Aston's Story (Vanish #2) (3 page)

5.

My hand bobs in the blue water of the pool as it shines
brightly beneath a glaring sun that’s hot against my sweaty back. My shirt’s
bundled beneath my face as a makeshift pillow, my other hand lays over the
empty bottle of wine I was supposed to share with Auna. I don’t remember coming
home, really, and the first image that returns is the dead eyes holding
themselves open while blood runs into them. I shut my eyes, against the sun and
against the haunting memory, forcing through the sweet recall of Auna’s naked
body, sprawled out in the poolhouse. I see my cum on her ass turn to red and
find her eyes bloodshot and blank, her forehead spilling blood from a central hole.

I lift myself off the cement surrounding the pool and
struggle to shift over towards the grass. The puke rises like lava through my
esophagus until it bursts from my lips into the perfectly manicured lawn. It
pauses, then surges again. Christ, I haven’t vomited in a while. I forget how
searing the pain can be. As it passes my teeth, I can’t seem to purge the
blending of memories with it, my mind torturing with maggots, blood, pus, and
decay adorning the exquisite body of Auna. I have to scream and throw the
bottle against the side of the pool house before I can even consider collecting
my thoughts. It shatters against the wooden doorframe and the shards collect in
the bush.

I stand here staring for a while. Could be a minute, could
be the day. Time’s out of my hands right now, the headache beats against my
skull with a rhythm I can’t get rid of. No sleep, no coffee, no hair of the dog
suffices it. I get the chills.

Blankets wrap me in a bundle on the couch while I watch the
sunlight slip away through the glass doors. Night comes with rain, which
showers over the glass and distorts the world outside. It pains my eyes staring
through it, like wearing the wrong prescription, my vision warped to its will.
I can’t make out much through it, but I think I see something.

Shit, there’s someone there. I see a figure, hovering over
the pool.

Goddamnit, Aston. I take a deep breath, realizing it’s a
branch.

I haven’t eaten. I’m wired now. Exhausted, and inexplicably
alert. I want to make it stop, but nothing I do helps.

Time races past me, then pauses, and races again.

This night and this storm last forever. I keep thinking I
see things in the rain. I keep seeing Al, or that dead man, or Auna, or the
bikers that sold me the package. They’re coming to get me, they know a good
thing when they see it. They’re going to kill the rich boy and ransack his
mansion while his family is away. I see their scarred leader, the ravines in
his face tracing a lineage of violence, he’s hunting me. I gave him his money
for the package, every dollar I had to my name. It’s not enough. They know my
name, they know I’m a Moore from Westwood Valley, and they know that means
money. They’re coming to take me. The wind rushes against the side of the pool
house and shakes the doors against one another. The trees sway wildly in the
wind, the surface of the pool ripples and splashes against the sides.

It’s dawn, the sun lights up the world, diffused through the
light grey cloud cover that stretches from one horizon to the other. I’m
outside, watching the sky, staring into the rolling clouds with painful, dry
eyes.

I need food.

I manage to hobble my way towards the garage and sit myself
behind the wheel of my car. The remnants of a whiskey bottle rest in the
passenger seat. I’m still hungover from two days ago, and my thoughts won’t
stop. Time won’t slow down around me, and that seems good enough excuse to put
this bottle to my lips.

It fuels me as it fills my belly. It’s a warmth I hope burns
a hole straight through, not for any reason but the distraction. Because I
can’t stop seeing Auna as a corpse, I can’t stop seeing the body winking at me,
I can’t stop seeing the biker’s around the corner, I take another drag from the
bottle and let it spill over my lips and all along my neck before I twist the
key.

The country road wobbles beneath me, I can’t seem to keep
the world still. The bottle clanks against its brothers when I throw it into
the passenger seat. Oh shit. How many have there been? Where am I going?

The stream passes over the edge of the bridge and it’s
running clear. When I shake it to lose the last drops, my head spins. My body
wiggles, but I catch myself before I fall over into the creek. It’s the edge of
town, no one would find me. I’d drown. You only need six inches to drown. Six
inches and six shots. Sixteen shots.

The chopper’s engine rips through the air as it races
towards me. Oh fuck, I can’t let them find me. No, please. I spin around and
wind up again in the driver’s side of my little sports car. It revs, and I
immediately regret kicking the gas. Why did I do that? Like I’m communicating
with their bikes by engine language, as if to answer a call. Where are you,
little rich boy? Here! I’m here, Evin! Come and get me!

No. The car carries me from the bridge, into the slum
streets on the south end of Westwood Valley. I think to look out the side
windows and in the rear views, but I fear a moment of distraction will eat my
lead. They’ll catch up. The vodka soaks into my shirt as it continues to pour
when I pull it from my lips. I don’t remember when I bought it, but I made a
mistake. Mixing clear and dark always makes me sick. It clinks against
something metal when I throw it to the passenger seat, but I don’t look over to
see what I’ve collected. No, what was that? I decide to glance. I feel sick.
Where did I get that? Oh, that house...

It pours over the wheel first, little trails of brown mucus
free of any food. I forgot to eat. Shit, I knew I forgot something.

Christ, what day is it? Where’s the sun? This parking lot
misses cars. Tufts of weeds rise from the cracks that map a history of some
years being forgotten. I drag the tip of my shoe through the crack trying to
drag up the roots of the weeds. They mostly remain, their stems lay over until
my foot passes, then they slowly rise again to stretch towards the sun that’s
abandoned them, too. I lift my hand, which feels heavy. I use my whole body to
raise my fist. I see something glimmer. I hold a pistol in my hand. Wait. Of
course I hold a pistol in my hand. You got it, remember? When you heard those
bikers coming, gunning for you. You picked it up while you rode around, found
it in Nathan’s secret stash. That cache he keeps in the abandoned house. You
drove there after the bridge. Oh wait. Yes, I remember. Right? I catch a twist
in the cement crack with my foot and stumble, landing hard on my side. I remain
there for a while, maybe I’m sleeping.

I wake up, the face of a dandelion tickles the end of my
nose. I sneeze and it bends the other direction. I think to pluck it, but the
thought gets lost to the dizzy sensation of standing. I feel wet cheeks. I wipe
fingers across the skin beneath my eyes and feel the tears at their tips.

Auna. Oh my god, Auna. I need you so much right now. Jesus
Christ, I need you, baby.

It’s the longest goddamn drive in the history of cars that
takes me to her apartment. It rises like a castle amongst a sea of village
huts, little shithouses where the dregs of society scrape together a living.
She brought me here only once, but when I left I memorized the way, like a treasure
map of the mind. We’d had a drink after her shift a few months back. Nothing
happened. Nothing happened.

These fucking houses look pathetic, little faces in the
windows staring out, what are they looking for? There’s nothing here for you.
Go back to your pathetic lives.

I don’t mean that. As I ascend the stairs, I don’t mean it.
I renounce the condescension, Auna would disapprove. I need to see her and tell
her I’ll keep her always. She must be mine. I can’t live without her.

The door gives with a little push, the lock isn’t much good.
It creaks as it falls back into the dark apartment. I hear a pitter patter of
rain and I think I see it clear across the room through the window at the other
end, but it’s hard to tell through all this--

Drunk. I am drunk. I haven’t done this since I was twenty
one, when I burnt through a week on coke and booze, intending to complete an
album with my band, ending with a paranoid dream of agents ransacking our
studio. It was the drummer’s father. He was sick of the racket.

The door creaks again. I blink hard to clear away the
exhaustion, or the alcohol, or whatever it is my body’s fighting through to
stay conscious. Maybe fear. Maybe confusion. I’m in a chair, facing the door,
waiting for her.

The body is massive, a hulking figure that stands behind the
door, swaying enough that I can make out his size through the crack. Not Auna.
Auna’s not hiding behind him. She’s not here. I pull the cord on the lamp an
arm’s length behind me. It does little to illuminate things with a red scarf
draped over the top. Auna. She’s got a flare for home design.

The door creaks again.

“Come in,” I tell the large presence hiding behind it.

He lumbers into the room casually. He says something. I
reply. I feel my body waning in the conversation. It continues, my lips
conspire against me to engage the man while the sight of him blurs in my eyes.
He’s blonde. He’s pretty. I remember him. He was at the Pussycat Lounge. He
asks about Auna. “Where the fuck did you come from, bad boy? All jacked and brooding,
I should’ve known…” I tell him she’s gone. But he knows that, doesn’t he? He
took her. Goddamnit, I need to do something. My arm tries pulling on the weight
held at the end of it, the metal of the pistol feels so heavy. It raises ever
so slowly before my eyes, the little barrel wiggling in my blurred vision. He’s
unthreatened. Fuck. If I wasn’t so--

He’s leaving. “I’m watching you, big boy.” Did I say it? My
lips feel numb.

“Watch closely,” he replies.

Cocky little shit. My arm collapses, the gun passes through
my fingers. My head droops to the side and my body follows. The world turns
black.

6.

Auna’s apartment fills with the light of dawn as soon as the
sun rises, and I stir painfully from the presumable day of sleep I’ve taken as
the climax of a binge I’ll be feeling for a week to come. The images drift in a
fog at the end of my fingertips so they’re just out of reach. I remember the
haunting tricks my mind played against me, and the paranoia it wrought. The
pool house became a festering place for insanity. Then I left. I should’ve
never left.

I raise my fists up and grind them into my eyes. I feel like
I could sleep another day. My back’s against her carpet, wet with the stains of
the spilled whiskey I brought along. I roll to the side and press against the
floor, first rising with a push up, then pulling my knees in to kneel. I look
around the apartment. It’s mostly undisturbed, but for the mess I’ve made here
in the living room.

After the memory of the corpse passes through my mind, last
night returns to me.

Auna’s gone.

The drifter was here.

His name…

I close my eyes and see the scene play out, but the words
are muffled. I remember my own lips moving to the tune of my own name. Then he
says…

“Rage.”

“Cute,” I said.

Yes, that’s right. His name was Rage. I’ve got a name and a
face of the smartass drifter who came around Auna’s apartment asking about her
when she was gone. This raises all sorts of red flags for me. With Auna
missing, and no family to search, I have to rescue. I’m in it now. This is the
underbelly I’ve mixed myself up with. I’ll have to play the game to escape with
my life intact, with Auna at my side. She’ll play too, for survival.

A throbbing pain beats against my temple and I squint until
it recedes. The hangover is something fierce, but it’s nothing compared to what
started the downward spiral yesterday. I can manage. I peer around the room and
reach for the bottle tipped over in the carpet, resting beside the pistol I
stole from Nathan’s secret cache. I pick up the bottle with my left while my
right rubs against my forehead. Just a little to settle the pain. There’s only
a swig left, anyhow. It sloshes against my cheeks and across the surface of my
tongue until it only burns instead of tastes.

I drop the bottle and my hands feel along my pants for my
cell phone. I discover it buried at the bottom of my pocket and fish it out. I
give it a kiss, assuming it wouldn’t have survived the binge. I can be
reckless, but I keep what matters close. Auna. I failed her, though. I knew the
reality I was entering, I should’ve assumed it would destroy her illusion, too.
I’ll rectify this. I’ll show this world I know its truths and I’ll use them
against whoever stands in my way.

The phone’s up against my ear and after a single ring,
Nathan’s voice comes in, “Aston.”

“How’s it swingin’, Nate?”

There’s a ruffling noise during which I assume he’s shifting
to a more private place to talk. “Are you fucking serious? Where’ve you been?”

I hesitate, but what point is there in hiding anything from
Nathan? He’s my best friend. He’s in my pocket. “Bit of a bender after that
body.”

He sighs. “You’d better pull yourself together, Aston.” I
hear some other voices in the background until his footsteps carry him further
away. “There’s another body.”

I feel the morning shot churning in my gut. It’s more
anxiousness than fear. “Where?”

“Out at the edge of town, the motel on the road out of the
valley. Big guy. Biker.”

Biker? It’s Rage. It has to be. He’s going after the players
in Westwood Valley. They supplied me the package, so if he removes them, he
nips the competition in the bud. Maybe he’s here setting up his own racket. Or
maybe he’s a goddamn blackhat. His mystery takes the forefront of my
considerations. I’m dismissing Al for the moment. I need to know more about Rage.
“What happened?”

“Gunshot,” he says, quite simply. “There seems to have been
a scuffle that ended with a headshot as the unfortunate fellow charged. I’ll
tell you, this killer must be one bad motherfucker to beat this man in a match
of fisticuffs.”

“It’s the drifter,” I blurt out.

“What drifter?” Nathan asks.

“I’ve seen him around. First outside the Pussycat Lounge
when I picked Auna up. Then again last night at Auna’s apartment.” There’s an
awkward silence, as there always is at the mention of her name. I can hear his
lips pursing, considering questions, but refusing his curiosity. Tears sting
the backs of my eyes. It doesn’t feel real, but it’s starting to. Auna is
missing. “She’s gone.”

There’s complete silence for a moment. Then he replies
softly, “Missing?”

“We have to nail this drifter, Nathan. I think he took Auna.
I don’t know what his aim is, but I’m definitely one of his targets, and Auna
fell into the crosshairs.” I feel my eyes well a little. I feel weak, and lost,
and like my mind is breaking. “I need her back, Nate. What happened the other
night, between the two of us, it was fucking magic. She’s got this incredible
way about her, the way she looks at you when she takes her clothes off, it’s
vulnerable, but it’s, it’s--”

“Aston, I’ve got to get back to the scene. We’ll talk about
Auna soon. If you think this drifter--”

“Rage.”

“Rage?”

“His name.”

I hear a faint scoff. I think he thinks I invented it.
“Whoever he is, we need to question him.”

“Right.”

“I’ll call you.” His phone pulls away from his face, I can
tell by the wind sounds, but then it returns, “Don’t think I don’t know about
the gun, either. Don’t use it, put it back. No. I’ll put it back. Just--keep it
hidden.”

The call ends. Goddamnit, Nathan. He’s busy playing cop to
deal with the important matter at hand. He could probably benefit from this in
the department, make detective or something. That’s alright, I’ll use him when
I’m ready.

Right now, I have other players to consort with. I flip
through my contacts until my thumb lands on the name of Evin. VP of a
motorcycle club named The Devil’s Right Hands. My supplier has resources I need
to utilize.

The call picks up, but he doesn’t say a word. I hear his low
breathing, signature of a gruff biker. I remember it’s the same as the night we
met, when I had the balls to get a drink at his biker bar two towns over. I
walked in to prove something to myself. One cocky drink changed my life
forever. “Evin,” I say. “We need to meet.”