The Summer Man

by S. D. Perry

  Miranda Greene-Moreland walked out on the platform wearing a terrible green dress made out of layers of gauze. She smiled her beaming smile, stopping in front of a pair of mike stands. She tapped at one of them, the loud thump-thump-thump cutting through the applause—

  —and Amanda saw them, suddenly, three men between the front row and the stage, armed with what looked like automatic rifles. The men were rough looking, denim and work boots, their clothes dirty, and she could only see their backs, but she immediately thought of Cole Jessup and his fucked-up sons, one of whom liked getting blow jobs from Devon. They were aiming their big machine-gun weapons at Miranda and people in the front row; people all around her were screaming, falling over their seats to get out, and Amanda felt a concentrated glee coming from the three men, one of them laughing aloud at Miranda’s obvious terror, and two of the men had erections—

  “Good evening, and welcome,” Miranda said, and the clapping was dying down and the three men were gone, vanished, like they’d never been there. It was going to happen, though. It was going to happen tonight; now.

  “Oh, shit,” Amanda said weakly, and turned to Bob, to John, the words spilling out in fright, her voice gaining strength. “Guns, they have guns, they’re going to shoot her!”

  “Who? When?”

  Amanda had half risen from her seat. The people in front of them had turned, were staring. Miranda said, “As always, we’ll have our scheduled readings first—we have some wonderful talents this year—and then the stage opens, inviting any and all to participate—”

  The first of the trio of gun-wielders strode into the theater, less than two feet from John, his weapon carried in both hands, his comrades right behind.

  “Now, here! Gun! Gun!” Amanda shouted, and there was a second of silence, and then there were people screaming, shouting, those closest to the aisle shrinking away from the hurrying men, some people standing, craning for a better look, more ducking low. Bob grabbed Amanda around the waist, trying to pull her down, but she fought him. She had to know.

  The men staggered themselves in front of Miranda Greene-Moreland, the harmless, aging poetess frozen in front of the mike stand, her gaze fixed on the dark, evil-looking weapons. Amanda was watching the exact same movie she’d just seen, down to the expression on Miranda’s face.

  “Here’s for the tires, cunt!” one of the men shouted, the cry just audible over the screams of the crowd, and all three opened fire—

  —but there was no thunder of weapons-fire, or maybe the howls of fear covered it up, because darkness was spreading across the front of Miranda’s stupid dress, wet stains dripping from her chest and stomach, water running down her face.

  Water?

  Bob was still trying to pull her down, but she was figuring it out, she almost had it even before the smell swept through the room a second or two later. It was awful, she could smell it from the back row as people continued to shout and shove and stumble by, a nasty, musky stench. On the stage, Miranda was coughing, dry heaving, wiping at her face, and Amanda remembered Devon telling her once that there was a huge market for deer and fox urine, of all things, that hunters used it to attract targets or to cover their own scent. They’d laughed about it, and she’d made a joke about whether it smelled like Santa’s workshop, but the smell filling the theater wasn’t funny, it was an assault, and it had to be some kind of animal piss; there was no other smell it could be. Along with the screams and chaos of falling bodies, Amanda could hear people closer to the stage throwing up, saw some guy in front spewing chunks all down his shirt.

  The terror was as sharp as knives, coming at her from all direction as the trio of men started back up the aisle. There were still people who thought the guns were real, who believed they were going to die here. The feelings were intense, coming from everywhere. Space cleared in front of the gunmen as men and women scurried out of their way, though John and Bob were both standing now, watching, figuring it out as she had.

  She looked at Eric and saw that he was still in his seat and laughing—he was actually laughing—and then she saw him outside Devon’s at night, leaning against the maple tree in Uncle Sid’s backyard beneath an umbrella of soft, moving shadow, watching her window. And he was thinking about being with her, and he was thinking about eternity. He was thinking about death.

  She shrank back from him, practically pushing herself against Bob as Eric looked up at her, his grin disappearing when he saw her face. She turned to Bob, keeping her voice low and fast. There was still enough noise to cover what she wanted to say.

  “I need to go home alone, do you understand?” She rolled her eyes toward Eric. She didn’t want him to know what she knew, what she’d seen. She needed to think. “Back to Devon’s alone, OK? Can you walk me?”

  Even half in the bag, Bob was no fool. He nodded, glancing at Eric, then back at her. On the stage, Miranda Greene-Moreland was weeping, the amplified sound filling the air as fully as the cloying reek of piss. Others were crying, those that weren’t following the bulk of the crowd through the doors, and there were moans of pain coming from people who’d been injured in the mad dash for safety. The terror was fading, there was that, at least, but a new dreadful feeling was taking its place, a sense of isolation, of loneliness so vast that it would kill the world.

  There’s nobody else, she thought, and Eric was standing, worried, slipping his arm around her, and it was all she could do not to flinch away from him.

  The poetry reading was canceled.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Once the theater had cleared and the police had come, Bob and John walked Amanda home through the fading light. Eric was with them, but she’d made up an excuse about having a headache, playing it up all the way to Devon’s. The adults stayed too close for anything intimate to crop up between the teenagers, volunteering small talk about the reading. Bob said that he was sorry the paper had gone to press; a bizarre terrorist attack on the poetry reading, that would certainly support the headline story. John was distracted. Amanda could tell he was thinking about his girlfriend, but he tried to keep up his end, interjecting points he planned to make at the proposed town meeting. He pointed out that word would get around about the assault on Miranda Greene-Moreland, that they should expect big numbers.

  The four of them trudged up the hill, passing small clusters of men with pinched faces, women with their arms folded, witnesses to the drenching of Miranda Greene-Moreland and the cancellation of a summer favorite. Amanda tried to focus on what the two men were discussing, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Eric, walking right next to her, who she could barely stand to look at. He was going to go bugfuck crazy over her, and what was she going to do? She couldn’t stand the idea of being with him, having seen what was coming, or what could be coming—knowing that he was the type of person who would hurt her to fill some terrible emptiness inside. How could she ever trust him? Worse for her, for any sense that she was gaining control of her newfound power, how had she ever trusted him in the first place? Why hadn’t she seen something before now?

  Because it’s building, she thought. Whatever made me psychic, whatever is making people crazy, it’s growing, it’s getting bigger. He’d been better, before, and while she was sad on some level that he maybe wasn’t totally responsible for his behavior, she was mostly just scared. If the strange dream that had settled over Isley affected him the way it had affected Mr. Billings or Rick Truman or Brian Glover, she wanted to be away from him ASAP, before he went pow. The thing was, if she dumped him, she created the stalker scenario that was freaking her out. It was like one of those time travel paradoxes—she’d seen something that probably wouldn’t happen unless she rejected him, but seeing it made the rejection inevitable.

  He has to go back to Boston in less than a month. I’ll fake it, I can fake it, she told herself, but that meant they’d have to keep having sex, and she didn’t know if she could do that. Her premonition at the theater wasn’t fuzzy or ambiguous—she’d seen him watching Dev
on’s house and thinking seriously about killing her and then himself. Telling himself all the while that he loved her. The idea of fucking someone who might, at some point, decide to murder her was in no way a turn-on.

  Was there a way to make him different? To say or do something that would change his mind about how to feel? She couldn’t imagine, nor could she imagine taking the time to talk it out with him, help him find his way. She couldn’t even look at him.

  When they got to Devon’s, she said she felt sick, told all of them and none of them that she’d call later and was on the porch before Eric could protest. Sid was out; she had to use the key, and as she fumbled with the lock in the near dark she could feel Eric watching her, confused and unhappy.

  I’m imagining things, she told herself, but still felt his gaze. She got the key turned, finally, didn’t look back, closed the front door behind her, and leaned against it.

  “Fuck fuck fuck,” she whispered. Was he already crazy enough to come after her because she hadn’t invited him in?

  Devon. Call Devon.

  The thought was a beacon in the murk. She made sure the door was locked and hurried into the kitchen, past the living room where pictures of Devon’s relatives collected dust on the mantel. Next to the phone on the counter was Devon’s cousin’s number. She dialed it, sure that he wouldn’t be there, that she’d get the recording, a bright girly voice saying that you’d reached Claire Pierson, she wasn’t in, leave a number, et cetera, and Amanda was steeling herself not to sound sniffly on the message, and on the fourth ring, Devon picked up. She’d recognize his carefully cultivated voice anywhere.

  “Hello?”

  “Devon, oh my God,” Amanda said, closing her eyes in relief. “Dude, where the hell have you been?”

  In the brief silence that followed, she could hear people talking in the background, low music. Someone in a safe, sane apartment in Portland laughed, and Devon’s tone, when he answered, was measured.

  “Getting a job, actually,” he said. “Excuse me for having a life.”

  “Oh,” she said. She felt lost for a second, stupid with confusion. He’d been in Portland for less than two weeks; why was he getting a job? And it wasn’t like he was poor. “OK, great. Good for you. Listen, I’m—”

  “It is good for me,” Devon interrupted. “There’s a whole scene here. I’ve met some really cool people. I know you’re in crisis and all, but you’re not the only person in the universe.”

  Was he kidding? “Devon. I just found out that Eric’s going to turn stalker because I’m like, super-psychic now, I saw him coming after me, and the whole town is falling to shit, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  She heard the muffled rumple of his hand going over the mouthpiece, heard him telling someone something, and there was another laugh, and she felt a stab of paranoid fear. Was someone laughing at her? Had Devon told his cool new people about her? When he came back on, he sounded slightly more serious. He’d moved into another room, too; it was quieter, his voice clearer.

  “OK,” he said. “What do you mean, falling to shit?”

  “So, the poetry reading was tonight? Three of your survivalist buddies crashed it and hosed Miranda Greene-Moreland down with piss.”

  “Oh my God!” Devon broke up, laughing long and hard. He finally snorted out, “That’s so funny, I don’t even know where to start! Did anybody record it?”

  “Yeah, I know, I know,” she said, although she wasn’t even smiling, thinking of the terror that had infused the small theater, that had made Eric laugh out loud, even while his deep, dark self was already dreaming of keeping her all to himself.

  “Hilarious. Except they used squirt guns that looked like Uzis and scared the shit out of a lot of people, myself included. I saw it, too, before it happened.”

  “Like another dream?” He finally sounded interested.

  “No, like a few seconds before it happened; it was so weird,” she said. “I went to the reading with Bob and John—”

  “The reporter? Who’s John?”

  “Yeah, Bob Sayers, John is this friend of his,” she said, feeling impatient. “And Eric, too, right? So I’m picking up all these feelings, like something bad was going to happen…except it was more like this tension that was coming from everybody. And then—”

  “Tension coming from Bob and John and Eric?”

  “No, everybody there, in the theater.”

  “So, you think they knew something bad was going to happen?”

  “No, not like that,” she said. The frustration made her heart beat faster. Her hand tightened on the phone. “More like everyone was really jacked up, but in a, a restless way. It’s been like that a lot around here, all these people, like, trying to control themselves; they’re ate up with it, but they’re barely holding on.”

  “Uh-huh,” Devon said. “So, what else? You said Eric’s stalking you?”

  “No, not yet,” she said. “When those guys shut down the reading, everyone was running around and yelling, and I looked at Eric and saw him—” She wasn’t sure how to say it. “I saw him watching me, and thinking some really dark shit. If I dump him, he’s going to, to try to hurt me, I’m pretty sure.”

  “You should tell Sid,” Devon said. “Seriously, tell Bob, too. And Stan Vincent. Tell anyone who’ll listen. That’s bullshit.”

  She didn’t want to explain their field trip to the police station or how likely it was that Chief Vincent would want to help her with anything. She cut to the core of her panic.

  “Yeah, but what do I tell Eric?” Just thinking about it made her feel panicky. “I mean, we haven’t been together for that long, and…”

  She trailed off as a young, gay voice drawled out behind Devon. “Hang up, sweetie, you’re missing the movie.”

  Another hand clasp over the mouthpiece; another brief, incoherent exchange.

  “Hey,” Devon said. “Look, can I call you back later? This isn’t such a great time.”

  Amanda clutched the phone tighter. She wanted to scream. “You’re watching a movie, so you’re too busy to talk to me about this?”

  “Why do you always do this?” Devon snapped. “Swear to God, Amanda, that is so unfair. I know you’ve had a bad time lately, I know it’s been fucked-up crazy for you, but I’ve been going through shit too, you know?”

  He laughed, a brief, indignant sound. “I mean, you told me I was going to die. And I didn’t believe you, but then when that woman got raped…it was like I was standing in the shadow of death; you don’t know what that’s like. I had to get out from under it. I mean, I don’t blame you or anything, I wouldn’t want you to think that, but I had to leave, right?”

  “Why would I think that you blame me?” she asked, honestly perplexed amid her growing anger and despair. “You know none of this is my fault. I’m just seeing shit, I’m not making it happen.”

  “Didn’t I just say that I don’t blame you?” Devon said. He sighed. “I’m not mad at you, OK? Talk to Sid, tell him about Eric. He’s in a position to actually do something about it. I’m in Oregon, remember?”

  “I know, but what should I say to Eric? I just practically ran in here to get away from him; he’s going to call later or come over. What should I do?”

  “Fuck him, don’t tell him anything,” Devon said. “He’s a psycho, right?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I told you what I think,” he said, and she could tell by his voice that he was about to get off the phone, and her throat tightened, she felt so sad all of a sudden.

  “I’ll give you a call later,” he said. “Or you call me. Tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ve been calling, I keep getting the machine—”

  “Right, about that—I finally got a real cell, like, a week ago, so you should probably call me on that. I gave Sid the number. I’m sure I did.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “He would have told me.”

  “Uncle Sid? He wrote it down somewhere and forgot about it. He alwa
ys does that. Just ask him. And tell him I’ll call him this week, OK?”

  She didn’t answer. Why do you always do this, she asked herself. Do what? What was he saying?

  “OK?” he asked again, and his impatience was like a small death, it hurt so badly. She wanted to tell him not to leave her alone; she wanted his love and understanding, but the word came out of her mouth tasting bitter.

  “Whatever.”

  The silence was deafening. “Great,” he said finally. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Wait,” she said, but the click drowned her out.

  She hung up and put her head down. The sadness was vast and encompassing because she knew that in a day or two he would apologize or she would, and they would be friends again—but she also felt that he was gone from her, that there wouldn’t be an apartment in Seattle or window box flowers or a pet cat with a funny name. She couldn’t tell if she was being psychic or just finally understanding reality, so much more quickly than she would have thought possible. Nothing was certain. They would be friends again, but Devon was gone.

  Bob woke up at six on Wednesday morning and started what had become his morning ritual, of late—a hot-then-cold shower, a giant glass of orange juice with a splash of vodka in it, dry wheat toast, and a couple of antidiarrheal pills. Not pretty, but it worked. He’d also pick up a sweet white coffee on the way to the printer’s. Caffeine was supposed to make hangovers worse, but he’d never found that to be the case; a day without coffee, that was just asking for a headache.

  He hit the phone machine’s message button as he poured his juice, vaguely remembering that there had been calls the night before. After seeing Amanda home—he still didn’t know what that was about, boyfriend trouble maybe—Eric had promptly wandered off, and he and John had gone their own separate ways; John was surely headed to his new lady friend’s house, and Bob was hot to get home, to write about the “unfortunate event” at the poetry reading while it was still fresh in his mind…and to get his buzz back up; the flask he’d taken to the reading had been empty by the time the cops showed up at the theater. He’d stayed up late. The phone had rung several times, but he’d been working and not a little tight by then. He figured it was people wanting to find out what he knew, which wasn’t a whole hell of a lot. With Annie gone—and with Chief Vincent thinking he was bonkers—he didn’t have a friendly face at the PD anymore, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to guess that the cops had taken statements and then sent someone out to Jessup’s to pick up the offenders. Considering the nature of the crime, the shooters were probably already back at their heavily fortified compound. The trio of gun-wielding men had scared a lot of people, and knowing how bad the council wanted to keep the summer people happy, there’d surely be a push to have them incarcerated for their attack…but in the end, they’d squirted someone with piss. Against the law, no question, but not exactly a hanging offense.