Garrison followed my eyes, and raised an eyebrow. "Even up there?" he guessed.
"Must have. I guess the guy may have chased them out of here when they were done."
"I'm not sure that's quite what happened," Garrison hesitantly argued.
I frowned. "Why?"
"Let me show you something." Garrison helped me to my feet and turned me around so I faced the exterior wall. All the windows were broken out and there were drops of blood on the shards around the sills. "They must have been really desperate to get out." He tilted his head to one side and frowned. "The police are finally coming." I listened, and sure enough there were police sirens coming down the street. "Come on, let's get you into my apartment so you can sit down on something warm. That floor can't be comfortable."
Garrison helped me into his apartment and set me back in the kitchen chair. His place was long and narrow like the laundry room, but it went back farther toward the stairwell where there were a few rooms partitioned off from the kitchen and living room. I assumed those were bedrooms and bath. Before he left to answer the knocking of the police at the front door he tossed me a shirt from his bedroom. "You might need that," he told me and left the room.
I glanced down at myself and was reminded that I only had my bra on. Even that was slightly askew, reveling more of my breasts than I cared to share with the world. I yelped and slipped into the shirt. Garrison was soon back down with four cops, three of which went to the laundry room and one of them followed Garrison back to his apartment to talk to me. The cop introduced himself as Officer Cranston.
"Mr. Garrison here tells us you were in some sort of a fight," Officer Cranston assumed. "Did you need medical attention?"
I shook my head. "I'm fine, just a bump on the head, but I wasn't really in the fight. I just kind of watched it."
"Can you describe to me what happened?" I described as best I could the happenings of the evening, and he jotted everything down in his book. "And how long would you say you were out?"
"I don't know. What time is it?"
"Almost eight," Garrison spoke up. "I heard some noises in the laundry room and when I flicked on the light I found Miss Taylor on the ground."
"You let us in through the front door, Mr. Garrison. How do you think these other fellows got inside?" Cranston wondered.
Garrison shrugged. "They could have a key, or maybe they picked the lock."
"Or they have a room here," I suggested. "One of the guys did look kind of familiar."
"What about this mystery shadow man? What did you see of him?" Cranston asked me.
I shook my head. "Not much except that he stood six feet tall and had some yellow eyes."
"Yellow eyes?" Cranston repeated in disbelief.
"Yellow eyes," I reaffirmed with a frown.
Another officer came into the apartment, and Cranston turned to him. "Well, Perkins?"
Perkins shook his head. "It's a real mess in there, sir. Lots of blood and damage, but no sign of where they went or who they were," Perkins told him.
Officer Cranston glanced over to Garrison. "We'll have to seal off the room for a few days to gather evidence."
Garrison smirked. "There won't be much use looking for fingerprints. I clean that place pretty often but too many people use it."
"It's the blood we're after. Hopefully we'll be able to trace the crooks and the fellow who beat them up."
Garrison raised an eyebrow. "The fellow? Why him?"
"To thank him for doing this neighborhood a favor and tell him he should watch his back. The Green Bandannas aren't going to let him get away with his life if they can help it." Cranston turned to me. "I'll have to warn you to watch your back, too, Miss Taylor. If word gets out that you know who beat them up, the Bandannas are going to go after you to find out what you know."
Garrison stood behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. "I'll keep an eye out for her," he offered.
Cranston looked the skinny nerd up and down, and smiled. "Are you sure? These guys are pretty tough. If you feel threatened by any strange noises or men, Miss Taylor, don't hesitate to call us."
I nodded and promised myself I'd put 911 on speed dial. "Sure thing." The cops left to seal off the laundry room and I slumped back in my chair. "Just great. I go to clean some messy laundry and end up getting into a bigger mess with the Bandanna gang."
Garrison patted me on the shoulder. "I'm sure you'll be all right."
I oozed over the table and stuffed my head into my folded arms. "Only if my guardian angel with yellow eyes keeps looking out for me," I muttered.
Garrison slipped into his seat and had a peculiar smile on his face. "What if I told you that your guardian angel was looking out for you right now?"
I lifted my head and frowned. "I'd say I have an invisible stalker."
He chuckled. "Invisible except when someone needs their sink fixed or a light bulb changed."
"Um, I'm not following you."
"What if I told you I'm your guardian angel?"
I looked him up and down. He didn't look like the six-foot shadow I saw earlier. "Growth spurt?" I asked him.
Now it was his turn to be bewildered. "Pardon?"
"You're not exactly tall, and that guy I saw was tossing those gang members like they were footballs."
Garrison stood up and flexed his wimpy arm muscles. "You don't think this could throw someone ten feet?"
"Maybe if you had a giant slingshot," I teased.
He sighed and shrugged. "You can't blame a guy for trying to win a girl's affections."
"Yes I can, but I'll forgive you for your lying." I stood up and wobbled on my feet. He scurried around the table and kept my rubber legs from buckling beneath me.
"Wouldn't you rather stay here for the night? I can take the couch," he offered.
I shook my head. "I'd rather be in my own bed, but if you could help me up the stairs that would be great."
"All right. Just lean on me and we'll get going." Garrison showed more strength than I gave him credit for as he hefted me down the basement hall and upstairs to the lobby. The staircase was a winding snake of wooden steps in a narrow shaft. When you stood at the top you could look straight down to the lobby. At the bottom of the stairs Garrison paused and looked up.
"It's times like these I wish this place had an elevator," I muttered.
"That would be convenient."
"Which explains why one isn't in this place."
"I suppose there's only one thing we can do."
"Build an escalator?" I suggested.
"No, this." He swooped me into his arms and stepped up the stairs. I clung onto his thin frame and was surprised to find there was some muscle underneath those dorky clothes.
"Could you have warned me before you did that?" I snapped at him.
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you?"
"Don't you like surprises?"
"No!"
"I'm afraid I have another one for you."
"What now?"
"We're here." During our little discussion he'd hurried up four flights of stairs to my floor. I was so surprised my mouth dropped down to the lobby. He set me down on the floor and I stared at him in disbelief.
"How did you do that?" I asked him.
He shrugged. "One foot in front of the other."
"But at what? The speed of internet?"
"Maybe you just weren't paying attention."
"Because you were distracting me."
"Maybe I used my slingshot," he teased as he led me to my room. He had all the keys and mine was under impound in the laundry room, so he unlocked the door and let me inside.
"Maybe you're full of bullshit."
"I prefer the term cow manure."
I rolled my eyes and nodded at a chair in front of my television. "Just set me down in my chair." He plopped me down and seated himself on the coffee table between me and the flat screen.
"Are you sure you're going to be all right?" he persisted. "Did you want
me to sleep on your couch for tonight? Or I could make a fort out of the cushions and put you in the middle to make you safe."
"Um, yeah, I think these four walls will be safe enough," I replied.
Garrison sighed and stood up. "All right, have it your way."
"Naturally, I'm a girl."
"I'll be sure to get a new key for you tomorrow. Anything else you might need?"
"Yeah, an uneventful weekend." I slumped down and sighed. "For once I wish I'd been out partying instead of trying to have a relaxing Friday night at home."
Garrison looked over my long face, and then glanced at the kitchen. "You want me to fix you something to drink? Could take your mind off things."
"I don't think-"
"Good, I'm glad you agree, and I know just the drink that will give you a good night's rest." He hurried over past my chair to the kitchen and banged all the cupboards shut searching for the ingredients to his concoction. After seeing his coffee a new offer of a drink wrenched my stomach.
I turned around in my chair and glanced over the back. He'd already found a knife and was cutting away at an innocent orange with my blender at his side. "I'm fine, really," I called to him. Or I would be if he'd stop trying to spoon feed me his drinks. "I just want to get to bed and sleep until Doomsday."
"Got any vodka?" he asked me.
"Um, no, and as I was saying I'll be perfectly fine without-"
"Damn it!" he swore. He held up his hand and grimaced at his fingers.
"What happened?" I stumbled out of my chair and to the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. He turned his back to me so I couldn't see what was wrong.
"It's nothing, just a flesh wound."
"Uh-huh, turn around and let me see it. I don't want anybody bleeding to death on me." Garrison turned around and the hand he clutched had a nice, thick slice of dried blood on the top of his middle finger. "Ouch. Get some water on that, stat."
"It's nothing, just some tomato," he insisted. There was a cut tomato beside the sliced orange.
"Clean it off," I ordered him.
He shrugged, walked over to the sink and let his finger sit under a steady stream of tap water. The water rinsed away the dried blood and revealed. . .nothing. Well, there was skin, but no cut beneath the blood. "See? I just thought I cut myself."
This man was getting stranger and stranger. "You sure sounded convinced," I countered.
"Um, April Fool's?"
"It's October."
"Trick-or-treat?"
"I told you I don't like surprises."
"Well, um, how about some of my Surprise Juice?" He whipped around, shoved the fruit into the blender and whirled it around for a few seconds. Whatever he'd put into the machine made for a wine-colored concoction that had a funny smell to it. Garrison took off the blender container, grabbed a tall glass, poured out the thick contents and held it out to me.
I looked from the glass up to his face. "This some kind of poison?"
This was one service with a smile that I didn't trust. "I guarantee you'll like it."
"I think I've lost my appetite that I told you I didn't have."
"It's not poison. See?" He lifted the glass to his lips and drank a sip, then rubbed his stomach. "Mhm, good. Now you try it." He held out the glass to me again.
I sighed. "If I drink this will you promise to let me get some sleep?"
"I promise to let you get some sleep," he swore. I grabbed the drink, plugged my nose and downed the contents in a few gulps. It had a tangy flavor with a hint of rust. Then I handed back the empty glass and frowned when my stomach gurgled. Before I could stop myself I'd let out a gigantic belch that blew Garrison away. "Wow! That was a good one!"
"Compliments later, getting out now," I reminded him.
"All right, but you're missing out on a killer omelet I could make for tomorrow's breakfast," he teased.
I walked around the kitchen bar, got behind him and shoved him into the living room and at the door. "I'm sure I'll survive a morning without your omelet." I'd probably end up surviving a lifetime without his cooking.
"Then I guess I'll see you-" He didn't get a chance to finish because I shoved him out into the hall and slammed the door behind him. I leaned my back up against the door and sighed. That's when I heard a knock from the other side. I rolled my eyes, turned around and opened the door a crack. Garrison's sheepish grin greeted me. "Don't forget to give back my shirt." I growled, slammed the door shut, and marched off to bed. I'd had one hell of a day.
Chapter 4
I don't know what was in Garrison's Surprise Juice, but whatever it was gave me some strange dreams. I dreamed I stood in the middle of an open field full of thick, tall grass, and all around the meadow were pine trees. Somehow I knew I was in a deep forest, and high overhead sat the bright full moon. I couldn't take my eyes off that beautiful glowing orb in the sky, and the longer I stared at it the hotter I felt. My hands reached up and tugged at my clothes, gently at first but it quickly became a furious, desperate tearing.
I fell to my knees when the change started. My fingers lengthened and sharpened to dangerous points, and my muscles tightened. My breasts swelled and pushed through the tattered remains of my shirt, baring themselves to the dark world. I groaned as my pants tore open at the seams and my shoes split in half to reveal clawed feet. Soft fur sprouted from my body, but by then I couldn't feel anything but the heat welling up inside of me. It was unbearable and so full of lust it nearly drove me mad. I fell back on the thick grass and squirmed on the ground, pleading and moaning for something to come and fulfill my need.
As I lay there helpless and hot, a shadow fell over me. I looked up and saw a figure silhouetted against the night sky with their back to the moon. They were tall and muscular, and a pair of red eyes stared back at me with as much lust as I felt for them. It was the person from the basement, but now I knew it wasn't a person. This was a feral animal, and I was what it sought to satiate its own desires. It swooped down atop me and I screamed.
I jolted up in bed and looked wildly about my room. Everything down to the troll doll on the dresser was as it should have been, but I was covered in sweat. I brushed my hand through my soaked hair and gasped for breath. That dream had felt so real I swore someone had been in my room. That's when I felt a soft, cool breeze sweep over my wet body, and I glanced over to the window. It was open. I never left it open. Too great a chance somebody would sneak in and steal my troll doll.
I swung my legs out of bed and shakily made my way over to the window. It wasn't open very far, and I leaned out to see if I could find a reason for it being open. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow flit around the side of the building, and for a brief moment I thought maybe the Bandanna Gang had come for me. Then I remembered that if they had come for me I wouldn't be talking to myself right then, or anyone else later, for that matter. They would have killed me deader than a squirrel on a freeway.
I shut and locked my window, and glanced at the time. Half past god-awful early, but I knew I wasn't going to get any more sleep that night so I dressed and fed myself. The confines of my apartment felt stuffy and dark, so I crept out into the hall and-
"You're up early." I jumped so high my hair brushed the eight-foot ceiling. When I touched back down I whirled around to find Garrison standing there with a smirk on his face.
"Don't do that!" I scolded him in a hushed whisper.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
I sighed, and closed and locked my door behind me. "You apologize a lot, you know that?"
"I'm-"
"-sorry. I know." I rubbed my eyeballs and he stepped up beside me with a worried expression.
"Is everything all right?" he asked me.
I shook my head, paused, then shrugged. "I don't know. Just bad dreams and my window disobeying me by not staying shut."
"Did you want me to take a look?" Garrison suggested.
"Sure, why not?" I unlocked the door and let him in.
/> "Which window is it?" he wondered.
I nodded at the bedroom. "The one in there with the great view of the alley." Garrison went into the bedroom and I followed. Thankfully I was a clean person and left no lingerie-preference hints lying around. Garrison checked the window and knocked on the lock with his fist. "Is it terminal, doc?" I asked him.
He smirked. "I can save it, but this has been a lingering illness for a while, even before you moved in. It's going to take a lot of elbow grease and luck for the lock to pull through."
"Do whatever you can, but spare the expenses. I don't get paid until next week," I replied.
"It's on the house. That is, included in your rent," he reminded me.
"Oh, right."
"Anything else you want help with?"
"Know any good bodyguards who'll work for donuts?"
"If they work for donuts I wouldn't hire them, but isn't it a little early to be worried about the Bandanna Bandits?" he joked.
I shrugged. "I feel kind of uneasy right now, like I'm all tight and tense inside."
"Have you tried exercises?"
"It's not my guts hurting me, it's my head."
"Lobotomy?"
"Too old-fashioned. Besides, it's more like something's not quite right with everything around me rather than me. You know, like it's stuffy in the rooms and I just want a breath of fresh air."
Garrison rubbed his chin in one hand and glanced up at the ceiling. "I think I might have a remedy for that."
"Where? In the ceiling?"
"Come with me." He gently grabbed my hand and led me out of my apartment. We traveled to the top floor and down the hall to the far end of the apartment building. In the ceiling was a trap door with a short string attached to a ring. It was a good eight feet up there, and I didn't see a ladder.
"Need to use me as a stepping stool?" I suggested. He jumped up and easily grasped the tiny bit of string, which he then dragged down with him along with a flight of narrow wooden stairs. "I stand corrected, and flabbergasted. How'd you learn to jump so high?"
"I eat my Wheaties every morning."
"With jumping beans?"
"Beans and I have an agreement to disagree with each other, so we're not on speaking terms." He led the way up the creaky old stairs, and I paused when I peeked my head over the floor. We were under the peaked roof of the building, and judging by the thick layer of strata over the shroud-covered furniture and boxes a scientist could carbon-date the building to the age of Really-old. The only sign of life was a path leading from the staircase to a door in the middle of the single long room. Garrison stood beside the door. "You've gone too far down the rabbit hole to turn back now," he teased.