Terry grips the steering wheel with one hand while holding his little e-cigarette in the other. The smoke sucks past Glitch as he pokes his muzzle out the back seat window one second at a time—too frightened by the air gusts to risk it any longer, too excited by the rush of freedom seventy miles per hour provides his canine face.
My story on the Coast Killer temporarily transformed me into Terry’s ultraviolet star amidst a galaxy of dull-lighted reporters and sycophants at the Coast News. “It’s just ridiculous,” he tells me, shaking his head. He’s in the middle of a rant that began the second we left Monterey, right after he begrudgingly let Glitch come with us. We’re now halfway to Santa Cruz, which splits the difference between Monterey and San Francisco. It’s famous for its boardwalk and roller coasters that smell like piss. The source of Terry’s rant is my inability to produce the next entry in the Coast Killer series. He’s been on my case for over a week. Stopping by my desk. Sending me multiple emails a day marked with the annoying red exclamation mark signaling URGENT.
It’s also been several days since I recorded my testimony for Rocket, but it feels like I’m always going on the record now. Not for the Subterraneans, but for Terry and the Coast News. I’m doing more and more interviews with other media outlets, each amplifying my bogus story, each requiring endless energy to maintain my diminishing appearance as a real journalist. Some interviews are for national talk radio. Some for a few magazines. The last TV interview was for a local station.
“Each day that goes by without another story is another day you’re jeopardizing your brand we worked so hard to establish,” Terry says.
I am a brand.
“We’re going to lose momentum,” he says. “Cynthia thinks the view rates and audience metrics look okay for now, but they’re due for a drop any day now. We need the next story to keep this thing alive.”
But the momentum will likely come to a screeching halt. I don’t have another fake story left in me. I have nothing. No more encounters with the killer. No more hearsay or innuendo posing as news.
We pass the industrial smokestacks at Moss Landing. True to form, smoke billows out of the skyscraping phallic structures. We’re twenty minutes from Santa Cruz now.
To see Laura Poole.
* * *
Terry thinks this trip will stimulate my thinking. But he wants me to interview Laura, the only survivor of the Coast Killer, because he’s also covering his bases. Terry has remained skeptical about the story but has done a good job of hiding it while in the office. Every now and again he asks me if anyone in the police department will go on record now. He then looks irritated when I tell him no. The last TV interview I did for a local station didn’t help matters either. The anchor started pressing me for the kind of information that should have been featured in the story.
“You didn’t mention details about the killer’s appearance in your piece,” the anchor said, already playing up his disappointment for the camera. “If he was at ‘point-blank’ range, how could you not see his face?”
“I think I made a mention in the piece that he used a flashlight to blind me,” I said back.
“I get that, but one would think you could provide something. Was his hair frizzy? Short? How tall was the guy?”
“Medium height, I suppose,” I said. “Traumatic moments have a way of distorting details. I’m sure you understand.”
But Terry knows Laura represents another way to legitimize the story. And in so doing, Terry, as the editor in chief, will no longer have to worry about my story blowing up in his face. However, it isn’t easy getting to Laura. She’s cared for twenty-four seven. Too traumatized to be left on her own. Nobody is supposed to know where she lives. But Terry did some digging. Came into information as to her whereabouts. Called in a favor or two.
We’re off the freeway and into Santa Cruz by noon, coasting through green lights on a narrow street with diners, skate shops, and screen-print T-shirt stores. Terry leans over the wheel and searches for a street sign. “In my bag is a manila folder,” he tells me. “I gathered some notes about her.” I find the folder and begin to look it over.
It’s interesting.
It’s frightening.
She is the only person that has ever escaped the killer—that I already knew. But she escaped, in a way, only because the killer allowed it. According to the police report, the sequence of events is simple. She disappears. Taken while walking home along the bike path and sand dunes. It was just after an evening shift at Denny’s, where she worked as a server. Held captive in what she described to police as “a place made of rooms within rooms within rooms.” She stated the Coast Killer toyed with her for hours. Keeping her awake and perpetually drugged. Talking to her in strange voices. Once she cooperated with the killer and his tests, she was allowed to leave the compound. But she doesn’t remember anything between the last test and when a woman discovered her lying naked alongside the highway. She had been missing for approximately four days.
We arrive at a tall building with little signage to denote an assisted living facility. Laura Poole is a thirty-seven-year-old woman living inside a high-rise building consisting of mostly blue-haired retirees. Terry heads inside, directions in hand. I follow behind him with Glitch on his leash. We take an elevator up to the fourteenth floor, where we find a brute—tall as an NBA all-star, thick as an NFL linebacker—standing next to a closed door, eyeing us with suspicion. He’s dressed like the Secret Service. The black suit and glasses. A radio earpiece and gun holster fastened to his hip.
“We’re here to see her,” Terry says. “I talked with Rodrigo.” Terry flashes his ID. The brute nods and opens the door for us. I’m expecting to see a broken woman—a feeble convalescent drooling and giggling from insanity. But this is not what I find.
Laura Poole sits with her legs crossed, dragging on a cigarette—the real kind, not the dipshit kind Terry is into—the smoke looping around the room like a boa constrictor. She looks out the only window in the room. Her black, pixie-cut hair swivels as she turns to face us. No smirk. No hello. She turns back toward the window.
We stand in the entryway, facing the living room and Laura. It’s a tidy space with no clutter. A glass table, perfectly shined, and two Victorian chairs, one in which Laura now sits. To our left is a narrow hallway leading to the bedroom. To our right is the kitchen, also perfectly tidy. Chrome appliances polished obsessively. The cigarette stink emitted from every wall and piece of furniture in the apartment ruins the pristine condition of the place.
“Hello, Laura. How are you?” Terry starts.
Laura’s tone is perfectly weaponized sarcasm. “Fan-tas-dick. You?”
“Good, thanks. And thank you for agreeing to take the time. I’m sure every reporter and cop has reached out to you at one point or another.”
“They all swipe right for me.” She puffs on her death stick. “Don’t get a big head or anything. I did this because my counselor thinks it would be good for me. But I bet it’s only good for you.”
The next thirty seconds, feeling closer to several minutes, are anchored in three metric tons of silence. Laura looks back toward the window while Terry takes out his phone. Pretends to catch up on texts or emails. Glitch continues to sit back, only inches from my shin. I look over at Terry until he can feel my anxiety bursting out of my eyes. Finally, he mouths, “talk to her,” and goes back to his phone.
I clear my throat, hoping Laura registers the international sign for “I’m about to talk to you, so maybe you can pay attention to me.” She doesn’t, but I try anyway.
“Laura, I’m guessing you know we’re here because of the paper’s series on the Coast Killer.”
No response.
“I’m wondering if there is anything you could share with us about your experience.” For a moment, the dying journalist within me finds a new life. Cultivates enough curiosity—genuine and true—and seizes on the kind of question I would have asked in another lifetime. The kind of angle that would be both newsworthy and productive to the investigation. “We were reading over some materials before we arrived. I was surprised to see there are details that were never made public. Like the tests he made you go through in captivity. Any chance you could tell us about any of it?”
Again, nothing. This is Terry’s bold idea. I turn and give him a shrug. He looks as defeated as me. Probably more. Because there is another part of me, separate from the dying journalist, that doesn’t want my fifteen minutes of fame to linger on when I’m on the precipice of a new life. Right now, retreating from this room and heading back to Monterey sounds more appealing. Soon—hopefully very, very soon—I’ll get the call from Enzo, and he’ll fill me in on my upcoming missions. The mere thought of completing them and receiving the Lobotomy Pills sends ASMR-like tingles up the back of my head.
“What’s the story with the dog?” Laura asks.
Glitch feels everyone looking at him. His tail starts to oscillate, brushing against the wooden floor. Why is it that when humans receive concentrated stares from strangers, the only sensations we experience are fear and uncertainty? Dogs are the cup-half-full party in this relationship.
“He’s mine—rescued him recently. Would you like to meet him?”
“I guess.”
I unhook Glitch’s leash. “Go say hi.”
Glitch keeps his head low to the ground, bobbing from side to side with golden retriever excitement, making his way to Laura. He finds her free hand dangling over the arm of the chair and scoops it up with his nose. Laura’s hand scratches the side of his face and chin. Each stroke against Glitch’s fur somehow peels thick rows of barbwire off Laura. She leans over, now kissing Glitch on the soft spot between his eyes, over the mostly healed wounds and scars.
She turns and looks at me. We lock eyes, but this is not a romantic moment. This is a hostile moment, and she’s armed with violent sarcasm. “Aren’t you the star reporter? The one with the big glimpse into the psycho’s world?”
“That’s me.”
“I read your story.” She starts to laugh but sucks it back in.
“I’m hoping to include whatever you’re willing to tell me in the next article of the series.”
“I bet you would.”
Glitch retreats to me.
“In fact,” she says, “I’m guessing you really need my experience in the next ‘breaking news, stop the presses’ story, don’t you?”
“I’d love to include you in the next article, but I don’t have to.”
“No, I think you do.”
Terry, suddenly the cooler head, plays damage control. “I think what he means is that the Coast News values your insights and it would be a shame if you didn’t contribute toward catching this guy.”
“Let me tell you what I meant. You. Need. Me.” Laura shifts in her seat. Recrosses her legs. “Tell me, Mr. Big Time Reporter, didn’t you write that the killer left you lying in the street?”
I nod.
“And, Mr. Reporter, did you write that the killer’s face was exposed, but you couldn’t make out any details?”
Nod again.
“What’s funny about that is he never exposed his face to me. And you know why? The psycho always wore a mask. A pretty distinct fucking mask at that. But we’re supposed to believe that not only has he abandoned that MO, but he now just leaves you passed out on the street? No way in hell.”
“What is she talking about?” Terry whispers to me. I’m suddenly hoping for a brain glitch.
“He doesn’t know,” Laura says, her tone a taunting whip. “He doesn’t know shit. The killer wore a wolf mask—something wooden and carved. He had it on the entire time with me. He’d never show his face. Not in a million years. And if my experience was any indication, half his enjoyment is getting his victims to play games in his dungeon, not abandoning them after he has them for the taking.”
Laura’s investigating eyes grow wide as she stares into mine, performing invasive surgery on my soul. “So do you know what happens now? He’s going to come for us. Everyone. But especially you. I hope you’re ready for what you just woke up.” I bite down on the insides of my cheeks. Maybe the pain will provide a distraction long enough for this to be over. Her eyes narrow and focus on a small detail of my face or my eyes or soul. Her face softens its attack. “Here’s to hoping you win out in the end.” She takes a drag off her cigarette, her lips smacking off the butt. “Now leave.”
The brute opens the door and escorts us out.
The drive home is warped in Terry’s anger and deepening realization. Twenty minutes into the drive, he finally does it.
“You fucking idiot. You made it all up, didn’t you?”
The Next Chapter Begins in 3, 2, 1 . . .