"I have an idea," Emilee said as she clasped her bra. "Let's watch the sunset on the beach."
Erik Torreon watched as she swept her hair from beneath the bra straps and then reached for her top. He didn't want her to get dressed but he had little argument. They'd spent most of the day feeding each other peaches, having sex, and dozing. Earlier that morning they'd forced open a garden-level window of an apartment building and squeezed inside to find a sparsely stocked cellar, complete with a dirty mattress. They could hear the footfalls of the apartment inhabitants upstairs and if they heard someone coming down the stairs they could be gone in a shot. Having sex as intruders gave them an added thrill. Of course, the rundown didn't hurt either.
"I'd rather stay and sleep," he said, burying his face in his arm.
"C'mon," she said pulling on her jeans. "It's dangerous. We can't stay here forever."
"There's a flaw in your plan," Erik said. "The beach faces east. How about we get up early and watch the sunrise instead?"
"Details. Besides, we have ways of making it a good time, don't we?"
Erik noticed how shyly she had said it. They had been together for over three weeks and still Emilee was very careful not to assume she had free access to his jack. She had asked once when they first met how he had landed such a large score, but he muttered some lame story that didn't even approximate the truth. She sensed this and hadn't asked again since. That made Erik suspicious, but over the weeks she could have made a grab for his stash a dozen times over yet never did. He had started to trust her. That made him nervous.
Emilee straddled his back and blew in his ear, sending an electric shock through this body. "I promise to make it worth your while," she breathed.
Erik didn't like the look of the beach at all. A wide open expanse of white sand with precious few places to hide. He felt exposed.
He followed Emilee across the broken strip of pavement toward the pounding blue surf. He turned to see the tip of the sun sinking behind the wooded hill spilling down to the roadside. The sunset painted the sky in pastel oranges and pinks. Emilee sprinted towards a small beach shack standing on stilts, a faded red cross still visible on its side. She kicked off her shoes and dug her toes into the sand. "Isn't this marvelous?" she asked reaching out for him.
He forced a smile and unshouldered his backpack. "I don't think this is a good idea," he said.
"You're right. It's a fantastic idea," she said and reached for the bag. He instinctively went to tear it from her hands, but checked himself. He told himself he could trust her a little more. She cupped his cheeks and kissed him. "No one comes down here. We're all alone."
He muttered something and looked down the road in both directions, then turned and scanned the hillside. Nothing.
He heard the telltale click of a jack dispenser and saw Emilee ejecting a spent phial into the sand. In her other hand she extended to him a dispenser, this one loaded and ready to use. "Hurry up," she said, her face already flushing. She glanced at the shack. "Climb up there and see if you can't break in. I promise you a night you'll never forg--uhhhh..." she purred as the drug coursed through her.
I don't like this, Erik thought. He gave a last look around, then slid on the device and squeezed the trigger.
Adrenaline flooded through him in anticipation. Then the jack hit, and he was gone.
He woke the next morning to the feel of rough wood against his cheek. He hauled himself to a sitting position. He was inside the shack. His wrist throbbed and his arm was smeared in blood from his little finger to his elbow. The smashed wooden door reminded him how he'd gotten in, and outside he saw drizzling rain and a wall of fog on the lake. He reached for Emilee but his hand only found the sandy floor of the shack. He willed his brain to remember as he dragged himself to his feet with a growing sense of dread.
Erik opened the remains of the door and felt the sting of cold rain on his face. Emilee, he thought. He glanced beneath the shack to see if perhaps she'd gone to piss, but that didn't seem right. He scanned further out to the water's ebb and saw a dog digging around a dark lump. A human-sized lump.
Dream and reality danced in his memory and his stomach rolled. Erik retched over the railing.
Seconds later he was throwing broken pieces of the battered door at the mongrel, driving it away from Emiliee's body, or what was left of it. He dragged her away from the water's reach, not able to look down. He stood over the body, uncertain what to do. He peered down the shore nervously, searching for something to spark his groggy mind to life, and found it: two figures walking toward him through the mist, a half-mile down the beach. Erik swallowed hard.
He rifled through her pockets and found her amphetamines and a few rundown tablets. Looking away, he stroked her head once, briefly, then sprinted back to the shack hoping to collect their belongings and disappear before the pair on the beach closed the distance.