Eternal (1)

The drink, icy cold, touched her full red lips, and as it slid down her throat, despite its smoothness, she almost choked.  The tears in her dark brown, almost black, eyes threatened to pour down her high cheekbones once again. She sat alone in the crowded smoke filled bar. She wished she was oblivious to the throngs of people around her, but she wasn’t. No one had asked her to dance, or asked to buy her a drink, or for that matter, no one had even given her a second glance. That made her feel even worse.1

“What’s wrong with me?” she wondered. Then she chided herself. Why would any self respecting man approach a pitiful soul like me when he could have any of the half naked, bone thin, blonde haired, no brained bitches bouncing around on the dance floor?2

She made up her mind to smile and pretend to have a good time and see if anyone noticed her. She got up out of the corner, walked straight to the bar, and ordered another crown and coke. She smiled at the bartender, and he gave her a knowing smirk in return. She turned too quickly and almost spilled her drink on the woman behind her. The woman made some sort of snorting noise and returned to conversing with her pack of girlfriends. Mirra mumbled an apology and began the long trek around the wooden dance floor. A scrawny drunken drugstore cowboy shot her a toothless grin and stuck his tongue out in an attempt at a seductive gesture. She turned her head quickly and continued blindly on her way. When she realized she was back to the corner she had so recently vacated, she sat down in a slump.
I don’t need this! I don’t belong in this place. She downed the drink and left the bar almost in tears. Why doesn’t anyone want me? She thought. Then, with revulsion etched on her face, she remembered the skanky cowboy. Why do I always attract the scum of the earth?3

The dense, black night enveloped her, trying to prevent escape. The rain fell in waves and pounded her skin with a personal hatred. The keys, too, held a vengeful grudge against her as they slipped from her hand to the muddy ground. She cursed as the rain blended with her tears, stinging her face. She looked up at the cold moonless sky and squinted her eyes, wishing she could see a single star, any bright shining object in the darkness of her life. She bent down and pillaged through the filth until her fingers grasped the cold metal ring. Finally, the key slipped grudgingly into the lock. 4

The old car sat unassumingly among dozens in the unlit parking lot of the bar. Its once black cherry clear coat had scratches and the makings of rust spots where the paint had thinned to metal. Silver tipped glass packs jutted out from straight pipes on the rear end under a busted spoiler. Mirra loved that car. It was the best present she had ever been given. Her father had bought it secondhand for her as a sixteenth birthday present and it had only taken her a month to wreck it for the first time. She loved the raw power of the old SS. It was easy to sit behind the leather wheel and pretend to be anyone, anywhere - racing the wind and winning. 5

She had to wiggle the key back and forth several times before the old gears slipped enough to unlock. The door fell some on its hinges as she swung it open and slipped inside to dryness. She pulled hard to slam it shut and sat for a moment in the comforting darkness before she broke down and cried. She banged her head against her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel and wondered why. 6

She wiped away the tears and the old Monte Carlo roared to life. It was a comforting sound that brought a smile to her face. She liked the raw power of this car. As a matter of fact, she just liked power. She had none; but she craved it. Power was what she had always wanted, but she had been too afraid to take the chances that were required to obtain it. She grabbed the stick and threw it into reverse. The Chevy kicked up gravel as it spun out of the dimly lit parking lot. The tears were still singing in Mirra's eyes and she tasted the saltiness on her lips. 7

The car picked its own way through the city streets as Mirra drove blindly and thought. Her current/ex boyfriend, Brad, wasn’t really such a bad guy, but he wasn’t what she wanted. He was too controlling and domineering and he really had no right to be. If you looked at him, all you would see was a guy average in every way. He had slightly receding brown hair, a paunchy belly, a nose that was a little too big and too thick, and a pecker that was nothing but average. He was an okay guy, but he wasn’t what she wanted.
Select, don’t settle. What a motto! If she remained with Brad, all she would be doing was settling and she didn’t want to do that. Mirra wanted more. She deserved more! Somewhere down deep she knew that, but every time she started believing she did deserve things, she heard her father’s voice in her head yelling at her, telling her she was pathetic.8

To her father, she had never been good enough and she never would. Her mother felt the same way except she didn’t say it as much, but the way she had doted over her son (Momma’s baby boy) left the same impression. Brian was the lucky one. He couldn’t let her parents down any more. How could he? He was dead. And because he was dead, he was perfect in their eyes, a martyr who she could never live up to. 9

It wasn’t Brian’s fault he had died in a car wreck and left Mirra impossible shoes to fill. Brian was captain of the football and baseball teams, class president, etc., etc., Mr. Popularity. A pang of guilt swept over her. It wasn’t Brian's fault he had been the perfect son. He hadn’t been any worse to her than any older brother would’ve been. They’d had the usual sibling fights, but when it came right down to it, he had stood up for her when he’d had to. After all, she was his little sister. And that was all she ever would be in her parent’s eyes. Brian’s little sister, the one that didn’t measure up. 10

Mirra thought back to the day she realized that life wasn’t fair. It was report card day, and she had proudly shown her straight A report to her parents. They had looked at it and laid it aside, but when Brian had shown his report with all A’s except for two B’s his father had slapped him on the back and congratulated him! They expected her to bring home straight A’s, but Brian was congratulated over B’s! The realization that she had come to that day was one to haunt her the rest of her life. Nothing she would ever do would be good enough.11

Mirra came out of her little memory lane escapade and noticed her surroundings as she drove under an overpass, realized that she had missed her turn, and slowly came to a stop. All of the buildings were old, made of that red brick that everything was once made of, and the windows that weren’t boarded up were broken. Even the street that the Monte Carlo SS traveled on was made of the red brick. It was the uneven ride of the car over the ancient bricks that had caused her to pay attention to where she was. The whole place was deserted, and it gave her a bad feeling. She braked at the stop sign and wondered how she’d gotten here - The Middle of Nowhere. 12

It was then that she looked in the rear view mirror and noticed something that made her gasp. In the middle of the street, barely visible under a broken street lamp was a man. A man so wrongly out of place that it made her blood run cold. He caught her attention for innumerable reasons. His dress was completely black, all the way down to his calf length coat. He hadn’t been there seconds before. Her mind told her that. Yet, she wondered if she had been so self involved that she could’ve missed him standing on the roadside. No, he hadn’t been there before. 13

The old abandoned brick buildings suddenly looked ominous with their busted barred windows and plywood coverings. They lined the street like tall gaping open-mouthed soldiers. The weeds on the roadside were blowing in the wind, spraying droplets into the saturated air. The streetlights were broken, all save one… the one behind him, silhouetting him, making him stand out in the rain. His face was white, too white, and he grinned at her. Mirra stared at him in the mirror, transfixed. She grabbed the back of the passenger seat with her right hand and pivoted her upper body to get a better look at the stranger standing in the downpour. No one was there.
She pulled herself around even more and strained her eyes against the blackness to make out his form. He wasn’t there. 14

 15

She felt a cold chill streak down her back. The hairs on her arms and back of her neck suddenly stood erect and she shivered. Ten thousand years of evolution couldn’t contain the animal instinct pounding through her veins. She was in danger. She could feel his predatory eyes penetrating her back. Her eyes dilated to their utmost. Every muscle in her body was painfully straining. Her nostrils flared as her breathing rate stopped, then accelerated with a shake. Her mind tried to rationally tell her that there was no way he could be standing outside her door. But he was there. She could feel it. She had a sinking feeling, a feeling of pure terror that she had never known before, and as she forced her eyes to her left, without moving her head, her worst fears were realized. The horror was so great even her mind shivered. It seemed as if a great blackness were encompassing her. He was standing beside her car door. 16

Grinning.17

A single thought came crashing through her brain. The door was unlocked! “Don’t turn around. If you don’t turn around, he won’t be there,” her mind screamed.  It was the same way a child would handle fear. Just like hiding under the covers to escape the Boogie Man, except she had no teddy bear to defend her. She was alone at one-thirty in the morning in the worst part of town. Even the hookers knew better than to be out on a night like this. 18

The knife is in the middle console!  The thought popped into her head with clarity. How long would it take to flip the lid, rummage through all the napkins, cassette tapes, and other meaningless garbage until she found the cold hard steel of her knife? How long after that would it take her to open it? He was staring at her through the window. She could feel it. Mirra swallowed. The car was still running! In all of its racing days, the Super Sport hadn’t ever been asked for as much speed as she willed right then. Mirra’s foot involuntarily slammed the gas pedal to the floorboard and the old SS was true to form, spinning on the wet pavement before catching and screaming in the silent night air. Her head swung around as she felt the car jolt forward. Her left hand was still on the wheel as she waited expectantly for a gunshot to blast through her window and penetrate her skull. 19

Involuntarily her hand whipped the wheel left to knock the man down. There was no contact. She shivered again as the car thundered forward. Terror screamed in her ears as she found the strength to look left. No one was there. Her eyes flashed to the rear view mirror. No one was there. An involuntary full body shiver overtook her. Mirra slammed her fist on the automatic door lock button and tried to exhale as she flew down the street. A little like locking the hen house after the fox has gotten all your chickens, she thought to herself. She kept looking back, but no one was there. Her heart continued to pound until she reached a part of the city that was both crowded and familiar. 20