Parking Lots

I spent nine days in the suburban neighborhood that my brother and I had speculated would be the killer’s next place of attack. Nine days I crawled through the roads with a van I’d borrowed from a friend, sleeping in the backseat on an air mattress that would deflate during the night. Nine days I found myself in the local YMCA, using my near-useless membership to keep up with my hygiene. Nine days I wondered why I was even bothering with this investigation. I wasn’t a cop, I wasn’t a detective, I wasn’t a forensic researcher - I was a shrimpy journalist with the bull-headed attitude that I could solve this case myself.

And I visited nearly every corner of the area, any corner that seemed like an applicable space to take somebody out. Every seedy nightclub, every laundromat, every back alley, every department store parking lot - and I was coming up empty by the tenth night.

After another fruitless afternoon, after another day wasted, I decided that it was time to head home. My spirits were crushed, and I couldn’t come up with a feasible answer on why I was feeling so down on myself. Did I want somebody to get murdered? Or at least come close enough to being murdered to warrant suspicion? No, of course I didn’t. That wasn’t something I’d wish on the most depraved of people. I didn’t know anyone that I thought deserved to die. Yet, I was anxious, desperate, and thirsting for even a little adventure in my life - to the point where something like this was like crack cocaine to me.

The morality and logistics of the situation did not matter, ultimately. I hadn’t found any clues, I hadn’t found any bodies, and I hadn’t found any murderers.

With a heavy sigh, I cut my losses, twisting the key in the ignition before making my way to my editor’s apartment. She’d allowed me to borrow her van, and I figured it was high time I returned it to its rightful place. My editor lived to the West of the suburban neighborhood that I’d been perusing for the past several days, which was good for me, since I didn’t have the energy to drive a whole lot farther than 30 more miles.

At a red light a couple blocks away from her building, I shot her a text letting her know that I’d leave the van in her parking spot. My own car had been parked in the lot a few buildings away, something that was costing me quite a bit of cash the longer I idled in places I didn’t belong.

When the van was back where it belonged, I started walking to where my own vehicle had been sitting all these days. My body felt exhausted, and my mind was heavy with the disappointment of having wasted so much time. Not only had I wasted my time, but I’d proved that my brother and I had been wrong. Neither of those things excited me.

With my nose pointed to my cell phone, I started reading through all the texts I’d been missing throughout the day. There were several from my four siblings - most of them from Aaron - a few from my mother, and one or two from my editor. Well, part-time editor. My part-time editor that almost never had anything to edit. It was a damn good thing she was nice enough not to ask for money, or I’d be in a deep, recessive hole, at least financially.

Distracted by my text messages, I didn’t notice that I was walking straight into a solid, cold, unmoving brick wall. My forehead met the surface before the rest of my body did, knocking me onto my ass. The papers that I’d been carrying spilled out of their protective folder, each one being picked up by the wind as they tried to escape from me. I didn’t even bother to check for my own safety, only worried about all the time and effort I’d put into documenting and researching the recent murders.

I became so wrapped up in retrieving my things, that I didn’t even notice that I hadn’t run into a brick wall at all, but a living, breathing human being. When I finally noticed them, they were eyeing one of the reports that I’d printed off of the computer with an unreadable, though pensive, expression.

“Oh my god - I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was going,” I exclaimed hurriedly, instinctively moving forward to check if he was okay, “Are you alright?”

The man was quiet for a moment before looking up from what he’d been reading. He cracked a smile, and shook his head dismissively. “I should be asking you that. I wasn’t the one knocked over,” He replied, a heavy, croaky undertone in his voice that made me wonder how many cigarettes he needed to smoke for him to sound like that. Maybe it’s natural. Maybe it’s Marlboro.

“I should’ve been paying attention, though! It could’ve been avoided if I’d pulled my head out of the dust,” I said hastily, trying to put the blame back on my shoulders. The man shook his head, rolling his eyes in a playful manner before handing me the papers he’d helped me collect. I thanked him several times for his help, and apologized another three times for bumping into him, and then I quickly excused myself. I was too embarrassed and finicky to continue talking with him any longer than I already had.

As I walked away from him, eager to get to my car and bask in my humiliation, a certain tingling feeling started eating at the back of my head. It itched down my spine, making me shiver in an almost violent fashion. Casting a last look over my shoulder, I noticed that the man was staring after me, lighting a cigarette without even bothering to break our eye contact. I smiled despite my discomfort, and gave him a short, quick wave. He did not wave back.

The drive home felt longer than it should have been. My mind was clouded, cluttered, and full of words and pictures that I had no need for. The blood in my veins was liquid origami, and my life force was folding in on itself. I was tired, I was depressed, and I was ready for bed or, alternatively, death - whichever came first.

As it turned out, I wouldn’t have to choose between the two.

My first mistake was taking the garbage out. My second mistake was stopping to look at the stars. My third mistake was not having the physical awareness to hear the figure creeping up behind me. My fourth mistake was breathing through the damp rag that had been clamped over my mouth and nose.

I woke up in a bathtub several hours later.

Notes