The Beast

The Beast

SHANTEA GAUTHIER

Copyright © 2015 Shantea Gauthier

www.shanteagauthier.com

All rights reserved.

Cover Art: Alec Cheline

www.chelinedesigns.com

ISBN:
1517163455 

ISBN-13:
978-1517163457

To my parents,

For everything

CHAPTER 1

"Is that your real name?"

I didn't know until hearing that question that I could 
get
 more tense. My day started with the crispy, dried up husk of a dead spider in my bed and progressed right on to a torn shirt, a car that refused to start until the very minute I was supposed to be
at
work, spilt coffee, and a computer crash at work. It seemed like things were starting to look up when I learned that some people in my department got raises, until I learned that every 
man
 in my department had gotten a raise, leaving the three women behind. Again. After that was a check engine light, dropped keys, collections calls and a resulting broken cell phone when I threw it against a wall. Then came the information that my cell phone insurance had expired and I would have to pay full price to replace it. After that, naturally, I needed gas.  

It wasn't the kind of bad day where you want to curl up with a tub of ice cream and watch TV. It was the kind of bad day where you want to crash your car into the gas pump and might even take up smoking for the occasion if it increases the risk of explosion.

If the spotty, doe-eyed cashier wasn't holding my change and driver's license hostage behind a sheet of Plexiglas I might have snatched it out of his hand and walked away. The stupid question made me rethink the cashier's life.

As in, whether he
really
needed it.

"Come on," someone said from behind me to the cashier. "There's a line back here, quit flirting and give the lady her change!"

Convinced that I wasn't going to answer his stupid question, the cashier handed my change and driver's license over and on the way out I saw the man who had come to my rescue. He was tall, dark and handsome, of course. The stranger flashed a smile at me after he had accomplished what my silent glaring couldn't. He was a sparkly shirt and handful of hair gel away from being a strip club announcer.

              I returned his smile with an especially nasty look before letting myself out onto the wet black pavement. The crystal clear stars against the black velvet sky did nothing to soothe me. I was having the worst day ever and the universe couldn’t even be so kind as to grant me a little bad weather to match.

              I threw the bag with the six pack of beer I just bought into my trunk and pulled a bottle of soda out to drink on the ride home. I took the handle of the driver side door in my left hand and the soda bottle in my right hand erupted. Cursing, I threw it wildly, sent it bouncing off of the hood of my car. A fresh spray of dark, sticky liquid coated my windshield and the pearl paint of the hood. When the initial gush stopped, the bottle sat on the asphalt leaking quietly. I carried it to the trash can cursing it and its defective cap. I cursed its mother, and its children, and its stupid sheep face, and its stupid "ran out of sick days, so I'm calling in dead" sign on his stupid cubicle.

              That last one wasn't the soda bottle. That was Bob, who should have gotten a pink slip instead of a raise. He spent more time decorating his desk than doing actual work, yet somehow he managed to get a raise above me, and-

              "Do you need a towel?" The handsome stranger asked, interrupting my curses and casually holding a blue and white striped towel draped over his open palm.

              I glared my response.

             
"My name's Simon," he continued amiably. "I've seen what happens when people ask your name, so I'll leave that alone."

              He was mocking me. I glared some more and went back to my car.

              "I'm serious about the towel," he said, raising it slightly, as if I couldn’t see it unless it was moving. "You don't want to ruin your seats."

              I turned to face him, one hand firmly planted in a splatter of sticky soda that somehow landed on my driver's door window during the explosion and took a long breath before answering.

              "Thank you, Simon," I said levelly. "But no, I would not like a towel. In fact, I would very much like to get soda all over my seats. After that I think I'd like to pour gasoline all over my car. And then, more than anything else in the world
,
I would
love
to light the damned thing on fire just to watch it burn." I released the door handle and moved closer to him, propelled by all of the minor annoyances that fueled my mood.  "But wouldn't you know it, gas is just so damned expensive and I need this last thirty two dollars to make the insurance payment on this failure of a hybrid. So I think I'll stick with the soda pants. Good night, Simon."

              He smiled at me, revealing straight white teeth and dimples.

             
Dimples are girly,
I thought, still scowling, turning the key in the ignition. It clicked uselessly.
I wonder how much he paid for all that dental work.

             
He seemed determined to watch me drive away. My car was determined not to go anywhere. I got out and slammed the door.

              “Scratch that,” I called. “I need this thirty two dollars for a
cab
!”

              I reached into my pocked for my cell phone before remembering that I didn’t have it. I opened the door to fish for change for the pay phone.

              "Come with me instead," Simon said, still grinning a few paces away, standing near his battered maroon sedan, leaning against the inside of the open door.

              I blinked in mute confusion. I opened my mouth to respond, closed it, opened it again. "What?" I finally managed.

              "I’ll give you a ride," he shrugged. "I don’t care about my car seats. It's crappy and old anyway. Maybe you can even light it on fire." He smiled again, one dimple sinking in deeper than the other.

              I realized I was smiling back and immediately stopped. I eyed him suspiciously. He was probably a con artist with his less attractive friends lurking in the shadows nearby, waiting to steal my car.

             
Let them have it,
I thought.
The stupid car sucks anyway. I'm always out of gas.

              Maybe his intentions were even worse and he and the friends I imagined for him intended for me to be on the news the next morning, "found slain" in the hills, half eaten by coyotes.

             
Let them try,
I thought.

              "Forget it," I said. I slumped against my car seat for a moment, just wanting something to go right. I’d done everything right, like I always did, and what did I ever gain from it? Maybe, just maybe, given the circumstances, getting into a car with a stranger was the right thing to do.

             
If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten,
I reasoned, unsure of where I'd heard it before. Stupid quotes were always jumping into my head like that. Probably because they were always jumping out of my supervisor's mouth at work. I scowled. Work was even ruining my moment of spontaneity.

              He didn't seem at all surprised when I agreed. He just kept smiling as he walked around his car and opened the passenger door for me. I heard him chuckle softly as I climbed in, dripping jeans and all, before he closed the door.

              "Soda pants."

              As I watched my car and the gas station fade out of sight, I realized I was probably making a mistake.

              “So,” he said, stopped at the light just before the freeway onramps. “Do you want to go home? Which way?”

              “I don’t know,” I said. “No, I don’t really want to go home.”

              I didn’t want to wade through my drunk neighbors just to find out which bill was overdue and which utility I might be living without
this
week. We passed a few exits before I spoke again.

              "So what now?" I asked. "Where are we going?"

              "If you are
really
asking if I'm going to leave you for dead in a ditch somewhere, the answer is no. I won't hurt you like that."

             
Like that.
I nodded and rolled the window down.

              The inferno of my temper started to cool as the warm night air combed through my hair and swept away the old car smell coming out of the air conditioner vents. Watching the city lights pass below I realized how much I liked living after all, but I wasn't afraid. Every tree was a tall black sentry, promising me protection in the darkness outside. A coyote's yip was a message that tonight I would not be fighting for my life. I shifted my gaze to Simon and examined him from the corner of my eyes.

              Shadows played tag with lights across the stubbly surface of his cheeks. His watchful brown eyes flicked across the road between long dark lashes. The grey t-shirt he wore did little to disguise his lean, muscular frame and when he turned the steering wheel I could see the faint hint of bicep rippling under the surface of his skin. I was starting to think that he was too perfect to be real when I noticed a fat scar the length of my finger that started at the corner of his jaw and stretched just under his ear into his hairline where it interrupted the thick field of dark brown hair. His dimples started to sink in and I knew he could tell I was staring.

              By the time I looked out the window again, I was smiling too.

              "Here we are," he said. We were pulled over to the side of the freeway almost at the crest of a hill.

              "We aren't anywhere.” Before I could object further, he hopped out and opened my door.

             
Here it is,
I thought.
He's just going to throw me off a mountain.

             
The thought came without feeling, and a chorus of crickets reassured me that everything would be okay. The faint smell of warm wet earth agreed. 

              In the light of the bright stars I followed him under a huge old oak tree with thick, acorn laden branches and over a trickle of water so small it could barely be called a stream.

              When we emerged from the darkness under the tree, it was onto an open field that ended in a cliff.

              "You can see the whole city from here," he said, with a hint of something like pride in his voice.

              Colored lights sparkled up at me from below.

              Naturally, I tried to find my apartment building.

              "If you look the other way you can see the valley where that creek goes, but it's not as impressive at night. Or in the summer. And if you look up-" he said, turning his face to the sky.

              I looked up.

              "It feels like you can see the whole sky."

              It felt exactly like that. Inky blackness surrounded me on all sides, studded with diamonds. If I knew any constellations I would have been able to find them all in the generous sprinkling of stars overhead. I felt myself rising up, dizzy with elation, afraid to look down out of a sudden feeling that the ground wouldn't be there and I would float away in space.

              Simon's voice called me back. "Here, have a seat."

              He spread the towel out on the ground. I sat on one end and he sat on the other.

              "What were you so upset about at the gas station?" he asked. "I'm sure it wasn't just the kid asking your name. You don't seem quite that unreasonable."

              I let out a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "You've known me all of two minutes," I said.

              "And yet, you got into my car and followed me out into the hills." His deep warm voice, softened by the gentle breeze that swept around us relaxed me the way candles and bubble baths never could. I leaned back on my hands and the wind pushed my hair around so that it tickled my wrists. I shook my head and leaned back slightly until I knew that my hair was touching the ground, something I hadn't done since I was a little kid and everyone called me Pocahontas.

              Looking out at the sparkling city and the sparkling sky with the rustle of leaves and a handsome new friend for company, I couldn’t remember what had upset me. It was all so small and silly compared to everything around me, but I couldn’t leave his question just hanging in the air. "Just… life I guess. It was just one of those days where nothing goes right, you know?"

              A gusty little breath of wind ruffled the hairs on my arms.

              "Well, I hope that bringing you here made it a little better. It always makes me feel better."

              I looked over my shoulder at him to see him smiling at me. His dimples weren't so girly after all. They were a comforting feature of the landscape, like the little stream with its quiet trickle. Unlike the stream, it gave my heart a little flutter to realize that the dimples were there just for me. I smiled back and, not knowing what else to do, I looked up again at the sky.