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Review This Story || Author: Rasputtin Szczepanski

Liz and the Wolves of Shahala

Part 4

Liz and the Wolves of Shahala

By Rasputtin Szczepanski

Chapter 4

I went to bed exhausted, my body emotionally and sexually drained.  I had checked my cell phone one last time before climbing under the sheets of my unmade bed. There were still no texts or phone messages from Mom. 

At first, I wasnt sure why I had woken up.  It was the middle of the night.  It was still dark and the green glow of my clock said it was 2 A.M.   Something had awakened me as if setting off an alarm in my subconscious.  I lay still looking at my clock and then I heard a door open downstairs.  I opened my eyes wider and stared at my door.  I sat up slowly.  Someone was in the basement.  I could hear it.  I sat up and listened.  My ears strained in the silence of the house.  It was quiet again.  I wanted to yell out to see if it was Mom but what if it wasnt?  I got out of bed, the springs in the box mattress squeaking loud enough to shatter the windows.  I was still naked so I quietly put my robe and slippers on.  The floor creaked as I moved.  I slowed down, fearful of the unintentional noise I was making.   I stopped and listened again.  I could only hear the pounding of my heart, rattling my ribcage and deafening my ability to hear anything else.  I closed my eyes and focused on listening harder.  Someone was down in the basement, it sounded like someone dragging something along the floor.

Each step emitted a loud creak as I carefully walked down.  The door to the basement was barely open and beyond, the light was out.  I stopped again and I heard the noise again.  Someone was definitely down there.  I slowly pushed the door open and looked down into the darkness.  I caught my breath.  Something was moving in the dark.  Enough light was coming from street lamps outside, through a small window by the door to break the absolute darkness below.  It seemed like the whole room was moving, dark shadows, something too big to be human, filling the room.   The movement looked like a giant snake moving.   The door creaked and suddenly a head towering near the ceiling turned and two eyes, reflecting the dim lighting, peered up at me. I tried to scream but nothing came out of my mouth.

I woke up in my bed, whimpering, trying to scream.  I clutched at the sheets and muttered “what the fuck?”  It was only a dream. I listened and could not hear anything.  I got up, put on the robe and slippers and went downstairs, turning on every light I could.  I figured that maybe Mom had come home and the noise worked its way into my dreams.  I cautiously opened the door to the basement and turned on the light.  It was empty. 

I went back to bed and lay for with my lights on.  It was 3 AM.  I couldnt sleep.  I got up and turned on the computer.  SlaveTrainer wasnt online so I played some World of Warcraft.  Not many people were on so I grinded through mindless quest.

The sun rose and I fixed myself a bowl of cereal.  It was then two days since I saw my mom.  I knew something was wrong.  No texts, no phone calls.  As I sat there at an empty table, I began to cry.  After calming down a bit, I called my moms sister, Aunt Holly, asking what to do.  It took several rings before she answered groggily.  She wasnt a help, saying just that she would try and call Mom and to give it to the afternoon.

I knew that I couldnt give it much more time.  It was bad and I knew it. In my gut, I knew it.  The horror scenarios were beginning to play out in my head and a deep, dark feeling was coming over me that made me believe she was dead.  A voice in my head argued that I was jumping to illogical conclusions while the other voice said that the heart knew what it knew, somehow my mother came to a horrific end.  I called my Aunt back at 9 AM and she answered the phone like she was still in bed.  She said she called my Mom and left a message.  I called the police.  By noon, they sent someone over and asked a bunch of pointless questions.   The police must have called my Aunt because she came over about 7 PM.  She wanted me to stay with her but she lived in a two bedroom apartment with four kids.  I wanted to be home in case Mom came home or tried to call.  I spent another night alone, this time with all the lights on.

A week went by and it became an investigation.  A couple days before Christmas it was on the news: “Missing Portland Mother being looked for by police.”   The police combed through the house twice.  They took her computer and then returned it a week later.  I deleted Skype in case they decided to go through mine.  The last thing SlaveTrainer needed was to ask to webcam with the Portland Police Department.

The lead investigator seemed very concerned about me, probably because I would break into uncontrolled sobbing every time being questioned.  He was a man named Mr. Ed Mailhot.  Mr. Mailhot was a tall, heavy set man with a walrus mustache.   He focused a lot on questions about Moms personal life and the fact that the basement door was locked.  Although tricky, it turned out that someone could lock the door from outside the basement, although the “why” was a line of questioning that the investigator often travelled.  It wasnt impossible to unlock the door from the outside, but as I proved, it could be done with small object like a wire from a wire hangar.

Both Mr. Mailhot and Aunt Holly tried to talk me into spending Christmas with someone, and not alone.  It took a lot of argument from me and several bouts of uncontrollable sobbing for me to get my way.  I spent my Christmas alone, playing World of Warcraft and feeling guilty and sorry for myself for not doing more to find my Mom.  I felt guilty for wanting to get online and talk to SlaveTrainer2010.  I wanted to get on with my life and that more than anything else made me feel empty and awful because I knew that was the start of me accepting that she was gone for good.

My sister came home.  A Red Cross message finally came through to her and she was granted leave from her school.    She was as lost as I was.  The Navy had changed her, she had filled out, looked fit, more adult.  She was worried about me but she had to get back to the Navy.  She had been accepted into the Navys explosive ordinance disposal training.  I had no idea what it was but she described it as elite and very difficult.  Before she left she promised to write and call more and insisted that I ask her for help if I needed anything, even money.

School started again the first Monday of the New Year and Aunt Holly insisted I go.  Most of my friends didnt connect the disappearance of the Portland woman with me and for that, I was grateful.  Eric did know.  He was the one person that I could talk to about it, even if was just typed words through World of Warcraft and Facebook.  He asked me often how I was doing and I always lied and said I was fine.

I had avoided Clark and his flirty messages on Facebook.  Eventually he stopped trying.  At school, I got a curious glance from him but he never approached me.  I went back to being invisible at school, and moving silently through the curriculum, one day at a time.  It was how I preferred it, to suffer my loss in silence.

A week into the third semester, something changed.  At first, I was oblivious to it.  I was walking in a cloud, living in a dark depression.  Slowly though, I noticed that I was being looked at, commented on in whispers out of my reach.  At first, I thought maybe it was the fact that I hadnt washed my hair or was just throwing on anything without a care for how I looked.  The worse I looked the better.  My face had broken out with a few pimples.

Eric was reluctant to tell me what was going on but I forced the issue online late one night.  He told me to go to my computer and he would email me the source of the attention.  Something that what was going around to almost everyone in school.  I opened my email and the photo attached to it.  I have to admit, the graphics on the photo were well done.  Someone with good Photoshop skills had skillfully worked the word “Super Slut” in a nice calligraphic font along the bottom of the photo.  The photo was me, naked at my computer, smiling like an idiot.

I went back to my Xbox to talk to Eric.  “Everyone has this?” I asked.

I could hear the mortification in his voice.  “It seems like it,” he said.

“Who sent it first?”  My voice was quivering with hurt.  I asked the question but I knew that it was Clark.  I was angrier with myself for doing something so stupid.  Still, I wondered how much Kris had to do with the distribution.

“I dont know.  Im sorry about this Liz.  I should have told you sooner… I feel awful.  People are so stupid…I hate this state.”

I was lucky that broke on a Friday.  I lay in my bed after that and didnt get up until Aunt Holly rang the doorbell at noon the next day.

She sat me down to talk.  I knew then that just when I thought it couldnt get worse, it was.  She told me that she was going to move into to the house, bringing her four children and her boyfriend.  My mom wasnt legally dead but there was some legal stuff going on that allowed Aunt Holly to inherit the house and take over the finances.  It seemed shady but I wasnt in a position to argue.  I was helpless and alone.

They moved in the next weekend.  There was a lot of discussion about rooms.  There were only three rooms in the house.  Moms room was going to be Aunt Holly and her boyfriend, Herb Hunter. Herb Hunter… I always thought that was a stupid name. Reminded me of my Druid on World of Warcraft, always collecting herbs. He always pegged the creep alarm in me.  He was skinny with long goatee and tattoos on his neck. The opposite of Aunt Holly who was short and fat.  Whenever he saw me, he always glanced first at my boobs, and then he put on this sugary demeanor, always trying to pull me into conversation.

The four children split the other two rooms. I was asked if I minded living in the basement. Odd enough, I didnt mind. At the very least, it would keep Herb from turning into a Meth lab, something I suspected him of since I first met him. Herb and I moved my bed and stuff down to the basement. 

Despite a big bed awkwardly placed in the middle of the room, I liked it. I liked the privacy.  It got me away from the constantly screaming children who ranged from one year old to seven. It got me away from Herbs leering glances. The first night though, after turning off the lights, I remembered my nightmare and suddenly, the basement didnt seem like such a good idea. I kept my computer on as a night light, to take off the creepy edge.

My first night in the basement, I fell asleep fine but woke up terrified. I didnt remember my dream but my heart was still rapidly beating in my chest. I could hear something. It seemed like I was awake but Ive been fooled by my nightmares before. I stopped breathing, trying to hear.  It sounded like water falling in a cave.  It was a far off sound that one would only hear in a cavern, foreign to any sound that should be heard in that old house at the top of Munjoy Hill.  I laid still, started to breathe again, and closed my eyes, trying to focus on if the noise was real or in my head.  The sound was there, far off, barely audible. Listening to the sound, finding it soothing, if odd, I fell asleep again.

Winter in Maine is a miserable time.  Aunt Holly worked and could only give me a ride to school if I left an hour early.  That wasnt going to happen.  I still stayed up way too late playing on the computer.  Since Herb didnt work, he was always willing to give me a ride but he always managed to find a way to creep me out.  It was usually his touches that he would leave for a little too long on me:  A hand squeezing my shoulder, a hand stroking the back of my head, his arm brushing my breast.  Then there were the constant questions about my non-existent romantic life.  So I would walk to school, through sleet or snow.  Maine in winter is dark, grey clouds are always low overhead.  I would walk to school in the dark and the sun would nearly be set by the time I got home.  I would leave my LL Bean boots caked in dirty salt mud at the door before eating and going to my computer in the basement to play.

Life became a routine.  I got used to Aunt Holly and her family.  When her kids were not driving me insane, I would act the role of big sister and sometimes hang with them in the living room, watching cartoons with them.   That would last until Herb decided to join and try to make friends with me.

Mr. Mailhot the inspector would check in with me once a week, filling me in on how they continued to find nothing.  After a month, they returned many of my moms books and her computer.   Aunt Holly kept the computer up in her room.  I took the books and notes and put them back on my mothers desk in the basement.  I read through them some nights, looking for clues that I knew didnt exist.  There was little there that I hadnt seen before at it seemed that she stopped taking any sort of notes a month before she disappeared.

I did know that she must have taken the necklace with the dragon shaped stone with her, wherever she went.  I couldnt find it anywhere in the house.  I opened every drawer in the house looking for it.  I really wished that I had it.  I obsessed with its loss.  Looking at the design in the book one night, I decided that I wanted to honor my mom with a tattoo.  The design was beautiful.  I dont know why I wanted it, but perhaps I wanted something permanent.  Each day without her made her more of a memory and I hated that.  I didnt want to forget her or lose the belief that one day soon she was going to walk through the door, apologizing profusely for the worry she had caused.

Aunt Holly had suspended my allowance, saying that she couldnt afford it.   She also cut off the internet which really hurt.  No more surfing by myself in the basement, no more late night raids, no more Xbox slaughter fest, no more perverted discussions with my online Master.  I needed money for the tattoo as well as my cellphone which was also cut off.  I started asking around to shovel snow from driveways for cash.  My next door neighbor was a state congressman and he was very aware of my situation.  His wife overcompensated me for the work and a good payment from a heavy snow was enough to last me a couple weeks.  I also knew where Aunt Holly hid her money.  It was her tin can savings, like she was some depression era wife.  I wanted to tell her to hide it better before Herb found it and used it to buy some cocaine but Im not sure if she could see anything bad in Herb.  She was hungry for a man in her life and she got Herb.  I knew that only the situation playing itself out would ever convince her of what a bad life choice she had made.  So, I borrowed a few from the tin can.  I didnt have enough for internet, but I was able to scrape up $100, hopefully enough for a tattoo.  I wasnt sure how much a tattoo was but I knew my dragon design was simple.  I scanned a copy of the drawing in Moms book and printed it out.  Then on Saturday, I bundled up in all my winter survival gear and walked downtown to the tattoo parlor.

A bell rang against the door as I walked in.  Numerous photos of tattoos designed at the place were posted on a counter near the door, completely covering the sides and top.  A young woman popped her head out of a door that led to a private room in the back.  She looked at me and cocked her head.  She had short, dark hair and a pretty, but determined face.  She had a few freckles and her face has a boyish, impish shape to it.

She smiled at me and I nervously smiled back, taking of my cap.  She had a baggy sweater and dark, black jeans with combat boots.  I guessed that underneath the warm clothing was a whole catalog of tattoos covering her body.  She walked up to the counter slowly, studying me as if confused, or if she possibly knew me.  “Can I help you?” she said.

I breathed in and said “I would like to get a tattoo.”

“Oh, awesome.  Can I see some ID?”

I cursed inwardly.  I had seen the “18 and over” sign legally posted on the wall.  I pulled my high school ID card and handed it to her. There wasnt an age listed on it but my listed grade was a definite sign of my young age.  She took it and read it, longer than what was necessary.

She looked up, “You go to Portland High School?”

I nodded.  She read the name off the card slowly, as if tasting it “Elizabeth Hall….Elizabeth?”

“They call me Liz.”

“What sort of tattoo do you want?”

I pulled the copy out of my purse, unfolded it and placed it on the counter.  “I would like this on my chest about the size of a silver dollar, right here.”  I pointed to about two inches higher than where my heart was.

She stared at the image for again what seemed too long, studying it.  “What is this…I mean, what does it mean?”

“Its called the Cintamani…its kind of a long story.  It represents someone that I love and miss.”

She traced the figure with her fingers then looked up at me.  I couldnt escape that feeling that she was sizing me up and calculating something.  “I cant give you a tattoo here, you have to be 18.”  I sighed and thought that I should have planned this out better.  I could have made a fake ID.  She leaned closer.  “If you want though, I can give this to you at my house, privately.”  She turned over the picture and wrote her address and phone number on the blank side.  “Youre not a cop are you?”

I shook my head even though I could see she already knew I wasnt.

“Be there at 6 PM and Ill do it for you.”

I could feel her eyes on me as I walked out of the parlor.  As I found out later, after I walked out, she opened her laptop and pulled out the bare breasted photo of me that one of her high school friends shared with her.  She smiled and licked her lips.


Review This Story || Author: Rasputtin Szczepanski
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