Page 18 of Creeping Lily
Contacts go in. A blink. Then another. The world sharpens into focus, but the reflection doesn’t change.
Everything is different. Yet somehow, nothing has changed.
The stranger in the mirror fits into my life too well — like an unwelcome guest who’s decided to stay.
I grab my phone and keys from the hall table, sling a small overnight bag across my shoulder. The strap bites, but the weight is nothing compared to the lead inside me.
Out in the hallway, the air feels heavy, like the world’s holding its breath. Colors are muted. Sound muffled. My boots scrape the floor, every step sluggish, as if the air itself resists me.
I try — just for a second — to summon a spark of feeling. Anger. Anticipation. Anything.
Nothing answers. Just the same cold void in my chest.
At the door, I pause and take a breath. It feels thick, suffocating. I push through it and step into the daylight.
The street below hums with life — cars passing, strangers brushing shoulders — but I’m a ghost among them. No one looks at me. No one sees me. I move down the metal stairs, cross the lot to where my Pontiac waits, and it’s like I never existed.
Still, the man in the mirror walks with me. A shadow draped over every move I make.
I turn the key. The Pontiac’s engine growls, deep and alive in a way I’m not. Tires bite into asphalt, and I hit the interstate.
This job’s different. Not routine. Not another box to tick off for the sake of a paycheck. For weeks, I’ve been drowning in cut-and-dry assignments that leave me emptier than when I started. But today… today’s work has bite.
Depot. That’s where I’m headed.
A little town with no tourists, no outsiders, and no reason to exist except habit. The smart ones left years ago. The rest are too old, too stubborn, or too tied to the land to run.
Once, Depot had gold in its hills. Now it’s just rust, dust, and three thousand souls clinging to the bones of something that died long ago. They call it their slice of heaven. I see hell — the slow kind, the one that seeps under your skin and degrades you from the inside out.
I pull up in front of the tavern, one of maybe half a dozen storefronts lining the strip. Two men sit on a bench out front, eyes tracking me like they’ve been expecting me. One tips his cowboy hat. Doesn’t speak. I’m not here long enough to make friends, but long enough to make an impression.
Inside, the tavern smells faintly of beer and old wood. Modern touches try to hide the bones of a saloon, but the place still hums with the kind of silence that makes people turn to look when a stranger walks in.
The bartender glances up from his paper, his gaze lingering on me before flicking toward a man at the far end of the bar.
Late forties. Heavyset. Built like a bull who’s been left to graze too long. His face is broad, skin ruddy and sun-weathered, with deep lines carved around his mouth and eyes. Jowls hang heavy, the weight of them deepening his scowl every time he drinks.
His eyes — small, dark, and sharp — move over the room like searchlights, pausing just long enough on each person to remind them they’ve been seen. His neck bulges against the collar of his shirt, like the fabric’s one wrong breath from tearing.
I walk in slow, boots creaking over the boards. Conversations die. The air tightens, heavier with each step I take. They don’t know who I am, but they know why I’m here.
The man at the bar feels it too. He turns, and when his gazelocks onto mine, a slow, humorless smile spreads across his face. It doesn’t touch his eyes. Those stay cold.
He thinks I’m his next meal.
I see a dead man who hasn’t realized it yet.
“You new in town?”
The voice comes from the far end of the bar — deep, gravelly, with just enough bite to test a stranger.
“Just rolled in,” I answer, casual as a summer breeze. I know exactly what I look like to him: money that doesn’t know better, a soft mark wrapped in casual charm. It’s the bait, and I’m dangling it. I sit two stools down, nursing my drink, keeping my body language loose.
“Who the hell drives all the way out here to Bumfuck?” he snarls, like the town name itself tastes bad.
“Just passing through,” I say, shrugging. “Car overheated. Figured I’d stop, give her a once-over.”
His eyes shift past me, finding what he’s really interested in — my Pontiac gleaming under the midday sun through the tavern’s glass partition. It’s a classic, and she’s immaculate. Cost me more than I care to admit, but worth every cent. I knew she’d turn his head before I even pulled into town.
