I made it through the front door of the salon just as the last of the lights were being turned off.

"You want to join us for a drink tonight Colin? We're just going to head over to the bar on the corner for a while."

Trisha had only been working at the salon for about a month, but I swear to God she had asked me to go get a drink with them at least twenty times already. I was getting kind of tired of coming up with excuses but I really had no interest in spending any amount of time with the other stylists, especially after the conversation I had just overheard.

"No thanks, not tonight."

"Oh, man, you say that every time I ask you. What do you do every night that you're too busy to just have one drink with us?"

"Lot's of dates is my guess," said Gabby, one of the girls that had worked there for years.

"Come on. We're all really interested in mystery-man Colin. Who is he? What makes him tick?" she said with a wink. She did have incredible lips and I paused for a moment to study the ruby red curves.

"Speak for yourself. If he doesn't want to go out with us it's his loss," said a familiar voice behind me. I turned to see Jade locking the glass doors and there was a moment there ... just a moment ... when I thought maybe I could kill someone just for the fun of it. That wasn't me at all. In fact, it was never the killing that pushed me to do the things that I did. To be honest, I didn't particularly like that part, it was how I could use what I had taken from the girls that interested me most, but this chick was really starting to bug me.

"Yeah, Jade's right. It's my loss," I said to the girls with a forced smile. "I'll see you all in a couple days."

As I walked off I could have sworn I heard the word asshole in the distance behind me, but then again it could have been my imagination.

* * *

I walked the twenty blocks back to my house in the drizzling rain and cool evening air in a sort of a trance. I hadn't really planned on getting another girl so soon and I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do with her. I mean, I knew why I wanted her, the part of her that I wanted, but I was starting to get the feeling that I didn't really know what I was doing anymore.

What the hell am I doing? I thought as I briskly stepped through puddles and wove past other people on the sidewalks.

For so long it had been for a sort of company. Ever since I was a kid I remember wishing I had someone to play with or talk to, someone other than my mother. And when she gave me my first mannequin head I was really excited. I would change the wig and apply makeup to it and keep it next to my bed so that I felt like someone was there with me at night. I even put curlers in it before bed so that I could style the hair in the morning.

My mother had as many wig heads as she had wigs and that meant that there were at least ten in her room at any one time. When she got tired of an old wig she would give it to me, as well as the wig head it sat on, and she would just go out and buy a new one with a new style.

When I was a kid there were times when I was actually able to use them to convince myself that I wasn't alone and lonely. But eventually, as I got older, I had to admit to myself that they really weren't working anymore, and that's when I started taking girls from the salon.

But then Avery had come along, and I was having a hard time not noticing all of the coincidences that had gone on between us from the moment she moved in next door. Some of them were silly, and it embarrassed me to even think them to myself let alone tell anyone, but when I put them all together they really added up. Like the way we met with that whole One Hundred and One Dalmatians scene. I'd always loved dogs, but when I was a kid the thing I'd really loved about that movie was the scenery. The way the old buildings and city streets looked and the park where Roger and Anita met. I used to rewind that part and watch it over and over again ... and that's exactly how Avery and I met.

But I didn't have time to think about any of that. What I needed to do was get home and get changed and go pick up that girl that I dumped in the tunnel and bring her back to my house before anyone found her.

I hadn't used the front door to the house in years. After my mother died I kept the store open as long as I could but eventually I just shut the front door and turned the open sign around and never opened it again. I walked quickly up the driveway on the side of the house and then through the gate in the wooden fence that surrounded the backyard. I ran up the back steps then into the house and quickly changed my clothes to something I wouldn't mind throwing away, then I headed down to the basement.

I grabbed a ring of keys off a hook by the door and a small flashlight, then went out the door that led into the tunnels. I shut the door behind me and locked it from the outside then turned on my small pen light and headed back to the salon.

I always used the smallest flashlight possible when I was down in the tunnels, partly so it would be easier to carry when I had a hundred or so pounds slung over my shoulder, but also because I liked to be as unobtrusive as possible.

I knew that there were other people down there. People who lived in the tunnels and the abandoned building near the docks that were just trying to get out of the cold, but also people like me who used the tunnels to do what they needed to do without being seen. And you never knew who you might run into.

For the most part, I knew exactly where I was going down there and barely needed a light to get around. I'd been running around in the tunnels most of my life and I'd gotten to know them like the back of my hand.

One time when I dropped my flashlight and it went out I found my way home from the salon just by feel. I could tell approximately where I was by how long I had been walking in one direction and when I started to think that I needed to turn I felt the wall for the cross tunnel and took the turn. It was just dumb luck that I wound up stopping at the right door though.

It was also somewhat risky to walk around with a flashlight because you were clearly visible to anyone who might be hiding in the dark. But the danger of tripping on something or running into a pile of junk was just as dangerous and unless you had a reason to turn off your light there's no point in risking any of that.

As I made my way past the metal doors that lined both sides of the tunnel walls, I passed the massive wooden arch supports and structures that kept the whole thing from caving in. Periodically I would pass the same piles of old boxes and appliances that had been discarded years ago and that had been there as long as I could remember. Then there would be the piles of garbage and bedding that came and went as people abandoned their crash pads and then other people would come along and move everything piece by piece and start using it all somewhere else.

As I turned the corners I mentally kept track of what was coming next; right then left then right again, and I counted blank doors that were interspersed with the occasional painted door. Some doors had old logos and markings on them from the days when the tunnels were used for transporting goods, and other doors were completely bricked up.

I finally reached the salon door and there she was, right there in the laundry bag where I had left her. That always surprised me, that the girls had never gotten up and run off or even moved from the place I put them. But, then again, where would you run to in the pitch black dark when you woke up in a bag and didn't even have the vaguest idea where you were.

It was a little bit of a risk leaving the girls there until I was able to make my way back since anyone could just wander by and take my stash, but in all the years I'd been doing this I had never lost a single girl. I figured either nobody frequented that particular section of the tunnel or maybe there was less activity during the day.

I put the pen light in my mouth, picked up the girl and threw her over my shoulder, then headed back exactly the way I had come. It was sort of soothing to name off the landmarks in my head as I passed them by and it became a sort of rhythm for me as my mind counted everything backwards and I made my way back home.

Bardoon and Sons door, five blank doors, garbage pile, wooden arch, bricked doorway, pile of blankets, Zaler's Deli door, old refrigerator, wooden arch, four blank doors ... turn left, turn right, turn left again, but as I made my final turn and counted the last doors I saw something I never seen before and I stopped dead in my tracks.

One of the doors was open down this stretch of tunnel, and it was the stretch that my house was on. The doors along this section of tunnel all led to the basements of houses that had been private residences for a very long time and most of the doors were locked up and buried behind piles of junk.

The thing is, most people didn't even believe that the tunnels actually existed so it was incredibly rare to see someone who lived in one of those old houses even open up the door that led out there. It was either a case of mass denial or just plain old fear, because the cops hardly ever went down there either and I couldn't imagine that many people would take it upon themselves to wander around in a pitch black, lawless, no-man's-land.

Light was shining through an open door but there was also a bright light coming from a flashlight that was being held by, what looked like, two people who were walking very close to each other about four hundred feet in front of me. Their outlines were silhouetted by the light coming from the doorway and they were huddled so close together that it was impossible to make out any physical features.

I immediately turned off my flashlight and stuck it in my pocket, then slowly continued forward, trying to get a better look at the whoever was holding the flashlight. I knew they couldn't see me but I was pretty sure they'd heard my footsteps because suddenly one of them said "Let's go!" and they turned and ran back to the open door. Then the light in the tunnel disappeared and everything was black again.

I pulled my flashlight out and picked up the pace back to my door, slid the key into the lock, then slipped inside, locking the door behind me. After I took the girl out of the laundry bag and locked her in the cage in the basement I couldn't help going over and over what I had just seen.

They were girls. Two girls down in the tunnels. I heard the voice of one of them. I didn't know if I'd heard exactly what she said because of the echo down there, but I knew it was a girl's voice. Plus, when they turned and ran I could see their hair and the shape of their bodies.

What were two girls doing in the tunnels?

And not only that, the door they ran into had to have been the one that went to the basement of the house next door.

Avery's house. Was that Avery in the tunnel?

There just seemed to be too many coincidences now.

I had lost interest in the girl in the basement so I turned out the lights and left her down there for the night, then headed up to my bedroom. On the way up I decided that if the lights were off in Avery's room I would know that it was her in the tunnel. She always seemed to be in her room in the evenings with at least a dim light burning, and sometimes she spent most of the evening reading a book while she sat on the window seat.

That was the reason I had stopped turning the light on in my bedroom at night. I wanted to be able to watch her at any time, for as long as I wanted, without her seeing me. I knew she'd seen me a couple of times but after that I made sure I was better hidden because I didn't want her to know just how much time I spent watching her.

I'd actually been hoping against hope that she wasn't planning on buying curtains anytime soon. I wasn't sure what I was going to do if she decided to put something up that obstructed my view because I needed to watch her. Sometimes, if it was dark enough outside I stayed out on my balcony and looked in through the French doors because I was able to see into her room from a different angle. Unfortunately, I was never able to see the whole thing though.

I got to my bedroom window and pulled the drapes back a little and looked out. Her room was completely dark.

Suddenly, the lights went on in her room and a flood of excitement coursed through my body. I watched her walk in front of the window and throw her jacket down on a chair, then she disappeared for a few minutes and the lights went off again.

I know that was her in the tunnel. But what was she doing down there?

A small flame ignited in the window and for a brief moment Avery's face was lit up as she touched the flame to a candle wick. The candle started burning steadily and she sat down on the window seat. Her head was hanging down a bit and she ran her fingers through her long dark hair. She looked so sad and all I wanted to do was hold her in my arms and run my own hands through her hair and make her understand how perfect she was.

I closed my eyes and imagined my fingers pushing back into her soft hair and my lips gently brushing her beautiful, perfectly shaped lips. I felt the softness of her skin on mine and her hot breath quicken as I moved my tongue in and out of her mouth, licking and sucking those lips. It was almost as if it were a memory, like this had happened before.

I know that's not possible ... but why does she feel so familiar?

I snapped out of my fantasy and she was still sitting there, staring at the candle flame that flickered and lit up her face with a shuddering glow that accentuated her eyes and the hollows under her cheek bones.

She held something up into the flame and then touched it to the skin on her opposite forearm and when she did it looked like she flinched a little. Over and over again she repeated the same movements, placing something in the flame, then touching it to her skin and flinching slightly, and I eventually realized what it was that she was doing.

She appeared to be heating some small piece of metal in the flame of the candle, maybe a pin or a needle, and then she would touch it to the skin of her arm. It looked like she was creating a design there, like a tattoo that was made out of tiny dots of burnt flesh. This went on for over an hour and I was hypnotized as I watched her eyes and her hand travel back and forth from the flame to her arm, over and over.