Bad laaaadyyyy…
Baaaaaad laaadddyyyy…
The sound cut unwelcomely into her snug cocoon, her bubble of sleepy rapture. Heath’s arms were wrapped around her, his beautiful, silky-smooth naked body pressed smack up against hers. They were tightly coiled together on the twin mattress in his room, the spare room.
She barely remembered leading him there, unable to bring herself to have sex in her grandmother’s room, on her grandmother’s bed. She’d have to get a new mattress at the very least before that happened.
The sex had been wildly good. The kind of sex that could make you a little crazy, make you do bad things to keep getting it. And he seemed to think so too, the way he’d breathed, “You’re Miss Talent in more ways than one, aren’t you?” She liked the slightly possessed look in his eyes as he had his way with her.
It was hard to deny the fundamental corporeality of sex between men and women—the man entered; the woman was entered. This always left Romy feeling a little outside of herself, a little less of herself, a bit more of someone else. With Heath Asher, a man she’d dreamed about since she was essentially a child—the enmeshing felt far more pronounced.
Leave this place!
She snapped to reality, her eyes popping open. She instinctively looked towards the window.
The white face was there, the bright white-blonde hair, and this time, there were also glowing blue eyes. A young girl was staring at her with pure hatred in those otherworldly eyes. And that voice… odd and drawling, deranged.
Heath… Heath! She called out in her mind but nothing came out of her mouth. She had gone rigid and mute with fear.
Then she screamed but it was a pathetic thing, more like a squeak. Heath grunted beside her, and she turned to him, her breathing quick and raspy.
“Heath, Heath!” She pushed on him. “Get up! Get up!”
He made a groaning noise.
“Move! Move!”
She scrambled over his dead-weight body, and Mack, who’d heard the commotion, was in the doorway, snuffling and whining. He let out a few what’s happening? barks.
This finally roused Heath.
“Whah is it?” he slurred.
“She’s back!” Romy yelled. “The little girl!”
Romy careened down the dark hallway and went to the kitchen, yanked open a drawer looking for the flashlight but instead grabbed a seven-inch chef’s knife. Then she was zooming through the living room and trying to unlock the door with a shaky hand but she kept doing something wrong and it wouldn’t unlock.
“Romy!” Heath called.
She turned and saw him pulling up his jeans. “What are you doing?” she cried. “This isn’t the city! You don’t need to be dressed!”
Mack was prancing anxiously and barked a few more times. She was going to let him out. Let him out to chase down that little bitch.
She finally got the door open and was poised to unlock the screen door when Heath was pushing in front of her. “I’m not going outside naked if there’s a kid out there,” he said. “You stay here. And keep that dog! We don’t need him biting a kid!”
She had never heard Heath speak so dominantly before, so she pulled Mack back by the collar and watched Heath descend into the night. Remembering the front light, she flicked it on, which made it impossible for her to see anything beyond the screen.
Why was a little girl running around the town in the middle of the night? Why did she look so odd and ghostly? Why had she targeted Romy’s house?
Had she really said, Bad lady?
Had she really said, Leave this place?
She wasn’t sure how much time passed, maybe ten minutes, when Heath loped up the steps and opened the door. The look on his face said he hadn’t seen the little girl.
“Not there,” he said. “Don’t see anyone.”
He locked the door, looked at her knife.
“Were you going to stab a kid, Romy?”
“I don’t know what she was!” Romy cried, her voice high-pitched with hysteria. “She didn’t look like any girl I’ve ever seen!”
“You called her a little girl.”
“She’s like—a little girl but not one! Okay?!”
Mack was pacing and whining. She went to the fridge and took out a can of his food, instantly placating him.
“Heath,” she said, firmly. “I can’t explain it. This girl, this thing, whatever she is… is pale as a ghost. She almost glows. She has these big, weird blue eyes. And… she’s whispering. Or speaking quietly. And saying these bizarre things.”
“What things?”
Romy began slowly shaking her head, her nose tingling, staring at the floor. How could she tell him what the little girl was saying?
“She says… ah… oh, I don’t know. Forget it!”
She stomped off and curled up on her grandmother’s bed, the knife still gripped tightly in her hand. A minute later, Heath crawled into the bed. Admittedly, this was a test. She wanted to see if he would console her, would take her side against this crazy thing happening, this ghostly pale little monster.
He gently pried the knife from her hand, placed it on the bedside table, then played with strands of hair around her face.
“Listen,” he said, soothingly. “When I sleepwalk, I’m having a dream that is so real to my brain that my body believes it’s happening.” He was quiet for several moments, then wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tight. “This whole thing is stressful,” he said, his mouth right up to her ear. “Us being out here. The pandemic.”
“I’m not sleepwalking,” she said, her throat thick, threatening tears of frustration.