****
Stephanie paced just inside the shelter, pausing every few moments to press her ear to the door and listen. “He should have been back a long time ago.”
Amy seemed unconcerned. “He knows what he’s doing.”
“What if he ran into trouble?”
Amy rolled her eyes. “He knows how to deal with trouble.”
“What if it’s more than he could deal with?”
“Then he’ll wait it out.” Amy stood and closed the short distance, grabbing Stephanie by the arm and holding her still. “Please, just sit down and wait for him. You’re making me a nervous wreck.”
“Something’s not right, Amy. I can feel it.”
“You know how he is. You’ve seen him sit like a stone and watch until a place cleared out before. He can do that for days if he needs to.” She pulled gently and led her to the folding chair. “Relax. He’ll be here when he gets here.”
Stephanie turned worried eyes to her. “What if he doesn’t come back?”
Amy sat down across from her and gave her a tight smile. “If he doesn’t…then he doesn’t. He taught us how to take care of ourselves. We’ll just remember everything he taught us and we’ll survive for him. It’s what he’d want. But he will return. And then the three of us will go on to Springfield and from there…”
“From there? You don’t think any of your family is still alive?”
Amy inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “I keep a brave face for Trevor. But…no.”
She reached out and patted the younger girl’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Amy.”
“Me too.”
Stephanie stiffened and spun in her chair. “What was that?”
Amy shifted in her own chair and moved toward the door. “I heard it too.” She lifted the small peep that Trevor had installed and stared out across the yard toward the main house.
“Is somebody out there?” Stephanie whispered.
“I see someone.” Amy’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Is it…”
“I can’t tell. It’s too dark. It looks like his jacket and his hat but…” She shifted and moved closer to the peep. “Oh my god!”
She threw open the door and burst from the shelter. “Trevor!”
3
The Truth About Daniel
By Karen E. Taylor
Daniel’s wife keeps knocking at my door. I don’t want to answer, I have nothing to say to her and she has nothing to say to me that I want to hear. Covering my head with my pillow, I try to tune out the persistent knocking. “Just go away,” I whisper; the knocking stops for one blissful, deceptive minute. Then it resumes, harder and louder until I have no choice but to crawl out of bed and answer.
I open the door, clutching the front of my robe closed with one hand, pushing tangled hair from my eyes with the other. Daniel’s wife stands there: cool, perfectly coifed and manicured, composed and serene. This surprises me. After reading the article in yesterday’s paper, I’d expected her to appear, but not like this. Distress and anger are the most common emotions in situations like these. The serenity, when it rises to the surface, if ever, is almost always much, much later. I rarely get to witness its appearance.
But she seems calm, so I shrug and head to the kitchen to start the coffee machine. I feel rather than see her detached, disinterested, yet obviously disdainful glance around my tiny house. Eventually she follows me into the kitchen and sits on one of two stools at the counter, her shapely legs curling around each other, her feet in expensive Prada pumps resting easily on the chrome ring.
I ignore her, staring out the small window above the sink. The early morning sun is warm and there is no sign of the rain predicted for today; in short, another beautiful day in Los Angeles. I shrug again; it gets boring after a while. The coffee machine splutters then beeps and I reach in the cupboard for two mugs. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Black.”
I nod and fill the two mugs. I should have known that she took her coffee black, even though I knew nothing personal about her. I couldn’t even remember her first name.
“Darleen.”
She’s good, I think, setting the coffee in front of her. I perch on the other stool, sipping at mine. She curves her hands around the cup, not touching the surface, but absorbing its aura of warmth. I wait.
And she speaks again. “Things are never the way they appear.”
“Is that what you’ve come to tell me?”
She glances over at me, her eyes reflecting the sunlight. A small garden spider crawls over the edge of the counter and stops just next to where her hand rests. She leans forward just a bit and blows on it. It doesn’t move and she seems as if she’s about to cry, so I scoop it up and carry it in cupped hands across the kitchen, open the door and set it on the ground outside.
“Thanks,” she says quietly. “I’ve never liked spiders.”
I nod, and refill my mug. She’s not touched hers – at least not physically. “Want a warmer on that?”
“Yes, please.”
I dump her now ice cold coffee into the sink and pour more into the mug, setting it in front of her again and settling back onto my stool.
“Darleen,” I start, trying to sound casual, not wanting to frighten her away. “We both know you haven’t come here today to waste my coffee. What do you want from me?”
She sighs. “I thought you’d know.”
I have an idea, of course, of what she wants. How could I not? “Yes, but you still have to tell me.”
“Ah.” For the first time since entering my house, she loses some of her composure, some of her coolness. A blush seems to paint her cheek. “It’s about Daniel,” she says. “You need to know.”
“Fine. So tell me.”
It’s always like this, like pulling teeth to get the Darleens of the after-worlds to talk. I don’t know why it has to be this way. The whole process should be fairly easy. They show up at my door. They talk. I listen. They go away. Period. Problem solved. Sometimes these little talks even help pay the rent if the local police are interested in the information.
“Daniel has,” she pauses, puts a hand up to her throat, her eyes closed, “needs.” Her head rolls back slowly, sensuously; she is remembering his touch. “Maybe they aren’t normal needs, but they are his and I love him. Regardless.”
When her voice trails off, a vision tickles behind my eyes: her delicate white skin, reddened and bruised from his needs, his leather straps and ropes and cuffs. I shake my head and give her a warning glance. Too much information, I think. She nods, sitting straighter on the stool and the visions disappear.
“Thanks,” I say, taking another sip of my coffee.
“Have you ever heard of Friedrich’s Ataxia?”
“No.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s rare, a genetic thing, a degeneration of the nerves, basically. Progressive. Starting at your toes and working its way up your body. The brain, however, is unaffected.” She gives a low laugh. “By the disease, at least. But not by the horrors of watching your bodily functions disintegrate slowly, day by day.” She shudders slightly and turns her head, dropping back safely into the subject of Daniel. “Eventually, I could no longer satisfy Daniel’s needs.”
“And so he got rid of you?”
Darleen looks shocked. “No, no, that’s not it at all. He had nothing to do with it. It was I who encouraged him. At first I begged him to find someone else to take care of him, to deal with his physical needs.
“I see.” I rise and pour my own cold coffee down the drain. The bitter taste lingers on my tongue. “And that someone else? Was there any concern on your part as to how that someone else might handle Daniel’s needs?”
She seems shocked that I’d even raise the question. “She doesn’t matter. Why should she?”
I shake my head, leaning back on the counter. “Okay, Darleen,” I say, asking the question I always have to ask, “why are you here?”
“I want you to say no. When they call a
nd ask you to consult on my case, I want you to just say no.”
Dammit, there goes the rent money.
“Some things are more important than the rent.” She says it as if she really believes it, as if she’d ever needed to worry about money a day in her life.
“Fine.” I agree, mostly to get her out of my house as quickly as possible; I don’t much like the ones powerful enough to muck about inside my head. “But while you’re here, please keep out of my mind.”
She nods again and stares at me with those emotionless eyes.
“Is that all?” I say, knowing somehow it isn’t.
“No. I want you to help Daniel.”
“No way. I said I wouldn’t consult on this case, but if he did it, he’s not going to get away with it, whether I help or not. You should have thought about this before, when you could have done something about it.”
Her voice is small and distant. “I didn’t think I’d know. I thought once it was over, it would be over.”
I give a little laugh. “Yeah, death makes believers of us all.”
Her delicate mouth opens wide as if gasping for air. The word I should’ve know better than to say hangs in the air and the outline of Daniel’s wife wavers, like a heat mirage. For one brief second, I see her broken body, mangled and melding with the crumpled metal of a wheelchair, I see the car speeding away from the scene. It’s a small car, cheap and beat-up, but is more than enough to do the job.
“Why would I want to help him? He’s a cheater and a killer. And why would you care? You’re free now, Darleen, the door is wide open, just walk away.”
She sighs. “I can’t. Not until I know he’ll be okay.”
I hate the pushy ones, the ones with a purpose, however misguided, the ones who can’t let go. If you don’t help them, they linger much longer than they should. And you don’t get a moment’s peace.
I stare at her for a long while, balanced precariously between her obvious need to believe Daniel innocent and my inner feeling that he’s guilty as sin. The doorbell rings and I nod at Darleen. “Let me get this,” I say, “you just stay put.”
I open the door to an odd sight: a girl, in her early twenties, drenched to the bones and sniffling uncontrollably, but not leaving one drop of water in her wake. Great, I think, gesturing for her to enter, another one.
“I’m sorry,” she holds out a trembling hand to me, her nails are stubby and bitten, “I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I need your help.”
“Yeah,” I say to her as she looks around my house, “Take a number and stand in line.”
She follows me into the kitchen anyway and gasps when she sees Darleen. “You? Here? Why?”
“Sheri?” Darleen knows this girl, but, given the amount of disdain in her voice, doesn’t seem to like her all that much. “What happened to you?”
“He drowned me.” Sheri’s voice quivers.
“Who?”
“Daniel.”
Darleen shakes her head. “No. Not Daniel. He couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that.”
Sheri gives a little snort. “Married to him for all those years and you never knew him. Even now you still worship him, don’t you?”
Darleen’s perfectly manicured hand goes up to her throat again and her eyes close. She rolls her head, slowly, sensuously and exhales.
“I thought so,” Sheri sounds angry now and I notice that her clothes are beginning to dry, tiny puffs of steam rising in the air around her. “Well, let me tell you about your perfect husband, babe. First, he borrows my car to run you down. Then, when I threaten to tell the police, he drowns me in my own bathtub – drugs me and holds me down under the water, that bastard. He even leaves a suicide note for me, saying that I couldn’t live with the guilt of having killed you.”
The certainty in Darleen’s eyes begins to falter. Sheri reaches over, takes her hand. And even I, standing on the outer edge of their rapport, see the truth about Daniel. Darleen closes her eyes again, but when she opens them next, they are narrowed with anger. Hard. Unforgiving.
She smiles. That smile gives me shivers.
Still holding hands, they turn to me, their eyes gleaming with unholy anger.
“So,” I say, suddenly glad I am not Daniel, “what do you want me to do?”
“Nothing.” Darleen takes the lead. “I think we can handle this all by ourselves.”
And without so much as a thank you, they melt away.
I shake my head. “Well, if that isn’t damned annoying, I don’t know what is. A total waste of a morning.”
I take a hot shower to alleviate the chill of the dead and dry myself off, dressing for the day. I barely get my wet hair combed when someone knocks again.
I walk to the door, shaking my head. “What is it now, Darleen?” The knocking continues. I put my hand to the knob, “you know you could just walk right through if you wanted to…” and open the door.
“Sorry, I don’t think my captain would approve.”
“Oh. Detective Willard.” I open the door wide, “Come on in and have some coffee. I thought you were someone else.”
“Obviously.” He sits down at the stool Darleen previously occupied. “Cold in here, isn’t it?”
“Occupational hazard.” I fix him a cup of coffee – at least this one won’t go to waste. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s the funniest thing,” he says, “I was coming over to consult with you on a case.”
“The Daniel O’Brien case?”
“You always know,” he shakes his head and chuckles. “Of course you do. That’s why we consult with you.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Nothing now. As I pulled into your driveway, I got a call that he’d turned himself in. Confessed to the murder of his wife and his girlfriend. What a sleaze.”
“Then you’re just here for the coffee?”
“And the company. Like I said, I was on my way already.”
I smile. It’s nice to be wanted. I open my mouth to speak, and the knocking starts again. Frantic this time. Knocking like someone’s life depends on it.
“Dammit.”
Willard looks at me, confused. “What? Did I say something wrong?”
I throw my hands up in the air. “It’s not you.”
A brief frightened look crosses his face. “Oh.”
“Hold on a minute.” I get up, cross the room, and fling open the door.
“Please, you have to help me.”
I look him over, give him an acknowledging nod. “Daniel.” His perfectly tailored suit is sopping wet, twisted, and torn. Fragments of bone appear through the rips, blood mixing with the rivulets of water running down his broken body.
“Help me, please.”
“Too late.”
A mist forms around him and hands reach out to grab him. I recognize them both: the set of beautiful nails and the grubby ones, the touch of avenging angels to drag Daniel to his final justice. I shiver a bit and back off. “Way too late, my friend.”
Daniel screams for one brief second as the cloud envelops him, then he disappears. Forever.
Back in the kitchen, Willard gives me a questioning look. “Daniel? And too late for what?”
“Too late to help either one of us. He’s gone, so you won’t get the satisfaction of seeing the bastard put on trial and I won’t get the rent paid.”
He thought for a while, then shrugged. “At least it’s a beautiful day.”
I take a sip of my cold coffee. “Yeah, there’s always that.”
4
The Haunted Swamp
By Doug Dandridge
“You don’t wanna go in that there swamp, boss man,” said the bare footed black man standing by the side of the path. More faces peered out of the ramshackle cabin behind him, his woman and some children.
“Is there a way around?” asked Captain Joseph Mallory of the Second Florida Union Cavalry. I hate these damned pestilent swamps, thought the Ohio born officer. This was not his kind of terri
tory, that was the gentle hills and valleys of his native state. The great majority of his men were residents of Florida, more able to handle the heat and humidity that made fighting and riding a living hell.
“You goes fifteen miles to the south and there’s a clear path,” said the black, who from his garb, little more than rags, was most probably a slave. “To the north you goes twenty miles.”
And the Reb cavalry pursuing us will be on us before we get halfway to either of those paths, thought the young officer, looking back at the eighteen men who followed him. Several of those men were wounded, some seriously, and in desperate need of medical attention. He wasn’t sure the Confederates would give them that much needed care. No, if they survived, they would be heading toward some hell hole of a prison camp, and some of them would not come out. We need to get to Fort Myers. Once we’re under the guns of the fort, and the fleet, we’re home free.
“Does this way pass through the swamp?” he asked the slave, his anxiety growing at the time they were wasting. The Reb cavalry could come up behind them any moment, and then they would be involved in a running fight he wasn’t sure they could win.
“It do. If you goes by day.”
“And it doesn’t by night?”
“It do. But you won’t makes it ifn you goes through there in the dark.”
“What you saying, boy?” asked Sergeant Clark, who was a Florida product from up around Cedar Key. “That there’s ghosts in the swamp? That they’re going to come out of the water and drag us to our graves?”
Some of the men chuckled at what the Sergeant had said, while others muttered in near panic.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” said the Captain with conviction. He was a college educated man, a product of the Point, and did not believe in God or Devil, and certainly not in ghosts. Those were the beliefs of a child, not a full grown man.
“No one has made it through that swamp since the night the men hung the escaped slaves in there,” answered the black. “If I was you, I would find another way through the swamp.”
Fight the MonSter: Find a Cure for MS Page 3
