Page 5 of Creepy
Dillon not only left when the media became obsessed with his father’s personal life, he disappeared without even saying goodbye to me.Even so, I wore my engagement ring and a smile, hoping he’d come back.I’d given him the benefit of the doubt.That was before he was spotted in Palm Beach with another woman, a famous actress to beat all.Though, I’d never heard of her before.
Our romantic relationship ended then.With the nation’s attention on his family, I’d already become a laughingstock.What was a handsome, well-connected man doing with a nobody from Creepy, Louisiana anyhow?The tabloids had a field day with our breakup.
Little did I know, the following year, Dillon would be back burying his father during a global pandemic.I did the right thing and took a pie over.I even showed up at the service.I hugged his mom but left before Dillon noticed me.However, I’d been completely unaware, Dillon stayed put in Alexandria after the funeral when his mother left for Zurich, planning to escape the disease like most of the well off.After all, it was a chaotic time during the outbreak.He and I weren’t on speaking terms back then.Even so, I assumed if he hadn’t left the country, he would’ve evacuated the state with everyone else once they rescued the little folk.I, too, was supposed to leave to be quarantined despite the fact it was well known by then some healthy young adults could survive the disease.
There weren’t many young adults left in Creepy to begin with, it being the type of town folks abandoned right after high school.Therefore, the ones still here, who’d outlived the unspeakable were tempted by claiming a life up north or out west, where they’d controlled the virus better, where they needed warm bodies to fill the voids.
By the time I met Dillon again, he was a different man.It’d only been a few months since everyone left Creepy, thankfully, disposing of most of the zombies before they left, though it felt like years to me.Dillon had always been a bit older and wiser.They say tragedy can make you or break you.The collapse of our civilized society can change a person.It came as no surprise with his political savvy, Dillon became the leader of a gang of survivors, the Stayers, they called themselves, a little cult really.Not merely folks from Rapides Parish and the city of Alexandria, the group rounded up and recruited wanderers from all over the state of Louisiana and beyond, anyone who’d stayed put and survived to tell tales.
The Stayers came upon me near the outskirts of this parish one day while I was making my rounds and tried to recruit me.When I wouldn’t join them, they tried to force me, kidnapping me away to Alexandria.That’s when I came face to face with Dillon again in a Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome sort of situation.He was the king of savages, and I was caged.It had shocked me to see him, thinking he’d been in Switzerland or something.Thankfully, he’d been stunned too.I think the initial jolt softened him.Due to our past and his lingering sympathy toward me, we’d come to an agreement.
Sure, his crew could come and pillage Creepy, but luckily Dillon had the barbarians believing it was best to save their energy.Those thugs followed his every whim.And fortunately for me, Dillon, for the most part, was a smart man.Besides, Alexandria was much better pickings than Creepy.I found some nice cars today, but there were car dealerships in Rapides Parish and malls, about all you could ask for.Plus, his Stayers didn’t care one bit about finding bodies, dead or undead.The Stayers raided houses, factories; you name it.Unlike me, they’d adapted to not wanting certain comforts of the past as well.
Speaking of which, I let Dillon into the cool of the house.I wasn’t powering an AC, but I had enough juice to power some strategically placed fans.
“What’s this?”He bent to pick up an envelope off the floor.
Fuck.Someone must have slipped it under my door.I absolutely didn’t want Dillon to know someone had been snooping around Creepy.Especially since I was supposed to be the only one here.If he knew Creepy had a visitor, that I had a stalker, he’d never let me stay.Knowing I could take care of myself, I grabbed the envelope from him.“It’s mine.I must’ve dropped it.”
“Who are you mailing?”He turned the envelope over a few times.“To Creepy with love...”he said, but there wasn’t any writing on it.That was a lifesaver.Fortunately, I knew what would be inside.Every time the same, pressed flowers.And every time, I searched the vicinity and stayed up late clutching my gun, getting no sleep at all.
“Open it up, if you want, it’s simply some flowers I pressed.”
In true fashion, Dillon didn’t trust me.He tore the envelope open, and the dried petals flew out.
Picking them up nonchalantly, I asked him, “Would you like some tea?”
“You’re stalling.”
“What do you want from me?”
It’d been a rhetorical question, but he answered, “Miss Mary.”
“Why do you want to come all the way here and fuck me, anyway?Waste all that gas...”Our deal wasn’t ideal but wasn’t unbearable given the circumstances.I didn’t always dread it either, although I would never admit it to him.Amongst his Stayers, there were very few women, so it only seemed logical, he’d want some sort of access, if you could call it that, to me or at least parts of me in exchange for keeping his people out of my little town.Not to mention, he wanted a cut of my weekly haul.
“I love Miss Mary.”Him repeating the all too secret name for my vagina, the one I’d lived half my life thinking everyone else called it, was classic Dillon.
I regretted ever telling him.“I hear you have a few girls.”
“They’re of age.A few women.Where do you hear anything?”
I hadn’t heard a thing, but I knew from when they captured me before.“Okay, you have a few women in your crew.”
“A very few.Not enough to go ‘round.Most are expecting.”
Ugh.
I’d never been happier to have ransacked the pharmacies first thing.I was still on the pill, something Dillon was unaware of.“Are they all yours?”
“Maybe.Maybe not.”
“I forgot, y’all share everything.”
“Not everything.”
I laughed.“Like I told you before.I’m not interested in sharing.”Boy, was that a loaded statement calling back to our time together when he flirted with having an open relationship.That’d been in the two-year turbulent period before we were engaged.I could only imagine the bullet I’d dodged when he left me.“I’m happy on my own.We have a deal, remember?Let’s just get this over with.”
“After you.”He gestured for me to move through the house.
