NightWalker Chapter 3.

“I believe you.” A serious-looking Reggie stated after hearing Lev’s recounting of what had just happened.

“You…do?” Lev hesitated, finding it hard to fathom that Reggie believed a story that Lev himself found hard to believe.

“Yes, I’ve always hoped… no, I’ve always KNOWN, that there are things out there that are different from us. Ghosts and stuff you know.” Reggie answered with much excitement creeping into his voice.

“Well, that’s good, I’m glad you don’t think I’m crazy after telling you that. I imagine most people would think I had a screw loose, especially after just getting out of prison.” Lev said with much relief as he sat down on the edge of the bed that he had last slept in ten years ago.

“For sure. What’s next, then? How do you wanna pursue her?” Reggie asked as he rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

“I…I’m not sure. Should I even pursue her?” Lev muttered as he tried to think of how he could approach finding Jessica.

"Absolutely, you should! You deserve an explanation at the very least of what the hell has happened!" Reggie exclaimed.

Lev nodded as he looked around. “You're right, but I can’t go to the police or anybody like that, they will just think I’m crazy or throw me back in jail.” He mused aloud, which was met with a slow, rhythmic nod of agreement from Reggie.

“I know!” Reggie exclaimed suddenly.

“What is it?” Lev said as he looked at Reggie curiously.

“Let’s go find somebody who believes in the supernatural, you know, like a fortune teller or something,” Reggie suggested, which made Lev raise an eyebrow in scepticism.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Reggie said, slightly offended by Levs' dismissive look, “You are the one who is claiming to have seen your supposedly dead girlfriend fly out your window… Ah, Crap, Sorry.” Reggie said, instantly regretting his crass words as he slapped one hand over his forehead.

Lev shook his head and let out a sigh. “No, you are right, I guess I still have a bit of getting my head around the possibility my girlfriend is a ghost or something?” Lev replied, stopping to wonder what she could even be.

“Oh, we should go look online for a list of different kinds of supernatural people. See if any fit your description.” Reggie added, his willingness to talk freely about these topics, which often came with much ridicule, had already begun to make Lev feel much more at ease.

“She didn’t seem all that different from how I remembered her…a little paler than she used to be, but that could have just been the poor lighting. And then there's the disappearing trick she did,” Lev responded.

“Oh man! That's a classic Vampire trick.” Reggie exclaimed, sounding very sure of himself, “If she were a ghost, she would have just floated through the wall. She’s a billion percent a vampire.” Reggie surmised without a doubt in his mind.

Lev raised both his eyebrows and wondered for a second before asking, “Uh, is that a good thing?” Lev asked sheepishly.

Reggie moved his head side to side slowly as he weighed up the pros and cons in his head. “Well.” He started, “If you get back together with her, then you will have to give up garlic.” Reggie said, letting out a restrained laugh afterwards.

With a vague idea of their next steps, the pair began to head back to Reggie's van to return to his apartment and begin their search. Before they could leave the house, though, Lev needed to try to find his phone and personal effects if they were still there to be found. "I'm sure I remember hearing one of the cops that took it all that night mention to the others he was going to dump it back in here." Lev recounted as he got down on his knees and looked under his bed.

Reggie nodded, "I'll head out to the lounge and kitchen and look out there!" he said while departing the room.

With nothing of note under his bed, Lev stood up and looked around the room, wondering where his things could be. His eyes eventually worked their way to the small bedside drawer that was on the side of the bed he used to sleep on. "The cop wouldn't have put it there... But, Jessica...." Lev walked over and opened the drawer, and to his mix of shock and bittersweet joy, he saw his phone, wallet, and even his car keys placed neatly in a line. "You always were pedantic about lining things up," he thought to himself as he looked over to the window, wishing Jessica would just come back. As Lev picked up the keys, he saw a note underneath them. He opened the note, written on it was an address saying where his car could be found, written in Jessica's unmistakable handwriting.

On the ride back to Reggie's apartment, Lev held his phone in his hand, wondering if it would even charge after all these years. "I wonder if there's anything from her, on this... A text, a voice message.... I'd take an e-mail if it meant getting closer to having a modicum of an idea of what the hell is going on." Lev mused aloud while Reggie fiddled with the radio.

"Surely there is, BUT if not, then there is always your car. If she went to all the trouble to park it somewhere safe, then surely she left a note in the glove box or something." Reggie muttered as he flicked through radio stations.

By the time Reggie parked his van back in front of the apartment building he lived in, the city was bathed in the orange glow of the rising sun. "Wakey, wakey," Reggie exclaimed to Lev, who had fallen into a fitful sleep. Lev rubbed at his eyes and looked around, half expecting to find the previous day had all been a dream and he was still back in prison. “Well, here we are. The base of operations for ‘mission re-establish contact with your fiancé’…Ex-fiancé?” Reggie said theatrically as he opened the driver's side door and hopped out of his van.

“Last time I checked, she was still my fiancé…I’ll ask when I find her again.” A deadpan Lev replied as he followed Reggie into the dilapidated apartment building Reggie called home.

"Time to see if your prison exercise paid off... The elevator hasn't worked in years, it's the stairs for us!" Reggie exclaimed as Lev looked around in bemusement.

"Smells better than prison at least," he said as he looked at the trash strewn about the ground floor. The pair tackled the stairs in silence, save for the thudding of their feet ascending seven levels until they got to the eighth floor.

"One good thing about getting back this early is the neighbours are all passed out by now." Reggie quipped, the silver lining thick around his words.

Lev stood in the middle of Reggie's lounge in mild shock at the time capsule he found himself in; the walls were laden with posters and art prints that varied from anime characters to seascape oil paintings. Behind these not-so-carefully curated artworks, the wallpaper was faded and peeling in places. The amount of candles to be found in Reggie's lounge alone would have been enough to make a priest blush, and if one wasn't in the mood for candlelight, then an excessive amount of lava lamps were spread about the room for a change of pace.

“Make yourself at home!” Reggie exclaimed from his kitchen, which was separate from the lounge by half a wall and an island that looked to double as Reggie’s dining table and office desk. "You hungry?" Reggie called out as he rummaged in his fridge.

"Yeah, yes please," Lev replied as he sat down in front of the island. "Uh, toast it is," Reggie muttered as he shut the fridge gingerly with a grimace.

“Alright, while that cooks... I’m sure I saw a newspaper the other day that had a HEAP of paranormal listings in it. Uh, let me check my bedroom real quick.” Reggie said before jogging off towards his room. After a few minutes and several loud noises that indicated some serious rummaging later, Reggie emerged with a stack of newspapers. “Here we go,” Reggie exclaimed as he dumped the stack of newspapers on the counter.

“Just got to find the classifieds and see who looks the most…trustworthy?" Lev said, still hesitant to label fortune tellers and ghost hunters as trustworthy. After rummaging through several dozen pages worth of listings that varied from selling random household goods to sexual services, Reggie and Lev began to notice one person’s offering of ‘mystical readings’ was much more prevalent than anybody else. “Well, this. Maman has… experience.”Lev muttered as he drummed his finger over her advertisement.

“You know, I think I’ve seen her place before. It's near the museum of fine arts. Tis’ real dark and dingy looking place, which makes sense, I suppose, considering her line of work.”Reggie explained as he pointed across his body in the general direction of the museum.

“Hmmm, doesn’t say what time they are open. Just a landline number.” Lev muttered as he read through multiple listings of Maman’s services.

“Try ringing it. My phone is over there on the wall. Leave a message. Here's my number.” Reggie said, pulling a business card out of his pocket and sliding it over to Lev.

“Why do you have a business card?” Lev asked as he looked at Reggie’s card, which labelled him as a ‘jack of all trades.’ Reggie laughed and shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

“I talk to people, and a business card is much easier than a resume to carry around,” Reggie answered, which, much to Lev’s surprise, was a pretty decent idea.

“Oh, that makes sense.” He responded as he walked over to Reggie’s phone. Lev thumbed in the numbers for Maman’s shop and put the phone to his ear. The ringtone barely finished its first hum before the sound of the phone on the receiving end was interrupted.

“Yeah, who’s this?” a youthful woman’s voice answered with no hint of enthusiasm.

“Uh, is this Maman?” Lev asked, slightly taken aback.

A loud sigh was the initial reply to his question, but moments later, the woman responded, “No, I’m her granddaughter. Who? Are. You?” Maman’s granddaughter answered, reiterating her request for a name.

“Oh, sorry, uh, my name is Lev and I was- “Lev began to explain, but was cut off by a surprised burst of laughter.

“Oh shit! She was right, hold on, I’ll go get her.” Maman’s granddaughter exclaimed before being followed by a loud rustling noise as she seemed to slap the phone down on her side.

Lev looked over at Reggie with a concerned look on his face. “What’s happening?” Reggie whispered curiously.

Lev responded, barely able to believe what he was saying. “They were expecting me.”

Reggie's eyes grew wide, and a large grin spread across his lips.” That’s so sick.” He said in admiration.

“Grandma, it’s that guy you said was going to ring.” Maman’s Granddaughter could be heard saying shortly before what sounded like a passing of the phone.

“Hello, we have much to discuss. Come see me at your earliest convenience.” A weathered yet calming voice ordered before promptly hanging up the phone. Lev moved the phone from his ear and looked at it in stupefied silence for a few moments before hanging it up.

“Well?” Reggie asked anxiously.

“She wants me to come talk to her,” Lev answered, unsure of what had just transpired.

“Oh man, that is so cool!” Reggie exclaimed as he clapped in amusement, “I love when these places play up their shtick like that!” He added as he went to attend to the only slightly burnt toast.

“Somehow I don’t think it was a shtick,” Lev muttered.

After deciding to wait until the afternoon to visit with the mystical Maman, Lev, who was unable to sleep, sat outside on the small balcony of Reggie’s apartment while his friend snored loudly on the couch inside. Looking out over the city, Lev wondered where Jessica could be right now. "If you're a vampire, I guess you're in a coffin somewhere out of the sun, having a nap," he muttered to himself as he shook his head, still trying to process the idea of vampires.

Lev sighed and stood up, anxious to check his phone, which had been hopefully charging for half an hour by now. He sat at the island where his phone was plugged in and held the power button. To his relief, the logo washed over the screen, and eventually, he was met with the number pad for his passcode. With his heartbeat beginning to climb steadily, Lev waited for ten years' worth of notifications to stop flashing across the screen.

Once it seemed safe to proceed, Lev began checking through his text messages; there were some from the owner of the 'Jaguar lounge,' some from an array of friends and family, a few from unknown numbers... But nothing from Jessica. "damn." He muttered as he closed his text folder and flitted through anything else he could think of that could receive messages, his personal email, his work email, social media pages, their messenger services, and messenger apps. "Damn." He muttered once more as he set the phone down in defeat.

"Maybe one of those unknown numbers?" he thought to himself as he picked the phone up again and went to look once more. They've all been opened? Does that happen after a while? Lev wondered as he began checking the messages. To his disappointment, they were mostly spam, except for one, which made him sigh in sadness as he read through them.

"Hi sir, this is Naveen the taxi driver. I'm texting like you said to get tickets to Vince LaRoy. I'm very excited," the first one said.

Then a few days later, "Hi sir, this is Naveen, the taxi driver. I'm sure the first night of Vince LaRoy was sold out. If you can't spare any tickets for me, I understand sir. Just let me know please."

A week after the second text, a third one read. "Hi sir, this is Naveen the taxi driver. I'm sorry if I offended you somehow please let me know."

Then, a few weeks later, "Sir, this is Naveen the taxi driver... I find it very rude that you have ignored me sir... I was very excited by your offer, but obviously this was just some joke to you..."