Save Me: A dark romantic thriller (Novel) (7 page)

“Yes.” Inconspicuously, Ashley slipped a plain white envelope underneath the table.

Without bothering to count it, Kitty tucked the cash into her purse. Then she passed Ashley the tan pill bottle.

“Awesome!” Ashley said, relieved. “Thanks. Hey, I was also wondering if you could get me some sleeping pills?”

“Sleeping pills, are you serious?”

“Uh huh. If you could I would really appreciate it. I don’t know what it is; I just can’t seem to turn my mind off lately.”

“Why do you think that is?” Kitty asked. “Is your baby keeping you up?”

“No. It’s not really that. I love my baby girl. Kimberly means the world to me. It’s just . . . I’m still having a lot of nightmares.”

“Because if it is your daughter keeping you up, that’s normal.”

Ashley sighed. She wanted to get back to the subject. “So does that mean you’ll hook me up? I’ll pay extra.”

“You couldn’t afford my fee.”

“Try me.”

After thinking it over, Kitty revealed her price. “I told you it’d be expensive.”

“No problem. I can cover that.” Then, as an afterthought Ashley added, “Yeah. I need something that’ll put me out completely. So I don’t have to hear the voices.”

“You hear voices?”

“Yes. Sometimes.” She was embarrassed.

“Whoa! What kind of voices?”

“Them . . . you know the men who raped me . . . Never mind.”

“Oh you poor dear.”

Ashley tried to explain that she wasn‘t crazy.

“I’ll tell you what,” Kitty said, groping through her bag again. “I’ll start you off with these.” Underneath the table she handed Ashley a second pill bottle. “These are from my own personal stash. They’ll put you to sleep in twenty minutes. Guaranteed! But don’t mix them with wine. Also, only take a couple at a time. I‘ll get you more in a few days. Consider that a sample.”

“Okay. You’re the best, Kitty. See you later.”

“You’ve got it.”

***

The old cemetery where Peter was buried was on the way home. Ashley decided to stop and visit his grave. Since his funeral, she’d been coming here once a month.

The cemetery, which had a creaky iron gate, was home to roughly three hundred graves, some dating as far back as the Revolutionary War.

When Ashley’s had stopped at her deceased husband’s tombstone, (1979-2003) she bent down and in front of it, placed a big bouquet of yellow roses.

“I thought you might like these,” she said. “It’s all I can do now, Peter. Is just keep bringing you flowers and pray that somehow you can hear me.” Her black sunglasses hid the tears in her eyes. “I hope you’re not disappointed in me. It’s not like I want to take the pills, and drink so much, it’s just I feel like I have to. For a little while anyway, until the pain goes away.”

As it often did whenever she came here, Ashley felt her heart thumping feverishly.

“A year ago,” she resumed, “all I ever worried about was money, and whether it would work out if we moved in with my mother. And if your parents would love the baby. Now you’re gone and I don’t have to worry about money anymore, at least not the way we used to.” She took off her shades briefly to dab, with a tissue, her moistened eyes. “I’d return all that insurance money right now though, Peter, if I could have you back. I could never replace you. Nothing can. Nothing or no one.”

As she listened to the leaves of the trees swooshing in the light breeze, a gravedigger suddenly lured Ashley’s attention.

He stood about forty yards away near a big mound of recently dug soil. The man had white hair, a white beard, and a pudgy gut that wobbled like a bowl of Jell-O. His pale t-shirt had stains on it from both sweat and dirt. Ashley also noticed that the gravedigger had a cigar in his mouth. She could smell the smoke. It reminded her of a tobacco shop.

Now while the grave digger used his shovel to finish excavating what would soon be someone‘s final resting ground, he glanced at Ashley.

She did not know why, but this guy scared her. In all of the times Ashley had come to the cemetery, she had never seen this person before. Or for that matter, any grave digger.

Ignoring him, she went back to conversing with Peter‘s tombstone: “I think your parents are finally coming around. I know I already told you that, Peter, the last time I was here, yet I really think it’s true. I feel one day soon your folks and I will become genuine friends . . . I truly believe they want to become apart of Kimberly’s life. The last time I talked to them, you would have been surprised. They made me put the baby on the phone, and there was your father saying ‘Goo goo gaa ga. Is that my granddaughter?’ I couldn‘t believe it.”

Why did it often take misfortune to make people realize what was truly important in life? If Ashley hadn’t been raped, Brad and Teri Ferguson would have still been treating her like garbage.

Before she had a chance to finish her thought, something behind Ashley distracted her: the sound of someone coughing. Once more, it was the grave digger. He had stopped what he was doing. Now he stood in the shade of sycamore tree. His eyes were glued to Ashley. As mucky sweat dripped from the old-timer’s forehead, he extracted, from his breast pocket, a match. He then produced a flame and rekindled his cigar.

What happened after that almost compelled Ashley to scream.

The gravedigger, as if by supernatural influence, began to physically transform into the evil rapist Craig Elliot. The white stubble on his chin magically darkened, became a full-grown black beard. The wrinkles near his eyes and mouth vanished, his chubby body thinned. Now the gravedigger looked exactly the way Ashley had remembered Craig Elliot from field when the flashlight had momentarily lit up his face, and also from the police photographs. Like Charles Mansion.

Still staring in her direction, the bearded man picked up the shovel and then started to walk toward Peter‘s plot. A noisy swarm of flies buzzed near his head.
Hello Christina
, he spoke, while exhaling cigar smoke.
Nice to see you again. We don’t get too many visitors here in the land of the dead. Are you coming to join us
?

“What do you want from me?” Ashley demanded, feeling her knees sink. “Just go away! You can’t be real? You just can’t be real. It’s impossible!”

With the shovel, Craig pointed to the ditch he had dug.
Do you like that spot? I know it’s not right next to your hubby’s grave. But at least it’s in the same bone yard. Ha! Ha! Ha!
He looked around, admiring the many stones and crosses.
And what a peaceful bone yard it is. You’d do yourself proud to be buried here
.

Paranoid, Ashley suddenly lunged toward this, ghost, apparition, whatever it was, and then yanked the rusty shovel from its hand. “I won’t let you hurt me again!” she hollered, swinging the shovel at Craig Elliot’s head. She missed by about five of six inches.

“Young lady! Get a hold of yourself. I’m not going to hurt you. I just wanted to know if you knew the time.”

Now what Ashley observed standing in front of her was no longer her attacker. Rather, it was merely a meek old man who appeared to be petrified by what she had just done. The grave digger, who at this point had white hair again as well as a white beard, had his hands held up near his startled eyes, in case he had to shield his face from another chopping swipe.

Ashamed, Ashley quickly shook the man’s hand and then apologized.

How could her mind have played such a despicable trick on her like that? Sometimes, because of how depressed she’d been, she couldn’t distinguish the difference between reality and fantasy? A few more inches with the shovel to the right, and Ashley might have killed this fellow!

“Again, please except my sincere apology sir,” she added. “I don’t know what made me do that. I guess I thought you were . . . someone else.”

Mystified, the gravedigger regarded her cautiously. “Who’d you think I was?”

“Just someone- who had once caused me a lot of pain.”

At age sixty-four Claire Whittaker looked more like a woman in her late forties, as opposed to someone who would soon be eligible to collect social security.

She had platinum hair that dropped just beyond her shoulders, a fresh face, and a curvy figure that many men still found appealing. When she and Ashley were in public together they communicated the image of a youthful and older version of Barbie.

After lovingly rocking her granddaughter Kimberly to sleep, Claire stopped in the upstairs hallway for a moment to stare at one of Ashley’s paintings.

The abstract representation of a flower vase, reminded Claire how good of an artist her daughter was. The painting, completed when Ashley had been a teenager, also made Claire think of happier times.

These days she was worried about Ashley and strongly believed that she should have remained in group therapy, which she had only attended for about a month.

Losing Peter had been difficult enough. Then Ashley was raped. How could anyone, especially someone so young, deal with those set of circumstances? Ashley had been through more pain and heartbreak than most people will in a lifetime.

Even so, she needed to get it together. Claire had been growing tired of watching her daughter sulk.

How long did Ashley intend to feel sorry for herself? Another year? Another ten years? Claire believed a doting boyfriend was what her daughter needed to help hoist her out of her funk.

Sometimes Ashley would become so withdrawn; she would stare out the living room window for hours, looking like a zombie, particularly when it rained. Or she would hang out on the front porch, with her easel set up painting, and two or three hours later there would be barely anything on the canvas.

One day Claire had asked her daughter what she was working on and Ashley, with her pallet and brush in her hand, had looked at her mother as if she were in a trance and had stated that until something formed on her canvas she wouldn’t know what the painting was supposed to be. She had said this in a snotty way, followed by a loud irritated sigh that needed no translation, the gesture meant bug off!

The one thing, however, that displeased Claire more than anything; she disliked the fact that her daughter had recently taken up smoking.

Claire viewed cigarettes as vile.

Throughout her life, she had known many people who had indulged in nicotine, which had included Ashley’s father.

At one point during their marriage, Claire’s husband Walter had been up to two packs daily. Back in those days it had seemed to her that her coughing spouse, whether it was down at the diner they owned or at home, either had a cigarette in his mouth, or had been preparing to light one.

Claire not only loathed the way tobacco made one’s breath and clothing smell, she also feared its toxic nature. What’s more, cigarettes were dangerous to innocent persons nearby, like babies.

Yes! That was at the hub of the issue. Claire was upset that Ashley smoked in front of the baby. There she‘d be, on the front porch, feeding, with one hand, Kimberly a bottle, while with her other hand she would be puffing her cancer stick.

Naturally Claire assumed her daughter, as intelligent as she was, should have known how detrimental, for the child, secondhand smoke could be.

Though perhaps Ashley’s logic suggested, because she puffed outdoors, that this threat didn’t apply. Then again, it seemed rather strange how Ashley would always remember to keep Kimberly away when she was using turpentine to clean her paint brushes.

Lately, it had also come to Claire’s attention that her daughter had developed a taste for alcohol.

Ashley had a preference for red Californian wine, the kind that came in the gallon-sized jugs. She usually bought a few of these bottles at a time. One would go straight into the refrigerator, while the others would be stored in the kitchen cabinet.

Another criticism Claire had regarding Ashley had to do with coffee. In the morning if she didn’t have it, she’d become grouchy, and would start slamming the cupboard doors and tossing silverware around, grumbling:

We can’t be out of coffee already, are we? Because if we are, we’re going to have to start buying bigger cans. I can’t function when I don’t have coffee! I could have sworn we had another can of Maxwell House.

Her tantrum would continue until she settled on a backup plan, hot chocolate or tea.

Still, with that said, Ashley did have admirable qualities. Therefore living with her wasn’t all bad.

Claire liked how her daughter helped out in the kitchen. She scrubbed greasy pots and pans, loaded the dishwasher, sponged the counters, and took the garbage out. Ashley also took it upon herself to vacuum the floors in all of the rooms and to dust the furniture, which Claire viewed as a considerate gesture.

She could cook too. Ashley could cook almost anything. Different styles too, Italian, Mexican, and Chinese. In addition, she made fabulous desserts. In fact, Ashley was the only person Claire had ever known who could make homemade ice cream taste the way it did when you bought it at the local parlor. Hers may have even been better.

Two and a half years before, when Ashley had packed her bags to go live with Peter, Claire, even though her daughter had only moved a few blocks away, had felt abandoned.

The prevailing emptiness she had undergone, especially when she would look at Ashley’s unoccupied room, had been a strict reminder to her as to how life, if you’re not emotionally prepared, can really hurt.

Therefore, whether the bad presently outweighed the good, or vice versa, Claire was content on dealing with the situation. After all, she had been the one who had asked her daughter to come and live back home. Claire saw it as normal. This was the new millennium. Young adults today sometimes lived at home until they were in their thirties.

On the drive home from the cemetery, Ashley was so distracted; she could barely concentrate on the highway, and felt compelled to start sipping from the pint of Smirnoff vodka that she had in the glove compartment.