Phobias

by Ryan Horvath

  Miedo stepped stealthily over to where he had his equipment: various monitors, a pair of keyboards, and a trio of CPUs. With a quick entry, he logged into his system. Another entry sent loud music at Heather. She shrieked and bucked in her suspended state. A few seconds later, Calvin also let out a sad, frustrated and agonized groan.

  The sounds of the captives made Miedo grin widely.

  He went back and collected his insurance policy. He brought it inside and dragged it to a different area while the girl who had been his patient continued to cry and thrash. When he had the policy where he wanted it, which was in an uncomfortable wooden chair, he cut the extension cords. When the insurance policy, which was really another human captive, was free of the cords, Miedo set to work freeing her of her clothing. That was the way he was doing things now. When he was finished, he tied her to the chair with thick wire that bit into the flesh around her wrists and ankles.

  Miedo snapped a picture of his insurance policy and sent it to one is his secure servers. He downloaded the photo and added some text to it. When he was satisfied with the final image, he nodded slightly. He sent the image to one of his anonymous phones and then forwarded it to the only one in the group he knew it would do any good to send it to. The drunk ex-cop was in for a surprise.

  He left his policy and went back to where the other two captives were. When he got back to the football player, he discovered the boy was apparently enjoying whatever was happening to him in his nightmare world. Miedo chucked at how fear can be incredibly arousing as well as debilitating and terrifying. He admired Calvin’s physical form and thought it was a shame what was to become of the young man. But the phobic was weak. And the phobic would die.

  Miedo went over to Heather and watched her struggle in vain to get down from her aerial prison. From the shadows, he looked happy.

  He left Heather and went to the far exterior wall of the building. He scanned the area until he found what he was looking for. A black wire. He followed the wire until he came to the first of many devices. The device was an elaborate receiver that, in this case, would receive a signal and transmit it into the detonating device it was attached to. Attached to the detonator was a ridiculous amount of plastic explosive. Miedo switched the receiver on. He followed more wire until he found a second, third, and fourth device. He switched all of them on and, before long, had all of the additional devices in the building turned on.

  He went back to his computers and sat down.

  Miedo smiled and his upper body waved back and forth happily.

  ~~21~~

  Tim wasn’t sure what time it was, but he guessed it had to be close to two o’clock in the morning. He was starting to get tired and the fast food he dumped into his stomach earlier wasn’t helping. He approached Heather’s house and saw a light on in both the lower and upper levels. Both of the parents must be awake. Tim had gone out of his way to not meet them while he and Heather were involved with one another, and he certainly didn’t want to meet them now. That meant that Tim would have to wait. Of course he would. Tim wasn’t stupid. Sure, he had sex with an underage girl who also happened to be a student, but Tim wasn’t stupid. Yes, he allowed himself to be duped and set up by a killer he had neither a name nor a face for, but Tim wasn’t stupid. And, of course, he was about to break into someone’s house while they were home and while he was a fugitive, but, no, Tim wasn’t stupid at all.

  Heather’s house was on the border of Minneapolis and Robbinsdale and just a block west of the parkway. It was a quiet neighborhood where, once upon a time, nothing bad ever happened. Tim knew Heather had been taken from here though and probably most of the neighbors did as well, so he made sure to stick to the shadows, which wasn’t hard, given that there was still ample tree coverage in this area after a recent tornado 2011. Keeping under cover was even easier because Heather’s house was on the end of a street that butted up to a park and was separated by a line of dense shrubbery.

  Tim watched the house and waited.

  Tim saw Heather’s father. The man was adding worry lines to his face and drinking shots of some type of brown liquor. Pangs of guilt washed over Tim and he had to resist the urge to march straight to the front door, pound on it, and confess everything to the father. But he knew he couldn’t do that. All that mattered was getting Heather out of the hell she was unquestionably in.

  After ten minutes and the father’s third shot, the light upstairs went out. The window up there had its curtain drawn, so Tim was unable to see what Heather’s mom might be doing to medicate herself against the anxiety she must be feeling.

  Tim muttered words of encouragement for husband to join wife while he continued to watch the father. The more Tim stood waiting, the more exposed he felt. Twenty minutes passed and Tim saw that Heather’s father must have reached a point where he had enough. Through the window, Tim saw the man’s head drooped once, then twice before he made one last effort to snap-to. He was successful and shuffled out of the kitchen, turning the light off behind him. Tim shifted his eyes to the upstairs windows and he located the one for the bathroom he knew the parents shared. In a couple moments, that light came back on. Tim’s body shook with anticipation. He knew if Heather’s dad was anything like most men, he’d take a piss and brush his teeth before getting into bed, so Tim only had to wait a little longer. The father had to have drunk enough scotch or bourbon to make sure he’d be asleep within seconds of hitting the pillow.

  When the bathroom light went out, Tim waited an additional five minutes, give or take a few seconds, and moved toward the back door.

  At the back door, he paused and looked in the garden area along the sidewalk. There was a well-disguised fake rock there and Tim knew there was a key to the back door hidden inside it. He knew this because, when he and Heather were together, she told him where to find the key in case he ever got the urge to sneak in late at night and have her while her parents slept two rooms away.

  Tim had never been that foolish but, as he quietly let himself inside, he remembered the one and only time he’d been in the house before. Heather told him her parents were out of town but that could have been a lie. She could really turn on the seductive charm when she wanted to and that day had been one of her best. Tim approached her house from the park side of the shrubs and worked his way through them. He found Heather in the backyard. It was a private yard so she knew no one but Tim would see her, but that didn’t prepare Tim for what she did. She was wearing a tight, white, next-to-see-through shirt and her very visible nipples poked at the thin fabric. She also had on a mini-skirt which she seized the hem of. With a beckoning look of a temptress, she raised the front of the skirt and Tim saw she wore no panties. Not only that, she was completely shaved between her legs. Without lowering the skirt, she spoke a very carnal phrase that called to Tim like a siren song and he moved toward her. He took her in the back yard, the kitchen, her bedroom, and even in her parent’s bed. And even though she insisted he keep the condom on, which he had no problem with since he didn’t want any kids, that didn’t stop them from getting pretty raunchy. It was the first time Tim ever took a woman in the rear and the first time he’d ever had a finger stuck up his own ass which Heather did during one of his climaxes. Their intercourse had been intense and primal that day and Tim always believed the fear factor largely fueled that.

  But now, Tim was afraid for an entirely different reason.

  And now that he was actually in the house, he wasn’t sure where to begin.

  He spied a calendar hanging on the refrigerator. As he approached it, he saw it was heavily written on. He carefully pulled the magnet off and looked at the previous month. He scanned everything there but it all looked to be stuff Heather’s mom probably did. There was no record of anything Heather might have done on that month or the one prior.

  Tim put the calendar back, being cautious to put it in as close to the same position as he could. He glanced around the kitchen walls. Among the décor, Tim noticed no signs of any religious influence
. And people who had a strong sense of faith in this part of the country generally displayed it in some way in the kitchen, living, family, and bed rooms. He slipped into the living room next. Sweat formed on his brow almost immediately, not because the temperature changed, but because he’d moved deeper into the residence and the risk factor increased. In the living room, he also saw no crucifixes, pictures of Jesus, or the telltale Bible on the coffee or end table. He surmised the family was not practicing any kind of religion. Tim ruled out a member of the clergy as the one Heather had confided in.

  Not a priest and not a close friend at school meant it was most likely some kind of professional. Tim knew that involved money changing hands.

  He worked his way farther into the house until he came upon the room Heather had told him was her dad’s man cave. Half of the room fit that description with the well-worn sofa, forty-two inch flat screen TV, and the framed picture of Randy Moss on the wall. But the other half was an office. Tim saw important-looking papers on the desk in the office side of the room when he glanced at this space the time before and there were different important-looking papers on the desk now. Tim went to them and snatched them up. The pages rustled as he lifted them. Tim had difficulty seeing what was on the papers so he leaned toward the window and the bit of moonlight that shone in. He shuffled through the stack of papers quickly but they were mostly utility bills along with a mortgage statement. Tim went to put the papers back on the desk. From this point of view, he spied something he recognized. A checkbook sat near the edge of the desk. Tim dropped the bills on the desk and grabbed the checkbook. He didn’t care about the checks, but the register was something he was interested in. Tim himself, having been brought up in a world where computers did most everything, never wrote things in the check register and, in fact, wrote checks so seldom, he often had trouble remembering the last place he put his checkbook when he needed it. But Heather’s parents were a generation older than Tim. They probably kept the register current and made sure they balanced with the bank every month. Tim opened the small booklet and saw it was heavily used. He started to scan the lines.

  “Who the FUCK are you?!” a drunken voice boomed.

  Tim was startled so badly that he felt his heart skip a beat. Heather’s father was standing at the door to the man cave. Well, standing wasn’t the best word. He was wavering and his eyes weren’t the most focused. And the guy was naked too. Tim guessed he must have come down for a glass of water or maybe couldn’t get to sleep and came down for more scotch, but Heather’s father wasn’t holding a glass in his hand.

  He was holding a gun.

  “I said… who… fuck are you?” he slurred. The gun shook in his hand. “You the fuck… took… my little girl?” Tears leaked out of his eyes.

  Tim knew the shot wasn’t going to be good, if a shot came. Heather’s dad would miss any vitals, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hit a shoulder, knee cap, or his joke of a penis. Not only that, Tim was trapped. He’d have to get past the naked father to escape the house. Tim was slightly bigger than he but Heather’s dad was definitely in great shape for a man in his forties. Tim had sobriety on his side, but he was also nearing exhaustion. Even his adrenaline wasn’t pouring out at the sight of the gun. And Heather’s dad was drunk. Tim knew a drunk could fight for a long time.

  “Please,” Tim said calmly. “I don’t want any trouble. I think I just came into… the… the wrong house by accident,” he lied hoping to convince the drunk man that he wasn’t a threat.

  “Bull shit!” Heather’s father spat. “I’ll kill you if you don’t give her back to me! Wrong house, my ass, mother fucker. Wrong house and right for my fucking checkbook! First my kid and now my money. Eat shit!”

  Tim saw wildfire in the man’s eyes growing to a breaking point.

  Heather’s dad started shooting.

  Tim leapt backward as he heard a bullet zing by his shoulder. He hit something behind him as another bullet hit the wall next to him. A quick look to the side and he saw he banged against the window sill. Another shot and the glass above him broke.

  The drunk, naked father screamed obscenities while he fired.

  Tim quickly turned and did the only thing he could think of. He threw himself into the glass and, in its weakened state, it gave way pretty easily. He crashed through into the night as another bullet came so close, it nicked his ear and sent a stinging pain into his head.

  Fortunately for Tim, the room was on the main floor of the house and he didn’t have a fall to contend with. He rolled out onto the lawn and quickly got to his feet. He ran as fast as he could for the shrubs and the cover they might provide him. More gunfire went off behind him, but he escaped any more injuries.

  Tim made it into the park and wanted to stop to catch his breath, but he couldn’t. He knew Heather’s dad or maybe her mom would have already called the police by now. Soon this park would be crawling with cops, so Tim had no choice but the keep moving.

  On the plus side, the risk of going into that house might have paid off. He looked at what was firmly in his hand.

  He made it out of there with the checkbook.

  He grumbled that it better be worth it.

  ~~22~~

  “As much as I hate to do it,” Terry began after the paramedics were finished with him and the cops had raced off to the next scene. A SHOTS FIRED call came over about a house on the parkway and the boys in black and blue couldn’t get away fast enough. “I think we need to split up,” he went on. “There’s too much going on here to be handled by a four-man team. Er- a three-man and one-woman team, I mean.” He looked at Holly apologetically and she smiled and waved a dismissive hand. “Now since the kid’s mom would kill me if I let Walt out of my sight, he and I are together. We’re gonna go back and check out the coach’s place again and probably your place too.” He looked at Chad this time and pointed. His eyes hadn’t quite landed on the former cop when he mentioned Walt’s mom, so he didn’t see Chad flinch at those words. His gaze alternated between Chad and Holly. “And you two are going to see what you can dig up on the head doctor.” He returned his eyes to just Chad. “Think you can put your cop hat back on for a while?”

  Chad reluctantly nodded his agreement. Holly raised no objections and Walt was as eager as ever to get his friend back. Terry put them all back in his car and drove to the doctor’s small house when Chad and Holly said they’d be in touch and got out of the car.

  As Walt moved to the shotgun seat and they watched Chad and Holly slowly approach the house, Chad was pestered by the idea that the next time the four of them were together again was going to be anything but a pleasant reunion.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  “Can you tell me about Calvin’s phobias?” Terry asked as they slowly worked their way to Tim Rock’s residence/crime scene.

  “He probably wouldn’t want me to,” Walt answered. He paused for a moment. “You know, it’s so fucking weird how this happens to people. Cal was fine one day, then the next, his dad dies. Not long after, he develops all these phobias. And when you look at him, it’s hard to believe he’s afraid of anything.”

  “There’s fear in all of us,” Terry reminded.

  “I know that,” Walt returned. “But for Calvin, it’s different. His dreams scare the shit out of him. And he can’t stand being alone or in the dark. Can you imagine what every night must be like for him?”

  Terry mulled over the thought of trying to get the simple daily requirement of sleep if you were terrified of things associated with it. He shuddered and shook his head. “No. I guess I can’t imagine that,” he said.

  “Cal and I spent a few overnights together. Not as often as the girls at school do it, but sure, we’d be studying, or watching a movie or game and one of us would get too tired to ride the bike back home so we’d crash together,” Walt went on. “Those nights, when Calvin knew he wasn’t going to be alone in his room, well, you shoulda seen the relief on his face. He still needed to leave a lamp on and still needed a dose of his dr
eam drugs, but just not being alone… It made a huge difference for Cal.”

  “Was he always up front with you about his phobias?” Terry asked.

  “It took him a while to open up, but he got there. I think only me, his mom, and the doc who gave him the scrip for the dream drugs knew about all of it,” Walt answered.

  “You’re a good friend for sticking with him,” Terry said. He liked Walt and he meant it.

  “I’d never let Calvin twist in the wind. He’d do the same for me… as best he could. That’s why I wanna get him back in one piece,” Walt said.

  “We’re going to do just that,” Terry assured. Fortunately, only he noticed the lack of confidence in his voice.

  They rode quietly the next few blocks until they arrived at Tim Rock’s house.

  Out of the car, Terry paced the pedestrian sidewalk and noticed there was still a forensics van parked in the driveway and lights on in the back of the small house.

  “Let’s go inside,” Terry said to Walt. “Remember, don’t touch anything.”

  “You got it,” Walt said and gave a salute. In spite of the grimness of this whole situation, Walt was really enjoying the investigative aspect and here was his first chance to see a crime scene first hand.

  They went to the back door, Terry adjusted his badge so it was easily visible to the techs inside, and they went in the house. One of the techs was right inside the door and kneeling on the floor near the small kitchen table. She looked up at Terry and gave him a nod.

  “How’s it going in here?” Terry asked her. The tech turned to face him and he saw her name strip identified her as “Hardy.”