painting by Leo Smith

8

would forever be Pluto, small and insignificant, cold and dark. Billions of miles away from her source of light, of warmth.

Her gaze was so fixed on her sister that she didn’t notice the man until she heard the scrape of the chair’s legs across the tile floor. Startled, she turned her head to him as he sat down on the other side of the table.

“Well, you don’t look like a college student,” he said with a quirk of his lips, a weird attempt at a smile.

Neither did he, really. He looked like he should already be out of college, doing something other than talking to teenage girls in college dining halls. He had a thin beard covering his face, the same rusty reddish brown as the hair pulled back into a ponytail down his back. His green eyes were framed by a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and he wore a green flannel shirt with jeans. Even from across the table, Jenny could smell some type of earthy scent on him. Maybe it was a hint of pine or evergreen. Whatever it was, it seemed almost as out of place in this setting as she did.

Since she didn’t answer right away, he filled the silence. “That your sister?”

Again she just looked at him. She had no idea who he was. Why should she tell him anything about herself?

“I saw you looking at her, that’s all,” he added. As if that made it any more normal.

Despite being a little weirded out, Jenny had to say there was something alluring about him. Almost in the same way as Jess, but in a wild, near-chaotic way. She was just drawn to him.

And so she answered, “Yeah, that’s my sister.”

“She speaks!” he laughed, an expression of mock excitement coming over his face.

“She’s a freshman. First day.” Jenny didn’t quite know why she said that without his asking. Maybe she just wanted a little fun. After all, that’s what Jess was always telling her to do. Go out and make friends. Other than me. Jess didn’t have to say it. They both knew what she meant.

“Me too,” he told her, much to her surprise. Her eyes again wandered to his beard, the way the auburn hair naturally curved around the corner of his mouth, and then the loose hair from his head hanging by his glasses.

Wanting to mask her dismay, she turned, searching the room for Jess and Bridget. They were easy to spot, with Bridget’s flaming curls and the group already surrounding Jess.

“Let me guess,” he said, following Jenny’s gaze. “The whole world revolves around her. The queen bee.”

Once again he was right. It was almost as if he could read her mind.

“So what does that make you?”

Jenny thought for a moment as she watched Jess. Her older sister was now look-

painting by Leo Smith

ing at her and the man, and Jess’s eyes widened. She immediately started making her way back over to Jenny’s table, Bridget and a couple others in tow.

“What are you doing?” asked Jess, an edge to her tone. But she didn’t address Jenny. She was asking the man.

“Just talking to your little sister,” he said, that same unusual little smile nestled in his beard.

“Get away, you creep!” Jess told him, pulling Jenny up from her seat. Without waiting for him to obey, Jess took her by the wrist and led her away.

“My name’s Jeff, by the way!” he called after her.

Jenny glanced back. She didn’t want to forget that smile.

Apair of yellow lights came into view between the trees, making Jenny’s heart leap. Finally, he was home.

She had stayed simple with her answer to the girls. “I met him at college.” Not technically a lie, but she didn’t feel like getting into the specifics with them.

As Jeff’s truck rolled toward the house, the TV started behind her. One of the girls must’ve gotten ahold of the remote. Both Andi and Erica were on the couch, curled up in fuzzy blankets. Andi was nudging Erica, telling her to change the channel. The nightly news was boring for little girls.

Jenny glanced up at the screen. Her breath hitched. She was staring at a very familiar face, one that she had not thought about for years.

More than a decade later, she looked the same. The same bright eyes, though now etched with the beginnings of crows’ feet, despite her youth. The same full, red lips. And, of course, the distinctive bright red curls. Bridget.

“Hey, hey, hey, stop,” Jenny said, hurrying over to the couch to grab the remote from Erica. She never let her eyes leave the screen.

In large red letters next to Bridget’s name, Jenny read the word Missing. Bridget was missing. Was this the same man that had been featured on the news? They seemed to have the same thoughts as Jenny, because the reporter animatedly waving her arms on a city street was mimicking the flurry of worry in Jenny’s mind: serial killer.

Without thinking, Jenny swung open the front door of their little one-bedroom house and ran out to Jeff’s truck. After a couple knocks on the passenger side window, Jeff finally rolled it down.

“What, Jenny?” he asked, visibly annoyed.

“It’s Bridget, from college,” she said, a little out of breath. “You know, Jess’s roommate?”

“Yeah, so?”

“She’s missing. It’s all over the news.”

“Just go inside, Jen. I’ve got something to take care of.”

She knew better than to argue. She turned and went back inside, just as she was told. Erica and Andi were backwards on the couch, peeking over the back toward her.

“Okay girls, time for bed.”

The girls grumbled and whined a little bit, but Jenny could tell they were as tired as she was. She tried to put Bridget out of her mind for a moment as she gathered spare blankets and pillows and a couple sleeping bags from the cluttered closet in the hall.

She knew that Jeff was probably out in his shed doing God knows what. He liked to stay private, and she was willing to allow that. People had their own secrets. It just annoyed her that he brushed her away so easily.

Erica and Andi were finally getting nestled into their sleeping bags when Jenny heard something absolutely bone-chilling. A high-pitched, bloodcurdling scream penetrated the silence of the night. And it most

9

10

certainly was not the scream of a full-grown man.

There must be someone out in the forest. Jenny couldn’t help but think of Bridget and the serial killer. But why would a woman be out here, this far from anyone else?

Jenny left the confused girls and grabbed a flashlight from their junk drawer. She wildly flung the door open, but just before crossing the threshold, she stopped. Fear paralyzed her, but anxiety made her mind a frenzy of panicked thoughts. This could be a major mistake.

But what could happen if she didn’t help?

Then she reminded herself that Jeff was out there. He could save the woman and fend off whoever or whatever made her scream.

But there it was again. Another scream sounded through the trees, but this time it was cut short. She was really in trouble.

Suddenly Jenny was moving, her legs pumping of their own accord, carrying her toward Jeff’s shed. She could make out a narrow strip of faint light along the base of the door. He was there. Why wasn’t he helping the woman? Jenny just needed to get him, and then they’d help her.

She was nearly there when her foot caught on something, and she stumbled and fell to the ground. The flashlight skittered out of her hand and flickered to darkness as it disappeared in the brush. Covered in dirt and the crumblings of dead autumn leaves, she looked back to see what she had tripped over, but found nothing. It was as if the darkness itself had reached out and knocked her from her feet.

She half crawled, half ran to the shed, tugging open the door. But the scene that met her took her breath away. Most of it was what she had expected. She knew Jeff was big into hunting, taking trips every other weekend and returning with a surplus of venison that neither of them would ever be able to finish. So the variety of guns and saws and knives that lined the shelved walls didn’t surprise her.

Jeff was crouched on the floor, bent over a shape that was hard to identify in the dim light. But as he turned to confront her, the slumped figure came into full view, and she knew exactly who it was. All it would have taken was a single curl of that shade for her to know, but she saw before her a full head of flames and a limp body to accompany it. There was a sizable red line across her throat, a crimson in contrast to her ginger and his auburn.

“Jenny, dear, it’s not what it looks like,” Jeff said. Already the corner of his mouth was beginning to twitch up, revealing the end of one of his incisors. He took a tentative step toward her, and for whatever reason, she stood still.

It wasn’t until she was falling to the ground that she registered the object in his hand.

Jenny’s eyes fluttered open. It took a moment for her to realize where she was. The bombardment of white was easy to identify. The hospital.

She looked around, trying to gain her bearings. In the chair across the room was a man with an auburn beard and horn-rimmed glasses. Jeff.

Just like that, everything from the previous night came rushing back to her, bringing with it a wave of nausea. In the corner of her eye, the heart monitor’s screen jumped, sending that line skyward.

“Get away!” she said. “Get the hell away from me!”

She must have been loud enough to hear in the hallway, because a nurse with flaming red curls entered the room.

“What’s wrong, dear?” she asked.

“He-he’s a murderer,” Jenny stuttered,