Tanner stepped into the warehouse, carrying a bouquet and a box of chocolates. His fiancé wasn’t expecting him, especially since she would never dream of someone being crazy enough to drive two hundred miles straight on one of the hottest days of the year, just to surprise their love with now wilted flowers and melted candy. But Danica just didn’t quite get that Tanner had passed the level of hopeless romantic the moment he laid eyes on her and tore up his practicality card whenever it came to her.
Tanner loved Danica more than life itself, more than anything he’d ever loved before. He wanted her to know it and the best way he knew how to do that was with showy surprises. Tanner had always been one for showmanship in relationships, even before he entered the world of dating. His mother had gotten used to the giant signs and mass of wildflowers he’d leave on the porch for every occasion, big and small and sometimes just for the hell of it.
He loved big, but his heart had never opened to a woman the way it opened for Danica. They met during a university mixer, one of those mild daytime barbeques that always ended up attracting crowds of hungry, broke students. Tanner had come late, when the selection had been picked over and only stale salmon patties and tofu burgers that had traveled from previous barbecues remained.
But one single juicy meat patty remained, calling to him as he made a dash towards the table.
A young woman elbowed him out of the way and snatched the burger from his waiting grasp. Tanner groaned as she placed the succulent meal on a plate and grabbed a bag of chips. She frowned at him, then shook her head.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t even see you there.” She didn’t sound rude, but entirely sincere. She smiled at him, and picked up a plastic knife. “We could split it if you want.”
Tanner just shook his head. “That’s okay,” he said. “You won it fair and square.”
The woman laughed and nodded. “Okay, but at least let me buy you a coke.”
“Sure,” Tanner said. “It’ll help me wash down my salmon burger.”
“Deal,” the woman said with a laugh. “By the way, I’m Danica.”
Tanner grabbed his food and walked with Danica over to a vending machine. He took a good look at her and saw that she looked a lot more mature than most women her age. She wore her hair auburn hair cut short, black slacks and a pair of patent leather shoes. The only thing that showed her age was a shirt that said “Scientists Like to Experiment.” Tanner had a feeling she didn’t actually get the double meaning.
They sat under a tree and talked as they ate, falling into a quick rapport he wasn’t expecting, as they shared their aspirations and details of their life. The talked for hours, but Tanner never expected they would be friends, let alone form a relationship. They were as different as peas and cake, two people speeding past each other, going in opposite directions.
Tanner was an English major, writing books in his spare time, while working his way through college as a advice columnist. He told a joke a minute, tried his hand at acting and joined every frat party his house provided.
Danica, on the other hand, majored in forensic anthropology, studied in her free time and gained a full scholarship to graduate school by being one of the top students in the state. She didn’t always get the punch line of a joke, tried her hand at quantum physics and thought parties were a waste of time.
But Tanner’s jokes always made Danica laugh and Danica’s dedication to science intrigued Tanner. They both loved nature, loved to talk about deep issues most their age laughed at and loved to just sit side by side, each drawing in warmth from the other as they stared up at the night sky.
The world stretched out forever in the stars, pulling Tanner forward on a lighted path of excitement, with Danica by his side, through whatever came their way. They would conquer the world together, he with a pen and she with a microscope. They’d lay claim to the treasures of adulthood and deal with the traps, hand in hand.
But now Tanner would settle for a little making out and half melted truffles. Then he’d head back to school and wait for her little study trip to be over. The warehouse didn’t look all that romantic, with tall gray walls and dust swirling around a cavernous floor filled with run down machinery and half decomposed rats across the floor.
Tanner made his way across the floor, careful to avoid pieces of glass embedded in the concrete. He passed towering old machines, their sagging bits of metal stretched over him like arms. Tanner grew up in the city, but the buildings always made Tanner feel caged, like an animal waiting to be slaughtered. And the claustrophobic machines of the warehouse seemed like a prison, meant to pull him down and suffocate his very soul.
He continued on, through the dust and grime, trying to find any sign of Danica. Everything looked abandoned, without even a piece of litter beyond yellowed ancient papers that crumbled under Tanner’s feet. He walked down aisle upon aisle of lumbering machines, until he got lost in the vastness of decaying industrialism. The dust was too caked into the floor to leave any footprints, so Tanner couldn’t even attempt to determine where he had been before.
Finally, Tanner made his way further into the building and saw signs of life. Candy wrappers and plastic cups littered the floor, definitely not left by Danica, but probably some of her colleagues who had visited the site a few weeks before. He could see Danica gathering as much trash as she could, while grumbling about sloppiness. He laughed and followed the debris, hoping to finally find Danica, standing with a notebook in her hands, scribbling away as he walked up to surprise her.
After a few feet down the now closed in hallway, Tanner saw a portable plastic case, sitting in middle of the floor, abandoned. He bent down and looked at it, noticing that it was the type of case Danica kept her supplies in. A cellphone lay nearby, smashed to bits on the hard stone floor. Several tiny rhinestones shaped like different scientific symbols clung to it, while many were scattered in every direction.
Tanner’s heart clenched as he looked at the cellphone, the cellphone he gave Danica for her birthday. He dropped the flowers and candy and ran down the hall, screaming Danica’s name as he neared a doorway to a large storage room flooded with light from the decaying roof. All the shelves stood along the walls, leaving an empty expanse of floor.
Tanner skidded across the floor and fell flat on his face into something wet and sticky that smelled strongly of iron. He looked up and saw blood everywhere, in angry red streaks across the floor and foot and hand prints in random patterns. He saw a body lying in a heap a few feet from him, covered in the same gooey blood, hands outstretched as if trying to crawl away.
He lay there, staring blankly at the body, its auburn hair tangled and caked with thick bits of blood and grime. His throat tightened and he let out a scream, a scream that released his body from the floor and propelled him towards his fiancé.
He shook her as hard as he could, her body responding like a rag doll with her limbs moving at odd angles as if snapped.
“Danica! Get up!” Tanner yelled, as he shook her again. He turned her over and found a gaping hole in her neck, drawn across the skin like a mocking smile. Tanner’s legs turned to mush and he fell into a half crouch next to Danica’s body.
She felt like ice as Tanner gathered her in his arms, sitting in her blood as he smoothed the hair away from her red caked face. He pulled her closer, feeling his heart beat against her still chest, as if his life could somehow bleed into her.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said softly, as he rocked her back and forth. “You’re going to be fine.”
He continued to rock her and talk, about everything and nothing, just like they used to do while staring at the stars. “I brought you some flowers and candy, but I sort of lost them. But I can get you some more, a whole lot more. I’m going to give you the world, Danica. You deserve the world…”
Tears fell onto Danica’s face, washing streaks of blood in smeared paths. “Damn it! You can’t be dead! Please Danica, you can’t be dead…”
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her finger tips, until he came to a bloody stump where her index finger should have been. He lifted his head and screamed, a primal sound of grief and rage, still clinging to the cold body of his fiancé.
“I’m sorry,” Tanner said hoarsely, as he leaned his head over hers. He started to sing softly, as if to comfort the pain she could no longer feel and continued to gently rock her like a child.