Mister October

by Christopher Golden

  No response. She just sat and stared.

  Six weeks after they’d moved in, Diane announced, “I’m going out with Sandra and the girls,”

  It was a Wednesday night. Matt was hunched forward on the settee, eyes flickering between the TV and the baby monitor on the sideboard. He had no idea what he was watching. Sleeplessness and stress had turned his brain to cement. He looked up, blinking.

  “What?”

  Diane rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you get a grip? I said I’m going out with Sandra.”

  “Who’s Sandra?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. She lives at number 12. Her husband’s the golfer.”

  She said this as though he ought to know. Matt let it slide. “What about Abigail?”

  “She’ll be fine. Milk’s in the fridge. You’ll just have to warm her bottle. Not too hot though. See you later.”

  Then she was gone, in a whirlwind of flowery perfume.

  As soon as the front door slammed, Matt scuttled upstairs. He entered the dimly-lit nursery and slumped down against the wall beside the cot. Abi was sleeping peacefully. The girl was in her usual position. Matt drew up his knees and stared at the girl. Time passed. The silence was dense, heavy, like the air before a thunderstorm.

  He didn’t realise he’d fallen asleep until Abi started grizzling. His eyes snapped open in sudden panic, but the girl was still there, unmoving. Wearily Matt rose to his feet, picked up his daughter and tried to calm her. But she was restless, pushing her tiny fists into her mouth.

  “All right,” he said, putting her carefully back into her cot and glancing across the room at the girl. “I’ll get your bottle.”

  He ran downstairs, heart pounding, hating the thought of leaving Abi alone with the girl. It wasn’t until he had plonked the bottle in a pan of hot water in the kitchen and was moving from foot to foot, waiting for it to warm through, that it occurred to him to wonder why he hadn’t just brought Abi down with him. Was he unable to think straight because he was exhausted or because the girl was exerting some kind of malign influence over him? Snatching the bottle from the pan, he ran into the hallway.

  Above his head a floorboard creaked.

  “No!” he shouted, scrambling up the stairs. Reaching the top he leaped across the landing, into the nursery. His eyes darted to where the girl was sitting—except that she wasn’t there. Her chair was empty.

  And then he detected movement on the other side of the cot. His head twisted so sharply that pain burst in his skull like a firework. Through a cluster of falling stars he saw the girl bent over the cot, both arms reaching inside.

  “No!” Matt shouted again, and for the first time the girl seemed to hear him.

  She looked up, and on her face was an expression of terrible regret.

  “Sorry, Daddy,” she whispered.

  “Get away from her!” Matt screamed, and plunged towards her, hands outstretched.

  As ever, when he got to within a metre of the girl, she smeared out of existence. Falling against the side of the cot, Matt looked down. Abi was lying on her back, arms up beside her head. She was very still and her face was already turning blue. Matt lifted her up and cradled her, smothering her with his warmth.

  “Wake up,” he whispered, “wake up, wake up, wake up.” He repeated the words, over and over, for the next hour. Finally he raised his head, which felt heavy as a boulder, and looked across the room.

  The girl was back in her usual place, on her chair against the wall. Matt knew she would always be there for him now, no matter where he went.

  BLOOD BROTHERS

  By Richard Chizmar

  ONE

  I grabbed the phone on the second ring and cleared my throat, but before I could wake up my mouth enough to speak, there came a man’s voice: “Hank?”

  “Uh, huh.”

  “It’s me…Bill.”

  The words hit me like a punch to the gut. I jerked upright in the bed, head dizzy, feet kicking at a tangle of blankets.

  “Jesus, Billy, I didn’t recog—”

  “I know, I know…it’s been a long time.”

  We both knew the harsh truth of that simple statement and we let the next thirty seconds pass in silence. Finally I took a deep breath and said, “So I guess you’re out, huh? They let you out early.”

  I listened as he took a deep breath of his own. Then another. When he finally spoke, he sounded scared: “Hank, listen…I’m in some trouble. I need you to—”

  “Jesus H. Christ, Billy! You busted out, didn’t you? You fucking-a busted out!”

  My voice was louder now, almost hysterical, and Sarah lifted her head from the pillow and mumbled, “What’s wrong? Who is it, honey?”

  I moved the phone away from my face and whispered, “It’s no one, sweetheart. Go back to sleep. I’ll tell you in the morning.”

  She sighed in the darkness and rested her head back on the pillow.

  “Hey, you still there? Dammit, Hank, don’t hang up!”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” I said.

  “I really need your help, big brother. You know I never woulda called if—”

  “Where are you?”

  “Close…real close.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Can you come?”

  “Jesus, Billy. What am I gonna tell Sarah?”

  “Tell her it’s work. Tell her it’s an old friend. Hell, I don’t know, tell her whatever you have to.”

  “Where?”

  “The old wooden bridge at Hanson Creek.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as you can get there.”

  I looked at the glowing red numbers on the alarm clock, 5:37.

  “I can be there by six-fifteen.”

  The line went dead.

  TWO

  I slipped the phone back onto its cradle and just sat there for a couple of minutes, rubbing my temple with the palm of my hand. It was a habit I’d picked up from my father, and it was a good thing Sarah was still sleeping; she hated when I did it, said it made me look like a tired old man.

  She was like that, always telling me to stay positive, to keep my chin up, not to let life beat me down so much. She was one in a million, that’s for damn sure. A hundred smiles a day and not one of them halfway or phony.

  Sitting there in the darkness, thinking of her in that way, I surprised myself and managed something that almost resembled a smile.

  But the thought went away and I closed my eyes and it seemed like a very long time was passing, me just sitting there in the bed like a child afraid of the dark or the boogeyman hiding in the bottom of the closet. Suddenly—and after all this time—there I was thinking so many of the same old thoughts. Anger, frustration, guilt, fear—all of it rushing back at me in a tornado of red-hot emotion….

  So I just sat there and hugged myself and felt miserable and lost and lonely and it seemed like a very long time, but when I opened my eyes and looked up at the clock, I saw that not even five minutes had passed.

  I dressed quietly in the cold darkness. Back in the far corner of the bedroom. I didn’t dare risk opening the dresser drawers and waking Sarah, so I slipped on a pair of wrinkled jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt from the dirty laundry hamper. The shirt smelled faintly of gasoline and sweat.

  After checking on Sarah, I tiptoed down the hallway and poked my head into the girls’ room for a quick peek, then went downstairs. I washed my face in the guest bathroom and did my business but didn’t flush. For just a second, I thought about coffee—something to help clear my head—but decided against it. Too much trouble. Not enough time.

  After several minutes of breathless searching, I found the car keys on the kitchen counter. I slipped on a jacket and headed for the garage.

  Upstairs, in the bedroom, Sarah rolled over and began lightly snoring. The alarm clock read 5:49.

  THREE

  He saved my life once. A long time ago, back when we were kids.

  It was a hot July afternoon—ninety-six in the shade an
d not a breeze in sight. It happened no more than thirty yards downstream from the old Hanson Bridge, just past the cluster of big weeping willow trees. One minute I was splashing and laughing and fooling around, and the next I was clawing at the muddy creek bottom six, seven feet below the surface. It was the mother of all stomach cramps; the kind your parents always warned you about but you never really believe existed. Hell, when you’re a kid, the old “stomach cramp warning” falls into the same dubious category as “never fool around with a rusty nail” and “don’t play outside in the rain.” To adults, these matters make perfect sense, but to a kid…well, you know what I’m talking about.

  Anyway, by the time Billy pulled me to the surface and dragged me ashore, my ears had started to ring something awful, and the hell with seeing stars, I was seeing entire solar systems. So Billy put me over his shoulder and carried me a half-mile into town and Dad had to leave the plant three hours early on a Monday just to pick me up at the Emergency Room.

  I survived the day, more embarrassed than anything, and Billy was a reluctant hero, not only in our family but all throughout the neighborhood. Old Widow Fletcher across the street even baked a chocolate cake to celebrate the occasion with Billy’s name written out in bright pink icing.

  I was thirteen, Billy twelve, when all this happened.

  Like I said, it was a long time ago, but the whole thing makes for a pretty good story, and I’ve told it at least a couple hundred times. In fact, it’s the one thing I always tell people when the inevitable moment finally arrives and they say, “Jeez, Hank, I didn’t know you had a brother.”

  I hear those words and I just smile and shrug my shoulders as if to say “Oh, well, sorry I never mentioned it” and then I slip right into the story.

  This usually happens at social gatherings—holiday work parties, neighborhood cook-outs, that sort of thing. Someone from the old neighborhood shows up and mentions Billy’s name, asks what he’s been up to, and another person overhears the conversation. And then the questions:

  “What’s your brother’s name? Does he live around here? What’s he do for a living? Why haven’t you mentioned him before, Hank?”

  Happens two, three times a year. And when it does I just grin my stupid grin and tell the drowning story one more time…and then I make my escape before they can ask any more questions. “Excuse me, folks, I have to use the restroom.” Or “Hey, isn’t that Fred Matthews over there by the pool? Fred, wait up. I’ve been meaning to ask you….”

  It works every time.

  * * *

  Billy was just a year behind me, but you never would’ve guessed it growing up. He looked much younger; two, maybe even three years. He was short for his age and thin. Real thin. Dad always used to say—and at the time we could never figure out just what the hell he was talking about—that Billy looked like a boy made out of wire. Little guy is tough as wire, he’d always say, and give Billy a proud smile and a punch on the shoulder.

  Despite his physical size, Billy was fast and strong and agile and much more athletic than me. His total lack of fear and dogged determination made him a star; my lack of coordination made me a second-stringer. But we both had fun, and we stuck together for the three years we shared in high school. We played all the same sports—football in the fall, basketball in the winter, baseball in the spring.

  Baseball. Now, that’s where Billy really shined. All-County second-base as a sophomore. All-County and All-State as a junior and again as a senior.

  A true-blue hometown hero by the time he was old enough to drive a car.

  After graduation, I stayed in town and took business classes over at the junior college. Summer before sophomore year, I found an apartment a few miles away from home. Got a part-time job at a local video store. Played a little softball on Thursday nights, some intramural flag football on the weekends. Stopped by and saw the folks two, three times a week. Ran around with a few girlfriends, but nothing serious or lasting. For me, not too much had changed.

  Then Billy graduated and went upstate to college on a baseball scholarship and everything seemed to change.

  First, there was the suspension. Billy and three other teammates got caught cheating on a mid-term English exam and were placed on academic probation and suspended from the team.

  Then, a few months later, in the spring, he was arrested at a local rock concert for possession of marijuana. It shouldn’t have been that big a deal, but at the time, he’d been carrying enough weed to warrant a charge for Intent to Distribute. Then, at the court trial, we discovered that this was his second offense, and the university kindly asked him to clear out his dorm room and leave campus immediately. His scholarship was revoked.

  He was lucky enough to receive a suspended sentence from the judge but instead of moving back home and finding a job—which is what Mom and Dad hoped he would do—Billy decided to stay close to campus and continue working at a local restaurant. He claimed he wanted to make amends with his baseball coach and try to re-enroll after the next semester if the university would allow him. So he moved in with some friends, and for a time it appeared as though he’d cleaned up his act. He kept out of trouble—at least as far as we (and his probation officer) could tell—and he stopped by on a regular basis to see Mom and Dad, and he even came by my place once or twice a month (although usually only when he needed to borrow a couple of bucks).

  So anyway things went well for a while….

  Until the rainy Sunday midnight the police called and told Mom and Dad they needed to come down to Fallston General right away. Billy had been driven to the Emergency Room by one of his roommates; just an hour earlier he’d been dumped in the street in front of his apartment—a bloody mess. Both hands broken. A couple of ribs. Nose mashed. Left ear shredded. He was lucky to be alive.

  We found out the whole story then: it seemed that my baby brother had a problem with gambling. The main problem being that he wasn’t very good at it. He owed some very dangerous people some very significant amounts of money. The beating had been a friendly reminder that his last payment had been twelve hours late.

  Billy came home from the hospital ten days later. Moved into his old room at home. This time, Mom and Dad got their way without much of an argument. A month or so later, when Billy was feeling up to it. Dad got him a job counting boxes over at the plant. Soon after, he started dating Cindy Lester, a girl from the other side of town. A very sweet girl. And pretty, too. She was just a senior over at the high school—barely eighteen years old—but she seemed to be good for Billy. She wanted to be a lawyer one day, and she spent most of her weeknights studying at the library, her weekends at the movies or the shopping mall with Billy.

  One evening, sometime late October, the leaves just beginning to change their colors, Billy stopped by my apartment with a pepperoni pizza and a six-pack of Coors. We popped in an old Clint Eastwood video and stayed up most of the night talking and laughing. There was no mention of gambling or drugs or Emergency Room visits. Instead, Billy talked about settling down, making a future with Cindy. He talked about finding a better job, maybe taking some classes over at the junior college. Accounting and business courses, just like his big brother. Jesus, it was like a dream come true. I could hardly wait until morning to call the folks and tell them all about it.

  To this very day, I can remember saying my prayers that night, thanking God for giving my baby brother another chance.

  That night was more than eight years ago.

  I haven’t seen him since.

  FOUR

  I drove slowly across the narrow wooden bridge. Clicked on the high-beams.

  There were no other cars in sight.

  Just empty road. Dense forest. And a cold December wind.

  My foot tapped the brake pedal and I thought to myself: Hank Foster, you’ve lost your mind. This is crazy. Absolutely crazy.

  I reached the far side of the bridge and pulled over to the dirt shoulder. I sat there shivering for a long couple of minutes. Looking up at the
rearview mirror. Staring out at the frozen darkness.

  I turned the heater up a notch.

  Turned off the headlights.

  It was 6:17.

  * * *

  I looked at my watch for the tenth time. 6:21.

  Jesus, this really was crazy. Waiting in the middle of nowhere for God knows what to happen. Hell, it was more than crazy, it was dangerous. Billy had sounded scared on the phone, maybe even desperate, and he’d said he was in trouble. Those had been his exact words: I’m in some trouble. Even after all this time, I knew the kind of trouble my brother was capable of. So what in the hell was I doing out here? I had Sarah and the girls to think about now, a business to consider….

  Or maybe, just maybe, he had changed. Maybe he had left the old Billy behind those iron bars and a better man had emerged. Maybe he had actually learned a thing or two—

  —yeah, and maybe Elvis was still alive and catching rays down on some Mexican beach and the Cubs were gonna win the goddamn Word Series.

  Nice to imagine, one and all, but not real likely, huh?

  I was starting to sweat now. Really sweat. I felt it on my neck. My face. My hands. And I felt it snaking down from my armpits, dribbling across my ribcage. Sticky. Cold and hot at the same time.

  I leaned down and turned off the heat. Cracked the window. Inhaled long and deep. The sharp sting of fresh air caught me by surprise, made me dizzy for a moment, and I realized right then and there what was going on: I was scared. Probably more scared than I had ever been in my entire life.

  With the window open, I could hear the wind rattling the trees and the creek moving swiftly in the darkness behind me. In the dry months of summer, Hanson Creek was slow-moving and relatively shallow, maybe eight feet at its deepest point. But in the winter, with all the snow run-off, the creek turned fast and mean and unforgiving. Sometimes, after a storm, the water rose so quickly, the police were forced to close down the bridge and detour traffic up north to Route 24. One winter, years ago, it stayed closed for the entire month of January.