by Afraid (lit)
“Your hands are shaking, Sheriff. Are you sure you can hit me? I hope you don’t miss, for Sal’s sake.”
“Drop the weapon!”
In a blur the intruder switched aim from Sal to Streng.
“You drop yours first, Sheriff. I’m sure we can talk this out, like civilized men.”
Streng knew if he pulled the trigger it was likely he would die. This man was too fast, too cold. A pro. The best chance for survival was to diffuse the immediacy of the situation by retreating, calling for backup, even though his soul cried out to shoot this creature.
In an eye blink he made his choice: get help. Streng stumbled away, out the door, Sal’s screams sticking to him like a shadow. His radio and cell phone were in the car. He had to get down there, call the staties, get a hostage negotiation team here.
Noise. Behind him.
Streng spun, only to see something impossibly huge coming up the stairs.
Dr. Ralph Stubin scratched his dry, bald scalp, squinted at the algorithm on his computer screen, and reached for his cup of coffee. It was empty, and had been the last three times he’d picked it up. On this occasion, he actually raised it to his lips before he noticed.
“Mathison! How about some coffee?”
Alan Mathison Turing sat next to the coffee machine, his tail testing the warmth of the carafe by poking it. Mathison screeched. Stubin recognized it as capuchin monkey language for not done.
“If I don’t have caffeine in my mug in the next ten seconds, no beer for you tonight.”
Mathison screeched again, and Stubin knew he was being called the monkey equivalent of assface. But rather than pout, Mathison leapt over to the laboratory cabinets, grabbed a 60-cc bulb syringe, and stuck the pointy end into the still-percolating coffeepot. He extracted 30 ccs, walked on two legs over to Stubin, and injected it into the doctor’s cup.
“Thank you, Mathison.”
Mathison dropped the syringe and hopped up onto Stubin’s shoulder, his tail curling gently around his neck. He weighed less than five pounds and sat there so often Stubin barely felt him. The doctor kept his eyes on the computer but reached up to scratch Mathison on the belly. He missed, his fingers tracing the surgery scar along Mathison’s scalp.
The monkey screeched, tiny paws pushing him away. Mathison retained his sensitivity about the scar. Not the feel of it—it had healed over a year ago. But its appearance. Stubin had been to four plastic surgeons, but none were willing to work on a monkey for purely cosmetic reasons. They didn’t believe a primate could be vain.
Mathison was more than vain. Mathison was a grandiose narcissist. And even though he had a stellar success rate with the females and was universally loved by all who encountered him, both human and primate, the circular scar remained an issue for him.
“You’re too self-conscious,” Stubin said.
Mathison climbed off the doctor’s shoulder and pointed at the Lakers hat Stubin always wore when out in public to hide his baldness. Stubin had been losing hair since the sixties.
“Fair enough. I could get a hat for you, if you like.”
Mathison put the baseball cap on his own head. It was so big it covered him to the chest.
“Yours would be smaller, Mathison. I’d have it custom-made. It would be the same as mine but would fit you.”
Mathison used the assface screech again.
“It doesn’t have to be the Lakers. It could be whatever you’d like.”
Mathison picked an empty Budweiser can from the garbage and hooted, a sound not unlike a howling ghost. He used that hoot only for things he really liked, such as females and beer. Stubin wrote down Bud cap for Mathison on a dry erase board, since there wasn’t a scrap of paper in the lab.
Stubin’s cell phone rang.
“Can you grab that for me?”
Mathison held the can over his head and howled again. Stubin sighed, swiveled his chair over to the table, and picked up the cell.
“This is Dr. Stubin.”
“USAVOIP 6735,” said the computer voice in its usual soothing manner.
Unlike General Tope, Stubin immediately knew what the code meant. When he hung up the phone he whispered, “It’s happening, Mathison.”
Fran knew every inch of the kitchen at Merv’s and probably could have found the candles with her eyes closed. But Al and his keychain flashlight provided great comfort to her as they made their way to the storage area.
“Kind of snug back here.” Al pointed the tiny light down the aisle, showing the scant distance between the grill and the fryers. “I’m surprised Merv can fit.”
The kitchen was laid out like a long hallway, to allow for maximum customer space in the dining area. Oven, cooler, sink, storage, and finally a tiny desk at the end. Above the desk was a filthy window that they never opened; it led to the alley and their Dumpster, along with its accompanying smells.
Besides being the owner, Merv was the cook, and he didn’t put anything on the menu that he didn’t personally enjoy. As a result, Merv weighed well over three hundred pounds. It was a pretty tight squeeze. The darkness made the space seem even smaller, and Fran fought to keep her breathing under control. Thinking about her breathing made it worse, and she felt her palms go clammy and her chest tighten up.
Panic attack. Since the accident Fran had been having them on a weekly basis. The symptoms—hyperventilating, increased heartbeat, sweating, shaking—were trivial on their own but contributed to an overwhelming psychological response. During an episode, Fran felt as if she were dying.
She’d tried psychotherapy, medications, relaxation techniques, but nothing helped. When the attack came, it took over no matter what she was doing. Yet another reason she didn’t date. How awkward would it be during sex if she suddenly froze up and began to cry in terror?
Fran forced herself to talk, but it came out croaky. “The candles should be on one of the racks here.”
She took the last six steps to the storage area at a jog, her hands reaching out for the wire shelving. Fran looked past the large cans of tomato paste, past the containers of pasta, and shifted a box of paper napkins to reach for the candles.
Then the flashlight went out.
The darkness hit her like a slap. She uttered a small yelp, then gripped the steel support bars on the shelving unit and waited for Al to put the light back on.
Five seconds passed. Ten.
“Al?”
Fran’s voice was so faint she could barely hear it herself. She cleared her throat and tried again.
“Al? Did you drop the flashlight?”
A shuffling sound, from Al’s direction. Was he teasing her? If so, it wasn’t funny. The whole town knew about her tragedy. Al couldn’t possibly be that cruel.
The silence stretched. Fran heard scratching, like claws on the tile floor.
“Al?”
The power in her voice was surprising, considering how scared she was. But Al didn’t answer.
Fran went over some scenarios. Maybe he just dropped his keys. The keychain light probably worked by keeping pressure on the button. But Fran hadn’t heard the jingle of keys hitting the floor. The batteries? If they’d died, why wasn’t Al answering? Had he suddenly gone deaf?
Perhaps he’d fallen. Or had a heart attack. Or a stroke. That made more sense than Al playing games. Fran probably needed to get to him, to help him. He might be dying.
Fran tried to let go of the shelf, but her hands wouldn’t open. The bones in her legs turned into rubber, and she had a hard time keeping her balance.
Then the flashlight came back on.
A sound escaped Fran’s mouth that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. She squinted at the light, roughly ten feet away from her, and it brought her more pure joy than she’d felt as a child on Christmas morning.
“Al, what—”
The light went off again. Fran waited for an explanation, an apology.
None came.
“Al?” she squeaked.
He didn’t answe
r. And once again the darkness pressed down on Fran, suffocating her, making her feel trapped and alone and without any hope. Her breath came faster, shallower, and she felt the blood leaching out of her head, the edges of unconsciousness closing in.
And then the flashlight was on.
Then off.
Then on.
Off.
On.
What the hell was Al doing? The light hovered at chest level, so he hadn’t fallen. But he wasn’t making any attempt to come closer, wasn’t speaking, wasn’t doing anything but pointing the beam at her face.
Then the light began to move.
Off of her face. To the freezer. To the sink. To the dish rack. Slow, like a spotlight following an actor.
Then to the oven. Over to the fryer, lingering there.
And finally down to the floor, where Al lay on his stomach, one hand clutching the spurting slash in his neck, the other clawing at the tiles, trying to crawl through the growing puddle of his own blood.
The light went out again.
It was never a good time to have a panic attack. But in an actual situation that called for panic, or required immediate action, it was deadly. Fran had gone from hyperventilating to being unable to draw a breath. Her head pounded, and her lungs screamed, and her entire body became jelly except for her death grip on the shelving.
Fran knew about fear. She knew its power to incapacitate. She knew it affected a person physically, mentally, and emotionally and that it became so overwhelming it pushed away all thoughts other than survival. But in some cases fear didn’t precipitate fight or flight. Instead it induced the deer-in-the-headlights response. True fear could be an out-of-body experience, watching what was happening to you, yet unable to do anything about it.
Fran could picture herself in the darkness. She saw the terrified expression on her face, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. She saw her knees quiver and her shoulders shake. She saw the tears welling up, tears she couldn’t blink away because she was too afraid to even blink.
Then she heard a footstep on the tile floor.
Then another.
Whoever did that to Al was coming for her.
Fran gasped, managing to get some air into her lungs.
The light went on, focusing on Al. A black boot stepped on his neck, pinning his face to the floor, making the blood squirt from the wound in his throat. Then a hand in a black glove reached down to him—a hand holding a knife.
Fran couldn’t close her eyes, couldn’t turn away, as the knife went to work on Al.
When Al finally stopped moving, the light went off again.
The silence that followed was the loudest thing Fran had ever heard. Louder than the three hours she spent upside down in the car, her husband Charles dead in the driver’s seat beside her, hanging by his seat belt, his blood dripping onto her face—plop, plop, plop …
Something hit Fran in the chest, bringing her back to the present, making her flinch. It clung to her shirt. Warm and wet, like a towel. What was it? What had he thrown at her?
She shook her shoulders, but it didn’t move. Fran needed to let go of the shelf, needed to release her hands so she could knock off whatever—
The flashlight came on, pointing at her. Fran looked at her chest and saw something red and rubbery and shredded hanging there. Something wearing Al’s walrus mustache.
And then the light went off.
Fran screamed. She screamed and screamed and then her paralysis broke and her hands opened up and she batted Al’s face off herself, arms flailing out as if she were being attacked by a swarm of bees.
After five seconds of pure, explosive panic, Fran froze, the cry dying in her throat, her hands stretched out into the darkness surrounding her.
Another footstep.
Then a low chuckle.
Strangely, Fran no longer thought of herself or the horror of what was happening. Instead, she thought of Duncan. Her son was a miniature version of Charles, except he had Fran’s pale blue eyes—so pale they looked like ice. He had just turned ten, an age when it really wasn’t cool to hang out with Mom anymore. But Duncan still tolerated her attempts at playing catch and her lame efforts at video games. He even allowed her to pick the movies they saw together, occasionally sitting through something more serious than a Jim Carrey comedy.
She thought of the walks they took when he was younger, and the family vacations they’d gone on when Duncan’s father was still alive, and the day he was born, after sixteen grueling hours of labor, and how holding him for the first time made her cry with unrestrained joy. She thought of his teenage years, just around the corner, which he’d have to face without any parents if she died.
Fran couldn’t let that happen.
Reaching behind her, Fran felt along the shelves, her hands clasping around a five-pound can of tomato paste. She raised it over her head and waited.
The flashlight came on again, less than five feet away from her.
Fran threw the can as hard as she could. She didn’t wait to find out if she’d hit the killer or see what damage she’d done. She was already running away from him, climbing on the desk, seeking the window to the alley.
Her fingers met cool glass, covered in a film of grease and dirt and cobwebs. She found the latch, tried to turn it.
Painted over. Wouldn’t budge.
Frantic, she reached around on the desktop, found the phone, and cracked it hard against the window.
Glass shattered, letting in cool night air and the pungent smell of garbage. The window was small, and shards still jutted from the pane, but Fran forced her upper body into the hole. Her hair snagged, but she pushed forward, scooting her chest through the opening as glass cut at her palms and elbows. Then her hands touched the brick on the outside of the building, and she was dragging her hips out, thinking that she’d actually made it, thinking she’d actually gotten away, and her fear transformed into a crazy, almost hysterical sense of relief.
That’s when the killer grabbed her ankle.
• • •
Sheriff Ace Streng fired twice at the figure coming up the stairs, the muzzle flashes illuminating something black and enormous. The bullets didn’t slow it down, so Streng ran left, to the door on the other side of the hall.
A spare bedroom, unlit, with a musty odor that indicated it hadn’t been used in a while. Streng found the window, hurried to it, and fumbled for the lock.
He chanced a look behind him, saw the figure filling the doorway. A sharp, unpleasant smell filled the room, like cigarettes and body odor. Streng aimed and squeezed off three more shots. The thing didn’t fall. He turned his attention back to the window, jerked it open, and went face-first out onto the roof. It was steeper than he guessed, and he slipped onto his back and began to skid, the flashlight slipping from his hand and clattering down the incline, winking out when it went over the edge.
Streng spread out his arms, tried to keep from falling. His knuckles scraped against the cold, rough shingles, the skin tearing. He reflexively opened his hand, letting go of the .45, hearing it skitter to a stop above him while he kept sliding down, his momentum picking up.
The trees obscured the moon and stars, and Streng’s eyes couldn’t penetrate the inky night. But he knew there wasn’t much roof left, and if he went over at this speed he’d break his leg. Or his neck.
The sheriff turned onto his side as he slid, and then onto his belly, arms and legs outstretched, toes fighting for purchase. He began to slow down, and then his feet hit the gutter, dug into it, abruptly stopping his descent.
Streng didn’t have time to be relieved. He strained his eyes against the darkness, trying to see the ground beneath him.
All he saw was black. How far could it be? Ten feet? Fifteen? The ground would be hard from the cool weather, and there was the chance he’d land on a rock, or worse.
A cracking sound, then a crash. Streng was peppered with glass and bits of wood, and he could feel the whole house thump. Whatever was chasing him was on the
roof.
Streng now had no choice. He guessed the man in Sal’s room was already making his way down the stairs, gun ready, and the steady thump thump thump of that thing’s footsteps was closing in fast. Streng swung his legs out over the edge, letting them dangle in the darkness. He gripped the gutter, not expecting it to support his weight, but maybe it would slow him down a bit as it broke.
Without dwelling on it, Streng scooted off the rooftop, ankles tight together, knees bent. The gutter held for a second, then the aluminum split. Streng lost his grip and fell.
He hit faster than expected, and then the ground slipped out from under him in an unnerving way, causing him to pitch forward and fall again, his hands unable to stop his chin from cracking against the dirt.
Streng’s vision lit up, sparkling motes swirling before him, and his jaw ached like he’d been hit with a bat. He reached around, felt the loose pieces of wood surrounding him, and realized he’d landed on Sal’s firewood cord, stacked up against the house for winter burning.
Streng forced himself to his hands and knees, spat out the blood that was filling his mouth, and tried to get his bearings. He was in the back of the house. The Jeep was parked on the side.
Streng ran for the car.
Aging, Streng often mused while lying in bed at night unable to sleep, is the body’s deliberate and systematic betrayal of the soul. First the appearance withered, gray hair replacing brown in every place hair grew and even a few where it had never grown before. Wrinkles began at the eyes and mouth, then sent out tributaries to the forehead, cheeks, neck, hands. Everything sagged, including memory. And then when self-esteem was something you could find only in old pictures, the aches and pains ensued. Eye strain. Arthritis. Insomnia. Constipation. Shin splints. Bad back. Receding gums. Poor appetite. Impotence. The heart and lungs and kidneys and prostate and liver and colon and bladder all sputtered like a car low on gas. And then the indignity of disrobing before a doctor one-third your age, only to be told that this is the just the aging process, completely natural, nothing can be done.
