Warning: Highly Explicit Content.
Derek found himself down in the lobby at the post boxes before he left, going through their mail like he normally would do each morning, when he bumped into Mr and Mrs Coombs who stayed in apartment 8E below them, on his way out. Instead of telling them he was in a hurry, he decided to stay for a few minutes and catch up for a bit.
Their faces lit up as soon as they saw him. Tracey was fashionably dressed as always, wrapped in stylish black dabs of gloves, a handbag and a huge black hat, wafting of Chanel No.5.
She was holding her husband's Richards forearm as if she were trying to make a bold statement to any gold-digging woman in the room, that he was a happily married man.
"I got a standing ovation, for my performance last night so my wife and I decided to paint the town red today," Richard said to Derek, crushing his hand with a formal handshake the second he saw him.
Richard then pulled Derek to one side and patted him on the shoulder blade when he noticed Derek supporting his briefcase under his arm and just about every other thing that was of importance to him, including the letter, that he took without Melissa's knowledge.
"You going somewhere, old sport?" Richard asked Derek. He was an eccentric man in his late fifties with a pot-bellied stomach and a wrinkled face, hidden behind a tidy, white beard. For a man of his age, he had been remarkably strong and he sure did love throwing the word " old sport" around a lot like Gatsby would often do when he addressed someone.
A wave of shame crept up on Derek when he thought back to taking the letter without Melissa's knowledge. Of course, Derek wanted to make Melissa and their daughter happy but if he couldn't provide for them, then what was the point of all the endless possibilities sitting at his disposal if he wasn't even privileged enough to have at least one?
All this would be meaningless if he couldn't make it in this city. He would probably end up drinking again and destroy their marriage for good this time.
Derek cleared his throat and said while coughing nervously into his hand, "Yes, I am. I have an interview at a big firm on 5th Avenue that I'm already running late for."
"Well, You sure look great, son! Doesn't he look swell, sweetheart?" he asked turning and nodding his head at his wife. People stopped and just stared at them, as they walked by.
"It's a pity you're not into acting. You sure do have the face for the movies," Richard said, to Derek. He glanced over at his wife again and they both nodded their heads in agreement.
"I could have hooked you up with some big producers who still owe me a favour or two."
Derek politely smiled and said feeling flattered, "That's very kind of you, Sir. But acting has never really been my thing."
"You must pop in one night and have dinner with us sometime," Richard insisted."Be sure to bring that lovely wife of yours."
Derek hunched his shoulders and looked uneasily towards the door when he saw the time ticking away on his watch like watching sand fall from an hourglass. I hate that I'm going to be late on my first day, Derek thought, but that wasn't what he said. Instead, Derek told them that he would love to have dinner with him and his wife, even though he knew he would probably never see them or this apartment again if this job didn't fall through.
Derek was the type of guy that didn't like to discuss his personal problems to people. It was an inconvenience enough that he had them in the first place. Instead, he would just keep them bottled up instead. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them.
His father once said that most people listened to your troubles and all though they acknowledged what you had to say, they secretly took pleasure in knowing someone was tragically more pathetic and miserable than themselves.
Richard had offered to give Derek a ride instead of using his car, but Derek vetoed the gesture and said he would go in Melissa's car instead as it was lighter on fuel. He thanked them, eager to get on his way to his interview and hurried down the corridor that was narrow in space, so much that you couldn't even swing a cat if you wanted to.
There had been a quaint little lounge with modern leather couches and abstract murals of horses and sea creatures on either side of the walls near the entranceway where the residents from the complex would often come and have their Sherry's and watch live sport on the telly.
There was a bar on the far-end corner that had been surrounded by a group of teenage girls. They were wearing provocative clothing and had been chatting incessantly amongst each other, with an intermittent break of mischievous giggling in between. As soon Derek turned the corner to exit the big green building they stopped talking straight away and just stared at him, without saying a word. Bouts of girlish laughter filled the room as soon as he glanced in their direction.
Paying no notice of them, he stepped out of the old, well-established building almost tripping over an empty ketchup jar that was big enough to pickle a kitten and was met with the hustle and bustle of what was a typical morning in New York City with thin streaks of angel-white clouds trailing the azure skies that infinitely stretched out like a vast Pacific ocean.
People were all going about their everyday lives, trying to make it in time for work, and then there were rows and rows of yellow cabs that were blocking the entranceway, while a fleet of men in clean pressed suits were milling around them, trying to get the very first one that drove in their direction.
A bus called: Big City Express had just arrived to take its over-eager passengers to their destinations but had been slowed down by the three-way collision of cars blocking the roads.
Derek waited for the sidewalk robot to flash green, so he could walk across the road and get to the other side. He found a quiet, secluded area at the back of an old abandoned building, just two blocks away from their apartment with a perfect view of Chicos Restaurant from here. Aside from the run-down paint, smashed in windows, it had been surprisingly good enough to at least take the call in peace.
He was about to put his briefcase down on the floor when he heard the sound of his phone vibrating in his jeans pocket. Derek knew he was in trouble as soon as he saw who was calling. It was Peter Shepherd - the manager of the club, he was going to for his interview this morning.
Reluctant to take the call at first Derek answered the phone and held it right up to his ear, as stiff as a board now. He hated that his fate lay in this man's hands. Cars whizzed like the speed of light, past him, never caring how fast they were going as if they were racing to a finishing line that was never going to show itself.
"Yeah, hey, man, what's up? I'm about five minutes away. My apologies for running late. I just got held up at home. Being a father to a newborn and moving here has been difficult to manage - I'm not gonna lie," Derek said looking around the parking lot in case an unlawful mugger was lurking about. There had been three reported robberies that had occurred consecutively in the last few days, so he didn't want to take his chances.
He noticed the well-dressed man in a tailored cream-coloured suit sitting on the far end corner on a lonely bench, engrossed in reading the New York Times Newspaper with a Cuban cigar hanging from his mouth.
Derek shifted from the alley and moved towards Melissa's car, not wanting to be disturbed when he was on the call. He leaned back against the car door after he had to hold the phone away from his ear when he was with a strange, loud interference on the other end.
"So, what's going on? Sorry, about that, it's kind of a bad line," Derek said, feeling his stomach churning with worry.
The signal was lost for a brief second when he heard Peters's voice come back on the call.
" Yeah, hey bud, how are you man?"
"Good, what's going on?" A lump formed in the centre of Derek's throat after he answered Peter back.
"Are you sitting down for this?" Asked Peter.
Derek wrestled for his car keys from his pocket that had got jammed between his wallet and the keys for his apartment. When he grabbed them at long last, he unlocked the door, so he could be seated down and said, "I just stepped in the car, what is it Peter?"
"Oh, okay, great," Peter answered back.
There was a long lull of silence that left Derek feeling unsettled again until he heard his voice come back on the line.
" So, I just got off for the phone from Deacon and Bud, I'm sorry to have to be the one to break it to you but the position you applied for the nightclub manager was filled about a week ago."
Peter was second in charge and would mostly take orders from Deacon when it came to recruiting new staff there and training them. It was a debaucherous club, on 5th Avenue Lane known as the "Orchard Spectacular."
Derek was promised a guaranteed management position there, a few weeks back, with an attractive salary to boot. It would have been double his earnings of his doctor's salary. It was the kind of once-in-a-lifetime job, he needed to make it in this place and now it had all gone to shit.
"But how can this be? Good God Pete, you know how badly, I needed this. You promised this was in the bag," Derek said trying to keep his cool with the guy and not lose his temper in a public place.
"What am I gonna tell my wife? The main reason we moved here is because you convinced me you had something lined up at this place."
"I'm sorry, Derek, the guy is a dick for only telling me this," Peter responded after long bouts of hacking coughs - a tell-tale sign of a smoker's lungs horribly poisoned by years of nicotine abuse." You, see," Peter went on. "He is his second cousin and is fresh out of college. The kids still trying to get on his feet, so I guess he wanted to help him out." Peter hesitated on the call and said, "Say, if anything does come up, I will give you a shout. I'm really sorry, bud, but I don't make the rules. If I had it my way I would have hired you."
"Yeah, okay thanks, man; thanks for telling me," Derek said, feeling as if his world had just come crashing down on him, the second he ended the call with Peter.
Derek should have gone back inside to relay the news to Melissa, but decided to take a drive out to Highbury Hills, so he could meet with Albert's lawyer. He just prayed she'd find it in her heart to forgive him, for what he was about to do.
__________________________
It was about 10. 45 am. - by the time Derek set off for his journey and departed to Missouri, leaving the crisp, clear morning of Manhattan behind him like a forgotten dream.
He watched the skyscraper buildings and overcrowded sidewalks become a distant memory, the longer he drove through the ever onward roads, that twisted and turned at every sharp, windy corner.
He passed, houses, apartments, laundromats and gas stations, until the once busy road that led to New York City was now indistinguishable.
There was a sign upon entering the town, saying: welcome to Highbury Hills, on a wooden board, that was so thick he could have carved his nails on it with his fingernails; above it read of a population of six thousand and eighty-nine. He took note of the creaking wood of trees next to the run-down, old train station as if it were the first time he'd seen it.
On the other side of the embankment by a broken-down car had been a murder of Ravens perched on the banks of dead grass, gnawing away at a half-dead shrew's intestines. Startled by the sound of his tyres, skidding through all the mud and gravel made them retreat off in fear, and flock over his window, in fast, synchronised movements.
Legend had it that the reason why this town was more overpopulated with these birds than anywhere else, was because they had been attracted to the smell of death in this town. After all, this was the number one murder capital of the world and it wasn't hard to see why. The decaying, putrescine, smell of carcasses and rotting flesh filled the streets, contaminating the air like a cancer.
Derek braked to what was a stop when a black cat sprang in front of his car before it issued a vengeful snarl, the moment it saw him. He yelled and admonished the cat to remove itself from the road, but the stubborn feline paid no notice of him and instead continued to stand there on its hind legs, blocking his way, while glittering its feline eyes at him.
The rain came down like an unrelenting torrent, howling and pounding on the roof of his car, but even still it wasn't budging for anything in this world. He popped his horn again until a timid little girl appeared before him. Screeching his car his car to a halt and yelling it at the cat for the second time, Derek saw something in the pools of shadows by the trees that had fevered, eyes, glazing at him with hunger.
Derek started up the car and accelerated without mercy after the cat scurried off with its life when I saw he meant business. The little girl obstructed him from going any further by throwing herself in front of his car, as if she were trying to kill herself, just like the other woman did. She stood still, wearing a white, mangled dress, weeping inconsolably into her hand, and pleaded with Derek to not leave her.
Something about this, seemed all too familiar, to Derek, the rational part of him trying to advise him, to split while he stood has his balls intact. lt was as if she had come back as a little girl, to haunt the shit out of him, all over again.
He prayed he was wrong this time. Switching off the ignition of his car, the little girl who looked, as if she weighed no more than a bag of potatoes with a head full of long stringy black hair, came charging towards Derek and ordered him to stop the car.
Standing beside him, with this unusual, feral grin on her face, started to blink her long, fluttery eyelashes at him, leaving Derek wondering if offering to give her a lift had been such a wise decision after all.
"Why in the world, are you here, out in this part of town all by yourself? I'm sure your parents must be worried sick about you," he asked the little girl, as he looked over her bony, little shoulders to make certain no one was behind her.
He wondered if he would live to regret this when he offered the girl a ride. He cleared away all the clutter of empty Pepsi bottles and rubbish, that had somehow managed to accumulate on his car seat, in the short space of time he drove here, and said, "Jesus, Get in before you get sick, would you! You look frozen to the bone."
Without apprehension of getting into a stranger's car, the little girl did as she was told and hopped into the passenger seat beside him, patiently waiting for Derek to start the car. He noticed her diagonally glancing towards the picture of Melissa, peeking out from his wallet. The little girl's eyes permeated on the photograph of her as if it were dripping and laced with acid.
He didn't think much of it at first until the unspeakable happened. Derek's mouth hung open for a few seconds when he realised what she was doing to herself. She had turned into her own executioner and started to rip open her flesh with her fingernails as if she were trying to mutilate herself with her own hands.
" Good Lord, what the hell are you doing... Stop that! Are you out of god-damned mind, child?!" Derek was screaming at the girl who took no notice of him. Instead, she continued to inflict pain and grievous bodily harm on herself, without showing any indication of discomfort for what she was doing.
She was using her own fingernails as if it were a sharp serrated blade, to rip open the flesh of her hand with this strange, feral grin on her face, as if she were enjoying every minute of the pain, she was inflicting on herself. Derek had never seen so much blood in his life.
He let out a savage scream, recoiling back in his seat, the second he caught a glimpse of her in the natural light amid the blood that had been splattered everywhere from her ripping open the flesh of her hand.
She had blue veins underneath her skin that became noticeable the second the rays of the sun appeared from under the darkness of the clouds and danced on her facial features.
It was not a pretty sight. Derek was certain now, she was no longer the same little girl, he had first picked up grovelling like a lost lamb trying to find its way. It was a trick. The bitch tricked him again, just like she did before.
The little girl had transformed into this fully grown woman in her mid-twenties with a misshapen, elongated head that hung, awkwardly on a narrow neck, like a piece of string threatening at any moment to snap off and a scalp that was like a patchwork of bald, painful-looking scabs.
The abrasions on her head had been speckled with long tangles of blonde, lifeless, mess, that covered her face, and back, untamed and wild, with a strange oily residue covering her skull.
Derek flinched back in his seat with a grimace of pain contorting his face and almost banged his head on the roof of the car when she stretched out her arm and sunk her pointy, unkempt nails into his shoulder blade. He was able to free himself by elbowing her in the face, which caused her to hit her head on the window of his car.
"Who are you?! What do you want from me, god-dammit?!" Derek raised his voice, in a loud commanding tone of voice, when he lifted his hand at the same time, as if to warn her, he would hit her if she came any closer.
She had made him draw blood and he was left with an ugly indentation mark on the left side of his shoulder blade from where she dug her nails into him when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the rear-view mirror.
"Why have you come back to haunt me? Who are you? Is this your idea of a sick twisted joke? Is this what this all about, that you feel the need to scare the shit out of me with this creepy, Halloween costume your wearing? Answer me you crazy, bitch what is going here?!" Derek seethed at her, his whole body trembling with rage.
The woman's torso turned and faced him. He didn't want to look at her eyes at this moment, scared of what he would see staring back at him.No matter how hard, he struggled to keep her unsettling fixated, twisted glare off him, he could still feel her shifty-looking eyes boring at him, the more he tried to look away from her. He remembered that he had been equipped with a thirty-two Smith and Wesson handgun in the front glove compartment of his car.
He didn't know what else to do other than reach for it and scare her into her submission without killing her, even though the despairing thought occurred to him, more than once that she was dead already. She uttered profanities at him, that sounded nonsensical, as if she were speaking in tongues, like something a demon would endlessly drivel on about.
Everything was all backwards and illogical making no sense at all. He wondered when her neck would twist backwards too. Was she a demon? He had to ask himself. Was she a ghost? A witch? Whatever she was there was no way she was his kind.
"Stop that! What the hell is the matter with you, crazy woman? Stop that or I swear to God I will- " I will break your fuckin' neck for scaring the shit outta me, Derek thought helplessly knowing it was bullshit because he could never realistically bring himself to hurt a woman.
He stopped screaming at her, realising it was pointless and noticed her unusual fixation towards Melissa's photograph. She couldn't take her eyes off it.
She looked back at him, blinking her eyes that kept shifting from being a shade of white to a frightening yellow colour and expelled this strange, luminous green substance that was like slime at him from her mouth and said, "I will make you spend the rest of your life living with regret for what you did to me!" she cursed him, her eye colour changing back to a terrifying, shade of white again.
Just as Derek reached for the gun, covered in the vile green stuff that she had just heaved all over him, she propelled herself forward, grabbed hold of his crotch through his jeans and dug her sharp, jagged nails, into his testicles. Derek recalled the pain, burning through his scrotum like hot coals and her loon-like high-pitched laughter, that led him to lose control of the steering wheel.
Like a bad dream, It was all happening at once and Derek couldn't control what would take place next, as things took a turn for the worse when he drove off the edge of the cliff with her.
The last thing that entered Derek's mind, when he saw the car getting nearer to the bottom of the mountain was Melissa. He wondered if he would ever be able to come home to her and tell her this was all just a bad dream.
Partly edited and rewritten✔
Total word count:3677k
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