Us Against the Men

  I’m standing in the back of the room. No one seems to notice me. I’m blending in the best I can, making small talk as people pass and moving from one side of the room to the other. These people are here because of me but they don’t have any idea I had anything to do with this. People are shuffling in and out to pay respects to a man they think was respectable and good. But I know the truth, all of it. I know what kind of man lays in the casket in the front of the room. I know the dark secrets he kept and I took matters into my own hands. I have no regrets.

            I’d been working for Spencer Cole, for going on five years. He was a big wig manager of a large firm in the city. He told me in my interview, “Alice, you have real potential, I’d like to bring you on board.” Having almost no experience out of school, this felt like a dream. I was so grateful for the opportunity, that for a while I managed to overlook the subtle red flags that seemed to pop up every time I was in his presence. Our receptionists, Nicole, mentioned one day how she couldn’t put her finger on it, but it was something in his eyes. I knew what she was talking about but I dismissed her and pretended I didn’t. 

            Nicole was the latest in a slew of missing women. All tall, brunette, young women in their twenties, seven of them gone without a trace over the last three years. Nicole’s disappearance shattered me. I heard the police talking about the similarities between the women and they lumped her in a group that she couldn’t be in. She couldn’t be “presumed dead.” She was my friend and closest ally at work. We had grown close and now she was just gone and I was supposed to accept it? She had been gone for over a month. How could the police just assume she was dead after such little time?

            Nicole was my friend. She was the first one to welcome me to the office and make me feel like I belonged here. Being that we were both the youngest by a decade and the only women in the office, it seemed natural for us to be drawn together and become friends. “Us against the men,” we joked. The other attorneys in the office weren’t unkind, just lacking in social awareness, emotional intelligence and most of them had an overall God complex. I tried to keep to myself for the most part but for luncheons, meetings and anything that involved mingling, I managed to find Nicole and stick with her. This made her disappearing all the more glaring when it became just “me against the men.” 

In the weeks that followed, I began to look into her disappearance, noticing the police mentioning similar features of the missing women and all located within an hour of the city for last known location. I began to create lists of my own. Commonalities, locations they may have frequented and anything that may have some sort of connection. Every night, I came home and I did more research. I was looking for a single thread to connect them all, that’s all I needed. Pull it, and everything unravels. If the police weren’t going to do their jobs, I would find her.

            It was late one Thursday night; I was working on a case for a client that was coming to an end when I heard Spencer in his office. I had gotten up to retrieve some papers from the printer, when I walked by his office and heard him talking on his cell phone. He sounded angry, a tone I hadn’t heard before out of him, and as I passed, I saw him throw his desk lamp, shattering it. I was too stunned to say anything but we made eye contact. “Sorry, I -- is everything okay?” His eyes. Something flickered and immediately he was back to his usual self. “Everything is fine. Just a personal call. I managed to knock over my lamp while I was talking. Why don’t you go on home and call it a night?” 

            I did as I was told and went home but couldn’t sleep. I laid in my bed staring at the ceiling thinking about his eyes. “His eyes” she had said. The windows to the soul. All I saw was darkness. He also had a certain lack of empathy about him that I had begun to notice. He didn’t react the way everyone else did when we found out Nicole was missing. His face was just, flat? While everyone else was in complete shock. But what does that mean? I need sleep. I’m getting carried away. Unless… 

            I began to notice everything about him, followed him in his car on lunch breaks, drove by his house in the evenings, I was obsessed with finding out the truth. What led to that darkness in his eyes? What caused those bursts of anger he thought no one saw? 

            One night Spencer left early and said he had family coming to town. As was my routine now, I followed him. He drove thirty miles outside of town to an old diner. I saw a young woman park and get out of her car as he pulled up. He kissed her on the cheek and led her inside. “A date?” I thought. “Why wouldn’t he have just said that at the office instead of pretending he was meeting his family?” I watched them for a few minutes through the window and drove home. I think I must be going crazy. Spencer has weird eyes, and maybe a temper but he’s just a guy trying to have a private social life. I needed to drop it. 

            Two days later I awoke to my phone pinging with my news app. “Local woman missing.” I slid open the screen and dropped my phone… it was her. The woman from the diner. I was sure of it. But that’s impossible. Does Spencer know she’s… Spencer. I drove to his house with the intent on proving his involvement one way or another. His car was gone. Perfect. I walked around back, shimmied open a window and slid inside. I searched everywhere and found nothing until I noticed a pull string to the attic. “How typical… a creepy attic,” I thought. I pulled the steps down and I heard what sounded like a moan. I snuck slowly up the stairs and in the corner of the attic, I saw her laying motionless on the floor but noted her chest rising. “Nicole?” I had to help her. I ran over to her and began to shake her frantically. Her eyes fluttered opened and I said, “I’m going to get you out of here!” I dragged her to the steps and somehow managed to pull her down to the main floor.  

            I heard the front door open. 

            Shit…

            I silently brought Nicole down from the landing and dragged her into the spare bedroom. I had to think fast. Everything in my past flashed before my eyes. My parent’s car accident, the foster homes, the school bullies, the abusive system, one bad hand after another. This was it. I Maybe everything in my life was leading me to this moment, to save my friend. 

            I snuck out of the room and slid down the hall. I grabbed a golf club I saw sitting in the hallway. There he was, sitting in his office, putting a necklace in his desk drawer. “A necklace?” My mind raced and I knew it was the same one from the photo the police had posted of the missing woman. She had been wearing it the night I saw them together.

            Anger was coursing through me. I knew what this monster was. I charged at him with everything I had. As I entered the room, I felt my body surge. I felt faster and stronger than I ever had. I was looking over him, standing over him. I must have been two feet taller than him…my mind felt foggy. He was taller than me? I know he was. I didn’t have time to sort out what was happening. I rushed him and picked him up with an ease I found alarming and threw his body against the wall. He fell limp. I slowly walked over to him. He had no pulse. I couldn’t have just done that? I’m five foot six and sure I take pilates in the city four times a week but I couldn’t have picked him up? I looked down at my hands. They were covered in what looked like dark fur. My clothes looked ripped. What was happening to me? I backed away from his body. I began to breathe again, slower, and I began to shrink back to my normal body. The dark fur on my skin was gone.

 Nicole. I knew there was no point in running and I knew she needed help so I called the 911. The police arrived and medics tended to her quickly. They began to question me and told me I’d be going downtown. Before they rolled Nicole out on the stretcher, she looked at me and whispered, “thank you.” “Us against the men right,” I said. 

            The police found multiple souvenirs in Spencer’s desk drawer, one from each of the missing women. They were able to connect him with each crime of missing women in the last few years. His father was the chief of police and had political connections all across the city. With the amount of money Spencer had donated to the police force it was decided to let me go and not disclose the connection to Spencer and the women. Elitists. I was no stranger to the abuse of power and money and it meant I was free to walk. I went home and went to the funeral two days later pretending I wasn’t the one that put him in the casket. 

            I don’t know what happened to my body that night. I have fuzzy memories from growing up in the foster system where similar things had happened. I don’t have a clear memory of what happened in those moments and until now, I thought they had just been weird dreams. I can’t seem to control whatever it is and for now I am pushing it out of my mind. I got lucky and saved my friend, end of story. 

            A week after the funeral I got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize. 

“Hello?” I said. “Alice? My name is Kate Jones. I’m a detective and I was reviewing some files on missing women. Does the name Spencer Cole ring a bell?” 

“I’m sorry how did you get my number?” I asked.

“Listen Alice. I’d love to meet with you and discuss some things. I promise you’re not in trouble I just need an hour of your time.” Kate said.

I met with Kate at a coffee shop. She dove into her knowledge of the cover up, the scandal, the crooked cops. I sat there absorbing what she was telling me, my mind reeling with information. It finally occurred to me, she wasn’t trying to pin me for murder of Spencer Cole. She wanted my help. “Me?” She opened a stack of folders with unsolved cases around the city. All with connections to elitists involved in some form of scandal with just the right amount of money and power to keep getting away with it. “And Alice…” Kate said. “I know what you are…” My heart dropped. “What are you talking about?” I whispered. “I have it on good authority that with the way Spencer died, well, let’s be honest with ourselves. You didn’t do that in this body.” Kate replied. “And if you want me to help you control it in return for helping me get these guys off the street, give me a call.” 

            I drove home in silence. Our conversations whirled around in my head. The injustice and abuse of power in our society was a huge part of why I became an attorney. I wanted to help people, defend them when no one else would, listen to them and believe them, give them hope. I still want those things. I want to stand up to the bullies in society and help those without a voice. But maybe in my evening hours I could work part time as a detective... or something more…