I gazed at the red oozing
glob sliding up and down my line of vision.
"You like it, don't you," Donna said.
"At first you thought it was dumb, but now you like it.
I catch you watching it all the time."
My roommate at medical school, Donna, was nice
enough, though she cared altogether too much about my opinion. We
shared a small two-bedroom apartment in university housing, which she
insisted on decorating in retro-style. Her bedroom had no door,
just beads. She installed an orange shag carpet in our living
room. On the rare occasion that we had people over, she hung a
disco ball over her record player. I thought it was a little fun
and quirky at first, but it quickly became annoying and that shag carpet
was a bitch on my allergies.
But I have to admit I dug the lava lamp.
"Yeah, I like it. Happy now?"
"Happy as a dog sniffing an asshole."
She waltzed over and sniffed me. "You wearing
perfume?"
"Yeah, I've got a hot date."
She feigned cardiac arrest, pumping at her
chest with her fist. "Polly Prissypants, the all-study,
no-play, little chemist is sticking her toe in the water again after her
string of failed experiments with dating. Oh me, oh my."
I swear if she called me Polly Prissypants one
more time, I'd fucking slap her, then drive one thousand miles to slap
my mother for naming me Polly in the first place. And I was
getting sick of her little digs about chemistry as if I was less of a
person for not wanting to be a surgeon like her. "Yes, it's
true. Don't faint, though, it's only dinner."
"How did you meet him?"
I knew I should lie, but didn't. "One
of those Internet dating sites where you take a long-ass questionnaire
and then they match you up with a bunch of guys based on their secret
compatibility quotient. You read all their ads and pick the ones
you like. Go ahead, laugh."
"I'm not gonna laugh."
Now it was my turn to show shock. "Huh?"
"The last guy you went on a date with was
convinced the end times were coming in four weeks and wanted to save
your soul so you could be together in the afterlife. The guy
before that seemed cool until he asked you to tie him up and attach
jumper cables to his nipples. You don't seem to have good people
radar, Polly. No offense. Maybe this dumb website can do a
better job. It couldn't possibly do worse."
I stood up and smoothed my blouse. "You've
got me there. I gotta go. We're meeting at Falconi's."
"The townie restaurant? He couldn't
take you to a nice place in the city?"
"Neither of us has cars. It's
walking distance, it's easy."
"Wait, he's a grad student here,
too?"
"Yeah." I inched toward the
door. I didn't want to be late.
"What's his name?"
"Gerry Spindle."
Donna's face paled, then her eyes darkened, and
she grabbed my arm. "You cannot go out with him."
"Why?"
"He's, he's, he's too intense."
"Intense is good. I like
intense."
"Not good intense. More like 'Hello
Clarice' intense. He's a psycho."
My stomach clenched. I'd felt good about
this one. Figures. "How do you know him?"
"I went to undergrad with him. He's
crazy."
"He seems fine to me. We chatted
online for hours the other night. His ad was exactly what I'm
looking for."
"What did his ad say?"
I felt like I was sixteen again, in the kitchen
with my parents, begging to go out and be a normal teenager. "I
didn't memorize it. Something about how he's fun-loving with a
sense of humor, but he's a serious student and can balance work and
play. He's not into games, he's low maintenance and low drama.
That's what I want. Low drama."
Donna crossed her arms and tapped a manicured
fingernail on her elbow. "Dating a serial killer will give
you a lot of drama."
"So now he's a serial killer."
"I told you I went to undergrad with him.
His girlfriend from back then disappeared."
"Maybe she dropped out, went home."
"Or maybe he cut her up into 32 pieces,
folded her in a tarp, and dumped her in the river."
"Donna, you're being ridiculous. He
seems nice. We're in a public place. I'm not going to be
anywhere alone with him until I know him much better anyway."
She twisted around and stormed into her room.
Luckily, she didn't have a door to slam. She called out as I
left, "Don't come crying to me if you find yourself tied up in the
boiler room!"
The restaurant was only five minutes away, but
by the time I got there I was nervous. What the hell did I know
about Gerry anyway? Yeah, he seemed nice but so did the last two
guys and they were batshit crazy. I obviously had no intuition.
I found Gerry sitting at a booth with his hands
around a mug of beer. His face lit up when I walked in, and I felt
better already.
"You look just like your picture," I
said, and I was happy about that. He was boyishly cute with a
tossed up mop of black hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and dimples on either
side when he smiled.
"I hope you don't mind that I ordered a
drink already. To be honest, I was a little nervous and needed to
take the edge off."
"I was nervous, too." Nervous
you were going to tell me to put the lotion in the basket.
"But I feel better already just sitting
here with you." He smiled again, and I was smitten like a
schoolgirl gazing at TeenBeat magazine.
Dinner went great. He was everything I
wanted him to be: smart, funny, ambitious, intellectual, interesting.
He held my hand as we walked back to graduate housing, and I
walked slow and took deep breaths and stared at the stars and noticed
all the beautiful things I usually walk right by with my head down.
He was different than the other guys; he truly had nothing up his
sleeve, no games.
Donna's words echoed in a dark little corner of
my mind.
I glanced over at him, a little miffed at
myself for falling so hard so quick. If I found out he lied to me
about anything, I'd gouge his eyes out.
We stopped at the door to my building, and he
was a gentleman. He didn't ask to come in and when I kissed him
lightly, he didn't force his tongue into my esophagus. He said
he'd call me tomorrow, and I believed him.
Until I let myself in the building and what
felt like a concrete block slammed into my head and my vision faded to
black.
I opened my eyes into a world of hurt. My
head throbbed and as I turned my head to try to figure out where I was,
my stomach lurched and I threw up onto my lap. I was tied to a
chair, bound at the waist and ankles with my hands tied behind my back.
A low growl hummed behind me. My eyes adjusted to the
darkness and I figured it out.
I was in the boiler room.
"That would be the concussion. Vomiting,
it's a symptom. But, don't worry, soon enough after I start
cutting you'll go into shock and you won't feel anything."
Someone drifted out of the blackness of the
corner, a shadow with a voice I recognized. "You weren't out
long, only five minutes. I don't even have all my tools sharpened
yet."
Donna.
I gasped.
She laughed. "You really have no
grasp on people, Polly. You never even suspected."
"You... you... help him do this?"
"Help him? God, you're stupid.
Gerry has nothing to do with this."
The furnace roared behind me, and I winced as
it echoed in my head. Through the pain, it took me a moment, but
the truth finally sunk in. "So, the other girl that dated
him, the one who disappeared-"
"I lied about that. Gerry didn't cut
her up into 32 pieces. I did, and it was 33 pieces."
She inched closer to me, sizing me up. "You're
a little taller than she was. I can probably make an even 40 out
of you."
"Why do you do this? What did he
dump you, break your heart, and now you kill his girlfriends out of
petty jealousy?"
She frowned. "You really think that
little of me? Sure, jealousy's a part of it, I've got to be
honest, but it's not just about keeping Gerry away from other women.
It's about being the best. There is no better way to
practice my craft than on real, live people. I'm going to be the
best fucking surgeon this school has ever created."
The boiler was clanging now, a metallic
consistent bang that made me think my head would explode. I puked
again, violently retching, heaving and choking. I opened my eyes
and my shirt was covered in blood.
But not mine. Donna stood in front of me,
eyes wide in shock, a metal pipe sticking out of her stomach. I
felt hands at my hands, then my ankles, then my waist and I was free,
standing up and falling down and crawling backwards out of the room as a
pool of dark crimson leaked from Donna's body onto the floor.
Gerry pulled me up and into his arms. "I'm
so sorry. I went back to get another kiss, maybe see if you wanted
to invite me in, and saw what Donna did to you. I followed you two
down here. I was scared shitless at first but when I heard what
she had done to Jessica." He shook his head. "This
whole time I thought she just ran off."
I pushed him away. "I don't
care."
He grabbed for me, eyes pleading. "I
didn't have anything to do with this! I haven't dated Donna since
I was twenty. She's just a stalker that's always in the
background. She followed me to medical school, leaves me notes,
prank calls me, but I thought that was it. I never meant for you
to be in harm's way. Please don't push me away."
I closed my fist and smashed it into his nose.
Then stormed off and called the police from a neighbor's phone.
No second chances for liars. After all, his ad said low
drama.
Copyright 2006 by
Kim Harrington
Kim Harrington lives in
Massachusetts with her husband and son. Her work has previously appeared
in Shred of Evidence, Crime Scene Scotland, and Hardluck
Stories. Visit her website at http://www.kimharringtonbooks.com..
