"Really? You just had to do this?" I asked aloud, and was glad there wasn't a reply.
The room was a mess. The bed was completely flipped upside down, the two nightstands were toppled onto the floor, and my only lamp was broken. The drawers to my dresser were on the floor and all my clothes were scattered across the room. I picked up a lone piece of underwear and sighed.
"Why can't terrifying phantoms be a little cleaner. . ." I muttered as I got to work cleaning up the mess.
I finished the folding, flipping, and cursing a half hour later, and was left with another mystery. There was one piece of underwear missing, and it was one of my skimpier articles. My eyes narrowed and I ground my teeth together as a thought hit me.
"Osman," I growled.
He'd been in here for a few seconds snooping around. The flatterer probably took the underwear as his payment.
I grumbled the entire time I slipped into my nightshirt and shorts, got into bed, and rolled over. My curses upon his bloodline were still on my lips as I drifted into sleep.
CHAPTER 5
Beep. Beep. Beep.
My eyes creaked open and I glared at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It showed the time as six-o-freakin-clock in the morning. Time to get up and hate the world.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. "Why can't I have a normal schedule?" I muttered.
The health clinic ran seven days a week because insanity didn't take a break, or that's how we joked in the office. I worked the Tuesday through Saturday shift, so that morning was my Friday morning. The end of my work week. The long waking hours. The big day.
I got dressed and trampled down my wooden staircase to the ground floor. There was no sign of any more boiling eggs, no newly connected cable TV, and definitely no phantom menace. There was the annoyance of not having my favorite breakfast, scrambled eggs, for the start of my day, but another trip to the grocery store after work would solve that problem. Well, provided another one of those things didn't follow me.
I grabbed some toast and walked the two blocks to the bus stop. It stood on the corner near Bellamy's Grocery. The crowd at the stop wasn't as big on the weekends as the weekdays, and I got a nice seat in the middle of the bus. I put my purse in my lap and looked out the window at the passing city.
The ancient townhouses gave way to new residential apartments that towered over the streets. There was a Starbucks on every corner, an internet cafe close by, and a bagel shop in-between. I happened to glance at one of the corners as we sailed through a green light and something caught my attention. Or rather, someone.
It was a man of thirty-five with skin as pale as a sheet. He wore a simple black polo shirt with dark blue jeans. He stood against the corner building with his arms at his sides and watched my bus drive by with a glare on his face. I swear his crystal-blue eyes were even on me, but it was hard to tell because the whole moment was over in a flash. The bus moved on, but I had a harder time.
I turned away from the window and shuddered. Something about him gave me the creeps, and I was reminded of Osman's accusation against me. That any one of those things could look like a human. That guy looked only mildly human, and the way he looked at me was definitely not normal.
I was still unsettled when the bus came to my stop a half hour later. The bus had traversed the commercial district with its high-risers and mega-corporation office buildings, and entered a part of the city with some greenery. My workplace was built on a newer section of the city where there were still parks every few blocks, trees on the sidewalks, and the houses were a picture of suburbia. The mental health center sat between the new and the old, and catered to both.
I stepped off the bus and looked over my workplace. It was a three-floor white-colored office building with a long-term residential wing to the left. The parking lot was filled with a mix of cars that were owned by the patients, families of the patients, and the employees. You could tell which ones were the doctors by the year of the vehicles. The newer the year the more likely it belonged to a doctor, especially one who'd just finished paying off their medical school student loans after twenty years.
Two pairs of sliding doors that opened to a sort of chamber made up the entrance, but they didn't wouldn't work until the place opened in a few minutes. I used my key to open one of the doors and locked it on my way into the front room area. The front desk lay on my right with a sitting area to my left. The wall in front of me had a single door that led into the rest of the building, including the residential wing. The doctors liked to have control over who could come and, more especially, who could leave.
It was ten minutes till eight when I slid behind my desk at the front counter. My coworker already sat at her desk to my right. We were the first line of defense for angry phone calls, angry visitors, and angry patients. The second line was the orderlies and the doctor with the sedative.
"Rough night?" my coworker asked me.
Vera Stevens was a woman of forty-five with the patience of a saint and the anger of a woman scorned. Her fuse was slow to light, but when it did you prayed you weren't on the receiving end. She'd worked as a nurse and office manager for twenty years and knew her business. She also made it her business to learn everyone else's business, at least as far as it concerned the clinic. A tired or agitated employee had a high likelihood of transferring those vibes to patients, and once the snowball got rolling there was no way to stop it except with a cabinet full of sedatives and a lot of apologies to family members.
That was definitely not something Vera wanted to deal with. Ever.
I smiled at her and shook my head. "I just had a bit of a scare, that's all."
She raised an eyebrow. "What kind of scare?"
If I told her the truth I'd exchange my comfortable seat at the front desk for a padded room behind that door. "With a-um, a barking dog. It just wouldn't shut up."
"And that scared you?" she wondered.
I shrugged. "I'm not really a fan of dogs." That part was true. We had a mutual hate-hate relationship where a dog would growl at me and I would snarl in return.
"A bad experience?" she guessed.
"Lots of bad experiences, but it's no big deal, really," I insisted. "Besides, it's just one more day until my weekend and then I promise I'll get a long, peaceful, rejuvenating rest."
Vera opened her mouth to reply, bu a swoosh in front of us caught our attention. We looked to the sliding doors and watched the one on the right closest to us slide shut behind a man of about thirty. He wore a white suit with a blood-red tie and black dress shoes. His hair was a dazzling red color, his skin was ghastly pale, and his eyes were a dark blue.
He turned to the front desk and flashed a bright smile. "Good morning, ladies," he greeted us as he walked over to the desk.
Vera stood and smiled at him. "I'm afraid we're not quite open, sir, but if you'd like to wait a few minutes we would be glad to help you."
"Actually, I'm just a little lost," he admitted as he leaned on the raised counter. "I had planned to meet a friend last night, but he never showed up."
Vera pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. "Where did you plan to meet?" she asked him.
"Over on two-hundred and seventh street a few blocks from the small grocery store on the corner," he replied.
I jerked back and my eyes widened. That was my street, and the grocery store he talked about could only have been the one owned by Bellamy. The man turned his dark eyes on me and suddenly his bright smile wasn't so bright.
"What's wrong?" he asked me as he leaned over the counter. There was only a very short foot and a half between us. His dark eyes studied me like Osman had studied me during his fit of paranoia, and his words made my blood run cold. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
My shaking hands gripped the edge of the desk and I leaned away from him. "I-I wouldn't know," I answered.
His smile widened into a grin. "No, I suppose you wouldn't."
"Really, sir, this is most unusual," Vera spoke up.
The
man pushed off from the desk and stepped back towards the doors. "Sorry about that. I really thought one of you could help me. Thanks for your time, and have a good day."
He swept his arm over his chest and bowed his head towards us. I noticed his eyes fell on me for a long second before he turned away and left.
"You should be more careful with the door," Vera scolded me as she walked around the desk to the door.
"But I didn't unlock it," I swore.
Vera grabbed the handle and pulled. The locked door didn't open. She blinked before she furrowed her brow.
"How strange. It is locked," she concurred. She shrugged and unlocked the door. "Well, I suppose it was open just a bit. Anyway, it's time for us to open."
Vera brushed off the incident like it was an accident, but I'd had too many strange accidents lately to take it as a glitch in my life. I sat down to a long, tense day of waiting for the next trouble. The day didn't disappoint.
CHAPTER 6
The clinic closed at the usual five o'clock, and by that time the sun was low in the eastern sky. Other then some of the residential staff who rotated out of their shifts at odd hours, the office staff was always the last to leave. I shut down my computer and pulled on my coat. The unsettling feeling I'd had all day was still in the back of my mind as I grabbed my purse and slung the strap over my shoulder.
Vera flipped off the lights and cast the room in dark shadows. Only a few emergency lights and a single bulb over the doors prevented us from stumbling into the furniture and over the rugs. Vera and I met at the doors and, as usual, she appointed herself the last to leave and shut the doors behind us. She locked the door and it rattled when she tested it.
"Nice and firm," she approved. She pocketed her key and turned to me. "I hope you enjoy your weekend, Miss Runa."
"I'm sure I will," I replied.
We went our separate ways, Vera to her car and me to the nearest bus stop. My feet clacked against the sidewalk as I walked the half block to the bus sign. A small glass shelter with a few metal benches stood on the sidewalk in front of the bus stop. It was dinner time on a Saturday night so the area was empty. I sat down on a bench and looked up in time to see the street lights flicker on. A cool breeze blew some leaves past the open front of the shelter.
I shuddered and gripped the collar of my coat tighter around my throat. "Nothing scary about this place, Enid. You've sat here a hundred times without anything going wrong. . ." I murmured to myself.
Those hundred times weren't the day after a hair-raising close encounter of the paranormal kind. A noise behind me made me swivel around. There was an alley behind and to the right of the shelter. A can rolled out of its dark depths and onto the sidewalk. It came to a stop when it clinked lightly against the side of the shelter. I stared between the can and the darkness, and it stared back.
The darkness, that is, not the can.
I jumped to my feet and stepped back towards the road. The darkness really did stare back. A familiar pair of red eyes peered from the black depths of the alley. A figure floated from the side street and the closest street light illuminated its shadowy cloak. The phantom from last night. Osman hadn't destroyed it.
My heart picked up the tempo to a roaring flamenco as I stumbled away from the tall, cloaked figure. Its eyes narrowed, and as it floated towards me it stretched out one of its pale hands. I retreated a few more steps and one of my heels slipped over the edge of the sidewalk.
A horn blared, and the phantom and I whipped our heads down the road. The bus barreled towards me and the driver honked their horn. I stepped out of the way and narrowly avoided becoming an integral part of the grill. The bus screeched to a stop and the door opened. The lady bus driver glared down at me.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she snapped.
I looked towards the alley. The phantom was gone, but I still felt the chill down my spine. I jumped onto the nearly-empty bus and took a seat in the back. My window faced the sidewalk, and I peered into the side street. I swear a pair of red eyes glared back at me, but the bus pulled out before I could, or wanted to, confirm it.
I slid down in my seat and sighed. I was safe, at least for now, but I wanted my underwear back from Osman. His destruction of that phantom had lasted less time than a politician's promise. I pulled my purse onto my lap and opened it too look for his card, but the bus gave a sudden jerk as the driver made a quick brake.
"What the hell?" she growled. She swung open the door and scowled at someone at the bottom of the steps. My heart quickened as I wondered if that person wore a cloak. "What the hell do you want?" she snapped at the invisible person.
A tall, familiar figure appeared over the front seats and stepped into the walkway between the seats. It was the pale, unsmiling man from earlier that morning. He didn't reply to the bus driver's angry question, but placed a few coins in the box beside her and took a seat in the middle of the bus.
I sank down in my seat and peeked around the side of the one in front of me. The man stared straight ahead, but at my peeking he turned his head just a smidge in my direction. It was enough for one of his bright blue eyes to stare at me. The color drained from my face and I pulled back out of sight.
I bit my lower lip and tried to think of a plan. Calling the police wouldn't have worked. I didn't have any concrete evidence against my pale stalker. Getting off at a different stop was a no-go because he'd follow me, and if he caught me I'd be farther from my home.
That left only one, regrettable, choice. I rummaged through my purse and found Osman's number. I dialed the digits and pressed the receiver against my ear. The line on the other end rang.
"Come on. Answer it," I hissed after the second ring.
After the fifth ring Osman's voice came over the speaker.
"Good day, you've reached my phone. I can't come to the phone right now, but if you'd leave your name and number after the beep then I'll try to get back to you. Maybe."
Beep.
"Osman?" I hissed. "This is Enid Runa. I met the phantom again, and now this pale guy's been following me all day and he's on the bus. If you could get your butt to the Bellamy Grocery store two blocks from my house I'd really appreciate it."
I hung up and peeked around the seat in front of me. The man stared straight ahead, but I couldn't ditch the feeling that he was staring at me. It felt kind of like the third eye on a mom. I pulled back and glanced out the window. I had a long thirty minutes left before my stop, and I hoped Osman was waiting for me there.
My heart beat a loud, quick tune the entire time, but somehow I got to my stop without having a heart attack. The bus slowed down and I jumped to my feet. The pale man was already on his feet and halfway down the aisle. He stepped off the bus, and for a second I pondered staying on the bus until the next stop.
"You getting off or what?" the bus driver growled.
'Or what' was an option, but the bright lights of Bellamy's Grocery signaled to me a safe-haven, and definitely some help. I hurried down the aisle and onto the dark sidewalk. The pale man was nowhere in sight. The bus pulled away, leaving me with little choice but to hurry to the sliding door of the grocery store.
I grasped my purse and rushed down the sidewalk. The area was completely deserted, and several of the street lights flickered overhead. Others were completely dead, and the long shadows of night leaned out from around the corners of the block and behind every garbage can and stack of broken crates. My eyes flitted to and fro in search of danger, but the pale man had completely vanished. I hoped I'd find Osman out front, but he was also a no-show. Still, my heart beat a little slower when I stepped into the warm glow of the store.
Mr. Bellamy stood at his cash register and smiled at me. "I told you not to eat all those eggs," he scolded me.
I hurried up to him and glanced over my shoulder. "I think I might have a bigger problem than a stomach ache," I told him.
He frowned. "Why? What's wrong?" He looked past me at the door. "Is someone following you?" he gu
essed.
"I don't know, but-" I froze when the pale man strode through the door. He looked around and his gaze fell on me. My eyes widened when he turned and walked towards us. I slipped behind Bellamy and peeked around him. "That guy's following me," I whispered to him.
Bellamy frowned. "Why?"
I shook my head. "I don't know."
The man reached us and looked at me with his cold eyes. "Come with me," he commanded me.
Bellamy crossed his arms over his chest. "I think you need to leave, sir," he ordered the newcomer.
"Please don't interfere. I don't want to hurt you," the stranger warned him.
"I think that's enough. You get out-" Bellamy drew out his bat and took a step towards the stranger.
The stranger ducked and sprang forward. He grabbed onto Bellamy's arm in two places and tossed the grocery store owner over his shoulder. Bellamy flew a few yards and skidded that many until he crashed into a display of oranges near the door. My old friend groaned, but didn't get up. The man turned to me and reached out for me.
"Come with me now or-" 'Or' came sooner than he expected as I noticed a black shadow fly through the crack in the closed sliding door.
The shadow turned to the stranger and me, and its thin body bloated until it resumed its wide cloaked form. The phantom. Its burning red eyes glared at me. It flew over Bellamy and reached out with both its clawed, pale hands.
The stranger spun around and pushed me behind him. He pulled two familiar scraps of paper from his jeans pocket and clasped them between his fingers. The man threw one at the creature and it sliced through the air like a dagger. The phantom dodged the dagger-like paper and crashed into the stranger. The stranger pushed me aside and they tumbled past me, a mess of dark blue and midnight black. The stranger ended up on the bottom with the phantom's cold claws wrapped around his neck.
I didn't know the guy but I knew the phantom, and I knew I definitely didn't like him. I looked around for something to use against the dark creature, and my eyes spotted the other scrap of paper with the writing. I snatched the paper from the floor and raced over to the pair. The phantom's cloaked back was turned towards me, but it paused in its murder attempt and glanced over its shoulder at me.