Cristina Read online

  “Good morning, beautiful.”

  Cristina stroked her daughter’s hair away from her face.

  “Mama,” Anise began. “I think it would be a good idea if we went to the beach today. You know, just to see what it’s like.”

  Even in her sleepy state, Cristina struggled not to giggle.

  “Yah? Is that what you think, chica?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Hmm . . . well, let me think about it.”

  Cristina put a finger to her chin, pretending to deeply consider the idea.

  No longer able to contain her excitement, Anise burst with a surge of energy, breaking out in squeals as she jumped on the bed.

  “Pleeeeeeeease!?”

  After a few more moments of torture, Cristina finally gave up the act.

  “OK,” she said, as if relenting to some brilliant argument.

  Anise jumped into her arms.

  “YAY!!!”

  “But first,” Cristina said, yawning. “We gotta eat.”

  They went downstairs and into the kitchen. Cristina moved around a few boxes, until she found one marked FOOD. From it she removed a bag of Peet’s Coffee and her little French press. She also dug out a box of Bisquick pancake mix and poured some into a metal bowl.

  After cooking breakfast and sitting down for the first time at their small kitchen table, Cristina noticed the sliding glass door was cracked open.

  “Anise, did you go outside this morning without asking?”

  She shook her head.

  “Are you sure?” Cristina asked again, pointing toward the door. “It’s OK if you did. Mommy just wants to know.”

  Anise forked her pancakes in silence.

  Cristina stuck her head outside. All seemed as it should be. If anything, the backyard and its overgrown weeds appeared pleasantly normal compared to the way it had looked in the dark.

  Still, she was sure she’d closed and locked the door.

  It had to be Anise.

  But Cristina wasn’t about to get the day off to a bad start with an argument over something so trivial. Besides, even if Anise did go out, it was important to cut her some slack. In a new house in a new town, a little strange behavior was to be expected.

  Cristina just wanted to know.

  They finished breakfast and started putting together their beach gear. While Cristina wanted to shove everything into a canvass shopping bag and go, Anise insisted they neatly fold the towels and extra clothes before stacking them inside the bag. She gently placed her plastic bucket and shovel on top.

  It was past 10 AM when they finally pulled the Civic down the gravel driveway. As they turned onto the road, a lifted pickup – the kind Cristina had always referred to as a “tiny-dick truck” – pulled around them and up the driveway. She was too low to see who was inside, but Cristina thought she only needed one guess.

  Trying not to let Mr. Psycho bother her, Cristina rolled down the window, letting in a gust of fresh ocean air. She turned on the stereo. The smooth sound of Buena Vista Social Club came pouring out of the speakers. The pop of conga drums made her wish she could sway her hips. Instead, she gently wobbled the steering wheel back and forth, rocking the frontend of the Civic.

  “Car dancing!” Anise said from the backseat, waving her arms off-rhythm.

  “You bet, chica. Time to move those dance muscles!”

  Although not really all that far from town, their new place was on a two-lane road that could have been in the middle-of-nowhere. Cristina saw green in every direction. The grass and brush grew thick, right up to the edge of the forest. The only indication they weren’t deep in the backwoods was the scent of the brine-soaked air.

  Cristina let her mind wander as they made their way along the scenic road.

  She felt immensely grateful and happy to be where she was. After what she’d been through over the past twelve months, and for so many years before that, this moment of freedom was priceless.

  Of course, she was glad just to be alive.

  After almost being killed by Anise’s father, Anthony, (and not for the first time) Cristina had been forced to take out a restraining order against him while they went through their divorce and he faced criminal charges.

  They were no longer married, but the bastard only did six months. And that wasn’t even in real prison. Because his family had money and connections, Anthony was able to turn what should have been at least a five-year sentence in San Quentin into a relatively easy six-month stint fighting fires in one of the state’s “conservation camps.”

  That’s just how it was for him, too. A rich kid who’d gone through his whole life always getting what he wanted.

  In the beginning of their relationship, he’d convinced Cristina that what he wanted was her. And not just her body, which just about every male she’d come in contact with since Jr. High seemed to go crazy for. No, Anthony had told her he wanted to get her off the streets. Help her make a new life following her dreams of being an artist. A life worth living. Even if she hadn’t really believed in happiness, not then at least.

  It turned out what he really wanted was someone to boss around. To take care of him. To baby him when he went into one of his moods. And, of course, someone to take out his anger on.

  For almost eight years, she was that person. All the while hoping, somewhere just around the corner, they would find happiness together.

  Truth be told, Anise was an accident. And it wasn’t until her daughter was four that Cristina finally worked up the courage to leave. Not that she’d had much of a choice by then. If she hadn’t gotten the hell out of there when she did, he would have killed her. She was sure of it.

  God knows he’d come close.

  One night, Anthony had been doing his usual thing. Getting drunk in his favorite chair watching the ballgame. After Cristina put Anise to bed, he told her to sit on the ground in front of him. He made her drink whiskey and do lines of coke while she rubbed his feet. Shot after shot she took. Line after line. She wasn’t allowed to talk. Only to listen as he threatened over and over again to punish her if she stopped, even for a second. She never doubted his sincerity. He’d proven it plenty of times before. But after what seemed like hours, she could hardly keep her eyes open, much less continue massaging. Her hands were cramping. Her head spinning.

  Without warning, he pulled down his pants, forced her head forward, and shoved his half-hard piece of meat down her throat. She gagged and choked. Her cheeks flushed red as the oxygen was cut off. She turned her eyes toward his face and saw, not the anger she’d expected, but a cold, blank stare. A look of pure evil. One she’d seen before.

  In that moment, her whole existence seemed like one giant nightmare.

  Sitting there on the floor, drunk and choking to death on his now rock-hard cock, she’d felt half-tempted to simply let go. Allow death to take over. Drift off into nothingness. Just to make the pain of life finally stop.

  Then Anise’s smile flashed into her mind. The innocence of a life not yet tarnished by the evils of humanity. An angel on earth.

  The vision had given Cristina the strength she needed.

  With what felt like her last ounce of energy before succumbing to unconsciousness, she reached up with her right hand and grabbed that son-of-a-bitch’s balls. She squeezed so hard, she thought they might pop like two swollen grapes.

  When he screamed and let go, her lungs wheezed in a frantic search for oxygen.

  The king of assholes sat writhing in his favorite chair.

  At least for a few seconds.

  Before she could recover enough to run, his eyes were again locked on to hers. First with hurt. Then with the hateful rage of a spoiled child who has failed to get his way.

  Luckily, they were near the fireplace. She reached over and grabbed the black iron grip of a two-pronged poker, warning him she would bust his head open with it if he stood up.

  He hadn’t believed her.

  And that’s when she finally did something she’d been trying t
o find the courage to do since the first time he ever hit her.

  She fought back.

  When he lunged forward, she slammed the cold steel poker downward.

  The feeling of hard metal hitting his skull was strange. On the one hand, it was disgusting and awful how she could actually feel the bone crack. Yet, she’d also never felt more pleased with herself. It took all her self-control not to hit him again.

  Although she would never say it out loud, she knew in her heart that she’d been trying to kill him – a feat she likely would have accomplished if he hadn’t ducked to his left at the last instant. As it was, he immediately went unconscious and began twitching and pulsating on the ground. Spittle and foam frothed from his mouth.

  She called 9-1-1, told them to send an ambulance, and then grabbed Anise and bolted out of there.

  Cristina wasn’t sure how much, if any, her daughter remembered about her father. She never mentioned him, and hadn’t seen him since that night.

  In court, Anthony hadn’t looked Cristina’s way during the entire proceeding. Not once. Hadn’t looked at much of anything, actually. He sort of just stared off into nothingness. Cristina thought (and partially hoped) that she’d given him permanent brain damage.

  After a couple weeks, the female judge handed Anthony a measly six-months at the fire camp. She’d been on Cristina’s side throughout the hearing, but ultimately said it was the maximum sentence allowed, due to some obscure legal loophole Anthony’s expensive attorney had managed to dig up.

  As part of their divorce, he also had to pay Cristina a settlement of a million dollars, which in reality was hardly anything for a guy who’d been given a five-million-dollar trust fund when he graduated from high school.

  That money was the only reason she could afford to buy the house in Pleasure Point. But even at a deeply discounted price because of the murder, the purchase basically ate up most of her half of the settlement. The lawyer had taken the other half.

  Anthony had to make alimony and child support payments, too. That money covered basic expenses. But it didn’t come anywhere close to making up for the nightmares Cristina still suffered from most nights. Though, for someone who grew up in poverty, it was at least nice not to worry about how she and her daughter were going to eat, or where they were going to sleep.

  All she wanted to do now was start over.

  After a lifetime of selfishness and self-centeredness, Cristina now lived to make her daughter happy. Her road through life had produced a lot of regrets, but one thing she never second-guessed for a minute was Anise. She was determined to be the good mom she herself never had. Even if it was hard sometimes to look at her precious baby and not get at least a little mad at herself for having stayed so long with such a horrible man.

  As much as she hated to admit it, she saw his face in Anise. Although brown in color, she had his eyes. Big and round. Quite different from Cristina’s own distinctive almonds. And Anise didn’t look at all like she was half-Mexican. Her skin was an almost pasty white, like her father’s. Her shoulder-length brown hair was light enough that in bright sunlight it appeared dark-blond.

  Almost as if she’d heard her mother’s thoughts, Anise spoke, snapping Cristina out of her daze.

  “I love you, mamma.”

  “I love you too, chica.”

  They came around a bend in the road and the trees suddenly disappeared, revealing one of the most stunning views Cristina had ever seen. She instinctively turned off the music, as if its presence hindered her ability to fully appreciate what was before her.

  She’d driven this way before, but somehow she’d failed to realize just how beautiful her surroundings really were until now. Cristina could see all the way across the half-circle of shimmering blue water that was Pleasure Bay, twenty miles to the upscale town of Presidio Grove on the other side – a ritzy getaway village for the wealthy, including her ex-husband’s parents.

  On the Pleasure Point side of the bay, the beach town stretched from the ocean to the mountain foothills. She could see a Ferris wheel and several twisting roller coasters standing near the water. On the far end of the amusement park, a long row of luxurious houses lined the coastal cliffs, some of them so close to the edge of the rocks, they appeared to lean out over the water. On the other end, a wooden pier extended out into the ocean for at least half a mile.

  Further down the coast, she saw the abandoned factory Jack had told her about, its grey, cylindrical buildings reaching up from the ground like ashy fingers. Between the factory and the pier stood what looked like a small, self-contained town set apart from the rest of Pleasure Point.

  The whole landscape belonged on a postcard.

  Cristina wiped a single tear from her cheek with the palm of her hand.

  “Why you crying, mamma?” Anise asked.

  “It’s OK, chica. Mommy’s just really happy. Isn’t our new home gorgeous?”

  “Uh-huh,” Anise answered dutifully.

  The road dropped down the hill in a long, sweeping curve. Single-family homes began to appear, at first some distance apart from one another, but bunching together the closer the road got to sea level. At the bottom of the incline stood an old house that Cristina imagined had seen better days.

  Creepy, she thought.

  The place was five stories, surrounded by a high iron fence, and belonged in a horror movie. The decrepit gray wood looked ready to buckle under a soft sea breeze.

  In front of the house was a stop sign and a T-junction. There were no other cars around.

  Cristina and Anise were headed left toward the amusement park. But before pushing down the turn signal, Cristina paused for a moment, engine idling, looking to her right. She decided to take a little detour and explore a bit.

  Quickly, she realized that the old mansion was not the only rundown home on this side of town.

  Houses lined the street, but all of them had obviously been sitting vacant for some time. The windows were boarded. The lawns dead. Once vibrant paint now peeled under an assault by the salty air.

  The neighborhood was dead.

  It wasn’t until she neared the end of the street that she thought she saw movement from the corner of her eye. But when she turned her head in that direction, she saw nothing but another formerly beautiful home.

  On top of the general eeriness of having no one around, she could have sworn that the sky actually started to darken as she drove deeper into the neighborhood. She craned her neck to peer out the windshield, sure she would find clouds or a bank of fog. To her surprise, there was nothing but clear blue.

  “Mamma, where are we?” Anise asked.

  “Don’t worry, chica. Everything’s OK.”

  Suddenly though, Cristina didn’t believe her own words. Not one bit. Without looking, she spun the steering wheel to the left so she could pull into a driveway and turn around.

  She had to stomp her foot on the brake as a man suddenly appeared in front of her. The Civic stalled. Its engine puttered and died.

  Her mind froze as she made eye contact.

  At first, she thought he must be some kind of creature risen from the dead. His face was as thin as the Nazi concentration camp victims she once saw on a History Channel documentary. The few chunks of stringy hair remaining on his head looked as though they’d been singed by fire. His mouth gaped open, showing rotted teeth the color of a school bus. The filthy white t-shirt hanging off his gaunt shoulders was tattered, his blue jeans completely ripped down one side, revealing a bare leg covered in red sores. He was not wearing underwear.

  But none of those things were as frightening as his black eyes. Set deep in a high forehead covered with the same raging pustules as his legs, the man’s oversized pupils were motionless. Cristina felt, for a moment, like the dark, lifeless orbs were calling to her.

  She only became certain he wasn’t a ghost when the corners of his lips curled into a salivating grin, the way a starving wolf might admire a steak.

  “Mamma?” Anise said.


  Cristina snapped out of her hypnotized stare and looked over her shoulder, heart hammering against her chest when she saw a second man only a few feet away from the car, a similarly hungry expression on his face. He was nearly as skinny and just as dirty as his companion. The same ugly sores covering his face.

  Soon he was fumbling with the door handle. Cristina had never felt so grateful for her grandmother’s overly-cautious insistence on locking the doors every time they were in the car. A habit that had worn off on her.

  She started the Honda and threw it into reverse, slamming her foot down on the gas pedal. In her rush, she let the aging clutch out a bit too fast. The car again sputtered and died.

  Her hands shook as she tried to turn the key in the ignition one more time.

  “Mamma?” Anise repeated.

  The first man stepped toward Cristina’s wide-open window. His legs moved faster than she would have expected, as if with a newfound sense of purpose.

  The key turned, but nothing happened.

  He’d already reached the front of the car.

  Overgrown fingernails shrieked against metal as he slid his sore-covered hand across the hood.

  “Mamma?” Anise repeated.

  “It’s OK, chica. Just hold on a second.”

  Cristina tried once more to start the car. Again nothing happened.

  It wasn’t until the man’s filthy hands were nearly sliding up onto the windshield that she realized the problem. In her panic, she’d forgotten to push in the clutch. As soon as she did, the reliable old Civic fired to life.

  Cristina took one last look at the man’s eyes. Despite his now fearsome grin, there still appeared to be no light in his pupils whatsoever. Together with the rotting scent of his body odor, he might as well have been a walking corpse.

  She backed out of the driveway and then quickly took off down the street, watching as the two men grew smaller in the rearview mirror.

  Wiping her hair from her face, she realized her forehead was covered with sweat, despite the fact it couldn’t have been more than 65 degrees out.

  “You OK, Anise?”

  “Yes,” came the plain answer. “Who were those men, mamma?”