Captivated (An Affliction Novel) (9 page)

“Where did the couple go?” I asked Markus. Since I got so used to adjusting the zoom, I zoomed in a little more on Dean. I couldn’t help but stare at his ripped triceps. They were flexing up and down as he dusted his pants.

“Markus?” I asked while still looking through the binoculars. It was more like gawking than it was looking, to be honest. “Markus?” I turned to him. He was sitting down with his hands at his sides holding the surface for balance. He was breathing quickly… much too quickly. His eyes were wide and his face was drenched in fear. I dropped the binoculars against my chest and crawled over to him. I put my hand on his shoulder and slightly shook him. There was no response. My heart started pounding. What had he seen? I was starting to get scared and I didn’t know what to do. I shook him harder. And harder still. He slowly turned to me.

“Did you see?”
Markus asked shakily. His lips trembled. And his eyes were blank. Even though he was looking right at me, his eyes weren’t seeing me at all.

“No. What happened? Are you okay?” I hated the suspense. Why couldn’t he just blurt things out when they happened?

“They disappeared. Both of them…” Markus whispered, “…poof.” his voice broke.

“Are you sure?” I turned back to where it happened. I squinted to see if Dean was still there, but I couldn’t see any figure down there. He was gone. Removing my hand from his shoulder, I grabbed the binoculars and searched for the couple. People just didn’t disappear like that. They just didn’t.

“You won’t find them. They’re gone.” Markus assured me.

Markus
had to be crazy. I couldn’t believe it. I most definitely couldn’t believe him. No one would. A person disappearing is simply impossible. He probably got distracted and they went inside. That had to be it. They high-tailed it when they saw someone with a freakin’ sword, threw their clothes at him as a distraction, and ran to the nearest door. I wouldn’t stick around either.

“Why did Dean have that sword? People didn’t carry those things around.” I drawled.

“We have to get out of here.” Markus prompted.

“No. You always do this! Tell me what you saw!” I demanded.

“You don’t want to know!” Markus raised his voice. “You can’t handle it. I know you, Mindy.” he lashed out in a whisper.

“And what if I did see what happened. What were you going to do? Block my view? This is bull!” I shouted at him. Taking a deep breath, I calmly said to him, “we’re in this together. Please. You can trust me.” I placed my hand on his shoulder in an attempt to ease him.

After a long moment of silence, Markus finally spoke. “He fought the guy and ended it by slicing his head off with the sword. Then both the body and head disappeared.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Dean stood there, staring at the girl on the ground. He was majorly focused on her. She got up. She actually got up as if nothing had happened to her. The girl slammed into Dean, clawing at him. I think… I think she was trying to bite him. He threw her against the brick wall and sliced her head off too.” Markus put his head down. “Then she disappeared.” he finished.

That
was insane! Seriously insane! I didn’t know what to believe. In one hand, I had my best friend, who had never come even close to lying to me, tell me this crazy, unbelievable story. And on the other hand, I had the truth of reality-people didn’t disappear. Markus had always been superstitious and suspicious of certain behaviors. He would always try to analyze every given situation. Like if there was a car wreck we passed by, he would study every single thing and tell me what he thought had happened sparing no detail. Everyone probably guessed that stuff, but he always was determined to thoroughly think those types of situations out. But I thought he was going overboard. His obsession was getting to him and making him go crazy.

“What about the blood?” I pointed in the direction of the ‘murder scene.’ “There’s no blood down there,” I added, hoping that he would
start to realize how crazy it all was.

He sighed and pressed his lips together. “It also disappeared.” he said half out loud, like he himself didn’t believe any of it.

Markus started packing his bag. With his arm stretched out towards me, he nonverbally asked for the pair of binoculars hanging off of my neck. I slowly took it off and handed it to him. There were a couple of nacho bags I had emptied lying next to me. I picked them up and stuffed them in my pocket. Markus stood up and headed towards the ladder while I rose to my feet and studied him. I took a step to follow and felt my foot land on something hard and small. It was the mace Markus had given me earlier. I picked it up and blankly stared at it in my hand.

Markus needed me. I didn’t know how I would help him but I’d be damned if I was
going to let him go through that on his own. I clenched the mace and slipped it into my front pocket.

he ride home was quiet. There had never been an awkward moment around Markus, but there was a first for everything. We pulled up to my house and he sat there, quiet still.

“See you Monday?” I asked, breaking the silence.

“I’ll be there,” Markus
said faintly.

I jiggled the handle, but couldn’t open the door. I was making enough noise with it to be able to get his attention, but he didn’t even flinch. I didn’t want to bother Markus, but I turned to him anyway.

Not a single reaction.

His normal jumping out of the car and rushing to my doo
r routine wasn’t happening. That was just too strange. At least the window was big enough for me to fit through. I looked over at Markus, still staring straight ahead, pensive. The window was already opened, so I climbed through it and walked up to the house without looking back. He needed some time alone. It was the way he functioned. Every time he was going through something, I had to back off a little, then, before I knew it, he would be at my door wanting to talk.

I opened the door and walked into the pitch black living room. The only light I saw was the one coming from my mother’s bedroom. I quickly flipped open my cell phone to look at the time. Only ten minutes late. What a relief! I walked up to her room to check myself in and saw she had the door open so I was able to see she was lying on her bed reading a romance novel. As a professional writer, she loved reading fictional books because she said it always took her out of reality.

She could have had any guy she wanted back in her day. But instead, she chose my dad. I would have given up anything, even my very existence, for her to have chosen a different guy.
Anyone
but him. As a child, I remembered the day she found out he was gone. He didn’t even take his things-he just left her. For years she suffered, thinking maybe he was taken or kidnapped. Until one night, when she went out with her sisters, she saw him again. He acted like he didn’t even know her. And then she went back to being heartbroken.

“Knock, knock.” I said while poking my head through the opening.

“Well hey there! How was your night?” my mom asked. She placed a bookmark on the page she was on and closed it on her lap.

“It was all right.” I wanted to tell her everything. But I couldn’t do that. She would worry too much and wouldn’t let me out of the house for my own safety. “Nothing interesting happened,” I regrettably lied.

“How’s Markus doing? He usually comes in when he drops you off…” she commented.

“Oh. He had the same curfew as me tonight so he had to hurry home.” I explained.

“Are you going to go with me tomorrow?” she asked.

“Where?” I asked. Inviting myself in, I plopped on her bed.

“To the pound. I want a dog.” she said. “First, I want to go to your aunt’s house and then to the pet store to get some supplies.”

“Okay.” I said. “What time?”

“Early afternoon.” she said. My mom placed the book on her night stand and took off her reading glasses.

“Do you think we’ll be back in time for my run?” I asked.

“I think so. We can try.” she insisted.

“Ok. Good night, mom.” I walked back to the door and closed it behind me.

“Good night!” she called out before I could completely shut it.

As I turned around to head to my room, the light from my mom’s room went out. The only light I had to guide me to my room was the night light in the hallway. When I got there, I turned on the light switch and kicked off my shoes. Just looking at my bed was making me sleepy so I hastily grabbed my pajamas from the drawer and slipped them on. I was too tired to shower, so I just washed my face and brushed my teeth. I leaped into my sheets, bringing them up so high that only my face was exposed. As soon as I closed my eyes, I was out.

“Mindy! Wake up! Your alarm is going off.” My mom opened the door and turned off the buzzing alarm beside it. “I still don’t understand why you have it by the door instead of by your bed,” she muttered.

“Cause if it’s by my bed I’ll just hit the snooze button and go back to sleep…” I croaked.

“But I’m always the one turning it off for you,” she complained.

“You hear it before I do.” I mumbled while shoving my face in the pillow.

“Well get ready cause we’re leaving as soon as you’re done.” she announced.

“Blaaahhhh.” I wailed out. I wasn’t ready to get up. I wanted to sleep in some more. But my body started moving off the bed, eyes still closed. I
zombied
my way to the hall bathroom and shut the door behind me. The warm water falling on me woke me up a little. Just a little.

My mom knocked on the door.

“You want some coffee?” she yelled out.

“YES!” Excitement filled my voice
. That was precisely what I needed.

After my shower, I put my wet hair up in a ponytail and did my makeup. I wrapped the towel around myself and went to my room to dress. We would probably make it home just in time for me to go running before it got dark. I threw on some workout clothes so I wouldn’t have to come home and change.

We brought home a boxer. A great looking one. It had to be around ninety pounds of pure muscle. I’d seen dogs like him on TV. He looked like one of the studs that pranced around on the dog shows. He had a dark mask and the rest of his body was fawn. The only white on him was his huge chest and front paws. We fell in love with him as soon as we saw him through the cage they kept him in.

The sun was sinking into the ground in front of us as we pulled up to the house. We got home just in time. I jumped out of the car and opened the door for the dog, grabbing the leash before he took off. I wasn’t sure if he was trained to stay close off of a leash or not so I tied him to the tree in front of the house and ran inside to grab my mp3 player, time passed by faster when I had it playing during my jog.

Upon entering my room, I heard a soft beeping sound. I thought maybe I had received a text message or something. I wasn’t sure where I had left my phone, so I stayed quiet and followed the beeping. It was on the floor in front of my night stand, though that’s not where I had left it. The vibrating must have moved it off the edge. I picked it up to check the message and found it was a voicemail alert. I had several missed calls from Markus. I called my voicemail to see what he wanted.

“Mindy. I need you to call me as soon as possible. Hurry and call me when you get this. Bye.” His voice sounded shaky. What was also strange to me was that he actually said bye. He never said bye, especially to a voicemail.

I hung up and went to his name under contacts and pressed the send button. To prepare myself for whatever he was going to tell me, I sat down on my bed and took in a deep breath as the phone rang.