight.
The phantom taste of Italian in my mouth got me through most of the day. At mid-afternoon I was visited not by three spirits, but by a spirited young lad of eighteen with a smile so bright and a face so handsome I wondered how he avoided all the cougars in the office.
"Hi, Liz," he greeted me.
"Hey, Johnny," I replied. Johnny was his name, and his game was go-fer for our floor. If there was a menial task to be done he was the guy to get it done. We ran him as hard as a rental car, but he kept that smile on his face and that adorable innocence in his heart.
"Mr. Lennon asked me to pick up some documents from you. Are they done?" he wondered. He was probably the only one to call our box by his real last name.
I nodded at a stack of papers on my desk to my left. "Knock yourself out."
He smiled. "I'll try not to." He picked up the pile and hurried out of there.
I smiled and shook my head. Poor kid, he'd someday learn that all his hurrying would only give him sore feet. I returned to my work a little bit more chipper.
Twenty minutes after five found me in the lobby of my apartment building. I recalled Tiffany's promise to meet me at the elevator on our floor, and decided to have some fun with her. I took the stairs and as I approached our floor I slunk toward the door and landing leading to my stop. If I timed this right I could sneak up behind Tiffany and turn the tables on her little spook joke.
However, I was the one still in for a scare, and it happened on the landing. The stairs were built so they weaved a tight, looping square up the building with each floor having a landing and a door for emergency exits or, in my case, to cause mischief. As I rounded the corner and garnered a view of the landing to my floor I glimpsed a shadow on the wall beside the doorway. The way the shadow was positioned the person must have been standing on the turn above my head and to the right. I froze, fearful Ackerman was doing his rounds of the fire escape stairs. It wasn't against the rules to use them, but I was sure he'd see my purpose was for mischief rather than convenience. Grumpy old men had a way of seeing fun and ruining it.
I paused on the stairs and hunkered down. The shadow didn't move, but there was no way they couldn't have heard my footsteps on these hard, echoing stairs. The landing and doorway were only five yards off, but I waited for them to move up or down to decide my plan of action. The shadow seemed to turn to me so it was a silhouette, and I saw it was the outline of a man. The silhouette seemed to stare down at me for a few moments before it shrank into the wall.
My blood ran cold as two problems were presented to me. The first was the person's feet made no noise as they retreated, but even a mouse would make a noise on those steps. The second was that the shadow really did seem to shrink into the wall, as in get smaller and smaller until it disappeared into some invisible hole between dimensions. I was entranced by the disappearance and slowly walked up the stairs with my eyes firmly on the spot where I'd last seen the shadow.
I reached the landing and the wall, and cautiously pressed my hand against the spot. Nothing. It was as solid as anything else in this old place. I glanced behind me at the stairs that led to the next floor. Nobody there, and I didn't hear any footsteps. It was as if the shadow had been the only thing that existed, and then it decided to slip into nothingness. I wrapped my arms around myself as that idea left a chill over me.
"Boo!"
I screamed. It was a nice, loud, clear scream that reverberated up and down the stairwell, and maybe into the old copper pipes. I spun around and found Tiffany standing behind me with her hands pinned to her ears.
"Don't do that!" I scolded her.
She snickered. "Sorry, I didn't know you were that into the wall. What were you staring at?" she asked me.
"I just thought I saw somebody," I told her.
Her eyes flickered between me and said wall. "On the wall?" she wondered.
"On the stairs, and I was just, well, I was just looking at the wall when you snuck in," I explained.
She raised an eyebrow. "Uh-huh, and while you were looking at that you totally missed the creaky door opening like it was a thousand years old and my loud footsteps?" she argued.
I shrugged. "It was an interesting shadow," I defended myself.
Tiffany rolled her eyes, grabbed my hand and pulled me through the door. "Well, I don't think it's an interesting wall, so how about we get you out of those clothes, into something more comfortable, and out on the town for some spaghetti," she suggested.
I changed into jeans and a blouse shirt, and Tiffany drove me to the new restaurant near the downtown shopping district. It was one of those fancy shopping strips with the boutique shops mingled with large furniture stores filled with items that cost more than my monthly paycheck. As we sat eating our faux-authentic Italian food Tiffany bombarded me with questions.
"You know, you haven't been acting like yourself since we met that guy," she pointed out as she slurped up a noodle.
I shrugged and picked at my linguine. "I just kind of felt something the first time I saw him. Maybe it was love at first sight," I suggested.
She snorted. "You mean like in all those Disney movies?" she teased
"It could happen," I defended.
"Yeah, in the movies, but I'm trying to be serious here. What about him has been bothering you?" she persisted.
I sighed, cupped my chin in my hand and glanced out the window. Our booth had a great view of the street and all the people walking by. It was Friday night, and that meant the roads and sidewalks were congested with cars and people. There were young and old, singles and couples strolling by engrossed in their own little worlds. The couples interested me the most. They all looked so happy together walking the streets arm-in-arm. "Maybe I thought I'd found the one," I admitted.
"Found the one? After knowing him for a whole half an hour?" she pointed out.
I turned and glared at her. "You're the one asking, I'm just telling you what I think is wrong," I snapped.
"Well, I think you need to get over him. If he really did care about you he'd be trying to get a hold of
you before now. Besides, somebody that cute probably has a half dozen girlfriends waiting in the wings," she argued.
"I thought you told me he gave off creepy vibes," I reminded her.
"Yeah, but a blind woman could see he was cute," she argued. She paused and tapped her chin. "He actually kind of reminded me of your boss, that McCarthy guy," she told me.
"Lennon," I corrected her.
"Yeah, well, they're both cute and I wouldn't want to date either of them," she explained.
"That guy was nothing like Lennon. My boss acts like a dictator, that guy we met-"
"Who we knew for only a half hour," she reminded me.
"-was at least nice enough to be grateful for our help," I finished.
"Yeah, maybe," she reluctantly agreed. "But did you ever wonder what he was doing in that alley? He said he got in a fight or something and he wasn't hurt too bad, but I swear I saw some blood stains or something on his shirt. When I tried getting a look at him in the rec room I couldn't find any. Weird, huh?"
I choked on my mouthful of pasta. "You noticed that, too?" I asked her.
Tiffany raised an eyebrow. "You mean I didn't hallucinate it?" she wondered.
I shook my head. "No, unless we both did. Maybe it was the lighting in the alley," I suggested.
"Maybe, but I think that was part of his creepy vibe. That, and how he didn't even tell us his name," she added.
"We didn't tell him our names," I reminded her.
"That's different, but I don't know why we're talking about this guy at all. He's gone and I doubt we're going to be seeing him again," she commented.
I sighed and looked out the window again. "Yeah, probably-" I froze. A familiar face had caught my eye. It was him, that strange man of my sensual dream, the one we'd helped from the alley. He strode by the window without turning his head, and he slipped through the crowds so effortlessly it was as though they parted for him.
I jumped from my seat and raced for the door. I didn't want to lose him, not again.