Portal House - Chapter 4
Another Lost Girl
I planted my right palm, feeling the stinging scrape on my elbow I’d forgotten to bandage. “I’m fine, and we’re almost there. She likes you better, anyway.”
He offered me a hand, but I was already mostly upright. I squinted at the neon light ahead, using my peripheral vision to confirm. The open sign was lit up.
Gary waited by the single gas pump with Ruby while I walked inside the convenience store.
“Back again, Gorgeous?” Frank greeted me from behind the counter.
“Mm-hm. It’s been a day.” I rubbed my temple, frowning at the loud buzz of the old fluorescent lights. My foot hit something rubbery.
“Watch your step,” he called out, “I just finished the floors.”
Was he closing up already? I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see five-till-eleven. I finished my shift at nine, stopped here at nine-forty, and got home ten minutes later. What happened between getting home and now?
“I gotta lock up in a bit, hun.”
“Sorry,” I said, grabbing the first six-pack I touched.
“Hard seltzer, eh? You finally trying my recommendation?”
I groaned internally, but smiled to him and nodded. “Why not?” Because it’s going to taste like watered-down wine coolers, that’s why.
I pointed behind Frank, through my snowy blind spot, hoping he remembered what Gary usually smoked.
“Menthol lights?” He asked.
“In a bag,” I sighed, rubbing my eyes, then my whole face. I set my whole wallet on the scanner, hoping the first card that registered would cover the cost. The beep confirmed.
“See ya tomorrow,” he said in a cheery voice that rivaled the irritation of the buzzing lights.
“Most likely,” I replied, then I plopped down on the bench just outside the door. I shut my eyes tight and tried to uncap one of the glass bottles.
A single phrase forced its way into my head. “La perdí.”
They weren’t my words, and they weren’t in my ears. They just... were.
A pair of corduroy-clad legs appeared to my left, and a shiver raised the hairs on both my arms. Again my throat tightened. I hated the way my nervous system seemed to encase my whole being in concrete when I really needed to run. Or scream. Or do anything besides sit there.
“Gary...” I whispered, which was all I could do.
It seemed like the presence of an elderly man. I could smell something musty, like folded sheets sitting in the same cabinet for a year. My breathing changed and my chest felt weighed down.
“Ayúdala!” More words I couldn’t understand. Loud and desperate and inside my head. Then a flash of a little girl no older than eight, prying boards away from a wooden fence. Her face was clearer than a memory and streaked with terror. I hated her. I hated him for showing me her.
I took a deep breath and used all of my energy to lift the chilled bottle into my view. Crappy beer with a pry-off cap. Of course.
“L-l-leave...me...alone.” My voice was raspy and barely audible, but it seemed to get the message across.
The weight of the man’s presence lifted all at once, loosening my breathing and my grip. The bottle shattered.
“Are you serious?” Gary rushed over, grabbing my arm. “Come on, we gotta go, now!”
I grabbed the six-pack and handed him the black bag of his cigarette pack and my receipt. “Sorry, I zoned out.”
We jogged with Ruby just out of sight of the store and then let her mark the grass beneath someone’s mailbox.
“You’re kind of a jerk sometimes, you know that?”
I yanked the bag back out of his hand before he could look inside. “Yeah, I know.”
To Be Continued…