“You can't trick women into meeting you out at the beach at dark. Unless…” He trails off.
“You intend to kill them,” I finish for him. “I’m looking for a story. I don’t want to be a story,” I mumble.
“You said you liked long walks on the beach,” Mark blurts out. He’s now looking at me like I’m the crazy one. “And that age doesn't matter.” I have no idea what he’s talking about. He must realize this by the look on my face. “Tips and Tricks to Landing a Hometown Girl.” I groan as Mark says the name of an article I wrote a few months ago. It was not my best piece.
Sometimes I have to come up with fluff to fill the paper. Little did I know that it would come back to bite me in the butt. I’m not even mad at Mark at this point. I’m more upset that once again there is no story for me to dig into.
What’s the point of being a reporter if there’s never anything to report? I’m starting to think I might never be able to have a career here in town. Which blows because I do love Cherry Falls.
“Go home, Mark. And don’t do anything creepy like this ever again, or I’ll call Sheriff Larson for real next time. Get a dating app like everyone else.” I sigh, disappointed in how this night has turned out. I get it. The dating pool in Cherry Falls is slim pickins, it feels like. You can't date anyone that someone else hasn't already dated.
“I’m not leaving you here with him.” Mark's eyes flick back over to the giant who is still holding all of my belongings.
“I can handle it.” I shift to face the man again. He might not have been trying to steal Mark’s car, but he was up to something. I want to know what that something is. He might just be my next story.
Chapter Three
Corby
"Long walks on the beach?" I arch an eyebrow. The woman in front of me looks like she's a city girl with her camera, her electric Leaf car, her new cellphone.
She blushes lightly and clears her throat. "I guess you didn't read my article on dating."
Things start clicking into place. Camera. Nosy. Article on dating. She must write for a magazine. My eyes fall to the tips of her ink-stained fingers. Scratch that. A newspaper.
I'm charmed. Newspapers are relics from the dinosaur age. "The Cherry Falls Gazette?" I guess.
Her eyes widen. "How did you know?"
"I recognized you." It's not wholly a lie. I may not know her name, but I identified the hallmarks of a writer. It's essentially the same thing.
"I don't recognize you, and I know everyone in this town," she shoots back. The flecks of gold in her hazel eyes are popping. She looks alive and energized, and I want to rip the clip out of her hair, lay her on the ground and dive into her velvet-lined cunt and absorb her energy. I haven’t felt this invigorated since my first book hit the Times.
"You're welcome to follow me home and make sure I'm not doing anything illegal," I invite. I strive to make my tone as bland as possible so that she's not scared away by my lust. If she could peel back my skull and find out what’s percolating inside my brain, she’d get in her car and run me over—twice.
"Sure. Let's go," she replies, to my surprise.
Quickly, I mentally scan my house. It's a mess. I've not unpacked many boxes since I moved in months ago. It's not Mark's backseat level of messy, but it's not clean either. There's only one way that she's going to find my place acceptable.
"You'll have to wear a blindfold."
"I have to what?" she squeaks.
"Blindfold. People aren't allowed to see where I live. It's just one of my rules." I'm making things up on the fly now, and even that feels stimulating. My creativity has been long absent—nothing more than a husk blowing around in the empty landscape of my dead imagination.
"I am not going to some strange man's house blindfolded, no matter how attractive he is."
"You think I'm attractive?" I mull that statement over with pleasure. "I find you attractive, too. It seems like we're on the same page."
This sounds like consent to me. I clasp her wrist and begin dragging her toward my car. She's surprisingly resistant, given that she wants to know everything about me and finds me attractive. You'd think she would be racing to get into my car.
Before I cut off contact with humans, I had to beat women off with a stick. It got so annoying that I couldn't go to any of the places around my building anymore. The coffee shop I used to write at was filled with women. The barber shop on the corner was booked up for weeks with strangers. Some would disguise themselves as a delivery person or once even an internet repair tech who stripped off her jumpsuit and told me she was ready to repair my modem.