I’m too late, he must be trapped in the fire. I need to get out of here. NOW. I’m sorry, Hiromi. I’m so sorry.
Arnesto passed by the master bedroom and the garage but then remembered that one detail: Hiromi hadn’t been burned. He had died from smoke inhalation, so where was he?!
Of course. Arnesto crawled as fast as he could into the master bedroom, went past the bed, and found the doorway leading to the master bathroom.
Now it was his turn to grab an ankle.
Hiromi lay face down unconscious on the floor. Arnesto yelled and shook Hiromi’s leg, but there was no response. His friend badly needed oxygen, but if he gave him his mask, there might be two dead bodies instead of one.
Arnesto found Hiromi’s other ankle, then taking one in each hand, started dragging Hiromi out. He quickly reached the hallway and heard the crackling all around him — the fire was on top of them. He could also make out the sounds of muffled yelling for a moment before the sound of an unleashing firehose at the other end of the house drowned them out.
Staying low, Arnesto dragged Hiromi down the hallway, bumping into the walls along the way.
At last, they made it out of the house into the yard. Arnesto flipped Hiromi over, grabbed him by the wrists, and pulled him another thirty feet. He then took the mask off and put it on Hiromi as he knelt down beside him.
“Is there anybody else in there?!” a firefighter yelled at Arnesto.
“No, but this guy needs help!”
“Alright, we’ve got him,” the firefighter said, waving someone over. Arnesto got up and started walking toward the street. The firefighter saw this and asked, “Where are you going? You might be hurt, we need to take a look at you.”
“I’m just going to my car,” Arnesto said, which was technically true, although he had no intention of returning.
He felt like a zombie as he drove home. Any relief about the mission being over was offset by the fact that it was such a spectacular failure. He stepped into the bathroom and had a momentary shock at the blackened ghoul staring back at him in the mirror. There was a clear line on his face showing where the mask had been. He instinctively reached for the faucet but knocked over his deodorant. He picked it up and put it down a little too hastily and it fell over again. This time he grabbed it and threw it at the bathroom wall so hard it broke into pieces, leaving a nice glob of deodorant on the wall, right next to a fresh dent. “FUCK!” he screamed.
Arnesto took a few deep breaths, coughing as he did so, then began washing his face. Realizing he needed a shower anyway, he stripped and put his smoky clothes in a garbage bag which he placed on the washer. He then jumped in the shower and stood under the water cursing himself.
***
“Did you hear what happened to Hiromi?” Kabir asked from the right side of Arnesto’s couch, his thumbs rapidly hitting the buttons on the controller as their virtual squid attacked one another. This was the moment Arnesto had been dreading all week. Arnesto briefly looked at Kabir, who continued, “His house burned down.”
“Did they…?”
“They both made it out.”
Holy shit, he’s alive! Oh my god, I can’t believe it. I did it, Hiromi’s alive! Arnesto struggled to maintain his composure. “Well, that’s a huge relief.”
“They said he was deprived of oxygen too long, though. He’s got some brain damage.”
No no no! Now Arnesto struggled to hide having the wind knocked out of him. “How bad is it?”
“He’s lost some motor control and his speech is slurred somewhat. They don’t know if he’ll ever recover. He’s still himself, though, minus the Elvis impersonations. He was joking around when I went to see him.”
“Well, that’s something,” Arnesto said as his squid died, giving Kabir another point. He hit “Retry” and they continued their battle.
“Yeah. Oh, and this is kind of funny, but he has rug burns on his face. I guess some idiot fireman dragged him out face down by his feet. I took a selfie with him; if you want to pause, I can show you.”
“No, that’s okay.”
Pattern of Abuse
Arnesto's Apartment
Silicon Valley, California
Friday, September 21, 2012
Late Evening
Paige’s favorite thing in the world was music. She kept droning on about it in the dating site’s chat window.
Arnesto didn’t mind. It made her happy and want to be with him. He knew if he could repeat history, he and Paige would go out a few times, have a fun little fling, then she would realize how little they had in common and end it. No harm, no foul.
Almost no foul.
Paige commented on another pop star, talking about how much she liked her latest album. Unlike most of the names she mentioned, he had actually heard of this one, though all he knew was that this rich, famous, talented singer had gone back to her dickwad boyfriend, the one who had beaten the crap out of her a few weeks earlier.
His all-too-quick programmer fingers typed back, “Now there’s a woman you know you can hit and get away with it.” It was a lame joke and he felt bad. He felt even worse when he realized he had made the same joke in his previous life. Then he remembered what was coming next.
He began typing an apology, but this time, his fingers weren’t fast enough. Her reply was already in the chat window. She politely told him that having been a victim of abuse herself, she didn’t appreciate his comment and would he please not joke about it again. He agreed and apologized.
While he cursed himself for repeating his mistake, they returned to happier topics.
Still, he couldn’t help but think something was about to go horribly wrong. Someone was about to be abused to the point where it would change their life forever.
He focused on Paige’s profile pictures. Nothing. He reread her entire profile, blabbering on and on about this or that band. Still nothing. He felt sure they would have a fling, she would end it, and he would never hear from or about her again.
Maybe it wasn’t her.
He typed in a response to let her know he was still paying attention, then opened the website again in a new tab which he dragged to his second monitor. There he went through all the women he could find: his matches, women whose profiles he had previously viewed, women who had previously viewed his profile (a much smaller list), every conversation. He felt sure the victim was a woman he had met through a dating site.
But she wasn’t on this one. Or maybe she was and had hidden or disabled her profile by now. He had certainly altered the timeline enough. It was quite possible she had only been online a short while and he had been so busy changing the universe that he missed his window.
He and the victim hadn’t had a long-term relationship, or he would have remembered her. Yet somehow he felt he had dated her and seen her again after they realized it wasn’t going to work out. But where? He must have… run into her? Downtown? No, outside downtown. On a walk…
Many walks! The remaining puzzle pieces fell into place in an instant. And the final picture was awful.
Her name was Angela. They had indeed met online and gone out a couple times. For whatever reason, the spark wasn’t there, so they didn’t pursue the relationship any further.
Several months after that, Arnesto had signed on to work for a company called Super Rad Gamez on a project called OMG Totally Fashion! It wasn’t a game he could brag about having worked on, but, ridiculous names aside, it was a good company. It was the first game company he worked for that had both competitive salaries and didn’t force its employees into frequent hundred-hour work weeks during crunch mode. He always had one or the other, but never both at the same time. However, soon after Arnesto started there, the company had shut its doors. Knowing this and still enjoying retirement, Arnesto had decided it wasn’t worth working for them in this lifetime.
But in his former life, while he had been there, the company had a group of around a half-dozen people who liked to take brisk walks at lunch. He joined them s
ometimes on their strolls through the park downtown. It was often during these times on their way back that they encountered another group from a different company — the one where Angela worked.
She had always been warm and friendly when they had passed each other. Sometimes they had smiled and waved; sometimes they had exchanged brief pleasantries. Even though that was the extent of it, she had eventually friended him on Facebook.
It was there that he had learned of her murder.
For him, it had started in the morning — the morning after the conversation he was now having with Paige. He had checked his Facebook page and saw that someone had posted a cryptic message on her wall. “I’m so sorry, Angela!” it read. At the time, Arnesto had thought little of it.
But when he checked again that night, he realized something horrible had happened. He saw more posts on her wall, dozens of them, all saying basically the same thing, how sorry they were. He finally found a post that told of the man who killed her.
The man had spent time in the psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane, it was discovered after the fact. He had gone through the system and gotten better, but then when he was released, he stopped taking the meds that kept him stable.
He and Angela went out a few times, but she wasn’t interested and called it off, at which point he became her stalker. He showed up at her place uninvited asking her to take him back. When she threatened to call the police, he went to his car, grabbed his gun, went back to her house, kicked in the door, and shot her. Then he drove himself to a rest area and shot himself.
Arnesto’s mind back in the present, he knew he had precious little time to act.
He apologetically ended his chat with Paige and then tried to remember whatever he could about Angela, or more specifically, where she lived. Her house was… dark blue? There was a rickety wooden fence on one side… or on both sides? He googled her and found several links, but nothing with her address or phone number on it. Only a work email, which, it being a Friday night, she probably wouldn’t check until it was too late anyway. He would save that as a last resort.
He also scoured a map of the city. She lived in a small, confusing neighborhood near both the river and the railroad tracks. He had had trouble finding it back when Angela had given him the address and directions. It would be a greater challenge now. He grabbed a couple caffeinated power bars and a water bottle and headed out.
The neighborhood was still confusing, but smaller than he remembered; it only took him a few minutes more to find her place than it had the last time.
Amazing, I’m actually early for once.
Arnesto slowly drove by the house. The lights were out, but he could make out a flicker through one of the windows. He found a place to park around the corner where he could make out her driveway through the trees. After going over in his mind one last time what he wanted to say to her, he took a deep breath and got out of the car. He felt like a creeper as he walked through the poorly lit neighborhood, but he still made it to her front door and knocked.
The door opened, but instead of Angela standing there, it was a twelve-year-old boy with long hair — Angela’s son, William. He looked up at Arnesto expectantly but didn’t say anything.
“Hi, is your mom home?” Arnesto asked.
William shook his head. “She’s at karate,” he said.
“Do you know what time she’ll be back?”
“Soon. I have to go, my show’s on,” William said, shutting the door.
“Wait,” Arnesto said, but it was too late.
Now what? Do I try again? Do I tell him to warn her? He might not even know anything about her relationship with that crazy guy. Arnesto decided it was best to leave the kid out of it, and he walked back to his car.
He sat in his car and wondered: What time were things supposed to go horribly wrong? What would her reaction be when he told her she was in danger? Did his interaction with William throw a new wrinkle into the situation? Wait a minute, if she was at karate, maybe he could try to find her dojo and meet her there as she was leaving. In fact, she might be more willing to listen to a stranger in a public place surrounded by her martial arts friends than outside her own front door.
He picked up his phone to search for local karate studios when he saw headlights ahead. It was Angela pulling into her driveway.
He got out of the car and hustled over, but by the time he reached the end of her driveway, she was already inside. Again he knocked on her door. This time, she was the one who opened it.
“Yes?” Angela asked. It’s always an odd thing running into someone you used to know in a previous lifetime. He thought he detected a certain amount of fear in her eyes, but then, he was a strange man knocking on her door at night.
“Hi, Angela?” Arnesto asked in a soft voice, hoping William wouldn’t be able to hear. “I just need ten seconds to talk to you about a certain ex who may have been bothering you lately. May we speak privately?” He stepped back and gestured toward her driveway. He thought she was going to agree but saw her look past him.
“Angela? Who’s this?” asked the man walking up the driveway.
“Dale, what are you doing here? You can’t just show up at my place—”
“I said, ‘Who’s this?!’” Dale said, sizing up Arnesto as he approached at a pace that only added to Arnesto’s discomfort.
“Dale. This is my neighbor, Bob. I’m holding a package for him. Bob, come in,” Angela said. Arnesto felt a tug on his shirt and realized he was “Bob.” He stepped inside her home. “Give us a minute,” she said to Dale as she followed Arnesto inside, closing and locking the door behind her.
“Who are you and why do you want to talk to me about Dale?” she asked, looking Arnesto up and down before running off into a back room out of view.
“He’s crazy.”
“Duh,” came her voice from the back of the house.
“He’s off his meds, and he’s got a gun in the car. If he gets upset, he will not hesitate to grab it and come back and kill you.”
She reappeared, the fear in her eyes unmistakable. She paused for a second, then walked over and held out an empty box.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Your ‘package.’ Don’t let him see that it’s empty or that your name isn’t on it.” Arnesto wished he could think so well on his feet. She always was brilliant. “Dale’s a psycho, but he’s never gotten violent,” she clarified.
Arnesto tucked the box under his left arm with the top facing him so it would be concealed. “Not with you, yet. But he’s tried to kill an ex before and thankfully was unsuccessful. My car’s around the corner. Can we sneak out the back?”
“And go where?”
“Anywhere. The police station. We can call 911 on the way,” Arnesto said.
“I’m sorry, this is too weird,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, but I don’t know you. You’re not giving me any evidence, and you won’t even tell me your name.”
“I was trying not to get involved. I just want to keep you alive.”
“Angela!” Dale yelled from outside.
Angela grabbed Arnesto’s arm and turned him toward the door. “Thanks for the warning, but I can handle Dale. I promise I’ll call the police at the first hint of trouble.” She reached for the doorknob, but then Arnesto put his hand on the door.
“Wait, what does he drive?” She removed her hand and looked at him, wondering if she should tell him. “I want to get his license plate number. Just in case.”
“He drives a gray Honda Civic. I don’t know where he parked it. I didn’t see it as I drove in.”
Arnesto smiled. “Thank you. Good luck tonight. Do not underestimate him.” He opened the door and stepped out. He gave Dale a quick nod as he walked by, keeping eye contact to an absolute minimum. He didn’t hear anything as he walked down the driveway. Dale must have been waiting for him to leave.
He finally heard her door shut and turned around. Nobody was there.
She must have invited him inside. Goddamnit.
Arnesto walked back to his car and studied his map. He now had plenty of exit routes as well as a few possibilities for where Dale’s car might be. Sure enough, he found the car a few streets over. He then consulted the map again to find a spot to park his own car around the corner from Dale’s car. He grabbed a piece of string and a wire hanger he brought along for the occasion and walked back to the Civic. Then he walked around the car checking its locks and peering inside, but he didn’t see the gun.
Trying not to appear conspicuous, he fashioned a loop about halfway down the length of string then realized the car didn’t have the type of lock that would open with that trick. He pocketed the string, then unbent the hanger and with great effort, managed to get it inside over the top of the front passenger side window.
However, try as he might, he could not get the hanger to unlock the door. How long had he been at it now? Five minutes? Ten? Screw it, he didn’t have time for this.
He went back to his own car and opened the trunk, looking for something he could use. There didn’t appear to be much. Some remnants of kitty litter he spilled that one time, a first-aid kit, a blanket, an ice scraper left over from his Massachusetts days… Finally, he lifted the carpet at the bottom to reveal the spare tire underneath. Apparently, his car came with a tire iron.
He hid the tire iron up his sleeve and crept back to Dale’s car. There was still no sign of Dale or anybody else. He walked as nonchalantly as he could up to the passenger door, took the tire iron in his left hand and backhanded the window. It didn’t break. He tried again, harder. It still wasn’t enough. Tossing the tire iron to his right hand, he wound up and swung as hard as he could. Finally, the window shattered.
He didn’t even bother opening the door, instead going straight for the glove box. He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised to see it, but he flinched when he saw the gun sitting there on top of some papers. He carefully grabbed it by the handle, picked up the hanger which had fallen to the ground when he smashed the window, and hustled back to his car.
Arnesto Modesto: The World's Most Ineffectual Time Traveler Page 24
