Fiction | Short Story

A Childhood Friend Contacted Me Out of the Blue and the Reason Why Will Horrify You – Part II

Looking back, it all kicked off because I’d had a shit night. Josh and I had somehow regressed to basic, functional communication via text. How you? – Yeah alright. U? – that kind of thing. It was upsetting, so naturally instead of confronting my problems I’d stayed up all night drinking screwdrivers. I woke up […]

Looking back, it all kicked off because I’d had a shit night. Josh and I had somehow regressed to basic, functional communication via text. How you? – Yeah alright. U? – that kind of thing. It was upsetting, so naturally instead of confronting my problems I’d stayed up all night drinking screwdrivers. I woke up with a dull headache and jittery nerves.

There was a blinking message from Erin on my computer screen, sent fifty-two minutes ago.

Good morning sunshine! What’s happening with you today

I wanted painkillers and to bury my face into Jas’s soft fur. But something was gnawing at my conscience.

There’s an important and increasingly relevant sociological theory about dynamic of strong and weak ties in the networking fabric of society. Weak ties, like our Facebook acquaintances are tenuous relationships. But the relative strength in weak ties helps to explain why, for example, people are comfortable telling a near-stranger their deepest, darkest secret. As opposed to telling the same thing to a close friend.

Oh I had a crap night, could barely sleep.

I paused, then continued typing.

Can I tell you something? It’s kind of embarrassing and shameful to admit.. I don’t really know where to start but I think I need to do it for my own sanity.

I confessed the entire saga, starting with the searing fights between me and Josh, my low self-esteem over our relationship. The innocent-at-first flirtation with a courier who sometimes visited my work. To the day we finally found ourselves alone in the shop.

Minutes ticked by as I waited for Erin’s reply. It seemed odd, she’d normally respond back within moments. I flipped on the TV for awhile, then returned to the study to half heartedly continue my novel.

When I saw what she’d written back, my mouth fell open in shock.

grace you WHORE!!!11!! Fhajskhfakafu how can you have done seriously now you have to go get HiM. GET hiMkgdjsgs bastard fuckkkk him bastard

The chat window was now greyed out – an alert told me that the user was inactive.

I felt vomit rising at the back of my throat and ran to the bathroom. The entire flat felt like it had dropped five degrees in temperature.

I went into the bedroom and threw myself in bed, covering my head with a blanket. Eventually, as I hoped it would, sleep took hold.

When I woke, the remnants of my hangover were gone and I tried to think it through rationally. Ok, perhaps I had offended Erin in some way. I’d plainly assumed I knew her better then I really did, and this was her way of letting me know I’d touched a nerve.

I approached the laptop like a dangerous animal, ignoring the still-grey chat screen. I opened a new browser window and loaded Google. Then, I typed Erin Mayweather into the search engine. When I saw the search results, if my stomach wasn’t already empty I would have been violently sick again.

Woman, 22 Missing – Police step up manhunt

Mayweather family demand answers but no leads in woman’s disappearance

I read them as quickly as I could. According to the articles, both dated from roughly four years ago, Erin had left for work one morning and never made it. Her boyfriend at the time of the disappearance was the prime person of interest for some time. Then, due to a lack of conclusive evidence, the case eventually went cold.

I was virtually rooted to my seat, trying to process this information when I heard a noise that sounded like footsteps in the living room. I ignored it at first, thinking it probably was the neighbour upstairs. Then, the sound of the TV volume increasing louder and louder and louder, as if someone was turning it all the way up.

On the verge of losing my cool, I sprinted to the living room as if expecting to confront an intruder, to find nothing except the TV blaring at max volume. I unplugged it at the socket and returned to the laptop. This time I typed another name into Google: Jackson Aiken. Erin’s boyfriend.

In photos, Jackson had what my mum would call ‘roguish charm’. Attractive, but with long, dirty looking hair and a steely expression. He looked like the kind of man who didn’t like being told no.

Through Google, I found his name attached to a liquor licensing register. Turned out he was co-manager of the Westminster Tavern. It wasn’t exactly my local, but I knew that it attracted a lot of expats, locals and students from the nearby uni.

My mind pinwheeled through scenes of the last few days, the deep and meaningful conversations I’d had with an apparently missing girl. Her abrupt reaction to my secret. The weird things happening in the house. Insane as it might sound, I was desperate to dig further into the truth about this bizarre and illogical turn of events my life had appeared to have taken.

I checked the time. 5.12pm. It was a Friday and the after work crowd would probably start rolling through the doors now.

Was I prepared to stalk the suspect in a major crime to find out? Yes. No. Go. GO. I grabbed the car keys.

The Westie was located at a busy commercial junction off the highway, sandwiched between McDonalds and an auto repair shop. I parked and headed in, sitting strategically at a corner with a good vantage point.

For the next hour I sipped Cokes, listened to terrible 80s music and watched the bar like a hawk. No sign of Jackson Aiken. Another forty five minutes passed. Fed up of waiting and listening to a group of construction workers next to me screaming the words to I’d Do Anything for Love, I was ready to abandon my recon mission when I spotted him. A buzz cut had replaced the shoulder length hair, but it was definitely him.

I watched intently as he traded words with several staff, then shook the hand of another. He headed toward the exit and I stealthily followed him out to the car park.

He climbed into a red Toyota and sped off. After a split second, I jumped into Josh’s Audi and followed, trying not to make it appear obvious that I was tailing every turn he made. After awhile, the Toyota slowed and eased through a quieter suburban street. I braked to compensate and nearly stalled the engine, cursing myself. Jackson Aiken exited the Toyota without a glance to where I was idling on the street, and entered a nondescript looking white brick house. A few minutes later, it went dark.

Feeling numb, I drove home, collapsed into bed, got up the next morning and worked a shift without checking social media for the entire day. But Erin’s words still rattled in my head. I replayed Jackson’s confident smirk, the way I’d noticed his hand drift down one of the female bar attendants back.

Then I pushed those thoughts out of my head. Josh would be home in two days and the house was a trainwreck. After attempting some perfunctory housework, I switched on my laptop. The Facebook messenger window was open. And Erin was no longer inactive.

On screen, a message was waiting. It would be the last ever communication between us.

PAY ATTENTION

Then –

ISEESAW

ISEESAW

ISEESAW

Before my fingers could even touch the keyboard, the box went grey again. She was gone, this time for good.

What the hell was she trying to tell me? I, see, saw? What had she seen? Was it a clue?

I wrote down any and every possible answer or link to Erin’s disappearance and Googled through the night until my eyes burned. Everything I tried seemed to lead to a dead end.

The next day I resolved to return Jackson’s house. I know how dangerous and crazy it sounds now, but inexplicably I felt as if an unknown force was pulling me back.

The street was deserted. I parked a few houses down, thankful for the Audi’s dark window tint. The Toyota was still in the carport. After an hour of waiting, intuition paid off. The front door opened and Jackson strode out, jumped in his car and drove away. I realised this was my one chance.

I strolled casually and calmly into the car port and ducked out of sight as soon as possible. A few boxes were strewn around the oil splattered floor, but they only contained tools and old paintbrushes. nothing of interest. Look further, a voice in my head whispered.

A gate connected to the car port to the backyard, so I pushed it open and walked through. I don’t know what I expected to find, bodies strewn around the place? The scene was so unremarkable I nearly burst out laughing at the absurdity of what I was doing. Jackson Aiken had a perfectly neat, conventional garden, complete with a BBQ and a small, free standing shed. A solid padlock hung on the shed door, but I noticed it wasn’t locked and unsnapped it. Placing the lock on the ground, I went in.

A cold smell of concrete and metal greeted me. Inside the small, dusty space there wasn’t much room to move around. But whoever built the shed had made great use of the space with shelving units. Except for one section, where a small animal skull was mounted alongside several colourful car license plates. I thought it added a nice decorative touch.

Then, swift as a punch, the realisation hit me. There it was – mounted on the wall in plain sight.

I, see, saw. Or 15E E5AW.

Erin’s license plate. I knew then, without question that it was.

I reached up and unhooked it from the wall, then stood motionless for several minutes. The only thing was.. How would I tell the police this was the key piece of evidence they’d never found?

Interrupting my reverie was the faint sound of a car engine. Fuck. Jackson had returned, and the car port, the main escape route, was now blocked. I realised that I’d left my phone in the car.

Peering through a tiny, dirty window I saw him enter the garden. My heart felt like it had dropped into my shoes. Please don’t come in here.

Just as I remembered that I’d left the padlock on the ground outside, the door swung open. A few seconds that felt like years passed as we locked eyes, license plate still in my hand. His were literally dark with rage. Then he lurched at me.

I grabbed at the first solid item in my reach, which happened to be a cricket bat, and swung wildly. It connected with Jackson’s jaw not particularly hard, but hard enough for him to recoil and give me time to escape out of the shed.

I screamed loudly as possible then my head jerked back so violently that I was practically winded. He must have grabbed at my ponytail. Gasping, he tackled me to the ground and wrenched my arm behind my back. I clawed at his face with my free hand but could already feel the strength draining from my body. I felt rough hands closing over my throat.

Out of the corner of my eye there was a flash of movement. I could hear Jackson yelling, his grip on me loosening. Then, I saw Josh, wielding a brick.

“Grace!! What the hell is going on?” Josh shook me by the shoulders and my teeth literally chattered, but I knew he was worried, not angry.

Jackson lay on the ground moaning, blood pouring from his head.

Dazed, all I could manage to mumble was “How did you find me here?”

“I got home early and the house was an absolute wreck, you weren’t answering your phone and the car was gone. I thought maybe the car had been stolen, or you’d been abducted, I had no idea. So I activated the car’s GPS security system to trace it.”

He looked distraught, and I wondered how I was going to talk my way out of this one. I wasn’t sure how to explain that a missing girl had contacted me via Facebook, slut-shamed me when I’d confessed to infidelity and then left clues that her boyfriend was the perpetrator in her own disappearance. So I said lamely, “Oh, okay.”

“I heard you screaming from the street and rushed out here. The police are on their way now”.

By the time the police took my statement, I’d managed to concoct a version of events that sounded somewhat plausible. Of course, I left out the part where Erin contacted me. When the detective who seemed too personable to be a cop asked me why I’d taken the license plate from Jackson’s shed, I told him – truthfully – that it belonged to Erin.

I honestly didn’t think that anything positive would come from my stint as a wannabe Olivia Benson. But the police must have run checks on the license plate. As it turned out, records showed that it had been registered to Erin four years ago. Jackson had always maintained in statements from the beginning that he’d not seen Erin or her car since the day she vanished. When flecks of blood on the metal frame turned out to be a match too, Jackson broke down and confessed to Erin’s murder. Apparently, he’d driven her car out to a remote property and disposed of the body and car there. But he didn’t want to risk leaving behind an incriminating license plate.

At least, that’s what the detective told me. By that stage nobody in the police force seemed to be bothered about the fact I’d been snooping through his house in the first place. They were happy to close another difficult murder case.

A few weeks passed, I attended a memorial service held for Erin. I went reluctantly, not wanting to be outed as the crazy girl who’d become entangled in her case. To my relief, hardly anyone spoke to me. After the service, I was pouring a cup of tea when a I noticed a young man with red hair in the room. Erin’s younger brother who had flown over from Singapore. We began chatting, and as the conversation flowed I sensed that he too knew more. Before I could stop myself, I’d blurted out the truth about our unexplainable contact. His eyes were downcast, but he smiled briefly. ‘I think she was trying to reach me too. I had the most surreal dreams for a long time, where she’d be standing right in front of me’.

I found out that Erin had caught Jackson cheating on her before, and she suspected he was doing it again. The day she disappeared, she’d confronted him about it.

A couple of days later, Josh and I decided it would be best to split up.

The hardest part about that was moving back to mum’s place. Back in my childhood bedroom, the walls still papered with Smash Hits posters, I had many a night to think long and hard – and sober – about why and how I’d fucked up over the last 26 years.

But slowly, bit by bit, things did start to turn around. After a dozen rejected job applications, I finally got my first job that didn’t require me to wear a name tag – an entry level copywriting position at a small agency. With a steady income, I moved out to my own tiny studio near the river. I even finished the manuscript.

One day I headed out to grab lunch at my regular spot when out of nowhere, I spied Josh sitting at one of the café tables. He looked thinner, scruffier, but still Josh. I felt as though an electric current passed through my body. I almost had a heart attack when he called out to me.

Instead of running away, I sat down. To my surprise, he started off by apologising for what happened between us the previous year. “I was as much to blame, Gracie. Being cold and acting like work was a matter of life and death, I couldn’t even see how much stress you were going through too. And I never owned up to it.” He confessed that there had been some kind of flirtation with a girl from his work, too during the last stages of us our relationship. I was stunned. It was the first time I’d ever heard Josh sound nervous.

Over the next hour, we had genuine heart-to-heart. It felt so good to reconnect that I felt like I was about to levitate off my chair. He leaned closer. “I’m so glad you sent those emails, otherwise I never would have had the wake up call I needed.”

“What emails?” I said, mouth full of cream cheese bagel. “The emails you sent, Grace. A couple of weeks ago.” My blank expression must have spoken volumes because he spun around his tablet to face me. “These ones”.

The browser was already open to Gmail. I tapped on the most recent mail exchange. Sure enough, there was dozens of messages back and forth between us. Speed reading through a few, I recognised the phrases I often used, my distinct email style.

They were sent from my genuine account, but they weren’t written by me. I had a feeling who did write them though. Only thing was, there were things in those emails I didn’t even remember telling her.

Undigested bagel lodged in my stomach like a yeasty lump. It dawned on me that perhaps this meeting wasn’t entirely by chance. “Oh yeah.. those emails”.

Parting ways, Josh and I hugged for about seven seconds too long and I knew that we’d be seeing each other again soon.

When we quietly started dating again a few months later, I couldn’t help my mind straying to Erin and her unusual.. intervention, if you can call it that.

Eventually, I decided that it’s a sign she chose to forgive me.

I think – I hope – it is.