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day 87
Rebecca moaned. She lifted her head barely off the pillow, but its weight forced it back down. The room was reeling. Her stomach rolled over. The house was quiet. Aaron was on the phone in the kitchen. He waved to Rebecca and pointed to a fresh pot of coffee. The room smelled of stale liquor. Rebecca poured her coffee and hurried into the living room. The computer was up and logged onto the halfsquatch.com website and scrolled through the most recent e-mails. Aaron brought her two slices of plain toast. “You should eat something.” “Thanks,” Rebecca said. She nibbled on a corner of crust. “Devin said he’d meet you at the photo shoot this afternoon for the interview with the Reporter.”
Rebecca crossed her arms in front of her on the desk and lay her head down. “Do I have to?” she whined. Rebecca trudged back up the stairs to take a shower. Devin’s backpack was propped beside the nightstand. She knew he kept his toiletry bag inside. She knew he had a bottle of Advil. She unzipped the backpack and rifled through it. She poured three capsules into her hand and put the bottle and the toiletry case back. She was about to zip the backpack when she spied the bootlegged DVD of The Six Million Dollar Man two-parter that a Halfsquatch fan had burned and sent to her. Rebecca curled up on the couch in the living room, remote in one hand, a glass of water in the other. Aaron joined her on the couch. “You’re okay with this?” he asked. “Yeah.” “In that case, can you turn it up?” The Advil kicked in. She cranked the volume and settled in. Steve Austin was the Bionic Man. He was dispatched to investigate the disappearance of his colleagues in the California forest. Rebecca laughed with Aaron. “It’s all the Sasquatch’s fault, of course,” said Rebecca. The suddenly, she stopped laughing. She flipped back through the last scene and watched it again. An Indian who was helping Steve Austin talked about the Sasquatch. “Stories of the Sasquatch go back generations among my people, stories that….” the Indian said. “Well, those stories were just superstitions, weren’t they?” asked Steve Austin. The Indian continued. “Some are. But too many incidents are unexplained. It’s eerie. When I was a boy on the reservation I once saw a man who had disappeared for many days in the deep woods. My grandfather found him. There was a footprint like this one nearby. My grandfather told me the man had seen the Sasquatch. I’ll never forget how that man looked – his eyes.” Rebecca pressed the rewind button and watched the scene once more. “Rebecca, what is it?” Aaron asked. She was shaking. “It’s all a lie. He’s full of shit.” Aaron took the remote from Rebecca and stopped the show. “Who’s full of shit?”
“Devin.” |
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