Tweak fiend babble didn't wait for Harmon on the other side of 14A's heavy metal door. The apartment complex had seen better days. Now, all the doors were metal, complete with dead bolt, chain lock and that nifty little notch that complimented the one on the floor. The kind of notches that a metal rod fit nicely into, making the door virtually impossible to break down. Apartment 14A used to give him the sense of peaceful bliss, stoned bliss, perhaps, but peaceful at any rate. When he stepped out of the stair well and into the hallway his uneasy feeling grew. This place had really taken a dive.
After three short raps a pause and then one solitary knock on the door, Harmon heard coughing and movement on the other side of the door. The door opened as far as the chain would allow and a bloodshot, half-lidded eye stared out at him. The heavy aroma of pot and some other sweet smell like too much incense also greeted him through the small opening.
"Hey, um... Cindy, it's Harmon. You remember?" he tried speak as if everything was cool. Cindy and Scotty might not be running on high octane but paranoia doesn't discriminate. "I don't know. I talked to Scotty just a few minutes ago. Said it'd be cool if I stopped by."
"Oh," Cindy yawned into her hand and then rubbed briefly at the eye peeking out the door. And then the door was closed. Harmon thought he heard the chain being undone on the other side, but that must have been his imagination because the door stayed closed and Harmon shifted from one foot to the other.
"Hey man," Scotty's voice surprised him. He had started wondering if he should just go. "Sorry bout Cindy. She didn't sleep too well last night." Hell, thought Harmon, they both look like they're sleeping right now. But some things didn't change.
"Mind if I come in?"
"No, suuure. Come on in, make yourself at home, dude." And Scotty went about moving things around to free up some sitting space. He did all this in a sort of slow motion. My god, Harmon thought, this used to be normal, this used to be cool. He shook his head in wonder.
After what seemed like far too long, Scotty plopped down in his spot on the bigger couch. Harmon slowly lowered himself into the love seat cushion. The one that wasn't home to a myriad of odds and ends from mail and magazines to dishes and empty (maybe empty) pizza boxes and Chinese takeout cartons.
He took in the surroundings. Nothing had really changed. There was more stuff stacked everywhere, no doubt, and the things that were new and cool back then looked old and dusty and forgotten now. The lava lamp was still on the speaker flanking the left side of the T.V. and the bead doorway into the kitchen still hung where they put it up what, two, three years ago. A lot of the beads were missing. So was anything new. No new posters or tables or even ashtrays, the only new decoration in the apartment was the cluster of ugly bruises on the Scotty's arms.
Harmon sighed, Scotty didn't seem to notice. He was too busy preparing an oversized bong. Harmon sighed again. He was here to ask questions about Amy. If Scotty had heard from her, or about her lately. Anything really, some direction. It was Thursday afternoon and the hours between now and Friday night were going to be difficult for Harmon. He needed something to do, a goal, activity.
More coughing from Scotty as he exhaled a cloud that looked like it could produce rain. Harmon tried to be polite waving the smoke out of his face.
"Sorry man," Scotty managed between coughs. "Here you go dude. Rude of me, there's still a green hit-"
"No, that's okay, buddy. Not why I came by," Harmon said. He took a deep breath - god that smell was strong - and held it before going on. "I wanted to ask you about Amy."
"Whoa, dude, I don't know what you're thinking I never did nothin' with her." Scotty seemed not to care if Cindy heard that Scotty had singled out Amy - other girls, sure, but not Amy. Cindy had disappeared, Harmon only saw her when she half opened the door for him.
"You got the wrong idea, Scotty. Something really bad happened to her and I'm just trying to see if she was hanging around anyone that's... way out there. You know?"
"I don't know," Scotty looked deep in thought. He raised a finger, "I got it!"
Harmon gave a thanks to whoever was looking down on this blue and green globe.
"CINDY!" Scotty belted out across the small apartment.
"Don't yeeellllll at me, jerk," Cindy came stumbling back into the living room from somewhere deeper in the dusty clutter of a home. A thin strip of red skin ran around her bicep, like an indian burn an inch wide all the way around. She plopped down on the couch next to Scotty.
"I'm sorry, baby. You know I love you, I won't ever yell at you again. Okay baby." For some reason Scotty was giving her the puppy dog face that men give their women when they've really done it this time. Harmon thought he felt goose bumps stand up on his arms a little bit. "Harmon just wants to know about... What was it you were asking?"
"Amy, Scotty. What's Amy been up to?" his voice was getting firmer, he was getting a little impatient with this.
Cindy's eyes rolled in her head a little and then they stopped on Harmon's. He looked directly back into them, he could testify in court that she had fake glass eyes. Then she crunched up and laid her head down in Scotty's lap. Behind all the blankness in her eyes, something was there. She was going to say something about Amy, but now she just looked up at Scotty's face. "I love you baby," she said.
"Come on, baby, tell Harmon about Amy." Something was up. Harmon didn't want to be here from the time he left the coffee shop, but he could stand it if it'd give him some direction, at least for a little while.
"Uhhh.... She's been hanging with Darrel and my sister alot." It looked like she was having trouble getting her bottom jaw back up to the rest of her face, her words had a weird slur to them. And then, to Scotty, "Come on, baby, let's go take a nap." She raised her hand up, in attempt to place it on Scotty's face, and Harmon saw the ugly cluster of bruises there. My god, they're shooting up now. Great, walking dead junkies. Harmon didn't know then how close he was to the truth. Not junkies, not walking dead junkies, but if Harmon was honest with himself, he knew somewhere, in some locked up part of his mind that Amy was dead. And Amy wasn't at home anymore.
Scotty and Cindy got off the couch like they were twice their age and shuffled into the depths of the small apartment, into the shadows to 'take a nap'.
"Hey, Scotty! That it man, all you got for me?"
"Tell him not to yell, my head hurts. Tell him not to yell Scotty."
"Keep it down Harmon," Scotty frowned a little. "Try Darrel or Lindsey. I don't know man."
And they were gone. Not just from Harmon's view, Scotty and Cindy were gone. Past the point of no return. Or almost. They did indeed take a nap, intravenously induced. They took a nap that lasted forever.
Harmon didn't know their 'nap' would be their last. Perhaps that's good. Nothing much he could've done for them and he didn't need the guilt. Because there would be guilt if he knew they O.D.'d just minutes after he left, probably before he got down the stair well. More 'what if's' to add to the growing pile.
*****************************************
Amy's body sustained much damage as she trudged through the untamed woods between their little pine grove and the old building that lay about twelve miles away from that fence row with the nasty rusty barb wire. Twelve miles of woods and although she didn't feel anything, ripped muscles and torn tendons, not to mention the chunk of calve muscle the rabid coyote took out for a snack, impaired her ability to stand erect. On ripped open knees and palms Amy's body made its way towards the setting sun. Towards that old building.
She had to get there by Friday. The blackness swirling inside the dead brain tissue in Amy's head said it was so. And so it was.
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