Renhala (5 page)

“She’s telling me something, and I don’t know what this means,” the psychic said, “but she’s telling you to dress up as a kidney for Halloween.” This was quite the coincidence, as my mom was on the waiting list for a kidney transplant after being on dialysis for four years. I burst into tears, and I think the psychic felt bad, for she cleaned up her tarot cards immediately and lovingly placed her hand on my back. We both decided the reading was over and she suggested I go speak to my family. Sure enough, they all started laughing, telling me Aunt Debra Kay had always had quite a warped sense of humor, making my tears flow even harder.

So after asking my pendulum, I find out Debra Kay is in fact following me around. I ponder what kind of influence she may be having on my currently crazy life.

As I sit alone in my room, whether from lack of sleep or my belief it could happen, I feel a pair of arms lovingly embrace me, and I begin crying. Eventually, I cry myself to sleep, the pendulum in my hand.

Chapter 5

Disillusioned

It’s 6 a.m. Monday, and the chiming of bells resonates throughout my head. I press the off button on my annoyingly
cheerful alarm, but it continues to echo through my head anyway.

I get out of bed and start my routine: pee, throw on a coat and walk Kioto, eat a quick breakfast in bar form, dress in whatever I have clean, and then run like the wind to catch the bus. I take my shower before I go to bed each night. Otherwise, I just don’t get that wonderful, messy kind of beach look that actresses pay hundreds to acquire—and perhaps because I just don’t have enough damn time in the morning.

But I
do
make sure that before I leave, I give Kioto a big hug and kiss her forehead as I breathe in her dogness—that dingy, earthy smell that can only belong to a canine. She leans into me, and I enjoy our brief moment, knowing that no other animal could ever take her place. She’s the best. She warms my feet, kisses my wounds, and brings me her chew toys when I’m sad. What more can a mommy ask for?

Kioto sits at the door until I leave and watches me walk down the street from the front window—a dog
’s gesture for making sure their owners are safe. Hopefully, she’ll soon find the pig ear treat I left by her food bowl, which should make her usually boring day a little brighter.

As I walk, I find myself watching a seedy group of gangbanger-looking t
eenagers—baggy pants, bandana-wrapped heads, heavy-chained necks—hanging out underneath the streetlight that I’m approaching. They’re busy with a rap—something melodic about dubs and large genitals, as their German Shepard evil-eyes the beagle across the street. My grip on my purse tightens and I begin walking a bit faster than normal—actually racing to get past them, undamaged. I look down as they each see me approaching and carefully slip my hand in my purse, feeling for my pepper spray.

They stop their conversation and I hear, “Yo, Bitch, get back here!”
Bitch
.
Whore
.
Kailey. Tramp
.
They’re the only words I understand in his mumbled speech as his punches connect to my face, bloodying his knuckles from the blow to my forehead and mixing my blood with his
.
He hates me
.
Hates me for something, but I have no idea why. He’s never even met me before today, yet he knows my name
.
And I am not a whore.

One of the gangbangers suddenly darts from his position to run in my direction. I pull the pepper spray out and hold
it in front of me as he runs past, shaking his head at the me, a crazy lady. My hand falls slowly, and I hear, “Yo, did you see that? She almost peppered Joe!” and a mixture of laughter and snide remarks follows. I turn to see Joe yelling for his escaped dog, Bitch. Then, I notice that I passed by my bus stop by a half block and on the wrong side of the street.

As I walk back, I hear a cat call in my dir
ection from a passing car—a new, ivory Mercedes SUV. The car stops ahead of me, and I instantly stop walking—my heart can’t take any more. Deciding on becoming a moving target rather than a stationary one, I speed up, walking faster toward the bus stop and its regulars. If anyone jumps out of the car and grabs me they can be my witnesses.

The car door starts to open, and out steps a familiar leg: Amber’s.  

“Hey, want a ride? Or do you want to ride a stinky bus with the Chicago crazies?” she yells.

I look at her and the tears start to flow from my eyes. I bring my hands to my face and she runs toward me. The sheer relief of seeing Amber, mixed with the adrenaline from the thought of bodily harm is too much and I can
’t control my emotions.

“Oh, Kailey! It
’s okay, hon.” I grip onto her as Russell scrambles from behind the wheel to help. Amber says, softly, “She’s fine Russell, thanks. We just need some privacy.” He turns and heads back to the car as she pulls the tear-drenched hair away from my face. “Kailey, you need to get ahold of yourself. I’m calling your mom.”

“No!” I suddenly
snip.

Amber just stands with her hands on my arms. “Let us give you a ride to work.”

As I crawl into the car and cast a glance at those still waiting for the bus, I grasp the fact that I’ll most likely be an outcast, a deserted soul in that shelter, from now on—the crazy, emotional baggage girl, afraid of her own shadow.  

Amber turns in her seat to face me. “See, isn
’t this better than sitting in a seat someone has probably peed on?” She has such a wonderful way with words.

The car is absolutely gorgeous, with its cream-colored leather and all-wood accents. It’s immaculate and smells wonderful. The smell is so familiar—I can’t pinpoint it, but it wakens visions of my mom and her incense burner.

Of course, Amber has run of the radio, because her favorite song is playing, the one about some country-western-dude whose heart ran out on him, and his best friend’s semi-truck ran it over, or maybe his dog buried it—something like that. 

“Dave Matthews would sound much better through these aw
esome speakers, I’m sure,” I state. Russell gets it, because he laughs, and Amber punches him in the arm. “So why the special treatment?” I ask, gathering myself and brushing away my brief break from sanity, as well as the tears from my face.

“Just because you have an awesome best friend, that’s all.” Amber chuckles to herself as she applies lipstick, and I see her glare at me through her mirror. “Hey, did your mom tell you I went and saw her yesterday?”

She sees my questioning expression through her mirror. “You did?”

“Yep,” she says, “and Russell, too. She just
loved
him. It was almost like they connected immediately.” She smiles at Russell, then adds, “She was happy I found love.” I roll my eyes behind them and I see her clench her teeth. “Give it up, Kailey. I’m not in the mood for your righteousness.” She continues with her makeup and doesn’t even look at my reflection.

I sit, broken-hearted. Russell then adds, “Really, Amber?” He look
s at me in his rearview mirror and says, “She’s a bit crabby this morning. Please forgive her. They didn’t have her favorite syrup this morning at Starbucks.”

You already know her favorite syrup?
I
know her favorite syrup.
I grow perturbed, so I go for the throat. “So am I to believe, Amber, you called Russell up early this morning to ask for the ride, or did he just happen to be somewhere very convenient? Hmm?”

They both blush. Great—I hit the nail on the head. I can easily
return the attitude. For Russell’s sake, I decide to change the subject.

“Thanks for driving
me, Russell,” I say.

“Anytime!” he replie
s, cheerily.

We arrive at our destination, and I thank Russell, again. Amber gives him her own “thank you” and my, what a “thank you” it is. This time, it’s my turn to blush. As we head toward the door, Russell steps out of his car, and then calls me back over.

“My grandfather really is a great man, and he deserves your utmost respect,” he whispers. “Oh, and he also hates it when people don’t keep their dinner dates.” Then he gets in his car, winking at me as I stand, dumbfounded. 

As we hea
d toward the elevator, Amber asks, “What?” She missed the whole thing, but she can read me like a hawk.

I had shoved the promise made to Gunthreon way in the back of my mind all weekend, but now I realize I must go back today for dinner. But I gather myself and smile at Amber. “Russell and Amber sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” I sing. I can’t help laughing. She throws her keycard at me and laughs, too.  

We get into the elevator. “Russell is like no other guy I’ve dated,” Amber professes. “I’ve only known him a weekend and I feel more connected with him than I ever have with anyone—present company excluded.”

“Just be careful, understand?” I think of Gunthreon and our odd meeting—and the fact that Russell is his
grandson
has me briefly
thinking of mystery novel-type plots to frame the innocent. But when I concentrate on the thought of both Russell and Gunthreon, and focus on the feeling I get from them, any thoughts of evil plots dissipate. They feel good to me—whatever that counts for.

Amber says, “I will be careful. I always am, whether you think so or not.”

“Don’t break his heart,” I tease. “I want to borrow his Mercedes someday.” I laugh and, exiting the elevator, push her toward her office.

I stop in the kitchen, make my tea, and then pop a stale doughnut hole into my mouth. And then one more f
or good measure—two’s good luck. Wait…that’s three’s a charm. One more won’t hurt.

I head toward my own office,
still chewing, and say a few hellos, and finally settle in. I’m already tired, feeling this is sure to be a long day, but I attack my e-mails with fervor anyway.
Let’s see what forwarded messages from my friends were “quarantined” today by our IT staff
.

By the time I get to the very last two, I feel a wave of sleepiness come over me. I decide that, if I turn my computer just right, nobody walking by will see me with my eyes closed for a few minutes. It
’s office policy to leave our doors open, otherwise I’d slam it shut and sprawl out on the floor.

As my eyes shut, it suddenly hits me what the smell was in Russell’s car—lilacs, a favorite of my mom’s. 

After a long while, I feel like someone is standing at my office door, so I open my eyes and peek around my computer. Nobody there.
Thank goodness
, I think. All I need is for Evan to catch me sleeping. I’m sure that would go over really well at my next review: “Yes sir, I concentrate much better with my eyes closed.”

I turn to my screen to check those last two e-mails, and suddenly, my sight is blurry. I focus on the screen, and it seems to be getting worse, so I check my long-distance vision by looking out my door to the hallway.

Something is very wrong. The air is gray and thick, and my immediate thought is fire. I grab my purse and get up and walk to my door, yelling to a coworker whose office is next to mine, but I get no answer, and sniffing, smell nothing out of the ordinary. 

“Hello?” I say questioningly to the haze before me. No response. “What the hell is going on?” I can
’t see where I’m walking, so I grab onto what I think should be filing cabinets outside my office, but feel tree bark instead. In feeling my way toward the reception area, my hand slides over something slimy—some kind of greenish-yellow ooze. It’s sticky. I bring it closer my nose and gag. It reeks like rancid eggs and vomit.

Then, a faint, indistinguishable noise rises in the distance—something that sounds, and feels, big. I don’t dare open my mouth. I only wait to see if I hear it again.

I do. This time it’s a little clearer—closer. Still I wait, and don’t move an inch. Again comes the sound, even closer. It’s someone speaking very softly, in a kind of rhythmic tone.

I slowly start to back up toward my office, but the speed of its approach accelerates as I move backwards. So I crouch down, hoping this thing won’t see me. I don’t recognize the voice, and I’m scared that nobody else is around. Maybe they
’re dead.
Maybe
I’m
dead—he killed me.

At this level, I can see that the fog
is about a foot off the ground, so I get on my hands and knees to see if I can see anything. And I do see something—something that could possibly be very big feet, yards in front of me, but I have trouble wrapping my mind around the concept. When I squint, I see three feet—not two, but three brown, dirty, hairy feet, with toenails the size of bear claws.

Now I can hear it clearly.

“Kailey, Kailey, come and play with me. Kailey, Kailey, come and slay with me.” 

Bile rises to my throat as I start crawling,
crawling to my apartment door, my blood leaving its crimson trail behind me. I scratch at the door with my nails, and break one off as he drags me backwards, back through my own blood, making my attempt at grasping the hardwood floors impossible.

T
he air is so thick I can hardly move through it, my lungs barely grasping enough oxygen. I realize I’m nearly to my office when I hear a thud. I stop and, with some effort, force enough courage to turn toward the feet. I see them again, along with the source of the thud—a bloody raccoon, which I assume from the angle of its neck is dead. It lies by the feet. Then, this thing—creature—somehow bends in a way that, though the feet remain where they stand, a face peeks under the fog directly at me, just enough for me to see huge eyes and nothing else.

Shit!

At this point, with all my might, I move as quickly as I can through the mist and back toward my office. I feel breath at my neck just as I slam my door shut. My panting is heavy, and I shake uncontrollably, as if I’ve run a marathon—or at least this is what I imagine it would feel like.

I run to my phone and sit in my chair. There is a soft knock at the door, and I hold my breath for what seems like minutes.