CENSUS_What Lurks Beneath

by Marshall Cobb

  Her voice was akin to what one would normally expect from a computer. “You’re more than welcome to do so.”

  Dave looked down to see that he was now pushing the truck along at over 80 mph. He used to use cruise control in these open stretches but found that it made it too easy to let his mind wander. He made an effort to back off the gas pedal and marshal his thoughts.

  “Something happened out at my place deputy.”

  “I agree that something happened to your game camera. It’s up to you to decide what exactly you’d like to say in that regard.”

  Roughly an hour later Dave’s truck was parked on the short length of caliche before his gate. The sun had continued its trek toward the hori- zon, framing his farm house in a red glow.

  Dave shifted into park, then fished around in his center console for the large ring of farm-related keys. He set the key ring down in his lap, and just stared out the windshield for a minute—his view semi-obscured by the various bug splatters that peppered the glass. It was odd for Dave to sit still more than a few seconds at a time. If he wasn’t working he was normally researching issues for work, or driving, or playing with Adam, or shredding fields. About the only time he was at rest was when he read for pleasure. As of late he was so tired by the time he got to that activity in the wee hours of the night that he was only able to manage a few pages—many of which he’d already attempted to read the previous night—before he fell asleep.

  The sun set with Dave still staring out the windshield, hopelessly lost in his own thoughts. He was only brought back by the pain in his temple, which stabbed inward in an attempt to reach the other side of his head. He winced and rubbed his head again, immediately thinking of all the things he needed to accomplish that night. One particular item that he didn’t want to forget floated through the pain.

  He grabbed his phone from the cup-holder and, ignoring the lengthy list of new emails, scrolled through his contacts. When he got to the M’s he slowed down and then clicked on the listing for his friend, Mark, who ran his own IT shop. Dave touched the screen with his index finger and put the phone to his ear.

  Per usual, he got Mark’s voicemail.

  “Mark, it’s Dave. Are you still alive? I think I am, but call me back to make sure. I’ve got a question for you regarding ants and laptops. Thanks.”

  Dave hit the red button to disconnect the call and stared out the dirty windshield at where his farm house lurked in the dark, only visible via the light cast at the corner of the porch by the defective motion sensor.

  In the wee hours of that next morning Dave again found himself on the couch. His shotgun was perched on his right, and his laptop sat dark but open on his left. He’d taken off his slacks at some point and was now clad in his rumpled work shirt and a pair of boxers. He rubbed his eyes and looked around the room, which was illuminated by the light from the ceiling fan.

  Sampson groaned beneath him from his spot at Dave’s feet. Dave felt another vibration, realized that the culprit was beneath him, and reached under his right buttock to pull out his cell phone, which buzzed again angrily. He noted that it was still dark outside through the opening in the drapes, and then stared at his phone, which showed an incoming call from “Home.”

  He jumped up and went outside, performing the customary dodging of Sampson, the blinding light and the scorpions. His voice was raspy from the hour and from a lack of fluids. “Hello?”

  “Is everything okay? You didn’t reply to any of my texts or calls last night. The phone showed you called when we were at Adam’s karate class—why didn’t you leave a message?”

  It was never a good idea to forget to check in with your wife, but it was made all the worse by the fact that Dave was both regular and predictable in his communications. Radio silence was not his MO. He thought back through the evening, tried to remember calling home, but couldn’t. He thought harder, then rubbed his forehead again. He couldn’t remember

  anything since he’d arrived at the gate. A mild breeze chose that moment to pass, ruffling his boxers and making him feel all the more exposed.

  “Dave?”

  “I’m sorry.” He patted down the flap in his boxers that had formed a tent, while also looking around his bare feet for anything that might bite or sting. “I got caught up on the work front, and it looks like I spent last night on the couch with my laptop.”

  “Should I be jealous?”

  A number of things crossed his mind, some less than kind. He went with levity. “I don’t think there’s an app for that just yet.”

  Levity was apparently a poor choice.

  Without a trace of warmth Marilyn asked, “When are you coming back?”

  Dave’s eyes picked up motion at the edge of the porch, and he watched as a large scorpion hustled by, Sampson trailing close behind with his nose entirely too close to the business end of his potential prey. Fortunately for Sampson, the scorpion tucked itself into one of the cracks in a post supporting the porch and disappeared from sight. Sampson sniffed at the spot where he’d last seen the scorpion, making Dave eye all the other cracks, and the potential threats they harbored.

  “I’ve got another appointment out in the boonies and, depending upon when I get back, I’ll either spend one last night here or just pack up and come home.” He paused for a second. “I’m sorry that I didn’t return your calls.”

  One of Marilyn’s best traits was her capacity to forgive. “It’s okay, we just miss you around here.” She paused as well, and Dave couldn’t think of what to say. He knew she was referring to the fact that even when he was home he was working.

  Marilyn added, “Don’t rush things on our account. Just take your time and come home in the morning. Maybe you and Sampson should spend the evening fishing for catfish like you’re always talking about.”

  Dave looked through the window at the shotgun perched on the couch. He hadn’t said anything to Marilyn, or anyone besides the deputy, re- garding the game camera.

  “Yeah…maybe. I’ll have to see what time I get back…” He left the thought unfinished, and the conversation reverted to silence.

  “Is everything okay Dave?”

  Dave mumbled the words to himself as if trying to learn a foreign lan- guage.

  “Yeah. Everything’s fine.” He stared again at the shotgun. “Just tired.”

  He slowly pushed up onto the balls of his feet and then flexed his stiff calves. “I’ll call you when I’m leaving my last appointment and heading back this direction.”

  “Ok. I love you.”

  Dave automatically responded, “I love you too.” He started to hang up and then caught himself. “Wait! Can I speak to Adam for a sec?”

  “It’s five in the morning Dave. Adam is asleep.”

  Dave pulled the phone back from his ear, stared at the screen and noticed for the first time that it was indeed 5:03 a.m.

  “I’m sorry to call so early. I was just so worried since I didn’t hear back from you last night.”

  “It’s fine, I have to get up now anyway.” “Love you.”

  Dave again automatically replied, “Love you too.” He then quit the call and quickly scanned his phone for other emergencies (real or imagined) on behalf of his clients. His eyes rolled quickly over most of what he saw but he did have a text from Mark.

  “Sorry. Buried over here. Bring the laptop by when you can. Think I have an idea about your ant problem.”

  Dave smiled a little. Mark was the only person he knew busier than him- self. He replied “OK” and then tried to figure out when he was actually going to retrieve the defunct laptop from the Sheriff ’s department.

  His fog was broken by Sampson, who barked energetically at him. Sampson was wagging furiously from his perch next to the driver’s side door of Dave’s truck.

  “Sorry buddy, I’m going to bug out on you one more time.” Sampson’s wagging increased from the attention. “I promise I’ll make it up to you tonight if we have enough time to get a walk in before dark.”


  Though he spoke no English and could barely follow basic commands, Sampson grasped the bad news element through Dave’s tone and his wagging slowly stopped. Dave gestured to him, then turned and opened the door and they slunk back inside. Shutting the door behind him, Dave bent down a little to pet Sampson but was interrupted by a jarring “boom” as something hit the window next to the door.

  The reverberation was still fading when yet another “boom” sounded from behind the partially closed curtains. After a moment of panic, Dave threw his phone towards the coffee table and ran to retrieve the shotgun from the couch. He thumbed off the safety and slowly walked toward the door, his courage via the gun somewhat offset by the fact that he was barefoot and wearing boxers. Sampson whined as he followed at Dave’s heels.

  The window portion of the front door had blinds that were built-in be- tween the two panes. The blinds were closed, so Dave gingerly moved the lever below the window to open the blinds in order to see. Clutching the gun with both hands in front of him, he leaned towards the opening in the door and peered out.

  There was nothing to see but his truck and the last few feet of the porch, which was still illuminated from the motion activated light by the door. Dave pressed his face against the glass and went up on his toes, trying to find the source of the noise. He saw nothing besides an additional section of the empty porch.

  He dropped back to his heels and took a half-step away from the door, nearly stepping on Sampson. He thought about throwing back the drapes—he was tired of feeling scared. But his fear had him cower- ing behind his own front door. It wasn’t just fear. He felt stupid. He clenched the gun for a moment, gathered his breath, then let go of the gun with his right hand, which he used to throw open the door and step outside, his gun leveled in front of him.

  Ordinarily, Sampson would have bounded past Dave and taken off in hot pursuit of anything and everything with the audacity to exist in his presence. This time, however, Sampson trembled and leaned into Dave’s legs, hiding from whatever had spooked his master. Dave pushed back with his bare left leg, trying to get Sampson away from him. As he did a small movement on the concrete under the window to his left caught his attention.

  He turned to better see what it was, but was blinded by the intensity of the 1,000-watt floodlight. Shielding his eyes with his right hand, he bent down and tried to focus his eyes on the object.

  There were actually two objects on the concrete in front of the window. Two gray, lifeless doves, one already turned over with red-taloned feet in the air, the other upright but with its right wing splayed out awkwardly

  to its side. Dave used the end of the shotgun to touch the upright bird and its head immediately lolled over to the right side at an extreme angle that could only come with a broken neck. He slowly moved the gun over to the other bird already on its back and confirmed that it too was now deceased.

  The far-off sound of a car driving down the county road caught Dave’s ear, and he self-consciously stood back up, faced forward, and held the gun in his left hand so that it was shielded from the driver of the car headed out towards the main highway. Dave, still illuminated by the porch light, watched the headlights pass his gate and continued to watch until its red taillights disappeared behind the trees that lined that side of his property. He wasn’t sure what amount of detail the driver could actually see at that distance, but a guy standing on his porch in his boxers, with a shotgun at his side and a dog hiding behind him, backlit by a floodlight, was probably unexpected.

  The potential scrutiny passed, Dave again bent down to stare at the birds, then rose and looked at the two dusty smudges on the window from the twin impacts. He turned and stared out at the fields around them. Why were these doves flying at night? They’d never had bird strikes before. In addition to being dirty and needing serious cleaning, a task he’d recently assigned himself, the lower half of each window had an obvious screen. There wasn’t anything confusing or reflective about these windows.

  Sampson summoned the courage to quickly sniff the birds, and then immediately ran back inside. Dave stood, alone, shotgun still clenched in his left hand, and two dead doves at his feet. He was already rubbing at the pain in his right temple when his phone vibrated from its perch inside on the coffee table, notifying Dave that at least one of his clients was already awake and looking for him.

  Dave took one more look at the still, dark fields. The well-lit porch was akin to a stage. He tried to resist the train of thought but couldn’t help

  wondering who, or what else might be watching him right now. He was at least temporarily saved from further dark thoughts by yet another vibration from his phone. He turned and walked back into the house, chewing on his bottom lip as he viewed the dead birds in passing and made a mental note that he would need to put his boots on and dig a hole for them before the ants devoured them.

  He clicked the safety on and set the shotgun back on the couch, then turned and picked up his phone. He caller was the ever-anxious trea- surer from the client he’d be meeting with in a few hours. He let it go to voicemail, and almost didn’t feel any guilt about it. Many of his clients abused what he considered to be the line between reason and insanity in terms of their expectations, and the timeframe they allowed for com- pletion. Dave flipped over to his emails and per usual went to his sent folder to see if he could figure out when sleep had overtaken him.

  He waited as the screen refreshed, but it showed that the last email he’d sent was when he’d stopped for gas at 4:15 p.m. on his drive back yesterday afternoon. Dave frowned, then used his thumb to pull down the screen and compel the server to synchronize and populate his emails. As he waited he watched Sampson walk over and lay his head on Dave’s foot. Everyone was needy.

  A few moments later the synchronization was complete, but no new sent emails appeared. Concerned, he went back to his inbox and saw that it was functioning just fine. He had received two screens worth of emails that he hadn’t read, many from the client who had just called him. The client who Dave had promised to send over today’s presentation last night to give him time to review the findings before his boss, the CFO, saw them.

  “Shit.” Dave said to no one in particular.

  He went over to his laptop and hit the enter key to reactivate the screen. Nothing happened. He tried again with the same result. He then hit

  the power key and the laptop whirred into action. He looked at the back of the laptop and saw it was plugged in, then followed the power cord to where it was plugged in to an outlet next to the couch. His laptop hadn’t run out of power, he’d just never turned it on?

  He sat down roughly next to the laptop and used his phone to send him- self an email. In the subject line he wrote “test” and then hit send. A few moments later he flipped to his send folder and saw his test email at the top. He angrily tossed his phone back to the coffee table, where it skidded and fell off the other side. Sampson, already spooked, rose up off the floor and leaned against Dave’s leg.

  Dave looked down at Sampson, his only confidant. “I got back last night, sat on the couch, and did nothing for eleven hours?”

  Sampson nervously licked his lips in response.

  “I slept through I don’t know how many phone calls and emails?” Dave stood up angrily and Sampson backed away. “How is that possible?

  Sampson backed away farther and prepared to run. “Jesus Christ I’m so far behind now that I’ll never catch up! I—”

  Sampson ran as Dave grabbed his head and then slammed his right fist down on the coffee table and made a move like he might flip over one of the couches. Just at the tipping point, Dave relented, shook his now sore hand and sat back down heavily next to his laptop. He flexed the fingers of his right hand and then rubbed his head again as he pulled the laptop onto his lap with his left hand. As he watched the laptop finish its boot-up process he tried to think of when he’d been more behind than he was now, but couldn’t. His eyes strayed to the still-open front door and he thought about the literal ho
le he’d need to dig very soon.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: To Report or Not to Report

  Several hours later that same morning Deputy Evans was sitting at her spartan metal desk, pushing through a small pile of paperwork, when her cell phone rang. She picked her phone up from the desk and stared at the display, which showed David Reynolds as the caller. She contemplated not answering and letting the call roll to voicemail, but that just meant she would have to call him later. Better to rip the Band-Aid off in one motion than to pull it off slowly, and painfully.

  She flicked the “answer” button with her index finger and held the phone to her ear. “Deputy Evans.” She began absently doodling on a spare notepad in front of her.

  “Hi Deputy, it’s Dave Reynolds.”

  “Yes Mr. Reynolds, how can I help you?” The doodle, which had started as a nondescript swirl, quickly morphed into the outline of a scruffy dog.

  “I just wanted you to know that I’ll be out of town again all day for work and I won’t be coming by to file a report.”

  She smiled to herself, then felt the slightest pang of remorse. She wanted to be rid of him, didn’t she?

  “That’s fine Mr. Reynolds. Please let us know if you experience any other issues at your place.”

  The line went quiet for a few seconds.

  “I guess you folks can just recycle that laptop—do you have a way of getting rid of it?”

  “No, Mr. Reynolds, I’ll keep it in storage here for now but you’ll need to come by to pick it up. I’ve got it sealed up in a plastic bag because of the ants.”

  “Ah, okay. I guess that makes sense…” Another lengthy pause ensued.

  “If anything else does happen, should I just call you at this number?”