Dead Man Walking

by Zach Adams

  Isaac made a noise which was a fair compromise between exasperation and amusement, an expression he had mastered during his time with “Genghis Don”. He removed the paper and returned to the object of his obsession. One-hundred and eighty-eight seconds.

  #9 stared at Isaac, taunting him with its cold detachment and outright refusal to function properly. He placed the I Can’t Believe It’s Not My Real Ladder securely against the wall, shutting one eye to zoom in and ensure the ladder and #9 were perfectly aligned. They were. He climbed each step carefully - right foot, then left, and repeated twice more. Once at the top, he delicately removed the wire cage holding his worst enemy back.

  Two-hundred and sixty-two seconds and counting.

  Isaac made sure he was fully focused and began to remove #9 from its home. With a glance at the glass face, he spotted his reflection. Everything was more or less as it should be; clean shaven, no obvious scars, and his lower eyelids slightly purple and sagging. His eyes, he vaguely noted, were a bloody shade of scarlet.

  As he never managed to bring his car’s stereo to life, the Talking Heads were still stuck in Isaac’s head. As he worked, “Once in a Lifetime” drifted through his acutely nervous system. He hummed along softly as he removed the screws holding the clock.

  Six twists to the left, Isaac thought over his soundtrack, though he couldn’t quite understand why that made him think of the color blue. Four more screws to go, three-hundred and twenty-seven seconds.

  With each screw, Isaac absently noted more blue things within his sight. The sky, though it was dominated by hulking, ugly blobs of gray. A few cars in the lot below the window, all in different shades. A handful of books in his line of sight had blue covers.

  Isaac gently pulled #9 down, preparing to operate. The hands still turned at the wrong angles, telling Isaac where exactly he could stick his operation. He stared down his adversary, just as he had done nine-hundred and six times before, looking through the red circles in his reflected image. He placed all eight screws in his pocket, one by one, still unsure why his thoughts jumped from them to a perfectly innocent primary color.

  Holy shit, my eyes are actually blue, aren’t they? Isaac thought to himself, finding the loose thread between his scattered thoughts. While he caught up with himself, he took one more look at his reflection, which was intent on disagreeing with him. The shock of what our hero was looking at sent him flying from the ladder, #9 flying several feet away, and his cranium crash-landing into the carpet below.

  In some places there exist soft, friendly carpets which may cushion the fall of someone in this predicament. In public libraries, however, such carpets are reserved for the fantasy section. The one which our hero collided with was so worn, had so many threads caked with the mud from years of public foot traffic, that it may as well have been stone. The impact had him out before he could register his screwdriver leaving an inch-long cut across his left cheek.

  Chapter Three: Memoriam

  2011

  “Are you paying attention back there?” A stern voice at the head of a dim, crowded classroom demanded. At the rear of the group, five students sat in a misshapen circle: Isaac Falcone, Donald Grigoryan, Dante Luther, Adrian Luther, and Alana Lockhart. Dante, the larger of the Luther twins, was facing off against Donny in a projectile war, with wads of loose-leaf paper their chosen weapons.

  Mr. Dominic LeBlanc II was known as one of the most brilliant minds in the high school where he worked, despite only having been teaching for a year. He was a young, immaculately groomed English teacher commonly seen in button ups and ties. Isaac had overheard a few of his fellow students joke that they would have developed crushes on Mr. LeBlanc, had he not been so eager to hand out detentions and remedial homework.

  With a group like this in his early-morning Honors classes, Mr. LeBlanc felt he had to be strict. There he was, giving an introductory lesson for the class to study Macbeth, and he was forced to make attentive students wait while he addressed the mischief-makers having some sort of paper ball fight at the back of the room, distracting their classmates with their noisy laughter. It was not, he felt, what they had all trekked to school through the dark winter mornings for.

  Isaac, on the former’s left, smacked Donny on the shoulder. This stopped him from tossing another wad of paper at Dante, instead ducking his face behind his arms to hide his giggles.

  Dante did the same, as he received a similar warning from Alana, his girlfriend seated to his right. He carefully plucked a crumpled ball from her curly blonde hair, trying in vain to stop laughing as she stared daggers at him.

  The blurry afterimages mimicking their movements gave Isaac a headache, as it always did. His mom sent him to an eye doctor the previous year, but he avoided wearing the thick plastic glasses he came back with after Dante had made a sarcastic comment at his expense. They never quite managed to make all the shadows go away, anyway.

  “Yes, we are sir, sorry!” Adrian, Dante’s identical twin except for his dark hair- Dante’s was bright red- and more formal fashion sense, replied. Mr. LeBlanc returned to Macbeth, pulling out a bulky television set, outdated by at least fifteen years, strapped to a cart.

  Oh joy, it’s nap/goofing off day, Mr. LeBlanc knew several students were thinking at the sight of the ancient machine. He was prepared for such a reaction from the class.

  “As I was saying,” The teacher said. “We are going to be reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth for the next couple of weeks. While we do so, we are going to be watching this Sir Patrick Stewart-led version of the play. I expect you all to take detailed notes on both. Any questions before we begin?”

  VHS? Didn’t they stop making those when we were in elementary school? Isaac thought to himself. Donny’s hand swiped his arm as it shot into the air. Dante burst out in a chuckle, sure that some fresh distraction for the room was about to materialize.

  “Yes, Donald?” Mr. LeBlanc asked with a heavy sigh.

  “I was just - shut up Dante I’m trying to ask a question! - could we watch X-Men instead? Or Star Trek?” Donny asked. “Since we’re watching Sir Patrick Stewart anyway.” He finished, mocking the teacher with his over-enunciation of the actor’s name.

  “Perhaps you can watch it at home, after you’ve returned from detention in my classroom this afternoon.” The teacher said dryly. Dante chortled out loud at his peer’s punishment, and Alana smacked him softly on the arm as Isaac had with Donny.

  “So, you would like to keep your friend company, Dante? The more the merrier. Now, on with the play,” Mr. LeBlanc continued as he started the tape and turned off the lights.

  A static-covered version of the iconic story played with slightly distorted audio, and the now-silent class did their best to fill out the worksheets Mr. LeBlanc had enlisted Adrian to pass out among the students.

  They barely made it halfway through the first scene when there was a knock at the door.

  “Oh, what is it now - Adrian, would you kindly answer the door, please?” Mr. LeBlanc said.

  “Yes, sir,” Adrian replied as he jumped to his feet. Donny mimed a mockery of Adrian’s movements while making a comically grotesque face behind his back. He must have expected laughter from his group but was caught off guard by a kick to his shin from Dante. The darkened room flooded with light from the hallway as another student entered.

  “How may I help you, Jessica?” Mr. LeBlanc asked the bespectacled office aide.

  “Um, sorry to interrupt, but is…” Jessica checked the slip of paper in her hand. “Is Isaac Falcone in this period? He needs to go to Mrs. Darcey’s office.” All eyes turned to the back of the classroom once more as Isaac shakily left his seat and followed the girl to the principal. As they strolled by dozens of identical blue lockers Isaac’s mind raced.

  Did I do something? Why is Jessica walking so fast? Do they think I did something that was actually Donny? Why does she keep looking away?

  They arrived at the office next to the front entrance of the school. The principal, Mrs.
Darcey, an unusually tall porcelain doll of a woman in her late thirties with a tight bun of raven hair sat behind her desk with her fingertips pressed together under her chin in a dark suit and glasses.

  On her desk, a foot-tall statue of a gray wolf gave the impression it was going for Isaac’s neck. All of the students hated that statue, because seeing it always meant trouble.

  When she saw him approach, she beckoned him in with a wave of her hand and directed him to a seat opposite her. Three other chairs were already occupied by Chloe, Tobias, and Uncle Vic, all with grim expressions and reddened eyes.

  “What’s going on?” Isaac tried to ask as his throat turned to sandpaper.

  “Perhaps it would be best if your uncle told you,” Mrs. Darcey said. Though he was still confused, and his anxiety was rapidly building, something about her tone was soothing and persuasive.

  “Isaac, I’m not sure really how to say this,” The bushy-bearded old Uncle Victor said gruffly. “You know y-your folks, your parents, they were on another one of those trips.”

  “To New York, yeah, why? Did something happen?” Isaac asked. Chloe, at the time only twelve, burst into tears. Uncle Vic put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Well, they… There was an accident. The authorities can’t quite figure how, but something went wrong with the car they had. It jerked out of M-Mart- your dad’s control. They crashed a-and the damn thing just lit up. Neither of them made it.”

  Isaac stared slack-jawed at his uncle while his little sister sobbed into her knees. It took several moments for him to understand what he had just been told. Even then, he couldn’t seem to find the feelings to express.

  “W-what are we going to do?” Isaac asked.

  “Well, they wanted you kids to come live with me if something happened, what would you think of that?” Vic replied. Isaac gave an uneasy nod. “I’ve already got Marlon out in the truck and his leash, but I can take you home to pack your things.” The old man turned to the principal. She still had her chin rested on her fingertips, eyes locked on her students.

  “Excuse me Mrs., ah, I’m sorry, but what was-” Vic began to ask.

  “Darcey,” She told him quietly. For the first time since he entered the room, she took her eyes from Isaac to glance momentarily at his uncle.

  “Right, Mrs. Darcey, do you think it would be alright if I kept the kids out of school for a week?” Uncle Vic asked. “To help with the transition, you know, get themselves together…”

  The principal’s eyes narrowed and returned to burning holes into Isaac.

  “Of course, that would be alright.” Mrs. Darcey replied. She rose from her desk and made a barely noticeable upward wave with her hands. On reflex, before any of them were aware they were doing it, the Falcones all stood up as well. She held the door as they all left.

  “Take all the time you need,” Mrs. Darcey said.

  Chapter Four: Næ’zätæmém, Part One

  ?2018?

  Isaac woke up with the sensation that his brain was aggressively seeking a change of scenery. He experienced nightmares frequently, but he preferred to avoid the ones that reminded him of his parents. His legs were tangled through the now-horizontal step ladder. He felt a sting across the left side of his face and performed a quick investigation with his index finger, finding there to be blood dripping from what felt like a rather long cut.

  Isaac saw Donny kneeling next to him with a wide-eyed expression on his face and a screwdriver in his hand. He looked around for the culprit, and saw the disassembled clock was in pieces on the floor. Isaac felt equally triumphant and embarrassed.

  “Are you okay?” Donny asked. “I was walking by when you fell, you were out for a few seconds.”

  “Yeah, I have stuff for it in my backpack. I’ll survive.” Isaac replied as he struggled to lift himself off the ground. He spotted a pair of black leather shoes sticking from the bottom of sand-colored slacks, headed rapidly for his location.

  “Have you made enough noise?” Demanded the newcomer. Isaac sat up and looked up at Benjamin Schafer, the assistant librarian.

  Ben - Beige to those who weren’t his friends, which is to say most of his employees - was a shortish, well-groomed 25-year-old with circular wire-framed glasses. The pointy nose they were perched on, constantly seeming to slip toward the end, was perpetually aimed toward the sky as if its owner had caught a whiff of something unpleasant, which could have been the hairspray used to keep his too-neat wave of brown hair in place. He had grown up in a slightly richer area of town, gone to an Ivy League school, and made sure everyone around him knew it, not that Isaac or Donny ever bothered to retain the information.

  Beige raised an eyebrow and folded his arms across his brown sweater-vest while he waited for an answer.

  “He slipped while he was fixing the clock and fell,” Donny told him, not bothering to mask his dislike of his boss’s assistant - a position his employees reminded him of any time he exerted any authority, as they all knew he reported to Olivia Sheridan - in his tone.

  Beige narrowed his eyes and looked down at Isaac, noting that he was conscious, and thus not in need of special attention.

  “You know where the first aid kit is,” Beige said condescendingly. “Get back to work.” He added before turning on his heels and marching away.

  “I have a theory that Beige’s birth took place at the center of a pentagram in a dungeon somewhere,” Donny said in a faint voice as he pulled Isaac to his feet. Isaac snorted in amusement and cleaned up his mess. Donny took the step ladder from him.

  “I’ll put this away, you go back to the desk,” Donny said, pointing sternly at Isaac’s seat across the room. Isaac nodded in thanks and did as he was told.

  Once he made it to his chair, Isaac pulled a small, plastic briefcase from the bottom drawer on his right. A large, red cross-shaped sticker was plastered across the lid. He opened the case and dug out an Avengers Band-Aid and small tube of antibiotic gel, applying the combination to the cut on his face. The Avengers were his own contribution; he, Olivia, and Beige, the only ones who bothered, took turns supplying the first aid kit. There were still a few Disney Princess bandages scattered within from Olivia’s last box, and an unopened pack that were plain beige.

  After placing the first aid kit back in its drawer, Isaac dug his aspirin and a plastic bottle of water from his backpack. He took the medicine underneath the desk, knowing Beige would have a fit if he saw an employee taking pills while working.

  It was several hours before anything remotely interesting happened. Isaac passed the time spinning in his chair, making contraptions from office supplies, and pretending to work on the computer any time the not-boss looked his way. The reflection in the computer screen was his normal, blue-eyed self. Not so much as a dot of red on him.

  You must have imagined it, Panic said in his ear.

  Maybe? The thought continued.

  Next time I talk to Dr. Williams, I’ll ask about changing the dosage on my sleep meds, Isaac told himself, though it didn’t stop the memory from nagging at him.

  A brief time later, Donny reappeared. He was fighting to suppress a giggling fit and glancing over his shoulder every few minutes. Isaac raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Beige was cleaning out his car, and I cracked an egg under the passenger seat while his back was turned,” Donny explained. “I don’t think he spotted me, I got away pretty quick.”

  “You know, one of these days he will get Olivia to fire you,” Isaac said. “Weird question, but do my eyes look off to you at all?” He removed his glasses and opened his eyes as wide as he could.

  “You mean beside the fact that if you open them any bigger you could be in A Clockwork Orange?” Donny asked. “Did that fall give you some kind of brain damage?”

  “Don’t worry Don, you’re still the reigning champ in that arena,” Isaac told his friend.

  Donny laughed, made an impolite gesture, and departed to disturb someone else’s peace.

  See? The eye thing was just
my imagination, Isaac thought. If only it was that active with a pen and paper handy, once in a while.

  At 5:50 PM, Beige started warning people to finish what they’re doing before the library closed. The population of the library steadily filed through the front door, pouring out to wherever their night was taking them.

  As always, the assistant librarian made sure to leave with the crowd. Technically, it was his responsibility to close the library down at night, but in practice it was handled by whoever left last. Tonight, like most nights, that honor fell to Isaac.

  This suited him fine. When the customers and coworkers cleared out, the library felt like it did when he was younger. He was safe and could hide in hundreds of different worlds when his became too much.

  Isaac grabbed his backpack, took the key to the library, and made a show of locking up and heading home until everyone, namely Donny and Beige, was out of sight. Once they were, he pulled his car into a dark corner to the side of the building and snuck back in.

  Isaac turned on a single light in the central room and made a beeline for a large, rectangular table in the far back corner. It was tucked behind the Fiction section, hidden from most points in the building, with a view of the mountains to the north. He placed his bag on the surface and took his usual seat facing the window. After a breath, he reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of spiral notebooks, one black and one blue.

  Isaac looked through the black one first. In a slanted scribble the word “Summary” was written on the first line of the first page. Underneath was a single, barely legible sentence; “Young hero, war? Lost family, adventure to find.”

  Isaac stared at the sentence, waiting impatiently for his synapses to connect the idea to something. The remaining twenty-five lines on the page, and every page past it, was completely blank. He dug out a pen and held it steady above the paper. He slowly, deliberately lowered his hand until the writing utensil touched the surface.