Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2013 by Melissa F. Hart. All rights reserved worldwide.
No part of this book may be replicated, redistributed, or given away in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written consent of the author/publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Books in the series
New Moon - Volume 1
Crescent Moon - Volume 2
Full Moon - Volume 3
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Synopsis
Book One: New Moon
Erin can’t help but be taken in by handsome newcomer to her office, Sean. The way he stares at her with deep, dark eyes sends a sensuous shiver right through her body.
Erin is drawn to Sean, not just because of his devastatingly handsome looks. One night, when he needs a ride home, Erin is glad to offer, but alone in the car, passions run high and soon Erin is finding out just how intense her attraction to Sean is. But he hides a dark secret. Sean is mysterious and a loner, could he be linked to the spate of murders occurring round town? Could Erin be sleeping with a killer?
Book Two: Crescent Moon
Since her night of passion with Sean, Erin hasn’t been feeling like herself. Her sense of smell is heightened and dogs randomly bark aggressively at her. Something isn’t right, but she doesn’t know what it is.
Even more troubling is Sean’s sudden disappearance. The morning after their heated night together, he got up and disappeared in to the night while she slept, and now no one knows where he has gone. Could he be the key to unlock her strange experiences?
Erin knows that she must find Sean. He owes her both an apology and an explanation, and she’s determined to get them.
Book Three: Full Moon
Sean returns, igniting a passionate reunion with Erin. This time, she won’t let him flee from her in the night, she demands answers.
But Erin won’t like what Sean has to say. He’s harboring dark secrets, more impossible than she could ever imagine, and now she’s become embroiled in his world.
Erin soon learns that there is much more to fear that just a lurking killer in the town and that she was right to be afraid of what could be hiding in the shadows. Sean’s secret will ultimately become her own as her desire for darkness finally catches up with her
***
***
***
Erin eagerly sipped at her morning coffee, hoping the caffeine would help perk her up. She’d not slept at all the previous night, which haunted by nightmares of being attacked by a figure she couldn’t quite distinguish. She blamed the sudden spate of murders in the local area for troubling her sleep.
“Bad night again?” Coleen, her co-worker, asked from her desk opposite.
“Yeah,” Erin sighed, running a hand through her shoulder length black hair.
“I blame all these unexplained murders,” Coleen shook her head and pursed her lips in disapproval.
Coleen was in her late thirties and a kind-hearted woman. She was heavyset, short, and a peroxide blonde, the complete opposite of Erin, who was long and lean with alabaster skin and piercing green eyes.
Coleen was forever an unnatural shade of orange thanks to her obsession with self-tanning products. It was upon Erin’s insistence that she stopped using tanning beds and resorted instead to the lotions, which whilst safer, gave her the most unnatural neon glow.
“They found another body last night,” Diane, the office manager, paused by their desks and whispered the news conspiratorially.
“Really?” Erin’s eyes widened in horror and she leaned forward in her seat.
“Another woman?” Coleen asked, also gripped by the update.
Diane glanced around to ensure that no one else was listening. Her husband was on the local police force; he worked as a homicide detective, which gave her unprecedented information to any local murder scandals. She perverted the knowledge she gained for the purpose of turning it in to office gossip. It proved a useful way of keeping employees loyal to her.
“You didn’t hear it from me, but yes, they will be announcing it this morning, another woman. Got her while she was out jogging last night.”
“Terrible,” Coleen shook her head but there was a morbid delight illuminating her eyes, like when you drive past a car accident and you can’t help but stare and be drawn in to the terrible scene.
“Be careful what you say around this one though,” Coleen said maternally, gesturing across at Erin.
“She’s already having nightmares, poor thing.”
“I’m fine,” Erin protested, though the bags beneath her eyes said otherwise.
“You live alone, don’t you?” Diane asked, her eyes focusing on her young colleague in concern.
“Yes but I don’t go out jogging at night,” Erin smiled sweetly.
“Good girl, you need to keep safe. Especially when there’s a killer on the loose.” Diane’s voice was stern but warm.
Killer was perhaps an understatement for whomever or whatever was attacking local women. Even the newspapers refrained from relaying the full gruesome details of the ordeal which befell the victims.
Over the last month, several women had been found. Each body was dismembered almost beyond recognition, as though something had torn straight in to the flesh. Originally, they believed the killings to be animal-related, that the perpetrator was a bear or large cougar. But as the attacks continued, it seemed less likely that one animal could keep overpowering these women and soon, people in the town were coming home early, locking their doors and drawing their blinds to keep out whatever evil was prowling around their now unfamiliar streets.
“I’m sure they will catch the killer soon,” Erin said a little too hopefully. She hadn’t been brave enough to confide in anyone that her nightmares started two nights before the first body was found, making her believe that somehow she was linked to the terrible things that were happening.
“Any day now,” Diane smiled confidently, sure of her husband’s abilities. “Anyway, enough death and gloom, I’ve some good news for you girls.”
“Oh?” Coleen titled her head to the left, resting on her medley of curls.
“We’ve got a new hire starting today. I interviewed him himself. Very handsome young man, I think you’ll be impressed,” she winked at the two women behind their desks and then sauntered off to her own private office.
“Ohh, new hire!” Coleen cooed excitedly, her mood immediately brightened as though the previous dark conversation of death and murder had never happened.
“That means fresh meat!” she continued, delving in to her desk drawer and retrieving a compact mirror and some lipstick which she proceeded to carefully apply.
“Coleen, you’re a married woman,” Erin teased.
“Married, not dead,” Coleen chuckled. “There’s still red hot blood flowing through these veins, I can assure you!”
Erin rolled her eyes and looked at her computer monitor. Already her inbox was stacked up with jobs for the day. Her head throbbed from lack of sleep and her eyes ached. It was going to be a long day and doubtless would be followed by another sleepless night.
“I wonder which department he’s in?” Coleen asked, glancing around the vast open space of the office as she did so.
“Who?” Erin asked, distracted by the conversation from her emails.
“The new guy!”
“Oh.” Erin shrugged. “No idea.”
Coleen continued to glance around the room, then her gaze locked in on someone and a sly smile crept across her plump face.
“Hold the phone!” she declared, clasping her hands together in glee. “I do believe we have a winner!”
“What are you on about?” Erin asked, not glancing away from her monitor.
“I’ve located our new guy and he is delicious! I could eat him up!”
“You’re going to get smacked with a sexual harassment lawsuit one day. You know that right?” Erin asked.
“For him, it would be worth it,” Coleen declared, seductively raising an eyebrow. She watched Erin continue to type away at her keyboard, distracted by her screen, and became impatient.
“Erin, just look at him, please!”
“I’m busy.” Erin shook her head.
“Come on! You’re young and single, you have to let me live vicariously through you!” Coleen pleaded. “Just check him out! He’s right over there, you won’t be disappointed.”
Sighing, Erin turned with resignation in the direction Coleen was gesturing and immediately spotted the newest member of their firm.
An unfamiliar yet devastatingly handsome man who was wearing a white shirt and grey trousers was stood talking with another manager, nodding intently at what they said. He had short brown curly hair and the faint shadow of stubble extending up to his defined cheekbones.
You could that tell beneath his shirt, he had an amazing physique and toned muscular arms. As Erin looked over, she had to admit that Coleen was right; she wasn’t disappointed by what she saw.
But as she watched, the new guy turned and locked eyes with her. His eyes were unbelievably dark, almost the color of coal. He stared intently at Erin until she could take no more and had to look away.
“Isn’t he gorgeous?” Coleen giggled, oblivious to Erin’s now-blushing face.
“He’s…handsome,” Erin admitted, daring to look back at him. He was once more locked in intense conversation with his manager but she couldn’t shake the feeling that had come over her when he looked at her. It was as if an electric impulse had shot through her whole body, making every nerve suddenly come to life. It was the most turned on she had ever felt and she wanted to feel it again.
“Do we know his name?” she asked Coleen who shook her head.
“Maybe I should try and find out,” Erin suggested cheekily.
“Ooh yes, do!” Coleen clapped her hands together with glee. She loved any sort of office flirtation; she found it more entertaining than any of her television shows as she got to witness it all firsthand.
Erin slid up out of her chair and headed over to the other side of the office under the pretense of using the copier. The hot new guy now sat behind his own desk, which was conveniently located on the way to the copy room.
As she approached him, Erin noticed all the other women looking over at him with hungry eyes, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was busy typing in to this computer when Erin stood nervously at the edge of his desk. This close, she could see that his chest was just as muscular as his arms and he smelled of cedar wood and lime; it was an intoxicating scent.
“Hi,” she coughed nervously, clearing her throat. The new guy didn’t look up at her; she was beginning to think that the intense moment between them across the office hadn’t even happened and that she’d imagined it. She was on the cusp of being dangerously sleep-deprived, so she wouldn’t be surprised if she’d started hallucinating at the office.
“I’m Erin, I thought I’d come and say hi since you’re new and all,” she shifted uncomfortably, waiting for him to respond.
He looked up and held her once more in his dark, intense eyes. There was something unnerving about the way he looked at her, as though he’d seen her before.
“Hi.” He replied flatly, his voice deep and husky.
“So, what’s your name?” Erin asked directly, not wanting to return to Coleen empty-handed.
“Sean,” he replied with the same masculine voice, his eyes wrinkling slightly in amusement at her boldness.
“Sean, is that an Irish name?” she felt foolish asking but was trying to make conversation. She felt as awkward and self-conscious as her thirteen-year old self would have if she were chatting up the most handsome guy in school.
“I think so,” Sean replied politely. He didn’t look at Erin again but she was desperate to have his eyes on her once more, to feel her whole body tingle with energy.
He continued to type at his computer, making it blatantly obvious that he didn’t want to talk anymore, which left Erin feeling dejected. Most men fell over themselves to talk to her; she wasn’t accustomed to being over looked.
“Well, if you need anything, I’m just over there,” Erin pointed to her desk, spotting Coleen staring over, entranced by their conversation.
“Okay,” Sean said politely once more, still not looking up.
Unable to press the conversation further, Erin proceeded to the copy room, documents in hand. She glanced back slyly to see if Sean had followed her with his eyes and was disappointed to see that he had not.
As she stood over the copier she felt someone enter the room, accompanied by the strong scent of vanilla.
“He’s so gorgeous!” Coleen declared, unable to contain her excitement and wait for Erin to return to her desk.
“Did you get his name?”
“Sean,” Erin answered, glad to have at least learned something about the handsome stranger.
“Sean,” Coleen tried the name on for size, rolling it off her tongue with delight. “A nice, strong name for such a strong, handsome man.”
She gently headed to the doorway and glanced back up at Sean, but he was still diligently working.
“You’re not very subtle,” Erin commented, smiling.
“You should ask him out!” Coleen declared jubilantly, as though it were the best idea ever to be conceived within the living memory of the world.
“What? No,” Erin protested though she had thought about it. She felt drawn to Sean in a way that she couldn’t describe or understand.
“Yes, you’re stunningly gorgeous! If he likes women, then you’re going to be his type!”
“Thanks, but he might like men,” Erin countered.
“You don’t know unless you try,” Coleen pressed. “Besides, if he turns down a stunning girl like you, then he probably does prefer men, and at least then we’ll know!”
“Let’s give him a day to settle in before we start harassing him, shall we?” Erin suggested, not sure if Sean would accept a date with her and not wanting to endure the humiliation if the whole office saw her being turned down.
“Okay, okay,” Coleen backed down and relaxed a little. “But tomorrow, you need to pounce, else someone else will.”
“Do you mean you?” Erin joked.
“Yes, I’ve always fancied myself as a bit of a cougar!” Coleen growled jokingly at Erin. “Or would I be more of a Milf?” she pondered aloud.
“I honestly don’t know,” Erin smiled, laughing. And for a pleasant moment the fearful thoughts about the lurking killer in town were gone and replaced by something lighter.
***
That night, Erin didn’t dream of some phantom lurking in the darkness beyond her house. Instead, she dreamed of Sean.
In her dreams, he was with her in her bed, running his hands up her body, pressing his lean torso against her flesh. As sensuous as the dream was, there was something wild about it, too.
Sean would aggressively move her into a variety of positions as Erin gasped in gleeful delight. With him inside her, she felt more turned on than she had ever been in her life. And as they made love, he frantically kissed her neck as he cupped her breasts.
Erin awoke panting and in a sweat, her sheets sodden around her. It took her a moment to realize that she was alone. The dream had felt so real, she’d half expected to wake up and find Sean sleeping naked beside her.
Dazed, she got up out of bed and headed to the bathroom for a shower, knowing that she’d need it on the coldest setting. As the cool water washed over her, she tried to clear her mind from the images of the dream, but was powerless to keep them at bay. She couldn’t stop thinking about Sean’s hands upon her body, how good it had felt to have him inside her.
Unable to distance the dream, Erin had no choice but to succumb to the intensity of her fantasy. She reached down between her legs and in the coolness of the shower, began to tease her clitoris with her fingertips, imaging Sean’s kisses cascading down her back, his roving tongue licking her entire body, tracing a line between her breasts, down her stomach, over her hips, until finally…
Gasping, Erin came in the shower. She leaned her head against the door and tried to catch her breath, her body still shuddering with pleasure.
***
Dressed and in her car Erin, still felt out of sorts. As amazing as her morning had been, it wasn’t like her. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had masturbated. It was as if Sean had somehow put her under some sexual spell and now all she could do was desperately fantasize about having sex with him.
Shaking her head, Erin turned the key in the ignition and pulled off her driveway, heading toward the office. She told herself that she was just a girl with a crush, nothing more. Granted, it was a particularly sensuous crush, but still, it was a crush nothing more. She was having hot sex dreams about Sean simply because it had been so long since she’d actually had sex. And it made a very pleasant change to her normal violent nightmares.
Arriving at work, Erin vowed to push her desires to the back of her mind and focus on the day ahead.
***
“Well, you are positively glowing!” Coleen greeted Erin as she came in and took off her jacket at her desk.
“I am?” Erin blushed, feeling self-conscious, wondering if she was suddenly wearing a badge that declared to the world that she’d climaxed that morning.
“Whatever you’re doing, it’s working,” Coleen complimented.
“I guess I just slept well,” Erin shrugged casually.
“No more nightmares?” Coleen enquired.
“No,” Erin shook her head. She had been plagued by her nightmares for so long that it felt strange to have gone a night without them.
“Looks like a good night’s rest was all you needed,” Coleen smiled. Then her gaze shifted to behind Erin and a cheeky grin settled across her face.
“Well, my view just improved,” she winked.
“Sean?” Erin asked, knowing full well that she didn’t need to. She could sense his arrival in the office from the rows of female heads which were now tentatively glancing up from their desks to have a glimpse at the new office Adonis.
“The one and only,” Coleen confirmed.
“I don’t know about him,” Erin admitted. “I tried speaking to him yesterday and I found him to be a little…rude.”
“Maureen in finance said exactly the same thing,” Coleen replied without hesitation, as though she’d been eager to impart this latest morsel of gossip.
“She said she tried to talk to him, you know, get to know him a bit, ask where he’s from, that sort of thing, and she couldn’t get a word out of him. Such a shame that the handsome ones are always too arrogant to be kind.” Coleen shook her head and made a cluck of disapproval.
“Yeah he was pretty standoffish,” Erin said, turning to glance briefly at Sean. As she did so, his eyes automatically locked onto her eyes, causing her skin to break out in goose bumps. Turning back quickly, she could feel her heart racing in her chest.
The images from the dream the night before began to resurface. She remembered his face next to hers, how he’d smelled, how he’d felt. How he had kissed her with deep, passionate kisses where he searched her mouth with his tongue and it had all felt so good. Too good.
Running a hand through her dark hair, Erin tried to focus her thoughts.
“You okay? You look flushed,” Coleen frowned with concern.
“I’m fine,” Erin panted heavily. “Just had a hot spell.” She got up and headed toward the bathroom, needing a moment to regain her senses.
Inside, she stared hard at herself in the mirror, where the false overhead lighting gave an unflattering reflection. She held herself against a sink and tried to get a control of her thoughts. She was at work; it was no place to entertain idle sexual fantasies.
Groaning with frustration, Erin turned on a tap and splashed cold water on her cheeks. This wasn’t like her. She was always so cool and collected; she was normally the last person who would let a man get under her skin. Yet here she was, unable to even make eye contact with Sean without being taken over by some erotic animal desire to have sex with him.
“Dammit,” Erin moaned to herself as she wandered in to a stall for some tissue paper to dry her face.
She’d fancied men before, but never like this. It was as if it was almost beyond her control, which scared her a little.
Leaving the bathroom, Erin felt refreshed and determined to stop letting her ridiculous crush get in the way of her work. It wasn’t as if Sean even liked her, so the chances of them ever even having sex were slim to none. The last they’d spoken, he’d been so rude that it was almost off-putting. Yet the dream and then the shower that morning…
Erin stopped walking when she felt a pair of eyes intensely drilling in to her. She stopped suddenly in her tracks and looked up and saw Sean looking directly at her from the doorway to the copy room. Lifting her chin, Erin forced herself to meet his gaze and not turn in to a quivering mess.
He stared at her for too long, possibly ten seconds—far past the realms of politeness, then turned and went in to the copy room. Frowning, Erin followed him in. She was tired of his mind games.
She began to get fired up, ready to tell him that while he might think he’s God gift to women, he wasn’t!
“Sean,” Erin said his name as she entered the room, putting on her most assertive voice.
“Hey,” he barely glanced up from the copy machine as he nonchalantly greeted her. Full of nervous energy, Erin clenched her fists, trying to remain composed and relaxed.
“I was wondering how you were settling in to the job,” she said, aware how lame she sounded but needing a way to start a conversation between them.
“It’s okay,” Sean shrugged casually, not looking up from the copier. Erin ground her teeth in frustration. His behavior made no sense. In the office, he was giving her long, lingering looks, but in close proximity, he was basically flat-out ignoring her. What was his problem?
Then, as if reading her thoughts, he turned and looked at her. His eyes were so intensely dark, like the dead of night. He regarded her with mild amusement, watching her squirm beneath his gaze.
“Do you like it here?” he asked her, his voice so deep and guttural.
Erin was caught off-guard by the question and felt herself blush. When he looked at her, her mind had once more been flooded with images of them in bed together. Her legs had wrapped around him as they sat on the edge of the bed and he went deeper inside her than any man had ever done before.
“Erin?” Sean’s voice broke the power of the spell and she returned to reality with a start, a hot damp sweat having formed on the back of her neck.
“I like it here fine,” Erin answered a little too breathlessly.
“You seem…out of sorts,” Sean mused, a wry smile pulling at his lips. Erin stared at lips, remembering how they had caressed her own lips and her skin.
“I’m fine,” Erin clarified, shaking her head and casting away the remnants of the dream. She realized it was the second time she’d said fine, which by women’s standards, meant she was anything but.
“Okay.” Sean nodded at her and then turned back to the copier.
“You know, for the new guy around here, you’re awfully quiet,” Erin suddenly blurted, her anger about his indifference getting the better of her. She placed her hands on her hips and stared him down, waiting for a response.
Sean turned to look at her, smiling to himself as though humored by some personal joke.
“I find talk to be cheap, don’t you?” he asked, once again holding her in his intense gaze. Erin shivered beneath the scrutiny of his stare. She felt like he was able to see right through her, to the very core of her soul. Even though she was fully dressed in her usual work attire of shirt dress and stockings, she felt completely naked and exposed when Sean looked at her. It was a sensation she had never felt before with anyone.
“It wouldn’t hurt you to make try and make some friends around here,” Erin stammered, feeling less sure of herself, her anger dissipating as she hovered uneasily near the door.
Shrugging, Sean once more turned away from her.
“I don’t plan on sticking around for too long,” he explained ominously. Erin tried to hide the fact that this disappointed her. Instead she put on her sternest face and walked back out of the door, feeling his eyes upon her as she left.
***
“I hate month end,” Coleen sighed from her desk as she shuffled through a growing pile of paperwork.
“Tell me about it,” Erin agreed, raising a hand to her temple. She’d been so busy with work all day that she’d not had time to revisit her encounter with Sean that morning. The dream and the subsequent shower felt like they occurred in another lifetime. Now, her mind was clogged full of fiscal details and spreadsheets. Numbers danced through her mind where before there was only naked flesh and desire.
Sighing, Coleen rearranged some papers and looked forlornly out of the office windows at the far side of the vast open room.
“If I don’t get all this done, I won’t finish on time to take Jake to soccer practice,” she said woefully.
Erin looked over at the stack of papers on Coleen’s desk which was considerably higher than her own set of papers.
“Send some of them this way,” Erin offered kindly.
“You sure?”
“Happy to help,” Erin smiled sweetly.
“Thanks, hon, I owe you,” Coleen smiled as she came over with a small pile of papers which she placed beneath Erin’s current pile of work.
“At least the murders seem to have stopped,” Erin said lightly, trying to raise their spirits. There had been no media report of a latest killing to add to the list of victims.
“For now,” Coleen stated a little too darkly, causing Erin to shrink into her seat at the thought that they weren’t out of the woods just yet. Danger could still be lurking within their town, just biding its time and waiting to pounce.
***
Erin watched the day darken through the vast office windows as around colleagues slipped away one by one, eager to return to their homes for the night.
“I appreciate you working late,” Diane commented as she herself prepared to leave, wrapped in a designer coat.
“I don’t mind,” Erin shrugged. All she had waiting for her was an empty house and her stored-up television shows on TiVo. Both could wait.
“Just don’t stay too late, mind you. Don’t want you going home in the dark,” Diane said sternly. Then she turned and left, Erin hearing the click of her heels grow more and more distant.
Eventually, Erin was completely alone in the office and working on her final report. As she pressed the send button, she sighed with relief. Coleen had been right to state how brutal month end could be. Checking her watch, Erin was surprised to see that it was half-past nine. Outside, the world was now swamped in dense darkness.
A chill ran up Erin’s spine at the prospect of going home alone in the dark. Resigned to her fate, she got up, turned off her computer and pulled on her coat. As she left the office, she made sure to switch off the central lights, plunging the area in to its own dense night.
***
The parking lot was almost completely empty. There were a few cars dotted around belonging to cleaning staff and a few late stragglers, but Erin’s was alone in a far corner of the lot, surrounded by some shrubbery.
As Erin walked over to her car she quickened her pace as her mind suddenly thought about the murders, about the women who alone at night were being targeted, picked off and gutted like an animal. She was basically running when she finally reached her car and opened the door, but as she did so, she heard something rustle in the nearby shrubbery which made her blood turn to ice.
Immediately, she imaged the headlines the following day; young office worker savaged in parking lot. She could see Coleen weeping, saying how guilty she felt for leaving early. Then she imaged her mother getting the call to say that her daughter, the one she barely saw these days, had been ripped apart and killed.
Closing her eyes, Erin tried to calm her thoughts, telling herself that she was being childish, that there was nothing there. The shrubbery moved again and Erin stood rooted to the spot, feeling terrified.
“It’s just a coyote,” she told herself, though she didn’t believe her own logical explanation. Slowly, she opened her car door and began to ease herself inside when she spotted the unmistakable outline of a man within the shrubbery, illuminated by a nearby streetlight. Erin screamed in shock and was about to shut herself safely in her car when she noticed that the figure looked oddly familiar.
Bravely, she remained outside of her car for a moment to assess what she was seeing as the figure stepped out of the shrubbery toward her.
“Sean?” she breathed his name in disbelief. Sean emerged from the shrubs, still wearing his shirt and trousers but they were muddied and he had scratches on his face. He appeared dazed and confused, as though he didn’t know where he was.
“Sean, oh my God, are you okay?” Erin rushed to him, fearing he’d been attacked. Sean looked up at her as though she were a stranger, his eyes dim and unresponsive. Then he shook his head, like a dog shakes off water, and his eyes suddenly brightened and became more alert.
“Erin, hey,” he smiled at her, revealing a row of perfect white teeth.
“Sean, what are you doing out here?” Erin gasped, attempting to dust off some of the dirt on his shirt. As she touched him, she couldn’t help but notice how taut his muscles felt beneath the thin material of the shirt.
“I…” Sean glanced around as if trying to remember. “I went out for some drinks with the guys from work and things must have…gotten out of hand.”
“And you ended up in the bushes!” Erin exclaimed, drawing closer to Sean to inspect him. He didn’t smell of alcohol, he smelled of something else that she couldn’t define; something coppery.
“I must have overdone it and dozed off there,” Sean shrugged, smiling cheekily at her.
“Where were you guys drinking?” Erin queried, unsure where there was close to the office to enable him to get in such a state.
“Oh, in old town, but I guess they dumped me back here after, sort of an initiate the new guy thing.”
Sean held Erin with his deep dark eyes and she felt herself beginning to melt.
“Well, I can’t just leave you here,” Erin said nervously, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “Need a ride home?” she gestured toward her car.
Sean glanced at the vehicle and then looked back at her, smiling seductively.
“A lift would be great, thanks.”
Erin got in the driver’s seat as Sean settled in beside her. She felt intoxicated to have him so close to her and struggled to keep her mind from straying to more sexual thoughts. As he put on his seatbelt, she imagined pulling him into the back of the car, ripping off his shirt and kissing his perfectly toned chest as he kissed her neck and undid her blouse.
“I live near central,” Sean explained, breaking the sexual scenario playing out in her mind.
“Okay, great,” Erin turned the key in the ignition and the car came to life. She made her way out of the parking lot and turned on to the street.
All the while as she drove, she kept glancing at Sean. He was so tantalizingly close to her. She could so easily reach out and touch him; stroke his leg, brush his cheek, grab his dick. She was suddenly overwhelmed with her desire to grab his dick. To hold it until it was hard and then unleash it from its trousered prison, place it deep within her mouth and then suck and tease until he came hard in to her mouth, so that she could taste him, swallow him.
Shaking her head, Erin pushed the thoughts away. She was starting to sicken herself the way she was unable to control her sexual desires. She’d been attracted to men before but never like this. It was as if each time she was around Sean, she was hypnotized into wanting to have sex with him so that she was unable to think about anything else at all. Desperate for a distraction from her thoughts, she flicked on the radio.
A rock song by the band Bon Jovi came on, about an outlaw who was wanted dead or alive. Erin remembered loving the song when she was growing up almost as much as she’d loved the handsome lead singer of the band.
“I used to love this song when I was younger,” she turned and smiled at Sean, trying to make conversation.
“It’s a good song,” Sean nodded in approval, his eyes glittering in the dark with hidden menace.
“Did you like the song or just want to fuck the guy who sung it?” Sean asked, delivering the question casually as though he were discussing the weather.
Erin coughed, almost choking on the bluntness of the question. She looked at Sean out of the corner of her eye, trying to discern if he was joking or not.
He watched her reaction and smiled to himself.
“Too blunt?” he asked.
“Just a bit!” Erin declared, still blushing.
“Sorry, I tend to be a bit…direct about that kind of stuff.” Sean apologized.
“What kind of stuff?”
“Sex, desires, that sort of thing,” Sean shrugged. “I think too many people deny their sexual urges and it’s wrong. Our sexual impulses are one of our last primitive urges and we should embrace them rather than try and quash them.”
“That sounds like an eloquent way of saying you sleep around,” Erin noted, arching an eyebrow. She realized, growing excited, that this was the most she’d ever spoken with Sean before; it felt like he was finally opening up to her.
“I don’t sleep around, I have fun,” Sean answered teasingly, looking Erin up and down with hungry, voracious eyes.
“I bet you have a lot of fun,” Erin laughed.
“Perhaps,” Sean accepted, still watching her.
Erin was desperate to change the subject. All the talk of sex and desires was making her want to pull in to the nearest parking lot, pull down her panties and beg Sean to enter her there and then; else she would go crazy with yearning.
The song on the radio ended and a serious broadcaster came on.
“This is the news at ten and our lead story is that another body has been found, seemingly linked to the spate of other murders occurring around town,” the voice said, stern and formal in tone.
“The female victim was found by a dog walker at nine this evening.”
Nine, that was just before Erin left the office. She felt sick with fear. Her horny thoughts were gone, replaced by cold, terrified ones.
Had she left the office earlier, the latest victim could have been her. It could be her body being pored over by forensic detectives, her face looking forlorn out from televisions as a cautionary tale for all young women who dare to walk alone at night.
“The attack was believed to have occurred in West Town.” The broadcaster explained.
West Town. The location hung in Erin’s mind, adding to her nausea.
“That’s right by our offices,” she said aloud, her voice small and fearful. Sean looked at her, the flirtatious look in his eyes replaced by a more stoic one.
“You were out there in the bushes, did you see anything?” Erin asked him as she waited at a traffic light. They were approaching Central; soon he would be home, back in his own apartment, and Erin would be alone.
The thought of going back to her small house on the outskirts of town under the cover of darkness suddenly terrified her. The killer was clearly still at large and could be lurking anywhere, searching for their next victim. She imagined waking in the night hearing a strange sound, going to investigate it and breathing her final breath as the killer attacked her, having been lying in wait.
“I didn’t see anything,” Sean replied, his face unreadable. “I was out of it until you showed up.”
“I can’t believe there’s been another murder,” Erin shook her head in disbelief. “Those poor girls.”
But it wasn’t the girls she cared about, it was herself. Until the killer was discovered, she was in danger. The victims were always women, out alone. Living alone, Erin was often by herself. She’d long left her home town and its small sensibilities behind in the hope of making a new, exciting life for herself.
Yet since the murders began, she yearned for her old home, for the small town where she knew everyone by name. She missed the familiarity of the streets; the way you could leave your door unlocked and not worry about someone stealing from you. Life in the city was so different; strangers were always regarded with suspicion. Erin no longer felt safe in the life she’d made there. A part of her knew it was only a matter of time before the killer came for her, in a strange way she’d known ever since the story of the first murder broke. It was only a matter of time until Erin’s name became embroiled with it all.
Above her, the light finally turned to green and she stepped on the gas.
Sean ran a hand across his face and watched Erin out of the corner of his eye. As she drove down Central, she noticed that he was beginning to fidget more in his seat, as though unable to keep still.
Spots of perspiration appeared on his forehead as he kept squirming within his seat. He looked as though he were battling some invisible opponent. Feeling unnerved, Erin tried to focus; they were nearly at his apartment.
The radio announcement about the latest murder had concluded and been replaced by some more rock music. Erin tried to listen to the melody, to let the pattern of it distance her from her thoughts but it didn’t work.
Beside her, Sean placed his hands upon the dashboard and began to drum along furiously to the song, smacking his palms on the plastic in time to the beat. It was frightening to watch. Suddenly, he had boundless energy and was struggling to reign it all in.
“Sean, are you okay?” Erin asked nervously, suspecting that he was on drugs and that this was all a bi-product of being high. She was angry at herself for not realizing that he was intoxicated sooner. She should have seen the signs; he’d awoken in a bush with no recollection of how he got there. Blatantly, Sean was doing drugs.
Erin frowned in annoyance. She’d been so attracted to him, so desperate for him to be perfect yet he had turned out to be just another shining example of how she always picked the wrong guy.
“Sean?” she said his name again when he didn’t answer. This time he heard her and ceased banging on the dashboard. Turning his head slowly, he looked at her and there was a hunger within his eyes. He scanned Erin up and down with a longing that both terrified and tantalized her.
Parting his lips slightly Sean showed his teeth and for a surreal moment, Erin thought he might growl at her. Not that she’d be adverse to that, she enjoyed a good bit of role play under the right circumstances.
But he was on drugs, nothing else. Erin shook her head, not allowing herself to be taken in by his handsome looks and dangerous nature.
“You always like the bad boys,” Erin’s mother had stated sadly when Erin was a teenager, having been caught sneaking back in to the house yet again after taking a ride home on the back of a boy’s motorcycle.
“They’re not bad, Mom, they’re misunderstood,” Erin would protest, pouting beneath her black lipstick and glaring out at her mother from behind too much eyeliner.
“No, they’re just bad,” her mother would sigh with dismay. “And they’re going to drag you down with them, just you wait and see.”
The teenage Erin would ignore her mother’s warnings, shut her bedroom door and drown out any negative thoughts with music from The Smiths and The Cure. Looking back, Erin knew the boys she hung around with were bad news. Most of them had police records and did drugs of some kind, but she didn’t care. She was drawn to them because they were dangerous. Her life was so safe, so settled; they offered her an escape from that.
Even now, while driving Sean home, Erin was unable to escape her teenage preference for boys of a bad nature. She knew she should just drop him somewhere and leave his drug-addled mind to fend for itself, but she couldn’t do that. Her eyes kept drifting to his crotch as she drove and she knew that her attraction to him was blinding her from making the safe, logical choice.
“Sean, are you high?” Erin demanded when he still failed to respond to her and instead just looked over at her with deep, intense eyes.
“No,” he told her, his voice sounding almost like a purr. He continued to watch her with intense interest.
“Then what’s wrong?” Erin asked. “You’re all over the place. It’s…distracting.”
Sean smiled wickedly at the comment, enjoying her discomfort.
“Are we even close to your place? You haven’t given me any directions!” Erin stated desperately, aware that she’d been driving through central for a number of minutes without exactly knowing where she was going. Luckily the streets were deserted enough to enable her to idly drive around.
“I think we should go to your place,” Sean stated and Erin felt her entire body start to tingle with anticipation.
Why did he suddenly want to go to her place? Did he want them to have sex? Did he feel the same magnetic attraction between them as she did?
The dream lingered deliciously at the front of her mind with renewed intensity, suddenly it might become real. Erin felt her breath grow short and struggled to maintain control of the wheel as she turned the car around and headed back in the direction of her own small house on the outskirts of town.
“Back to mine, but why?” she asked, realizing she should have delivered the question before turning the car around. She seemed too keen.
“The story on the radio,” Sean gestured to the stereo system in her car. “It made me worried about you. I don’t want you going back to an empty house at this late hour, at least let me check it out before you go in.”
Erin smiled at the sweet, selfless sentiment of what he’d proposed. It had been a long time since she’d had a guy look out for her. The problem with bad boys is while they might be sexy and alluring, they weren’t there for you when you needed them.
***
As she grew up, Erin had watched her school friends settle down, get married, and have children. Each time she met up with them, they asked her that same inevitable question;
“When are you settling down?”
The question drove Erin crazy. She didn’t want what they had; the perfect home with the white picket fence, a life full of diapers and school runs. She wanted adventure, a life without limits.
But Erin didn’t have that. Instead, she had a job in an office which drove her crazy and a small house where she lived alone.
One by one, Erin lost contact with her old, settled friends. They didn’t understand her, couldn’t see that she was waiting for something. She didn’t want the life she was leading to be all that there was. She still needed that element of danger, of excitement that only her bad boys could give her.
It was when the nightmares started that Erin really started to question her choices. Each night, when she woke doused in her own sweat, terrified within the darkness of her small bedroom it chilled her to find her bed empty. She’d have given anything in those moments to awaken to a familiar, reassuring face that was looking out for her. When terror gripped her on those nights, Erin regretted holding out for excitement and a part of her wished she’d just settled, as at least then she’d be safe.
But she hadn’t settled; she kept chasing that elusive something that even she couldn’t describe. Yet when the murders started, she felt a strange sense that she would somehow be connected to them all. That the thing she’d spent her whole life chasing and waiting for was suddenly imminent.
“You need to find yourself a nice boy and settle down,” her mother would state, her voice pleading as Erin sat on the sofa, drinking tea from a cup and saucer.
“But I want a different life,” Erin would explain, aware how terribly vague and without purpose that sounded.
“I just don’t want you to waste your life waiting for something that may never come,” her mother would sigh, staring sadly into her own cup.
Erin hated to see her mother sad, which was why she ceased visiting as often as she once did as her presence only seemed to bring the old woman grief.
Once, her mother was taken ill by a cold which developed swiftly in to a viscous fever. Erin had rushed to the hospital to be by her mother’s side but when she arrived, the old woman was delirious from the medication and didn’t want to see Erin.
As she approached the hospital bed, smiling and bearing flowers, Erin’s mother began to lash out, yelling at her daughter to get away from her.
“Mom, it’s me,” Erin said, dejected, pausing at the foot of the bed.
“You cannot be here!” her mother hissed.
“Mom!”
“You bring the darkness with you, Erin, you always have! I tried to get you to fight it, but you never could, you let it in! You must leave, you cannot bring it here!”
Distraught, Erin had turned and fled, consoling herself with the fact that her mother was on medication and didn’t know what she was saying. Then the murders started and with them came the nightmares and soon Erin found herself wondering if there was any truth to her mother’s laments. Had she let darkness in to her life? Would that darkness now define her?
***
Erin turned in to a small side street and drove down the familiar road to her house.
“Is this where you live?” Sean asked, glancing out at the neat, tidy lawns and small, smart houses.
“Yeah.”
“It’s nice,” he stated kindly, turning to look at her. The agitated angst no longer danced in the back of his eyes. He now appeared calm and composed. Erin assumed that his drug-induced trip had merely concluded, much to her relief. She’d witnessed firsthand what happened to people who overdose; it was an occupational hazard of being a bad boy addict. Erin didn’t want that to happen to Sean. Even though she barely knew him, she felt drawn to him.
Pulling in to her small driveway she stopped the car and turned off the key in the ignition. For a moment they sat in the car, in the dark stillness of the night. Erin could hear the steady rhythm of Sean’s breath, it was a comforting sound.
Sean turned and faced her within the car, bringing his body closer to hers and causing her skin to prickle with excitement.
“Do you want me to go in and check that everywhere is safe?” he asked her, his voice delicate yet intense. He gazed deep in to her eyes, finding his way down to her soul making her feel completely vulnerable and naked before him.
“Um, yes, yes please,” Erin fumbled nervously in her purse for her house keys. She got out of the car and was thankful for the cool evening air which blasted her and helped clarify her thoughts, blowing away the cobwebs of thoughts of the past which clung to her mind.
She watched Sean get out of the car and saunter over. He looked so amazingly handsome in his trousers and shirt. He stood at least a foot taller than Erin. She looked up at him and smiled nervously. They were now standing dangerously close to her home, to her bed. To the bed where she’d fantasied about his ravaging her, to the shower where she had climaxed as she touched herself and thought about him.
Placing the key in the lock, Erin turned it and opened her front door, wondering how she was going to cope with Sean on her own. She could feel her body already pulsating with desire as he stood so irresistibly close to her. What would he do if she just threw herself at him? Is that perhaps what he wanted and the checking over the house suggestion was just a rouse? She hoped so.
“Come in,” she entered the hallway, flicking on the light. Sean followed her in, shutting the door behind him.
Erin stared at him, feeling her heart start to race. She’d invited Sean and his mysterious darkness into her home and all she could think about was tearing his clothes off. Perhaps her mother had been right about her all along.
***
“Nice house,” Sean commented as he glanced around, peering in to the small living room, the furniture hidden from him, shrouded in darkness.
“Want me to check the rooms for you?”
The question surprised Erin. She had been hoping that checking the house had merely been a pretense to come over. She smiled, trying to hide her disappointment.
“Yeah, sure.”
Sean nodded, flicked on the light switch in the living room, and began checking behind the sofa and the curtains. As Erin watched him, her eyes were drawn to his tight, firm butt which was perfectly hugged by the line of his trousers.
Sensing her eyes upon him, Sean straightened and turned back to her, smiling.
“Are you watching me?” he asked as he took a confident step toward her.
“What…um…no,” Erin fumbled her response, feeling nervous. Sean looked her up and down, suddenly seeming ravenous. She felt unsteady beneath his hungry gaze and leaned against the open doorframe for support.
“You sure you weren’t looking at me?” he asked again, drawing closer to her. Erin tried to calm her nerves but the way he was looking at her made her heart dance a manic medley within her chest. It was as if he was undressing her with his eyes and she liked how it felt.
Standing only inches in front of her, Sean paused, holding her steady in his unblinking gaze. Erin wanted to do the right, proper thing. She wanted to tell him that no, she wasn’t looking at him and could he please continue his search of her house. Then when he had concluded, she would thank him, call him a cab, and then bid him farewell. That’s what her mother would want her to do, what the rational side of her wanted to do.
But when she looked into Sean’s eyes, any logic or rationale was immediately cast to the wind, left to float away, no longer needed. She saw the hunger burning beneath his eyes, the same yearning echoed in her own. She wanted him, she needed him, and she had to have him, no matter what.
They both stepped forward and Sean pulled Erin in to his arms. He leaned down and kissed her hard on the lips. Erin opened her mouth and he slid his tongue in and began massaging hers. The kiss was hot, intense, and passionate.
As they kissed, Sean’s hands skillfully slid down her body and began unbuttoning her blouse. Hot with desire, Erin followed suit, reaching forward and unbuttoning his trousers.
Blouse undone, Sean pulled it from her and cast it aside. He then whipped off her bra in a move he had clearly done many times before. He gave her now exposed breasts an appreciative glance which turned Erin on, making her grow moist and desperate for him. He cupped her left breast with his strong, rough hand and then gently licked the nipple. Erin groaned with pleasure and pulled down his trousers.
Sean stepped out of his trousers, threw off his own shirt and was now only wearing his designer briefs. Erin looked hungrily at the bulge within them, delighted to see that he was just as excited by their union as she was.
He looked as good out of his clothes as Erin had imagined he would, if not better. He had a strong, muscular chest and strong, sexy arms. Watching him, a mischievous smile played on her lips as she unbuttoned her skirt and seductively stepped out of it.
Smiling at the gesture, Sean took off his briefs, revealing his giant throbbing penis. Erin glanced down at it and tried to hide her shock at its enormous girth. As she took him all in, he approached her and pushed her back on to the staircase of her small house. He started kissing her, feeling his way around her mouth with his tongue. Then he moved to kissing her neck, traveling down to her breasts, taking time to gently suck and tease each nipple as beneath him, Erin writhed and groaned in pleasure, fearing she might come before he was even in her.
Sean continued to kiss her body, planting his lips down her chest and along her stomach until he reached the obstacle of her panties. Deftly, he reached up with his strong hands and slid them off, throwing them behind him where they landed softly on the floor. As he kissed her hips and inner thighs, he used his hands to touch her, to gently finger her clitoris. He felt how wet she was and groaned with desire.
On her back on the stairs, Erin was panting, certain she was about to climax. Sean knew just where to touch her, the right spots to apply pressure. He was an experienced lover and she was reaping the rewards of all his practice.
Then, Sean ceased fingering her clitoris and instead kissed her directly on it. Erin gasped aloud at the sudden sensation, which felt unbelievably good. No one had ever made her entire body tingle the way Sean was.
Soon, Sean’s tongue was searching within her, sending soft, lingering licks all over her pussy which whipped Erin into a frenzy.
“Oh my God!” she cried out, lost to the intensity of the moment. “I’m going to come!”
Moments after she’d made the declaration, she came as Sean continued to lick and tease her. She shuddered beneath him in satisfaction as his dick grew harder.
When he pulled away from her, his lips slick with her desire, the hungry look in his eyes had intensified. Erin had never been so turned on in all her life. Even though she’d just come, she immediately felt on the point of climax once again.
“Fuck my brains out,” she ordered him. Sean grunted in approval and reached out and spun Erin around so that she was now looking down at the stairs. Using his hands, he pulled her up by the hips so that her back was arched and he ran his hands over her backside, savoring the curves.
Then he pulled himself close and entered her, his dick sliding in effortlessly because she was sodden. Erin let out a gasp as she felt the full extent of him within her. He was so big that he immediately hit upon her g-spot and she let out a euphoric cry.
Sean almost growled with pleasure as he began to fuck her. It was slow initially, but it quickly increased in pace. Erin squealed with delight as he fucked her upon the staircase. As the pace became more fevered, she dug her hands down into the carpet of the staircase, trying to maintain her position.
Sean’s impressive size was matched by his stamina. He pounded hard against Erin for ten solid minutes. Each time she thought he was going to climax, he somehow found a second wind.
Erin came two more times before Sean let his head back and let out a long, satisfied sigh as he filled her with his passion.
***
They had sex two more times before exhaustion finally set in with the arrival of the dawn. After their initial staircase encounter, Sean carried Erin up to her bedroom, where they made love with her straddling him and then up against the wall. Both times, Erin continued to come. Previously, she hadn’t even known it was possible to orgasm so many times in one night.
When they finally parted, sleep quickly took her. Tired yet satisfied, Erin fell in to a deep, dreamless sleep.
The sound of her alarm clock broke through the wall of rest and pulled her in to the present. As much as Erin tried to resist waking, the shrill alarm forced her to open her eyes and welcome the new day.
Sunlight was streaming in through the window, the blinds having not been drawn the previous night. Erin squinted in the harsh light and rubbed wearily at her eyes. Sitting up, she tried to get her bearings.
Her digital clock told her that it was seven in the morning, meaning she’d barely had an hour’s worth of sleep.
“Urgh,” Erin moaned, her body aching in protest as she tried to get up. The events of the night before came flooding back to her. Sean and the amazing sex. It had almost been too good to be true.
“Sean, we need to get up for work,” Erin said, her mouth opening to release a great big yawn.
When Sean didn’t so much as grunt in response, Erin looked across at the other side of the bed where she expected him to be sleeping, but to her surprise, the bed was empty.
“Sean?” she called out his name, wondering where he had gone. When he didn’t respond she got up and pulled on her dressing gown and walked down the hall to the bathroom, thinking he’d perhaps got up for a shower. But the bathroom was empty, as were the other rooms, upstairs and down. Sean appeared to have gone.
Wandering back into the bedroom, still feeling like she was in a haze, Erin tried to make sense of what was happening. Had the previous night even happened or had it just been a dream?
The carpet burns on her elbows and kneecaps were evidence that their passionate sexual encounter had indeed happened, but then where was he? Surely he had not stolen away from the house as she slept?
Heading downstairs, back down the staircase where hours earlier, she’d had the most intense orgasm of her life, Erin checked the front door. It was unlocked. Sean had left while she was asleep.
Growing angry, she realized that not only had he left, he’d left her alone sleeping in an unlocked house when there was a killer at large, meaning that he had little to no regard for her safety.
Feeling tearful, Erin angrily slammed her front door open and shut, then turned the deadbolt. She took a moment to stand against the wall, trying not to let her emotions overwhelm her. She just couldn’t understand why he would leave without so much as a goodbye. Did he think their night together was a mistake? Surely not. Erin could not have been alone in thinking how amazing the sex had been.
Whatever the reasoning, it didn’t matter. Sean was gone and Erin was alone. Saddened by his departure she went upstairs to shower with slow, heavy footsteps. She kept re-running the events of the previous night. Had she said something wrong, appeared too clingy? They’d barely even spoken. They’d not had chance between the numerous bouts of sex they enjoyed together.
As Erin got in to the shower and allowed the hot water to pass over her, washing away the final remnants of him upon her skin, she feared that inviting him into her house had been a mistake.
Her penchant for bad boys brought her nothing but grief. None of her unions with men who were troubled ever ended happily. It as though she was drawn to their troubled nature like a moth to a flame, powerless to resist and end the cycle.
Erin knew from past painful experience that only the guys with something to hide leave you as you are sleeping. The more eager they are to leave, the darker the secret they are trying to keep.
TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK TWO: Crescent Moon - Volume 2
***
***
Dressed for work, Erin headed downstairs. Her mind was still muddied with doubt about why Sean had left while she was sleeping, but she tried to push those thoughts away and focus on getting up and getting ready to start the new day.
As she stepped off the bottom step of the staircase, she suddenly felt overwhelmed by a disgusting smell of rotting. Doubling over, Erin clutched at her stomach and started retching.
The smell was intensely horrific. It fogged her senses, stinging her nostrils and coating her throat. Erin tried to brush it away, but it was too strong. It was preventing her from being able to even stand straight.
Bemused, she knew that she needed to reach the source of the smell and eliminate it. Yet the stench hadn’t been there the previous night. Daring to inhale to further identify the disgusting odor, she was certain that it smelt of something rotting, which meant it must be an old smell. How could she not have noticed it sooner when it was so overwhelmingly foul?
With her hand on her stomach, still bent over, Erin followed the scent to the kitchen where it became its most pungent. Shielding her mouth, Erin scanned the room, searching for something rotten. Her eyes settled on her steel trash can. Daring the take a step closer she was immediately certain that the stink was emanating from within it.
Gagging, Erin moved with one swift motion and opened the lid, allowing the full extent of the smell to come tumbling out in to the room, engulfing her. Certain that she would vomit, Erin backed away from the bin, holding her hand over her mouth. What the hell was in there?
The smell was like rotting flesh and it made her skin creep. Even though she’d only just showered, the smell made her feel dirty and soiled. Whatever was in the bin, she had to get it out; she couldn’t stand having the house stink for a moment longer.
Pushing through the fog of the stench, Erin looked down in to the bin. To her surprise, she found nothing unexpected in there. There were a few egg shells, a letter she’d discarded, and the remains of a chicken sweet and sour meal she’d been unable to finish. Yet looking down, the smell became its most potent. It must be the chicken.
As her eyes watered with the stench, Erin scrutinized the remains of the chicken. It had only been in the bin for a few days, if that. Normally it wouldn’t make such a horrific smell. Confused, Erin forced herself to remove the bag and take it outside to her outdoor bin. She ran with it, holding it at arm’s length as though she were dealing with some toxic contaminant.
Back in the kitchen, Erin set about trying to make her house smell fresh again. She opened every window, letting in the cool morning air, and used a whole can of air freshener, yet still the horrid smell clung to the air, refusing to budge.
Exhausted and nauseated, Erin sat at the foot of her stairs and rubbed wearily at her temple. A quick check of her wrist watch revealed that she was already late for work. The drama of the morning, coupled with Sean’s unexplained departure, left her in no mood to face the office. The last thing she wanted to do was go to work and be forced to face him and pretend that everything was okay. She wanted to yell at him for leaving so abruptly and demand and explanation.
The debacle with the bin also made her wary that perhaps she was sick. It was unlike her to react so strongly to a smell. Deciding that a day’s bed rest was in order, Erin called the office and made her excuses for not coming in that day.
***
As the day progressed, Erin slept in her bed but she got little rest. Her mind was plagued by horrid nightmares where savage dogs snarled and barked at her, chasing her down dark, endless streets, snapping at her ankles and baying for her blood.
She awoke numerous times, panting and terrified to find the sheets around her soaked with her own sweat. The smell repulsed her. It bothered her to the point where she was forced to sleep with the bedroom window open just to let in some fresh air.
After waking for the fourth time mid-afternoon, Erin decided to just get up. She took another shower, feeling that she smelled. Refreshed, she heading downstairs and was relieved to find that the rotting smell had now dulled to an unpleasant after-odor, no longer the debilitating stench it had previously been.
Erin didn’t feel like herself. She felt sick and ravenous all at the same time, and craved food she wouldn’t normally eat, like raw steak. Sickened by her impulses, Erin tried to ignore them. She sat down in front of the television and tried to focus on what was on, but it didn’t work. She felt restless and uneasy. Getting up, she started to pace around the room but still she felt like she had energy to burn.
Powerless against her sudden strange impulses, Erin decided to go for a run. It was still light out, so there wasn’t the added element of danger with the lurking killer still at large. Pulling on some sweatpants and a t-shirt, Erin tied up her running shoes and left the house, making sure to lock the door as she left.
Erin had always enjoyed running. She found it helped clear her mind whenever she was feeling weighed down with indecision. The momentum of running, the rhythm of her movements, she found cathartic, and today was no exception. Erin ran out of the estate where she lived, relishing the feeling of freedom that came with each step forward. Her tied-back hair bobbed along behind her like a dark kite.
Pushing herself more than normal, Erin maintained a fast speed. Usually, she slowed to a jog, but not today, today she had energy she had to burn. Energy that made staying in the house make her feel like a caged animal, prowling and desperate to get out.
Her lungs burned from the excursion, but still she pressed on. She wanted to run until her legs gave way beneath her and she could run no more.
Erin ran and felt free. Her legs pumped beneath her, pulling her further forward, out and away from her estate, deeper in to town. She felt an overwhelming urge to escape, to run away from everything and running seemed like the only way to do it.
She kept running as the houses and trees beside her became a blur, everything merging in to one long image. But eventually, her legs buckled from exhaustion and she was forced to slow and eventually stop.
Breathing hard, Erin placed her head between her knees and waited for her chest to cease heaving and her breathing to regulate itself. Her legs trembled slightly, worn out from overuse. Her back was soaked with perspiration, seeping out and wetting her thin t-shirt and making it stick to her skin. Erin smelled herself, smelled the sweat, and felt a shudder of repulsion. When she was back home, she’d have to shower yet again.
Standing up, Erin stretched and flexed her arms and legs. They ached in protest. She knew she wouldn’t be able to run anymore that day; she’d already overdone it. She would have to walk back to her house. Looking around she tried to get her bearings. She was in an unfamiliar part of town full of run-down apartment buildings, yet somehow she knew instinctively which direction to go in to get home. Turning to the south, she began the tedious task of walking back.
Erin cautiously surveyed her surroundings as she walked, feeling uneasy in such a foreign area. Most of the windows in the buildings were boarded up, presumably after the glass had been shattered. There was graffiti sprayed everywhere declaring various gang allegiances. Erin tried to ignore it all and just focus on getting back to her own, familiar estate.
A sudden low, guttural growl made her stop walking. She looked and saw a large bulldog standing behind a rickety wooden gate. The dog was staring directly at her, baring its formidable sharp teeth and growling.
When Erin locked eyes with it in bewilderment, it started to bark manically, foaming at the mouth and ramming its considerable weight against the gate, causing the wood to bend and snap at the force.
It was like back in her nightmares, where the snarling dogs were chasing her. What was going on? Why was this dog suddenly going crazy at her? Why could she smell everything so strongly?
But Erin didn’t have the luxury of time to stand and deliberate on what was happening to her. Other dogs were being called to arms, barking from within their own yards. Harsh, vicious barks filled the air. Looking at the wooden gate and the surging bull dog Erin could see it was just a matter of time before he broke through and came barreling at her, teeth out and ready to rip into her flesh.
As much as she ached, Erin forced herself to run. She had to get out of there. Her legs felt heavy and wooden but she forced them into action, making them push against the street, to propel her forward and remove her from danger.
She ran, wincing at the pain, trying to block out how much she ached. Her ears were ringing with the sound of the shrill, angry barks. She wondered briefly what she had done to agitate them so fiercely, but also didn’t want to stick around and find out.
Even out of the area, with the dogs behind her, their barking still rung out in ears as though somehow she could still hear them, could hear their throats beginning to grow hoarse yet still they barked. Far behind her now, the bulldog broke loose and began running after her scent but his efforts would be in vain. She was rounding the corner to her estate now and soon she’d be back in the safety of her small house.
Erin continued running, her sweat pouring down. She could see her house; see the safety of the front door waiting to lock her inside. Still she could hear the barking, lingering in her senses, not letting her dare to stop even for a second.
Eventually, Erin opened her front door and came crashing down into the hallway. She turned on to her back and used her feet to push the door shut, watching it close with a weary sense of satisfaction.
Breathing heavily, she lay panting on the floor, her eyes trained up to the ceiling. She ran a hand across her forehead and it came back moist. She’d never sweat so much before; if she wasn’t so exhausted, she’d be repulsed by it.
For now, though, she was exhausted. Her eyes grew heavy as she lay on the floor, unable to move. The barking had now become silenced, much to her relief. It had terrified her to see an element from her nightmare out there in the real world. She feared that maybe she was going mad.
“I’m just sick,” Erin told herself. The smells, the barking, the nightmares, surely it was all a sign that she was unwell, probably lost to a fever. She just needed to rest. Carefully, she lifted herself off the floor, each limb screaming out in discomfort as she did so. She needed a long, hot shower and then she’d go back to bed. In the morning, by the light of a new day, everything would look and feel better…at least, she hoped so.
In the fog of exhaustion, she thought momentarily of Sean. She’d have to go to work the following day and face him. She couldn’t put it off any longer.
***
The dogs chased her. Each of them snarling and baring their teeth as they raced after her, desperate to bite in to the pink of her flesh. Erin ran from them, pumping her legs hard, her chest heaving.
She didn’t need to look back, she could still hear them in hot pursuit, growling and panting as they ran in her wake. There were dozens of them and they were growing in numbers. Erin knew that if she paused even for a second, they would reach and overpower her and she’d meet her end as they tore her apart, limb from limb.
The savagery in their chase made her body break out in fearful sweat. She continued to run, with no idea where she was going. All she knew was that she had to evade the dogs who continued to relentlessly chase her.
She ran through unfamiliar streets, never looking back, always pressing forward. She ran past trees which scratched at her cheeks with their extended branches but she couldn’t stop to survey the damage, she had to carry on, had to get away from her pursuers.
The high-pitched angry barking was piercing. It ripped through the night sky and tore in to Erin’s eardrums as she ran. Each bark seemed to alert nothing dog to their cause as they massed in numbers, all of them large and angry. As she kept running, Erin became too tired to be angry or scared. She was existing solely on instinct, a desperate desire to stay alive.
The dogs were gaining on her; their shrill cries were becoming worryingly close. Erin pushed forward, tried to create some extra speed in her legs, but she had nothing left to give. Desperate, she looked for somewhere she could escape to and hide, but the world seemed full of nothing but dark emptiness, leaving her nowhere to go.
Running on her last remaining ounce of strength, Erin began to fear that she’d soon succumb to the savage fate which chased her. Exhausted, her legs became like jelly beneath her and gave way without warning, sending her crashing to the floor. Erin tasted wet dirt as she connected with the ground. Spluttering, she tried to get up but it was no good; she had nothing left.
Terrified, she could hear them coming, feel the pounding of their imminent paws upon the wet ground. Erin turned to look upon her assailants. There must have been twenty dogs that were about to bore down on her. They ran with seemingly limitless energy, not exhausted like she was. Their teeth shone like deadly daggers in the darkness. Their eyes gleamed with an evil menace. In a matter of seconds, they would be upon her. Curling into a ball, Erin braced herself for the pain, tried to console the rising sense of panic within her that these were to be her last moments on Earth.
She felt a wet nose connect with her and let out a terrified scream in anticipation of the searing bite which would soon follow.
***
Erin awoke, screaming in her own bed, pulled into a ball with her sheets bunched up around her, all of them soaked in her sweat. Confused and shaken, she rubbed her eyes and tried to get her bearings.
She was at home in her bedroom in the grey light of early morning. There were no dogs chasing her; she was all alone. It must have been a nightmare, but it had all felt so real. Erin touched her cheek, expecting to find a fresh cut slashed upon it from the tree branch, but there was nothing.
Pulling herself up, she headed for the shower, needing to wash away the remnants of the nightmare which still clung to her conscious mind, making her movements fearful and tentative. She kept glancing out of the corner of her, imaging she’d seen a dog, low to the ground and snarling, waiting to pounce.
The hot water of the shower flowed down her back and washed away the sweat of the night but did little to take away the memories of the horrific nightmare. Erin felt sickened to have almost dreamed her own death. In the wake of all the current murders, she wanted to stop feeling so connected to death, yet it seemed to follow her thoughts no matter where she went.
She needed to focus on something, anything else to keep herself sane. Sean. Today, she would see him at the office. It would be awkward; he’d not so much as called her since his vanishing act the other night. Erin wanted to tell him how hurt she was, that they’d had this amazing night together and then he’d just left like it was nothing. But she also didn’t want to be airing her dirty laundry at work. The last thing she wanted to become was the topic of office gossip. It was far from professional and she’d always vowed to keep her work life and love life completely separate. Yet for Sean, she’d seemed happy to break all her rules. Being with him at been the most erotic night of her life, but now he was gone and she was left with horrid nightmares about being ripped apart by dogs.
Dressed, Erin bounded out of the house, already running slightly late. She approached her car, unlocked it, and then paused before getting in. The car was a suddenly painful reminder of Sean and the time they’d spent together. She’d kindly offered him a lift home after discovering him in the bushes near the office parking lot. He’d seemed out of it, she should never have let him come back to hers. Clearly, he was on drugs, perhaps that was why she hadn’t heard from him. Maybe he couldn’t even remember having sex with her the numerous times that he did?
Rubbing her temple, Erin sighed. She was starting to feel as though she were on some drug trip herself, as nothing was making sense. The cool morning air whipped around, briefly forcing her to focus and stop dwelling on the strange things happening within her mind. Opening the car door, Erin got inside and headed in to work.
***
“Are you feeling better?” Coleen asked, her voice etched with concern before Erin had even had chance to remove her coat.
“What?” Erin was caught off-guard, forgetting that she’d feigned illness the previous day when really she was just nursing a sexual hangover.
“Yesterday you were off sick. Hope you’re feeling better.”
“Oh,” Erin forced a slight cough to help corroborate her sickness story. “Yeah, bit better thanks.”
“You poor dear,” Coleen shook her head sympathetically. “Hope you had someone to take care of you at home.”
“I was okay.” Erin managed to smile thinly. She didn’t have anyone to care for her at home. She was painfully alone. Even the guy she’d had the best sex of her life with couldn’t stay until dawn. It was a bitter pill to swallow that she was beginning to feel completely and utterly alone.
“You look exhausted,” Coleen commented, watching her young colleague with worried eyes. “Are the nightmares back?”
“Yeah,” Erin sighed, sitting down heavily in her desk chair, “they are.”
“What a shame. Did you hear there was another murder?”
“I did.”
“I think we are all going to end up losing sleep until they catch the killer. It’s terrifying,” Coleen shivered in her seat at the thought of it.
“I’m sure they will catch them soon,” Erin said though of course she wasn’t. She continued to feel haunted by the horrid feeling that she was somehow connected to it all. Her dreams were merely a precursor of the grizzly fate which awaited her. She didn’t want to die, certainly not at the hands of a crazed killer. Resting her elbows on her desk, Erin held her head in her hands.
“Come on now, don’t let it worry you,” Coleen got up and came over, her maternal instincts taking over. She leaned on the desk and rubbed a consolatory hand down Erin’s back.
“I’ll be fine,” Erin sighed, fearing she’d never be fine again.
“Is it just the murders that are bothering you? Or is it something else?”
“Something else?” Erin queried, unsure what else Coleen could possibly think would be bothering her.
“I thought maybe you’d heard that your man candy has left.” Coleen said softly, her tone apologetic.
“What man candy has left?” Erin asked, confused.
“Sean, he quit yesterday. I know you sort of liked him, he was certainly easy on the eye.”
“Sean’s quit?” Erin straightened up and looked Coleen squarely in the eye, not sure if the older woman was teasing her or not.
“Yes, he quit yesterday. Surprised us all. Apparently, he said the job just isn’t for him and he wants to look for something else.”
“Are you serious?” Erin felt a rising sense of panic growing within her.
“Afraid so.”
“So he won’t be back in the office again?”
“No. Shame isn’t it? Now what will we look at?” Coleen chuckled but Erin failed to feel the merriment of the situation. Sean was gone. Not only had he suddenly left her bed without saying a word, now he had quit the job in the office where they both worked. Erin couldn’t help but feel that both behaviors were linked, that Sean was doing anything and everything to completely and utterly avoid her.
Erin had been dumped by guys before, but never quite to this level. No one had ever left a decent job just to avoid seeing her.
“There will be other guys,” Coleen said gently, noticing Erin’s troubled look that bunched up her face and made her eyes narrow.
Erin wanted to correct Coleen and state that no, there wouldn’t be. While there may be other guys, none could compare to Sean’s sexual finesse. He’d made her have the most intense orgasm of her life and now he was gone and she had no way of ever seeing him again. She felt soiled and dirty by the way he had so blatantly used her. How could she have been so stupid to trust him?
“Did something happen between you two?” Coleen enquired, her female intuition picking up on Erin’s deep unhappiness over his sudden departure.
“No, gosh no,” Erin hurriedly replied. “I’m just still feeling really out of it with being sick.” She pushed herself up from her chair and ran a hand through her dark hair.
“Do you need to go back home and rest some more?”
“No, I’ll be okay, I just need a minute.”
Erin strode off toward the bathroom, desperate to be alone. She wanted to cry and scream at the same time. How could Sean just leave like that? Why was he so desperate to avoid her?
In the bathroom, Erin splashed cold water on her face and then studied her reflection. She was strikingly beautiful; people were always telling her as much. So what had she done wrong to push Sean away?
A slight rustling in the far stall caught Erin’s attention and she immediately turned, her eyes wide and fearful. In her chest, her heart began to beat rapidly, anticipating the arrival of one of the hounds from her nightmares. When she heard the toilet flush, she knew it was just a colleague using the bathroom and she turned back to the mirror, feeling foolish about her own skittishness.
Reaching in her pocket for some lipstick, she ran the red stick over her lips, staining them the color of blood. Sean was gone, she had to accept that. Erin gave herself a once over and steeled herself for the day ahead. She didn’t need Sean. She was a strong, successful woman. Striding out with long, confident steps, Erin was starting to feel better about herself. But as she left, she cast a fearful look back in to the bathrooms, just to check that there were no dogs there lurking in the darkness, waiting to pounce.
***
As the day progressed, Erin’s mood failed to improve. Around lunch time, her overactive sense of smell kicked in again and she found herself being repulsed by the various aromas which were wafting throughout the open office space.
She could smell the dressing on a salad, the strong scent of cheddar on a sandwich, and the pungent lingering of curried rice. Individually, each smell would be tolerable, but mixed together, they overloaded her senses and Erin began to feel unbearably nauseous, as she had at her house when she smelled rotting flesh.
Initially, she tried to ignore the sickening sensation and focus on her work. She clicked through her emails, desperate for a distraction, but nothing could take her mind off the overbearing smells that were engulfing her in a thick, unpleasant fog.
“You don’t look so good,” Coleen noted when she saw Erin’s face pale. Erin rubbed at her eyes and her temple, willing the smells away.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’m not so sure. You look awfully pale. Why don’t you go outside for a bit of fresh air?”
Fresh air. That was exactly what Erin needed. Fresh, clean air, free from the clutter of various lunches. Nodding in agreement, she got up and pulled on her coat, suddenly eager to leave the office.
Outside in the parking lot, the air was bitter and crisp, but wonderfully clear. There was the constant underlying smell of car exhaust, but it couldn’t overwhelm her out here in the open. Erin breathed deep, savoring the cleanness of the air, letting it fill her lungs and clear out her senses.
She was leaning against the hood of her car, taking a moment to let the sick feeling pass. Looking around, she recalled that it was in the parking lot that she’d found Sean and their fateful night together had commenced. She wished again, looking back, that she’d had the fortitude to turn him away, to realize that he was high on drugs and leave him be. But instead, her fascination with all bad boys got the better of her and she invited him in to her car and, ultimately, her home. And finally her bed.
The sex had been so good, amazing even. Closing her eyes, Erin allowed herself to revisit their night of passion together. The way Sean had so skilfully gone down on her as she lay sprawled upon the stairs. It had been the most intensely erotic moment of her life and now it would never happen again. Sean and his sexual prowess were gone, leaving her alone, distraught, and feeling unwell and unhappy.
“Men,” Erin sighed aloud, shaking her head. Men always seemed to be the source of all her problems. If only she could break old habits and meet a nice, reliable guy but for her. However, history seemed destined to forever repeat itself.
Some nearby shrubs shivered in the breeze and for a brief, vainly hopeful moment Erin wished it was Sean, returning to the scene of their union to apologize. She pondered on what she’d do if she saw him. She’d be mad, of course. She’d demand to know why he had left her during the night and then quit his job. Was he really just avoiding her? But as much as she’d be angry at him, another part of her would be desperate to have sex with him again. Her legs quivered at the memory of the night alone. Erin could almost forsake his rude aloofness if it meant they could be together again. The sex more than made up for any bad behavior.
A strong breeze blew across her face, forcing her dark hair to tangle before her eyes. And with the breeze came the smell of cooked meat, carried from some distant kitchen preparing for the lunchtime rush. The smell burnt against Erin’s nostrils and stung her throat. She gagged as it set root in her senses and then, powerless against it, she turned to the side of her car and began to violently vomit.
Embarrassed, Erin looked sheepishly at the mess she’d made and tentatively removed a tissue from her pocket to wipe her mouth. She loathed being sick. Usually it was a painful reminder that she’d drank too much. But today she’d not been drinking. She’d not done anything. Steadying herself against her car she became certain that something was wrong, she was most definitely not herself.
***
“Do you feel better for getting some fresh air?” Coleen asked kindly as Erin shuffled back in to the office and removed her coat.
Before she sat down, Erin reached in to her desk drawer for a bottle of perfume she kept there and began to spray it wildly around her person, paranoid that she smelt of sick.
Then, covered by the sickly sweet smell of vanilla she sat down at her desk and sighed wearily.
“You feeling better, hon?” Coleen asked again, pausing from typing, her hands poised above the keyboard, ready to spring in to rhythmic action.
“A little,” Erin answered though she still felt wretched. The lingering stench of lunch still clogged the air but her perfume thankfully kept the brunt of it at bay. Currently, all she could smell was the vanilla sweetness, which was better than the putrid food smells.
“If you don’t mind my saying, you really don’t look so good.” Coleen said carefully, not wanting to upset her young colleague but also concerned about her.
“I don’t feel so good,” Erin admitted sadly. Her mind refused to focus on work. She kept thinking about Sean, wondering where he was and why he had left so suddenly. A part of her felt he was responsible for her sudden bout of sickness. The more she dwelled on it, the more it made sense.
Erin feared that when she’d slept with Sean she’d caught something from him, and now, ashamed, he was doing all he could to avoid her. They’d certainly not used protection and looking back, Erin was shamed with how stupid and reckless that was. She knew nothing about Sean and his past. And now, she was feeling sick and out of sorts. It would be just her luck to have caught something from him. Her mind raced, jumping to fearful conclusions about what it could have been.
“When Sean left, did he mention to anyone where he was going?” Erin dared to ask, hoping to source some information she could use to locate his whereabouts.
Coleen pondered for a moment and then shook her head.
“Nope, don’t think so. Not as far as I know, anyway. Pretty much left without a word, shocked everyone.”
“Yeah, it’s certainly strange.”
“Are you sure everything is all right?”
Erin was feeling drained and confused by the whole situation. As much as she feared becoming the latest subject of office gossip, she needed to confide in someone, needed some advice. She trusted Coleen. She’d known the older woman for several years now and they’d grown fond of one another. They were too different to truly be friends. Coleen was married with children and let a settled life whilst Erin was chasing after unobtainable bad boys and enjoying reckless sexual encounters. Despite their differences, a mutual respect had developed between the two.
With Erin, Coleen could let her maternal instincts take over and that suited her just fine. And in the absence of her own mother who lived far away, Erin had to admit that she enjoyed having Coleen looking out for her. It made her feel safe, less alone.
“Col, could we talk somewhere a bit more quiet?” Erin asked, her voice small.
“Yes,” Coleen got up, immediately dropping everything she was doing, her face pinched with concern. “Yes of course, come on.”
In the office bathrooms, Coleen methodically checked each individual stall to ensure that they were completely alone and then she turned to face Erin and waited patiently for what she had to say.
“Remember when you asked me if anything happened with Sean?” Erin began carefully, embarrassed to divulge the full details about what had occurred, even to someone she trusted.
“Yeah.” Coleen nodded, her face was open and without judgment.
“Well, something did happen with him. The other night. I found him wandering on the parking lot after I worked late. He seemed out of it, like he was drunk, and I offered him a ride home, but we ended up at mine and one thing kind of led to another…” Erin trailed off, looking down at the tiled floor, unable to meet Coleen’s gaze.
She half expected Coleen to jump up with excitement and clap her hands together over being right about their liaison, but instead she just nodded solemnly.
“I’m guessing he didn’t mention he was leaving his job,” Coleen said, her voice soft and sympathetic.
“He didn’t even say goodbye in the morning,” Erin scoffed, looking up at the ceiling in an attempt to hold in her tears. Talking about it all aloud made her realize just how stupid she’d been. She was a grown woman; she shouldn’t be standing in the bathroom, crying over a boy who had hurt her. This was high school stuff, yet somehow she just couldn’t progress past it.
“Not much of a gentleman then,” Coleen noted sourly.
“Not at all.” Erin sniffed.
Coleen stepped away in to one of the stalls and returned with a handful of tissue paper that she handed to Erin, who gratefully accepted it and dabbed at her eyes.
“Is that why you’ve not been yourself, because you’re hurt by how he treated you?” Coleen queried tentatively, aware she was encroaching on a sensitive subject.
“Yes and no,” Erin admitted, carefully collecting tears in the tissue paper. “Yes, I was hurt by how he left and then did a disappearing act at work but its more than that. Since we were together, I’ve felt…ill. Out of sorts.”
“Did you use protection?” Coleen asked, the mother in her coming out as she gave Erin a stern look.
Erin could only shamefully shake her head.
“Oh Erin,” Coleen sighed. “You always need to protect yourself. By all means, have your fun, but be careful with it.”
“I know,” Erin was trembling slightly now as fresh tears fell down her porcelain cheeks.
“Come on now, don’t get upset,” Coleen embraced the younger woman, holding her tightly.
“I’m scared I’ve caught something from him,” Erin admitted, sickened by how the fear sounded when she said it aloud.
“Well, getting upset won’t help anything.” Coleen said soothingly, rubbing Erin’s back.
“But I need to find him and ask what he has. But he’s gone! And I’m left feeling sick with no idea what to do about it!”
Coleen pulled away and pursed her lips in concentration.
“That boy certainly does owe you an explanation,” she declared. “Especially if he passed something on to you that has made you unwell.”
“But he’s gone!” Erin wailed.
“Not necessarily.” Coleen’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “I’m sure HR has a contact address for him and Maureen works in the department and owes me a favor. I’ll have a little word with her and see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Coleen!” Erin gushed, hugging the other woman.
“But you need to promise me that this won’t happen again! That you’ll start taking care of yourself.”
“I will, I promise,” Erin nodded sincerely.
“I also think you should take the rest of the day off; go home and sleep. You look like a ghost.”
Erin caught sight of her reflection and had to admit that she was considerably paler than usual with dark circles pooling beneath her eyes.
“Okay.”
“I’ll tell Diane you went home sick.”
“Thanks, Col. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you!”
“I’m here to help,” Coleen smiled.
“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” Erin asked sheepishly, still fretting about becoming gossip fodder.
“Of course not,” Coleen looked a little hurt by the insinuation that she’d spill the details to anyone else. “Your secret is safe with me. Now go home and rest, I’ll contact you when I have some information on him.”
“You sound like a spy,” Erin smiled.
“I’m wasted working here, espionage is clearly my true calling,” Coleen smirked playfully.
***
Driving home, Erin tried to cast thoughts of Sean out of her mind. She reassured herself that she was merely under the weather; probably suffering from a cold or flu and it was nothing more than coincidence that the sickness had come on after she’d had sex with Sean.
The roads were thankfully relatively clear as Erin drove the familiar route from the office to her small house. All the while she kept glancing furtively at the passenger seat, remembering when Sean had embodied the area, how he had smelled; how tantalizing it had been to have him so close to her.
She didn’t regret having sex with him. Of that, she was certain. It had felt too good to have been wrong. Even remembering the slightest detail, like the feeling of his lips upon her skin, sent her into frenzy, bringing her almost to the point of climax. It was though Sean was a sexual drug, one which she’d never be able to get enough of as she was now hooked.
***
“You confuse sex with love,” her mother had once declared on one of her more lucid days at the hospital.
Erin had scowled at her and turned to face the window, looking out on the parking lot and watching various vehicles maneuver around like ants.
“You’ll never find happiness until you see past the carnal desire to what truly lies within a man’s heart.” Her mother continued, her eyelids fluttering as she spoke.
“Mom, you’re high on pain meds. Just rest,” Erin told her flippantly, in no mood to engage in a tense discussion about her non-existent love life. It was hard enough having to see her mother on her sick bed; she didn’t want to taint the experience even more. Erin was using every ounce of strength she had just to hold it together. It was so difficult to see her mother lying helplessly in the hospital bed, strung up to a web of wires that were aiding her breathing.
But still, despite her illness, her mother retained her militant, stubborn attitude. No matter how much her body suffered, her mind remained rigid and righteous.
“You are a beautiful girl, Erin, so stunning. You should be with a man who adores you,” her mother implored, her voice weak but not her will.
Erin smiled thinly to herself. She’d met men who adored her, men who would send her bouquets of red roses and spend thousands of dollars on designer shoes and clothes for her. She appreciated their kindness but the gifts and the adulation failed to win her heart. Despite their best efforts, Erin was destined to be drawn by the men with dark secrets, the ones who left her alone, wanting more. It began to feel like a curse; a predisposition to never finding happiness.
“Mom, please, just rest. We can talk about this another time.”
“There isn’t much time left,” her mother whispered fretfully.
“Don’t talk like that; you’ve got plenty of time left! The doctors say you are improving every day!” Erin came and knelt by her mother’s bedside, clutching the older woman’s slender hand in her own.
“I wasn’t talking about me,” her mother coughed, eyeing her daughter intensely, “I was talking about you.”
Erin had laughed nervously and dismissed the comment as being the product of her mother’s medication. She didn’t know what she was saying. Yet the strange omen had lingered in Erin’s mind long after she’d drove away from the hospital. It gnawed at her mind in the dead of night when she awoke sweating from a nightmare about her own demise.
What if she really was running out of time? What if her own dark desires were leading her to the point of no return?
***
Arriving home, Erin pulled in to her driveway and switched off the car engine. Her neighborhood was quiet mid-afternoon. Most people were away at work and children had yet to return from school. Stepping out of her car, she shivered in the cold and then headed in to her house.
The air inside smelled clear and fresh; this was a pleasant change from the acrid, rotting stench that had disgusted her previously. Feeling weary, Erin decided to shower and change into some more comfortable clothes. She hoped that Coleen was right; that she just needed to rest and get over Sean and then everything would be all right, she could stop feeling so inexplicably hopeless about it all.
Showered and wearing sweatpants and a hooded jumper from her college days Erin headed in to the kitchen to make hot chocolate and prepare some dinner. She was suddenly ravenous again. Browsing through her cupboards and freezer, she eventually settled upon a whole pizza, accompanied by macaroni and cheese. It was normally the amount of food Erin would consume over a number of days, but as her stomach felt hollow and empty, she knew she could eat it all in an entire sitting. And she did.
An hour later, Erin was sprawled out on her sofa, feeling contentedly full. On the television, a DVD of one of her favorite action films was playing. Erin had always enjoyed action films, she enjoyed the fast pace and the thrill of them. Chick flicks bored her. They were so predictable and full of ridiculously high expectations. Erin would much rather lose herself in a plot filled with gunfire and assassination plots.
The sound of rapid gunfire echoed out from the television and Erin stretched her long legs out beneath her and yawned sleepily. Finally, after feeling on edge for the last few days, she began to relax a little and feel more like herself. Full of food, her eyelids grew heavy and as the film entered the middle half of the narrative, she fell asleep.
Erin awoke suddenly to the sound of gunfire. Confused, she looked around and her eyes settled on the television screen. The film had reached its dramatic climax and there was a shootout occurring between the central characters. Rubbing her eyes, Erin tried to banish the fog of sleep which clung to her.
Outside, the day had darkened to night and the only source of light in the room was emitting from the television, casting the house in an eerie artificial glow. Groaning, Erin pulled herself up and headed over to the front window with the intent of closing the curtains and putting on the lights. But as she reached the window, she froze. The hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood to attention and Erin stood motionless, the sensation freezing her with fear.
She was being watched. She was completely certain that somewhere, in the darkness, were a pair of eyes watching her every move. The thought sickened her and after her initial fear, she forced herself to shut the curtains, locking her voyeur out.
It is a horrible sensation, to know you are being watched. You can just feel eyes upon you, shadowing your every move. Yet looking out in to dense darkness Erin was powerless to spot the owner of the eyes; instead, all she could do was squirm as she felt them upon her.
With the curtains closed, she felt better, but only slightly. Her skin still crept from the sensation of being watched. Fearfully, she moved into the hallway and checked that the front door was locked. It was.
Then she carefully made her way to the back of the house and checked the locks on the back door. They, too, were locked securely. She was safely within her house, yet she felt like she was under siege.
The gruesome murders were suddenly at the forefront of her mind. What if whoever she could feel watching her was responsible for those brutal killings? What if she was next? She’d always felt some strange connection to the deceased; what if she was predicting her own death? What if her mother had been right, that she was running out of time?
Panicked, Erin moved back in to the living room, to the comfort of the voices on the television, and positioned herself in a ball on the sofa, no longer wanting to stretch out. She looked at the window, now concealed behind the curtains and wondered just how long someone had been watching her. She must have been asleep for almost an hour. Had they been there the whole time? If so, what were they waiting on? Erin didn’t want to find out. She felt sick with fear and violated over having been watched while she slept.
The hairs on the back of her neck refused to settle, sensing that someone was still lurking outside, just beyond her front door.
Running her hands through her long, dark hair, Erin tried to think of something, anything else. But her mind kept returning to the news stories of the murders. All of the victims were young women, all of them alone. Erin could easily become another name to attach to the list. She could imagine her ghostly face staring out of the television screen at people as they ate their breakfast the following morning and the newscaster announced that tragically, the killer had struck again. They were a small town under siege from an unknown assailant and a part of Erin knew that she was tied to it all, as crazy as she knew that was.
Growing up, she’d listened to a lot of punk music and become obsessed with the tragic story of Sid and Nancy.
“It’s so macabre, what you listen to,” her mother had declared, eyeing her daughter warily. “It will do you no good to fill your head with such darkness.”
“They’re not dark, Mom, they’re tortured,” teenage Erin would say defensively. Despite living a comfortable life, Erin knew how they felt, as she herself felt like a tortured soul.
“You need to distance yourself from all that darkness,” her mother would continue, subconsciously clutching at the golden crucifix she wore on a delicate chain around her neck.
“Why, because you don’t like it?” Erin had challenged, ever the petulant teen.
“The darkness will destroy you,” her mother had warned. Erin had scoffed at yet another ambiguous warning about how she was going to be ruined by the darkness which she let in to her heart. To her, it sounded like the laments of her mother out of touch with the modern world.
But now, as a grown woman, Erin shrunk up on her sofa and eyed her windows cautiously. Beyond the curtains, she imaged the killer prowling around outside her house, eager to taste her blood.
Erin feared that the darkness her mother spoke of had finally found her. That her years of listening to music by the damned and chasing bad boys had somehow led him to her. Perhaps the killer was able to sense when someone’s heart wasn’t pure. Try as she might, Erin was compelled to go against the virtuous path and descend into the darkness.
As a teenager, she wore thick black eyeliner, black dresses, and heavy black boots. The blackness of her ensemble only reflected the darkness within her heart.
“You look ridiculous,” her mother would state with dismay, shaking her head sorrowfully.
“I look just fine,” Erin would retort, sticking out her dainty chin in defiance. Mother and daughter were destined to never understand one another. At times, it was difficult to imagine that they shared a bloodline and were cut from the same cloth. The only thing they shared was their stubborn nature.
“You look like you’re going to a funeral!”
“Maybe I am!” Erin would reply callously. She resented her mother for her inability to understand her.
“You’d be so beautiful if you dressed like a normal girl.” Her mother would say pleadingly.
“Can’t you just find me beautiful how I am?” Erin would ask sadly. Her mother’s face would pinch, giving her daughter an answer without needing to say any words.
Her own mother might have been appalled by her appearance, but the bad boys weren’t. They loved Erin’s gothic punk look and always complimented her on it. In their eyes, she was beautiful, and that drew her to them even more.
***
The sound of her phone ringing made Erin sit up with a start. Following the source of the sound, she rummaged in her handbag, which was on the floor on the hallway, and retrieved her cell phone. The incoming caller was Coleen.
“Hey, Col.” Erin greeted her, trying to sound breezy and light, not scared and fearful as she felt.
“Hey, Erin, how are you feeling?”
“Much better, thanks. I think you were right, I just needed to rest.”
“Aww, I’m glad you’re feeling better. And just in case you weren’t, I’ve got something that might cheer you up.”
“Oh?”
“You got a pen and paper close?”
“Hang on,” Erin rummaged around, then walked into the kitchen and found a notepad and pen.
“Yeah, got them.”
“I’ve got Sean’s address,” Coleen declared mischievously, lowering her voice slightly.
“How did you manage that?” Erin had been dubious of her colleague’s original promise to locate him.
“Like I said, I had a favor to collect.”
“Well, thanks, I really appreciate it.”
“You can thank me later, after you’ve been round and read him the riot act!” Coleen said emphatically.
“He thinks that just because he’s absolutely gorgeous, he can treat women like crap!” Coleen continued, getting fired up.
“I’m sure he had his reasons.” Erin stated sadly, too tired to feel the heat of her friend’s fury toward him.
“Well, I look forward to hearing what they were! You got your pen ready?”
Coleen relayed an address located in the central part of town. So when Erin had originally drove him that way home he had at least been being honest with her.
“It’s a fairly rundown part of town,” Coleen added, her tone becoming cautious. “Want me to come along with you?”
“Thanks but no, I need to do this alone.”
“Okay, good luck!”
Erin ended the call and stared at the address now written down on her notepad. A part of her was desperate to go there immediately, just to see him again. But she also knew she was owed answers and the only way she was going to get them was to confront him.
Tentatively Erin glanced down the hallway and her front door and the killer she was certain was lurking beyond. Her logical self told her that there was no way there was anyone lurking out there, that she was merely going mad. Leaving the house to head for his apartment might do her some good; prevent her from staying in all night and going mad with suspicious illusions.
Acting on her decision, Erin grabbed her purse and moved toward the front door, but before she released the lock, she paused and looked down at herself. Wearing sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt, she looked a mess. Her hair was unkempt after having slept on it, and she wasn’t wearing any make-up at all. Did she really want Sean to see her like this?
Glancing up the stairs, she debated going and getting changed, styling her hair and at least applying some mascara. But she knew that if she delayed even a little, she’d talk herself out of going. She would go upstairs, get changed, and then think better of going at all. And she had to go; she needed answers.
Regardless of her casual appearance, Erin bravely opened the front door, bracing herself slightly in case someone did suddenly run at her. They didn’t. The front drive of the house was empty and silent. With the torn-off page of the notepad containing Sean’s address clenched in her hand, Erin quickly locked the door behind her and darted over to her car.
She felt safer once she was inside her car and had locked the doors, then she unfolded the paper and re-read the address. She had a faint recollection of where it was; the neighborhood contained a nightclub she’d once frequented. Not that she’d have told Coleen that, since it was an S and M nightclub and catered to very specific tastes, tastes Erin didn’t want to share with any of her co-workers.
Pulling out of her driveway Erin prepared herself for coming face to face with Sean once more and tried to prepare what she was going to say to him.
***
The closer Erin got to Central, the busier the traffic got. It was early evening, which meant that most revelers were heading in to central for a night of partying. She noticed the influx of cabs, much more than there usually were during daylight hours.
Most people would have felt unnerved to drive alone in to central at nighttime, but not Erin. Her desire for darkness meant that this was her realm. She felt more comfortable walking the streets at night than she did browsing in a shopping mall. Darkness suited her; she felt safe within its shadows.
Soon, Erin was passing by the club she used to go to. Already, there were people lining up to go inside, most of them dressed in leather and latex outfits. Erin would look comically out of place in her sweatpants and hoodie.
She rounded a corner and spotted the name of the apartment building in which Sean lived. She slowed and pulled up on to the curb, bringing her car to a halt. She took a moment to survey the area before getting out of her car.
Sean lived in arguably one of the worst parts of Central. Most of the buildings in the area were rundown and in states of dilapidation. The only businesses dotted around were fetish nightclubs, Chinese restaurants, and tattoo parlors. It was an area of town which attracted a certain kind of person. Only those who didn’t fear the dark would venture there.
Already, Erin could make out the unmistakable outline of a huddled figure in an empty doorway, shivering in the cold as they exposed an arm and prepared to inject a cocktail of drugs into it. Shards of glass from previous users sparkled in the street light like sinister stars.
Stepping out of her car, Erin made care to lock it and promise herself that she wouldn’t take too long or she knew she wouldn’t have a car to come back to. She looked up at the apartment building. It looked old and forlorn, boasting numerous windows which were boarded up, not worth repairing. The walls were plastered with graffiti, most of it obscene in nature. Erin wondered why Sean had decided to live somewhere like this. But then it did explain why he had been on drugs when Erin found him.
Not wanting to waste any more time, Erin headed into the building. Unsurprisingly, the main entrance was not guarded. There was a reception desk, but no one behind it to greet visitors. Beneath the harsh strip lighting that hung and hummed overhead, Erin took a moment to check the address she had written down.
Apartment 386.
Sean lived on the third floor. Erin moved over to the elevators and pressed the call button, but nothing happened; the button didn’t even illuminate. Predictably, the elevators were out of order, so Erin had to locate the staircase and start ascending up the first three flights of stairs.
The communal stair well stank of sweat and urine. The smell was so unbearable that Erin was forced to hide her mouth behind her sleeve and even then, she continually gagged as she walked up toward the third floor.
Between the first and second floors, she passed a man who appeared to be passed out, slumped in a corner. She considered nudging him to check if he was all right, but decided against it. Here, a kindly act of intervention could essentially be signing your own death warrant. The people were cruel and desperate, living on the fringes of society. When they let the darkness in, it destroyed them, corroding them from within like a sick virus. But Erin managed to live with her darkness, to not let it drag her under.
At the first floor, she pushed the metal door and entered a dimly-lit corridor. She checked the faded signs on the wall and headed off toward apartment 386. The carpet underfoot was stained beyond recognition of its original color and thinned to being almost threadbare in places. Erin tried not to focus on the dilapidation on the interior and instead think only about finding Sean and demanded an explanation.
As she drew closer to his apartment her heart began to race in anticipation. She wasn’t sure what she was about to find. What if he was with another woman? What if he was high? With each step closer, Erin realized that she hadn’t thought any of this through properly. She’d been led here on same base level instinct and it was too late to turn back.
She found his door. The bottom half of it was covered in duct tape, failing to hide a crude indentation where it appeared someone had tried unsuccessfully to kick the door in. Taking a deep breath, Erin tentatively tapped on the door. She waited, listening carefully for any signs from within but there was nothing.
She knocked again, harder this time. Still no response. Sighing to herself, she started to regret coming there.
Lifting her hand, Erin hammered hard on the door.
“Sean!” she called out to him, hoping to rouse him from slumber if he was resting.
Still only silence greeted her. Erin was growing impatient. She banged again on the door and this time, to her surprise, it creaked open from the impact. Cautiously, she pushed the door fully open and peered around in to the apartment.
“Sean?” she called out his name, her voice small and uncertain.
“Sean, are you there? It’s me, Erin.”
The apartment was hidden beneath a veil of darkness that the dim light from the corridor failed to lift. Squinting, Erin located the light switch on the wall and flicked it on. A solitary exposed bulb in the center of the ceiling buzzed to life and revealed a sight Erin hadn’t been expecting.
The apartment was completely empty. There wasn’t a single piece of furniture in there, only the dirty carpet covered in cigarette burns and various other stains. At the far end, some curtains billowed as the window had been left wide open, making the empty apartment feel cold and unwelcoming.
Confused, Erin dared to venture forward. She found the bathroom and checked inside, but that, too, was empty. It seemed that Sean had left more than her house and his job; he’d left his own apartment.
Erin stood in the center of the empty space and realized the hopelessness of her predicament. Sean was well and truly gone, leaving her without any answers, without any closure. But the worst part was how distraught she felt over the realization that she’d never see him again, never again feel his tongue licking upon her skin, enjoy his fierce, hungry kisses as he made love to her.
Hugging herself against the increasing cold, Erin looked out despondently through the open window at the street below and wondered where Sean could have gone and why he had been so eager to leave? Their night together had left an indelible mark upon her and the prospect of never seeing him again made her feel as empty and abandoned as the apartment in which she was currently standing.
TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK THREE: Full Moon - Volume 3
***
***
Feeling utterly dejected by the discovery of Sean’s abandoned apartment, Erin reluctantly drove home, her mind racing with a million questions, all of which would now go unanswered.
She couldn’t understand where he had gone. Since their night together, he’d run from her, his job, and now even his home! It didn’t make any sense. Erin considered that perhaps it was all linked to his apparent drug problem. Maybe he owed money to some salubrious character in his dangerous neighborhood and had been forced to leave. Perhaps avoiding Erin was a ploy to keep her safe from whoever was after him.
Shaking her head, Erin smiled wryly to herself as she drove. Those were the fantasies of a hopeless romantic, where Sean had left her out of some noble gesture where it was for her own good. Erin wasn’t a romantic, she was a realist. She’d found that being a romantic got you nowhere and all you ended up with was dashed dreams. Sean was gone. She may never know why he left and would be forced just to make peace with the fact that he was no longer around.
The fact that their brief fling would end so abruptly and without closure made Erin uneasy. She’d felt so drawn to Sean, like there was something powerful between them. It made her feel on the brink of despair to think that it had all been for nothing. That all they would ever get to have together was that one amazing night.
And it had been so amazing. Erin still caught herself thinking about being in his strong arms, feeling him brush up against her with his bare skin. The mere thought of him made her body break out in an excited sweat but now all she would have were those heated memories. A big part of Erin felt bitter about not being able to relive such fantastic sex. Sean had easily been the best sex she’d ever had and she’d been eager to repeat the experience with him, but now that option had been stolen away from her. Had he not enjoyed their night together? Did he not want to do it again?
Smacking her hands against the wheel in frustration, Erin tried to stop thinking about the guy who had got away. She turned out of Central, aware by the dwindling traffic how late the hour was, and headed back toward her quiet neighborhood.
***
It was close to eleven when Erin turned into her driveway and switched off her engine, which continued to tick over even after her key had been removed. Her search for Sean had been in vain and she felt empty with the disappointment of it all. Climbing out of her car, she shivered slightly from the cold and tightened her hooded sweatshirt around her. It was nice to be back in her own neighborhood, away from the dangerous streets that Sean had previously called home.
Reaching into the pocket of her sweatpants, she produced her house keys and began to walk purposefully toward her front door when something made her stop dead in her tracks. Her body suddenly turned to stone; she looked in shock at the shadowy figure lingering close to her house, their features concealed by the darkness of the night.
She remembered how she’d awoken earlier and felt like she was being watched, certain that the killer responsible for the spate of local murders was outside watching her sleep, waiting to pounce. She had dismissed those thoughts as illogical fears and forced herself to go searching for Sean. But now she was back home, late at night, with an unknown figure waiting for her on her driveway. What if she had been right all along? What if the killer was here now, prepared to kill her?
Panicked, Erin felt her pulse quicken and adrenaline surge through her veins. She glanced back tentatively at her car, wondering if she had time to get back inside it and drive away before this stranger could lunge at her.
“Erin,” the shadowy figure spoke and Erin’s eyes widened in shock. It sounded like, but it couldn’t be…
“Erin, hey,” the figure spoke again and stepped closer to her, the street lamp illuminating their face.
“Sean!” Erin stared at him in disbelief. He was wearing a t-shirt and dark jeans and she initially wondered how he could stand to have his bare arms exposed when it was so bitterly cold out.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her eyes still wide; she could hardly believe that it was actually him.
“Where have you been?” she delivered another question before he’d had chance to answer the first one. She was so full of questions, but as she watched him step closer to her, she also became full of lustful desire.
“I needed to see you,” Sean told her, his voice strong and deep. He strode confidently toward Erin and when he reached her, he took her face in his hands, leaned forward, and kissed her deeply.
Despite his unexplained absence, despite the strange fact that he was suddenly at her home, Erin kissed him back, hard. She pressed her tongue deep into his mouth, loving how he tasted. She realized as they embraced just how much she’d missed him even though it had only been a few days.
Even though she had questions, they both knew that would have to wait. Taking her hand, Sean led her over to the front door where she clumsily fumbled with her keys but eventually let them in.
Sean pulled her inside, kicking the door shut behind them. They kissed each other with hungry intensity, as though they had waited many years for this moment. Each kiss felt sensuous and perfect, lingering deliciously upon Erin’s lips.
She was already wet with desire as Sean started to undress her. He pulled her hooded sweatshirt up over her head and she no longer cared how casual she looked. All she cared about was Sean’s body and how badly she wanted to have him inside of her.
Sean continued to kiss her as he deftly removed her bra. Then, with her breasts exposed, he rubbed his strong hands all over them, savoring the sensation.
His jeaned leg pressed against her and she could feel how hard he was. Stepping back, Sean threw off his own t-shirt and expertly stepped out of both his jeans and his boxers. As Erin looked admiringly upon his naked form, she also removed her sweatpants and panties. Sean searched up her naked body with lustful, eager eyes. He eyed every curve, every dimple with a devilish smile on his face and Erin loved how being beneath his gaze made her feel. She felt dirty and beautiful all at the same time, which was an intensely erotic sensation.
Erin carefully backed into the living room as Sean followed in pursuit, prowling after her with beastlike intensity. He reached out for her, placing his hands upon her hips, drew her to him, and kissed her deeply.
As they kissed, Erin ran her hands down his back. He was so incredibly muscular, more perfect than any man she’d ever been with before.
Sean then threw Erin on to the sofa where she lay on her back, staring up at him. He surveyed her body once more and she felt exposed and titillated. He came toward her, positioning himself above her on the sofa. His rock-hard erection hovered teasingly above her pussy. She felt herself becoming more wet at the proximity of him. She was desperate to have him inside her.
“Did you miss me?” Sean leaned forward and purred the words in to her ear. His warm breath upon her neck made her body tingle with delight.
“I want you so bad,” Erin gasped, a slave to her lust.
Sean kissed her neck softly at first, then more aggressively to the point where Erin was crying out in pleasure, but in the back of her mind was certain that the following day she’d have a love bite to hide.
“Ask me to fuck you,” he whispered again in her ear.
“Sean, fuck me!” Erin responded without hesitation.
Sean obliged and lowered himself in to her, groaning when he felt his hard dick connect with her soft wet pussy. He loved how it felt when he pushed deep inside of her, feeling her all around him.
Beneath him, Erin let out small, passion-fueled moans. She writhed on the sofa and dug her hands into the upholstery. Sean began to make love to her in slow, prolonged movements at first. As they both started to become breathless and drew closer to the point of climax, he hastened his thrusts.
Erin lifted her long legs and wrapped them around his naked body, binding him tightly to her. Sean flashed her a devilish smile as she did so and began to thrust harder. Leaning her head back, Erin allowed herself to be lost to the moment. Her body felt as though it had been injected by some electrical impulse. Everything tingled in the most wonderful way. Sex with Sean the second time around was arguably better than the first time.
He was such a skilled lover, knowing exactly how to position himself so that each time he thrust into Erin, he grazed her internal g-spot, whipping her into frenzy. She began to pant, her toes curling.
“I’m coming!” she gasped as she reached climax, her body shivering with pleasure. Sean smiled but carried on. He fucked her hard, making the sofa creak in protest. Then, as his face contorted, hinting that he, too, was about to come, he shifted positions, pulling Erin up and sitting himself down on the sofa. He sat her atop him and she straddled him, locking his dick in her wet pussy and riding him.
Sean groaned with delight and ran his hands over her naked body. Erin made her movements faster, aroused seeing him lost to his own pleasure.
“You’re so hot,” Sean commented, her eyes sparkling as he spoke. He moved his hands and gripped her hips tightly, lifting himself deep inside her. Erin gasped with surprised delight and then felt the familiar warmth of him climaxing within her. A second later, she realized, regretfully, that once more, she’d not been wise enough to use protection.
They untangled themselves from one another and Erin took a moment to catch her breath. She watched Sean stand up, beads of sweat dotted along his impressive back.
She thought briefly of his bare apartment in the bad part of Central and realized with a pang that he was an utter stranger to her. Sean was a complete enigma; she had no idea who he really was and why his life had become such a mystery. Initially, he was just a guy she worked with, but now she was certain that there was more to him; what exactly, she couldn’t begin to imagine.
Stretching with catlike grace, she watched Sean with an amused smile playing on her lips. She had been so certain that they would never again have sex that finding him on her doorstep had been a very welcome surprise. She was pleased to see that he enjoyed having sex with her as much as she did with him. He was an intensely passionate lover. Erin’s body still pulsated from the pleasure of his touch. She had never known sex like that, where her body could feel so electric, so alive.
Standing up, Sean ran a hand through his hair and looked down briefly at Erin. She smiled furtively at him, batting her eyelashes slightly, but he turned away and began pulling his clothes back on. He wriggled himself into his jeans and zipped them up before hastily pulling on his t-shirt. As Erin watched him, she got a sinking feeling within her stomach. She then realized that he was preparing to leave.
“Sean!” she said his name so sharply that he shot her a bemused look. “Are you leaving?” she asked the latter in a lighter tone.
“Yeah,” Sean shrugged casually.
“You can’t!” Erin blurted.
“What?”
Standing up, Erin hurriedly pulled on her own clothes. There was something about having an intense discussion naked that just didn’t sit right with her. If she was going to get answers from Sean, she at least wanted to be dressed while she did it.
“I said you can’t leave,” she repeated coolly. The mood between them had changed so quickly, she found it unsettling. Moments earlier, they had been completely naked together, lost to desire, and now they were both fully clothed with Sean shooting her a confused, accusing glance.
“I can and will leave,” Sean said tersely, almost baring his teeth at her like a cornered animal.
“No,” Erin said sternly, placing her hands upon her hips in a dominant gesture. “You will stay because you owe me an explanation.”
“I don’t owe you anything,” Sean shook his head and made for the front door but Erin was too quick and moved herself to the hallway, blocking the entrance.
“I can break you as easily as a matchstick. You know that, right?” Sean scoffed, his eyes crinkling with amusement.
“Is that a threat?” Erin queried, the temperature in the house suddenly feeling cooler.
“No,” something about Erin’s question made him falter and his shoulders dropped and he backed away from the door, then wandered aimlessly back into the lounge.
“I’m not…I’d never hurt you,” he looked at Erin with wide, sincere eyes. She nodded but felt alarmed at why he would take such a comment so seriously. She’d meant it only to provoke him.
“I’m not like that,” Sean continued, flopping down on to the sofa. His face looked pinched with despair.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Erin sat beside him and placed her hand upon his back. “It’s just, you can’t leave. You do owe me some sort of explanation for everything.”
“Explanation for what?” Sean asked, his eyes fixed ahead.
“Why you left the other night while I was sleeping, why you quit your job, why your apartment is empty,” Erin listed all the questions to which she was desperately seeking answers.
“You went to my apartment?” Sean asked his voice indignant.
“You left me no choice!” Erin blurted.
“You shouldn’t have gone there,” Sean shook his head angrily.
“Sean, please, I just want answers!” Erin begged.
She was desperate to know more about this man who was such a mystery to her. She was so inexplicably drawn to him and his life was completely shrouded in secrecy. It felt like he had some sort of second hidden life that she was oblivious about. But she wanted to know, wanted to forge a connection with him which went deeper than sex.
She saw the troubled look upon Sean’s face and became determined to get him to open up to her.
***
“Why do you always choose these bad boys?” Erin’s mother had asked for what felt like the millionth time as she stood in the hallway of their home, her eyes boring down on her daughter who was standing with one hand on the door handle, ready to leave.
“It’s none of your business,” Erin answered from behind clenched teeth. She was fifteen and angry at the world.
“It’s my business when you bring it here.”
“I’m not bringing anything here, I’m leaving.” Erin was ready for a night out, dressed in her ripped denim jeans and leather jacket, eyes dusted black with makeup.
“He’s bad for you,” her mother warned.
“Why? Because he went to juvenile detention?”
“He’s done bad things,” her mother said, her gaze level and wise.
“And he got locked up for them! He’s paid for what he did!”
“But he won’t change.”
“He will!” Erin protested.
“You think you can change him, but you can’t, Erin. Once someone lets the dark in, they cannot let it back out. I just want you to deviate from this path before it’s too late.”
“You’re such a hypocrite!” Erin screamed at her mother, feeling fill of teenage rage, needing to release it at the nearest object.
“You talk of being a good Christian, of forgiveness, yet you judge Jared based on what he’s done in the past! Why can’t you forgive him?” Erin raged.
“Do you even know what he did? Why he was sentenced?” her mother asked, her voice remaining calm and level.
“I don’t need to know,” Erin retorted defiantly. “I judge him for who he is now.”
“You should really ask him what he did. He won’t change, Erin. You can’t turn people back from the darkness.”
Angered, Erin threw open the front door of their Connecticut home and dashed out in to the night.
Jared, her current boyfriend, was waiting for her on his motorcycle. With his dark brooding eyes, he looked handsome and demonic at the same time. Erin pulled herself on to the back. Neither of them wore helmets; Jared didn’t believe in them.
“You ride a bike for the thrill, for being on the edge,” he’d said when she asked about them. “Helmets ruin that.”
Back when she was fifteen, Erin didn’t fear death, she didn’t fear anything. She admired guys like Jared for going against convention and being brave enough to forge their own path.
“Where are we going?” Erin asked in to his ear as he kicked the bike in to life.
“You’ll see,” Jared replied mysteriously as the bike roared off in to the night, leaving Erin’s mother peering from behind the curtains of her home, her face pinched with despair.
Jared drove Erin to an abandoned barn on the outskirts of town. Some of his friends were already there, lounging around in the vast empty space, drinking whiskey from the bottle and smoking joints.
As they entered, his friends greeted Jared and high-fived him. As always, they ignored Erin. She was transient to them; soon enough, he would be escorting another girl around town on the back of his bike.
The night darkened and the group drank, smoked, and listened to music. Erin’s own mind became fuzzy from it all. Jared sat beside her the whole time, his arm draped protectively around her.
Erin liked being Jared’s girl. He was so charismatic and brooding. And when he kissed her, it was full of intense passion. At fifteen, Erin was convinced that they were soul mates.
The night wore on and couples among the group began to disappear to more secluded parts of the barn. Jared followed suit, taking Erin by the hand and leading her up a rickety old ladder to the higher part of the barn where hay had once been stored. Now there was only rotting wood, which creaked precariously beneath their weight.
“Is it safe up here?” Erin asked nervously as Jared pulled her over to a dark corner.
“Safe as houses,” Jared replied flippantly. They began kissing but Erin pulled away. Something about what her mother had said stuck in her mind.
“What’s wrong?” Jared asked, his tone sounding more annoyed than concerned.
“Can I ask you something?”
“I’ve got protection.”
“No, not that,” Erin blushed profusely. Even though she liked to pretend that she was womanly and wise to the world, she was still a teenage girl merely playing dress-up to be like a woman and at times, her true self showed.
“I know I’ve never asked before, but I’ve wondered what you did, why you ended up in juvenile detention?” Erin asked carefully. As she watched Jared’s features darken, she immediately regretted asking the question.
“I thought you didn’t care,” he said bitterly, his jaw clenched.
“I don’t!” Erin implored, stroking his cheek. “I just want to know; I thought it would make us closer.”
Jared stared deep into Erin’s eyes, ascertaining her true intent, and then sighed.
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.” Erin held his hands, wanting to show him that no matter what he did, she still loved him; they were still soul mates.
“In high school, I was accused of raping a girl.”
Rape. The word fell between them like a lead bullet.
“Obviously I didn’t, but it was my word against hers and let’s just say that I didn’t have the cleanest record even then.”
Erin wanted to believe him, if only to prove her mother wrong. She wanted to believe that the darkness that had once inhabited his heart had gone, that people could be redeemed. But as she sat there in that old, disused barn, she recalled the times they had been together. Each time was forced and heavy, but Erin reassured herself that it was normal. Jared could be rough and brutish when they made love, but Erin had confused his heavy-handedness for passion. Realizing her mistake, she shrunk into herself.
“You believe me, don’t you?” Jared demand, looking at her accusingly.
“Of course I do,” Erin smiled weakly. And there on the rotting wooden floor, to prove her loyalty to him, she allowed him to have her as beneath them, his friends continued to drink and smoke until the small hours.
Arriving back home, Erin tried to creep in the front door as quietly as she could but she needn’t have bothered; her mother had sat up, waiting on her return.
“Did you have a good night?” her mother asked from her vigil in the kitchen where she was sitting with the light on nursing a cup of coffee.
“It was fine,” Erin replied flatly, unable to meet her mother’s inquisitive gaze.
“I don’t like you coming in this late.”
“I’m going to bed,” Erin declared, eyes still trained to the floor. Her mother watched her skulk upstairs with a heavy heart. She realized in that moment that her daughter had unwittingly began to let darkness in to her life and now she risked it tainting her future forever.
***
“Sean, you owe me an explanation for it all,” Erin pressed, her mind briefly remembering the painful moment when she had confronted her teenage love, Jared. She’d not liked what he had to say to her, had not been prepared for the bombshell he had dropped and how that had ultimately made her feel. But she was older now; she told herself that she could handle whatever Sean had to say to her, no matter how bad it was.
She already assumed that he had a drug problem that he was going to confide in her about how he was addicted and owed money to bad people. It was a story she’d heard countless times before from the guys she had dated. Few things had the capacity to shock her anymore. People did bad things; she accepted that.
“Sean, please, if you care about me at all, you’d tell me what is going on with you,” Erin urged, her voice soft and gentle. She rubbed his back, impressed as ever with how muscular it felt beneath his t-shirt. She wanted to deepen her connection with Sean, didn’t want them to be just about sex.
But she braced herself for what he might say, for the damage his secrets might cause. As she’d learned with Jared, there are some secrets that should stay buried. Following the rape revelation, she tried to stay with him, to see the good in him, but all she could see was the power-hungry, selfish man he could be and how poorly he treated her during and after sex. Erin could fool herself no longer; she’d fallen in love with a monster and allowed him into her heart. The worst part of it all was how that made her feel to have judged someone so poorly. And as her mother had feared, Erin then felt like she didn’t deserve the good guys, the ones with pure intentions. She was tainted and needed to feed only her bad-boy addiction because she didn’t dare risk ruining a genuine good guy.
“I…I can’t talk to you about it,” Sean lowered his head in to his hands and sighed.
“Why not? You can trust me!” Erin urged, feeling hurt by his apparent lack of confidence in her.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me,” Erin pleaded. She thought of Jared and the other troubled guys she had dated. The one thing they all had in common was their dark secrets, and Erin took those secrets in and kept them safe with her own. They could trust her. She, more than most people, understood how destructive darkness could be once it had a hold of you.
“I’ve…done things,” Sean said mysteriously, glancing at Erin from the corner of his eye.
“Okay,” Erin rubbed his back, comforting him, encouraging him to relax and confide in her.
“I’ve done terrible things,” Sean continued, his voice growing strained with emotion. Erin was silent, watching him without judgment, waiting for him to reveal his innermost secrets.
She felt there was no deed terrible enough to shock her anymore. She’d dated men tried for rape, murderers and criminals. She had the ability to see past the awful things they had done to the men they were trying to be. At least, that was what she told herself. Her mother saw it a very different way.
“They will taint you,” her mother sternly told a seventeen-year old Erin.
“I don’t care,” Erin had shot back, still wearing her uniform of all black. She even wore black lipstick now, enjoying how gothic it made her look when coupled with her naturally black hair.
“You can only dance with darkness for so long before it consumes you.”
“I don’t care,” Erin said the words slowly as though explaining something to a very young child. Her mother frowned at her condescending tone.
“Just because you dress like a witch doesn’t mean you have to be one,” the older woman said, tucking a loose strand of grey hair back behind her ear.
Growing up, her hair had been as black as Erin’s, shining when it caught the light. But since her daughter hit puberty, it had quickly greyed. As a child, Erin was always fascinated by the darker elements of fairytales, focusing on grim details like a curse or the villain who cast it. Her mother tried to dismiss the behavior as childish fantasies that she would eventually grow up, but as Erin began to progress from a girl in to a woman, her obsessions became darker and thus more dangerous.
She watched her daughter flirt with danger, even get into bed with it. And each night lost to worry cost her a strand of her raven hair until eventually she had none left to give; it had all turned grey, aging her beyond her forty years.
“You’re just jealous because I’m young and having fun and your life is over,” Erin spat spitefully, pulling on her jacket, preparing for yet another night out.
Her mother watched her with sad eyes, drooped in resignation. She felt that the battle had been lost, that Erin had allowed herself to become tainted with the darkness. But it wasn’t entirely her fault. She didn’t have the heart to tell her that she was born of both light and dark because she herself had once fallen for the lure of a bad boy. Only his wickedness transcended the discretions of petty thieves; he was a man who was cursed. His curse had defined him and ultimately taken him from her, but she had loved him with her whole heart, a heart which was pure.
The child they made was a product of both, a perfect symmetry between the balances in the world. But a physic had warned her early on in her pregnancy that no one can exist between the two extremes, that one day her child would turn to one side or the other; Erin’s mother had tried desperately to lure her child away from the darkness, but it had all been in vain. It seemed that her daughter was destined to repeat her own mistakes and that was a life she wouldn’t wish on anyone.
“Erin, please stay in tonight, just this once,” her mother pleaded. Erin looked at her, flashing her an angry scowl from eyes that seemed as black as coal. She had chosen her path.
“Goodbye, Mother,” she said before storming out of the house, making sure to dramatically slam the front door behind her.
***
“How are you feeling?” Erin asked gently as she handed her mother a fresh cup of coffee which she accepted in her frail hands. It was hard to understand how her mother could be aging so rapidly. She looked to be in her eighties when she was actually more than two decades younger than that.
“I bet it’s nice to be home,” Erin continued, glancing around the home that had once been hers. The wallpaper was now faded, as were the carpets, but the house retained its comfy charm.
Her mother was silent, looking out of the window at the trees dancing slowly in the late afternoon breeze.
It had been a week since she’d been out of the hospital and it was the first day Erin had come to visit her at home and she’d not said a word.
“I don’t get why you’re not talking to me,” Erin said, sitting down in a chair close to her mothers and leaning forward, her expression taught with concern.
“I had a lot of time to think in the hospital,” her mother sighed wearily. In the yellow sunlight that fell upon her, she looked so fragile; her skin, which looked like paper, stretched over bones that ached with arthritis.
“But you’re out now,” Erin said brightly.
“The more I thought, the more I realized that I failed you.” Her mother blinked back tears.
“Mom, don’t be stupid, you never failed me,” Erin confirmed, weary from the countless conversations they were having lately along a similar subject.
“I did,” her mother turned and looked at her with watery eyes. “I did because I let you fall to the darkness. And now it’s too late.”
Erin sighed at the doomsday talk. Her mother kept lamenting about how it was too late, that they were out of time, yet she only skirted around the topic, never actually divulging what she really meant so it just sounded like crazed empty threats to Erin and she’d heard it all before.
“Mom, you need to rest, you’re talking crap again.”
“He’s close, you know.”
“Who is?” Erin demanded, losing patience for the conversation. She preferred her mother’s silence to the crazed laments about time and darkness.
“The man who will be your end. He will cement your place in darkness.”
“Oh good lord,” Erin shook her head and blew out an exasperated breath. “I’m a disappointment, I get it. I don’t pick the right guys. You’ve said all this crap a thousand times. I came to see you today to check in on you and all you do is bully me as usual.”
“You never had a chance,” her mother sighed sadly to herself. “I see that now.”
“Well, I’ve got to get back, I’ve got work early tomorrow and it’s a long drive home.” Erin stood to leave, checking around the room for anything else she could do for her mother before she left but the place was looking pretty tidy and maintained. Even in her feeble state, her mother remained house proud and would tire herself cleaning before she’d let herself rest.
“Erin, please. He’s so close; I fear for you.”
“Mom—” Erin was about to moan about the vague warning when she noticed that her mother’s hands were trembling, causing the bone china cup and saucer she was holding to rattle manically.
Erin swiftly took the cup from her hands and gave her mother a long, level gaze.
“I’m fine, Mom, really, you need to stop getting yourself so worked up, it’s not good for you. The doctors said that you need to rest.”
She knelt by her mother and fondly stroked her head.
“I’m a big girl, stop worrying about me,” Erin smiled, trying to reassure her.
“He will find you soon, he’s been hunting you for a long time; your darkness will guide him to you.”
Rolling her eyes, Erin stood up; it was evident that she wasn’t going to get her mother to speak any sense.
“I’ll see you again soon, Mom,” she bent and kissed her mother on the cheek before scooping up her purse and jacket.
“He will be a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” her mother stated, her voice quivering. “And he will destroy you.”
The following day, the first murder had occurred in Erin’s town along with the onset of her nightmares. And three weeks later, she first met Sean.
***
“Sean, look, whatever you’ve done and however bad you think it is, I’m there for you. I don’t care. But you need to start opening up to me, you need to trust me.”
Sean sighed and ran a hand down his face.
“Erin, please. I can’t risk you knowing anything, it’s too dangerous.”
“Why, are there people after you? Do you owe money for drugs? Is it gang-related?” Erin hammered out her questions in rapid fire succession, determined to find the answers she so desperately sought.
“None of the above,” Sean sighed.
“Then what is it that’s so terrible that you can’t tell me?”
Sean turned to face her, his eyes wild and alert. There was something about his gaze that frightened her and made her suddenly aware of the fact that they were alone in her house and he was apparently capable of terrible, unspeakable things.
“It’s a matter of life and death. I can’t possibly explain.”
“But you have to explain!” Erin declared, nervous beneath his intense look. “Since we were together…I’ve felt out of sorts somehow. You owe me answers.”
“Out of sorts?” Sean frowned at the words and suddenly looked extremely anxious. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t make me spell it out!”
“No, tell me, what’s been wrong?” Sean urged; it was his turn to become the interrogator.
“I’ve been tired, feeling sick, smelling everything much more potently than normal, and there have been these nightmares,” Erin was surprised at just how much she was willing to tell Sean.
“First they were about a killer lurking, I thought they were connected to the murders in town, but now I dream about being chased and torn apart by angry dogs.”
She blushed slightly, aware how crazy she must sound. She half expected Sean to tease her, but his expression was stony and he was silent.
“I started to worry that perhaps I’d…caught something from you,” Erin dared to be direct with him about her fears.
“I mean, we didn’t use anything any of the times. And if you knew about something I could have caught, the decent thing to do would be to tell me about it,” Erin was talking quickly as she became increasingly nervous. Still, Sean remained silent.
“The sickness, the tiredness, I’ve no idea what it is; maybe it’s nothing, but I don’t know you or anything about you, as demonstrated by the empty apartment, so I’ve no idea if maybe you did give me something. I’m not calling you dirty of judging you, I just want to know.”
She looked at Sean with an open and earnest expression. She wouldn’t hold him accountable for whatever she’d caught; they were both responsible for the lack of protection used. She just wanted the truth so that she could deal with whatever she had.
“I’ve not given you an STI or anything,” Sean growled, his voice low and guttural.
“Oh good,” Erin sighed, feeling massively relieved. She’d had an STI once before and it wasn’t an experience she was looking to repeat.
“I’m afraid that I’ve given you something much worse,” Sean added, the words making Erin’s stomach plunge in fright as though she’d just been pushed off the top of a high mountain.
“What do you mean?” Erin asked her voice small and uncertain. She watched Sean intently, pulling her legs up beneath her so that her knees were touching her chin. She suddenly felt extremely vulnerable and exposed.
Sean got up and paced before her, shaking as head as he did so, in a battle with his inner demons.
“Sean!” Erin called out his name and he ceased pacing and stared down at her. There was a sadness within his eyes that disturbed her.
“I should have been more careful,” he muttered, half to himself and half to Erin.
“I’m not exactly without blame,” Erin said, biting her lip guiltily. “But what’s done is done; we can’t go back and change it. You need to tell me what it is you’ve given me. We can fix this.”
Sighing in torment Sean ran a hand across his face and shot Erin a pitiful look.
“I’m sorry I’ve dragged you into all this.”
“All what?” Erin asked, bemused, in her mind still considering that her theory about gangs and drug money had been accurate.
“I was reckless, but when I’m around you I just…lose control.” He was pacing once more, unable to keep still.
“Like I said, it’s my fault, too; I just need to know what you gave me.”
“You don’t understand,” Sean shook his head, his feet hammering across the wooden floor as he continued to move back and forth along the length of the lounge.
“Just tell me!” Erin demanded, running out of patience. He’d admitted that he’d given her something so her strange symptoms were a result of their time together. The least he could do was tell her what was going on so she could go and seek some relevant treatment.
“Erin, I’m cursed,” Sean blurted, ceasing moving and looking directly at her. Erin’s eyebrows shot up in shocked amusement. Cursed. Internally, she released a wearied sigh. Sean really was crazy; she assumed it was the drugs twisting his mental state to the brink of madness.
“If you’re not going to be honest with me, then fine,” Erin replied angrily, standing up and making to leave the room. She was in no mood to entertain any of his paranoid delusions.
“I’m being honest,” he told her pleadingly. “I know how crazy it sounds, but I am cursed.”
Erin frowned upon hearing the word. The term had haunted her childhood, uttered from her mother’s lips whenever she did anything which could be remotely considered wayward. The word cursed meant nothing to her. It was the laments of a scared old woman, an old house wives tale. Curses had no relevance in the modern world. Erin was disappointed in Sean, resorting to such lame excuses, and it showed.
“That’s your explanation?” she scoffed in disbelief. “That you’re cursed!”
“Just let me finish!” Sean begged.
Erin considered his request. So many of her beloved bad boys had felt cursed, like their reckless behavior wasn’t their sole responsibility, and some greater power was forcing their hand. Fate and destiny are all themes which allow people to not accept the inevitable or face up to their actions. People do bad things because they are inherently bad, not because they are cursed. Curses don’t exist.
“I know what you’re thinking, that curses don’t exist.”
“They don’t,” Erin replied curtly.
“But they do, you have to trust me on this, it’s important.”
“Why?”
“Will you at least hear me out?”
“Fine,” Erin slumped back down on the sofa, her accusing eyes boring straight into Sean. He’d need a pretty impressive explanation to crawl himself out of the hole he was currently standing in.
“You know all the murders lately, where women have been found mauled to death?”
“Yes…” Erin answered uneasily, fearing that her own paranoid feelings were about to come true, that she was linked to the killer, that he was standing before her in her own living room, that her own grizzly fate was terrifyingly imminent.
“They think an animal did it, right?”
“Initially, but then the authorities considered that it was just some sick, twisted psycho,” she regretted dropping the insulting labels upon the killer since it could actually be Sean and the last thing she wanted to do was antagonize him unnecessarily.
“They were right with their original analysis.”
“That it was an animal?”
“Yes.” Sean nodded.
“How could you possibly know that?” Erin asked, feeling the air in the room grow colder as her suspicions intensified.
“Because it was me, I killed them,” Sean admitted, lowering his eyes in shame.
“But…you said it was an animal,” Erin countered, drawing her arms protectively around her. Her mind was racing, panic rising within her like a flood. Sean was the killer; he had just admitted it to her. She was alone in her house with a serial killer. She felt sick at the prospect that she was about to become his next victim. She held back tears as she thought of her mother, how it would crush her to hear the news that her daughter had been savagely murdered, how she’d blame the darkness which she insisted had haunted her all her life.
Cursed. Had Erin been cursed? Was this the dark fate her mother had tried so desperately to steer her away from?
“It was an animal,” Sean clarified.
Erin squinted in confusion.
“Then how could it have been you?” her initial fears thawed when she realized that Sean couldn’t be the killer, he was just crazy.
“Because I’m cursed.” Sean answered bluntly.
“Sean—” Erin waved a hand dismissively but he cut her off.
“At night, beneath a full moon, I turn in to something else. Into an animal. But lately it’s been happening more and I’ve been losing control because I’m…in heat.” Sean squirmed as he stood before her, revealing his truth, aware of how insane he must sound.
“You turn into an animal at night?” Erin asked in complete disbelief, her tone mocking.
“I turn into a wolf.”
“You turn in to a wolf? Like a werewolf?” Erin could barely say the words it was all so ludicrous.
“Exactly, a werewolf.” Sean’s eyes shone menacingly as he said the word but it had little effect on Erin, who was now entirely convinced of his crazy mental state.
“So let me get this straight,” she began, sending him a hateful glance, “the reason you have treated me so badly, and live this mysterious life, is because you are a werewolf?” her voice pitched on the final word.
“I can’t risk remaining in one place too long,” Sean explained. “My curse forces me to live like a drifter.”
“You’re crazy, you know that?”
“Erin, please, you must believe me,” Sean implored, coming over and kneeling before her, his hands resting on her knees. He was strangely hot despite the cool of the evening.
“Why? Why should I believe you?” Erin demanded, feeling hurt by all his crazy lies. She’d hoped he would confide in her, tell her the truth about who he was, about the drugs, but instead all she got was this obscene façade about being a werewolf. Yet again, Erin had managed to pick a completely unsuitable guy; her mother would have a field day if she found out.
“Because of that thing that I gave you,” Sean spoke softly now, his eyes drifting down and settling upon Erin’s stomach.
“Erin, you’re pregnant; you’re having my child.”
The words made Erin freeze in shocked disbelief. She looked at Sean, waiting for his face to crack into a smile when he revealed that he was just joking with her, but his features remained locked and serious.
“You’re saying I’m pregnant?” Erin couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The words sounded ridiculous even coming from her own mouth. She knew she had been stupid not to use protection when they had sex, but there was no way either of them could know if she’d become pregnant from their time together, at least not yet.
“I know you are,” Sean said with complete certainty. “I can smell it.”
“Smell it!”
“You said yourself that you’ve been out of sorts, smelling things more intently and dreaming of dogs chasing you, it’s because of the wolf blood in your system because of the baby.”
“Sean, you’re crazy,” Erin said softly, feeling like she wanted to cry. She’d liked Sean so much, had felt so drawn to him. What was wrong with her to go after guys who were mentally unstable?
“Please, Erin, I’m not. Like I said, these past few days, I’ve been in heat. It makes me turn unexpectedly; usually I can control my physical urges, but with you I couldn’t. It was as if I sensed something in you that drew me to you.”
The darkness. The words danced through Erin’s mind but she didn’t say them aloud, felt too foolish to breathe life into the notion. Had her mother been right all along? Had Sean been the figure seeking her that she’d wanted to keep Erin away from?
None of it made any sense. Erin’s mind flooded with questions but she knocked all of them back. She refused to offer any credence to his madness but asking him about it.
“And now you’re carrying my child who will be a werewolf too, which means that I need to bring you into my pack and teach you how to cope with them when they start turning on their thirteenth birthday.”
“Why would they turn when they reach thirteen?” Erin couldn’t resist asking the question, it was all so far-fetched and bizarre, utterly beyond belief.
“Your hormones change when you become thirteen, it kick starts the turning phase of being a werewolf.”
“Sean,” Erin sighed and looked down sadly at the floor. She felt bitterly disappointed to have discovered that Sean was crazy. She could almost have excused a drug dependency, but she refused to deal with outright madness and delirium. Sean was clearly living within some sort of delusion and she didn’t want any part in it.
“Just tell me what you gave me so I can go get treated for it,” her voice was low and calm as she tried to reign him back in, wanting only to know how to make herself feel better. Once he told her what he had given her, he could leave and she wouldn’t care if she never saw him again.
Cursed. There was no such thing.
“I gave you my child,” Sean replied seriously, moving a hand to fondly stroke her cheek. “It means we have now become mates, and wolves mate for life.”
All the crazy talk sickened Erin to her core. As much as she wanted to find someone to settle down with, to build a life with, this wasn’t what she wanted, to be some crazy man’s fantasy.
“Sean, I’m not pregnant and frankly, I’m hurt by your insistence on lying to me. I wish you could just be honest about what you have, about what you gave to me. I won’t be mad; I just need you to be straight with me so we can move past this.”
“I’m being more honest with you than I’ve ever been with anyone else my whole life,” Sean clarified, his features softening with tenderness.
In contrast, Erin’s face was stony and hard. She was tired of the lies, of the stories. He owed her the truth and if he couldn’t give her that he might as well leave.
“There are no curses,” she hissed at him. “You don’t become a wolf on a full moon, I’m not carrying your wolf hybrid offspring and I sure as hell am not haunted by some unseen darkness that has tainted my heart!”
She surprised herself as she shouted out the latter part. Clearly, he’d gotten in her head and she was not struggling with her own issues.
“You need to leave,” she ordered, pointing to the door as she held her head in her hands and tried not to cry.
“Erin,” Sean looked and sounded torn as he stood in the doorway.
“Leave!” Erin repeated, refusing to look at him. She felt physically winded by what felt like a betrayal by him. He couldn’t even tell her the truth, he had to concoct some wild story about curses and wolves; did he have that little of respect for her?
Erin suppressed a sob as she recalled all the bitter disappoint she’d had to face as a bi-product of dating bad boys. The times they had left her, cheated on her, lied to her. Still, she seemed unable to break her own patterns of behavior; she refused to accept that these men she was drawn to were beyond redemption. She had to prove her mother wrong.
But as Erin waited for Sean to lie, she realized with a heavy heart that her mother had been right. That the darkness had finally been let in and now it would never leave. Sean had admitted to killing all those women, that he was responsible for the brutal murders. He was mad. He blamed being a wolf when all along he was just crazed. And here he was in her home, with her potentially carrying his child.
A chill ran down her spine at the thought of raising the baby of a serial killer. It wasn’t what she wanted for herself. Yet this must have been the darkness her mother predicted, that one day Erin’s love of bad boys would go too far and she’d invite a killer in to her home, in to her bed.
“Sean, this was a mistake, you need to go,” Erin told him, her voice low and sinister.
She heard Sean sigh as he continued to hover in the doorway, refusing to steal away into the night. It was a strange contrast to the night when he’s skulked away as she slept. Now, she couldn’t get rid of him.
“Fine, I’ll go,” he eventually conceded to Erin’s relief. A part of her was wary not to anger him too much; he’d already told her the terrible things he could be capable of. There was still a very real danger that Erin could soon number amongst his victims.
“I’ll go, but I’ll be back,” Sean promised and Erin’s gaze shot up as she regarded him with terrified eyes.
She didn’t want him to return.
“Once you’ve had time to think about what I’ve told you, to let it sink in, I’ll come back and we can start preparing for the arrival of the baby,” Sean told her.
Erin frowned in annoyance. There was no baby just as there was no curse. Sean was mentally unbalanced and believing the unbelievable. If Erin wasn’t so angry and scared, she would pity him. She considered calling the police when he left, to tell them the identity of the killer, but would they even believe her story? That a guy she’d slept with confessed to all the murders but said that he perpetrated them when he had been transformed in to a wolf due to a curse? It was crazy. She would sound crazy to retell it.
No, once Sean left, she would distance herself from him and his madness as much as possible.
“Just rest and think about what I’ve said. I’ll return soon.” Sean delivered his parting words before finally leaving through the front door and dissolving in to the darkness of the night. As the door slammed shut, Erin hurriedly got to her feet and securely bolted the door behind him, leaning wearily against it as she did so.
He said he would return. Erin felt sick at the prospect. Sean was a dangerous man; she didn’t want him in her home again.
With uncertain steps, she made her way back into the lounge. Her body ached with fatigue and she felt compelled to sit down. The intensity of their encounter and ensuing argument had drained her.
She didn’t know what to do or who to call. Besides, who would believe her? With no one to turn to and desperate for consolation, Erin dialed her mother, aware that despite the late hour in town, it would only be early evening where her mother lived.
“Hello?” her mother answered after the fourth ring, her voice croaky and unsteady. She must have been sleeping.
“Hi, Mom, it’s me, did I wake you?” Erin asked anxiously.
“Yes,” her mother confirmed in her hoarse voice, “I was sleeping.”
“Sorry to wake you up, I just…” Erin’s voice trailed off. How would she explain why she was calling? That she’d had an unpleasant encounter with a dangerous man and now needed reassurance? The whole set up made her feel weak and pitiful. She was a grown woman; she should be able to handle herself.
“He found you, didn’t he?” her mother queried intuitively, sensing what was wrong despite the physical distance between them.
“Yes,” Erin breathed in to the phone, glancing nervously at the doorway where Sean had previously been standing, half expecting him to be back there, listening in on her conversation.
“I told you to be careful.”
“I know.”
“I told you to avoid the darkness.”
“I know,” Erin was in no mood for a lecture. She wanted to be told that everything would be all right, that all her mother’s archaic fears were just the laments of an old woman and that she had nothing to actually be afraid of.
“But you let him in anyway,” her mother continued, her voice low.
“I made a mistake. I know that now,” Erin admitted tersely.
“He’s gone, but he will return,” her mother said with certainty.
“I don’t want him to!” Erin declared passionately. “I want him to leave me alone!”
“But you have something which is his.”
Erin gripped the phone tightly to her ear, wondering if she’d imagined the last part her mother had uttered. Was she referring to a baby? How could she possible know that? How could Sean have known that? They’d been careless and had unprotected sex, but it was still far too early to tell if she was pregnant.
“No, I have nothing of his,” Erin tried to sound confident, but her voice was small and meek.
“Yes you do,” her mother said coolly. “You were foolish and now you have something of his, something which binds you.”
“Mom, please, don’t talk to me in riddles,” Erin demanded, her fear making her patience grow short. She wanted answers, logical ones which would make sense to her.
“You’re carrying his child, I can sense it,” her mother stated.
Sitting on her sofa, Erin stiffened upon hearing the words. It was impossible. All of it was impossible.
“Mom, there’s no way anyone could know that,” Erin stated, wishing she believed her own words.
“Did he tell you about his curse?” her mother asked, stunning Erin in to silence. How could she have known about that? What was going on?
“Do you know him? Did he put you up to this?” Erin demanded, her tone accusing. Her nostrils flared in anger as she spoke. Someone was withholding information from her and she was determined to find out who it was.
“Your father suffered under the same curse,” her mother explained. “When you were born, we thought you might too, but you never did. Yet you continued to be drawn to the darkness, to their kind, and I was determined to spare you the life of being a part of their pack. It’s a cruel life, dictated by animal desires. I wanted more for you than that.”
Erin felt a single tear drop down her cheek. Now her own mother was conspiring against her in Sean’s web of lies. Could she not trust anyone anymore?
“I thought I could trust you,” Erin spat angrily in to the phone.
“I tried to warn you, to turn you away from this path.”
“Why is everyone lying to me?”
“Yours will be a child ruled by the moon, make no mistake about that. A dangerous life awaits you, Erin. A life I didn’t want for you.”
“Mom, stop it, there is no curse! Can’t you just be a mother and speak some words of comfort to me for once!”
“To survive, you must accept him and his pack or they will kill you both.”
“Mom,” Erin sobbed, wishing her mother would stop with the lies, with the talk of darkness and now the mention of more curses. There was no curse, yet her mother and her lover had some sick intent to try and get her to believe otherwise. She felt utterly abandoned by them both.
“It’s a lot to take in,” her mother accepted, her tone softening. “I struggled at first, until I saw your father turn.”
“What are you talking about? Stop bad-mouthing Dad!”
“I’m telling you the truth, so help me, I should have done so years ago! Perhaps if I had, you’d have been spared this fate but if you don’t believe me now, you’d never have believed me then.”
“I’m going,” Erin stated sadly. The call had gotten her nowhere and not given her the comfort she desperately sought. It had only spiraled her further into despair.
“You need to be strong now, Erin. The darkness has arrived and you must find a way to fight it.”
“Bye, Mom.” Erin hung up the phone and wiped away some stray tears from her cheeks. She looked in disbelief at the handset she was now holding, unable to comprehend the conversation she’d just had with her mother.
How could she possible have known about the curse? And now she was saying that her father had it, too? So did he believe himself to become a wolf during a full moon? It was all such utter madness.
As Erin tried to make sense of her tangled web of thoughts her hand subconsciously began to rub her stomach. Both her mother and Sean believed her to be pregnant, which was crazy. No one could know at this early stage. Still, their words had spooked her so she vowed the following day to go into town and get a pregnancy test; that way she’d know for certain what was going on.
She didn’t want Sean to return, didn’t want to face his crazed beliefs again. Her mother had always been crazy and speaking of darkness.
Feeling terribly alone in this mess of it all, Erin continued to absently stroke her stomach when she suddenly felt something kick from within her, knocking against the palm of her hand. Shocked, she released her hands from her stomach and looked down at her middle in disbelief.
What had just kicked her?
Tentatively, she placed her hands once more on her stomach, feeling around for whatever it was. She felt fine; she didn’t feel sick or out of sorts. Emotionally, she was exhausted, but physically, her earlier symptoms had abated a little. The sickness, the improved sense of smell, either she had adjusted to them both or they had died down over the past twenty-four hours.
With her hands back on her stomach, she waited. After a few moments it came again, a movement from within, pushing out, like something kicking inside her.
Erin panicked and lifted her hands away from her stomach, staring down at her herself in terrified disbelief. What could possibly be kicking her like that? Could she really be carrying Sean’s baby? And if she was, how could they be able to move and kick already? It was impossible.
Looking down at her stomach, Erin finally listened to the small voice that had been calling from the back of her mind, the voice which spoke on instinct and relied on her gut for guidance. Erin listened to her conscious and accepted that both Sean and her mother were actually right, that she was indeed pregnant. But if they were right about the baby, what else had they been right about? Erin wasn’t sure she was ready to learn the full truth about it all.
TO BE CONTINUED...