Adermoor Cove: Donovan Road - 2. Chapter 2

Moira felt something wet touch her hand. It was a tear. She was crying and didn’t even realize it. Her mind was too stuck in the past, remembering what happened.

Carlos pushed a box of Kleenex across the table. She thanked him, pulled one out, wiped her face. When she looked at the Kleenex again it came back wet with tears and smudged with dirt. She fought the urge to wipe the rest of her face off, get off as much of the dirt as she could. She sniffled and wiped her nose. Enzo got up from his chair, brought the wastebasket so she could throw it in.

“Want me to get you some coffee?” he asked.

She smiled weakly. "Some coffee would be nice. I haven't been sleeping a lot lately. After this morning I don't know if I'll ever sleep again."

"Would you like anything in your coffee?"

Enzo stepped out of the room, leaving Moira and Carlos alone together. She watched Carlos scribble something down on paper. His dark eyebrows were stitched together in concentration. We have matching black circles under our eyes, she thought and had to bite her tongue to keep from giggling hysterically. A wave of guilt blindsided her. How could she want to laugh at a time like this when his best friend and the love of her life had just been snatched by a fucking bear?

Enzo came back in with a small Styrofoam cup; a red stir stick stuck up from the top of the steaming coffee. She could feel the heat through the Styrofoam on her fingers. Hot liquid sloshed on her shaking hand as she brought the cup to her lips. She barely felt the sting. In fact it was relieving since they kept it as cold as a meat closet in here. She noted the room smelled of disinfectant, just like a hospital. Something about the smell bothered her.

The coffee was a little too strong for her liking. Not enough cream and sugar. It tasted like ash. These guys probably have a spare bottle of Tums laying around somewhere from all the heartburn they have to deal with, she thought. But Moira didn't complain. Coffee was coffee and she needed the caffeine.

Carlos pressed the button on the phone, starting up the recorder again, which meant it was time to continue. She didn’t want to continue. She didn’t want to dive back into her traumatic week. But if there’s any chance it will save Ramona I’ll do it. I’ll do anything to have her back, alive and well, please God anything - just let her be okay.

“So you said you almost ran into the bear on the road,” Carlos said. “Was that the last time you saw it?”

Moira bit her lip. Already she could feel doubt blooming through her memory like a cancer. It was crazy how sleep deprivation and trauma could screw with your memory, make you second guess yourself. “I’m not sure,” she said finally. “I mean I know I saw it for sure when it took her, I mean there’s glass all over the place but before that...I kept waking up in the middle of the night, thinking I could hear it outside the house. And it was only when I was staying at Ramona’s, never when I was at my apartment. I heard it two seperate times because I was at her house two seperate nights. It was almost as if it was following me, or I thought it was.”

“When was the first time you thought you heard it?”

Moira answered with more certainty this time. “The night I went over to her house for dinner. We had meatloaf.”

                        …

Something was prowling outside - a monster maybe.

She opened her eyes and listened, holding stock still. She wanted to call out to Ramona but couldn’t make her lips move. She was trying to discern what she was hearing, trying to figure out if it was just the remnants of a dream or if she was truly hearing it.

She waited, listening, facing the alarm clock. She could see the digital numbers glowing in the dark, a comforting red light. Everything was still. Quiet. There was nothing outside. Her mind was only playing tricks on her, the way it often does in the middle of the night. She could feel the powerful embrace of sleep dragging herself down into the abyss when she heard it again: a roar in the middle of the night, followed by the sound of a large foot leaving its imprint in the grass and dirt surrounding the house.

Moira let out a whimper of fear. Tears sprang to her eyes. She tried to call to Ramona again but what came out was a strangled, “Ruh...”

Whatever it was it was huge.

The bear, she thought, it’s the bear! It’s come back to infect me with whatever it’s sick with! She imagined it walking around the outside of the house, its head moving from side to side, searching for her. Or perhaps it was trying to get in through the front door, that black fluid dripping from its mouth.

It can’t get in the house. The door’s locked.

Keep telling yourself that, a cruel voice mocked her in the back of her mind. You stepped in its path and its hungry. And now it’s followed you because it’s hungry.

“Ramona,” she uttered finally, trying to make her body move. But she couldn’t she was so terrified. “Ramona - wake up. Please.”

Ramona murmured something. The bed shifted as she reached towards the lamp. A second later light illuminated the room. “What is it sweety?” Her voice was slurred from sleep. She looked over at Moira, red hair hanging over one shoulder. Hehr eyes widened with alarm. “You’re covered in sweat. What’s wrong?”

The spell of paralysis had broken. Moira sat up, her nerves quaking. “It’s outside,” she whispered, looking frantically at the window.

Ramona followed her gaze. “What is?”

“The bear - the bear I almost ran into on the road!” Moira pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. She hadn’t meant to scream.

“I don’t hear anything. It must have just been a bad dream. Listen. Just listen.”

Moira forced herself to be quiet and still. There was no sound of the bear’s presence outside, only the synchronized chirping of crickets and the pounding of her own heart. Her face grew flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry,” she said. “I feel ridiculous.”

“It’s okay. Just go back to sleep.”

The light went out and Ramona scooted closer to Moira, nuzzling up against her like a cat. Within seconds the sound of her breathing eased. Moira, wide awake, counted the sound of her breaths. She reached two hundred when she fell back asleep.

                        …

No signs of the bear the next morning.

Moira woke up earlier than Ramona. After her ridiculous episode last night she wanted to make up for waking Ramona up in the middle of the night. She showered and dressed in the bathroom, put on her makeup, and went down into the kitchen. She found the waffle maker in one of the lower cabinets and mixed pecans into some waffle mix. By the time she went back upstairs, balancing a plate in one hand and a glass of milk in the other, it was seven o’clock in the morning.

The smell of maple syrup roused Ramona out of bed. She sat up with a surprised look on her face. “What’s this?”

Moira held the plate up. “Breakfast in bed. My peace offering for last night.”

Ramona smiled, taking the plate carefully. “There’s no need to apologize. Like I said last night, it was just a nightmare.”

“I know but I still feel silly.”

“You looked frightened out of your mind. Running into that bear on the road must have really frightened you.”

“It did,” Ramona said, suppressing a shudder, “it really did.”

The conversation turned to a lighter subject as they ate breakfast together and Ramona dressed into her uniform. Moira didn’t waste a second’s glance, watching Ramona do her thing. She had never been with a woman built so flawlessly.

At eight o' clock they left the house together to go to their separate cars. Ramona said something about planning to get together with Carlos for lunch the following Thursday.

"Sounds good to me," Moira said before getting in her Mazda. "Until then I have some papers and report cards I need to catch up. Parent-teacher conferences are coming up too. Fun times, you know?"

"I know." Ramona kissed her and closed the door. Moira couldn't stop smiling as she backed out of the driveway.

                                      …

Back down Donovan Road. Cloudy blue sky, bright morning, birds singing in the trees. No murderous bears standing in the middle of the road, looking as if it might snatch you out of the car and eat you alive.

A beautiful late summer morning.

And then she saw the truck and orange cones standing on the left side of the road. Mick Powers and Randal Stone were both bent over something, some dead animal. They wore camouflage hats on top of their heads and neon orange vests. Curious, Moira pulled into the grass on the other side of the road. A quick glance at the clock on the radio told her it was only 8:07 and she didn't have to be in class until 8:45. Class started at nine, but 8:45 was the cutoff time she gave herself. She could spare a few minutes to see what was going on.

I'll hear about it one way or another, she thought, climbing out of the car with her purse in her hand. (Even after five years living on Adermoor Cove, where you could leave the apartment without ever having to lock your door, Moira, a true native from Bronx, New York, didn't go anywhere without her purse in hand.) I might as well see it with my own eyes before hearing multiple iterations through the grapevine. At least I'll know the truth.

“Hey guys,” she said, “what’s going on?”

Mick looked up and smiled at her. “Dead deer. Someone called and reported it in. We’re just clearing it off the road. You might not want to take a look, Moira, it looks pretty bad.”

Too late. Moira was already looking. She clapped a hand over her mouth and turned away. Even as she closed her eyes and willed her stomach into stillness the images were forever captured in her mind: Glassy black eyes staring up at her almost accusingly, ribs poking through the sides, intestines spilling out onto the asphalt, already starting to bake in the morning heat. Flies buzzing hungrily over the bloody innards. The back half completely gone, ripped or mawed away by a much larger animal.

The bear did this, the one I saw on the road, the same one I heard roaming outside the house last night. I knew I heard it, I knew it wasn’t just a dream!

“Hey, hey, you okay?” Randal Stone said. “You’re not going to blow chunks are you?” You came out sounding like yeugh.

“I’m good,” she said. “Sorry, it just took me by surprise. Funny. I’m from Manhattan, you know, it’s not like I’ve never seen a dead animal.” She turned around and looked at the deer; this time her stomach did not roll, which meant she was over the initial shock of it.

Mick Powers was nodding sympathetically. “It’s pretty brutal. I’m just trying to think what could do this.”

"A bear," Moira said, eyes combing the thick stampede of trees behind them.

Randal Powers squinted at her. "Say what?"

"I said it could have been a bear." And she told them about her encounter with the bear just the night before, searching the trees the whole time, fearing it was close by, listening. It was ridiculous of course, bears didn’t just stand around listening to peoples' conversations, but she couldn’t ignore the feeling they were being watched.

A small voice in the back of her head told her not to mention the part where the bear had been sick with something or that she thought she'd heard it again earlier this morning, so she left those parts out.

Mick nodded thoughtfully when she was done telling her tale. "It's more than plausible."

Moira breathed a sigh of relief, glad someone else believed her. Now she wanted nothing more than to get away from this dead animal with its stomach-turning roadkill smell, and get to class.

She thanked the two men and made her way back to the car; she had to fight to keep from running.