5 Nerea

  Nobody likes to wait. Yet people dedicate whole rooms to the activity. It may not be an uncomfortable chair at the doctor's office, but a stolen car with a dead body in the backbeats the chair by a mile. One second can feel like an eternity. Warren is well acquainted with the phenomenon. His night went beyond the gates of hell, to space, where nothing stretches into an endless void. 

   Warren desires one thing: to open the floodgates of his emotional dam and let every go at once. He wanted to scream about Melanie's death, brag about his victory over the terrors at the rest stop, and astonish people with his exploits at the gas station. He looked at the time on his mother's smartphone. Two minutes passed since the last time he looked at it. 

   He busied his mind with the events of the rest stop. Warren accepted his mother died, three hours in the car with a dead body kept reality in the foreground. Something was off in the sequence of events. The dwarves stopped when he entered the bathroom, why? It didn’t make sense. Why kill his mother and not him?

   Light burst into the cab of the panel van, Warren raised his hand to shield his eyes. Stars and blotches blocked his vision and receded a few moments later. A figure veiled in silhouette stepp from a vehicle and slowly walked toward the van.

   Warren frantically searched the van for anything he could use as a weapon. The glove box flopped down and revealed a forty-five revolver. It brought the previous owners' activities into question but fell into the who cares bin of Warren's mind. He had a gun.

   The primal presence in his mind caressed the cold metal and rubber grip. A twinge of excitement rippled across his body. He held the power of life and death in his hands. With a click of the lock and the clunk of the door, Warren stepped out to the frigid night air, gun fixed on the silhouette. 

   “That’s far enough, whoever you are. I have had a horrible night, don’t give me an excuse to bring the heat down on you,” Contrary to popular belief, a gun is much heavier when it’s pointed at another person. 

   “Warren, where did you get the gun?” Nerea’s voice shouted across space between them. “It’s me, your mother's friend, Nerea Vasquez.

    “I want to believe it’s you, but I don’t know who to trust.” The gun trembled and a crack appeared in the emotional dam. A single tear escaped the duct, and then another. His hold on the gun loosened, and Warren lowered it only to raise it again.

    Nerea' soccer ball hat and matching gloves slowly stepped toward him, “Warren, it’s okay. It’s me Nerea.”

    “What was my mom’s favorite food?” Warren demanded as he thumbed the hammer back. The click drove the primal presence crazy. It screamed for him to pull the trigger, to protect himself from the potential threat. 

    “Name one food your mom didn’t love? I will say she loved Italian food the best, as long as biscotti and Vinum were for dessert,” Nerea held out her hand, “Warren give me the gun and we’ll figure out where to go from here.”

    Her answer was correct, and the hammer clicked back into position. Warren made sure the safety was on before he dropped it to the ground. Nerea scooped Warren up in her arms and pressed her close to her body. The smell of vanilla and cocoa beans relaxed him. 

    Warren cried, he didn’t care who saw, or what they’d think. He tried to talk, but Nerea smooshed him against her goose-down coat and stroked his hair, “Where is Melanie?”

   The words refused to leave Warren’s mouth. His hand shook and pointed to the van. He lowered it. Nerea tried to step away from Warren but he held her tight. “Please, just a few more minutes,” Warren wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

   Nerea rocked him back and forth in her arms and slowly moved them to the black Dodge Charger with pink lightning bolts on it. “You are going to wait in the car and I will check on Melanie okay?” her words warbled.

    From the passenger's seat, Warren saw nerea open the rear doors and pull the blanket back. Her hands flew to her face. She did the Catholic cross and put the blanket back over Melanie’s pallid corpse. She clenched her hands into tight fists, her face a mask of anguish and grief. She pounded on the van doors until she slid down them to the ground.

   When the emotional breakdown ended she entered the Charger and sniffled. Her eyes were puffed up, red streaks from the tears stained her cheeks. “We’ll deal with her tomorrow. You look exhausted, we both should try to sleep.”

    “Can we stay at your place? I don’t think I can handle going home.”

   “Of course we can, guapito. Melanie would’ve been proud of the way you handled yourself.” She tousled Warren’s sandy blond hair and produced a weak smile. 

   Warren loved the attention, it reminded him of his mom. “I couldn’t save her. There were too many. I took three of them out. Mom lost too much blood. She died on the way back to the station wagon.”

   Nereus' eyes opened wide and her mouth dropped to the floor, “Someone did this to Melanie?”

  “Not exactly. I don’t know what they were, but they attacked her on the way to the bathroom.”

 “When did this happen?”

 “Shortly after the pulse hit, and I passed out.”

 “Why did you pass out?” Nerea sat on the edge of her seat, desperate to get a handle on the situation.

“I’ll tell you the whole story once we get back to your place,” Warren remained sad, but now shared it with his mother's girlfriend.

  “Sounds like a plan, guapito.”

 “What does that mean?” Warren asked out of curiosity.

 “It means handsome in Spanish. It’s Specifically used to describe someone your age.” Nerea turned the key and the engine purred to life. “I know this is the last question you want to answer, but how are you dealing with everything?”

  “I don’t know right now. I know it feels good to be in the presence of a live human being,” Warren let out a big yawn.

  Nereus' eyes projected her concern for the teen, “Let’s get you home.”

                                                              ****

   Nerea owned a modern house next to a man-made lake in a gated neighborhood. The inside was technologically advanced, and the decor animal-themed. A black marble panther held up a glass coffee table and carved monkey shelves with DVDs. 

   “How did you two come together? Mom hated technology with a passion. She only used it when she had to,” Warren said with a half-smile.

   Nerea laughed out loud. “She suggested we plant a garden. She bought me a plant to see how I did with it.” She held up a withered brown stick in the soil, “She decided to do it herself after this happened.”

  Warren guffawed, “It must have driven her crazy. She grew up on a farm, and always dreamed of having her tch in the backyard. A little touch of home, to keep me grounded.”

   “It’s why I loved her so much. A woman so down to earth, she lived next to the molten core,” Nerea let out a mournful sigh, “Enough talk, we have a busy week ahead of us. There’s a funeral to plan, and we have to figure out custody. Off to bed with you.”

                                                             ***

  Warren awoke to the same darkness, he did in the arena and groaned. He knew the creature hid among the tendrils of thought and emotions. Warren could make out the outline of the creature who attacked him previously.

  “Who are you?” Warren demanded.

  The clutch of talons gently gripped him. Warren felt his feet lift off the ground. His journey ended at a familiar pair of predator yellow eyes. A soft deadly voice whispered, “I’m you.”