Chapter 7: Hide

The rain was on the rampage again, hammering roof and flooding downspouts, drowning ears with a sound like TV static, overcome occasionally by walls groaning with the gusting wind...

... and punctuated with soft cries and slapping flesh.

"Oh yeah, baby. Yeah, baby. Yeah. Just like that. Yeah. So good! Yes, there! Mmmh Mmmh Mmmh Mmmh..."

The sexy elf leaned forward and bounced several kisses on her faux-eskimo's salty bald head; he tried to bite her nipples as they did jumping jacks near his chin.

"Hey! ... Watch ... the rings!..."

She leaned back, her gloriously fake orbs shifting in formation like fleshy oranges between the hanging halves of her little green felt vest. She found the angle she was looking for, and with a brief shudder settled into a more serious staccato.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!"

Sweat poured from his pits underneath the oppressive parka, and the acrylic fur trim itched like hell, but Chester didn't care. His naughty little elf was giving him the fuck of a lifetime, and after the shitty week he'd had, he damn well deserved it.

"Ngh! Ngh! Ngh! Ngh!" He slammed up hard against her, the office chair squealing with every thrust, wheels digging two-inch tracks in the cheap carpet. They'd almost bounced right off the chair earlier, but Chester had the groove now, and as long as the fucking seat didn't break they could ride it all the way home.

"Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Erh! Erh! Erh! Erh!"

Chester liked the way the pale white light of the emergency lantern made Jovie's sweaty skin glow like some kind of fucking angel.

Hey, maybe next time he'd buy her an angel costume...

The little white pom-pom on the tip of her hat flew madly foward, back, over left, over right ... she was gonna cum again. Which meant Chester could finally stop thinking about Jeter's defense and give Jovie what she came for.

Jovie started wailing like an ambulance.
Chester's hands bear-trapped her hips as his dick tried to blast a hole out the small of her back.

"Rah! Rah! Rarh! Rahngh! Oungh! Oooommhh! FFFffuuuhhkh..."

They heard bells ringing.

The bells hanging on the front door.

Fuck!

Chester wrapped Jovie up to make her be still.

"You didn't lock the door?!" he hissed.
"I thought it locked itself!" she said in her normal bubbly voice.
Chester clamped a hand over her mouth. "Shit! Be quiet! Get under the desk!"
Jovie pulled away from Chester's hand. "I'm not getting under the desk!" Her voice echoed off the rafters.

Chester's eyes bulged. "They'll hear you," he mouthed.
"So?" she said, even louder. Chester generally thought her little-girl voice was cute, but right now it was ear-piercing. "It's probably just my boyfriend."

"Hello?" came a male voice.

"You didn't tell me you had a boyfriend!" Chester said in a failed whisper. He clawed at his ankle for his pants, but he could only get them up so far with Jovie still on his lap.

"Ex-boyfriend, actually," Jovie corrected. "Though he has a problem with the 'ex' part."
"Oh, that's just great!" Chester shoved Jovie off his lap; she stumbled, her ankles tangling with the chair's casters. She fell back on her naked ass with a dull thud.

"Ow!" she whined. Chester managed to get his pants up, though he still hadn't stuffed everything inside when a man in a very wet black T-shirt and black cargo pants appeared in the office doorway. One hand was behind his back; another shorter figure in what looked like a tent-sized poncho creeped up behind him.

"Is this 399 Franklin?" the man asked.

"Who wants ta know?" Chester said, tougher than a guy with his package hanging out of his drawers generally should.

The man pulled the other figure out from behind him. The pale light of the lantern caught the face of a young woman.
A face Chester knew well.

"Emmeline Winter," the man said.

It was a tense moment for Alex -- and not just because he'd barged in on a bald guy with his business blowing in the breeze.

He didn't really know why they were here. Em had said but two words after hanging up the phone back at Denny's: "They're gone." And then she'd retreated, her eyes vacant, her face expressionless. He'd tried to talk to her, tell her she'd get through this, tell her he wasn't going to let anyone hurt her, tell her he'd take care of her and not to worry ... and she looked at him once, with an empty stare that made his heart ache, but then she looked away, out the window at a nothingness a million miles away. And she let him hold her hand, even now, but it was slack and would fall away the moment he let go.

So he knew nothing of this place, or this man before him, or what would happen next.
But he knew he wasn't letting go.

There was a rustle and a thump from behind the man, and a girl stood up. "Chester, who's she?" The girl couldn't have been more than twenty, tallish and sinewy like she exercised too much, not a curve in sight except for the great big pair of unabashedly engineered breasts.

The pale blue-green light of an emergency lantern made it hard to tell what color her comically-undersized vest was, but based on the hat, Alex guessed she was supposed to be a Christmas elf. She realized he was staring and quickly ducked down, plucking up a felt napkin to hold over her crotch. No, wait, it was a skirt.

"I could use a towel," Alex said. He gave the pair a look up and down. "So could you."

"Lucky for you I brought extra," the big-breasted girl said, leaning over and fishing through a large shiny handbag under the desk. She threw a faded pinkish towel over the man she'd called Chester; Alex snatched it out of the air with his free hand. The girl had another one in her hand and gave herself a quick wipedown all over before tossing it on her partner's head.

"So?" she asked. "Who is she?"

Before Chester could answer, Em spoke.

"I've seen you."
Chester looked uncomfortable. "Yeah."
"At the office. The suite across the hall. You drive a blue Accord."
"That's right."
"And the restaurant, where James took me. And across from my apartment building. You've been following me."

Chester shrugged. "It's my job." His eyes narrowed. "You're not supposed to be here."
The girl looked cross. "You said you were a documentary filmmaker!" She didn't stumble over the words, but somehow they seemed too big for her anyway.
"Just get dressed, Jovie," he snapped. To Em: "You're supposed to be at the company Christmas party."

That seemed ages ago now.
Alex took a protective half-step in front of Em. "Her grandmother sent us. Didn't she call you?"
Chester had by now managed to get everything closed up and presentable -- for a man wearing nothing above the waist but a heavy parka. He jerked a thumb toward the ceiling. "No power, no phones." He shrugged off the parka, grabbing the towel and wiping his armpits. "I don't get it. I thought if her dad didn't show up then her grampa was gonna do it."

"They're dead," Em said flatly.

Somehow, even in the ghastly light of the lantern, Chester's face turned pale. "Oh, fuck. What happened, plane crash?"

Em still had that thousand-yard stare. "Elves."

Chester blinked. "Elves? Can't be. They won't manifest for another half-dozen years, at least. Who told you that?"
"We saw them," Alex said emphatically. "They attacked Emmeline. Five or six of them, in her apartment. They were gonna-- ... They took the axe."
Jovie piped in. "You mean like midgets?"
Chester gave her a stern look. "Quiet, Jovie." To Alex: "What'd they look like?"
"They didn't have eyes." That was really all that had to be said.

Chester turned white as a sheet.

Jovie looked at Chester. "What's he mean, they didn't have eyes?"
Alex stared at her. "I mean, there was just a wrinkle where there should have been eyeballs. Three feet tall, skin like sandpaper, no nose, no mouth, no eyes."

Jovie gave Alex a doubting look. "What have you been smoking?"

Chester snapped. "Jovie, shut up! In fact, just go home."
"I can't go home, you brought me here."
"Then call a fucking cab! This is a fucking ... I need to fucking think, okay?" Chester started to pace, then stopped. "Wait. Don't go. We don't ... we don't know what's gonna happen when--" He gave her a look; Alex caught concern in the man's eyes. And fear. "Just be quiet, all right? I need to think." Chester put his hand on his forehead, closing his eyes, as if running through an imaginary checklist or set of instructions.

"Do you think you might have been followed?"
"No." Alex had gotten off the freeway one exit early and taken the back way, just in case.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
"How long ago did you talk to Mrs. Winter?" He meant Em's grandmother.
Alex checked his watch. "Almost half an hour."
"And what time is it now?"
"Quarter to nine."

"At least that's still plenty of time to get out of the city. They should have figured out whether they want us to go north or south by now." Chester stepped around Alex to the desk, picked up the phone, then put it back down. "Jovie, I'm gonna need to borrow your phone."
"Don't use up the battery," she said suspiciously.