12 February 1983
Jane was missing. She had been gone for five days now, and I knew why. In a sense, I had known why all along, but now it was a sure thing. I had a name and an address too, scrawled on a cream-colored slip of paper in her room.
As I left my driveway, I noticed that the sun was uncharacteristically bright. The weather hadn't been like this since before the flood. I wanted to slit the sky open like a fish belly, and allow its innards to spill out in dark torrents.
The apartment itself was nondescript, with all of the features, and none of the charm of Southern California architecture. I knocked hard on the small, grey door. No answer. I knocked again. It wasn't supposed to be like this. I had finally cracked this whole terrible thing open, and no one was home. I twisted the doorknob, expecting to feel the jolt of a lock, but there was none. I almost hesitated for a second.
It was dark inside. I took no more than a step when something hard made contact with my head, sending an electric pang through the front of my skull. I turned to jelly. I had become an invertebrate.
It was cold. Much to cold for the Inland Empire, especially on a day like this. My head felt like putty. As my eyes came back into focus, I noticed a bare light-bulb dangling from a familiar ceiling. Shit. I was in my own bathtub, and it was full of ice. I lied there for a while, wondering what to do next. In a few minutes, I stepped out of the tub, numb and shaking. There was a rough line of stitches where my left kidney would be. This was the real thing. I had to leave California as soon as possible.