The Pumpkin Man

She lifted the lid and smirked before turning quickly on her heel. On the plate lay the carcass of a long— very long—gray rat. Its lifeless tail curled pink and off the plate.

The girls pushed back from the table in disgust.

“We’d enjoy a dead rat?” Jenn whispered. “What the hell does that mean?”

Kirstin quickly scanned the bar and noted that all eyes were on them. “The better question,” she said, “is how they got this so fast. I don’t think we want to eat here much.”

“Make that ever,” Jenn agreed.

“That’s on the house,” one of the men called from the bar. “But feel free to leave a tip. Just so long as it’s not some pumpkin pieces that your aunt left you. We don’t need any more gifts like that around here.”

“I could be wrong,” Kirstin said. “But I think we ought to stop telling people you’re related to Meredith.”

“Maybe,” Jenn said, forcing down a piece of burger that seemed intent on coming back up. “But it looks like she scored us a free dinner.”

Kirstin snorted. “Like we’re really that desperate. Let’s get out of here.”

They pushed away from their table and walked to the door. Everyone was silent. As the door closed behind them, though, laughter sounded. Kirstin didn’t think she’d ever felt so sick upon exiting a bar. And she’d barfed in plenty of parking lots.

“I’m sorry I brought you here,” she said.

Jenn only shrugged. “People suck,” she answered. “They like to mind everybody’s business but their own. Let’s go home.”

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

The apartment was quiet and dark. Shadows clung to the walls like semitranslucent drapes or fog. Walking through the entryway felt as if she were entering a haunted house. The place was familiar, and yet, something in the air tasted dangerous. Metallic. Wrong.

Jennica cringed as the door shut behind her with a snap. She stepped across the wooden hallway and silently urged her shoes to make less noise. The walls seemed to close in as she walked five paces to the front room. She wanted to call out a hello, and yet, somehow, as soon as she’d crossed the threshold, she felt prevented from speaking.

Her shoe slipped. Skidded, really. She held her hands out for balance.

“Daddy?” she called, teetering on the brink of falling.

Her father didn’t answer.

She couldn’t recover her balance and went down hard. Her elbow met wood and she cried out in pain. The sound of her voice was swallowed up by dark. Her cheek met the hard surface of the floor, and she rolled, pulling her face up and slapping her hands to the wood. Something wet and sticky clung to her cheek. She could feel something slick beneath her fingers. Something cold and thick.

She sat upright and waited for the stars to clear from her vision. The blackness eventually separated into gray shadows, and she could see the faint outline of a man lying before her. At least, she thought it was a man. The figure wore jeans and a polo shirt.

She pulled herself a little closer and then stopped. The man had no head.

But the hands and the shirt looked familiar. Horribly, achingly familiar.

“Dad?” she asked the darkness, bending closer to see if it was indeed her father who lay there headless on the hallway floor of his apartment.

From behind her, she heard a creak. Jenn opened her mouth to call out for her dad, then remembered he was there, beneath her hands.

Something cold and sharp touched the back of her exposed neck.

“Jennica,” spoke a whisper. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Jennica screamed and woke in a sweat. The sheets stuck to her skin, but she was loath to push them aside after the dream. She wanted to hide.

But, wasn’t that what she was doing here—hiding? She’d come out here and left her old life behind to live in the shadows of her aunt’s. To live in this shell of a home her aunt once kept.

Jenn stifled the urge to cry. She couldn’t turn back. She had nothing but this, the remains of the life of a woman she’d never known. She had no money, no friends, no future. She was here in this strange room, needing to sort it all out.

“I want to go home,” she whispered. But how could she go home when she had no home left to go to? How could she make this place her own? How would she make it her own?

The dark had no answer.

CHAPTER

TWELVE

“Let’s go to San Francisco tonight,” Kirstin suggested. She looked as if she expected an argument, but Jenn didn’t offer one.

“Okay.”

“You’re serious?”

“Why not? We’re in California, we’re not that far from the city, and we need to take the rental car back.”

“I should have known you’d find a practical reason.”

“Are you complaining?”

She wasn’t, and three hours later they were in the city. Jenn drove Meredith’s old Toyota, following Kirstin. After returning the rental, they walked through the crazy color of Chinatown, marveling at the stores and window fronts filled with intricately carved ivory dragons, racks upon racks of colorful silk kimonos, and whole chickens hung from spits. They ate dim sum and then drove down to the Bottom of the Hill club. Kirstin had spotted a band playing there in the San Francisco Chronicle: The Colorful Mission.

The club really was at the bottom of a hill.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Jenn asked as they got out of the Toyota. It was quiet all around but for the giant neon sign above the building, which buzzed in the darkness.

“It’ll be fine,” Kirstin said. “We’ll find us some nice boys. Just not too nice!”

Inside, they’d just gotten two Sprite and raspberry vodkas when Kirstin caught Jenn’s eye and winked. She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head. Jenn looked, and she saw a guy at a table staring in their direction.

“He’s kinda cute,” Kirstin murmured. “And he’s looking at you.”

Jennica felt heat rise in her cheeks. He was kinda cute. His hair was brown and cropped, and his eyes looked warm and kind even from across the room. She liked the strong set of his chin, and she had to look away before he caught her staring.

“Okay, so now what?” she asked.

“Give him a smile and look away. Then give him another one in a minute or two. He’ll come over. ’Course, that leaves me up a creek. Or . . . Never mind. Looks like he’s got a friend!”

A dark-haired guy had appeared with a pitcher of beer, and he sat next to the man watching Jenn. Kirstin shifted on her seat enough so that her cleavage jutted forward. Then she made a show of sipping her drink and looking in their direction.

Jenn snorted. “Why don’t you just take off your top and be done with it?”

Kirstin laughed and shook her head. “So gauche. I’ve just given them the universal sign: breasts and a nearly empty drink. My bet’s on a refill shortly.”