Shadows of Shadows - 5. The Headshot

“... and she grabbed me, and she was about to kiss me, then you drove up. I remember it like I was really there!”

This was Makayla. The real Makayla. Not a shiny lure to hook Susan into some absurd horror. Inside the house, on the sofa, Susan had entwined herself into Makayla’s muscular frame, a limb or appendage snaking into every crevice on her beautiful dark body.

“Honey, you are freaked the fuck out, and I don’t blame you.” Makayla said. “This place has a haunty-vibe at night, that’s for damn sure. You’ve been alone here all week, for real?”

From the depths of Makayla’s breast, where Suan’s tears were saturating her shirt, Susan nodded in a pair of sharp jerks.

“Come on, it’ll look better in the morning,” Makayla assured her. “Where are we sleeping?”

Susan scoffed in despair. “I don’t think I’m ever going to sleep again! What if she -- what if I have another nightmare?” Not a ghost -- just a nightmare, Susan reasoned, but failed to convince herself.

“Hey, look at me, cutie” Makalya told Susan. Susan pulled her red eyes out of Maskayla’s bosom and obeyed. Makayla said, “We can’t help that, but I’m about to pass the hell out from driving all day, and you need to sleep, too.” Makayla chewed on her lip, then her face split into a devilish smile. “You wanna hear a fun Idea?”

“What?” replied Suan.

“Lets go to sleep in the bed down here. Are there some extra sheets?”

“I can get some out, yeah.” confirmed Susan.

“We’ll tie ourselves together. If that woman comes and gets you, I’ll have to go with you, too.”

Susan laughed cautiously. “Are you serious?”

“You’d better believe it, girl,” said Makayla. She kissed Susan’s brow and squeezed her butt. “I’ve been dreaming about tying you up all day.”

Makayla wasn’t in the mood to sleep nude, but Susan talked her out of pajama pants. It wasn’t a sex thing; Susan simply needed to be touching as much of Makayla as possible tonight. They sat hip to hip on the edge of the bed, and each woman tied a pillowcase around their left ankles. The two were then knotted together and they carefully rotated into sleeping positions. Susan was behind Makayla, and the moment they were both settled in, Susan clamped her partner in a full body embrace like a baby koala. Makayla loosed an arm to stroke Susan’s thigh and craned her neck back for a kiss. An apparent second later, Susan’s eyes opened to a sun-drenched bedroom, Makayla still enveloped in her grip, but struggling for freedom

“Hey, wake up! It’s after nine. And let go, I gotta pee!” Makayla laughed.

Nobody in the dreams ever said anything that coherent, so it must be real, Susan reasoned. She released Makayla, who then desperately picked at the knot between them. When it gave way, she dashed for the little downstairs toilet. She didn’t object when Susan came over to stand in the open door, nor when Susan insisted on holding Makayla’s hand when she took her turn. A dose of the deep and dreamless had hit the spot, as Makayla predicted, but Susan was not quite ready to get too far from her girlfriend.

“Not a lot of protein,” Makayla gently grumbled in the kitchen. But she was happy with the apples, and she had two with milk. “Can we go shopping later? I just sold a social distancing poster to a cafe in Worcester and I’ve got a couple Benjamins. I’ll buy us some good food.”

She threw out one core and wandered to a window with the second apple, staring at the fields, the loose clusters of houses, and the broad river beyond them. “It is so pretty here in the daytime! I’ve never seen anything like it.” she enthused.

Sitting at the table, Susan shrugged over cereal. “I guess. It's really kind of boring. I never realized that until grandma was gone, though. She was the only real draw for this place.”

“What’s going to happen to the house?” Makayla asked in concern.

“We’ll probably sell it. I don’t know who would spend the money to fix it. I wonder if they’d --” a lump formed in her throat “-- if they’d just tear it down.”

“That sounds sad,” said Markayla. Then she spun to face Susan. “I have my art stuff. Do you want a picture of it?”

Ten minutes later, the two were sitting by the road in lawn chairs taken from the porch. After a few photos, Makayla’s open sketchbook started filling up with studies of trees, and bushes, and the angles of the hose itself, flowing from the charcoal in her right hand.

“It doesn't do any good just to take a photo. Tell me what you remember, and I can capture the spirit --” Makayla silently apologized with abashed eyes, “-- um, soul? -- no -- how about the essence? -- of the building.”

Susan pointed to a gnarled oak that had appeared on the page, “There was a swing hanging from that tree,” A second later, one appeared, along with a stick child. Makayla reached into her satchel, pulled a pale yellow oil pastel, and daubed a tiny shock of blond to the head. She glanced over, eyes glittering, teased Susan’s hair with a free pinky, and asked, “You like?” before they exchanged a tiny kiss.

They paced the grounds. The ruined garden grew again under Makayla’s hand, and a tiny grandma tended it. Grandpa cut the grass on his old tractor and policed pine cones along the driveway. A family walked along the quiet lanes toward the river and its clear horizon.

‘You’re looking better,” Makayla remarked.

“Thanks,” said Susan. “I feel a lot better about everything.”

Makayla turned back to the house. “That’s about enough for now. Unless there are strange women staring out the windows?” Makayla carefully joked.

Susan laughed, but she still shivered and checked to make sure. “Not right now. It would be pretty hard to miss the red hair.”

“Red, huh?” Makayla repeated distantly. She led Susan back inside and sat her in a kitchen chair. Taking a seat across from her, Makayla opened a fresh page in her sketchbook, and drew some long rectangles. She plucked a brown and a ruddy orange from her oils, pressed each into opposite ends of one of the rectangles. She smeared the blotches together, forming a smooth fade between them. She pushed the book toward Susan. “How red?”

Susan chewed a thumbnail and ran her finger along Makayla’s little palette. “There, but a little brighter. Do you know that one girl at the campus bookstore? About as long as hers, too, but less shiny, and thicker.”

A squat oval, about three inches tall, appeared from the tip of the charcoal beneath the gradient, followed by two sweeping lines of a neck. The mannequin head was then decked with flowing red hair. Susan quaked in her seat, but added, “The face is longer, and the chin needs to be a little square.”

Makayla was brilliant. She was a junior like her, but majoring in visual arts, When Wendy’s couldn’t pay the bills, it wasn’t only posters, but portraits, landscapes, and branding art that made ends meet. Susan was getting it for free.

Makayla deftly popped a page out of the book. She filled the middle with a larger, longer oval, flattened at the base. She mapped out a basic face and some hair, then produced a laptop from her bag and asked for a hotspot. Over the agonizing internet, reference photos of eyes, ears, noses and mouths dribbled into the screen. Susan excitedly filled in details. The nose is just so; lips a little bigger; not so much shadow in the eyes. Over the next hour, a breathtaking likeness of her nocturnal tormentor emerged. Susan could barely take her eyes off the artwork. The face might be about to start gabbling in its weird riddles for all its realism. Makayla snapped her fingers by Susan’s ears.

“Anyone you know?”

“No,” Sarah whispered dreamily. “It’s no one. Just a dream woman, I guess.”

Makayla scratched out a monogram, MCMC -- M.C. Makayla Crowther -- making it just to peek out from behind the neck. “Let’s go. I want to find out if there’s anything a) open, and b) halfway healthy for lunch in that town I came through last night. I want to get groceries too. Can you show me where to go?”

“Sure,” agreed Susan, and together they hurried out to Makayla’s car, leaving the haunting image behind.

***

The afternoon was on the verge of giving way to a bright spring evening by the time they returned, but Makayla was still bursting with energy. She gamely offered to attack whatever rooms were still unpacked.

“How do you feel about attics?” Susan blurted excitedly.

No sooner was the word “attic” out of Susan’s mouth than Makayla was racing up the stairs. The momentary solitude gripped Susan like an icy vise, and she panted desperately up after. When she caught up, Makayla was hopping and grasping in the upstairs hall, trying to snag the chain hanging from the door in the ceiling.

“Hey!” Susan protested. “Don’t leave me alone like that. What if there’s still a red lady after me?” Makayla stopped to give her a quizzical glance, and Susan realized she’d forgotten to laugh. “Ha, Ha, just kidding. Here, let me help.” She slid behind Makayla, who yelped when Susan hugged her hips and boosted her up. Makayla hooked the chain in two fingers, and as Susan lowered her, the door and its narrow ladder creaked down in turn.

“Who’s first?” asked Makyala.

Susan screwed up her nerve and declared, “I’ll do it. It’s my grandma.”

Susan climbed into the biggest anticlimax of her life. The attic, filled with a musty odor, greeted her with boxes of baby clothes, worthless books, and a few pieces of ancient furniture. The dusty space lacked the intrigue she had half-expected; there were no crazy old men or vengeful spirits lurking in the shadows. Instead, the only signs of life were the fresh footprints and open crates with jumbled contents, evidence of Mom's recent rummaging, probably hunting for more photos.

Susan and Makayla pushed things around, their movements sending dust motes swirling in the slanted rays of light from the tiny attic vents. They managed to haul a couple of chairs down to the upstairs hall, each step creaking under the weight. Despite their efforts, there wasn’t much else to be accomplished before the daylight filtering under the soffits began to fade.

In the kitchen, Makayla and Susan busied themselves with dinner: salmon, brown rice and steamed frozen vegetables. Makayla used a free hand to give the women in the portrait a dusting of freckles, and a bit of color around the cheeks and jaw under Susan’s guidance.

“Who do you think she is?” wondered Makayla.

“No one. I just made her up. I was probably horny.” replied Susan with nonchalance.

“You couldn’t wait for me and you came up with a clingy white chick?” Makayla sneered, smiling.

“Be quiet. It was only a dream. Maybe next time we’ll have a threesome; would that make you happy?” shot back Susan, then changed the subject. “ Hey, speaking of ghosts, do you want to watch a movie? It has queer coding.”

“A gay ghost story?” Makalya mocked. “Who would want to see that?”

“Can we get a little popcorn, and those beers we bought? I’ll hook up the VCR.”

Ten minutes later, Susan emerged from the kitchen, a bowl of popcorn in the crook of her left arm and an open bottle in each hand. Makayla was standing by the TV, which was shining with a blue screen and blinking “CH2” from the VCR hooked up to it. Makayla, however, looked irritated, slapping her pockets.

“Damn! Where are my earbuds?” she fussed.”Did I leave them upstairs?”

Susan, laden as she was, squeaked a weak protest, but couldn’t give chase as Makyla bounded away. She swallowed a surge of bile at the sound of feet pounding up the stairs. Susan almost dropped the snacks, but managed to deposit them clumsily on the end table. She perched herself tensely on the sofa and willed her heart to slow. The darkness from outside seemed to be fingering its way in through the house’s crevices. Alone again! As her chest tightened, her sight wavered. She covered her eyes to block out visions, and so couldn’t stop her ears against the half-heard whisper -- Nobody but us!

Crash! came a sudden racket from upstairs. Susan sprang from her seat and raced to the stairs. But Makayla was already at the top, bent over, swearing, and massaging her leg.

She called down, “One of those damned chairs! I couldn’t find the light switch and I walked right into it.”

In the bloated second that followed, the shadows upstairs shifted. Just out of Makayla’s vision, they parted like flowing oil, to reveal a pale shape, draped in a nightgown and crowned in a red mane.

“Look out! Look out!” shrieked Susan, pointing wildly.

“What?” she said. Snapping upright, Makayla’s shifting feet failed to keep their purchase and her balance faltered. Her right foot slipped first, thudding down one step. The left swung after it, a toe grazing the stair but failing to take hold. Makayla pirouetted gracelessly, her arms flailing for the rail, a wall, anything to anchor her toppling body. Down she came on her left shoulder, then her head smacked the nose of a stair. While Susan screamed, Makayla crumpled and slid to the landing in a silent heap