No sooner did I escape from the darkness than I began to fear the worst for Eileen.
I shouldn’t have left her alone.
The others probably got her ...
I came to the place where I’d left her in the shadows, and she wasn’t there. I crumbled inside.
They did get her.
‘Eddie?’
Her voice came from the wrong direction. I jerked my head sideways and looked toward the stream. Still, I couldn’t see her.
‘Where are you?’
Several yards upstream, a pale arm lifted into the air. Below it, a face was a pale smudge against the black of the water.
I set down her things and walked toward her along the bank. ‘You okay?’ I asked.
‘Not bad. How’d it go?’
‘I got your purse and most of your clothes. Couldn’t find your shirt.’
‘Any trouble?’
I crouched down on the grass a few feet away from her. She was submerged to her neck in the stream. ‘The creeps must’ve all run away,’ I said. ‘Probably figured the first thing we’d do is call the cops.’
‘Why don’t you come in and wash up,’ Eileen asked. ‘We can figure out what to do.’
Shaking my head, I said, ‘I think we should get out of here. Get you to the student health center.’
‘Not the health center.’
‘The ER?’
She stood up, her body rising out of the black water pale and gleaming in the moonlight. ‘How about your place?’ she asked. Her torso ended at the water’s surface. ‘I don’t much want to be alone right now ... tonight. If it’s all right with you ...’
‘You should probably see a doctor.’
‘I’ll see one if I need one. I can look myself over when we get to your place. Unless you don’t want me to come over.’
‘I want you to come over.’
‘Thanks, Eddie.’ She waded toward me, silvery where the moon lit her wet skin. I watched how her breasts moved. Their tips looked like large black coins. Her navel was a small black dot. With each step she took, the level of the water lowered.
Seeing the dark patch of her pubic hair, I thought about the guy under the bridge.
She’ll tell me what she wants me to know.
When the water level was down around her knees, she shuddered and wrapped her arms around her chest. ‘Do I still get to wear your shirt?’ she asked.
‘Sure.’
It was on the grass near my feet. I picked it up and handed it out to her. She put it on. ‘Ah, that’s better.’ She fastened a button down near her waist, then climbed out of the stream.
I led the way back along the shore to the place where I’d left her purse and clothes.
‘This is fantastic,’ she said. She picked up her purse and took out her billfold.
‘A reward won’t be necessary,’ I said.
‘You’ll get a reward, all right. I can’t believe you actually went back under there.’
‘I can’t either,’ I said.
‘I was so scared. I was afraid they’d get you.’
‘Still might,’ I said. ‘We really shouldn’t hang around here any longer than necessary.’ I looked toward the bridge. It was out of sight, hidden by the thick tangles of tree branches looming over the embankment.
‘I think we’re all right here, don’t you?’ Eileen asked.
‘Never know.’
She looked inside her billfold.
‘I didn’t take anything.’
‘I know you didn’t.’
‘I’m sure they didn’t, either. If they’d seen your purse at all, they would’ve taken it.’
‘That’s probably true.’ She put the billfold back into her purse.
‘I did steal a matchbook,’ I confessed.
She looked up at me. ‘Went through my purse, huh?’
‘For a good cause. I needed some light.’ I took the matchbook out of a pocket of my jeans and dropped it into her purse. ‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘Any time.’
She crouched and set her purse on the ground, then searched through her clothes. Soon, she looked up at me. ‘You didn’t happen to find a pair of panties?’
‘They seem to be among the missing.’
‘Oh, swell.’
‘Sorry. ’
‘So one of those ... trolls ... took them?’
‘Not necessarily. I might’ve just missed them.’
‘Hope so,’ she said. ‘I hate to think that ...’ Shaking her head, she stood up and stepped into her jeans. ‘We must’ve been nuts,’ she muttered as she fastened the waist button.
‘Yeah.’
She pulled up her zipper and smiled at me. ‘It was sure something, though. Huh? I mean, before ... ? ?’
‘It was something, all right.’
‘I’ve never ...’ She shook her head again. ‘It was really something.’
‘I’ll say.’
She bent down and picked up her bra. ‘Want to wear this?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Nor do I.’ She stuffed the bra into her purse, then sat on the ground and started to put on her shoes.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
‘Pretty okay, all things considered. We’re alive, right? And not too badly hurt. Could’ve been a lot worse.’
That’s for sure.’
‘What I really want to do is go to your place and take a nice hot shower and then get somewhat smashed.’
‘I’ve only got about half a bottle of wine.’
‘We can pick up something on the way over.’ Shoes on, she stood up. ‘You must be freezing,’ she said.
‘Just a little.’
‘My poor sweetheart.’ She opened the shirt wide and stepped against me and put her arms around me. The heat of her body seeped into my chilled skin. ‘How’s this?’ she asked.
‘Not bad.’
Chapter Twenty-two
At the top of the embankment, we retrieved our belongings from under the park bench. I wore my book bag like a small knapsack and carried Eileen’s books and binders against my chest. That way, I didn’t feel quite so cold or bare.
But shirtless I was. Scratched and bloody, too, as I found out when we entered the glow of a streetlight.
Because of her soak in the stream, Eileen wasn’t bloody. Her face, however, looked somewhat battered. Also, her hair was wet and stringy.
To avoid being seen by campus security or by anyone we knew, we walked around the university campus instead of through it.
That’s how we ran into Rudy Kirkus.
I’d known Kirkus since my freshman year. We were both English majors, so we’d spent quite a lot of time in the same classes. Also, we were both on the staff of the university’s literary magazine, The Roar. A smug know-it-all, he seemed to consider himself God’s gift to literature and good taste.
He was an easy guy to recognize at a distance. Well over six feet tall and skinny, he walked like a drum major at the head of his own parade. His uniform was a corduroy jacket with patches on its elbows, a blue chambray shirt, blue jeans, loafers and an ascot. He always wore a silk ascot around his neck.
If I’d seen Kirkus approaching us, I would’ve dragged Eileen in a different direction. Fast. But he came at us from around the corner of the bank at Ivy Street, a block south of campus.
‘I say!’ he said. He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Eduardo, old man. And Eileen! What ho?’
Kirkus was a native of San Francisco, but he affected a British accent and mannerisms. He’d probably picked up most of his act by watching those old Sherlock Holmes movies with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.
‘How’s it going, Kirkus?’ I asked.
‘It goes, it goes.’ Nodding, he put his hands behind his back and began his usual routine of going up and down, up and down on the balls of his feet. Head cocked to one side, he eyed my chest. ‘I say, old chap, a bit nippy to be roaming about the streets sans shirt.’
‘Don’t knock it till yo
u’ve tried it,’ I told him.
He cocked his head toward Eileen and eyed her chest. If another guy had stared that blatantly, I might’ve been miffed. But this was Kirkus. Her breasts, obviously braless under the shirt, would be of no interest to him ... except perhaps as objects of disdain.
‘Hello!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re wearing his shirt. The plot does thicken, hey what?’ He bobbed, grinning.
‘I’m afraid I left home without mine,’ Eileen told him. ‘This chap was nice enough to lend me the use of his.’
Kirkus continued to bob, but his grin vanished while he hoisted an eyebrow. ‘You’re having me on.’
‘Not at all,’ Eileen said, appearing perfectly serious.
‘And why are you wet?’ he asked.
‘A touch of rain, old bean.’
He still bobbed, but both his eyebrows lowered and crept toward the bridge of his nose. ‘And your injuries?’ he asked. He glanced from Eileen to me, bobbing and frowning, not so much a drum major, now, as a stem headmaster determined to get to the bottom of the mischief. ‘Have ourselves a bit of a row, did we?’
Eileen looked to me for this one.
‘A spot of trouble with a canine, I’m afraid. Out on the moor. A huge brute with glowing eyes.’
‘I see.’ He took a deep breath, began to sag, then straightened up again and threw back his head. ‘Well, have your sport with me.’
I suddenly felt bad. Kirkus was a pretentious and arrogant boob, but that was no excuse for mocking him. ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Me, too,’ Eileen told him. ‘We’ve had a tough night.’
‘Ah.’ He seemed pleased by our contrition. ‘Quite all right.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ I told him, ‘we got jumped by a gang of teenagers a few minutes ago. They beat us up pretty good and tore off Eileen’s shirt.’
‘Rum go,’ said Kirkus.
Shrugging, Eileen said, ‘Well, we got away from them. You’d better watch out for them, though.’
‘I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself,’ he said.
‘Just be careful,’ Eileen said. ‘They’re nasty bastards. They pissed in my hair.’
Kirkus eyed her hair, sniffed the air a couple of times, and took a step backward.
‘We don’t want everybody knowing about this,’ I explained. ‘In fact, we don’t want anybody else knowing about it.’
‘It’s terribly humiliating,’ Eileen added. ‘And disgusting.’
‘We’ve taken you into our confidence,’ I said.
‘We’d like you to respect it,’ said Eileen.
‘Righto.’ Kirkus gave a stiff nod, bounced, and said, ‘Mum’s the word.’
‘Thank you,’ Eileen told him.
‘Thanks, Rudy,’ I said.
‘And thank you for the warning. If the young hooligans have a go at me, they’ll rue the day.’
I reached out and patted his arm. ‘Knock ’em dead.’
‘Where were they?’ he asked.
Eileen turned sideways and pointed behind us. ‘A couple of blocks back.’
The boarding house where Kirkus lived was in that direction. Scowling, he asked, ‘How many ruffians did you encounter?’ ‘Six or seven,’ I said.
He nodded briskly.
‘I guess you’ll have to go past them to get home,’ I added.
‘Quite.’
‘They might be gone by now,’ Eileen pointed out.
Kirkus straightened up and tossed back his head. “‘Danger knows full well that Caesar is more dangerous than she.”’
‘You say so,’ I told him.
‘Ta,’ he said, and stepped past us.
‘Good luck,’ I told him.
‘Give ’em hell,’ Eileen said.
As Kirkus strode bravely down the sidewalk, we crossed the street. Halfway up the next block, we both glanced back. Kirkus was nowhere to be seen.
‘Hope he doesn’t hurt them,’ Eileen said.
I chuckled and felt a little mean.
‘Poor sod,’ Eileen said.
We both laughed.
‘You know,’ I said, ‘he might not be such a bad guy if he didn’t go around acting like such a fucking know-it-all snob.’
‘A bloody know-it-all snob.’
We laughed some more.
On the next block, we came to the Grand Market.
‘You might want to wait out here,’ Eileen suggested. ‘I’ll go in and get the stuff.’
I nodded.
‘Don’t go away.’
She went inside. I stepped around the side, away from the main street, and stood close to the wall. Though a few people went by, nobody paid attention to me.
Eileen was gone for a long time. That’s how it seemed, anyway.
At last, she stepped around the comer with a brown-paper grocery sack in her arms. ‘Ah, there you are,’ she said. ‘Look what I got for you.’
She set down the bag at her feet, reached in and pulled out something that appeared to be a black cloth. Grinning, she held it high and spread it open.
‘A Dracula cape,’ she explained.
‘So I see.’
‘A nice one, too. Put it on.’
‘Now?’
‘Come on. I know you’re freezing.’ She brought it toward me. ‘It was the best I could do. They didn’t seem to have any clothes in there. Lucky for you, they’ve got a great bunch of Halloween costumes.’
‘I’m supposed to wear this?’
‘You can throw it on over your book bag. Wrap it around yourself like a blanket.’
‘Well ...’
‘Better than freezing.’
‘I suppose.’
I set my armload of books and binders down on the sidewalk, then took the cape from Eileen. I swung it around behind me. It draped my book bag and shoulders. I wrapped it around my front. It felt smooth and warm. ‘Pretty good,’ I said.
‘You look smashing, as Kirkus might say.’ With that, Eileen stepped closer. She found a couple of dangling cords and made a bow of them at my throat. Then she slipped her hands inside the cape and caressed my chest. ‘I should’ve bought you some vampire teeth.’
I bared my own teeth at her.
She laughed softly and kissed me.
When we resumed our journey, Eileen carried her own books and binders and purse. I carried the grocery bag close to my chest with one hand while I held the cape shut with the other.
In the bag were two cans of squirt cheese (sharp cheddar and sharp cheddar with bacon), a box of Ritz crackers and a liter bottle of dark rum.
Though most of the businesses along the street were shut for the night, people walked past us now and again. Some of them noticed what I was wearing, and smiled.
With a university in the middle of town, they were used to all sorts of antics. A guy in a vampire cape three weeks before Halloween was no big deal.
After we left the business district behind, the sidewalks seemed to be empty. Every so often, a car went by.
We were about two blocks from my apartment house when Eileen glanced over her shoulder. Facing forward again, she muttered, ‘Somebody’s back there.’
Chapter Twenty-three
I looked, but saw only the empty sidewalk stretched out behind us. I checked the street, then the sidewalk on the other side of the street. ‘I don’t see anyone.’
Eileen looked again. ‘That’s funny.’
‘Maybe he went in a house,’ I suggested.
‘Or ducked out of sight.’
We kept on walking.
‘What did he look like?’ I asked.
‘Just a guy. I think it was a guy. He was pretty far back and I only caught a glimpse of him.’
‘Wasn’t Kirkus, was it?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Old guy, young guy?’
She shook her head. ‘I have no idea. But whoever he is, let’s not lead him to your apartment.’
I’d already thought of that. I nodded. At the next comer, instea
d of going straight on to Church Street, we turned to the left.
‘What was he wearing?’ I asked.
Eileen shook her head again. ‘Something dark. A long coat, maybe.’
‘Like a trenchcoat?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘This really sucks,’ I muttered.
‘Think it’s someone from under the bridge?’
‘God, I hope not. But I guess it might be. Or that Randy guy I was telling you about. Or maybe it’s just somebody who happened to be walking behind us.’
‘Let’s find out,’ Eileen said.
We both glanced back. Nobody was behind us. Not yet, anyway.
‘Come on,’ I said.
Side by side, we ran up the sidewalk. The first driveway had a car parked in it. The house’s porch light was on, but all the windows looked dark.
Our pursuer - if we had one - still hadn’t rounded the comer. We rushed up the driveway and crouched in front of the car.
I’d been spending a lot of time, lately, hiding in front of parked cars.
But always alone.
This time, Eileen was hunkered down beside me, her upper arm lightly touching mine. I could feel its heat through my cape. She turned her face toward me. ‘This is kind of exciting,’ she said.
‘If you say so.’
I felt mostly anxiety ... bordering on dread. And I felt weary. Too much had already happened tonight. I wanted to be safe in my apartment with the lights on and the door locked. Underneath all that, however, I did feel a certain thrill at being crouched down and hiding with Eileen.
After a while, she said, ‘What’s taking him so long?’
‘How far back was he?’
She shrugged, and I felt her arm move against mine. ‘Just a block.’ She straightened up slightly and peered over the hood. ‘I don’t see anyone.’
‘We’ll hear him when he goes by.’
She stayed up, half crouched, her books and binders clutched to her chest.
‘We don’t want him to see you,’ I whispered.
She sank down beside me, and I felt the rub of her arm. ‘I don’t think he’s coming,’ she said.
‘Let’s wait a while longer. Maybe he’s being careful.’
‘We might’ve lost him.’
I nodded.
We crouched together in silence, waiting. Out on the street, a car went by. Its sounds slowly faded away. I listened for footsteps, but heard none.