Unhinged

The next day, I was startled into consciousness by the side of a fist. After the second round of firm knocks, I was honestly grateful I didn’t seem to feel pain – the movements were blunt and heavy, and would have bruised me if I were made of flesh. I prepared to stick obstinately in my frame, imagining the knocker to be Randall, but was surprised to find a man in a dark blue uniform instead. The visitor was an officer, according to the television shows that Tana watched endlessly on weekends, though far less attractive than the ones on the shows.

A morning-disheveled – though still beautiful – Tana had pressed her face against my back, looking through the peephole at the officer outside. As she pulled the door open, the squawks and beeps of the officer’s shoulder-mounted communicator echoed off the concrete hallway.

“Miss Vennt? I’m officer Holden with the-” I shifted my focus from the unexpected visitor to Tana, studying the curl of her fingers around my edge to the errant lock of hair she’d pushed behind an ear. She nodded as she listened to the officer, a speech I’d tuned out in favor of concentrating on the object of my affections. My attention snapped back to the officer, however, as he showed Tana a grainy photograph. With a start, I realized it was the same doomed woman that looked so much like my Tana, the one that had never returned from the woods with Randall. Failing to clock the same recognition I did, Tana only nodded softly, her brow creasing in concern, eyes flicking down the hallway to the dense copse of forest beyond, now choked with early spring growth as the officer gestured.

“-only moved here about six months ago, I’m so sorry I can’t be more help. That poor girl!” Tana accepted a small white card from the officer with another nod as their conversation dwindled. “If I hear or see anything, I promise I’ll call right away.”

The officer touched the band of his uniform hat lightly in respect as he left, moving down the open hallway towards the woods as Tana turned to head back in. She frowned at the card as she pushed me closed with the luscious curve of her hip, moving to the refrigerator to pin the card under a brightly-colored smiley face magnet.

“Missing.” She shuddered visibly, talking out loud to herself, as she often did. “True crime stuff is interesting but I don’t like living in it. Hopefully she just went on a – a road trip, or something.” Tana’s voice had gone flat and sad; I got the impression she didn’t believe her own optimism.

As Tana busied herself digging through the freezer for the toaster waffles she always treated herself to on the weekends, I listened and watched the exterior of the apartment. The officer was strolling back through the hallway corridor now, talking into his shoulder.

“That’s the canvass of building B, chief. No hits, though there’s pretty dense woods behind the building. We bringing out the canine units? Profiler was saying it could aggravate-”

A squawk of tinny, garbled speech from his shoulder cut him off, and he nodded absently. I wasn’t sure how the officer could make out a word of the noise, it sounded like the chatter of a million birds in the trees.

A grunt of assertion followed the garbled voice dying down. “10-4 chief. Be right there.” The officer’s various pockets and belt loops jangled and thudded as he jogged down the hallway and out to the parking lot.

Inside the apartment, the gentle clunk of a plate on Tana’s coffee table signaled the beginning of her Saturday ritual: waffles drenched in syrup and a loud action movie. I settled my perception there to watch with her, deeply troubled. I knew from the shows Tana watched that canines often meant bodies. I also knew, from another show, that bad men like Randall often got worse if they were close to being discovered.

My Tana was in danger, and even as sturdy as I was, I’d never felt more helpless.