Write about a landmark you see often.

It’s six a.m. and I’m wondering why we’re standing across the street from Lester’s Garage.  I know it’s Lester’s, because there’s a sign. Old, wood-carved letters standing a foot high write the name right above a rusting door: Lester’s Garage. Except some of them are faded, and broken, and tilted to the side. One hangs upside down. It’s a quiet place.

Seems almost haunted to me.

There’s a car parked out front, though. Something old. It’s twenty years, maybe thirty, not that I know my cars real well. All I can really say is, it’s a wonder it even got this far. I glance at Julian as he spits on the ground. His eyes are intense as he stares at both the garage and the car parked there. His bird gun hangs loosely from the crook of one elbow, old, worn. Well kept.

“That’s a Pinto,” he explains. “Got there sometime in the night.”

I shrug at him. “So? It’s a garage. Kinda what they do, Jules.” I glance across the street as Julian spits at my feet again. The air is crisp enough to solidify our breaths and turn them to vapor. 

“S’Julian. Ain’t no fuckin’ girl,” he complains. He doesn’t look at me, but certainly goes on to explain his theory.  “Ain’t no one even knows what Lester looks like.” He pauses for a moment and chews on that wad of tobacco like a cow, thoughtful. His eyes are too far apart and his nose has been squashed. I’m thinking bar fights. Maybe, though, he just landed that way.

“Some say he’s a toothless ol’ man with gray hair, see?” He shakes his head, lifts his sweat-stained ball cap, and scratches the sparse hairline beneath, as if somehow, it inspires a thought. “Some folks what seen him, though, say he ain’t more’n forty. Maybe late thirties. Got them vivid eyes, too. Like wolf’s eyes.”

I roll my eyes. “I swear to fuckin’ God, Julian, if you tell me he’s a werewolf, I’m turnin’ right around and goin’ back to bed.”

It’s amazing how fast that drawl comes back.

He grabs my arm, just in case I make good on that threat, whether he calls Lester out as a lycanthrope, or not. I glance down. His hand is craggy, and gnarled, and old. But his grip is amazing. Shocking almost. I look back up at his face; he still isn’t making eye contact. Not with me, at least. He’s too intent on that building across the street.

Someone’s kept up with the grass, though. Sorta have to out here. If you don’t, well, toddlers can get lost in there.

Finally, he turns those pig eyes on me. They’re small, but there’s a shadow of intellect deep in their veins. “Be some even still what swear he died far back as nineteen-ninety-five,” he drawls, almost as if he’s challenging me to solve this mystery for him. All I can do is think, Jesus, you’re a fucking hillbilly, as I stare at him.

Backwards. I try to take a step, but Julian’s still got my arm. “Ah, naw,” he says to me. “Nah, Ham, y’gotta go over yonder, see? Find out about that there car.”

Ham. I haven’t heard that name since high school and it pisses me off. I try to jerk free of his grasp. I fail, and next I know, Julian’s catapulting me across the highway. “Go on, now. Go and see.”

I stagger across the double yellow line, straighten, and jerk my shirt straight. Fine. Whatever. If it means I can get back to my cabin rental and to a hot cup of coffee, I’ll finish his fool’s errand.

There is a stillness, though, from that side of the road. It’s the sort of quietude one might experience on a wintry morning after it’s snowed all night. Silent. This is eerie, though. There aren’t any birds chirping. I don’t hear the buzz of a single bug. A car passes between us on the highway and it startles me. As I spin around, I see Julian standing there, straight. Almost too straight for a guy his age. His 12-gauge is still in the crook of his arm. His eyes are still narrowed and intense. Only now, he’s pointing. At the car, or the garage. Both, probably.

The car’s hood is cold as I pass by. Mostly expected it to be, if it was there all night. There’s a door on the side of Lester’s Garage. One with a window. So I walk around to that side. Not really sure what I expect to find, you know? The window is filthy and the garage empty, except for cobwebs. A lot of them.

And a woman.

She’s standing in the center of the floor. She has her head down, and a blanket of thick, black hair obscures her face. She isn’t moving. It feels almost like she’s praying or something equally spiritual. So, I take a step back from the door and then glance sidelong at Julian. He’s still there, his grizzled chin jutted out and a long grimace dragging his jowls lopsided. Just when I convince myself I ought turn around and go back to him, the side door of Lester’s Garage scrapes open.

She’s standing there just staring at me and I gawk right back. She’s got them, those vivid eyes. Wolf eyes.

Her hair swims in heavy waves about her shoulders. It’s so black, it makes me think of midnight and I fight the urge to reach out and touch it. See if it’s real. Her skin is dusky and smooth. Mostly. I can see a few freckles at her neckline before they vanish into her shirt. I force my eyes up, though. Yeah.

She has a voice like butter when she asks, “Can I help you?”

I laugh and it sounds sheepish. Even in my own ears. I glance back and shake my head at Julian. I’m still not sure why I let him talk me into this. Stupidly, I say to her, “You have a Pinto.”

She looks at me as if I’m not all there, and at the moment, I really don’t doubt it. I stammer a little. She’s so goddamn beautiful it makes my teeth ache. I’m certain if my eyes plunge into her neckline one more time, she’s going to ball up a fist and hit me. Hesitantly, though, she nods. Her expression is patient, but perplexed. Maybe even a little worried. I turn a palm up in supplication to allay her concerns.

“But, you’re not here looking for Lester?” I ask her.

“Oh.” She laughs then and the sound of it makes my heart skip a beat. She sounds like a smoke-filled bar in Baton Rouge on a sweltering summer night. “Oh. No...  “ She twists to motion to the Pinto sitting in front of the garage. I notice her nails are the same shade of red as her lips.

“You thought I broke down.”

Stupidly, I nod. I don’t even try to explain what’s been going through Julian’s head. Not sure I understand it myself. I want to worship her. Just fall to my knees on the damp gravel where she stands and press my forehead to her leather sandals. How weird is that?

I don’t do it, even though it takes every shred of willpower I have to stay on my feet.  I blame it on the lack of coffee and Julian’s insistence that I crawl out of bed at the crack of dawn to follow him down to an abandoned garage.

“Well, that’s sweet. But really, I can take care of myself.” She sounds like old southern jazz, and underneath all that, she sounds insulted, too. I frown and take a step away. It wasn’t my intention.

I try to make it up to her with a practical approach. “Hey, so, uh…” Man, I am so smooth. “Would you like to maybe meet for coffee later?”

Yeah. I’m dying inside, just a little at a time. Or rapidly as her vivid amber eyes find mine again. They’re so bright against dark skin and darker lashes, they’re gold. I fall into them, helplessly. 

She cocks a brow at me. “You’re serious.”

“Yeah.”

She considers for a moment, but honestly? I think eternity slides by. Then, she nods at me. “Okay.”

I can’t believe my fucking luck and because I can’t, I laugh. “Okay, yeah. There’s a little coffee shop on Main Street. Can’t miss it. Ten a.m. I’m Brandon, by the way.”

“Lila.”

Even her name is beautiful. I grin like a seven year old who’s lost his front teeth, but I’m so giddy now, I don’t even care. “Lila,” I repeat, giving her a nod. I jut a thumb towards Julian, still standing on the other side of the highway scowling at the two of us. “Gonna go explain to my friend’s dad that you’re not here robbing the joint.”

She flashes me another quizzical look as she tracks my progress to the road. Then her eyes shift towards Julian. They stare at each other in abject silence for what could pass as hours. It’s like they know each other. Or something. Not really recognition, but some strange awareness. Julian spits on the ground before he turns to me.

“Well?” His voice is gruff and he scowls. 

“Well what?” I ask as I try to look back at her. Lila’s gone again, though. I guess back inside Lester’s Garage. “It’s just some woman.”

“It ain’t just some woman. She’s got them same eyes. Wolf’s eyes.”

I sigh and try to retain my patience. Julian is old. He isn’t the same man he used to be, and when his son, Eric died, a lot of him died, too.  I reach out to guide him back the way we came earlier. “She’s probably just a relative, Julian. I promise, there’s no conspiracy here. No sorcery, either.”

He grunts in response. “You wouldn’t say that if’n you’d stayed long after Eric died. If’n you’d seen what I seen.”

We both stop and turn back as that old Pinto rattles to life and pulls from the garage. I stare hard because Lila’s not the only occupant. Beside her sits a grizzled old man with white hair and a toothless grin.  Except when the car swings onto the highway and he leans out to wave, he isn’t a grizzled old man, but one closer to my age. He’s every bit as beautiful as she is. I blink, and blink again.

I am not getting on my knees to pray.

There’s a smugness to Julian as he claps my shoulder roughly and starts away. “Yup,” I hear him say. “Ain’t no magic in these parts.”  He brays like an old hound dog with a raccoon up a tree. “But now y’dun seen it just like me, Ham.”

He stops and turns those rheumy eyes on me. “Welcome home, lad.”  He’s laughing again as he leaves.

All I can think before I follow is, that coffee is sure gonna be strange.