Her. Chapter One

Chapter 1
This café houses many sorts of people like all ordinary city cafes are prone to do. Big frickin’ deal. Some people are here to mingle with their acquaintances, some are here to make new acquaintances, some are here to escape their acquaintances, and some are here for no other apparent reason but to enjoy something hot or cold or sweet or even bitter to drink and eat. She is here for something cold and bitter, but this does not change the fact that she is sitting in an ordinary, beaten down café. These sorts of people can be found in any café. But why am I telling you this? You must know this already since you are in this café on this fine Friday afternoon too.
She is in an in-between age, no longer a teenager and but not yet thirty. I suppose you could call her a young adult, but I guarantee there is nothing young in her. She does not stick out in the café’s crowd nor does she completely blend in with them. Her hair is short, bleached, and her dark roots are in desperate need of a touch up. Drops of water drip from her hair, wetting her eyebrows and dampening the back of her white tank top. A strap from her bright blue bra hangs from her right shoulder, and she casually slides the strap back onto its rightful place. She is not embarrassed by her fashion faux pa, and why should she be? She does not care about the café people’s good opinions. Hell, she doesn’t care about any of their opinions, good or bad or neutral.
By all looks, yes, I will subscribe, she looks young. She looks like an angry, rebellious, young female, but one look into her brown eyes would tell you different. Assuming you could ever get close enough to her, you would see how her eyes are not young but hardened, unnaturally hardened for someone her age. Perhaps she is angry though, she does not like having to sit in the café. She would much rather be home at the moment but a job is a job, and damnit, she is good at her job. Her job is ordering a large, double latte, extra shot espresso fancy drink at the counter. The job is ordering a drink that says he’s a sensitive man that needs a little shot of caffeine from a late night or early morning of work. The job is a happy man who is no way subtly flirting with the teen girl behind the counter.
From behind her blue rectangular frames, her eyes watch him between her lips’ sips of frozen coffee drink. The book she is currently reading rests on her lap. The book is a cheesy romance with a shirtless man on the cover and a heaving, bosom filled woman in his arms, ready to be ravished silly. She reads these books for the simple pleasures of escaping from the hairy, unwaxed realities of life and more importantly because her mother gave her a cardboard box full of them last Christmas. It is now March, and she only had a few more to go.
But this is digressing from the job, the reason we are here smelling the smoke on the clothes of the chain smoker trying to find another addiction in the brown liquid that swirling in his large cup or the overpowering vomit of fruitiness reeking from the Disney channel bred clones giggling at a round table in the corner, gagging on their smoothies. This must be a damned good job.
With his ugly hands, he grabs his drink and leaves the café. Before he walks out the door, he glances back at the pretty young thing behind the counter. She is pretty in a “they had a sale on makeup and I bought every color they had and have thrown it on my face” sort of way, stupid and pretty, every horny animal’s dream. The female can not fully despise such another female. This sad excuse for a somewhat cognitive functioning individual is a byproduct of society. Any attention from the opposite sex is the highlight of her day. Her sole purpose in life is get members of the opposite sex to take notice of her. Some life. The female would much rather bang her head against a brick wall for the rest of her life or become an accountant.
The stupid teen has stupidly told admirer when her shift ends in their assumed pointless small talk while his drink was being made. She has stupidly told him her weekend plans of nothing special. She has stupidly and pleasantly conversed with a hungry animal set loose by the state a few weeks ago due to shity police work and fights over territory. In their fights, evidence was lost, victims changed their minds about testifying, and police officers were accused of brutality. None of this concerns her. These are only the facts that led up to her current job, nothing more. All the barriers and safe guards in the world cannot stop people from acting stupid and allowing slime to ooze itself through the cracks and escape into the general, equally stupid public.
Her job does not notice her in the café. Why should he? She is too old and too meaty to make his radar. He likes them young and waif like, if they aren’t, there would be a chance of his prey fighting back. He is a coward in her eyes, and she has no compassion for cowards. She hops down from the window sill where she had been observing him, flings her sweatshirt over her head, and follows him out of the café. She does not follow him down the street. This is the fifth time in the past two days her job has been in the café. Likewise, this is her fifth time in the café in the past two days. She is not worried about being suspected of anything at the café. This is an easy job, and she already is a frequent visitor of this particular café anyway. She is part of the scenery. She is noticed and forgotten fairly quickly. She is someone who you have seen before but just cannot grasp the time and place. She is a short term memory, lost before you even have the chance to catalog and evaluate her.
A smile escapes from under the hood of her sweatshirt. The smile is a sick mixture of cute and sinister. No matter how hard she has tried to exterminate her old self from existence, a small speck of her former happier and cuter self still breaks through her cold exterior. She is enjoying the idiot’s sense of accomplishment. He has caught whiff of his next prey and her job is now almost over. She has already searched out where the job lives and does not need to pay the place another visit before tonight. Tonight, she would earn the other half of her pay.
She shoves one hand into a pocket of her sweatpants, feeling the book that rested in the pocket and holds her drink in her other hand. Still smiling to herself, she walks down the street in the opposite direction of her job. New York City is a place for people like her, people who do not need to live through the existence of other people to really live. This may not make sense to you. Allow me to explain it differently while we wait for the female to walk back to her place of residence. We have some time.
She is twenty three years old, has some college education, and grew up in a middle class suburb somewhere in the Midwest. She dropped out of college a semester before graduation for reasons I dare not divulge to you now. No offense, but we have just met, and you haven’t even bought me a drink yet, handsome. She moved to New York City with the optimistic future of living the streets for the rest of her life. Obviously something happened in between then and now, and she contently lives in an apartment with a little window, sky garden, cable, and Internet, everything a girl needs to function without too many homicidal tendencies.
She is an assassin, hired hit-woman, a paid killer—probably what you already have deduced her to be. She is this, but she is so much more useful to a client. She is a female of all trades and past jobs have been to kill, find, protect, and save. The motives of her employment have ranged from the darkest feelings of revenge to the brightest feelings of love. Regardless, the pay is good. Her first paying job took care of her college loans. She is paid in anything her current employer has of valuable and can part with. This may not always be money but favors and gifts. The current job is for money, a job sent down from her first and original employer. She looks forward to having a little more cash in her bank account. ‘Bout time, she is home.
She walks up the steps of her apartment building but stops to observe the group of teens on the street corner. Drug dealers and their junkie customers are quickly trying the make a deal before the daily police patrol of the street. She usually warns the group of deviant youth when the police are nearby but has too busy today. She understands that a dealer has to sell and a junkie has to eat. As long as they kept to themselves, why should she care?
The group scatters as the police car rolls down the street. The police car keeps on driving down the street, never stopping to question the suspicious youth walking in all directions on the sidewalk, most not able to even walk in a straight line. The truth is, the police never stopped on the street and never will. The drug dealers out gun and out man them, so it would be dangerous for them to stop here. She doesn’t mind living on such a street. The druggies don’t bother her and the junkies are afraid of her. Rumor ‘round the streets whisper that the girl standing upon these apartment steps is something not human, that she is cursed…but this is just a rumor, of course.
As the police car leaves the block, her eyes wander to the apartment building across the street from her steps. He walks down the steps of the apartment building across from hers. He looks at her upon the steps across from his. They both look at each other for a moment before he walks down the sidewalk, and she turns away and before she walks into her apartment building, she takes a second glance at the fine specimen delighting her eyes. Damn, he is looking good today. His gray shirt shows off his nicely formed and developed chest while his close fitting jeans show off his other assets. He must be off to work the afternoon shift. He stops halfway down the block and turns around to look at the girl on the apartment building’s steps. All he catches to see is the hood of a sweatshirt as the girl dashes into the building. That was close.
She quickly ascends the seven flights of stairs, running the last three. Her adrenaline is pumping. She loves the feeling. Maybe the coffee is finally getting to her or maybe something else is fueling the fire in her at the moment. She likes this fire, she likes every time the fire burns in her chest, and every time, she doesn’t want it to stop. And like every time before, the fire dims when she opens her door, only a few embers remain when she closes and locks the door, and the fire is gone when she jumps on her bed, leaving only slight warmth in her chest, taunting her of the pleasurable fire that was there a few moments ago.
She groans to herself and rolls on her back. The shadows of the ceiling fan’s fans move one after another over her head. He has looked at her today, this was better than nothing. For the past three years, he has lived across the street from and coincidently, the mysterious fire that dwells in her chest has been on and off for the past three years. It is stupid, irrational to love a person based on looks, and she knows this. She cannot help herself though in feeling happy every time she sees him. A small part of her is still human. This is a burden to her job but is also an unconscious blessing to her; she has not completely killed herself yet.
His name is Warren. He is tall, lean, and handsome—the terrible three. He appears to be out of place in such a low neighborhood as this. His face is that of a model or movie star, his cheek bones and chin are that of a god, in her opinion, and he deserves to be worshipped by the common, ugly masses. His green eyes are a source of envy of anyone who is smart enough to realize just how beautiful he is. She wants to look into those green eyes, to touch his rich brown hair, and do more things to him than one could count on one’s fingers, but she couldn’t and wouldn’t. Down girl, down.
He is not of a beautiful profession, no, he works at a bakery four blocks over, working the hungry masses and making minimum wage while going to the university at the same time. He is the same age as her and is on his last year at the university. He is the oldest of four and moved away from home to take care of himself so his family could support his other siblings. He is not far from home though, he is a city boy. His immediate family lives on this other side of the city, and his mother visits him every Sunday.
He is a hard working boy, working all day and attending classes at night. She does not know what he studies to be since she is usually occupied with jobs during the night. And even is she isn’t on a job, she will only follow him till he reaches the campus. She will never follow him further. An invisible barrier forces her to retreat back into the darkness and sulk in a bar or at home for the rest of the night.
Warren is all she thinks about for the next few moments on her bed. She is frustrated at herself for being infatuated with anyone, especially someone like him. Would she have behaved differently if she knew he felt the same way? Would she converse with him a little if she knew he desires the same to converse with her a little? Humorously, both are extremely compatible with each other. Each too stubborn and fearful to walk down their apartment steps and greet each other.
“Hi, I don’t know if you have noticed, but I have been in love with you for the past three years, even since I first laid eyes on you,” she would say to him.
“That is such a coincidence because I have been in love with you ever since I first laid eyes on you when you moved here three years ago,” he would say to her.
Both would be thinking about ravishing each other and both would wish the other would suggest they go a café or movie or dinner or just a damn walk so they could look at each other some more, fantasize about each other some more, and drink in each other’s words. Yes, love is stupid and stubborn and completely irrational. But if they both had just talked freely to each other three years ago, this would not be so interesting and funny a story, would it?
She rolls herself off her bed and sits on its side. She throws off her shoes and her feet happily absorb the coolness of floor. Her bedroom is quite plain. The room is white, no photos or pictures on the walls. Her bed is a plain, black metal futon with white sheets and one lone, abused white pillow. In the corner of the room is the cardboard box of books from her mother for Christmas and when she is done with them, she would send them back with a thank you note. She has not seen her parents in the past year; work has kept her busier than normal. Usually she has one job and an interval of time to slouch around before another job, but in the past year, she has had job after job. Word is getting around about her, and she enjoys the defeat of boredom.
But back to her very plain room. There is not a bedside table but a giant, black metal lamp next to her bed. On the floor by the lamp is an ihome charging her iPod and serving as the only clock in the apartment. A phone charger is also lying on the floor by the lamp. One dresser sits against a wall to house her clothes and her closet is clean and organized, housing any clothes that need to be hung or are too expensive to throw in a drawer. She is simple in her fashion sense, but there are times when a job requires a more expensive fashion sense. She is getting paid for these jobs, so she is happy to oblige them. At the closet’s floor stand her various shoes, ranging from high heels to rain boots and anything else in between. Currently, she is favoring her pink sneakers.
A flat screen TV hangs from the wall across from her bed. She enjoys watching TV from her bed. She does everything from her bed. Her laptop is hidden under her bed along with a suitcase full of money. She always keeps some cash hidden in the room in case of emergencies like having to flee the apartment for some reason. This hasn’t happened yet, but she is prepared for it. She understands that she will fail a job eventually and would have to run. She also has a semiautomatic pistol under the pillow on her bed. There is no need for her carry it today. She keeps extra ammo for the gun in the closet, not under her bed. The closet is an excellent defensive position if she ever needed to use it.
Outside her room is a living room area with only a small refrigerator standing in the corner. A microwave sits on top of the refrigerator. Beyond the living room is her bathroom. Everything is white, plain and contains only the necessities. She never uses the living room for anything besides getting a drink or grabbing some left over take out. She has no oven or stove or sink since she does not cook. You could say her apartment resembles a dorm room. You could say this, and it would be last words that you ever utter, some last words those would be. I can see it on your tombstone: Wow, this place looks almost like a dorm room. The end.
She rips her sweatshirt off, grabs her phone out of the left pocket of her pants, and plugs the phone into its charger. She pulls her wallet out of this pocket too and throws it by the charging phone. She sets her ihome’s alarm up and searches for the TV remote hidden in bed’s sheets. She clicks on the TV and falls back onto her bed. She closes her eyes and allows herself to fall asleep to the noises of drunken girls and jackass man children on MTV. She will need the rest. Tonight is going to be a good night, and she doesn’t want to be the least bit tired when she lives it.
She dreams, as usual, are about hunting zombies and chainsaws and axes. She is running though a warehouse with runners on her ass and shamblers blocking the exits. She flings the axe she is carrying over her head and smashes it into the nearest shambler. His head cracks open and he falls to the ground, zombie blood splattering on her white tank top as she wiggles and pulls the axe out of the dead body, and swings it at the shamblers edging up behind her. She nails one right in the chest and quickly nails the other in the shoulder. She continues to swing and chop, enjoying every minute of zombie chopping goodness. Something about the sound a cool metal ripping through freshly dead flesh excites and calms her.
She leaves the warehouse content, happy, and covered in blood. Since this is her dream, zombie blood is not contagious and she can wear the red markings with pride. She hears a blood curling scream echo down the abandoned street she stands on. Her grip tightens around her axe and runs down the street. Damn vampires are causing trouble and no doubt the werewolves are nearby too.
“Damn kids,” she says as she runs by building after building. Guess she’ll have to go set things straight herself.
A man dressed in black appears out from the shadows and approaches her. He is pale a man with slicked back black hair. His black, shark like eyes reflect the light from the moon and the light of the dim street lamps. They are intoxicating. She shakes her head to diminish the eyes’ affect on her, and she punches the man in the shoulder. Damn, that hurt.
“Sorry,” apologizes the man. “Sometimes I forget I can do that.”
“What’s the problem now, Drac?” she asks the pale man, rubbing her bruised knuckles.
“They started it,” answers the fictional vampire Count.
“Did not,” asserts someone behind the shadows. She pulls out her ipod from her back pocket and shines its light on the group of creatures hiding in the shadows. A pack of male werewolves are sitting in big comfy gaming chairs, playing Madden 09 on the generic game system hooked up to Dracula’s pimped out truck. It must have been boys’ night out which means she is missing girls’ night out with the female pack, damn. The truck’s lights turn on and the back alley and its monster inhabitants instantly become visible.
“They’re cheating,” politely states Dracula.
“Are not blood sucker,” argues the alpha male of the werepack. “He’s just mad 'cause he sucks at video games.”
“Now Phil, that’s not nice. But you do suck at video games, Drac,” she concurs. The vampire lowers his head and mumbles something.
“Drac…” she says.
“It’s not fair, I bring the games every time, and we never play anything I want to,” contests Dracula.
“Boys,” she says to the werewolves. “Drac gets to pick the game tonight. You guys know better.” The werewolves grunt and moan and finally turn the off the game in pure toddler pouting style. Aww, they are so cute.
“He’s just pissed he ain’t no good at sports,” says one of the werewolves. Dracula doesn’t seem to mind their comments and happily searches his truck for a game he wants to play.
“What’s with the blood?” asks one of the werewolves about the girl’s blood stained clothes.
“Zombies,” she says.
“Animals.”
“Tell me about it.”
The female along with Dracula, some of Drac’s vampire buddies from law school, and the werewolf pack sit in a circle on the concrete ground surrounding the game board they are about to devour. Reality check: they are about to get their asses handed to them. Little unknown fact: Dracula kicks major ass at Scrabble.