Excerpt 2, The Abduction Myth

The following is an excerpt from my new novel, The Abduction Myth.  You can purchase it here: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KI6XNJU#nav-subnav 

You can also read the first three chapters here: 

http://thedevilsdiaries.blogspot.co.uk/p/chapter-two-abduction-myth.html

Late that night I was awoken by a noise in the parking lot.   Even in this neighborhood no one tended to be out at 3 a.m. so I went very still, trying to place the sound.   Rick locked the gates to the parking lot every night, but it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that someone might try to steal a car.  When I heard something again I climbed out of bed and peered through a wafer thin slit in the curtains.

 

The standard three cars were still there: my beloved Mini, Rick’s battered Land Rover, and Trevor’s old Toyota Celica.  Someone was in the parking lot, though, which gave me a jolt—until I saw the tattooed arms and realized it was just Rick.  He was pacing in front of the dumpster and smoking a cigarette, in an agitated sort of way.  Wondering why he seemed so upset I watched him drop his cigarette onto the pavement and ground it out with the heel of his sandal.  He then stood in front of the dumpster for a moment, and gazed down at the black tarmac.  When he looked up again, the contents of the dumpster burst into flame.

Horrified, I leapt back.  Before I could grab my phone and call the fire department, however, the fire went out.   I remained frozen in place, afraid that it would flare up again—but Rick just turned around and headed toward the building.  A moment later I heard his apartment door open and close.  I assumed he’d gone to get a fire extinguisher, but after a few more minutes passed I realized he wasn’t going back outside.  In his mind, at least, the danger had passed.

Not nearly so confident, I kept an eye on the dumpster for another fifteen minutes until tiredness overcame me and I stumbled back to the bed.  As I lay there I tried to work through what had happened.  Rick must have tossed a lit cigarette into the dumpster just before I woke up, and the butt smouldered away until it caused a brief, albeit rather spectacular, fire to start.  That much made sense.  What I couldn’t figure out was why the fire had proceeded to die out so rapidly.

When I remembered this episode the next morning, it felt so strange and dreamlike that a part of me wondered if it had even happened.  Wanting an answer I went outside while none of the guys were having their smoking break and had a look inside of the dumpster.  Other than for a few blackened bits of paper I found no evidence of a blaze.  I was just standing there, puzzled in the extreme, when Rick joined me.  “Something wrong?” he asked.

“Oh!  Um, no.  I was just...I thought maybe I smelled smoke last night.  That’s all.”

“It was probably the Chinese takeout,” he replied.  “I can’t believe that place hasn’t burned down yet—they forget to turn their equipment off all the time.  If the neighborhood ever goes up in flames, we’ll all know why.”

“Yeah,” I said, and gave him a weak smile. I couldn’t really blame him for not owning up to the blaze, if he had been the one to cause it—that wasn’t the sort of thing that would inspire confidence in one’s tenants.  Besides, nothing had come of it, and there was still the chance that I’d dreamt the whole thing.  So I answered, “I guess everything’s all right, then.  I, um, just wanted to be sure.”

“I appreciate that,” Rick said, but as I walked back to the massive door leading to the apartments I was certain I could feel him watching me.