Disclaimer: I don't own Indigo Prophecy. :)
Chapter One
"HELLO?"
Three days earlier, David Tamlin was shocked and surprised to find the door to his apartment ajar.
It had been another long and grueling day at the office, three separate accounts closing all in the same week, and all he wanted to do was crash on the couch. His boss was being three times the ass he usually was, breathing down David's neck to get all his invoices and liens in proper order before the weekend. David was putting in at least three extra hours of overtime each night before collapsing at home in a bed of wrinkled dress shirts and silk ties.
As much as he wanted to simply lie down and take a nap in the hallway of his apartment building, David's heart skipped a few beats. His building was located a block away from the end of the Brown Line; not the safest neighborhood in Chicago, but certainly not the most dangerous. Rent was cheap, the neighbors quiet. Crime was not unheard of here, but David couldn't think of why anyone would want to burglarize an apartment barely bigger than a studio.
The brass hinges whined slowly as David pushed the door open. The darkness beyond the door should have been warm and welcoming, beckoning him to at least six hours of sleep before another workday was upon him. Instead, the bitter cold of another Chicago winter followed him from outside. Now the darkness was threatening, sinister.
He heard movement from the inside of the apartment, from the kitchen on his left. There was more than one person inside, perhaps two. David didn't have anything resembling a weapon on him, unless his briefcase counted.
Another bump made David's head turn to the bedroom – somebody was in there, too.
This was turning out bad. He was practically surrounded. There was no way he could stop three intruders from making off with anything, even if they were schoolkids. Better to make a hasty retreat and call the cops.
He flipped open his cell phone and began to dial 911. At that instant, someone called his name. "Hey, Dave!"
As the camera flash went off and blinded him, he realized his mistake.
"I CAN'T BELIEVE you actually forgot your own birthday. Honestly, David, you're the most senile 29-year-old I know."
David fake-laughed and downed the rest of his beer. Carl had a way of making the truth seem like an insult. Or was it an insult seem like the truth? "I didn't forget. I was just hoping nobody would remember."
"Yeah, like you're getting so old."
"Says the father of three with the house in the 'burbs and retirement plan."
Everyone laughed. David hoped they would accidentally forget to develop the picture Carl had taken, David's face contorted in a split second mixture of confusion and revelation.
It was true, David had forgotten. He remembered two days prior, but with the possibility of the Banks account falling through at any moment, David found himself needing to leave himself a voice mail reminder to eat three times a day. He didn't think anybody at work even realized what day it was, other than a Friday, the end of a hellish week. Everybody at Barnaby and Collins looked as David did, gaunt and overworked.
Maybe it was time to find another job. David was reaching the age when people figured out mortality is not just a statistic in the newspaper.
In a year, I'll be thirty.
Past 30, you had no excuses anymore. Your twenties were the last of your party years, the final, ultimate, swear-to-God-I'll-never-get-this-drunk-again time of your life. Once you got to thirty, people started to evaluate you. You should have figured out what you want to do by now. Relatives start asking, why haven't you found a nice girl yet? Hypothetical questions be damned, they patiently wait for your answer. They'd really like to know.
But you don't have an answer, if indeed there was an answer. Only shrugs follow, then the limp response, "Oh, the right girl just hasn't come along yet." Then Aunt Doris suddenly seizes the right to get all Dr. Phil on you.
"So how does it feel to be twenty-nine?" Carl smiled with a glaze in his eyes that signaled half a beer too many.
"Like being twenty-eight. Just as bone tired as yesterday."
"Aren't you glad we all came over, then?" His fifteen or so friends in the room smiled with an unforced camaraderie, but David wasn't feeling it. He wanted to sleep.
"Yeah, loads. I'm glad this only comes once a year."
"Aww, look at that, David is feeling old. Time to break out the diapers and applesauce."
"Hey, not quite yet. I've still got some time left before I need dentures like you."
David wished everyone would just pack up and leave. His fake smile was running out of batteries. Subconsciously, he probably forgot his birthday on purpose. It was all downhill from twenty-one, everyone knew that. What's there to look forward to? Wrinkles, arthritis, cholesterol, high blood pressure. David sighed and picked up some empty bottles.
"It's getting late." He hoped people would get the hint.
"Yeah, looks like it is. But we haven't opened your presents yet." Carl grinned sloppily, and most of the other men in the room woke from their alcoholic stupors.
"Yeah, man, you wouldn't want to have a birthday without presents, right?" Another of Carl's friends, someone David barely knew, spoke with a thinly veiled suggestion of what was to come.
The feeling David had when he realized he was outnumbered in his apartment suddenly returned. A headache formed behind his eyes; this night was far from over.
"Hey, Candy!"
A woman walked into the room. The guys erupted in laughter and catcalls.
She was barely dressed, save for some strategic red ribbons wrapped around her waist and chest. Tall black boots climbed her calves. Her red hair hung straight down from her head like a copper curtain, and her lips pressed together in a permanent pucker. A large shiny bow hung in between her breasts.
"Howdy, birthday boy." Candy's voice was like rust and gravel, but no one seemed to hear it but David.
Carl and his friends laughed and whooped. David wished he were still at work.
"What are you waiting for? Open your present."
Candy shoved her breasts against David, the bow crushed like a fly caught in a Venus fly-trap. Her breath smelled like bubble gum, but David could see the broken blood vessels in the whites of her eyes and the heavy concealer on her forehead. When she smiled, crow's feet materialized at the corners of her eyes. This woman was far beyond thirty.
Carl stuck his face close to theirs. His breath was rancid. "Come on, Davey, do us all a favor and open your present. We're all dying to see it."
The headache that had suddenly materialized in David's head began throbbing. Perhaps one didn't have to turn thirty to realize what it was all about. Or what it wasn't about. In the end, David thought, it wasn't about money or cars or parties. Or houses. Or children or retirement plans.
It was about sleep.
"I'm going to bed."
Candy raised her finely plucked eyebrows. "We haven't even gotten started, baby."
David took her by the shoulders and pushed her away. "No, I mean, I'm going to sleep."
"What?"
"Good night, everyone. I think you can all show yourselves the way out." The shouting and catcalls faded away lamely. Carl blinked stupidly. The silence that has invaded the room was like a gunshot from somewhere nearby, people suddenly looking to somebody else to decide what to do.
David threw away his beer bottle in the trash and shuffled away to his bedroom. He closed the door behind him with resolution.
Candy yelled after him, "Who the fuck do you think you are?"
CARL DIDN'T CALL the next day. Or the day after that.
David was glad. He suddenly had other things to worry about.
The sheets were soaking in a large bucket in the corner, next to a half empty bottle of bleach. His clothes were submerged in a bloody pool of water in the sink. If the stains didn't wash out, he would take them out to a deserted lot somewhere and burn them.
If they washed out, maybe he'd burn them anyway.
Just getting out of bed that morning was an ordeal. After his horror subsided, David got out of bed with a zombie-like slowness. Everything stuck together. The blankets stuck to the bed sheet. His clothes to the blankets. His fingers to each other.
David tiptoed delicately to the bathroom. The blood had congealed enough to not drip onto the floor, but he felt abhorrent and contaminated. He refrained from touching anything, except to shut the window he was sure he had closed the night before.
The steam from the shower didn't do much to wash away the feeling of contamination. David scrubbed and scrubbed until his skin was fresh and pink. He tried three different soaps to erase the stench. But it wouldn't come out, like the dirt beneath a fingernail or the corn stuck in between your teeth.
He was in trouble, without a doubt. Who could he turn to? At this point, Carl was a last resort.
David assumed Carl had spent a lot of money on the stripper and was resentful of his behavior. At this point, David didn't care all that much. They had been growing apart these last few years, and this was probably the last nail in the coffin of their friendship. They didn't know each other as well as they used to.
He thought Carl would have changed once he got married and had children. Matured. But that simply wasn't the case. Whenever Miranda wasn't around, Carl was the same old fraternity boy he was in college. Too much drink, too much partying, barely enough responsibility.
It probably didn't help that David and Miranda barely got along. They were civil to each other, but they had nothing in common except Carl. She was stiff and proper, while Carl was scarcely an adult. David was amazed their marriage lasted so long. He wondered what Carl saw in her.
After that night, he wondered more about what Miranda saw in Carl.
The phone rang on Monday.
"Hey, man." Carl's voice was non-committal.
"Carl. I'm sorry about the other day."
"Whatever."
"I was really tired that night and I just really wanted to get some rest. I hope you understand."
"Doesn't matter. Seriously." Somehow, David didn't believe that. "Look, the reason I called was because I didn't want you to be shocked if you read the newspaper yet."
"Why, what happened?"
"It's on the front page. Seems our Candy had a run-in with some freaks last night. Her body was all cut up and shit. They found her in the bathroom of some diner on Broadway."
"Oh my God. Is she…?"
"Yeah, man, she's dead."
