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I think Confucius also dropped that nugget of wisdom.
“I’ll burn these shorts when I get home, then,” Walter said, laughing, the sound surprising me. He seemed like a genuinely good guy, and once again, I felt like a genuinely huge asshole. “I’ll work on my reading skills, too.”
I don’t know what came over me, but I felt an urge and just rolled with it. I walked around with my arms open. Walter seemed surprised as all hell when I wrapped him in a tight hug.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Really, I am.”
“It’s fine.” Walter’s magnified brown eyes appeared to have tears accumulating at the corners. “It’s totally fine. Just a big misunderstanding.”
“It was,” I said, walking back to my spot behind the register as someone pushed into my aisle with a stacked cart. “And if you ever do decide to try drag, you let me know, okay? I’d love to help with whatever you need.”
His face, still bright from the sunlight, glowed even more. “I think I’d really like that—thank you. Thank you.”
Walter put a hand on his chest and dipped his head. He said goodbye one last time before heading back out the sliding glass doors, leaving me equal parts shocked and happy. I wasn’t sure what the hell was happening in Blue Creek. This small town never had my head spinning as frequently as it had these past few months. Every day, there seemed to be something new happening, or another development in the case, or another heart-melting moment with Ryan, or another—
The benign pop songs on the speaker abruptly turned off. I continued scanning the items in front of me, the cacophony of beep beep sounds suddenly echoing through the oddly silent grocery store. The customer looked around, noticing the eerie quiet.
“That’s weird, huh? I can hear my own thoughts,” he said, chuckling to himself.
“The sound system was the same one they used at the Last Supper. It acts up sometimes.”
The older man cracked a big smile, his forehead wrinkling as he laughed at my joke.
Just as quickly as it cut out, the music came back on. Except this time, the song started to play at full volume, blasting through the store and making us jump in surprise. The customer put his hands on his ears, and I was close to doing the same until I recognized the song that was playing.
It was the first song that had been left on that CD taped to my door, a Lil’ Kim song. It cut out, transitioning to the second song on that threatening CD. My blood turned into ice. This wasn’t happening because of a faulty speaker system or a random mistake by the manager. This was happening because of my stalker—I just knew it.
It got hard to breathe. Like my lungs would automatically push out any oxygen I tried stuffing into them. I gripped onto the edge of my station, the man’s groceries completely forgotten about, left unscanned and unbagged. This was bad. Really fucking bad. Should I run? Just bolt out the doors? I could run all the way to Stonewall, I could ask for Ryan’s help, I could get out of here—I should get out of here. Mike would understand.
But what if that’s what the stalker wanted? Maybe they were waiting outside of the store for me, ready to bag me like some kind of trophy. I wanted to throw up and scream and cry all at the same time.
Then, as if it couldn’t get any worse, a loud and piercing scream carried through the store, louder than even the head-thumping music.
23
Ryan Diaz
Kimmy Mowry lived in a small apartment building toward the center of town, sandwiched between a movie theater with a classic marquee flashing above the ticket booth and a cozy bookstore that always surprised with their creative window displays. One week they’d have books stacked in the shape of a city, and the next it was a book sculpture of Godzilla.
Today, they had the books open and their pages carved so that they depicted whatever fairy-tale scene each book held inside. I admired them for a brief moment, deciding this would be a good future date night for Elijah and me. He loved books—always talked about how he was reading “to filth” and how “the library is open”—so we could take a stroll through the store and then catch a movie at the theater.
Although, I’ve never even seen him holding a book…
I walked past the bookstore and stopped at the callbox for the four-story apartment building. A row of cable satellites sat on the roof, the pale blue siding of the building appearing to need a new paint job, with chips and brown stains running down from leaks in the gutters. A window nearby was wide open, and out drifted the scent of fresh baked bread and the sounds of morning talk show hosts arguing over the most recent political shitshow.
