The Older Girl

She woke and the first thought was the joyful thought. It was her birthday! She ran barefoot down the hallway and then sprinted down the stairs, barely touching the railing, her knees turned shock absorbers to the punishing jolts. When she reached the destination of her mad flight, the dining room, she was both pleased and confused.

Here was a birthday cake set upon the table. Here was the pink icing in arabesques and lovely green leaves. Here was her name, spelled out in sweet sugars she couldn’t wait to taste. And here were the candles placed so carefully in the cake. She counted them. Sixteen candles.

Silly mom. What sort of a joke was this?

Sarah looked up into the heavy mirror suspended by chains on the wall, grandma’s gift, the mirror from Sicily, the strange one. She saw her mother’s back reflected there as she walked out the front door. Before she could call out to her, the door had closed on the sunshine of a beautiful day.

Why was she leaving? Didn’t she want to make her guess where her presents were hidden, their usual fun ritual? Didn’t she want to play the “Warmer and Colder” game?

Then she wondered why the dining room was dark. Why had her mother not lit the room? She felt a vague worry. Maybe something was wrong with Grandma! That could explain everything. Maybe that’s why she had to leave.

Sarah drew closer to the mirror. She looked into it. “Nine years old,” she thought. “It’s my birthday and I’m nine years old today.”

Then she glanced down at the credenza below the mirror. Resting on one of its corners was a sheaf of papers thick as a telephone book. She stared at the top page. There was her school photograph beneath the large word MISSING.

And next to the photograph of her, the one she recognized, the face she saw when she looked in grandma’s mirror, was a picture of another girl, one she almost recognized.

She read the words above the photograph of the older girl, the one she felt, somehow, she should know: “Age Progressed From Age 8 to 16.”

And then everything began to feel terribly wrong. She knew if she tried really hard to remember, everything would make sense. But something told her not to remember.

“I’m Sarah and I’m nine years old today,” she told herself.

But a voice in her head whispered, “Cold.”

“I’ll just wait for mother to get back and she’ll explain everything to me.”

“Colder,” the voice in her head whispered.

Sarah realized it was her own voice she was hearing, correcting her. Playing the birthday game.

“Everything is going to be fine!” she promised herself.

“Colder,” said other-Sarah in her head.

“I’m feeling a chill now. I’m so cold. Nobody should feel this way on their birthday. I feel like I’ll never be warm ever again!”

“Warmer,” said the other voice in her head.

Her Boyfriend Went MIssing

Her boyfriend had gone missing. Lovable, nerdy Adam. She had gotten a dog right afterwards. She’d take him with her everywhere. Even in the car. Really, can you blame a girl for wanting to feel safe? But here’s the weird thing. You’d only see her walking the dog or taking him out to the car with her at night. I guess night is the scariest time. But we all wondered: wasn’t she afraid to be out at night like that after her boyfriend had just vanished?

Many people thought it had been a drug hit or the work of the mafia. You know how people always talk that crap. It’s natural to want to blame the victim. He must have been doing something wrong. It gives one a smug feeling of safety to say that and try to believe it.

You must have seen the MISSING posters put up all over this apartment complex and half of the city by Adam’s parents, siblings, friends and coworkers. It was like the dude had just walked off the planet. At twenty-eight. And most of his friends kept saying they were sure he was dead. Because he wasn’t the type to just thoughtlessly vanish like that. Grace didn’t seem to care, wouldn’t participate in the searches for him. She told the police and the media he had just up and left her. She wished him all the best. But she didn’t really care anymore where he was. It was no longer her business. That’s all she’d say to people when they asked. She seemed to believe he was fine.and just living a new life somewhere else. A few gullible people bought this explanation. Most didn’t.

Everyone said they had had a really weird relationship. What people whispered on the grapevine was that she was a crazy domme. They said that was extremely dominant to the point where Adam’s friends believed he had been swallowed up by her. They were sure it was an unhealthy relationship. They even felt he might be in danger. But Adam always told those friends to let him live his life. He said he could handle it. We’d see him with black eyes. His left arm was in a cast for a while. The BDSM lifestyle is one thing. This was another thing altogether. But Adam always told his friends he was getting what he wanted from Grace. He didn’t mind, he said, if people thought he was a freak for enjoying the abuse she inflicted on him.

Yeah, she was a beauty. Grace was. No denying that. Amy Winehouse goddesss hair. Those ridiculously long legs of hers were usually in the sexiest boots. I’d see her smoking a cigarette at night while she walked that dog in one of her short little skirts. I live in that complex too. The one where Adam used to live with her. Some people say she killed him. Or that one of her lovers did. That they’ll find his body in the bay, if they ever find him at all. She always did look like trouble to me. I won’t deny that.

But last night I learned that she’s much worse than that. And he’s not dead at al.. Killing him would have been much kinder.

I was getting back to my apartment from a night jog. She was walking her dog, that big muscular beast we all thought she had bought for protection. I had always wondered what breed it was. I glanced their way to see, since Grace and the animal reached the streetlight at the corner nearest our apartment building at the same time as me. She hadn’t seen me coming up the shadowy side street. She gasped and pulled on the dog’s chain to hurry him away from me. It was one of those long, retractable leashes. I realized then what had happened to her boyfriend. I knew what had happened to Adam.

Wow.

Talk about the ultimate sub. I wondered how many surgeries it had taken to make him look like that. And what sort of doctor could bring himself to do something like that to a human being? How did they get the fur to grow all over his body like that? He even had a tail. God only knows where that tail flesh came from. Or how those paws had been constructed from what had been Adam’s hands and knees. Now I knew why Grace only took the dog out at night. All I know is that when she whistled, he went running after her, tongue hanging out.

Tongue hanging out.

I really hate to admit this. But he looked like a very happy dog.

Two Wax Mannequin Heads

Two extremely creepy wax mannequin heads came up to auction in Indiana last year.

Nobody knows anything about their origin.

It is speculated that they might be images of sisters who died in a house fire, and that they will converse with each other in whispers when the lights are put out in the room in which they are located.

Seems believable to me.