Authors: Layce Gardner,Saxon Bennett
Shrine Amy
Edison
led Amy and Isabel back to the third floor lab. They were very quiet – too
quiet, Amy thought. Edison hooked up her video and began to download it to her
computer. Amy and Isabel watched quietly. When the download was complete,
Edison glanced over at Isabel. “You need to take her to the other room while I
work on this.”
Amy
stood her ground. “No. I have a right to see it. It’s about me.”
“In
a few minutes,” Edison said. Isabel took her by the wrist arm and half led,
half-dragged her into the next room. “Sit,” she said, and pushed her into a
tattered Barcalounger complete with cup holder that had been duct-taped to one
arm. “Don’t move. Try to relax. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Isabel
patted her on the head and left, shutting the door behind her. Amy sat on
tenterhooks. She didn’t know what tenterhooks were exactly but they sounded
uncomfortable and she certainly was that.
A
few moments later, the door squeaked open and she almost jumped out of her
skin. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it was only Mr. Pip. He
lazily looked her over as he sauntered by.
“You
started all this. I hope you realize that,” Amy said.
Mr.
Pip swished his tail and gave her a good look at his ass as he left the room by
another door.
“Yeah,
yeah, yeah, same to you,” Amy said.
Isabel
stood in the open doorway. “Who are you talking to?”
“Mr.
Pip.”
Isabel
looked concerned. She spoke in a voice Amy had heard people use on crazy or
old people. “Who’s Mr. Pip? Your imaginary friend?”
“No.
He’s the cat.”
Isabel
looked around the room. When she didn’t see a cat, she smiled and patted Amy
on the arm. “Is he an imaginary cat?”
“Don’t
be silly,” Amy said. “He was here. And then he wasn’t.”
“Like
the Cheshire Cat?”
“For
God’s sake,” Amy said, rising and walking toward the door. “I’m going to get a
look at this video.”
Isabel
grabbed Amy’s shoulder, stopping her. “I don’t think you should see it.”
“What
is on that thing? What has he done? Is it creepy? Should I be afraid?” Amy
felt frantic and sick to her stomach. What were they hiding from her?
Isabel
took a deep breath. “He has a lot of pictures of you.”
Amy
digested this. “That’s not so weird.”
“And
by a lot, I mean hundreds.”
“Hundreds
of pictures of me?”
Isabel
nodded. “Afraid so.”
“My
mother doesn’t even have hundreds of pictures of me.” Amy couldn’t imagine
where he’d gotten the photos. She sucked in her breath. What if he’d taken
pictures of her while she was conked out. “Please tell they weren’t naked
ones.”
“No.”
“Okay,
well then it isn’t that bad. I want to see the video.”
“Sweetie,”
Isabel said. “It’s kind of creepy. You might want to let it go. The video is
more than enough to convince Jordan that Chad is the stalker and that you
weren’t planning to marry him.”
“I
want to see it.” Amy marched into Edison’s lab. She walked straight up to
Edison who sat hunched over the computer keyboard and said, “Show me.”
Edison
looked at Isabel. Isabel nodded, saying, “Show her.”
Edison
clicked a few keys and the video feed started.
Amy
thought she was prepared to see the video. She thought she would see an Amy
shrine. Maybe a few photos thumb-tacked to the walls. Nothing could have
prepared her to see every wall, every table, every surface completely papered
with her face. Wallpaper, pillows, throw blankets were all decorated with
collages of her smiling face. It was worse than the Duck Dynasty line of interior
decorating.
Once
she got her breath back, she said, “How could he have gotten so many pictures
of me?” She pointed at a picture that showed her and Jordan getting in her
Smart car. “Did he hire someone to watch me?”
“From
what I can ascertain these look like they were taken at work functions,” Edison
said, pointing to a cake in the break room in one of the photos. “And these
are more I’m-a-creepy-stalker-following-you pictures.”
“He
was following me this whole time?”
“Apparently.
And here he is taking pics of his handiwork. The signs in the yard. Irma
stomping the flaming dog doody. Here’re several of Jordan’s slashed bike
tires. And there’s a whole bunch of you two making out.”
Isabel
put her arm around Amy’s shoulder. “We’ll put a restraining order on him and
send HR at the hospital an anonymous tip with accompanying video. That should
get him to leave you alone.”
“I
don’t want him to just leave me alone. I want him gone,” Amy said through
gritted teeth. She felt violated. Somebody had been watching her in her most
private intimate moments. She felt vulnerable and scared. She underscored
what she felt with one word. “Gone.”
“Understood,”
Edison said. “Do you think you’ll be safe at home tonight?”
Isabel
said, “I texted Jeremy. He said Chad is gone from the premises and he’s
changing the locks on the doors right now. We’ll take turns keeping watch.
We’ll be safe.”
Edison
and Isabel talked in hushed tones as they walked to Isabel’s car.
Amy
was so stunned by what she’d seen that her mind didn’t seem able to process
everything. She felt as if she were walking upstream against a strong current.
Edison
opened Isabel’s door for her. Isabel got behind the wheel, started the car and
powered down her window.
“I’ll
see you tomorrow,” Edison said.
“I
can’t wait,” Isabel whispered breathlessly.
Amy
got in the passenger seat and looked up at the house at Jordan’s dark window.
“This will all be over with by tomorrow,” she said out loud. But even she
could hear the doubt in her own voice.
Elvis Has Left the Building
Amy
didn’t hear from Jordan the next day. Or the day after that. She had checked
her phone for missed calls or texts approximately one hundred and seventy-eight
times. She had called Edison at least twenty times each day. Edison reassured
her that she was still trying to track Jordan and Irma down. But like Edison
said, “If Irma wants to go off the grid, there was no way she’d be found.”
Amy
was exhausted. Worrying burned up a lot of energy. She barely slept. She
worked like she was sleepwalking and drank coffee like a fish. She hadn’t seen
Chad since he proposed. He was off work until his hand healed. That was the
only good news. However, Amy still couldn’t help but look over her shoulder
all the time. She felt like she was being watched everywhere she went. She
even checked the women’s restroom for peepholes before she allowed herself to
sit on the toilet.
Veronica,
twinless at the moment, rapped lightly on Amy’s door. Amy looked up and
smiled. “Come on in.”
Veronica
glanced down the hall then back at Amy. “Oh, crap, I’m too late.” She jumped
inside the office and slammed the door behind her. “Doesn’t this thing lock?”
she said, fiddling with the door.
“No.
I put in a maintenance request but no one has showed up yet.”
“Oh,
holy hell!” Veronica grabbed a chair and wedged it against the door just under
the knob. She tested it. “Hey, that really does work.” She appeared
surprised and excited that it did.
“What’s
going on? Why did you lock us in here?”
“I’m
not locking us in. I’m locking him out.”
“Him?
Him?” Amy asked excitedly. “Him as in Chad him?”
“Yes.
Chad is here. He’s coming,” Veronica ran to the window. “We need an exit
strategy.” She shoved up on the window. It didn’t budge.
“Those
windows don’t open,” Amy said. “They’re sealed shut in a feeble attempt to
lower the suicide rate among doctors.”
There
was a pounding on the door. Amy looked at the door and back to Veronica.
“Shit,” she mouthed. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Veronica
looked around frantically. The doorknob rattled. “Amy. Are you in there?”
Chad’s voice called. “Let me in, I need to talk to you.”
“HR
just got through telling him he has to leave you alone. I guess it didn’t make
an impression,” Veronica whispered.
“They
got the anonymously sent disc?”
Veronica
nodded. “He’s been in there talking to them and the hospital administrator,
Haroldson. And when the Big H gets involved you know it’s serious.”
“I
can hear you,” Chad called out in a singsong voice. Then he pounded on the
door with both fists. The chair wobbled from the force of his blows. Veronica
steadied the chair, holding it firmly under the doorknob.
Amy
wished she’d never seen
The Shining.
This was way too much like the
“Here’s Johnny” moment. She felt like she was going to throw up.
Chad
bellowed, “Damnit Amy, I just want to talk. It’s not what you think. It’s not
what
they
think. This is love. True love! No one understands how much
I love you and they’re trying to take you away from me.” He pounded the door
and it shook on its hinges.
Veronica
looked up at the ceiling. “I’ve got it. Get up on the desk.”
“Why?”
Veronica
snapped her fingers at Amy. “Just do it. Now!”
“Amy!
I fucking love you!” Chad screamed.
Amy
quickly climbed up on her desk. She could brush the ceiling with her
fingertips, but that was all. Veronica plucked several thick medical volumes
from Amy’s bookshelves and stacked them on the desk. “Climb up on these.”
“Am
I going up there?” Amy said, pointing to the ceiling.
“That’s
right. Push the panel aside. Hoist yourself up. Put the panel back and lay
flat on the joist. He’ll never know you’re there.”
“AAAAAAmmmmmmyyyyyy!”
Chad’s
out-of-control scream sent Amy upwards. She scrambled up and into the ceiling
as Chad’s voice turned soft and pleading. “Let me in. Amy, please, I love you
so much. I understand the mercurial nature of your sexuality and we can work
through it. I want us to be together and have little Chaddites and Amyites and
live in the suburbs and have barbeques.” His fingernails scratched at the
door.
Amy
slid the panel back into place, disappearing from view.
“Elvis
has left the building,” Veronica said loudly.
“Elvis?
Who’s Elvis?” Chad hollered. “Is he vying for Amy’s affection?”
Veronica
moved the chair. She flattened herself against a wall and said, “Help me,
Chad. The door handle is jammed or something.”
“What?”
“This
is Amy. Use your brute strength to rescue me,” Veronica said. “Throw your
body against the door! I’m locked in here and suffocating! Help me!”
There
was a moment of silence. Then the door burst open and Chad flew into the room,
headfirst. He tripped over the chair and sprawled facedown across Amy’s desk.
Veronica quickly pulled a syringe out of her pocket, took the cap off with her
teeth and poked Chad in the butt with the needle.
He
went out like a light.
“Okay,
Amy, you can come out now,” she said.
Amy
slid back the panel and dropped down to the edge of the desk, then hopped to
the floor. She was covered in a white residue and felt like the Pillsbury Dough
boy. She hoped it was dust and not some chemical agent that would deform her
children and give her cancer by the ripe old age of forty-five.
Veronica
held the syringe like it was a smoking pistol.
Amy
gazed at the snoring Chad. “What did you give him?”
“A
shot of Propofol with a little Midazolam thrown in. He won’t remember a
thing.”
Bug, Bug, Who’s Got the Bug?
Veronica
pulled Chad’s cell phone out of his back pocket. His butt muscles twitched
reflexively.
“What’re
you doing?” Amy asked. “You’re not going to steal his wallet, are you?”
“I’m
just looking at his phone. Aha!” Veronica smiled triumphantly and showed Amy
the screen on his phone. “It’s a GPS tracking device, see?”
“What’s
that pulsating red dot?”
“That’s
you,” Veronica said. “He has you bugged so he can follow you.”
“Oh
my God,” Amy breathed. “That’s how he always knew where I was.”
“We
have to find out where he planted the bugs. Then we can turn him loose back
into the wild.”
Amy
shuddered. “Do you think he planted a bug on me, like inside one of my body
cavities while I was unconscious from slipping on the, you know?”
Veronica
raised an eyebrow. “Eww, I hope not. I’ll search a lot of places, but that’s
not one of them. Let’s see your purse, your jacket and anything else that you
always carry with you.”
Exactly
seven minutes later they had found a tiny silver bullet-shaped device in Amy’s
purse, one in her kit bag and one neatly inserted behind the calendar in her
DayTimer. “What on earth is he thinking? I didn’t know these things even
existed and I’m covered in them,” Amy said.
“Come
on, there’s certainly one in your car,” Veronica said. “We need to go check it
out.”
“What
do we do with him?” Amy said, pointing at Chad’s twitching buttocks.
“Don’t
worry about it. He’ll be out a while.”
They
slunk out of her office. Amy didn’t know why they were the ones slinking
around. None of this was her fault. Chad was the crazy person. “What exactly
do you think is wrong with him?” Amy asked, as they rode the elevator to the
parking garage.
“I
really don’t know. He must have always been a little off his rocker and this
thing with you has sent him over the edge. Maybe no one has ever turned him
down or maybe it’s this girl-on-girl thing you have going on.”
“You
know about Jordan and me?”
“Honey,
most of the hospital knows. All the boys are jealous and all the girls think
you have great taste in women.”
They
exited the elevator and walked directly to Amy’s Smart car. “Where do we
look?” she asked.
“Usually,
in the movies they’re hidden under the car because in most cases the perps
can’t get in the car.”
“Perps?”
“The
bad guys. You don’t watch TV much, do you?”
“Nope.”
Amy leaned down and looked under her car. It was so low to the ground that it
was hard to get a good look at anything. Its low clearance had been a beef
with some of the car’s reviewers but since Amy was short she hadn’t much cared
and she didn’t go in the mountain wilds so it didn’t seem an issue. Unless of
course, your crazy-ass-one-night-stand person put trackers everywhere. “I
can’t see anything. Should I crawl underneath?” She was wearing dark blue
scrubs so perhaps parking lot dirt wouldn’t show, but then she’d be unsanitary
and would have to change anyway.
“I
think so,” Veronica said. “I’d do it but I might get stuck.” She pointed to
her breasts.
“We
wouldn’t want to have to call 911,” Amy agreed. “They’d probably think I ran
over a large-breasted woman.”
Amy
laid down flat on her back and looked at the short space she was supposed to
crawl under. She’d heard once that mice could squeeze themselves flat in order
to crawl under doors. “Think like a mouse, think like a mouse,” she thought as
she scooted under the bumper. She managed to jimmy herself under the car, but
once under she couldn’t see a damn thing. It figured Chad wouldn’t just stick
it under the doorframe or under the tail pipe, no, he’d go as far under as he
could and then the fucker would put it by all the other mechanical stuff.
“Crap, I can’t tell what’s what. I don’t want to mess up my car.”
“What’re
you doing here?” she heard Veronica ask.
When
Amy turned her head she saw a pair of shoes standing on the other side of the
car next to Veronica’s shoes. Big shoes. Big men’s shoes. She bumped her
head. “Ouch! Please, tell me that’s not Chad.”
“It’s
not Chad. It’s me,” Jeremy said. He squatted and peered under the car at
her. “Why are you under your car?”
Veronica
answered for her. “She’s looking for a GPS tracker. Chad had her wired with
three others. We’re trying to find the one he put on her car.”
Amy
shimmied back out from under her car. Jeremy extended a hand and helped her to
her feet. “Where’s Chad now?” he asked
Amy
tried to brush herself off, but managed only to smear the oil and dirt around.
“He’s
in her office,” Veronica said. “I had to tranq him. Like how they do when a
gorilla escapes from the zoo.”
“The
dude is seriously going to get fired at this rate,” Jeremy said. He walked a
circle around the car, looking it over. He kneeled down and peeked under the
car. He rose back up, stood perfectly still, closed his eyes and held his
palms out toward the car. He looked like he was meditating.
Veronica
and Amy exchanged a look. Amy shrugged.
Jeremy
muttered, “If I were a crazy man, where would I put a tracking device?” Suddenly,
his eyes popped open. He reached down and ran his fingers behind the license
plate. He grinned and pulled out a small silver bullet-shaped tracking device
with black electrical tape crisscrossed
over
it. “Got it! Now, where’s his car?” He looked around and spotted The
Beemer. “I’ll put it on his car and then you can track him.”
“Don’t
we need one of those GPS tracker thingies?” Amy asked.
“I’ll
download the app to your phone,” Jeremy said. “That way he can never sneak up
on you again.”
“The
man is seriously deranged,” Veronica said.
Jeremy
agreed. “He should be put in a loony bin.”
“Great
idea!” Veronica said. As Jeremy stuck the tracker under The Beemer’s plate,
Veronica dialed her phone.
“Hey,
Sis,” Veronica said into her phone. “Listen, there’s a package in Dr.
Stewart’s office. Can you fill out a 2XC – 49R, put Dr. Jeremy Blevins name on
it and give it to Salvatore? He can transport the package to its proper
destination. Uh huh. Call me when it’s done, okay?” She hung up and grinned at
Amy.
“What’s
a 2XC-49R?” Amy asked.
“It’s
a Psych Evaluation Request Form,” Veronica said. Chad will be in a rubber room
before he even wakes up.”
“That
is totally brilliant. I’ve got friends over there that will keep an eye on
him,” Jeremy said.
“Why
does that not surprise me?” Veronica said.
Jeremy
continued, “They’ll take good care of him.” He winked.
Veronica
looked Jeremy up and down. She must have liked what she saw because she looped
one arm through his as they made their way back to the hospital. “So, tell me,
do you like twins?”
“Love
them,” Jeremy said.
“Well,
isn’t this your lucky day,” Veronica said.
Amy
shook her head. It seemed like everyone around her was falling in love. Or at
least lust. She dialed her cell phone again. When Edison picked up, she said,
“Me again. Have you found her yet?”