Page 1 of Phobia
Scopaesthesia
A.L. Woods
Chapter 1
The urgent drumming of the Deftones’ "My Own Summer" vibrated in the cabin of the idling car. I brought the cigarette pinched between my thumb and forefinger to my lips, taking a long pull, expelling the smoke from the corner of my mouth.
My eyes hooded as I studied the tiny figure in the passenger seat of the car, bobbing her head to the music.
My wife, Katrina, was five-foot-nothing. I could practically wrap my hand around her wrist twice and throw her over my shoulder just because I could. She liked the end result of that, anyway.
It would be easy enough to lose her in a sea of average-height people if she didn’t change her hair color every couple of weeks. She stood out. Right now, she was sporting a brilliant shade of pumpkin. The locks were cut into layers she’d done herself, framing her heart-shaped face, ending a little below her exposed collarbones under the sweetheart neckline of her dress. The color was fitting, given we were days away from Halloween. She reached up and tucked the left side behind her ear, revealing her mostly relaxed profile. Her deep red lips stretched over a lollipop. Every so often, she’d torture me and drag it against her extended tongue in a prolonged manner, stopping to examine her progress on the hard candy before slipping it past her lips again. I’d accuse her of trying to start something, but I knew better. My response to her was pheromones, biology, and unadulterated fucking obsession. All she’d ever had to do was exist.
Katrina flitted her made-up warm, honey-brown gaze my way. Sooty, lush false lashes nearly touching her full, feathery brows she’d filled in. Where her older siblings had more classically European features, she had always reminded me of an anime character.
“He’s takingforever,” she whined, projecting her voice out to me over the music, her eyes flicking to the imposing Victorian house on a hill we parked in front of. There wasn’t a single light on in the place save for illuminated satin black angle shades curved in front of a rusted antique brass sign readingRockchapel Funeral Home, but I knew he was in there.
Plotting something. I could sense it like a sizzle in the thick air promising rain.
My brother, Vince—not by blood—lived and worked here with his uncle Alek, who owned the funeral home. Katrina called V ten minutes ago to let him know we were here, and he’d grunted at her with acknowledgment before hanging up.
No idea why he couldn’t drive himself to the Halloween attraction we were attending tonight, hosted at the local wax museum, but whatever.
Frankly, he could take all fucking long if he wanted to. Every minute he took made my wife a little more fidgety, and I enjoyed watching her get hot and bothered, even if it was from restlessness.
You would think that after six months of being able to call her my wife, some of the allure would have faded by now, but no.
Somehow, I grew more consumed by her as the days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months. How could I not be?
I’d waited four years to get her back. Gone through hell and back just to call her mine again.
Nearly lost her permanently, too.
Death tended to put things into perspective. I knew that firsthand.
That was why I hadn’t spared a moment sliding the simple thin rose gold band with a cathedral setting for the moss agate stone and two tiny diamonds on her ring finger, followed by the plain band seated under it.
I’d wanted something understated on her dainty, slender fingers. Something that wouldn’t impede her part-time work as a construction supervisor for her family’s house-flipping business when she wasn’t at school where she was working on her Associate in Architectural and Civil Science Engineering Technology. Something she’d never want to take off.
Not that I’d let her do the latter.
I’d crazy glue it back on her.
I’d tattooed her name across my fingers just so the world knew who I belonged to, too.
I offered her a noncommittal shrug, canting my head. While it was unusual for Vince to take his sweet ass time, he was unusual, period.
Which wasn’t saying much coming from me.
My brothers and I weren’t exactly the embodiment of calm and normalcy. Our criminal records preceded us around our tiny little town, after all.
Rockchapel—orRotchapelas we locals knew it—was a former tourist town in Massachusetts, bordering Rhode Island.
Seventeen years ago, the local amusement park—Elara Park—became the site of a scandal so great, it permanently mired our town in death and changed my life irrevocably.
A story for another time.
The point was, our town, and its inhabitants, were a little fucking odd. It was rare for anyone to leave, and those who did left with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and a few worldly possessions. Our real estate wasn’t worth shit, and the amenities were bar to none. Tourism hadn’t been booming here since the golden era in the seventies and eighties. Our version of entertainment, save for the museum and a few local watering holes, was working our way through a steady stream of easy girls we traded like Pokémon cards until we were bored, then our attention shifted to the drugs we could readily get our hands on.
