Dark Country (Detective Loki from Prisoners Fan Fiction)

Part II: Stake Out

Since first meeting David, I usually kept running into him at the same grocery store, and coincidentally on the same nights. Perhaps we were on the same schedule, I reasoned. After all, it was the only store for miles.

Unfortunately, our exchanges were generally bland. During our brief conversations, we’d either cover what was going on currently in local news or some other prittle-prattle.

He was a closemouthed man, and I could tell he detested small talk so I always endeavored to keep the conversations short. I was already giving up on this prospect anyway. I highly doubted we would ever meet outside of this situation.

On rare occasions I’d see him driving around in a black Ford Crown Victoria that was obviously a cop car. So focused was he on the task at hand that, much to my dismay, he never noticed me back. Moreover, I never saw him accompanied by anyone else. His career was unmistakably his number one priority in life.

As the months went passing by, I slowly adjusted to my new life in this tiny town. Compared to the city I used to live in, this place lacked progress, activity, and most perturbing, excitement. And the weather was depressing: it was either always cloudy or raining. It wouldn’t be long before I began to question my sanity for having moved to a place like this.

At least I had a cute house, albeit small, but it was all mine. Apparently I had a cat, too. This orange cat decked out with cool-looking swirling patterns all over his coat kept showing up on my front porch. It wasn’t long before I felt compelled to feed him, and so named him Ron Weasley for chits and giggles.

It was early morning when I routinely stepped outside to feed Ron. I could feel the cool crisp air, and hear the rustling of turned leaves: the first signs of my favorite season, autumn. I got so excited that I decided to hang around for a bit, and sat on the Adirondack chair to relax and enjoy the scenery. On days like this I didn’t miss the big city I had left behind.

But something out of place caught my eye: a black car parked several feet down my street. I could tell from the slumped outline of a body that there was someone inside. Were they okay?

Immediately I stood up and walked to the end of the short driveway towards the street. From where I stood, I saw some movement happening inside the car, and was able to see that it was a man. He’d been hunched over the steering wheel as if he’d been dozing.

I couldn’t make out his facial features since he was wearing a black watch cap that hung low just above his eyes. Except that the car was eerily familiar: it looked exactly like David’s car. Stupefied and utterly curious at the same time, I decided to get a closer look at this odd spectacle. I wanted to confirm if it really was David after all.

As I gradually drew nearer, he did something unexpected: as soon as it dawned on him that I was walking towards him, he turned on the ignition and did a rapid-fire U turn. He managed to disappear within seconds in a mad dash down the street in the opposite direction.

Weird, I said to myself as I stood there in the middle of the road and probably looking like a crazy woman. Feeling disappointed and somewhat defeated, I headed back to my house to get ready to go to work.

For the rest of the week I couldn’t shake off the troublesome memory of that eventful day. The relentless desire to know whether that was David grew more intense with each passing day. Needless to say, I was literally counting down the hours until I could see him again at the store, assuming he was to continue doing his shopping on the usual night of the week like I did.

But something else was occurring within me as well: I couldn’t stop thinking about him even if I tried with all my strength to stop. I’d purposefully fill my schedule with all kinds of chores and tasks to distract myself, but these efforts were done in vain. His image was permanently burned to the forefront of my mind. Everywhere I went, he was right there with me.

At last, after much nerve-wrecking anticipation, the major day I’d been waiting all week for came. As I drove through the rainfall to the one grocery store near me, I mentally rehearsed over and over what I was going to say to him. I had to find out what I so badly needed to know.

I desperately searched all over for him, and grew increasingly frustrated when he was nowhere to be found. I finally gave up and left feeling let-down and very foolish. Maybe that wasn’t him, after all. And even if it was, perhaps he was just doing his job and staking out the area for criminal activity.

The following morning I woke up feeling very sluggish, the kind of tired you feel after having dreamt all night long. It was still dark out, and I grumbled when I saw the time on my iPhone. It was only 4:53 a.m.! Crap, I said out loud. Now I will never go back to sleep.

Figure I might as well just stay up, I got out of bed, put on my slippers and donned on a heavy robe, and then walked over to the kitchen to brew a cup of strong coffee. I half-consciously dillydallied outside to feed Ron who wasn’t home yet. Regardless, I set his breakfast on the porch’s wooden floor since he was bound to come any minute now.

That’s when I noticed the black car I came to recognize so well. It was parked in the same spot. He was back, and now I was beyond spooked. Unsure of what to do, I simply stood there, fixing my eyes directly at the man inside the car.

I could tell from the street lamp’s illumination that he was sitting straight up in his seat, keenly observing me, too. Again he was wearing the black watch cap. Who is this? What does he want?

A part of me wanted to go straight up to him to confront him, but for some unknowable reason, I couldn’t. My feet were frozen to the ground. So heavy were my legs that just taking a single step forward seemed impossible to do. And here we were just the two of us as I watched him watching me. 

It seemed like an eternity had passed before I finally broke off our visual correspondence. It occurred to me that this person didn’t pose any kind of danger towards me. If he did, he probably would’ve done something malignant by now. There were certain many opportunities to do so.

I found myself shaking and deeply unsettled when I stepped back inside the house. I covertly peeped through the curtain and saw that the car was still there. He was now looking in the direction where my house stood.

He was clearly here for me.