ROGUE
Greg F. Gifune
First Edition
Rogue © 2014 by Greg F. Gifune
All Rights Reserved.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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OTHER BOOKS BY AUTHOR
The Bleeding Season
The Living and the Dead
Down To Sleep
Judas Goat
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For The Man From Another Place.
ROGUE:
A solitary animal of vicious character that has separated from the herd.
“What matters isn’t whether something is real. What matters is if it’s true.”
—Jane Mendelsohn, Innocence
CHAPTER ONE
The light through the trees, that’s what I remember most, that beautiful golden light. Like birth, I thought at the time, the start of something new, or perhaps the last memory of something old. Or just maybe, it was neither of those things, but a dream instead, a wonderful dream whispering what might be, what could be, what will be if only I’d believe.
And then just like that, I’m losing my mind. There are things in my head I can’t get out. Not memories exactly, but similar things that remind me I’m slowly slipping into madness. I’ve figured out how to hang on enough to function, to fake my way through things and appear as if I’m fine. Only I’m not fine. I’m nowhere near fine. Like a cocoon, it encompasses me, and the tighter it wraps itself around what’s left of me, the stronger it becomes. Despite my terror, and the terrible things nesting in my diseased brain, I’ve accepted the inevitable. I’m hanging on for dear life, but my grip is loosening. And there isn’t a goddamn thing I can do about it. So there’s no choice but to embrace the fall, because it’s coming. It’s coming with a vengeance.
Go ahead then. Take me.
And together, through eyes broken and bloodied, we’ll see…
Am I dreaming? The nightmares don’t stop anymore, so it’s hard to tell. They quiet down now and then, but they’re always here. Screeching in my head, the constant din echoes through my skull like the deafening clamor of giant invisible machines. Makes it difficult to tell where the world of shadows ends and reality begins.
Sometimes I wonder if there’s a difference anymore. Maybe there never was.
Winter is coming soon. The trees are long bare, the air is sharp and clean, and gray skies typical of the season have already arrived. The world often seems unnaturally, eerily still this time of year, as if in frozen anticipation of things inconceivably profound. Days are shorter, the nights longer and more imposing and laced with the same uneasy silence. But it’s the early morning hours, when it is neither day nor night but somewhere in between, that are particularly curious.
I step out onto my back deck, lean against the railing and sip my coffee. Bewildered, I find myself stranded in that strange chasm between restlessness and sleep, where conscious thought and unrestrained dreams are often indistinguishable. I’d been awakened by the distant though piercing and incessant wail of a car alarm, the same one that has awakened me several days in a row now. It comes from somewhere beyond our backyard. If one were to hop the fence and walk through the half mile or so of forest on the other side, one would eventually come out on a residential street far more populated than our quiet dead-end road, so it could’ve been coming from any number of vehicles. What is maddening is that it not only goes off each morning just before dawn, but after I roll out of bed, make my way downstairs, fix myself a cup of coffee and go out to the deck, it’s always still wailing in the distance. Then it stops. Suddenly, just as it began.
As I lean against the railing and sip my coffee, my eyes follow the sound of the alarm to the fence and the woods beyond. And it is then that I see someone sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs that encircle the stone fire pit in the backyard. My heart stops a moment as my mind syncs up with my eyes. Am I really seeing someone there or is it a trick of the slowly strengthening light? I straighten my stance and squint in an attempt to bring the person into better focus, as the fire pit is more than thirty yards away. This is no illusion. A young man sits on the edge of one of the chairs, his elbows propped on his thighs and his head buried in his hands. I stand there and watch him awhile, unsure of what to do next.
After a quick visual sweep of the yard, I’m satisfied that he and I are alone. I put my mug on the deck table and pull my hooded sweatshirt in tight around me against the chill. In sweatpants and slippers, I slowly cross the yard toward the stranger.
I’ve nearly reached him when it occurs to me I don’t even have a phone with me, and I regret not having called out to him from a greater distance before making my approach. I slow my pace and come to a stop on the far side of the fire pit. The man still hasn’t moved and doesn’t seem to know I’m there. I wonder, could I handle him physically if need be? Could I outrun him if I had to?
Finally, in a tone nonconfrontational but loud enough for him to hear me, I say: “Hello?”
The man slowly raises his head and looks over at me. He’s significantly younger than I am—probably early twenties—and wears an expression of utter torment the level of which I’ve rarely encountered. His dark eyes are cheerless, brooding, bloodshot and saddled with black bags, his skin pale and drawn, his face covered in stubble, and he looks disheveled in a ratty pair of jeans, worn boots and a sweatshirt beneath a badly weathered brown leather jacket. He stares at me as if he’s been waiting for me to arrive, but says nothing.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
He slowly shakes his head no.
I swallow hard but hope he hasn’t noticed. “Are you all right?”
The young man wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. He’s obviously been crying, and none-too-gently.
“Has something happened?” I ask when he doesn’t answer. “Can I help you in some way?”
“You think you can help me?” he asks, his voice a loud and raspy whisper.
“I don’t know if I can, but—”
“You don’t understand.”
“Look, I live here.” I clear my throat and stuff my hands in the pockets of my hoodie. “This is private property. I need to know why you’re in my yard. If you’re hurt or something’s wrong or you need some help, I can…call someone for you or…”
The man reaches into the side pocket of his leather jacket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Without looking at me, he stabs a cigarette between his lips, lights it, then exhales a stream of smoke at the fire pit. Though odd, there is nothing inherently intimidating about him, but he does have something of an edge to him. As another tear spills free and trickles the length of his face, he says, “There’s nothing you can do, Cam. There’s nothing anyone can do.”
The sound of my name changes everything. “Do I know you?”
With a heavy sigh, he struggles to his feet.
Instinctually, I take a step back and away from him, but I continue to study his face. I’m certain I don’t know this young man, have never seen or spoken to him before, and yet there’s something vaguely familiar about him. “How do you know my name?” I ask. “Do we know each other?”
He smokes his cigarette, taking one angry pull after another, but doesn’t answer.
“What are you doing back here?”
“I’m lost, I...”
Perhaps he’s a mental patient or some poor soul off his medication. But neither option explains how he knows my name.
“Have we met before?” I press. “How do you know my name?”
“I know you,” he says quietly, “but you don’t know me. Not yet.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t use the house phone. They’re watching you.”
Although I heard exactly what he said, I pretend I didn’t. “I’m sorry?”
“They’re watching you,” he says, grimacing, “through the phone.”
For some reason I feel compelled to look back over my shoulder at the house. It sits dark and quiet, offering nothing. Overhead, numerous phone wires run from the roof to a series of poles that lead back out to the street. I drive by or walk under them every day, and have done so for years. They’ve become so commonplace I rarely even notice them, yet now there seems something sinister and bizarre about them. How do objects that intrusive and unattractive ever manage to fade into the background?
“I don’t know what you—” I turn back to him. “Who’s watching me?”
“Something bad is going to happen.”
I feel my gut tighten. “Are you threatening me?”
Brimming with tears, his sad eyes find mine. “I’m trying to help you.”
Something deep within me insists I should believe him. “Who are you?”
The young man takes another drag on his cigarette, exhales through his nose, then flicks the butt into the fire pit. “I’m sorry. That’s who I am.”
He turns and walks toward the front yard. I call after him, ask him to wait and explain himself, but he acts as if he doesn’t hear me. When he reaches the front yard, and the gate in the fence he must pass through to exit the property, he hesitates and looks back at me a moment.
Then he slips out through the gate and is gone.
* * *
Ours is a dead-end and relatively private street, a dirt road cut through a patch of forest in the small town of Sumner, Massachusetts. Besides our own, a modest colonial, there are only two other houses on Forest View Lane, one on either side of us. The last house on the street, a split-level cape, belongs to Bruce Deacon, a retired firefighter and widower whose wife Margaret died from a sudden heart attack two years ago. Bruce is an alcoholic. The other house has sat empty for more than a year. It’s on the market, and now and then a real estate agent shows up with potential buyers and walks them through, but nothing ever comes of it.
A sudden tapping on the sliders behind me draws my attention away from the fence in the front yard. Remy stands on the other side of the slider looking at me quizzically, hair mussed and eyes still heavy with sleep. I cross the yard and return to the deck, scooping up my coffee as I pass by the table. “Morning,” I say, stepping back into the house. “Coffee’s on.”
“Chilly out there.” Remy hugs herself. “Why are you up so early?”
I close the slider. “That damn car alarm went off again.”
“How do I sleep through it every time? Why were you out by the fire pit?”
“No reason.” I don’t know why I lie to her just then, but I do. “Just wanted to get some air, was taking a walk around the yard.”
Remy rises up on her tiptoes, kisses me then shuffles off to the kitchen in her flannel pajamas, bright red numbers with little white penguins on them. An educated and strong woman, Remy can often be unconsciously childlike and vulnerable as well, a dichotomy I find not only fascinating, but often endearing.
Stifling a smile, I follow her into the kitchen. I stand there stupidly, staring at the wall phone as if I’ve seen a ghost.
Don’t use the house phone.
Remy pours herself some coffee. “You were restless last night,” she says softly.
They’re watching you through the phone.
“Tossing and turning,” she tells me, “that kind of thing.”
“Sorry, did I keep you up?” I drink my coffee, notice the backyard through the window over the sink. Everything suddenly looks so stark out there.
“Worried about you, that’s all. You kept moaning and groaning, sounded like you were in pain.”
I force a smile I hope she believes. “Bad dreams, I guess.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie again. “I started a new case yesterday. Read the file, looks like it’s going to be particularly unpleasant, and that’s saying something for my line of work.”
She gives my shoulder a pat and offers up her best reassuring-though-still-half-asleep morning smile. “I’m going to put the news on real quick, then I need to get in the shower.”
Like most people, Remy has no idea how I can do my job and remain sane. And like most people, she doesn’t realize I can do no such thing, because I see a particular strain of human beings (for lack of a better term) at their worst on a daily basis. The fact that I work exclusively with those who hurt others, and often specifically target and victimize women and children, makes it even more difficult to comprehend. It’s not unusual for me to discuss my cases with her, but I never do it in any detail, always using broad and general terms and glossing it over as best I can, as they’re always horrific. Thing is, you can polish a turd all you like. You can work it until you see your reflection in the sonofabitch if it makes you (or someone else) feel any better, but at the end of the day, it’s still a piece of shit. Maybe I do it to spare her, or maybe myself. Not sure it matters.
“Come on,” Remy says, motioning to the great room, “let’s go watch the news for a few, see what other wonderful things are happening across our lovely globe of endless peace and love.”
“I need a refill,” I say, holding my near-empty mug up as evidence. “Be right in.”
When she leaves me alone in the kitchen, I feel oddly relieved. She doesn’t know the troubles I’ve been having lately, not only in my personal life but also at work. I want to talk to her about it and have been trying to find a way and the right time to do so, but I’m afraid. And if whatever’s happening to me scares me, then surely it will absolutely terrify her. Talking and commiserating with each other about our jobs is something all couples do, but her position as an English teacher, while a tough gig with its own set of challenges, hardly presents comparable issues to the ones I see every day. For years she’s held the job at a private junior high school in a nearby town on Cape Cod, and while the pay isn’t great, she’s happy and fulfilled professionally, and that counts for something. Or it should. She’s safe there. At least as safe as anyone can be today, which I suppose isn’t very safe at all. But she doesn’t have to deal with the things or people I do. She doesn’t have to know the things I know. And that counts for something too.
How the hell did that kid know my name? I wonder. I know he’s not one of my cases, but he could be connected to one of them somehow, and if that’s it and he’s come to my home, I have a major problem. Still baffled as to why I didn’t tell Remy about it, I pour myself a fresh mug of coffee and notice my hands are shaking. That’s been happening a lot lately too. Sometimes I can make it stop if I really concentrate. Most times I can’t control it at all.
The furnace in the cellar kicks on, distracting me long enough to remember how outrageous the price of heating oil has become. Despite the chill in the house, I go to the den, find the thermostat and turn it down to sixty. The furnace falls silent. Waiting to see if Remy calls out an objection (she’s always cold), I remain in the den, a small room off the kitchen where Remy and I often go to read or listen to music. In
contrast to the great room, which sports a large HD television, framed vintage movie posters on the walls, a bar, a pool table and sliders leading to the deck, the den is an intimate, quiet room, Remy’s favorite in the house, in fact. The walls are lined with bookcases, the shelves filled with paperbacks, hardbacks and numerous framed photographs chronicling our lives together over the years. Hardwood floors, a couch, coffee table and small stereo system in the corner round things out nicely.
As I take in the room, my eyes sweep to the window on the wall opposite the thermostat. There, through the pane of glass, is the empty house next door. A strange and uneasy feeling drifts through me.
I shiver. It feels as if the temperature in the room has plummeted. But it simply isn’t possible for the temperature to drop instantly.
I look beyond the empty house to the road.
No sign of the sad young man. He’s out there somewhere, though.
And something tells me I haven’t seen the last of him.
* * *
“This is really disturbing,” Remy says. Curled up on the couch with her coffee, she frowns and nods at the television.
A local newscaster, who at first glance appears to be made entirely of wax, is talking about the government allegedly spying on civilians. I only hear the tail end of the story, but since I work for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I’m always leery of conspiracy theories involving government. I know firsthand how dysfunctional it can be. On the other hand, I also know things are routinely swept under the proverbial rug or altered to suit the needs of those in charge or those in higher positions of authority, so government conspiracies aren’t out of the question either. It’s just that these things are usually executed with such incompetence it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where one might actually be effective.
Rogue Page 1
