Double Helix

by Sigmund Brouwer

  He walked through the night to the garage.

  The moon was not quite full, but here in the mountains, its light magnified as it passed through the clear air. The pines cast shadows, the ghostly white clearings between them were almost as visible as if it were an overcast day. With the moon at his back, Slater had no need for the flashlight he carried.

  At the garage, he paused, straining to hear any clue as to what waited inside.

  He rolled his eyeballs at another thought. Say it wasn’t a kid, but some big predator animal in there – now that he thought about it, he’d heard stories about the occasional stray cougar that passed through these mountains – how much worse would it be to open the side door to that?

  He leaned his hand against the garage wall to brace himself as he placed an ear against the side door. No sound helped him guess.

  For a moment, he was tempted to get it over with. Put his key in the lock, open the bolt, and yank open the door. Then he remembered the overwhelming fear that had driven him to run through the woods.

  He continued to strain for sound but heard nothing, not even the whining of the puppies in the hammock.

  No sound in the woods around him either. It was something that had taken him weeks of adjustment. The total quiet that fell on the mountains when the wind was still. No distant rumble of traffic. No airplanes. Nothing but his own heartbeat.

  He stepped away from the door.

  Slater thought of calling the Los Alamos sheriff department for help. Then he imagined the conversation. Yeah, I lured a kid into my garage and trapped him there. Only I’ve changed my mind about getting him out by myself. What’s that? Am I the one who reported a naked kid just last Wednesday? That’s right, officer. Same guy. Sure, officer, I’ll wait here for you guys to show up.

  No way. Slater had been in this part of the state barely more than the winter. It looked like a good enough retreat to stay in at least a couple more years if he kept a low profile. Calling in the cops would end that chance right now.

  What to do?

  He stared at the door. If I were Superman, I could use my x-ray vision. That got Slater to thinking about being a kid again, when it was fun to wish Superman truly existed somewhere, when at the back of his comic books were all those neat things to order, like seeds that grew into fish, instructions on how to throw your voice, and x-ray glasses that all the guys in the neighborhood had been willing to bet would let you see through a girl’s dress. Only when the glasses had actually shown up, they had been nothing more than darkened plastic and a waste of $1.49 plus postage.

  Slater tightened his lips and pushed away his idle thoughts. He was using any excuse to delay action.

  What to do?

  Cut a hole in the door and run a hose into it from the truck’s exhaust pipe? Then get the kid while he was groggy but before he died from carbon monoxide?

  Right. Hello, idiot, Slater thought to himself.

  Slater stared at the door. It would open outward. Maybe he could stand and wait with a huge net. He almost laughed, picturing that one. Better yet, get on the roof, pull the door open with a string, and when the kid stepped outside, throw the net down. Sure, if this were cartoon land, and besides, where do you find a net at Sunday midnight, twenty miles into the mountains?

  There was something in the idea, though. It would be a lot easier if the kid was coming out of the door instead of Slater going into the garage.

  Maybe wait with a burlap sack and throw it over the kid’s head as he steps out? Nope, too chancy. Slightest mistiming and the kid was gone.

  Slater continued to stare at the door.

  An idea crept into his mind. He dismissed it. It returned. He searched for alternatives. Came up with none.

  An hour later, Slater had implemented the idea.

  It had taken him four slats of wood, two dozen screws, and a single bedsheet, ripped down the center.

  On the lower half of the door, he had pressed a slat vertically along the edge of the bedsheet, then screwed the slat into the door, spacing the screws every four inches. He did the same on the upper half of the door with the other piece of bedsheet, leaving the lock accessible through a small gap between the two sheet halves. He tested the fabric, pulling as hard as possible to see if the material would rip loose from the slats. Satisfied, he then used the remaining slats to anchor the other ends of the sheets on the garage wall. Slater left a couple feet of slack in the sheets. The door would open until the slack tightened, but no more. The gap between the upper sheet and lower sheet would let him see the boy – or wild animal – but the sheets would act as a safety net to prevent escape. If it turned out Slater had actually trapped an animal, he’d push the door shut, cut the sheets and rig a way to open the door again, safely and from a distance. If it was the boy, well, Slater had a way to deal with that too.

  As he’d been putting his crude netting into place, it occurred to Slater how ridiculous it was, all this effort in the middle of the night alone in the moonlit silence of the mountains, based on just a glimpse of the boy running across the road, and based on some guesses about the kid scavenging in the area. It occurred to Slater, too, to wonder why. He had no personal stake in this. It wasn’t his kid. He didn’t know whose it was. And there had been no headlines about a missing boy.

  He wasn’t doing it for revenge. His head was healing and his hair was even beginning to grow back, and the stolen groceries were easy enough to replace. The attack on the road hadn’t happened because the kid was out to get him.

  And Slater sure wasn’t going to accuse himself of doing this for noble reasons, like some knight on a white horse. If that were the case, Slater could have found plenty of other windmills to tilt at in the last few years.

  The answer Slater finally decided upon was much more selfish. Capturing the kid and Finding out why he was on his own and why no one was looking for him had given Slater a purpose. Short-lived or not, this was better than merely getting up each day to read another couple of books and monitor his stocks and bonds to ensure he had enough income to go through the motions of living.

  Curiosity might kill cats, but Slater was also discovering it was a great tonic. He grinned as he checked the sheets across the door one last time.

  All right, rodeo fans, he commentated to himself, get ready for the eight-second ride.

  Slater unlocked the side door and pulled it until the anchored sheets were tight.

  He braced against the door, waiting for an explosion of action to hit.

  Here it is, fans, any second now...

  Dead silence. Slater resisted an urge to laugh. After all this, nothing? It was like the chute being yanked open and the bronco refusing to buck onto the dirt floor of the arena.

  A cloud passed in front of the moon.

  Sure, he muttered to himself, might as well take away my light at the most crucial time.

  He stepped back from the door and reached down for the flash-light he’d left on the ground.

  Slater stood, motionless, flashlight in his hand but not switched on, and counted to sixty as he listened and watched the door in the new darkness around him. Slater counted to sixty again.

  Another thought hit him, and he bit back laughter. What if the stupid door had simply fallen from its own weight? What if he’d put himself through all this tension, all this work, and nothing was in there but two sleeping puppies on a hammock? Wouldn’t that be a story to tell – if he had someone to tell it to?

  Slater took a deep breath. He’d waited long enough. Might as well find out exactly what had happened inside the garage.

  He switched on his flashlight, edged his way to the partly open door. Standing as far back as possible from the gap between the sheets, he aimed the beam of the flashlight inside. First at the hammock.

  The puppies have been moved.

  He felt a brush of the supernatural fear that had Filled him during the chase. Someone was inside. Someone canny enough to wait and wait and wait in silence, even as the door opened. As if
that someone were trying to trap him.

  Without realizing he’d done so, Slater shuffled backward a half-step. Every inch of skin tingling with adrenaline, he stood on his tiptoes and angled the beam to the center of the garage. The edge of the beam caught something white, and he centered the beam there.

  The kid. Blinking, hand up to protect his eyes against the flashlight. Puppies in his lap.

  Slater sagged with relief. After all of this, it was just a kid. Scared. Defenseless. And comical in ladies clothes far too large for him, the clothes he must have taken from Joyce Burns’s clothesline.

  Slater moved closer to the gap in the sheets. He aimed the beam lower so it didn’t hit the kid in the face.

  “Son, it’s all right. Understand? No matter what it seems, I’m trying to help you.”

  The kid didn’t respond.

  “Come on, kid. Just let me know if you understand English. We’ll go from there.”

  The kid just tightened his grip on the puppies.

  Slater moved closer to the door. He rested his hand on the lower sheet.

  “I’ll give you the flashlight, all right? You won’t have to be scared. I’ve got another in the truck.”

  No response.

  Slater put his hand through the gap, extending the flashlight to the boy.

  Screaming rage, the sound of monkeys gone insane, hit him like a physical blow. A tight, sudden horrible grip yanked on him arm, slamming him into the door, which crashed shut on his shoulder. The sensation of fangs repeatedly slashing at his arm.

  Galvanized by pain, jerking and pulling as if he were clutching electrified wire inside the garage, Slater tried to tear lose. The savaging continued, relentless, violent. He braced his feet against the garage wall to take his weight from the door.

  Again and again something slashed at his arm.

  With a final heave, he yanked loose and kicked the door shut. With his good hand, he found the key in the lock and twisted it shut.

  Frantic, hateful banging hit the inside of the door. Then abruptly stopped.

  Slater found his breath. Cradled his arm against himself. Tasted blood from his nose.

  The cloud drifted away from the moon, and ghostly light flooded Slater as he swayed against the pain.

  The garage remained as silent as the moon.

  Chapter 7

  Monday, May 20

  “Ma'am, you all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “I didn’t want to bother, it’s just ...”

  Paige accepted the offered napkin, “Allergies,” she told the waitress. “Some people sneeze. Others break into a rash. Me? My eyes water something terrible.”

  Paige dabbed at the tears on her cheek. What had she come to, allowing herself to cry in a restaurant'? She should have stayed three floors up. Sure, the brown carpet of a single-bed motel room was depressing, but she could sit on the balcony. Nothing changed the view of the gulf.

  “Same thing happens with my allergies,” her waitress said. She was pear-shaped, untidy, and middle-aged; resignation showed in the seams of her face.

  Now she had a hand on her aproned hip and a sympathetic smile for Paige. “Course,” she continued, “what I’m allergic to is having an old man who thinks work is a disease and seeing my oldest daughter living in a trailer park with someone who knocks her and her boy around pretty bad.”

  She watched Paige see her as a person, not a waitress.

  The waitress’s smile broadened in response. “So what’s your allergy? Every morning the last few days, I’ve brung you two poached eggs, wheat toast no butter, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. And every morning when you go, I clear away two poached eggs, wheat toast no butter, a half a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, plus a tip as big as the breakfast bill. You can’t blame a gal for wondering what’s happening.”

  Paige smiled in return, but didn’t feel it inside. She considered the resignation on the waitress’s face, “If your husband left, would you miss him?”

  “Not husband. Old man. Big difference. You divorce a husband, it might be worth something, depending what you’d be able to get judgment on. An old man, he just takes up space on a couch and makes sure your groceries don’t go stale.”

  “Then why...”

  “...why not get rid of him?” The waitress shook her head. “Hon, does it appear like I’m a woman who can afford to be fussy? You get to where I am in life, and you take what you can get.”

  Paige made no effort to hide her fascination. All the years with Darby, they’d never traveled circles where she’d be in conversation with people who did not understand that Perrier was the water then, or that Evian was in vogue now.

  The waitress misunderstood Paige’s open stare. She moved to the neighboring table, lifted up a coffeepot from where she’d set it, and busied herself by swiping a rag beneath it with her free hand.

  “I wasn’t trying to mind your business, ma’am.” She paused, thought about what she’d just said. “No, I guess I was. But I wasn’t trying to give offense. I usually keep to myself. 1 don’t know what got over me, busting in like that. Maybe ’cause it’s slow in here, just you and me and the coffeepot. I’m sorry.”

  “No, no,” Paige said quickly. “I don’t mind.”

  She didn’t. This was conversation that didn’t involve Darby or the International World Relief Committee or police reports.

  “All right then, since I’ve already got one foot so far down my throat it’s tickling my belly button,” the waitress said, “I been watching you over the last days, and I wonder what it can be to get you so down. Give me your wardrobe, the money it takes to be able to tip as much as the meal, half your looks, and ten years less to put us in the same ballpark, I’d be singing my way through breakfast.”

  “I wish it were that easy. My husband’s gone.”

  “Men are fools. Blind fools. Never know what they have until it’s gone. I hope you soaked him good.”

  Paige managed a wry laugh, a pain that felt like she’d lanced a boil. “I buried him good. Funeral was yesterday.”

  Her waitress made the sign of the cross. “Bless his departed soul. I hope he didn’t suffer.”

  Despite her brave attempt at humor, Paige felt the tears well again. “Another allergy attack,” she said. “Forgive me.”

  Her waitress reached for a spare napkin from another table.

  Paige accepted the napkin and regained her control.

  “You got schooling?” the waitress asked.

  “Two years of college,” Paige said, “but I didn’t finish.”

  “Enough money saved to tip this big rest of your life?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “What I’m working at,” the waitress said, “is where you might be when you get to my age. See, I don’t have much choice anymore. I stay with what I got, because it’s there. My old man ain’t much, but at least he stays on my couch and don’t visit any others. This job swells my feet, but it’s a job.”

  She rubbed her back as she spoke. “You still have choices. Get on or stay behind. No education, no money, either you find yourself a husband, or you end up at minimum wage and lousy tips. And don’t kid yourself. I seen it happen to women you’d never believe. Year by year the hind end broadens, the chances go by, and if you don’t look out for yourself, you’ll be pouring coffee someday for someone pretty like you once was.”

  A couple of aging tourists – noisy in brightly mismatched beachwear – shuffled to a nearby table.

  The waitress sighed. “Rack to it, huh? You just remember what I been telling you.”

  She took a step toward the newcomers, then half-turned. “And do me a favor, hon. Finish at least half your breakfast today.”

  ***

  Paige paced her hotel room for nearly ten minutes as she battled with her indecision. Call? Or don’t?

  The waitress had been right. What was she going to do, hole up in this motel forever? Wait for a shooting star to flash instructions overhead?

 
You still have choices. Get on or stay behind.

  She stopped and stared at the gray-blue waters of the gulf, sunshine so bright her eyes watered.

  Get on or stay behind.

  All right then, she told herself with sudden resolve, Darby had inflicted this on her after months of treating her coldly. It made her sad to discover it was easier to be bitter than bereaved. And should she cloister herself forever? This phone call wasn’t being unfaithful to his memory anyway; it was only a phone call, and a necessary one. There was no one else she could turn to for advice on this. It had already cost her husband his life, led to a savaged home, and then an unbelievable daylight robbery that she’d felt lucky to survive.

  Paige spun away from her view of the gulf, found her purse on the night table, and pulled from it a business card.

  She sat beside the telephone and dialed for an outside line. When the operator answered, Paige dictated the number on the card.

  A cheerful voice answered. “Hammond Developments. How may I direct your call?”

  “To John Hammond, please.”

  “I’ll put you through to his secretary.”

  Two more rings.

  “John Hammond’s office.” This secretary sounded older, less cheerful.

  “May I please speak with John Hammond?”

  “I’m afraid he’s not available,” the secretary said without hesitation.

  “Not available? But...” Paige hadn’t expected this. She’d sorted through a half-dozen imaginary conversations, ranging from an invitation to New York to his irritation, but in screwing up her courage, she’d never considered the obvious, that a man as busy as John Hammond might not be in his office.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Where is he?” It was all she could think to ask. “Can I call back later?”

  “He’s out of town, ma’am. But he does check in for messages.” The secretary’s tone did not vary in tone from its professional coldness. “Would you like to leave your name and number?”

  Paige took a breath. She could hang up now and not be a fool. What if she left her name, and he didn’t bother to call back?

  Go on or stay behind, she heard the voice.