Chapter 1
Chapter 1
September 21st, 2023
Thursday
Northeastern Ohio
Kasey’s POV.
I look up as the bells over the door jingle, alerting me to customers entering the restaurant. I slide my phone into the back pocket of my jeans with the job search app I’ve been scrolling still open. Grabbing two lunch menus from the stack on the counter, I muster a smile and walk around to greet the two-top that has come in. They are a nice-looking middle-aged couple. They have been in a few times before, and I remember them being nice enough. I lead the pair to a cozy booth a few spaces from the door, turn, and gesture to it.
“How’s this, folks?” I ask. The gentleman nods, says it will be fine, and they take their seats. I rattle off the simple daily special, a “black bean burger topped with blue cheese and served with sweet potato fries”, and take their drink orders.
The 20-table dining room currently has nine tables in use, only four of which are mine, and my other customers are all quietly eating and chatting amongst themselves. It’s a nice place, cozy. Half the tables are booths lining the walls, and the others are re-arrangeable square tables filling in the rest of the dining room. The floor is a tasteful faux-wood laminate in dark browns, and the high-backed booths are all a maroon hue of easy-to-clean vinyl upholstery. The lights are mostly low-hanging conical pendant lights over the tables with incandescent-toned LEDs. They make the space feel warm and comfortable, as opposed to having the garishness that fluorescent lights add. The walls are a mixture of sections of drywall painted a mustard yellow and sections of rough-textured old brick. The building itself is a brick structure nestled between a hair salon and an attorney’s office. It’s an older building, and I think it was a hardware store at one point.
On my way to the server station, I stop by two of my tables, clear a few plates, and promise to be back with the check shortly. As much as I hate to admit it, I actually don’t mind waiting tables all that much. In fact, I am pretty good at it.
In the summer after getting my BS in Biology, I had made great money as a bartender at the one posh pub in my small college town. I enjoyed the hustle of it, and though I tried not to let my vanity get the best of me, I liked the bit of glam that came with being a bartender. I had almost begun to consider forgoing grad school and getting a business associate’s degree to open a place of my own somewhere, and had even started looking for good programs when my mom got sick. I moved back home to be with her and help dad out. That was two years ago.
Mom passed a little over a year later, early last November. I stayed to help Dad, and if I am honest, to help myself too. It was a rough time for both of us, and we needed each other. So now, ten months after her death, I find myself both trapped and adrift. I don’t know how to restart my life. So, I work as a waitress at my aunt’s restaurant in Aurora and stay with my dad at the river cottage. I have been keeping busy and helping him go through mom’s stuff. He just can’t really deal with it, so that task falls to me.
Dad is doing as well as could be expected after losing his wife of twenty-seven years. But he really needs the support. I do too, and I think we both need the company. And I guess it’s not all bad, I have my best friend from high school and a few new friends. But my love life is an absolute dumpster fire.
I pour Cokes for my new table and tray up the order for another table. I think about the previous night and shudder in self-loathing. I have been dating Evan for a few months and have basically been trying to figure out how to break up with him since day one. He’s cute, well, cute-ish, and while he isn’t violent or anything like that, he is super jealous and petty, and can be a real dick after a few drinks. He actually went to my high school, but he’s 3 years older, so I had never known him. My best friend Erin works with him at the insurance company and has apologized now on at least seven separate occasions for setting us up. I am really only with him out of boredom, but after last night’s record-setting terrible sex, I have made up my mind to be done with it.
I spent last night at his small, dirty apartment, where we killed a bottle of vodka mixed with soda. We watched some stupid movie about a major league baseball player who made a middle-aged comeback or whatever, which, of course, is Evan’s favorite movie. I had scrolled job postings and played games on my phone absent-mindedly, pretty much the whole time. When the movie ended, Evan made his intentions to move things to the bedroom clear when he oh-so-smoothly said, “Well, baby, you ready to bang?”
I knew I should have just left, but like an idiot, I went to bed with him, and 15 minutes later, after a cringy fingering and then about two minutes of clumsy and half limp intercourse, Evan rolled off me, apparently quite pleased with himself. With slightly slurred speech, he said, “You liked that, didn’t you, babe?” as he dozed off into a drunken post-coidal slumber. After checking that the condom was indeed intact, I had just lain there, feeling gross, and hating his gross, stupid leopard print bed sheets, hating gross, stupid Evan, and hating my gross, stupid life.
My shift ends at 9:00 pm. I have the swing shift, so I don’t have to close. I say goodbye to Kelly and Ashley, the other servers, and shout a goodbye to Brian in the kitchen, then head out to my little black Honda. I parked behind MaryJane’s, which is the name of the restaurant, and my Aunt. The air is just a touch cool, but feels lovely after being inside all day. I love late September. It’s the best part of the year. The real heat of summer has passed, and while the days lately have been a bit warmer than usual, the nights are cool and dry.
As I press the unlock button on my key fob, my phone begins to vibrate, ringing in my back pocket. I pull it out, open the door to my car, and sit down, looking at the screen. It’s 9:05 pm. Evan Webber calling. I let out an audible groan mixed with a shudder and tap the silent button on the phone. Setting the phone in the console, I start the car and turn on the headlights. My phone buzzes as it gets a text from my way-too-clingy beau. I ignore it and start driving home.
I really don’t wanna deal with him right now, I think.
I barely make it out of the parking lot when the Bluetooth connects to my phone, making the car speaker blare out my ringtone, enveloping me in mounting irritation.
“Oh my God, fine!” I yell to no one in the car. I draw a deep breath and hit the accept button on the car’s screen. I don’t even get a chance to say hello before Evan’s voice comes through the speaker, impatient and irritating.
“Babe! I just called and texted you. Are you out of work?”
Grimacing, I dryly reply, “Yep, just got to my car”.
He replies, “Why didn’t you pick up or answer my text?”
To which I repeat, “Because I just got to my car.”
Evan says, “Geeze, don’t jump down my throat, I was just calling cause I missed you.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, I am off now”.
“Cool,” he continues. “Hey, come meet me at Weston’s, I’ll buy you a drink.”
I sigh internally and say, “Actually, I am pretty tired, I think I just want to head back to dad’s and chill for the night”.
Evan says, “Well, why don’t you just come to the apartment? We can watch another movie and relax”.
Ugh. This idiot! I think “I really just want some me time. I’ll call you tomorrow, ok?”.
Evan immediately jumps into whiny little bitch mode. “What the fuck! Why don’t you want to come over? I missed you all day, and I want to see you. Don’t you want to see me?”
No! I think instantaneously but pause before speaking. The street lights pass over my head, silent strips of light and dark rotating like prison window bars as I drive down the road, debating, choosing my words.
“Kasey? Are you there?”
I take a breath, “Evan, we need to talk”.
I turn onto Orchard Road, planning to take the comforting dark of the country roads, rather than deal with the headache-inducing lights and road-raged idiots on the freeway. I shift into third gear and accelerate to fourth. The long pause is more than Evan can handle.
“What’s wrong?” He demands, anxiety lacing his voice.
“Nothing’s wrong”, I say, “It’s just that… Oh Shit!” I yell.
Suddenly, two enormous forms tumble violently out of the darkness onto the road in front of my car. I slam the clutch and the brake, skidding to a stop a body length away from them. One is on top of the other, pinning it on its back. It looks up at me, its eyes caught in my headlights, and for a fraction of a second, I think they are people, but my brain can’t make sense of what it’s looking at. Don’t people have giant claws, and horns, and….wings?
The figures roll over each other, then scramble up and off the road. In a blink, they dive into the dense tree line just a few feet from the asphalt, and are absorbed by the pitch black of the woods. I sit, breathless, my car idling in the middle of the road. My headlights still trained on the space where the things had just been. My adrenaline is thundering through my veins as I try to make sense of whatever it was I have just seen. What were they? And, were they…fighting?
“Babe, babe, are you okay?” Evan’s annoying voice through the car speakers jolts me back into the moment. I quickly shift the car into gear and begin to go down the road, slowly, cautiously.
“BABE! Kasey, are you there! What the fuck is going on?”
I begin to stammer, “I,.... I uh, I’m okay. I just saw…..” but I don’t have words to describe what I had just seen. What had I just seen? Was one of them looking at me?
“Saw what?” Evan says “Kasey, what the hell is happening?”
All I can think of is getting off the phone, and before I can make a coherent plan for a sentence, my mouth says, “Evan, I don’t think we should see each other anymore”.
“WHA-.” I hit the end call button before he finishes the word.
It was deer. I think. It had to be. My phone buzzes immediately and the ringtone blasts through the car, making me jump. I hit end call on the dash. It’s rutting season right? But I know it’s too early for mating season for white tails. I also know those were no deer.
Bears? They could have been bears. The phone rings again, and again, I hit end call.
“Yeah MacLeod. Bears” I say, trying to soothe myself. “Large, hairless, fighting bears where no bears have been seen in a generation that just looked kinda people shaped….and had horns…and…freakin bat wings ’Cause of a trick of the light or something….yeaaah.” I drum my fingertips on the wheel anxiously.
My phone rings again, and with an exasperated growl, I hit the decline call button again. I drive down the dark country road for another mile or so, my phone buzzing every thirty seconds as Evan is clearly tail-spinning into panic texting. I grab the stupid phone and turn it off. Then, on a whim, pull off the road to a little picnic park area. I drive a small circle in the parking lot and stop so the car is facing the road. I shift into neutral and hold my foot on the brake, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. I sit, thinking for a moment, replaying the incident over and over in my mind. Seriously, what the hell were those things?
My science nerd surfaces as I mentally begin cataloging the details I noticed. “Color. What color were they? Grey? Maybe kinda bluish. No, Brown… definitely a dark sort of brown. No, it was too fast and too dark to tell. Bipedal? I think they had two legs and two arms. But they couldn’t of had arms, they had to have had four legs”.
Suddenly, the word “sasquatch” arches over my brain like a cartoon rainbow, and I shake my head from side to side to clear the silliness out of it. But I distinctly remember seeing large clawed toes on the feet of one of the creatures, “like… like an ostrich, no, like a bear, no… a dinosaur? But the wings...
“Oh my stars, I am losing my mind,” I say out loud. I need some air.
I pull up the emergency brake and let the car idle as I open the door and get out. I stand there next to the open doorway of my Honda, in the dark parking lot. A car passes, and catches briefly in my headlights. I notice a little fog gathering on the road and realize it’s a bit chilly out. I take a slow, deep breath of cool air and look up at the overcast night sky. The meager light of the new moon can not penetrate the cloud cover, and the night feels extra dark.
Maybe I had just imagined it, or maybe it was as simple as two big trash bags caught in the wind, and my imagination had taken a major creative split-second solo.
I am starting to talk myself into that simple, rational explanation and am about to get back in the car when I feel the hair on the back of my neck gently rise. My stomach drops as the dreadful, desperately awful feeling of being watched washes over me like freezing cold water.
My head shoots up, my eyes scanning around in the dark, but they are unadjusted, and I can‘t see anything. I squint at the picnic tables and the treeline, straining for any evidence of movement. Nothing. I turn towards my seat and am about to slide into it when I halt at the sound of a deep, low growl. It seems to emanate from the trees just a few yards into the dark from where I stand. My fear violently crashes into my flight response, and I throw myself into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut and quickly hitting the lock button. Instinctively, my hands release the brake and find the gear shift. Before I know it, I am speeding down the road.
“Get a grip, MacLeod,” I say to myself as I speed away from the little park. “Clearly, I am losing it”. I grip the wheel tightly and try to breathe nice and slow. Usually, I would listen to a podcast or one of my playlists on the 35-minute drive home, but instead, I just turn on the radio and turn the sound down low. I need background noise, something I don’t have to think about to occupy my mind.
I drive to Dad’s in a state of subdued anxiety. When I pull in the driveway, I park as close to the house as I can, making sure my driver’s side door occupies the small space lit by the porch light. I know this means I will have to move my car in the morning when Dad can’t get his truck out of the garage, but I don’t care.
Normally, I would consider myself a steady, stable, rational person. I am not prone to panic or easily triggered to fear, but the whole thing has just totally unnerved me. I take a deep breath, grab my phone and purse, and head inside.
It’s a few minutes before 10:00 PM by the grandfather clock in the entryway. I put my purse on the table next to the door, slide off my shoes, grab my phone, and walk through the small foyer to the living room, where my Dad, Timothy MacLeod, is stretched out on the couch, watching a rerun of Futurama on TV.
“Hey, kid,” he says without looking up.
“Hey, pops,” I answer. I walk through the living room to the hall bathroom, or rather the powder room, as my mother had insisted on calling it. Mom had a need to call things by their formal names. I pee and wash my hands, then lean on the small counter on my palms, staring at the brass-framed oval mirror mom had found years ago while antiquing. It’s ornate, with little flowers and cherubs on the lower half of the frame. I had always found it a weird choice. It’s too fancy for a powder room and frankly outside my mother’s usual taste.
I didn’t grow up in this house. We moved here halfway through my senior year of high school. I only had one afternoon class, and for the rest of the school day, I took post-secondary college credit courses at the community college, which was close by. This place was a little smaller than my childhood home, and in a dense neighborhood of smaller houses with fewer young families. It was a charming two-story brick cottage, with the master bedroom on the ground floor and two cozy bedrooms upstairs. The bedrooms shared a jack-and-jill style bathroom. It was perfect for their golden years and grandkids.
My mom, Janis, had spent a good part of her time (and money) in the years before she died perfecting their retirement home. She’d carefully collected pieces of furniture and art for every room, obsessing on wood stains and matching trim. Her tastes leaned towards the classic and elegant while avoiding the more flowery or flamboyant. But every so often, Janis would add something a little bit whimsical, a little less controlled. I loved that powder room mirror. As I looked at the little figures encircling the bottom of it, I briefly wondered if Dad would ever want to do any redecorating, now that it was just him. Him and, well, me, I guess.
I turn my gaze to my reflection and suck air across my teeth, shrinking back from the image. Yikes! I think. My hair is a mess, the deep auburn wavy curls flopped everywhere. My green eyes look bloodshot. I take off my glasses and lean close to the mirror, the tiny dark green flecks in my irises matched against the little red vessels, weirdly make me think of Christmas. I miss my mom, I think.
It comes over me like a wave. That desperate sadness that ebbs and flows with a profound loss. Grief is funny that way. After the initial phase, the pain lessens, and it becomes manageable, but it never really goes away. It can’t be felt all the time, because then a person would feel nothing else, and literally, they would never get anything done. But it sneaks up on a person, popping out of nothing when you least expect it, like a macabre game of hide and seek between the layers of consciousness. I blow out a breath between my lips, making that sort of exasperated horse sound. I splash a little cool water on my face and refix my hair in its clip.
Well, that’s at least a little better, I think. Soooo, are we just not going to think about it? I ask myself. Then, under my breath, out loud, “Nope, not tonight”.
I head into the living room and grab a handful of popcorn from the bowl next to my dad. He grins at me warmly, but says nothing. I plop down next to him and watch the rest of the episode he was on. When the credits come on, I see he has fallen asleep. I nudge him to lie down on the couch, which he sleepily does, and cover him with a blanket. I give him a kiss on the forehead, whisper “night pops,” and head upstairs to bed.
