by J. S. Bailey
Footsteps crossed the floor inside. The occupant hesitated at the door, probably looking at him through the peephole.
“I strongly suggest you let me in,” he said.
The lock disengaged with a click and the door swung open.
He strode inside and allowed the door to latch behind him.
The woman cowered before him like an animal about to be slaughtered. “You told me you did it.”
Her face went as white as chalk. “I did do it. I’d swear it on all the Bibles in the world.”
“I don’t think it’s your place to go swearing on the word of God.”
“Graham, you have to believe me!”
“How can I believe you when Randy’s car is neither where he left it nor wrecked anywhere? If you’d cut the lines like I’d said, he should have crashed into the Winslow building at the bottom of the hill on Pike Street.”
“I would never lie to you. If he didn’t crash, then perhaps God was with him.”
Graham’s patience was wearing thinner than a sheet of ice in the sun. “Prove it.”
“Prove what?”
“That you would never lie to me.”
“How do I do that?”
Graham strode past his reluctant accomplice and planted himself on the couch. He patted the cushion beside him. “Sit down,” he said, “and I’ll tell you.”
She obeyed without question or comment.
“I want you to tell him what you did.”
The objection was immediate. “But you said if I told him—”
“I know what I said then. But this is now. I want you to tell him everything you know, but you will not tell him that I told you to do it. You should act the part of the terrified lover who had no other choice but to obey me.”
“You haven’t given me any other choice!”
“There’s always a choice, Lupe.” Graham smiled. Miss Sanchez was such an easy mark. He wasn’t sure what Randy had ever seen in her aside from her pretty looks.
When he left the apartment, his foul mood had lifted. He would have to set a new plan into motion, but at least he still had the chance to observe the punch line of his joke.
BOBBY WAS barely more than a boy again. His father had the hood of his 1978 Chevy Nova popped open and pointed to what looked to Bobby like nothing more than a tangle of tubing.
“Now what did I say this one is?” His father, Ken, had a twinkle in his eye. He wore an ancient, grease-smeared University of Cincinnati t-shirt that had more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese. As usual, his paunch of a gut stuck over the top of his grimy blue jeans. His keg, he called it, though he was more likely to drink Pepsi than beer.
Bobby had been wearing a clean black Muse t-shirt and tan cargo pants. Small details, but ones he remembered well.
“Uh . . .” Bobby had strained to recall the name of the particular component his father indicated. So many parts and things were jammed up under a car’s hood, and Bobby would have found it more interesting to watch paint dry on a wall than to memorize their names. “The catalytic converter?”
Ken Roland threw his head back and laughed. “Son, you never will learn, will you? Catalytic converter’s part of the exhaust system. C’mon, I’ll show you.”
Bobby obliged his father by poking his head under the old car. Ken joined him and pointed at a gray container-looking thing that had pipes coming out of it. “Now that’s the catalytic converter. EPA says we’ve gotta have ‘em so we don’t ruin the ozone layer, or some garbage like that.” He chuckled again. “Not that you care, right?”
But Bobby didn’t know what he cared about. He was only fourteen. He played around a lot on his electric guitar. He liked to cook with his stepmother. Sometimes he and his younger half-brother Jonas would kick a soccer ball around the yard, but only for short periods of time because Bobby easily became short of breath.
He cared about those things a lot more than hot rods, no offense to his father.
Bobby just shrugged. “Uh, sure.” He stood back up and walked back around to the hood, but Ken didn’t follow. “Dad?”
His father’s voice sounded strained when he next spoke. “Come ‘ere and help me up, Bobby. I don’t feel so good all the sudden . . . I think I need a drink.”
Bobby didn’t think much of it. The gleaming sun baked everything below it to a crisp, so it was natural for someone like his father to be sensitive to the effects of the heat. He went around to the back of the Nova, where his father struggled to stand. Ken held out a hand and Bobby took it, helping his father to his feet.
“Thanks,” Ken said, rubbing his chest and grimacing. “Don’t know what’s come over me. Guess it’s too hot out here. Let’s go in and get some lemonade, huh?”
“Sure.” Bobby led the way and held the door open for his father out of courtesy, and once the man was inside Bobby ran to the refrigerator and grabbed out the pitcher of lemonade his stepmother had made that morning before taking Jonas to the dentist. He got two glasses out of the cabinet and filled them nearly to the brim. “Here you go.”
Ken lowered his bulk into one of the dining room chairs. “Thank you, sir.” He swallowed the entire drink in a single gulp and set the glass aside. “Sweet Jesus, I don’t feel good.” His gray shirt had turned an even deeper gray from the sweat pouring out of him in rivulets.
That’s when Bobby had the first inkling that he should be concerned. It had been a few years since he quit Scouts, but he could remember having to watch a first-aid video in order to earn one of his merit badges. In addition to teaching the boys ways to patch up cuts and scrapes, the video had also taught them what signs would indicate that a person was having a stroke, seizure, or heart attack.
Bobby’s gut began to squirm. He didn’t want to alarm his father, but if he didn’t push the man for details . . .
Ken’s expression changed to one of worry. His thinning hair was so wet it looked like he’d just climbed out of the shower. “Are you all right?”
Bobby shook his head. “Dad, is your left arm hurting at all?”
“A little, but I was moving those boxes around yesterday. Remember?”
Panic seized Bobby like a fist. How could the man be in such denial about his health? “No, Dad, I—I’m going to call 911.”
His father’s face paled. “What? Why?” He started wheezing like he couldn’t get a decent breath. “Jesus, you don’t think—”
Bobby ignored him as he sprinted toward the telephone and dialed the three numbers he’d hoped to never use.
A faint voice came on the line. “This is 911, what is your emergency?”
As Bobby opened his mouth to speak, Ken slumped out of the chair onto the white linoleum floor.
BOBBY AWOKE screaming.
At least he thought he did. The scream might have just been in his mind, though his throat felt raw as if he’d just been bellowing at the heavens with all his might.
Something tickled his face and he slapped at it like it was a marauding spider in search of his mouth. Instead of spider guts, his hand came away damp with tears.
He closed his eyes in the hope of returning to slumber and dreaming about something far less nightmarish like bikini-clad babes on a beach, but his pulse hammered away at such a rapid pace he knew it would be hours before he could sufficiently calm himself.
He could feel every pulsation, every quiver of his heart. That fragile organ. The one that would eventually wear itself out and cease to beat.
It made sense to have dreamed about that final day of childhood. He’d crawled under Randy’s car earlier that evening, just like he’d done with that stinking Nova minutes before his father died.
Bobby rolled over and shivered. He wanted to think neither about Randy nor his father. The former was a creep and the latter was pushing daises, and for all Bobby cared, he could forget that either had ever existed and move on with his life, whatever that meant.
Yawning, he decided he must not have screamed after all. If he had, his roommate probably would
have come bounding in with a 12-gauge shotgun or an Uzi. Not that Caleb owned such things, but after seeing what he’d done to the pop can, nothing would have surprised him.
Just as his tired mind began to wander off on some other tangent, something ticked against the window to the left of his bed. A bug, probably, or something kicked up by the wind. Funny though. It kind of reminded him of that crazy sound he kept hearing earlier when—
Tap. Tap-tap-tap.
Bobby’s muscles froze. It was the same sound he’d heard in the church office. And what had Randy said? That whatever caused it was like a poltergeist. The sounds wouldn’t bother Bobby when Randy left his job at the church because Randy was the one whom the unnamed thugs were after. But now Bobby had associated with the man, and the beings—whatever they were—had followed him.
Tap-tap. Tap.
Of course Bobby was being silly. Poltergeists did not exist, and he certainly didn’t believe in ghosts. Randy had simply freaked him out with some kind of sound-throwing trick back at the church. Maybe the tapping hadn’t been on the window at all and was really something Randy himself was doing under the desk. Or had it been a recording? It was even possible that Randy owned a secondary vehicle and had followed Bobby home at a distance just to torment him further. Bobby could see no motive for such actions, but crazy people didn’t follow the same logic that others did.
Bobby held his breath and continued listening for any indication that a solid, flesh-and-blood human stood outside the window. Aside from the tapping, all he heard was the soft sighing of wind in the trees.
He waited five minutes before tiptoeing out of bed and peering through a gap in the drapes. The moon lit up the night with a pale milky glow, though the wind made patchy clouds scud across the sky at a fast clip that alternately dimmed and brightened the orb. The brief periods of brightness weren’t enough. If someone lurked in the yard, he couldn’t see them.
Tap. The sound, louder this time, originated from a more distant point. The creep had chosen another window and upgraded to small boulders instead of pebbles.
“That’s it.” Bobby jammed his bare feet into gym shoes and pulled on a sweatshirt. If he didn’t stop the guy, he would break a window and then Bobby’s landlord would jack up the rent to astronomic proportions if he didn’t throw Bobby out for associating with the wrong crowd.
Bobby owned no weapons. He did have a fireplace poker hanging in a stand by the hearth out in the living room. He had no intention of using it, but it might strike fear into the creep’s heart and make him run away.
He crept out of his bedroom, slowly lifted the poker out of the stand so it wouldn’t make a clanging noise that would rouse Caleb, and undid the deadbolt on the back door.
The porch light had burnt out some months before and neither of the house’s occupants had bothered replacing it, much to Bobby’s current regret. The moon disappeared behind a bank of fast-moving clouds again. He could have brought out a flashlight, but stealth might be in his favor if he could catch the guy by surprise.
He made sure the door wouldn’t lock behind him and stepped onto the small cement slab where they kept the tiny charcoal grill they’d used maybe twice all summer. His eyes already adjusted to the darkness since he hadn’t turned on any lights during his short flight from the bedroom to here. He took quick inventory of the yard. Garbage cans. Stunted bushes. Chain-link fence. The creep didn’t have many places to hide. Though it was possible he’d heard Bobby and dashed around to the side of the house to hunker down behind the giant pine tree that took up a good portion of the side yard.
Anything was possible.
Well, almost anything.
He was about to step off the slab when something whizzed by his head and bounced off the lid of the grill before clattering to the ground.
He wanted to whirl around and see what it had been, but if he turned his back, the creep might sneak up behind him and conk him on the head. He squinted. What direction had the thing come from? He didn’t see—
Clunk. Another something landed at his feet. Keeping his gaze trained on the yard, Bobby stooped and found the object with his hand. He picked it up and held it in front of his face.
The moon emerged briefly from behind the mantle of clouds.
He held a crushed can of Dr Pepper. Not nearly as crushed as it would have been had it been in Caleb’s grip when that news bit about the murdered girl had been on television, but crushed nonetheless.
Bobby remembered part of his exchange with Randy earlier in the evening.
It sounds like someone’s throwing rocks at the window.
Rocks, sticks, whatever else they can find. I’m used to it.
The Dr Pepper can had previously resided in one of the garbage cans along the back fence ten yards away, or more specifically, the “recycle” can sitting next to the one reserved for regular waste. Though Bobby didn’t see how a grown man could remain concealed behind the bins while launching such an assault, that’s where he had to be.
Bobby squared his shoulders to make himself appear braver and marched across the damp grass, wielding the poker like a baseball bat. He stopped five feet away from the cans and cleared his throat. Maybe he could be diplomatic about this. “I know you’re back there, and if you don’t want me to bash a hole in your head, you’ll come out with your hands up.” It sounded cheesy, but he didn’t have time to think of a more elaborate threat.
He waited. Nothing moved. Maybe the guy was holding his breath.
“Hello?” He took another tentative step forward. The lid of one can rested on the ground beside it. A few other crushed cans lay scattered in the grass. “I’ve got a fireplace poker.”
Nothing.
“Do you know what a person can do with a fireplace poker?”
He hoped none of his neighbors would hear him and think he’d flipped his lid.
He continued anyway. “You don’t?” His voice shook. “Well, I’ll tell you. There’s this guy back home, you see. Lived with a crazy mama. She tried to kill him, but he killed her first with one of these things. He gives talks now. Stuff about forgiveness and moving on and things like that.” Now he was just rambling like a nutcase. “Do you want me to do that to you? Kill you with a poker like you’re a crazy mama?”
He thought he heard a faint snicker somewhere in the night, but it might have just been the wind rustling through the grass and trees.
Somehow the silence behind the garbage cans seemed far louder than all the nighttime sounds surrounding him. Gripping the poker in one hand, he dragged the recycle can aside with the other.
Nobody was there.
Behind him, something else ticked at the side of the house. Bobby broke into a run, turned his foot in a hole dug by some animal, almost lost his grip on the poker as pain spiked through his ankle, and continued toward the giant pine. The creep could have gathered up cans in a bag and chosen the tree as his new launching point.
He circled the tree three times before deciding that nobody hid there, either. Then he edged his way along the back wall of the house, inspecting the ground. On top of the grass lay one additional pop can and a far greater number of rocks of varying sizes, the smallest of which looked an awful lot like the ones in the driveway.
He dashed around to the front of the house and looked up and down the street. No fleeing figures in sight. Most of the windows in the two rows of cookie-cutter bungalows were as black as the sky. Three street lamps illuminated sodden yards that looked almost identical to his own, save for the occasional shrub or birdbath that set the residences apart from one another.
If the creep wasn’t out here, did that mean he lingered in the yard? Just how well could a person hide on a quarter-acre lot?
“Bobby?”
He whirled around even though he knew the voice, and instinct made him come within about two inches of clobbering Caleb Young in the head with the poker. His roommate simultaneously ducked and snatched it out of his hand.
They stood there staring at each
other in silence for a moment or two, Bobby’s heart racing at what felt like seven hundred miles an hour. Could Caleb have been the creep? No, Caleb was too level-headed for that. Besides, Bobby hadn’t told him about what happened at the church. That he would mimic the tapping sounds he knew nothing about would have been a coincidence too huge for Bobby to believe.
Caleb kept his gaze fixed on Bobby and passed the poker back to him. His glasses sat crooked on his face as if he’d jammed them on in haste. “You okay?”
“Somebody’s out here,” he panted. He did a visual sweep of the street again in case the creep had waited to sneak away when Bobby was distracted, but the road remained vacant.
“Are you sure? The only person I see is you.”
“I wasn’t the one throwing rocks and junk at the house. Come on, maybe you can help me find him.”
Without asking any of the questions that likely sat on the tip of Caleb’s tongue, he nodded. “I’ll get a flashlight.”
Caleb turned on his heel and disappeared through the front door.
He reemerged a minute later. “I lied,” he said. “I got two flashlights.”
Bobby took one and clicked it on. Caleb did the same.
“Alright,” Caleb said. “Now what?”
Bobby started in the direction of the back yard. “We find him.”
Two beams of light swept the ground as the pair rounded the side of the house. A number of indentations had flattened the grass where Bobby circled the pine tree, but other than that, there existed no sign that anyone else had spent the evening slogging around the yard.
Bobby shined his light on a scattering of rocks in the grass. “See that?”
Caleb approached the back wall of the house and kicked at a stone the size of a golf ball. “Interesting.”
“Interesting is right. Do you have any idea how someone could have done this without leaving any footprints in this muck? I’ve just about got mud up to my ankles.”
“Maybe they don’t have feet.”
Bobby could almost feel his blood pressure rising like mercury in a thermometer. “How can you just joke around when some weirdo’s out here trying to vandalize our house?”
