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  BRING HER BACK

  A novel by Jeff Strand

  Bring Her Back copyright 2018 by Jeff Strand

  Cover design by Lynne Hansen http://www.LynneHansen.com

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the author.

  For more information about the author, visit http://www.JeffStrand.com

  PART ONE

  a love story

  one

  I don't get why "Call me Ishmael" is considered the greatest opening line of all time.

  Is it because of his goofy name? (And is it racist to call his name goofy? I think Ishmael is a bible name, so it might be blasphemous as well.) I had an English teacher once who said that the "call me" part is what made it so amazing, since you could tell that Ishmael probably wasn't his real name, and you also knew he was telling his story to somebody he'd just met. I guess that makes sense, but I personally wouldn't give it the medal for Best First Line Ever. I'm not saying it's a bad opening line. It's better than anything I could write. But c'mon.

  To be fair to Mr. Melville, that's all I read of Moby Dick. I'm not a big literary guy. I'm sure you would've figured that out quickly enough on your own, but I might as well say it up front. I'm not a natural book writer. No teacher ever pushed me in that direction. Nobody ever said I was good with words, spoken or otherwise.

  I'm writing a book now because I've got an insane story to tell, and since it happened to me I think I should be the one to tell it. I'll get somebody to help me fix it up when I'm done.

  Anyway, call me Frank.

  That's my real name. Frank Johnson. You already know I'm not making this story up because if I were I wouldn't have such a normal name. If your name is also Frank Johnson, I hope that reading this isn't too weird for you.

  I'm twenty-six years old. I was twenty-five when this stuff happened.

  I'm not a handsome man. I had the nickname "Frankenstein" for much of my life, and though I don't think it's a fair comparison, there are definitely elements that match up. Tall. Stiff. Ugly. Some would say "unnerving." When I look in the mirror—which I try to avoid, but when people think you look creepy it's important to maintain good grooming habits—I can see it.

  Beady eyes that are a little too close together. An oversized brow, which, yes, is a Frankenstein feature though I still don't see the resemblance. A creepy smile. I tried to practice less creepy ones in the mirror, but you can't really change how you smile. All you can do is not smile at all. I don't want that.

  I tried to experiment with different haircuts and facial hair. Didn't work. I even tried wearing glasses I didn't need. That just gave me the appearance of a creepy guy trying to appear intelligent. Finally I gave up on trying to mess with my look and just went with a clean-shaven face and short straight hair. Though I know that beauty is a matter of opinion, there are also times when I feel that it crosses into objective reality, and I'm simply not a good-looking guy. If I had musical talent, I suppose it wouldn't matter, but you don't want to hear me sing.

  It's hard to get a girlfriend when you look like I do. You can't flirt. A normal guy can say, "Hey, you look nice in that dress!" Coming from me, it sounds like "Me rape pretty-dress lady!" If I said "I noticed you from across the room" it would be scary as shit.

  Also, my dad killed a bunch of people.

  I don't mean that he was a serial killer. He didn't lure unsuspecting victims back to his lair and keep their fingers as souvenirs. He murdered them all at once. Brought a gun to work and took out eleven of his co-workers, including one that I know he liked. He said she'd always offer to bring him back a cup of coffee when she went to get one for herself from the break room. Turned the gun on himself, then chickened out a split-second after he pulled the trigger, so that instead of blowing his brains out he merely turned himself into a vegetable. He never emerged from the coma to offer an explanation. It took him way too long to finally die.

  That happened when I was fifteen. Ruined my social life.

  Let me state for the record that things were far worse for my father's victims and their families than they were for me. My suffering doesn't come close to theirs, no question. That doesn't mean it didn't still completely suck for me.

  Another thing to clarify: he was the only father I ever knew, but I was adopted when I was a baby. So if you're on the "nature" side of the "nature vs. nurture" argument, I'm totally in the clear. I'm also fine on the "nurture" side, because trust me, Mom and I didn't have a clue about his homicidal tendencies. No wife beating, no alcoholism, no long hours spent in the basement with the door locked. He only seemed to moderately dislike his job.

  Mom continues to swear that he was innocent to this very day. It's pretty hard to be framed for killing almost a dozen people in an office building with security cameras running and a final standoff where you shoot yourself in the head before the cops can do it for you, but sometimes love makes you blind.

  To recap: I'm a big creepy looking guy whose dad went on a murderous shooting spree. So, yeah, not a lot of female attention in my life.

  I did eventually lose my virginity. I was twenty-two years old, and nobody else was left in the bar. She was way older than me, fairly unattractive, and it felt like we were giving each other pity sex, instead of only me being pitied. (Don't get me wrong—I would've taken one-way pity sex, too.) It went okay. I was less inept than I would've been if it had happened ten years sooner, and she was more than happy to give me some useful pointers.

  When we were done with the second round, she said she hoped we could keep seeing each other, but that she had something important to tell me: she wasn't actually divorced yet. I said that I hoped we could keep seeing each other, too, and that I also had something important to share: my father was responsible for the Jacksonville Office Massacre.

  I felt like her revelation was the bigger deal, because it was admitting to a huge lie, while mine was just based on the desire to not overshare before we went back to my apartment. She didn't see it that way. Based on her reaction, this was as bad as saying, "Hey, by the way, guess who has an STD?"

  She left. I didn't try to stop her. It was for the best. I wouldn't have been able to handle the guilt of having a relationship with a married woman.

  After that, I quit drinking and quit trying to meet anybody.

  I moved around a lot. Not for my career or anything; I just liked trying out new places to live. Small town. Big city. Medium-sized city. Pretty much once any given lease was up, I picked a new section of the United States in which to reside. I sometimes thought about moving to a new country, but I wasn't quite that ambitious. I had no real skills, so I washed a lot of dishes, bagged a lot of groceries, and did a lot of customer service on the telephone.

  I was working in a call center in Atlanta, trying to make angry people slightly less angry about their credit card problems, when I saw the flower lady. I don't mean that she was in the call center itself. I was walking home and I saw that she'd set up a small stand a couple of blocks from the building where I worked.

  She was beautiful.

  Was she traditionally beautiful? Maybe not. I sure wasn't one to judge. She was a heavyset woman with a pale complexion and brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wore pink lipstick and a polka-dotted blouse under her white apron.

  I had no particular affinity for flowers, but it wasn't as if I disliked them, and suddenly I wanted to buy one. I walked up to her stand, hoping to proje
ct the confidence of an experienced flower-buyer.

  "Hello," she said, smiling. Her smile was as radiant as mine was creepy. Up close, I could see a few streaks of gray in her hair.

  "Hi." Her flower selection was too vast. I didn't know where to start. I didn't even know my favorite color.

  She could sense that I was clueless. "Are these for your sweetie?"

  "Yes," I said. "They're for my sweetie."

  "Roses always work."

  "Okay."

  "A dozen?"

  "Yes."

  So I bought a dozen roses from her and went home. They actually looked pretty nice on my dining room table. I didn't believe in love at first sight, and I didn't spend the evening plucking the petals and doing the whole "She loves me, she loves me not" thing. But I did spend more time thinking about her than I would normally spend thinking about a woman with whom I'd conducted a brief business transaction.

  The next afternoon, I bought more flowers from her. Tulips.

  The afternoon after that, I bought daisies.

  Every weekday, I stopped at her stand and purchased some flowers. I wasn't being a stalker. Her stand was on my way home from work—it would've been ridiculous to purposely change my route to avoid her, right? I wasn't making special trips to visit her, and I wasn't peering at her from across the street with binoculars. I never lingered at her stand. I didn't masturbate thinking about her. All I did was buy flowers I didn't particularly want five times a week. Nothing wrong with that, aside from the fact that I didn't have much in the way of disposable income.

  I occasionally considered tossing them out after I turned the corner, but no, that felt like it would be some sort of weird betrayal. So my dining room table was covered with about a week's worth of flowers at any given time, which was all I could put on there and still have a place to eat. Every day I'd replace the oldest flowers with the new acquisition.

  I was worried that my behavior might seem stalkerish when I eventually confessed it to her, if I ever did, but she might also find it endearing. I was, after all, probably her best customer.

  She was always smiling, even when she wasn't interacting with anybody. She had a face that was made for smiling. My normal expression when I wasn't thinking about anything was a mild scowl, like I was constipated or annoyed by the current political environment. I believed that the flower lady probably smiled while she was standing in line at the DMV or doing her taxes.

  Three months after she opened her flower stand, I decided to ask her out.

  I popped a fourth mint into my mouth as I left the building where I worked. Was it possible for your breath to be too minty fresh? Good breath was supposed to seem natural; I didn't want her to think I was trying too hard. Or maybe women appreciated the conscious effort. I didn't know how any of that worked.

  My stomach began to hurt as I walked down the first block. The worst she can say is "no," I told myself, although in theory she could say, "Good God, no, no, no, what the hell were you thinking you physically repulsive socially inept sweating freak? I'm calling the cops." That would be worse than "no." Though if she did turn me down, at least I'd save a lot of money on flowers.

  My stomachache was joined by a headache as I walked down the second block. I tried to calm myself down. After all, I'd been wanting to do this for three months. It might be the best decision I'd ever made. No more lying in bed cursing my cowardice. No more fantasies of what our life might be like together.

  There she was.

  An actual customer was in front of her flower stand, which wasn't usually the case, so I would have the opportunity to wait around, getting more and more nervous until my gut sprung a leak, spraying stomach acid all over her merchandise.

  The customer, a middle-aged man with the exhausted look of somebody who'd slept on the couch last night, bought a bouquet of roses and walked away.

  "Hi there," said the flower lady, beaming at me. "What do you want for your sweetie today?"

  "What do you recommend?" I asked, deciding to postpone my confession for a few more moments, and possibly another day, week, or year.

  She picked up a small bouquet. "Violet and yellow tulips."

  "Good color contrast."

  She nodded.

  "I'll take them," I said, mentally cursing myself for chickening out.

  "Great! That's twelve dollars."

  I took my wallet out of my back pocket, removed a ten and two ones, then hesitated. This was stupid. It was absurd not to just ask her out. I'd want to bash my head against the brick building if I didn't finally go through with this, and why risk the concussion?

  "Actually, no," I said.

  "No?"

  "I'm still going to buy the flowers, but I have a confession to make."

  Her smile faltered, as if she was worried that my confession might involve a large hunting knife with a bloodstained blade.

  I took a deep breath. "I don't have a sweetie."

  "You don't?"

  I shook my head. "I made her up. I buy flowers every day because it gives me a chance to talk to you. Briefly."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes."

  Her smile became genuine again. "Well, that was dumb. I would've talked to you anyway."

  "I don't know if you have a boyfriend, but if somehow you don't, which wouldn't make any sense, I was wondering if you'd want to maybe go on a date." I blurted out the last part, but I felt that, considering my jangled nerves, I was doing well by not spouting pure demonic possession gibberish.

  "What's your name?" she asked.

  "Frank."

  "Hi, Frank. I'm Abigail."

  "Hi, Abigail."

  "Put your money away," she said.

  "No, I said I'd buy the flowers."

  "Put it away, goofball. You don't have to buy flowers for your fake girlfriend anymore."

  I tucked the bills back into my wallet, and returned it to my pocket. Was this going well? Was it actually going well?

  "It just so happens that I'm currently between boyfriends. Two years between them."

  "That's fantastic!" I said. "I mean, not for you, I guess, but..."

  "What did you have in mind for our date?"

  "A movie?"

  "I do like movies."

  "Are you free tomorrow?"

  "I sure am."

  "Do you want me to come get you? Or do you want to meet in a public place?"

  She pointed to the left. "Do you know the apartment complex two blocks that way?"

  "Yes."

  "I'll meet you outside the leasing office. It's the first building you'll see."

  "Sounds great."

  "What time?"

  "Noon?" I really should have checked the movie times. I guess I hadn't actually envisioned a scenario in which she accepted my invitation.

  "That works. This'll be fun. I'm glad you asked me out."

  "So am I."

  "Do you promise me you're not married?"

  "One hundred percent."

  "Blood will spill if you are," she said, not completely sounding like she was kidding.

  "I'm not."

  "And do you swear that you made up having a girlfriend? I don't want to get in the middle of an ugly breakup."

  I nodded. "I made it up because I was too scared to ask you to go to the movies."

  "Cost you twelve dollars a day."

  "I know."

  "Sure you won't be embarrassed to be seen with an older woman?"

  "You're older?"

  "I'm almost thirty."

  "Really?"

  "Twenty-nine."

  I grinned. "I'll be proud to be seen with you."

  "Good. See, Frank? Wonderful things happen when you stop being scared."

  two

  The rest of my evening was spent trying to convince myself that this wasn't a cruel prank.

  Why would she want to go out with me? I was hideous. People would make fun of her. She'd be okay in the darkness of the movie theater, but if we went to get something to eat afterward,
she'd have to sit across the table and actually look at me. How could she enjoy her meal?

  This had to be a prank.

  I'd show up to the leasing office and, I dunno, some kids on the roof would douse me with pig's blood or something.

  Maybe not that extreme. Maybe she'd just be standing around with some friends, point at me, and say, "See? That's the thing that asked me on a date! I wanted you to see for yourself!" And they'd all howl with laughter.

  That was also unlikely. Of course it wasn't a prank.

  Which didn't mean she wouldn't change her mind and just not show up at our meeting spot.

  How long would I wait for her? I obviously wouldn't storm off at 12:05, but how long could you wait for somebody who was late before it became truly pathetic? Thirty minutes? An hour?

  Truthfully, and I hope you appreciate that I'm confessing this, I would have waited all day. I wouldn't have cared if it was pathetic. I would've brought a book, sat down in front of the leasing office, and waited until midnight if I thought there was still a chance that she'd show up. I wouldn't have gone around knocking on doors to find her or anything like that. I would have waited at the designated meeting spot. But, yeah, I would've waited for twelve hours and convinced myself that she had a good reason for being late.

  When I walked into her apartment complex at 11:40, she was already there.

  I hesitated. Would she think, "Oh my God, why is this guy here twenty minutes early?" Was that weird? It couldn't be too weird if she was out there early. I didn't mind if she thought I was desperate, but I didn't want her to think I was spooky.

  She's not going to think you're spooky, I told myself. Arriving twenty minutes early is not the same as sleeping outside of her bedroom window. If you wipe away drool before you shake her hand, she'll think you're spooky. Otherwise, chill the hell out.

  I kept walking. I was glad that I'd worn one of my nicest shirts, because she was in a short green-and-white polka dotted dress. Her hair was down over her shoulders and had a little curl on the ends. She'd made a very definite attempt to look nice for our date. She wouldn't do that if she was going out with somebody she considered grotesque.