by Douglas Draa
▲
THE OTHER NEIGHBORS, by Daniel Davis
Parker blamed the rabbit.
Technically, he was supposed to be minding Rupert. Technically, Rupert was supposed to be on a chain. The fence wouldn’t be built for another two weeks; who knew that the fencing business had such a backorder? Until then, Rupert had to stay on his chain, or on a leash, or preferably inside.
Problem was, Parker hated messing with the chain. He had to carry Rupert out to the center of the yard, the terrier struggling against the restraint, bend down while still keeping the dog still, and thread the clasp on the chain through the ring on Rupert’s rabies tag. Then he had to repeat the process when he was ready to go inside. It hurt his back. And he hadn’t planned on being outside long; just a quick dip onto the patio to see if he had enough propane to light up the grill for dinner. He’d promised Eileen pork steak, and she liked it as black and crispy as a charcoal briquette.
But Rupert snuck out onto the patio, and Parker didn’t think much of it. Okay, fine, you’ve got twenty seconds, pal. As he turned for the grill, however, his eyes swept over the yard. Caught the rabbit at the far back, near the tree line. Sitting there, watching them. As if waiting. As if saying, Game on, bro, come get me.
Rupert accepted the challenge.
Parker let out a monosyllabic yell, part curse, part shriek. The terrier yipped and yapped, paws flying, dancing over the grass. The rabbit hesitated. Go the other way, Parker thought, almost shouted. Left or right, left or right!
The rabbit turned and darted into the trees. Three seconds later, Rupert followed.
Parker brought up the rear. The thought of leaving the dog to his fate never even occurred to him. An impossibility. Though she had never accused him, would never accuse him, he and Eileen both knew that he was the one responsible for her last dog’s death. He’d backed over it with a car one night at their old house. Not technically his fault; the dog was supposed to be in the back yard. Someone, perhaps a neighborhood kid, had left the gate open. Nothing to be done, maybe no blame to be passed around, but when Parker saw Eileen’s tears, he knew he’d hold it against himself for a long time to come. And he had, and he did, and he didn’t hesitate to chase after Rupert.
The trees scratched Parker’s face. He almost tripped on a root, and had to think hard about the last time he’d walked anywhere other than plain flat ground. He hadn’t been in a forest since his childhood downstate; suburbia had tamed him, had taken nature away without him noticing. He wiped a cobweb from his face and spat out bits of dried leaves. And to think, he’d once liked the woods.
* * * *
Rupert barked from a distance, growing fainter. Parker trudged on. Still hot in the shade. Dirt from the leaves and branches clung to his sweaty forearms. At least he’d been wearing his shoes; he never went out back barefoot, not since the time as a kid when he’d stepped on a nail. Almost lost his big toenail as a result; Parker had never gotten the image of his battered and bruised toe, swollen and wrong, out of his mind.
The rabbit hadn’t run straight ahead; it had doglegged to the right, perhaps seeking a burrow, or hoping to lose the terrier in the thick underbrush. No such luck. Rupert could squeeze his way through anywhere, and Parker was big enough to bludgeon a path forward. He wondered what the neighbors would think, hearing him. Then he looked over his shoulder and wondered where the neighbors were.
He’d never come out here. He didn’t think Eileen had, either. He’d seen some kids playing here, he remembered waving at them, but that was it. They’d only been in the neighborhood a month now, but he didn’t remember anyone mentioning anything about the trees. Or what was beyond them, for that matter. Parker had just assumed more houses; when he and Eileen had driven through the neighborhood, that’s all he’d seen, house after house, with the trees as a backdrop. He’d never stopped to think that maybe an entire forest was at his backdoor, because this was the middle of town, in good old Civilized, USA. You didn’t have forests popping up out of nowhere.
The trees weren’t that expansive; he knew this instinctively. He’d simply been away from nature so long that a little seemed like a lot. He wished it didn’t, however, because his paunch was already catching up to him, too much barbeque and beer. Eileen kept herself in shape, said she’d need to be fit for whenever she got pregnant. For the first time, Parker thought maybe she meant for him to get fit with her. Maybe he would, after this. Maybe Rupert and the rabbit were all the inspiration he’d needed.
After a while, surely just a few minutes, the barking changed direction, coming now from Parker’s left. He turned, and eventually the space between the trees began to widen. He could make out the back of a house, the open expanse of a yard, and just like that, the trees were behind him and he was bathed in sunlight again, wiping debris off his clothes and wondering if he could pass for the Wild Man from Borneo. He felt something crawling against the back of his neck, and slapped himself silly before he realized it was just a leaf. He looked up to see if anyone was watching.
No one was. In fact, the yard didn’t look as though it’d seen any attention in weeks. The grass had grown up over the tops of Parker’s tennis shoes. A rusty playground stood a few feet away, the swing creaking in the slight breeze. The house itself, a two-story job not dissimilar from his own, had yellow-turning-brown siding, dirty window frames around streaked glass. The screen on the back door was ripped. Even from a distance, Parker could tell the wood in the porch was rotted through.
He glanced at the homes on either side. Chain-link fences separated him from properties just as run down as this one.
“Guess we chose the right side of the tracks,” he muttered. “I mean, trees.”
Rupert barked up ahead, from around front of the house. A subdued bark now, not as eager as before. Not triumphant, either. The rabbit must’ve reached its burrow, and the terrier now stood over the entrance, wondering where the prey had disappeared. Rupert was cute, Parker had to give him that, but the dog wasn’t much on brains.
“All right,” Parker said, raising his voice a little and clapping his hands. “Come on, boy, let’s go home. Come on.”
He approached the house, eying the windows in case anyone was watching. He didn’t want to give the wrong impression; he felt like someone who lived in a place like this might get the wrong impression fairly easily. But he saw no one, no fluttering blinds or curtains either. Perhaps they were at work. Not everyone got the summer off; most folks, especially from homes like this, worked hard the whole year ’round.
Parker paused, frowning, and shook his head. He was being too judgmental. He could do that sometimes. He knew nothing about the family that lived here; he had to remember that. Thinking like this didn’t hurt anyone, but thinking sometimes led to actions, and actions could hurt. He taught ethics every other semester, for Christ’s sake. He should know better. Lead by example; wasn’t that what he’d been told in college?
Then again, he taught Health Ed on occasion, too. Eat a five servings of vegetables a day to avoid a gut like this.
Much to Parker’s relief, Rupert stopped barking. Parker shook off his self-criticism as he rounded the side of the house. He could judge-slash-pity himself later, with a slab of pork in his belly and Eileen curled up next to him. Right now, he had one task: to retrieve the damn dog and head back home, and never mention this to his wife.
A brief yelp wiped the smile from his face. Rupert dashed around the corner, in full panic mode, running right between Parker’s legs. Parker spun around, saw the dog race across the yard, yelp once, and dart back into the trees. All in the span of five or six seconds. Rupert hadn’t run so fast when he’d taken off after the rabbit.
Parker opened his mouth to say something, realized the dog was out of earshot, and shut his trap. He hung his shoulders, prepared to head back. A wasted trip, but with any luck Rupert was already back in his own yard, cowering beside the door, pissi
ng the patio in terror of whatever had set him off.
What did set him off?
This thought was followed perfectly by the crunch of a branch. Snap. Parker almost jumped; he’d taken it for granted he’d been alone, he’d just assumed that, because the house seemed empty, it was. Stupid, again. Foolish and intolerable. He smiled, shook his head in self-mockery, and turned around.
They stood in the afternoon shadows cast by the house. Three of them, adults, maybe parents and grown child. Two female, one male, dressed in loose, tattered clothing. That’s all Parker could say of them. All three were pale, skin sagging from their faces, mouths open wide, eyes even wider. Tangled, mussed hair that hadn’t seen a comb or shampoo since the last presidency. They stood perfectly still, so immobile that Parker thought maybe they were Halloween decorations, the owners so lazy they left them up the whole year. Wouldn’t bring the property value down much, Parker managed to think, even as his smile faded.
Then the man moved. Man. He shambled forward, made a grumbling sound from deep in his throat. Reached out with one arm, fingers grasping in desperation. Behind him, the women shuffled. The younger one clutched something in her fists, something furry and brown and red. At her feet lay what may have been severed rabbit ears. Her mouth, Parker noticed, was stained dark and ugly.
“No,” Parker said. He took a step back. He pointed at where the shadows disappeared into sunlight. “No. Stay. You can’t.”
The man could, stepping into the light easily.
Of course: vampires weren’t real. This was.
Parker cried out, turned, and shouted again. He’d been so focused on the three in front of him that he hadn’t heard the other, an elderly female, coming up from behind. She clutched at his shirt, pulling herself forward. Her mouth filled with sharp things that couldn’t possibly be teeth but were. She said something, not words, but Parker understood too well. He shoved her away, his hand making contact with her bare arm, skin so impossibly hot, as though she’d been standing in the sun all day waiting for him. He shoved again and she fell, choking and chomping.
The man grabbed him from behind. Sharp fingernails bit into Parker’s back as his shirt tore. He felt the man’s breath against the side of his face, warm and sticky and maggoty, then felt a searing pain in his ear. Parker didn’t think, he just jammed his elbow into the man’s chest. The pain turned into a deafening roar, and Parker’s vision went black even as he tore free and stumbled, falling to his hands and knees.
The other two were there to catch him. Hands and mouths tugging at his hair, his clothes. More, too, more of them. Above his own screaming, he heard Rupert, returning to save him, barking and snarling. From beyond the pain, Parker willed the dog away, swore he wouldn’t let another of Eileen’s pets die because of him. He wouldn’t be responsible for that, just run, Rupert, save yourself.
Perhaps, by some divine mercy, Parker got through, because eventually he didn’t hear Rupert any more, and a little while after that he heard nothing at all except the chewing.
▲
RARE AIR, by Mark Slade
It was Bernstein that introduced Meg to Howard King.
Not only was Meg annoyed by the many stories Bernstein was telling about his Mother’s youth (as old as Lew Bernstein was, you’d think his Mother would already be dead.), but there was a very loud and obnoxious man screaming at the top of his lungs to punctuate his pornographic story about a recently widowed woman he had bedded.
“Lew, darling, who is that loud man over there?” Meg said over top of her martini glass.
Bernstein turned quickly. He saw a short, bald man with over-size framed glasses in a checkered blazer sitting at a table full of other successful men laughing at his dirty jokes. Bernstein readjusted himself in his seat, took a sip of his white wine. “Oh, that’s just Howard King.” He said nonchalantly. Bernstein returned to his salad made specifically for him with walnuts and asparagus with a honey mustard dressing. “Any way, can you believe this woman next door, had the nerve to ask me if Mother was a hundred years old? Some people.” Bernstein scoffed and shook his head. Bernstein was an old friend of Meg’s, one she met at her husband Denny’s club before he died, and she inherited his fortune, his companies, and of course, his tax problems. But Meg was a smart woman. She understood business, it was in her genes, passed down from her father. So she knew how to keep companies, that had been floundering, survivable money makers. After all, Denny was her fifth husband, his company, her seventh that she pulled out of the ashes.
* * * *
Earlier she’d been in an argument with Connie Severson over a rumor Connie had started about Denny and his secretary. Oh, that Connie was such bur in Meg’s side. Of course, Meg was able to have Connie banned from the club after her little tirade last spring that resulted in several club glasses and dishes thrown at Meg. She was an old enemy from the days when Meg was with her second husband and Connie was married to that Television evangelist. The years had not soften their hatred for one another.
Meg waited patiently for more information until she couldn’t take it any longer. “Well?”
Bernstein looked up at her, incredulously, with honey mustard plastered all over his top lip. “Well what?”
“Dear wipe your mouth,” Meg pointed to her own lips. “Tell me about Howard King.”
Bernstein used a corner of his napkin, dabbed his lips, missing most of the dressing that dripped to his chin. “There’s not much to tell, Meg,” Bernstein chuckled. “Denny hasn’t been in his coffin more than six months….”
* * * *
“Oh, shut up.” Meg laughed and waved her hand. “You are awful. What does he do?”
“Mostly drinks and brags about himself.”
“What does he do for a living?”
“Meg….okay. He is into rare commodities.”
“As in what? I’m afraid I don’t follow you, Lew.”
“Whenever he is asked what line of work, he says that and produces a card. It says just that as well.” Bernstein took an ivory card made of thick paper stock and handed it her. Sure enough, it said just that, along with a cell number and a website. “Really, Meg. I can’t believe you are interested in him.” Bernstein jabbed his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Howard King.
Meg turned the card over in her hand a few times. “I’m not interested. He just seems…interesting is all. Obviously everyone likes him.”
“What? Are we in high school or something? I think you should lay low for a while, Meg. Give your poor heart a rest, and Denny’s memory a bit of a thought.”
“Yes,” Meg sighed. “Perhaps, Lew. Perhaps you are right.” She watched Howard rise from his chair, drain his glass, and loudly announce he had to drain the lizard.
Howard king drunkenly ambled toward Bernstein and Meg, and when he nearly fell into Bernstein’s salad, he decided to sit next to them. He was completely white, as white as the table cloth on all of the tables in the club. A dead rose was pushed into the buttonhole of his very brightly colored blazer, which drooped into the pocket.
“Looks like I’m not finishing my salad,” Bernstein said in a huff and threw his napkin in the plate.
Howard leaned in to Meg and said: “He gets frustrated when he’s not winning, doesn’t he?” This tickled Meg. She covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. Howard sighed, looked around. “It gets harder and harder to find a place to take a piss in this joint.” He swayed in his chair.
“You have the mind of a poet, Howard,” Bernstein rolled his eyes.
“And don’t I know it!” Howard guffawed as he jerked his knee and kicked the table, nearly turning over the wine glasses. After he settled down he leaned in to Meg again. “Hey toots, if you point me in the right direction of the toilets, I’ll let you hold it.”
Meg was so shocked by Howard’s comment, her cheeks turned a bright red. She was flabbergasted.
Bernstein whispered in Howard’s ear and pointed to his left where two ivory doors clearly marked Men and Women. Howard thanked Bernstein, showed Meg a toothy grin.
“I’ll catch you later, toots. Anybody ever tell you, you got sexy ears. Yeah…sexy.” Howard headed to the bathrooms mumbling to himself what he would do with Meg’s earlobes.
“My God, Lew. Is he like this when he’s sober?” Meg fanned herself with a hand.
Bernstein thought a few seconds. “I don’t know,” He said. “I’ve never seen him sober.”
* * * *
Bernstein was late. He was supposed to be at the club at three thirty. Meg looked at her watch. She’d been waiting for him for an hour and ten minute, three rum and cokes and a Cobb salad ago. Meg was furious. Meg lit another cigarette. Now her day truly was ruined.
“Well…hello toots!” Meg heard a voice from behind her. She turned and saw Howard King.
“Oh,” Meg forced a smile. “Hello, Mr. King.” She took a puff of her cigarette, flicked ashes into the ashtray.
“Its Howard, toots.” He sat down without being asked. “I didn’t catch the name?”
