Read Experiment in Terror 06.5 And With Madness Comes the Light for Free Online

you want to
know how she is. I just want to make sure she’s fine and see if I
can help in any way if she’s not.”
    I nodded and gave her a stern look. “Watch
out for her mom. She bites.”
    Half an hour later, the tattoo was complete.
I felt lighter already.
     
     
    ***
     
     
    A few days later I heard back from Rebecca.
She went to Perry’s and things hadn’t exactly gone as planned. I
was torn between wanting as much information from her as possible
and trying to protect my heart. In the end, my stupid,
self-destructive tendencies demanded every single detail from her.
I’d really lost it. That guy who wasn’t about to stalk her? Well I
felt like I was mentally stalking her as I made Rebecca describe
what she looked like. She sounded as beautiful as ever, darkness
and light all wrapped up into one. My heart twisted itself into a
well-worn knot.
    “She looked tired though,” she told me over
the phone while I got ready to go to the corner store. I was having
Dean and Seb over for some drinks before we hit up the bars,
something I hadn’t done in an extremely long time.
    “What kind of tired?” I asked. Perry had
fair skin that usually rebelled when she didn’t get enough sleep.
Yeah, yeah, I’m a creeper who noticed those things. I didn’t say
she still wasn’t gorgeous when she was tired. It made her look more
vulnerable than ever, and that, combined with her delicious tits
that were just ripe for squeezing were a fucking lethal
combination.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I caught her
coming back from a run, so maybe it was just that. Or perhaps it
was the fact that she wanted to throw my arse to the curb. It was
hard to tell.”
    Regardless, I made her tell me everything
all over again, going over every word she said. Perhaps, if Rebecca
repeated it enough, it would be like talking to Perry herself.
    It wasn’t, but in some sick way, it was
close. Hearing this gave me a sense of closure that I didn’t have
before, relief that she, as tired as she might have been, was okay.
She was alive and out there in the world, living her life, working
a new job. She’d moved on, and as much as that stung the shit out
of me worse than any wasp could, I was somewhat happy for her.
    Of course, being happy for her made me feel
more miserable for me. Call me a selfish dickmonkey, but it’s hard
to be happy for someone when you can’t share their happiness with
them. I wanted to be there with her as she lived her life, watching
for those rare smiles on her face.
    I was grumbling about that to myself as I
pulled my coat around me and braved the cold, crossing underneath
the monorail tracks to the store. I tied Fat Rabbit outside and
went inside, searching the aisle for the cheapest bottle of wine. I
was unemployed now and wasn’t about to waste a drop of expensive
shit on Dean and Seb, not when they’d probably be puking it up
later anyway.
    It was just a small convenience store, and
while the douchester hipbag guy behind the counter—Paul I think his
name was—dealt with a customer at the jugs of beer-to-go (who knew
it would be so popular?), I waited at the register, watching a lady
with interest.
    I’d seen her a few times before…in fact,
lately I think she’d been in the store every time I was there. She
wore all black, with a furry velvet hat that looked vaguely
Russian. I’d never seen her face; she would just walk from the
counter, down the aisle to the end, like she was part zombie. You
know the way really old people walk when they’re too stubborn for
scooters or a cane? That kind of walk. Slow, deliberate, and
shaking slightly. I’d never seen her look at anything on the
shelves or buy anything. She just did that ultra-slow walk of
hers.
    “Ready to go?” Douchester Hipbag said to me.
I straightened up off the counter and pushed the bottle of wine
toward him.
    “Sure am.”
    “Still not smoking?” he asked as he rang it
up.
    “Still not,” I told him and turned my
attention back to