It's Not You

There's been women going missing for a few months now. They're close to home, and it scares me deeply. They're all women around my age, tanned, athletic, with streaks of highlights in their long, wavy hair. They've found a few of their bodies. The others, I presume, would show up soon. I've stopped going for my midnight runs. Which mean more to me than I care to admit. The stillness of the night, the cool breeze on my skin, the perspiration, the heat from within, the steady, rhythmic thumping of my feet on the ground. I've taken to having a glass or five of wine at night, my replacement crutch. They were mutilated. Badly mutilated. I don't like thinking about the details. Perhaps it'd be enough to paint a general picture with this: They were so badly mutilated, the police never figured out if they had been sexually abused. Identifications were through the molars. And the hair. Always streaked with highlights. Always knotted into a bun. Post-mortem? Likely. People have their theories. I've stopped going out for late night stops at convenient stores. I carry a can of home-made pepper spray (I make them extra brutal) everywhere I go. When I hear footsteps behind me, I freeze, whirl, and reach into my bag for the pepper spray, carefully stowed at the top for easy access, always. My husband helps me out some times. When I'm panicking, worried, paranoid. He calms my nerves, reassures me. He tells me the monster would never get me. He would make sure of that. He helps run errands that involve leaving the house at night. He wakes up to check out night-time noises in the house that spook me. He told me he has joined the neighborhood watch, and spends many nights out surveilling the streets. My treadmill arrived today. I've been going through wine bottles like a stressed-out middle-aged housewife tackling five screaming children and a straying husband. I don't know why, but whenever I think of copious amounts of red wine guzzled, I have this vivid image in my head, of a disheveled, frazzled housewife yelling at her kids to shut up, and leaving furious voice messages on her husband's phone. A very specific image I must have picked up from somewhere. But I digress. I twist my hair into a high bun, and pull on my trainers. 1 minute of sprinting, 1 minute at a leisurely pace. Repeat. This routine keeps my mind focused. Distracted from the everyday worries that buzz about my mind. I was twenty minutes in when I thought I heard something. A slight creak. I knew, logically, that this was probably the house settling. It was, after all, a familiar sound I've heard for years. It's only recently become a harbinger of dread. I tap down the treadmill, and step off it before it comes to a complete stop. I'm quiet for a while. No more creaks. I would very much like a weapon. I usually go for the knives, but this time, the creak sounded like it came from the kitchen. I remember a baseball bat in the storage room. I silently place my foot one after the other, desperately lightening my steps as much as I could. I'm a feather. I'm a feather. I repeat to myself mentally, with each step. I make it to the storage room without so much as a squeak from the floorboards. The door was ajar, thank god. I nudged my way in and switched on the lights. I quickly close the door behind me and lock it. That should buy me some time. No more sound was heard from outside. I knew I was being paranoid again. That no one was in the house planning to hurt me. But my adrenaline remained coursing through my body. I poke around the shelves, looking for the bat. I noticed a briefcase I'd never seen before. I'd bet the pass code was 319. My husband's a pretty straightforward guy. His birthday is the 18th of March. I've found out a long time ago that his pass code for everything with 4 digits was 0319. I guess he thought if he changed one number of his birth date, people wouldn't figure out his pass code. But I did, a year back, when I was suspicious and paranoid about his commitment to me. Yes, I was snooping. I never let on that I knew, though. For a three digit briefcase pass code, I was pretty sure it'd be 319. Or maybe 031. He's not too complicated. At this moment, I spot the baseball bat. It was tucked into the back of a high shelf, behind a box of old clothes I've been wanting to donate for, well, a really long time. I made the 100th mental note to myself to remember to drive down to the salvation army one weekend soon. I grab the bat, and make my way to the kitchen. I don't call the police. If I did that every time I was nervous, I'd probably be having tea with police officers on a nightly basis. No one's in the kitchen. I breathe out the air I hadn't realised I'd been holding inside. My muscles are vibrating from the stress and the release. I sit numbly at the dining table. My phone lights up. My husband is on his way home. Another night keeping the neighborhood safe for women like myself. When he's home, I hug him tightly. I don't have to tell him what happened. He knows. It happens almost every night. A couple times a night some days. "You're later than usual," I say, and immediately cringe at the whiny tinge to my words. "I'm sorry, we decided to explore a few more streets, be a little more thorough". I keep silent and just hold on his hand. We chat for a while. As usual, his words were kind, sweet and reflected concern. But as usual too, something was off. He sounded like a tense drum skin, taut and dull. I know it's the stress of the monster at large getting me paranoid. He was, after all, the protector in my life, and perhaps I was more sensitive and paranoid nowadays about losing his protection. Or some psychobabble I wouldn't understand. "You're hurt." I flip his hand upwards and trace the side of a cut with my fingertip. His face hardened for a fraction. Then his expression softened, and he told me about how he cut his hand trying to twist open a beer bottle with his bare hands. "I really need a bottle opener stuffed in my wallet or something". "You're like a legit cop doing stakeouts with beer and chips and whatnot," I joke. "But I really do appreciate all you're doing to keep me, to keep our area safe." He smiles. "It's all for you. I do everything because of you."

In the dark of the night, I awake. I get like this sometimes. Something puzzles me, something stays just out of reach, or perhaps I don't even realise something is bothering me. Then I go to bed, and shoot up awake, intuition ringing and an idea formed. I look over my shoulder. He's sound asleep. He's often an insomniac. But once in a while, he seems to be able to relax, and fall asleep. I guess the melatonin tablets he's been taking over the past months are slowly working their magic. I slide out of bed, and creep as quietly as I could, down to the storage room. As the light flickers on, I've to squint for a while before my vision comes back into focus. I see it. The briefcase. The wheels click softly as I turn the numbers to 3...1...9. The locks pop open. I knew it. The briefcase is empty, save for a couple of ziplock bags. As I hold the up to the light, I see nothing. Just a bit of wetness. It was the same for all the bags. I breathe a sigh of relief. It was nothing. Curious, out of the ordinary, but it was nothing. I stopped in the midst of closing the case, froze for a hearbeat. I pulled it open again. I start counting the bags. 11 of them. An icy cold liquid seeps into my heart. My breath catches. 11 missing women. The thought pops up in my mind before I could shove it out. This is ridiculous, I know. Completely unrelated explanations abound. But he was out every night a woman went missing. I can't seem to stop the thoughts. And the nights after. He sleeps. He's calmer. Random injuries appeared on his arms and twice, on his face. Brushed off with silly stories. But it's not possible. He's my protector. And he's gone out of his way to keep me safe. My highlights, my tanned skin, my age. He's told me that I don't have to dye my hair, stop getting out in the sun. He's assured me no one is ever going to hurt me. Not on his watch. I remember the fight we had. Where it seemed like years of rage, buried deep, erupted from him. I remember thinking that I should never question him again. Never make him feel that way again. When the killings started. The thought swept its way in, and I batted it out. I close the brief case, and set the numbers back to 0. I set it back on the shelf.

Back in bed, I look at his breathing, calm face for a few minutes. It's not you. It can't be you. I pull the covers up and close my eyes.