Mercy's Debt

TWELVE



I endeavored to sleep in on Sunday.

I’d been trapped in a foggy mental haze since my Friday night encounter with Robert. As if it wasn’t pitiful enough that the vampire had haunted my thoughts all through Saturday, he’d also become prominent fixture in my dreams during the rare moments that I managed to catch a fleeting wink of sleep.

Sunday morning offered no reprieve. I’d been stewing over Robert throughout the night and well into sunrise, tossing and turning wretchedly as the light outside changed from black to purple, and then faded to an orangey yellow. Bright rays of sunshine glowed through the curtains, sending orbs of light dancing into my eyes as if to shed light on the futility of losing sleep over a vampire like Robert. I mean, realistically, what did I really have to offer the man that he didn’t already have?

Just I’d finally managed to fall marginally asleep, Liz barged in to my bedroom. She jumped on the edge of the bed, scaring me half to death.

She was nattering in such a riled manner that I thought the apartment was on fire. I lurched out of bed and threw my robe on over my pajamas like a maniac.

Liz didn’t move.

“What the hell is happening?” I yelled.

And then I saw the newspaper.

Liz had the Sunday edition of the San Francisco Society Times clutched in her hand. I could only make out the first half of the front-page headline: Business Tycoon Robert Bramson…

I snapped the paper away from Liz and let out a gasp as I read the full article title: Business Tycoon Robert Bramson Slums it in Diner.

That wasn’t even the worst of it. In the center of the page was a large color photo of the two of us on our date, HOLDING HANDS! Under the photo was a snide caption: At least he dressed up for the occasion! Robert Bramson and mystery woman get romantic in evening attire over hash browns and pie.

I quickly scanned the article, cringing each time an incriminating phrase jumped off the page at me.

“The couple talked through the night…”

“They gazed at each other lovingly…”

“He wiped a tear from under her eye…”

“They left together just before dawn…”

I flopped back down on the bed. “Oh, f*ck,” I cussed.

Liz snatched the paper back from me, letting out an excited squeal. “So, this really is you, then? I can’t believe it!”

I buried my hands in my face. “I can’t believe this,” I mumbled through my fingers.

“I don’t understand. Why are you upset over this? Is this why you’ve been so secretive lately? Because you’re dating some big muckety-muck businessman? And here I thought you were up to no good!”

I can’t say that I didn’t feel a little smug. I’d been vindicated, which felt good even though what she believed wasn’t entirely true.

“Whoa! Whoa! Breathe!” I ordered, attempting to buy some time as I figured out how I was going to explain things to Liz without lying or without telling the truth. “And I know what you thought,” I added icily.

“So, who is this guy? He is gorgeous, by the way. I mean, Christ almighty, this guy is way hotter than any actor or male model that I’ve ever seen.”

“He’s just somebody I met,” I said dismissively. Truth.

“Well, how did you two meet? And whose dress is that? Have you been holding out on me in the wardrobe department, you wench?” she joked.

“We met through a mutual acquaintance.” Truth. “And the dress… was a loaner from a friend.” Truth and lie. The gown was technically loaned to me, yes, but Marlena was no friend of mine.

“Are you going to see him again?”

“I don’t know.” Truth. “We actually didn’t discuss any future plans because the date ended kind of abruptly.” Truth. Because if he didn’t leave the diner immediately, he was going to burst into flames.

“Why don’t you want anyone to know about the date you two had?”

“It’s complicated.” Truth.

“I bet it’s on account of him being a zillionaire and all,” she said knowingly. “He probably has to protect his business because of some ridiculous PR policy.”

I smiled, saying nothing. Lie by omission.

“I still don’t understand why the two of you were in- where is that- Whistle Stop?”

“I, uh…” I stammered.

My phone rang shrilly on my nightstand. Saved by the bell. I looked at the caller id: Dignitary. My face must have revealed something unpleasant, because Liz backed out of the room immediately.

“I’ll let you get that,” she said, and then shut the door as she left.

I braced myself as I answered the phone. “Hello?” I said sweetly.

“Hello, Mercy.” Marlena snapped. “I have Michael here on the line with me, too.”

“Michael! Marlena! It’s only ten in the morning!” I babbled nervously. “I thought you two would be sleeping by now.”

“No,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“I said no,” she repeated. “No, we will not engage in any sort of idle small talk this morning.”

“Okay...”

“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?” she said coldly. “This is not a social call.”

Shit.

The jig was up.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Okay.”

“We saw the paper,” Michael said blandly. He sounded embarrassed on behalf of Marlena’s rudeness.

“Right,” I said cautiously.

“I did make myself clear, did I not?” Marlena asked condescendingly. “So, what I don’t understand is why I just saw a photo of you holding hands with a client in some tacky diner. Several hours after your shift was over, no less.”

“I am so, so sorry,” I said. “Really, it looks worse than it is. I can explain everything. You see, there was this photographer hiding outside and-”

“Just save it, Mercy!” Marlena snapped. “I’m centuries old. Don’t you think I know when a human is trying to con me?”

“Come on, Marlena!” Michael chimed in. “Go easy.”

Marlena let out a long, irritated sigh. “Look, you’re lucky that I’m tired. It’s late, the sun is up, and I want to go to bed,” she stated crossly. “Since you’re new, Mercy, I am going to cut you slack. Just this one time.”

“Thank you Marlena. I’m so sorry-”

“I’m not finished,” she barked. “I may be cutting you slack, but you need to realize that if I catch you even thinking about batting your eyes at another client, I will fire you. Understand?”

“Yes. I got it.”

“Oh, and you better believe that you aren’t going to see Robert again. You are to stay far away from him.”

My heart caught in my throat.

“Okay,” I choked out.

“Actually,” she nagged, “you should be thanking me. I’m doing you a huge favor. Did you know that Robert’s fiancé was one of the girls who disappeared? He claims that he has no idea what happened to her, but I have my suspicions.”

Shocked, my mouth opened and closed like guppy lips. Was there no limit to this woman’s heinousness? “Look, Marlena, I don’t think-”

“I’m bored with this. We’ll talk later,” she said, hanging up on me.

I stared at the phone for a long time, listening to the incessant beeping of the dial tone. I switched the phone to vibrate, setting it back down on the nightstand. Crawling back into bed, I pulled the covers up high over my face.

For the first time since Grams’ death, I cried myself to sleep.





My dreams were plagued with horrible imagery of an unidentifiable villain. Down within the blurred and heavy depths of my slumber, I was certain that the creature wanted to put an end to my life… I tried to run away from my ominous fate, to flee from the murderous thing chasing me. But the mushy ground beneath my feet softened, and suddenly I was struggling up to my knees in quicksand. I tried to scream, but no sounds escaped me. Only coughs thick with blood rattled up in my throat, choking me, burning my lungs…. A voice in the distance whispered my name.

“Mercy…”

There was a galloping in the distance, ireful clops that grew louder and louder and then deafening as a man on a stallion drew near. Flames shrouded the red horizon behind him, illuminating the wrench in his grasp as he raised his arm towards the sky.

“Mercy…”

It was only as I reached out to my princely savior that I saw the rotting flesh dangling from the face of the horse, the maggots spilling from its putrefied eye socket. The man on the beast was no man at all, but a grotesque demon with a rubbery white face, fangs, and translucent bat wings marred with black, pulsating veins. The savage ripped at my shoulders with his skeletal fingers, reached out to steal my soul…

“Mercy!”

My eyes flew open and I discovered Liz standing over me. I screamed in her face, still delirious from my dream.

She released my arms and peered down at me curiously.

“Good. You’re awake,” she said casually. “Have you been taking peyote or something?” she snorted.

“What? What are you talking about?” I slurred, peering wildly around the room.

“You were just yelling all sorts of craziness about vampires and horses.”

“I was?” I asked dazedly, scratching my head. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost six.”

“At night?” I screeched. “Jesus! I slept all day.”

“If anyone is a vampire around here, Mercy, it’s you,” she teased. She picked up my phone and handed it to me. “Oh, and your cell has been vibrating off the hook all day. I can’t believe that it didn’t wake you up! I could hear it clear in the next room.”

“I guess I was really tired,” I said. I frowned at the phone: eight missed calls.

“Well, I have to get ready for my date night with David. I just figured I’d do you a solid and wake you up before you clawed your eyes out.”

“Where are you guys going?”

“The movies. I’m dragging him to see that new chick flick about the attorney who falls for the criminal she’s representing. I’m sure that he’ll wind up being innocent in the end,” she laughed, rolling her eyes.

“David’s going to just love that film,” I said sarcastically.

“Yah, right. I told him that I’ll throw him an extra blowjob sometime, sort of like a ‘get out of my girlfriend is on the rag free’ card.”

“Too much information, Liz,” I snickered.

“I do my best,” she smiled. She kissed me quickly on the forehead, all the uncomfortable tension between us now gone, and patted my knee. “Okay, gotta go! I’ll see you later,” she called as she left the room.

I picked up my phone and checked my voicemail. The first call was from Michael, asking me to call him back later on a number that was different from the main line at Dignitary. I wrote the number down and listened to the next few calls…

Which were from Mathew!

I nearly dropped the phone when I heard, “Hi, Mercy. It’s Matty. Long time, no hear, eh? So, um, I was just wondering how you’ve been. Give me a call, okay?” He then left his number and hung up.

That was the first message, which I actually had to listen to three times before I could believe my ears.

Then there was the second message: “Hi, Mercy. It’s me again. Listen, I saw you in the paper and it made me think of you. Anyway, call me.”

(Did anybody not see that damn article?)

And the third: “Mercy, it’s me again. I didn’t want to do this over voicemail, but I’m just really missing you, okay? When I saw you with… that guy, it really made me realize what a huge mistake I made. Please call me.”

And the fourth: “I’m kind of losing my shit, Mercy. I miss you so much. Please call me back.”

It was the words losing my shit that did it. I erased every single one of his messages and threw the phone down on the bed disgustedly.

How dare he complain to me about his mental anguish after all he put me through!

And could the a*shole be any more transparent?

So, I see, he wanted nothing to do with me many, many months ago. But now that he believed that a hot/caring/wealthy man had interest in me… Suddenly I’m a catch?

My blood boiled as I recollected all the times that I had called him, cried pathetically, and begged for him to face me like a man. But how he had hid from me like a sad little boy, refusing to meet me for even five minutes to offer up an apology, denying me the closure that I needed!

Mathew was a lowly coward, a total bastard, the worst kind of scoundrel ex any girl could have. He was the kind of guy who had an uncanny talent for turning any situation around to make the victim seem like the guilty party. To think that he actually blamed me for his infidelity, claiming that I’d left him feeling lonely and neglected because I spent too much time studying at school…

Well, f*ck him, I fumed. Let him be the one to cry for once.

I had to get away from the suffocating confines of my sleepy-smelling bedroom. I decided that some fresh air was in order, and that a brisk jog was just what I needed to help burn off the bedeviling resentment surging through my veins.

I skulked over to my closet and yanked out my running shoes. I pulled open my dresser drawer, ripping out socks, shorts, a sports bra, and a tank. I threw it all on and smoothed my hair back into a tight ponytail. I scowled at my reflection in the mirror. Look out world, here she comes.

I quickly glanced out the window. The sun was just starting to set, but I still had enough time to get in a few miles before nightfall.

I threaded my spare key onto my shoelace, grabbed my trusty can of pepper spray (a girl could never be too safe), and I was out the door.

Cutting across the lawn, I headed to the area where the trail entrance was located, just a few feet behind the leasing office of my apartment complex. I stretched briefly- much less than I probably should have- a smidge overzealous to get my heart pumping.

I entered the trail, determined to get at least two miles under my belt before turning around, which would make for a nice four mile round-trip.

I ran under the colossal redwood trees, concentrating on the soothing sounds of my even breathing, my tennis shoes beating hard against the compact dirt.

Before I knew it, I was at the two-mile mark. I still felt amped, though, and utterly capable of running a few more miles. It had been a while since I’d gone for a run, and my poor muscles twitched beneath my skin, almost pleading for additional exercise.

I looked up at the fading sun, tossing a mental coin inside my head. If I kept going, I’d unquestionably feel better, but there was also a good chance that I’d spend a small portion of my return trip running in the dark.

Having no particular desire to break my ankle, I made a quick assessment of the state of the trail. It hadn’t stormed in weeks, so there was hardly any debris on the track except for the occasional piece of acorn shell scattered amongst the dirt. I looked up; tall lights loomed above the path about every hundred feet, illuminating the ground in a vague sort of way. As long as I didn’t stray from the path, I’d be fine.

I continued on, and reached another mile marker within a few minutes. Lost in my thoughts of Mathew, Robert, and my ass-chewing from Marlena, I ran past another marker, and then another.

Suddenly aware of my surroundings, I stopped dead in my tracks. I’d gone just a little over five miles. And now the sky was black.

One of Liz’s frequently used phrases came to mind: And that, my friend, is what happens when a smart person does a dumbass thing.

Dumbfounded, I turned on my heel and began my five-mile jog back home. I gripped the pepper spray in my sweaty hand, horribly aware that there wasn’t another living soul on the trail in either direction.

I picked up the pace as I passed the first marker. Soon, however, my body ran out of steam, unaccustomed to running so many miles on end. I was thirsty, too, and the joints in my knees and ankles were starting to ache badly. Clearly, I had not thought the run through properly.

I slowed my stride, electing to take a short break from jogging on the off chance that it would help me regain some small spark of energy. I knew my body better than that, though. I’d hit the dreaded runner’s wall.

My footsteps, which I’d found solace in earlier, now sounded like thunderous booms, broadcasting to every serial killer within a fifty mile radius that there was an exhausted woman on her own deep in the epicenter of a secluded forest.

It occurred to me, then, just how foolish I’d been in my haste. I hadn’t bothered to send a text to Liz before I left. Not only had I not anticipated staying gone longer than an hour, but I also had yet to conceive my idiotic plan which called for running ten miles at sunset. If some axe-wielding maniac jumped out at me from behind the trees and hacked me up into a million pieces, it was very likely that I might never be found.

No, I thought with a shiver. I was best not to contemplate such things until after I was back inside the apartment, locked safely behind closed doors.

A twig cracked somewhere out in the trees behind me, and I nearly gave myself whiplash by whirling my head around to listen. I held my breath, waiting for the man with an axe to make an appearance. He didn’t show; perhaps he hadn’t heard my broadcast after all.

I walked faster, temporarily immersed in the absolute darkness that fell in-between the long gaps in the trail lights.

Just as I reached a second mile marker- only three left to go- I heard another twig snap. And then a few more. The noises sounded like they were getting progressively closer. Footsteps. Or maybe a horse galloping.

I stopped. So did the noises from within the trees.

“H-hello?” I called. “Is there somebody out there?”

I received no answer, which I couldn’t decide was more or less petrifying. I thought of the creature from my nightmare, wondering if he- it- was capable of speaking.

I jogged forward a bit, my joints screaming in protest. The noise from the trees started up again. I wheeled around, keyed up on terror.

“If somebody is out there, you should make yourself known,” I called into the darkness. I tried to sound nonchalant, as if maybe the person hiding in the woods and I were having some sort of huge misunderstanding. I held my breath again, hoping that a young backpacker was going to come stumbling out from amongst the trees, apologizing profusely for inadvertently scaring me.

But nothing happened.

Unable to rip my eyes away from the woods, I took a step. Another twig snapped from within the gloom.

I held my pepper spray out in front of me. My hand was shaking so badly, I probably wouldn’t have been able to hit a target that was fifty feet wide and placed two inches in front of me.

“Listen, dickwad! I’m armed, you hear me?” I hollered. “You come anywhere near me, and I will mace your ass into blind oblivion!”

I felt like a total moron screaming such a thing. I was about as tough as any 120 pound woman would be while stuck in the dark woods on her own, wearing skimpy pink jogging clothes, and carrying a ten dollar canister of nonlethal pepper spray. Yah, I was a regular Schwarzenegger.

I paused, my head cocked towards the maddeningly noiseless woodland. I took a few steps.

Then:

Snap.

Snap.

Clop.

Snap.

Clop.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

Whoever- or whatever- was in the forest was now pursuing me.

I was not going to wait around to find out what it wanted.

I broke into a blind, knees-hitting-the-chest kind of sprint. I could hear the footsteps closing in on me over my panicked cries, advancing closer and closer. The thing was… cackling, mocking my terror sinisterly.

But I didn’t dare turn around.

Not until I reached the final mile marker.

Still running at full speed, I swiftly turned my head, letting out a confused yelp as I discovered that the trail behind me was empty.

Had I imagined it all? I slowed to a trot, gaping into the woods disbelievingly.

I was just about to place my foot on the ground when I froze.

Two inches below my shoe was a rattlesnake, its head reared back in preparation of a strike.

Before I could react, it snapped its head out at my leg. I leaped back off the dirt path, its open mouth missing me by a lucky centimeter.

I didn’t, however, escape completely unscathed.

I toppled over the edge of the trail ledge, losing my pepper spray somewhere in the dirt. I plummeted down into the black forest, scraping my hands and knees on rocks and tree trunks. Like spare change forgotten in a dryer, I tumbled and tumbled until I finally landed in a mass of thorny branches.

It was Mathew I heard this time, not Liz: I’m losing my shit.

I howled like I had never howled before in my entire life, fighting against the spiky twigs- or were they fingers - slicing into my skin and pulling at my hair. I screamed, not over the pain, but over the trepidation of being helpless against the rattlesnake slithering down to bite me, the ax murderer coming to chop off my head, and the thing… slipping down into the darkness to steal my soul.

I finally broke free, scrambled back up the ridge, and found my way onto the trail. Had it not been for the apartment complex in the distance lighting the way, I may have spent the entire night lost in the darkness of the forest.

I ran towards the exit of the trail, dragging broken pieces of twigs behind me on the dirt. I didn’t stop running until I reached the front door to my apartment.

This time, I did not look back.