Not So Human - Chapter Three - What You Don't Know Can Kill You

Everyone's heard the saying "what you don't know can kill you." And there's a lot of truth there, I'm sure.

But let's face it: It's just as possible to die by something you DO know. So basically, you're in trouble either way. At least you are if you're Sabrina.

And speaking of Sabrina, this is the last chapter I'm posting here. If you want to read the rest, this baby is being published in both print and Kindle copies tomorrow, February 24, on Amazon.com.

Until then, I hope you enjoy what's below!

CHAPTER 3 

A

 Familiar cheesy tune split the quiet morning air, blasting Sabrina into consciousness and leaving her little choice but to grope around for her cell phone, which doubled as an alarm clock. Generally, she loved her ringtone. Hence the reason why she chose it in the first place. But when it started playing at some wretched hour of the morning – also known as six o’clock sharp – she was less than pleased.

She set it to snooze and crankily collapsed back onto her pillows, rubbing at her eyes. It was with great difficulty that she coerced her inner toddler into submission, but she somehow did it in less time than it took for the alarm to go off again. And then she was up and stumbling headlong into the new day.

 By the time Sabrina was through her morning routine, it was somehow quarter to seven. She hastily ate a pack of instant oatmeal, prepared her lunch, gulped down her vitamins and got her teeth brushed all in time to head out the door a whole minute ahead of schedule. Before the clock had quite struck eight, she was at her desk in the big, bare, boring room she shared with five people she had nothing in common with.

She didn’t fit in there. At all. It was obvious while her coworkers went about their childish chatter like always. Sabrina tuned them out like she always did whenever they discussed immature topics, which meant that she ignored them most of the time. They were all a decent decade or more older than her, yet they acted as if they’d never left middle school.

Sabrina barely heard more than a hum while she checked her email, scanning the inbox for any sign that Alex might want to talk to her again. It had been months since they’d broken up, and she was down to just the tiniest strand of hope. Really, it was more of a bad habit than anything else at that point. But she couldn’t work up any lasting enthusiasm over anyone else. And she still wanted a better explanation than, “I just need time to think.”

Everything had been going so well for the thirteen months beforehand, so she’d been shocked and confused when, within a short week’s time, he’d gone from loving boyfriend, to brooding and distant, to gone altogether. Overall, she blamed Alex for his odd behavior and subsequent disappearance; but every once in a while, she couldn’t help but wonder if it had been her. Had she said something? Could she have done something different?

Sabrina didn’t cry at the thought. She barely blinked when the day’s email proved to be no different than usual, with the exception of a fawning correspondence from Eugene. She was pretty well past that hysterical first stage, rarely even tearing up over Alex anymore. It’s just that she wouldn’t have objected too much if he did decide to come waltzing back into her life.

She signed out of her email and set her mind to accomplishing the single task she’d been given for the entire day. It only lasted so long, of course; and as the minutes turned to hours with painstaking slowness, interspersed with three text messages from Eugene, Sabrina realized she was getting used to it all. Her coworkers’ ignorant comments and her own lack of inspiration were becoming as depressingly familiar as the commute to and from work.

That recognition stuck with her throughout the day, no matter how hard she tried to shake it. So it was with infinite relief that she exited the building beneath an obliviously cheerful, blue sky. Her engine started with a soothing rumble, and she turned on the radio as soon as she pulled out of the smallish parking lot.

Blasting her music as loud as her poor little car could manage, she did the speed limit only because of the traffic congesting the basic two-lane road. That changed as soon as she made the left turn onto Route 222, where she stepped on the gas, reveling in every second that took her further away from the dismal little office with its depressing realizations.

The scenery didn’t change much as the odometer on her dashboard ticked ever upwards. There was still plenty of farmland with scattered stands of trees every which way she looked. But the feel of it was somehow different, and she felt her shoulders relax with each passing mile. It was amazing how such a short distance could mean a world of change.

After living in Lancaster for as long as she had, Sabrina knew most of the places cops liked to hide along the highway. She kept her eyes on the road and her fellow drivers for the most part; but every so often, when she was passing particular ramps, she would take particular notice of her surroundings. Such precautions were necessary when she was hitting eighty-five miles per hour in a sixty-five zone.

That’s why she first noticed the swanky sedan behind her. For one small but disconcerting instant, she thought it was a police vehicle.

Shiny black, its silver trim was clean enough to bounce the sun right at her when she glanced in the rearview mirror. After determining she wasn’t in any immediate risk of getting a ticket, Sabrina wouldn’t have thought twice about the car if it had just continued on its merry course. Cadillacs weren’t something she often did a double-take for.

Yet there was something off about it. It didn’t tail her, but when she switched lanes to get around the law-abiding semi up ahead, it followed.

No big deal really, or at least it wasn’t that first time. It was a popular enough road during peak hours. So while she took some note of the car’s movements, she didn’t find it over-the-top suspicious right away. Nonetheless, Sabrina noticed how it matched her speed when she revved up to ninety miles per hour. And it copied her again when she turned back into the right lane to head toward Route 30. Nor could she disregard the way it didn’t take any of the next three heavily traveled courses it could have, staying right behind her instead.

That’s when Sabrina felt the first pangs of real uncertainty. With the traffic packed much more closely, she snuck a suspicious glance in her rearview mirror. Tilting it to get a better perspective, she took in the details of the driver’s face and instantly didn’t like what she saw.

The man looked like he had just stepped out of some bad Mafia movie with his short, light brown hair, darker sunglasses, and black suit jacket and tie. The color stood out starkly against his crisp white oxford, and his expressionless mouth didn’t make him look any less foreboding. From what she could see, he looked a lot like the man she had seen the other night at the grocery store.

Shifting the mirror’s angle with a growing amount of concern, she could see his passengers, two of whom were wearing carbon-copy clothing. There was a fourth occupant as well, but what he looked like, she had no clue since he was largely out of her sight. All she could make out was one shoulder, and that was covered in what looked like a black jacket too.

Sabrina told herself she was being paranoid. That the driver couldn’t be the man from the other day, and even if he was, so what? But she couldn’t fight off the strange little shiver that ran down her spine twice in rapid succession, and she started really hoping the Cadillac would take any of the upcoming exits.

When it didn’t, and the roadway cleared up in front of her, she hit the gas pedal. Hard.

The other vehicle matched her speed perfectly, never getting too close but never allowing too much space between them either. So by the time Sabrina reached her off-ramp, she was on high alert.

As far as she could tell, there was no good reason for a car like that to be in her neighborhood. She didn’t live in the slums by any means, but her apartment was very close to one of the area’s larger universities. That meant the surrounding communities were mostly populated by college students with their Mustangs and assorted parental hand-me downs. Not Mafia cars.

Sabrina told herself the men behind her were just visiting someone. That she was being ridiculous freaking out.

They were rational words that did nothing for her nerves.

If it had been dark out, she wouldn’t have pulled into her parking lot at all. But since it was still sunny and bright, she forced herself to take the risk. Nobody attacked people in broad daylight anyway. Not on sleepy, central Pennsylvania back-roads lined with perfectly mundane rows of trees and houses like the ones around her.

Telling herself that and convincing herself of it were two very different tasks, however. And even after she parked and the other car drove right past her building, she still didn’t feel safe. Filled with a disturbing amount of unease, Sabrina stepped out of the car only to nearly lose her footing when her phone rang inside her purse. It took a mere second for her to realize what the sudden noise was, and then another to identify the caller. But she still felt jittery when she answered.

“Hey, Za.” Deanda’s voice was soothing in its normality. “I’m thinking we need a movie night.”

“Isn’t that what we did yesterday?” Sabrina balanced the phone between her shoulder and ear so she could unlock the front door.

“Yeah, well, someone at work was telling me about this one horror flick.”

Sabrina cut her off with a sheepish, self-deprecating laugh. “No thank you. I think I’ve already freaked myself out enough for one day.”

“What did your coworkers do now?” Deanda pressed with some disgust in her voice. She had heard too many stories about them already.

“Oh no, it wasn’t them,” Sabrina assured, finally disengaging the lock and pulling the door open. “I just got all paranoid and thought this car was following me. Completely stupid, I know, but I’d say I’m more than jumpy enough without watching stuff that goes bump in the night.”

There was a pause on the other end. Then Deanda asked in a rather odd voice, “Someone followed you?”

“No, it was just this Cadillac that was behind me all the way from 222 to the apartment.” Sabrina shut the door behind her, bolting it for good measure. “It freaked me out a little, but they went on to one of the back buildings, I think.

“Did you get a look at whoever was in the car?” Again that overly casual tone that implied too much interest while pretending to have none.

Making her way up into the living area, Sabrina’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “It was some guys in business suits.”

“How many?” Deanda pressed.

“Four.” Sabrina dumped her purse on the couch.

“Were they all wearing sunglasses?”

“Yeah.” Deanda was officially scaring her, a fact she didn’t bother to keep secret. “How’d you know that?”

“Just do me a favor, okay? Make sure the doors and windows are locked. Whatever you do, don’t go outside. I’ll be home in a few.” She sounded like a parent trying to keep a toddler still in the face of a rattlesnake.

Even without that tone, Deanda’s questions weren’t normal. Asking what her alleged tails looked like could have stemmed from mild curiosity, but there was no good reason to wonder whether they had sunglasses on or not. And the command to lock up was pushing the situation into uncomfortable territory. When Sabrina tried to point all that out, Deanda only repeated her warning to secure any entrances, then made her promise to call if anything else happened.

That odd reaction seemed sufficient proof that the paranoia Sabrina had been feeling was actually justified. Recognizing that sent her into a panic, her mind racing to try to figure out what in the world could be going on.

Was Deanda mixed up in some kind of legal affair? Was the state representative she worked for in some kind of trouble? Were the guys outside assassins or something?

Once Sabrina let her mind loose, it picked up speed, going from understandable speculation to sheer insanity in a minute flat. Every improbable possibility from the mob to aliens made a guest appearance in her head.

With those thoughts to spur her on, Sabrina secured the two windows in the living room, checked the downstairs door again, and even stopped to eye the vents distrustfully. They weren’t very large, but could she rule out the possibility that someone or something could get through?

She tried to tell herself she was being absurd.

Considering how she had done that in the first place to no avail, it didn’t work very well the second time around.

Her cell rang again while she was pacing back and forth, back and forth, across the living room. Sabrina had already been standing ramrod straight, but if possible, her body stiffened even further when she checked to see who was calling.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?” She asked into the phone, using a perfectly calm voice. Because really, she knew there was a good explanation for everything. There had to be.

“I’m outside,” Deanda replied instead. “Grab your purse and let’s go. We’re hitting up the mall.”

“I thought you wanted to watch a movie,” Sabrina pointed out even while she did as commanded. Anything was better than staying alone with her ridiculous imagination.

“Changed my mind,” was the terse reply. “Now come on.”

The phone clicked, effectively ending the call, and Sabrina glared at it in frustration before hurtling down the stairs. It wasn’t like Deanda to be so cryptic or bossy. She had always been a take-charge kind of girl, but as a general rule, she exuded that quality in a way that wasn’t the epitome of irritating.

Deanda had parked her red sedan practically in front of their door, so it took Sabrina just a few anxious steps to make it over to her. She slid into the passenger’s seat, taking in her friend’s apparel and appearance like either might provide some kind of clue as to what was going on. But the light grey suit Deanda wore was just as crisp as it had been that morning, and her hair was still captured in a perfect bun. The only telling sign was in her eyes. They kept flickering to the rearview mirror like she expected to be followed.

For the first five minutes, they seemed free of any tails. Sabrina knew because, incited by her friend’s unnerving behavior, she kept glancing backward too. Somehow, it wasn’t until they were out on the highway that she first caught sight of the shiny black Cadillac only three cars behind them.

“What is going on? Are you in some kind of trouble?” She didn’t turn away, almost afraid to not look in the mirror.

Shaking her head, Deanda let out an audible sigh of frustration through her nasal passage. “No. You are. But if you do what I say, we’re both going to get out of this alive, and then I’ll answer all the questions you have. You just have to do exactly what I say for now.”

“Alive?” Sabrina repeated somewhat stupidly. “Get out of what alive?”

“Questions later,” Deanda reminded.

She hadn’t asked for affirmation, but Sabrina gave a nod of acceptance anyway. The situation was getting stranger and stranger with each passing second, and her throat was getting tight.

There wasn’t much distance between their exit off the highway and the local mall, but there were three lights, two of which turned red on them. Stuck at the second one, Sabrina stared into her side-view mirror again, unable to keep her eyes elsewhere for very long. Each time she risked a glance at the car’s occupants, they looked increasingly more frightening.

Who wore full suits in Lancaster County anyway? Dress shirts and slacks, sure, but the men behind her looked like they’d fit much better in the secret service down in Washington D.C. than Central Pennsylvania. It was foreboding.

For that matter, she thought as Deanda pulled into the west side of the parking lot, so was the mall itself. Under normal circumstances, she’d barely take notice of the sprawled-out building, which was large enough to host five department stores and some ninety smaller shops. It was what it was: a familiar part of her surroundings.

But right then, despite the perfect blue sky above and the sunshine streaming down, it just looked dodgy. Like some structure in a movie that the audience knows the heroine shouldn’t enter, but which she foolishly does anyway. It made Sabrina’s insides cringe.

That impression solidified in her mind when the Cadillac stopped right at the curb, and two men – one expressionless blond and the other a brown-haired clone – got out from the back seat, opening and shutting their doors in practically perfect unison. The detail creeped her out even more. Though by that point, she felt like even a child laughing would sound ominous.

“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” she began.

But Deanda was already out of the car. “Let’s go. Stay close to me.”

There seemed little to do but buck up and go for it. Sabrina’s legs felt wobbly as the remaining two men drove the car right past them, the vehicle so close for a moment that she could almost reach out and touch her distorted reflection in the shiny side. Neither the driver nor the passenger turned to look at her directly, but she was sure they were staring behind the sunglasses anyway.

Deanda established a quick pace toward the triple set of double doors leading into one of the department stores, and she didn’t slow down once they were inside. Avoiding the various racks of juniors’ apparel, she grabbed Sabrina’s hand and snaked her way along the jean-laden back wall to the dressing room.

The two men who had gotten out of the Cadillac trailed them, and the darker haired one touched the side of his face briefly like he was trying to get better reception from an ear piece. Between that, their suits and their intimidating bulk, Sabrina was growing more and more certain they were from some type of government operation.

Bewildered, she could only wonder why the powers that be were after her.

Deanda pulled her into the bland and empty dressing room, setting off the censor, which binged with an eerie sound: another horror-movie noise. Sabrina jumped at it, but her friend didn’t even pause, dragging her around the corner and to the back instead. Just as they reached the last stall, two young women brushed by them on their way out, causing Sabrina to turn and gape.

Somehow, someway, the pair looked a whole lot like Deanda and herself. Not perfect replicas, she realized after several startled blinks, but close enough to confuse even her for a second or two.

“What the –”

Her friend clapped a hand over her mouth. “Shhh.”

With that warning, Deanda let her go, though just to yank her into the furthest stall, where there just happened to be two large shopping bags. Sabrina was sure she looked stupid gawking while her roommate began stripping out of her grey suit, but she was also equally sure that she didn’t care.

Looking stupid was far from her worst fear at the moment.

“Change into whatever you find in the bag on the right, and do it fast.” Deanda sounded steady, yet the sense of urgency in what she said and how she said it was unmistakable.

Sabrina didn’t question. She was far and away beyond questioning, so she shimmied out of her work clothes and reached for the pair of jeans at the top of the pile. Survival mode had officially kicked in, because she found herself ready to do whatever it took to get out of the situation she’d found herself in, whatever it was. She was so wound up that, when the censor went off again, she spun around quickly enough to nearly trip herself.

Someone knocked on the stall door, giving Sabrina a new appreciation for the notion of hearts jumping into throats. Her fists clenched at her sides, and she changed her stance as much as she could in the crowded space. But Deanda put a hand on her arm.

“It’s me,” a female voice called out cheerfully, as if the whole entire world hadn’t shifted into an alternate universe. “I’m coming in.”

“Put on your shirt,” Deanda instructed, reaching forward to let in the new arrival.

Obediently, Sabrina slipped the white tank-top on over her head. As a result, she felt the new woman’s presence before she could see her.

“This is Ellie.” Deanda introduced the leggy brunette. She seemed to take great pains to look Sabrina in the eyes once again, like she was trying to ensure that everyone remained calm. “She’s going to put on your makeup, okay? I’ll be in the next stall.”

With that, she grabbed her own bag and sidled out.

Ellie didn’t waste any time on pleasantries, though she didn’t seem unpleasant per se. Contrary to her chirpy demeanor a moment ago, she was now a woman on a mission. That mission seemed to be securing Sabrina’s hair into a long, brown wig and then coating her face with enough cosmetics to satisfy a prostitute.

Sabrina obediently looked down for Ellie to run a mascara wand over her eyelashes. The new direction of her gaze afforded her a less than decent view of her own breasts, which were smashed together to create a sizable amount of cleavage for someone who was only average-sized in that department.

She didn’t need to see past her pushup bra to know that her new pants were a snug fit as well.

Next came the eyeliner, cool, wet and unfamiliar on her skin, since she was normally too cheap and lazy to wear any serious makeup. Her lashes felt far too heavy, and her lips seemed just as weighted after Ellie ran a tube of very pink lipstick over them.

The brunette stepped back to regard her handiwork, then grabbed up a stylish, light pink jacket. “Put this on.”

The cut and oversized logo identified it as something silly girls wore to over-accentuate their sexuality. But Sabrina slipped it on without a peep of protest, just as she did with the black ballet flats and the large silver hoops Ellie passed her once the jacket was on.

Turning toward the mirror to put the earrings in, Sabrina stopped in dumbfounded fascination. Gone was the young professional who had walked into the changing room five minutes ago. In her place stood an immature teenager looking for all the world like she belonged to a completely different line of work.

It was a shocking image and one Sabrina wasn’t given any time to process. With one final fluff at the wig, Ellie prompted her out into the little corridor.

Deanda was already standing there, also converted into something ridiculously different. Her lips flat-out sparkled, and Sabrina was quite sure she’d put on lash extenders along with colored contacts, which turned her violet eyes brown. Somehow, she’d also tucked her long locks into a dark blond bob; and she wore formfitting jeans that were slid into a pair of brown boots. A t-shirt was stretched taut over her chest, drawing even more attention to that area of her anatomy with the words “Fight Global Warming: Let’s Go Green” emblazoned in large block letters.

All in all, Deanda looked like Deanda about as much as Sabrina resembled Sabrina.

She tried not to stare too much as both women escorted her out of the department store, into the greater shopping center and down the opposite wing from where they had parked. Outside the east entrance, Ellie left them as abruptly as she’d appeared. One second she was there and the next she was walking away like they’d never seen each other before, leaving Sabrina in a continuous pool of clueless anxiety. She desperately wanted to know what was going on, and had a dozen or more questions crowding her brain and blocking up her throat.

Still, safety came first, so she kept them all at bay a little longer. Following Deanda out into the parking lot, she looked every which way for black Cadillacs and scary men in suits.

She would have walked right by the unfamiliar grey Honda if Deanda hadn’t pulled out a set of keys like she owned it. For all Sabrina knew, she did. Life had taken enough confusing turns already that she could believe almost anything.

The engine hummed to life under Deanda’s guidance. Yet even as she pulled it out of the space, Sabrina kept her mouth shut, still overwhelmingly concerned that the four men might somehow appear out of nowhere. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, and the girls made it out of the parking lot and onto Route 30 without further trouble. Just to be on the safe side though, it wasn’t until they had left the developments and strip malls of that highway for the trees and open farmland of 222, that Sabrina spoke up.

“What happened to your car?” Now that she had the freedom to ask questions, she found herself focusing on the most trivial of them all.

“This is a loaner. We’ll drop it off when we get to where we’re going.”

“Where are we going?”

“Away.”

Frustrated, Sabrina shook her head. “No. I want answers, and I want answers now. I’m dressed like a baby prostitute driving ‘away’ in a rented car after four creepy guys just followed me all over Lancaster. Now what was that all about?”

She steeled herself for the answer. Drug deals gone bad. International spy rings. FBI conspiracies. She could take the news, whatever it was. While any mention of aliens would be disconcerting, Sabrina tried to mentally prepare for that as well.

Deanda first glanced in the rearview mirror and then at her. “We’re moving at eighty miles an hour, right?”

Sabrina didn’t bother glancing at the speedometer. “Sure.”

“So you can’t throw yourself out of the car when I tell you what I’m about to tell you. Your brother would kill me if anything happened to you.”

Sabrina got very quiet then, her insides doing their familiar little drop. Unlike Eugene the other night, Deanda was very well aware she didn’t have a brother. So unless she was suffering from some sudden and inexplicable memory loss, she was pulling a very inappropriate joke.

Sabrina stared at her friend for a few seconds.

“That isn’t funny.” The three words were all she could manage.

“I didn’t intend it to be.”

Sabrina didn’t know how to respond to that, so she waited for Deanda to continue. Maybe it was how her eyes were still discolored by the contacts, but they looked very, very serious. And her glossy lips were set in a way that didn’t seem to bode well.

“I’ll tell you everything, but first you have to promise me you won’t do anything stupid, okay?”

Sabrina nodded, and Deanda took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

“You’re going to think I’m insane, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Looking very nervous, she glanced over and then straight ahead again, her hands digging into the steering wheel.

Sabrina took a deep breath.

“You’re not quite who you think you are,” she continued slowly, like she was pondering every syllable before she spoke it.

In no mood for the elongated version of whatever story Deanda was about to give her, Sabrina interrupted. “Just tell me. Spit it out. Please.”

So Deanda did, uttering the last four words Sabrina ever would have expected.

“You’re a faerie princess.”