Chapter 7
That is, until I heard my voice shouted nearby. "Oh my god! Liz!" I heard Tiffany cry out.
I opened my heavy eyelids and was presented with a view of a lovely alley. Gone was the bedroom scene, and my lover, but back was my clothes, albeit a little ruffled as though I slept in them, and a little stained because of the damp alley. There was a thin layer of snow over me. Tiffany stood in the mouth of the alley, and in a moment my friend's shadow fell over me. She knelt by my side and looked me over.
"Are you hurt? What happened?" she asked me.
I shook my head, but that only made me dizzy. The light-headed feeling hadn't quite worn off yet. "I-I don't know. I thought I saw that guy and I followed him into the store, and then-" My mind remembered the details of the encounter and shut my mouth up as my cheeks reddened. "And I'm not sure. I guess I must have been daydreaming and walked into the alley and fell or something."
"Or something? Liz, hurrying after a strange guy and walking into an alley doesn't sound like it's just a 'something,'" Tiffany argued.
"I'm fine, really," I countered. I tried to stand, but my jello legs wobbled and toppled beneath my weight.
Tiffany caught me under the arms and glared at me. "Fine, huh?" she wondered.
I sheepishly grinned at her. "Maybe it was the Italian food," I suggested.
"Oh no, you're not blaming the Italians nation on your stupidity," she argued.
"Well, whatever it is I don't think I can stand, at least not yet," I told her.
Tiffany glanced around at the beautiful decor. Rats, trash, dark-brown puddles. It was all the usual trappings of a five-trash can alley. "Oh no, we're not staying here," she insisted. She slung one of my arms across her shoulders and hefted me to my feet. "You know, I'm getting really tired of carrying people like this," she quipped.
"Believe me, I'm not happy to be doing this, either," I returned. Tiffany escorted me out of the alley and around the corner to the front of the abandoned furniture store. I dug my heels into the ground and pointed at the darkened windows. "This is the store I walked into! He was in there!" I told her.
Tiffany glanced at the dank, dusty displays, and raised an eyebrow. "You went in there?"
"Well, he went in there and the door was unlocked, so I followed him," I explained.
"Let me see," she replied. She directed us toward the door and tried the handle. It didn't budge. "Well, it looks like it's shut now," she commented.
My shoulders sagged and Tiffany grunted as I added more weight to her load. "Well, they weren't locked earlier," I insisted.
"We'll check it out later. For now let's get you home," she suggested.
Tiffany got us back to the block where she'd parked her car. We were given a few strange looks, but like in most cities people assumed we were strange and left us alone. After a few minutes we reached the car. Tiffany shoved me into the passenger seat and took her own behind the wheel.
Tiffany turned to me with a deep frown and a heaving chest. Neither of us was entirely in shape. "Hospital or home?" she asked me.
"Home. I'm not dying," I replied.
She looked me up and down. "No, but you can't walk and you said you were having hallucinations about that guy," she pointed out.
"It was not an hallucination, I really did see him," I protested. "You must have seen him, too. He passed right by our window."
Tiffany raised an eyebrow and slowly shook her head. "Nope."
"Well, maybe you weren't looking."
"I was. He didn't pass by. Besides, didn't you say you followed him into the store, and I found you in the alley?" she reminded me.
Okay, things were getting too strange. I slid down in my seat and rubbed my temple. "You know what, I don't know what's going on, but a little sleep will go a long way, so can we please go home?" I pleaded with her.
Tiffany sighed, but started the engine and directed the car in the direction of our apartment building. "I still think you should go see someone," she muttered.
"I'll think about it," I replied.
I didn't have any intention of seeing a shrink because my mind was rummaging through my memories, or hallucinations, or whatever they were, and finding pieces to this strange puzzle. The man, incu-thingy, whatever he was, told me he wasn't natural, that he was a creature of lust. Either my mind was really horny and was actually giving me hallucinations of sexual encounters with a stranger, or something happened and I was the victim of a weird, supernatural creature. If it was the first suggestion then I couldn't help myself, but if I believed the part about him being real and a monster then I needed my computer and a couple of cokes to get me through a long night of research.
The night was still relatively young when Tiffany and I rode the elevator to our floor. My legs were no longer shaky, but Tiffany's faith in my being alone was experiencing earthquake-size tremors. "You want me to stay with you tonight?" she suggested as we stepped out of the elevator.
I shook my head. I didn't need any help for what I needed to do. "No, I'll be fine." She looked at me with a mixture of pity and doubt, and I rolled my eyes. "I'm only having one of these hallucinations a day, at most, and today's been taken," I pointed out.
She was only slightly consoled. "All right, I'll leave you alone, but lock yourself in your bedroom if you have to," she suggested. Little did she know how safe a place that was for my hallucinations.
I plastered a fake smile on my lips. "Sure thing," I agreed.
We parted ways and I hurried to my apartment. It was silence and dark when I entered, but a few minutes later there were lights and my computer was working its magic trying to find info on this incu-thingy he mentioned being. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but only in reference to some old band. I hadn't realized it actually meant something until my search results came back with, well, results.
I sat down at my computer chair with a pop in hand and peered at the screen. The first result was a definition. "'An incubus is an imaginary demon or evil spirit supposed to descend upon sleeping persons, especially one fabled to have sexual intercourse with women during their sleep,'" I read aloud. I leaned back and the color drained from my face. If that wasn't what had enticed me into that creepy, dusty old furniture store then I don't know what was. I could strike the imaginary part out and put an emphasis on the sexual intercourse.
Now that I had my creature, I wanted to find out how worried I should be about his infatuation with me. After a bit more searching I found an article on the subject of incubus, and the pop can in my hand violently shook. I read aloud the contents just to make sure I wasn't imagining the words.
"'An incubus may pursue sexual relations with a woman in order to father a child. Religious tradition holds that repeated sexual activity with an incubus or succubus may result in the deterioration of health, or even death,'" I whispered. I leaned back in my chair and gulped. Loudly. As flattered as I was that I'd been chosen as a bride to an immortal creature, this wasn't exactly my idea of how I was going to die. There were worse ways, but I figured I was a little too young to be going anywhere.
I stood and paced the room, taking periodic swigs of my caffeinated drink. This was just too much. This was insane. Hell, maybe I was insane. Maybe I needed to take a step back and reevaluated my mental well-being. Maybe I needed to stop making a hole in the carpet, and take a breath. After all, I didn't have proof either way that I was hallucinating or that I was being pursued by a creature bent on having sex with me until I died.
I stopped my pacing and rubbed the back of my neck. My fingers bumped into something that my hair covered. I frowned and rubbed the spot. It seemed to be a slight depression in my skin. I hurried to the bathroom and glanced in the mirror. My eyes widened when I beheld the marks of a pair of lips on my flesh. The marks were small, as though the lips had given the barest touch, but it was definitely lips. I could see the swirls of the prints, and there was a top and bottom
separated by a thin line of my flesh.
I admit my first reaction of panic wasn't such a great idea, especially when I dropped my pop in the sink and flung myself at my medicine cabinet and bathroom supplies. I grabbed every available bit of soap, shampoo, skin lotion and moisturizer, and applied with diligent, if reckless, enthusiasm. The result was my skin was rubbed raw by the numerous chemicals and countless hand clothes used to scrub said chemicals into the flesh. Yet the mark still remained. If I wasn't a believer in what happened to me before, I sure as hell was now.
I slumped down onto the toilet and clutched my head in my hands. "This can't be happening. This can't be happening," I repeated over and over, hoping that by clicking those shoes I could go back home to normalcy.
No such luck, and to make matters worse my neck was really sore. I had to think of a way out of this. I just needed to stay calm, lock myself in my apartment all weekend long, and see if something came to me. That would solve all my problems.
Or at least I hoped so.