Page 8 of Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind
But it’s no use.
Noodles runs right across the porch, through that open door, and into the townhome.
And following, hot on her heels and breathing like a winded rhinoceros, is me.
* * *
The place is quiet.
No, it’s more than quiet. It’s empty, even though there are sparse pieces of furniture, and it’s that emptiness that eases my nerves at entering. The lights are off; there’s no noise anywhere. There’s a vacant feeling, too, like whoever lives here is in the process of moving out. It reminds me, bizarrely, of my old high school gymnasium. Of the way it would ring with the sound of cheering fans and bouncing basketballs and shouting coaches—only to be completely empty several hours later, lights off, so silent that my footsteps echoed and reverberated from wall to wall, bouncing off all the sleek surfaces, hunting in vain for a place to settle.
That’s what this townhome feels like: an empty gymnasium, amplifying the sound of my solitary footsteps.
I shake my head. I need to stop thinking about weird things and find this stupid dog.
“Noodles!” I whisper-hiss, craning my neck to look all around. I don’t see her, so I keep moving. “Where are you? Come here now. Noodles!”
I startle when I realize how I’m walking—a weird sort of half-crouching tiptoe that’s neither stealthy nor energy efficient. I straighten up, smoothing my hands over my shirt and looking around once again, this time to make sure no one witnessed my idiocy.
No one. I’m good to go.
I’m sticking my head around the corner and into the kitchen—a fancy, largely metallic affair full of sleek surfaces—when my ears catch one very damning sound: a dog’s bark, followed by a human shout.
And then more barking, and more shouting, and the littlewomp-wompsound I imagine my sinking heart is making.
Crap. Crap, crap, crap.
I scramble after the shouts and barks, bypassing the sparsely decorated living room and skidding down a long, wide hallway. At the end of the hallway is a wide-open door, and as I draw nearer, I hear a faint splashing noise from within, followed by a voice cursing.
I peek in, sticking my head over the threshold. It’s a bedroom, huge but mostly empty except for a king bed and a chest of drawers. I don’t see anyone.
But there’s a light coming from a door on the other side of the room, and the sounds I’ve been hearing are echoing from within. I take a deep breath, trying to get it together.
I am a woman on a mission. I am strong. I can handle this. No Poodle is going to get the best of me. So I march across the bedroom, toward the second door, and step right inside—finding myself in what can only be the master bath.
It’s tiled in pristine, gleaming white, with a large glass shower—ooh, double shower heads—and a claw-footed tub in the corner. But that’s where my admiration ends.
Because there, sitting in the bathtub and staring at Noodles, is a hulking mass of a man pulled straight from a horror movie.
He’s muscular. He’s tan. He’s probably totally hot, based on the aforementioned muscles.
But he’s wearing a mask—white and papery with cutouts for his eyes, nose, and mouth.
And look. I like to keep my wits about me. But I am only human, and that is abigguy, and the mask thing is just…bizarre.
So I react like anyone would.
I let out some strange combination of a scream and a yelp, scrambling backward and clinging to the doorframe like it’s a bodyguard. The man in the tub yelps in response, and for a second we just stare at each other.
“What the—who—get out!” he says. “Why would you come in?!”
Solid question. It seems briefly like he’s going to stand up and chase me away; he starts to move. But then he must realize he’s not in a position to be running around, because he freezes. Even with the creepy mask, I can tell that the look he throws me is disgruntled. He sinks back into the tub.
“Take off the mask,” I say, which doesn’t even make sense. I have bigger worries than this guy’s weirdo mask. But I have zero interest in slasher films or psycho creeps, and I will absolutely not put up with any of that nonsense. I can’t die yet. I want to live to a ripe old age. I still have things to accomplish. I havedreams.
“Excuse me?” the man says. His voice rumbles low, threaded with annoyance and incredulity. The water ripples around him as he covers himself more thoroughly with his arms—not that I’m looking. “If you don’t get out of my house immediately, I’m calling the police. This is breaking and entering. How did you get in? Is the dog yours?”
Crap. He’s right. But something inside me relaxes the tiniest bit. If he were a killer, he wouldn’t be threatening to call the police.
