Chapter 1
Dedicated to my sister, thanks for always reading my stories.
It was on a bright scorching summer evening that Carlos Santaños decided to drive out to Ute Lake. Antonio and Angel, twin brothers from his job at the local copper mine, had invited him that morning to join them at a lakeside barbeque with some of the local chicas but he hadn’t been in the mood at the time. He had worked the late shift as one of the head supervisors and hadn’t wanted to do anything but sleep. But upon waking to a pair of stray dogs scuffling just outside his window, he had sat up in bed and felt a pang of loneliness. It had been nearly two years since he’d had a steady relationship, relying instead on a local call girl to satiate his needs. Thinking of her sent another pang through his chest and he pushed the tattered sheets off his lap. He needed a girl over tonight, one he didn’t have to pay to be with him. He looked around his rented room forlornly.
A pile of filthy laundry languished in the corner by the foot of his mattress, which rested on the floor. A digital clock sitting on a small end table by the door reported glowingly that it was 16:37. He had plenty of time to eat, tidy up a little, and run through the shower before it got dark. In deep summer, the sun didn’t set until nearly nine o’ clock. If he got up now he should arrive just as the meat came off the grill and the beers were passed around. Carlos sat up and stretched his arms high over his head, yawning as he scratched the back of his neck. His hand lingered just below his hairline for a moment. A memory flashed across his mind’s eye.
Soft lips. Full breasts. An arched eyebrow and a teasing laugh. Her carefully manicured hands pushing him down onto the mattress. The sound of her panting in his ear. Her hand on the back of his neck.
And just like that he was alone again. Nina. He shook her name out of his thoughts, rubbing at the goosebumps that had formed on his arms. She didn’t love him. He was just another client to her. He knew it from her rehearsed giggles and coy smiles and her urgency to leave after she had bed him and money had exchanged hands. But still, his heart wouldn’t heed the obvious. He felt a small bubble of affection in his chest as he pictured her in a frilly apron making fresh tortillas with a smiling baby on her hip, his baby. He smiled. But he only let the fantasy linger for a moment before returning to reality. He had girls to woo and beers to drink. He grabbed the towel hanging on the back of his bedroom door and entered the bathroom he shared with several other blue collar workers.
After a quick shower and shave, he spritzed himself head to toe with cologne, ran a comb through his wet hair, and, as an afterthought, wiped down the counter and rinsed his beard trimmings down the sink. If he brought a girl home from the party he couldn’t have her thinking he was a slob. He fished a condom out of the end table back in his room just in case he and a prospective girl didn’t make it home before desire overcame them. He scooped the dirty laundry off his floor and jammed it into his closet then sprayed the mattress and carpet with air freshener. Then he turned the window A/C unit to max cooling and put the ceiling fan on high. Carlos had long ago learned that bringing a girl home to a chilly room almost guaranteed cuddling and cuddling often led to other desirable things. With that he pulled a tank top over his head and shut the door.
Outside the house, Carlos ate a handful of trail mix as he threw his towel and sunglasses onto the passenger seat of his Bronco. Its rust-red paint gave the truck a worn-but-tough look that Carlos loved. He had bought her from his uncle at eighteen and had put over 120,000 miles on the engine since then. She was still alive and kicking, despite the dashboard twinkling like a Christmas tree every time he went to turn the engine over. They had that in common which is why he loved her.
As Carlos got behind the wheel he checked his reflection in the rearview. His dark hair curled charmingly just above his eyebrows and his light caramel eyes glinted in the evening sunlight. His teeth flashed , straight and mostly white, and he gave himself a bold wink to go with his smile. Oh yeah, he was pulling tonight, baby. Finally he turned the key in the ignition and shifted the Bronco into reverse.
It wasn’t a far drive to Logan, the small town that rested beside the lake. Maybe thirty minutes north from his house, if he drove ten over the limit. It was only 17:22 according to the dash clock, he had plenty of time to cruise down the mesa before Antonio and Angel had every girl on the lakeside eating out of their hands. He only needed to capture the attention of one, or two if he was lucky. Surely there were plenty of good options just waiting for him. He smiled, picturing the plethora of bikini-clad women lounging around the lakefront, laughing and flirting and clutching tall icy beers as they chatted with one another. He gave the Bronco a spur and she roared up to seventy five.
The countryside went winding past, windmills towering over distant ranch houses and wispy clouds diving towards the horizon. The scenic route began to descend towards the mesa and that’s when Carlos’ heart began to skip. Four years ago a young woman and her lover had taken an afternoon motorcycle ride along this very road and had swerved over the guardrail, into the ravine below. Miraculously the man survived the fall and made a full recovery after several months in the hospital. The girl wasn’t so lucky. Some of the more superstitious townfolk claimed they felt her presence pulling at their steering wheels and shirt collars when driving that route on warm nights, trying to force them off the road into the canyon so that she would have company in her craggy resting place. Or maybe even a new lover to take with her to the afterlife. They said she had always hated to be alone in life and refused to move on alone in death.
So when the cold sweat broke out on his forehead, Carlos couldn’t say he was surprised. He wasn’t exactly a believer in the supernatural but he always threw salt over his shoulder when he spilled it and tried not to walk under ladders, just in case those mundane actions somehow kept misfortune at bay. But this was something entirely different than silly rituals. This was real.
He felt her materialize into the seat beside him. Heard the crunch of his sunglasses as her weight settled on them. He refused to look. Maybe if he simply pretended not to notice, she would think him immune to her presence and wait out a different, easier victim. But her scent, of cherry blossoms and sun-warmed wood, embraced him and forced his eyes to hers. Black hair. Tan skin. Eyes so dark they blended with her pupils. A flirtatious smile danced on her full lips and she fluttered her lashes at him. She began to spin him a story as he clutched the steering wheel and refused to look at her.
Perdita. That had been her name. A latin name meaning “lost”. She had been a senior in high school, just eighteen. Her lover had been older, twenty five or twenty six, and had served as the bartender for the Cactus Flower Cantina. Her mother had warned against him, saying he was no better than Perdy’s father but she wouldn’t listen. She loved him, she said. Her family just didn’t understand. But they would. After his recovery, Perdy’s lover had admitted that they had been on their way to the courthouse to elope when the accident happened. A careless driver coming up the slope had swerved at them and he had jerked them away out of instinct, straight into the guardrail.
She had been so beautiful that afternoon. Bold dark lipstick, carefully curated dress with matching heels, and an updo that could withstand even the long ride to the courthouse. She wore a cherry blossom perfume, a gift from her grandmother for her eighteenth birthday. Only barely an adult, already determined to be a bride and start her own life. Only that desire had been cut short, her journey ended before it had a chance to begin. They say her lover moved on to a new woman and that she is already pregnant with his second child. Only four years after Perdy’s death. How. Dare. He. After proclaiming Perdy was the love of his life, how quickly his affections faded once she was gone.
It was no matter to her. She was open to new suitors herself. She told him so as she whispered these details into his ear, her icy breath on his neck. His hands clamped onto the steering wheel and his foot remained steady on the gas. He refused to fall prey to her charms, her desire, her lonely tale. She reached out and brushed his arm, her nails long and red. Like Nina’s. Nina.
He jerked his arm away and snarled but kept his eyes fixed firmly on the road. He could see the cross marker her family had constructed coming into view around the curve of asphalt ahead of him. White lilies, orange carnations, pink roses. Visible from nearly a mile away, a beacon of florals to mark the location of her final breath. Perdita pointed at it as if to say there, drop me off there. Carlos felt a thrill of hope that he had fended her off, that she was giving up. But her finger strayed to the side, toward the chasm that lined the road and from the corner of his eye, Carlos saw her smiling wickedly. But Nina stuck in his mind. He already had someone to love. Perdita could not have him.
He felt sorry for this isolated girl but his resolve hardened as they drew nearer to her final resting place. She seized his arm again, this time pleadingly, all seduction replaced with desperation. Please. She was so scared, so alone. Carlos gritted his teeth as a wave of doubt overcame him. Who cared if he loved Nina? She was a call girl. She would never love him back, just one of her many regular clients that paid her bills without ever being able to claim her as solely theirs. A blade of despair pierced him and Carlos’ grip on the steering wheel faltered.
Maybe that was all true but surely she could be made to see his affection for her? He would ask her over, pay her for her time but take the time to converse with her rather than use her body. He would convince her to trust him, to indulge his curiosity about her dreams, her goals, her beliefs. Carlos was certain she would be grateful for his interest, thank him for caring about her as a person. And maybe on her way home, her heart would twist with an unexpected longing to stay with him and she would realize he could be a soft place to land for her.
But what if she didn’t? What if she found his gesture creepy? Pathetic? Just another tactic to elicit better sex from her at a steep discount? Or, worse, what if she saw his interest as a chance to turn a profit? To be paid to fabricate dreams and plans for an hour or two instead of to spread her legs for a virtual stranger? The despair pierced him once more and he let his hands slide from the wheel into his lap. What if he frightened her so that she fled and never returned? What if she shunned him and he never had the chance to speak to her again? Carlos’ jaw slackened and a tear formed in his eye, threatening to trace down his cheek.
And he did it. He did on his own what Perdy had tried to convince him to do. He grabbed the wheel and threw it to the side just as the Bronco passed her cross, the flowers whipping their petals into the evening air as he brushed past them. The truck slammed through the guardrails with a shriek, flipping as it soared over the canyon floor. He felt his stomach piruet, felt his heart in his throat, felt the seemingly endless fall, felt his skull meet the stone through the mashed in metal of the cab. Felt his neck crumple, felt his ribs mutilate his lungs, felt his knees wrench into his teeth. Felt his fingers sever as the frame bent over them. Felt his nerves scream, aflame, felt his lifeblood wet his hair, felt his final crippled scream as it left his throat. Then he felt her hand on his neck.
Nina.
Carlos grabbed the steering wheel again and swerved around the bend, sparks flying from the guard rail where the side of the Bronco met the steel. Blood pounded in his ears as he released the gas and let the car drift to a halt. He gritted his teeth then dared to glance at the passenger seat. His sunglasses looked back at him, the left lens cracked. Carlos laughed shakily until the laugh turned into a sob and he cried into his hands for a few moments, suspended in time.
An insistent string of honks came from behind him and a car veered aggressively around his immobile vehicle, breaking him from his haze. A middle finger extended from the window and made several jabs in his direction as the infuriated passerby continued down the road. Carlos slowly collected himself and shuddered as he pushed his car back up to speed. He rolled down his windows, hoping the stifling breeze would bring him fully back to himself.
Now that he was apparently safely away from Perdy’s ghastly grasp, he had a moment to process what had happened. A ghost woman had appeared in his car, tried to seduce him into a grisly suicide, and he had somehow escaped unharmed. And now he was back on his way to the lake to meet up with his friends and some girls he had never met and had no meaningful connection to. It felt too insignificant now, too far removed from the man he had just been reborn as. He had much higher priorities now.
He felt the pull to do something drastic, seize life by the horns and force it into submission. After all he had just survived a near possession and the closeness of mortality energized him to take action rather than wait for the next brush with death that he might not dodge. He wanted to run for mayor, go skinny dipping in a public fountain, compete in the Olympics, challenge the biggest dude at the bar to a fight and win. He wanted to remind himself what it felt like to live. And he knew he didn’t want to live without Nina.
He pulled to the side of the road and yanked his phone from the cupholder. He dialed Nina’s number. She didn’t answer but he left a message asking her to call him back as soon as she could. He started driving home, taking an alternate route that wouldn’t allow Perdy’s ghost a second swipe at his soul. As he turned the corner onto his street Nina texted him. She asked what was up and if he wanted her to come by that evening. He texted back that he had to see her, whenever she could make it over the front door would be unlocked. She replied with a kissing emoji and said she would be at his place in ten.
Carlos’ heart leapt and he rushed inside to apply more cologne and check his hair, surely a disheveled mess after his ordeal with Perdy. Nina appeared in his doorway a few moments after he had finished up in the bathroom. She was wearing a red dress that hugged her hips and breasts and halted several inches above her knees. She wore a light black sweater over it and three inch heels made her eyes level with his. She smiled and set her black clutch on the side table. The vanilla latte perfume she always wore enveloped Carlos as she moved toward him, taking his hand. She said she had missed him and kissed his smooth cheek.
Carlos smiled and said he had missed her too, offering to take her sweater. Her eyes flickered down to his belt buckle and she smiled wider, saying he must have really missed her. Realizing his mistake, Carlos said he had missed her but that he just wanted to take tonight to talk, get to know her a little better. After all, they had met up almost a dozen times over the last few months and he didn’t even know where she grew up or if she had any siblings. Her smile faltered a little, a nervous laugh falling out of her. She recovered quickly and put a delicate hand on his chest, saying she would be happy to talk. She perched on the edge of his bed, watching him. He sat beside her, careful to put a respectful distance between them. Then the questions came flowing out of him.
He asked about her family, her pets, her favorite coffee place. He asked if she had ever broken a bone or gone skiing or been to another country. He asked where she wanted to grow old, if she ever saw herself as a mother, if she wanted to pursue an education and a different career. She was guarded at first, unsure of his intentions, but after a while she seemed to open up, eager to have a captive listener. Perhaps after a long life of her being expected to shut up and put out, she was refreshed by Carlos’ interest in something other than what her body could do.
After two hours –of talking, laughing, smiling– Carlos was even more smitten. Suddenly Nina checked her cellphone and mumbled that she had to get going to her next client over in Logan. Carlos’ face fell and he begged her to stay with him, talk just a little longer. She looked uncomfortably toward the door but didn’t make a move for it. Carlos seized her arm and she gasped, her shoulders tensing. She looked resigned to being molested and he immediately dropped her hand, apologizing profusely for scaring her. She looked fearfully up at him through her lashes, seeming to await a strike or sexual advance.
Instead Carlos got down on one knee and asked her to marry him, run away with him. Her mouth hung open as he professed his love, his deep affection for her as a person. She smiled stiffly and thanked him for his kind words but insisted she had to be going. Carlos asked if she would consider him. She gave a hurried maybe as she grabbed her things and rushed out the bedroom door, closing it firmly behind her. Carlos heard her car start up and crunch away down the gravel road and his heart sunk. She hadn’t leapt with joy the way he imagined and that made him incredibly nervous.
Not an hour had gone by when Carlos received a text from an unknown number telling him to leave Nina alone or he would end up dead. Carlos felt as if his heart was being torn in two. She had ratted him out to her pimp? Had he really been that threatening? The fact that she had seen him as frightening and dangerous rather than devoted and doting crushed him. He had no meaning without her. Nina had been his everything.
Carlos ran out of the small stucco home and fumbled with the lock on the driver side door of the Bronco. He rammed the keys into the ignition and revved the engine as he clunked it into drive. He carved a semi circle in the gravel driveway as he veered toward the county road. His thoughts were racing but he couldn’t catch up to a single one. He felt frozen, watching himself panic from afar, a celestial body merely observing a mortal descend into madness. Surely he could find her? He knew what she drove, a little red 1984 Volkswagen beetle. Likely she was at one of the nearby towns with another client. If he cruised through the neighborhoods he would more than likely see her. All of the surrounding towns had only a few hundred residents, she didn’t have many places to be.
He began driving down every road he could see when he remembered something. Nina had said her next client was in Logan. He turned onto the scenic highway and sped toward the lake. Without thinking, he slid around curve after curve. He couldn’t let her keep living her life this way, used by men who cared nothing for her. He had to save her. It was his duty as the man who loved her. His foot pressed nearly to the floor, the engine screaming.
Suddenly a presence manifested beside him. Perdy. What had he been thinking, taking this route after what had happened earlier that very day? He had truly gone out of his mind. He saw her dark full lips, eyes black as coal, tan skin with not a blemish on it. She grinned wickedly as she grabbed the steering wheel, thrusting it viciously to the right. His front bumper glanced off the guard rail and Carlos screamed with effort as he wrested the wheel away from her red-tipped fingers. She snarled, an inhuman sound, and lunged at him, clawing at his eyes, his neck, his arms. He howled and tried to block her onslaught with his shoulder but she was inhumanly fast, slashing again and again before he could predict her movements to defend himself.
All he could think was Nina, Nina, Nina, NINA.
Perdy grasped at his thoughts and forced her own into his head. She doesn’t love you, she’s terrified of you, you mean less than nothing to her. She will move on to some rich old tourist and marry him for his million dollar home and fat bank account, leaving Carlos and his love to die in the desert heat. That same piercing pain struck his chest and Carlos crumpled a little. Perdy kept at him. She would love him, do whatever he wanted, take care of him for all eternity. She only asked that he joined her on the other side.
And suddenly, the hopelessness muffled all other thoughts. Nina truly didn’t love him and never would. Perdy was there, stunningly beautiful in a way Nina would never be, ready to bind her soul to his. She would surely fill the hole Nina had left in his heart. Nothing else this side of forever would ever fix what Nina had done to him.
The windows shattered as the cab made contact with the canyon floor. The last thing he heard as his head folded into his chest was Perdy whispering see you soon and the steel contorting around his mangled body as the truck collapsed under its own power. The last thing he tasted was the blood on his lips and the acrid air of a fire. The last thing he saw was the crescent moon rising upside down over the canyon. And the last thing he felt was her hand on his neck.
