Dark Corners - Twelve Tales of Terror by Michael Bray Page A

that,” she replied, feeling a hot flush
bristle on her skin.
    “ I
can take you away from all this. I can show you a world you have
never seen before.”
    “ You
don’t even know me...” she said, this time unable to keep
the tremble out of her voice. He reached over and took her hands, his
skin hot to the touch. Maintaining eye contact, he leaned in close
and whispered into her ear.
    “ I
can give you everything.”
    As he pulled back, his eyes still fixed on her, she
wished it were that simple—that she could just walk out with
him and leave everything behind.
    “ I
can’t...”
    Monde didn’t seem at all put out by this. Instead,
he offered his perfectly white smile and released his grip on her
hands.
    “ Tomorrow,
I will take you to dinner. Be ready at eight."
    She laughed but saw something change in his face; a
millisecond of rage that was enough to make her stop and explain
herself.
    “ Look,
you don’t know how great that sounds, really... But I’m
working tomorrow. In fact, I work almost every night.”
    Monde didn’t respond, he simply reached into his
pocket and took out a business card. It was white and his name and
number were printed on it in gold lettering. She didn’t think
anyone actually carried business cards anymore, and smiled as she
took it.
    “ You
are persistent, I’ll give you that.”
    “ If
you change your mind, call me.”
    “ Look,
don’t get me wrong here; I’m interested in seeing you
again. I don’t want you to see this as a brush off, but I
really don’t know when I’ll be able to see you.”
    He smiled, drained his glass and stood. For the first
time, she realised how tall he was. Jimmy who worked behind the bar
was around six feet tall, but Monde had at least six or seven inches
on him. He straightened his jacket and turned that deep, brown-eyed
gaze onto her again.
    “ One
thing you will learn about me, Tina, is that I get everything I
want.”
    “ Well,
don’t be disappointed if you don’t hear from me. I can’t
just leave my job. You understand that, right?”
    He flashed his smile again, and her heart skipped.
    “ I’ll
see you tomorrow,” he said softly and made his way towards the
exit. She watched him go, waiting to see if he would turn around and
look back at her from the door. He didn’t and she felt suddenly
deflated. With a sigh, she picked up her tray and went back to work.
    Her shift ended at three AM, and she had gone home
exhausted, eager to fix some of the H. She locked herself away in her
dingy apartment, and felt more alone than ever. As she cooked up the
shot that would get her through the night, she looked at the business
card Monde had given her. Clean, straightforward, to the point.

    Monde
    555-2624

    She siphoned the heroin into a syringe and readied to
inject herself, wishing there was a better way to dull the pain of
her life. Rolling down her elbow-length, fingerless gloves, she
looked at her arms, which were deeply marked with scars from
self-inflicted cuts. She did it less now that she had her heroin, but
on those occasions when she couldn’t afford it, she would take
out the razor blades. She selected a vein, the skin around it already
bruised from months of injections into the same place. She inserted
the needle and slowly depressed the plunger, the immediate rush of
heat overcoming her as she slumped over onto her bed. She felt warm
and safe, cocooned in from a world she no longer had any connection
with.

    Three

    She woke to the maddening vibration of her mobile on the
bedside table. She had been dreaming of Monde, of him making love to
her, carefully caressing her as she looked into his deep, brown eyes,
whispering hotly into her ear about giving her everything she ever
wanted. Now roused from her dream, she grabbed clumsily at the
handset, fumbling for the answer key.
    “ Hello?”
    “ Tina?
It’s me.”
    “ Hey,
Lexi, what’s going on?” Tina stifled a yawn as she
glanced at her alarm clock. It was just after nine