Austin looked down at his notes. All the letters, all the words melted together. He thought how weird that was, since he didn't feel particularly tired. It was just, hard to read, that was all.
Then the letters grew squiggly. And then some of them obscenely large.
And then, they floated off the paper high enough to leave shadows below.
Since the file wasn't being cooperative, Austin looked across the desk toward his subject.
The man was grey skinned, and skeletally thin. His boney arms stretched far too long, continuing into long but thin hands, ending with fingers that were literally extended finger bones.
Looking up into his face, the man had only patches of sick, sad hair, over sunken hollows for eyes, a cavity where would normally be his missing nose… …and the widest, toothiest grin that could fit on a face.
Austin wanted to scream but found his voice to be miles away. He turned his gaze to the side of the room.
It was an interrogation room, colored dark grey, poorly lit. On this side, there was one
of those rather large, cliché mirrors found in interrogation rooms in poorly written cop movies.
Austin wasn't screaming, but his reflection was screaming for its life.
The reflection of the grey skeletal man was nude. And his darkness seemed to stretch like a web.
Austin turned back to the real man. "Why did you kill them," he said, the voice coming from the reflection to his left.
There was a silence, as the enormous grin stretched even farther than before. "Well," the skeletal man rumbled, quietly, and yet through every surface in the room, "I'm sure you can figure me out better than I can."
Without effort, almost floating, the grey man stood up straight. Where his phallus should have been, there was a long, jagged blade.
Austin was keenly aware of the blade, pointing at him now, but yet, couldn't stop looking at the man's face. The hollows of his eye sockets, somehow seemed to dip further toward infinite black as the climbed on top of the desk, towering over Austin.
"In fact," the grinning spectre clicked with his toothy jaw, "you've got me in you more than you have you."
The web of blackness stretched over everything in the room, covering the mirror, the exit door, the lights. The grey skeletal man was now the only source of illumination.
"There's almost no you left in there anymore," he breathed, his voice echoed, never ending and filling the room like a present hum.
He buried his chin into his bony rib cage as he thrust forward with his groin, bringing the blade closer. His hollow eye sockets somehow got wider. And seemed to glow blackness.
"Let's cut out the rest," he said, his grin widening with every word.
He thrust forward, and the blade seemed to burst Austin's chest, turning him inside and out, revealing the coldness of nothing within. His distant scream grew from within and drew pain from his mouth.
"AAAHH!"
Austin's eyes went wide, and he was staring at the ceiling of his bedroom. It was dark. Some city lights shone through his window blinds, leaving streaks of light against his opposite wall.
Austin realized he was in his bed. In his bedroom. He couldn't stop gasping for breath. He turned to his nightstand where an old digital radio clock said 2:13 a.m. His head hurt; he was covered in sweat. His body wasn't burst open, it was, of course, in one piece; but he could still feel the chill in his spine. And the heaviness where he felt his chest getting 'stabbed'.
Oh. It was a nightmare.
Just another one.
Just the usual.
He brought one hand to his forehead, to try to steady his throbbing eyes as well as wipe away his sweat. His other hand he let down on his mattress for balance and felt something warm and … plump.
Surprised, he opened his eyes and saw a very beautiful
young woman sleeping next to him. Naked and sweaty herself. And, somehow, still asleep, despite Austin screaming himself awake.
He looked at her pretty face. Saw how much it really turned him on. Remembered feeling that way last night … and then, his spirits sank, as it all came trickling back in, one memory at a time. And Austin knew, from the first one, that he needed a drink.
Flipping his legs over gently so as not to wake her, he sat at the edge of his bed, trying to steady his head. The images of his dream were still there, haunting him. He stood up and, still naked, walked over to the open doorway toward the kitchen.
Somehow, he figured that getting a day job and a certain measure of success in it would help the old memories go away. At least keep his dreams nice a clear, for a change. They didn't even have to be good dreams, he told himself. He was willing to settle just for not being able to remember a dream, every now and then. Just, sleep, then wake up in the rays of the morning sun. Just like everybody else got to enjoy.
No, Austin thought as he crossed his threshold. Not for me. It could be a teen with a slit throat, a cannibal eating itself, or — the new one this evening — a zombie with a dagger-dick. But it was always some new horrible murderer. And always in an interrogation room.
Austin crossed into his kitchen without turning on the lights; he knew where everything was. Somewhere behind him, he heard rustling. It started softly, then went very quickly and loudly, before going silent, followed by a rather loud sigh.
Wasn't hard to figure out: the girl who'd slept through his scream and his accidental touch, somehow woke up to him getting out of bed. She quickly had her where-the-hell-am-I moment, before remembering everything herself. Austin grabbed a bottle of tonic water and a glass, clinking them on purpose so the girl would know where he was.
Austin sighed at the thought of it. The girl. She wasn't literally; she was old enough to be in college. But just barely. Austin, for his part, was thirty-nine, and had just slept with someone who, very possibly, wasn't even conceived when he was eighteen. So, yeah, 'girl' felt right. Austin poured some tonic water. It was stupid, he thought, picking up this girl. He knew nothing about her, other than that she was damn gorgeous, and a real ego booster. But he was skilled enough to know her motivations: the way she was eyeing men with beards or bellies, the way she felt awkward in her 'mature' red dress. Austin could pick her out from a mile away: she had spent way too much time surrounded by overgrown boys, in college, probably high school too, and now that she could, she wanted to have a man. A real, grown man.
There was always the possibility he read her wrong, of course, he told himself. But not likely. He was still pretty damn good at profiling. Even when he wasn't on the job. He stared at the tonic water as its bubbles rose to the surface, reflecting the small amounts of Miami's night-life as it played through the kitchen window. Somewhere behind him, the silence turned to movement as the girl rose out of bed and walked across his bedroom.
In the tonic water, he stared at the bubbles, and remembered the bubbles from last night. Except, they weren't from a beer. They were from a soda, a ginger-ale.
He kept sober last night, Austin realized. The reason he was even out at a bar, looking for women, was because he needed to feel loved, needed to feel strong again. Because Jane, after riding him, after licking him, after using him up every time he opened the door and found her just showing up at his doorstep; she decided, just last week, that she wasn't going to be showing up anymore.
Met a guy. Wanted to make it work. Couldn't be fooling around behind new guy's back.
Wouldn't be fair.
And asked Austin if he found any work yet.
Looking down at the tonic water, he gritted his teeth together, and tightened his hold on the glass so hard he thought he'd break it. She'd asked him if he found any work! He needed that bar night. He needed a hot girl, to feel her. He needed a stiff drink.
And, looking down at the tonic, he realized he didn't have one last night. Not even one.
Not even this one.
"Hi," the girl breathed out, appearing naked and gorgeous in his kitchen doorway. "Y'got any beer?"
It wasn't a polite request. Actually, it came off whiny, almost a bit entitled.
Austin knew it was going to be really awkward if she ever found out he couldn't, for the life of him, remember her name.
"No," he said, smiling at her. "No I don't."
And he meant it. He didn't have any alcohol in the house. In fact, he hadn't had any alcohol in a while.
And he didn't want it, either.
He knew he deserved it. After how Jane treated him, what she said to him, he felt he earned a stiff drink. After a lot that had happened to him in his dreams, he deserved a few. But he didn't want any. And hadn't had any either.
Even the girl's huffy grunt of disappointment couldn't ruin this for him. He'd actually done it.
Despite all odds, he'd stayed sober.
He looked into his glass of soda water and thought about how proud Maria would be.
* * *
Austin looked down into his glass. Filled with tomato juice.
"Seriously," Maria said, walking by him and pointing at his glass, "I'm proud of you and stuff, but, that shit's still gross."
Austin snickered. If this had been a few years ago, this glass would have had vodka, or rum, or beer. In fact, if this was exactly one year ago, it would have been tonic water, on the day he first realized how good it felt to just say no to something killing you.
And now, thanks to that day, it was tomato juice. Yes, it's true, getting rid of the booze once and for all was a huge milestone, and he could have left it there. But the carbonation in those sodas wasn't really doing him a world of good either, he knew, so it wasn't long after he got into the juices.
He wasn't sure why tomato tasted so good to him. But he liked that Maria hated it. "You should give it a try," he said to her, across the room. "If you throw some ice cubes in it, it'll even cool you off."
"None of your bullshit witchcraft," she answered, grinning. "I could crawl into the freezer, it wouldn't help in this heatwave. So don't use it as a trick to get me to swallow your damn berry juice."
"Okay," Austin called out, teasing, "say goodbye to the nice refreshing drink. Bye-bye nice refreshing driiiink," before downing it himself.
Maria just grinned and shook her head. And rolled her eyes.
And Austin just noticed, bit her lip.
The office they were sitting in was C&D Private Investigations, the detective agency that Austin and Maria had started up a few years back. To say it was hot was an understatement, since, in this heatwave, everything was scorching. They opened up every window and had their overhead ceiling fan working overtime, but it wasn't doing much good if everything outside was ragingly hot as well. Plus, it wasn't an office made for great ventilation either. It was tiny, just large enough to fit in their two desks, a little side kitchenette, complete with lousy television, crappy fridge, and non-functioning microwave, and their filing cabinet. Oh, and Maria's computer setup, which, when running, tended to add to the heat.
In other words, everything in there was close. And intimate.
"You got that email from the cheated husband guy?" asked Maria.
Austin put his glass aside and opened up his account on his own monitor. There, was, in fact, an email from Todd Glepman, the, as Maria called him, 'cheated husband guy'. It took forever to get her to stop calling him 'the cuck'.
"Actually, yeah," Austin answered. "Right here, brand new." He started reading, and after a moment, added, "Looks like he sent the down payment. We're on."
Maria sighed, and Austin understood. Part of what made these recent days so unbearable wasn't just the weather, but the monotony. There weren't many jobs recently coming into their inbox, and work had basically ground to a halt. Tax season had passed, there weren't many missing persons cases, and, for whatever reason, people were being very faithfully monogamous of late, because this job from Mr. Glepman was the first cheating spouse case they'd had in ages. The Glepman gig, Austin figured, was going to be a routine investigation of some cheating middle aged wife, complete with photos, but for now, he couldn't help but share in Maria's relief. Anything to get them back into work. The small office was cheap, and they were both good at not splurging. But they couldn't live off of takeout forever. They needed cash, soon. They needed some new cases.
"Can you run a search on Vannah Audrey-Glepman?" asked Austin.
"Mm-hm," Maria casually responded, turning to her computer. Before she got to work, she stretched in the heat. Austin couldn't help but stare as she straightened her arms above her head, and, pulling them further away from herself, leaned her head away and arched her back.
In the heat, she was wearing a tight muscle shirt and denim short-shorts. Arching herself this way, she stretched flat her belly, really lowering her shorts below her belly button, and really pulling her shirt up, flashing the lower line of her breasts a bit.
Flustered, Austin finally looked away, trying to hide his face, which he could feel — somehow, in this heat — getting even hotter.
He remembered how, almost exactly a year ago, the night of his alcohol epiphany, he had also bedded one of the hottest girls he had ever met in his entire life. And certainly, one of the youngest, for a thirty-nine year old fart like him, he thought. But it wasn't hard to soon see that, past the looks, she was an inane college kid, just looking for a quick romp with no real class or character to bring to the table. It was around then, Austin figured, that he came to realize he just didn't have much interest for hot pieces of ass anymore. At least, not unless he could also talk to them like adults. Like a partner.
Which was why he knew not to stare at Maria for too long.
She made a hell of a partner, Austin knew. She had the tech skills that complimented his psych profile training very well. And she had that drive, to want to find the culprit, save the day, all that stuff, that he thought he lost in his own spirit a long time ago. And, although most people thought that C&D Investigations was just their surnames — Castellanos and Drake — alphabetized, Austin Drake knew the real reason why Maria Castellanos' name came first: he wouldn't be here if it weren't for her. She saved him from himself. He owed her everything. She was also, in her own way, a kid. Not literally, she was twenty-nine, eleven years younger than him. Certainly older than that girl from last year. But, still, eleven years younger. Basically a completely different generation, a different way of looking at technology, culture, the road of life. Austin, when he saw her stretch, pull on her shirt, sweat, he would think how damn good she looked, how great she probably looked naked.
Then, he would think of himself naked. And forty. And a recovering alcoholic. And every other demon chasing him.
His parents. His old job. … the slit throats.
No, he thought. He worked so hard to make something of himself, somebody he could look at in the mirror and be proud of. And how much of that came because of what this amazing, loving, caring young woman had done to pull him together. He really did owe her everything.
And she certainly deserved better than to be thrown down on his bed and pumped into for his satisfaction. To be treated like some sort of ego booster. Like some crutch. No, she was a trusted and capable investigator, he told himself, who deserved to be able to build her career by working alongside a man she could count on. A man who would actually be there as a partner.
A real partner.
She'd been typing away for almost a minute — glowing, Austin thought — when her eyes went wide as she stopped and stared.
"Found something," asked Austin. "About Mrs. Glepman?"
"Ummm…" she trailed off. And continued to stare at her monitor.
Austin got curious.
She's rarely this stunned by her work.
"Well… no," she finally answered. "There's something else, here. Live, right now."
"What. What's going on?"
"There's a lot of, uh … Austin, there's a lot of cop cars rushing downtown."
"Downtown? Where?"
"The Gateway. It's a strip joint. And it's not far from here. … Lots of cop cars." She
stared intently. Her jaw slowly started to drop. Austin knew there was more to this if it affected her like this.
She suddenly looked directly at him. "And an ambulance."
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