by T Gephart
On cue, a kid who looked around three years old came running to the door. “Mommy! Is it Daddy?”
His eyes were almost too big for his face, but they were the same shade of blue as the lowlife I’d just left.
And that right there was proof you didn’t have to be smart to be someone’s parent. I honestly felt sorry for the kid, because with the kind of parents he had, he probably wouldn’t stand a chance. That was assuming he didn’t find either mommy’s or daddy’s drugs beforehand and end up a statistic. Or a corpse. I’d seen it happen before, and not as rare as people thought.
“Yeah, well enjoy.” I waved goodbye as I turned to leave.
If I were halfway decent, I might have gotten involved. Said something and tried to give the kid a fighting chance. But I doubted there had ever been any decency in me to start with. I guess that I was even thinking about it meant I wasn’t totally heartless, and wasn’t that a fucking revelation. But that mess wasn’t my problem, which is why I was fucking walking away.
“Wait,” Kerry AKA Mother of the Year called after me. “You could come inside if you want. Danny is due for a nap.” Her hands moved suggestively up my arms and I knew exactly what was on her mind.
I hadn’t had sex in a week, so the idea of relieving some of that pressure sounded appealing. But I’d rather stick my dick into a garbage compactor than stick it in her.
“Why don’t you go back inside and take care of your boy,” I hissed out through my clenched teeth. “I’ve got shit to do and none of it involves you.”
“Asshole.” Her hand flew at my face, but I grabbed it before it could make contact.
“Yes, yes I am,” I sneered at her, my voice barely a growl. “And you were about to let this asshole around your kid. Not very smart. There are lots of assholes out there just like me waiting for bitches like you to let us into their homes. Get close to their kids. And newsflash, they aren’t going to play nice.”
My words were like a slap to the face she hadn’t given me, her feet taking a step back into her doorway. I wasn’t sure if it was for her own self-preservation or that of her kid, but something must have kicked in as she braced herself against the doorjamb.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” I laughed as I turned my back for a second time and walked away from her.
Too bad her change of heart would only be temporary and probably by dinnertime she would be so high she’d forget to feed her kid. Still, saying anything at all was more than I usually did, but it was as involved as I was going to allow myself.
Shit. Even just thinking about it was weird, like I had developed a case of reverse Stockholm syndrome. Nope, not a good thing and I didn’t like where it could lead.
Life was all about survival of the fittest and I had my own ass to worry about. And yet . . . something deep inside of me really hoped that kid made it out of here alive.
After he’d left, I got up and located my things. I hadn’t explored the bathroom when I came into the room last night. The door on the far side of the room could have been anything, but I was relieved to hear water running when Michael had been in there. The idea of a shower washing away yesterday almost made me want to cry with relief.
I didn’t waste any time, cranking the hot water till I was almost positive it was going to peel the first layer of epidermis from my shoulders. And it felt so good, the steam surrounding me with the only sound being that of the thunderous spray hitting the tile.
It was heaven, and I could have stayed inside the stall forever, but I didn’t. I used whatever products Michael had—shampoo, but no conditioner—and went through the process—at least physically—of getting clean. My mind however was still the same muddy mess it had been last night.
He had walked in and unapologetically climbed into bed with me. I had wanted to squeeze my eyes shut and hopefully pretend that the nightmare wasn’t real, something that was going to be hard to do when one of the main cast members was lying beside you. But to my amazement, it hadn’t been as bad as I’d expected. Not that I would admit it to anyone—I was barely able to admit it to myself—but having him there actually calmed me. By his own admission he wasn’t a nice person; no doubt he’d done a lot of terrible things, but as he laid beside me, inches away, I felt safe. Instinctively I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.
Once I was dried and dressed, my survival instincts flared up. I needed to get a feel for my surroundings. Know where I was, and at the very least the layout of the building I was hiding inside. Something told me we’d be here awhile.
The inside was huge. Not just big, but when I said someone could park a commercial jet inside, I hadn’t been exaggerating.
Despite the amount of space available, the living quarters were relatively small. Beside the bedroom and bathroom, there was a thin closet that housed a couple T-shirts, a pair of jeans, coveralls and a pair of work boots. Nothing else remarkable.
The bathroom had been simple. A shower—no bath—with a vanity/sink combo, and a toilet. There was a narrow linen closet in a corner that stored towels, extra toiletries and toilet paper. Once again, nothing out of the ordinary, and it was easy to forget the makeshift apartment was actually inside a garage on steroids.
Just outside the living quarters was an office space. Two trestle tables formed an L-shaped desk with two monitors and a large CPU sitting on the floor underneath. There were leads that attached everything and a modem that flashed continuously, but there wasn’t so much as a paperclip sitting out of place.
Ironic that his inner sanctum seemed so structured and yet he lived his life in chaos. Coping mechanism or something else? I wasn’t sure I’d ever find out.
Along the wall directly adjacent to what I was now referring to as the office, were two locked filing cabinets. Standard issue, four drawers—similar to what you’d find in almost any workspace in America. And I knew they were locked after trying each of the drawers with a healthy yank.
Fruitless.
Not that I expected someone like Michael to be careless and leave anything unlocked. Even in a fortress like this, the man had some very serious trust issues.
Further along the eastern wall was what I decided to call the kitchen. It had another trestle table with two fold-up chairs pushed up against the wall. It was missing the nice appliances of the house but it was functional. An old refrigerator that looked like it might have been an original part of the layout was sandwiched between the sink and the countertop.
Seeing the kitchen made my stomach rumble. The provisions I’d packed in the cooler had been abandoned last night, and I had no idea how long Michael would be gone. It’s not like I could text him and ask him to go through a McDonald’s drive-thru on his way back.
So, I decided to hunt for some food. Surely someone this organized would have some sort of staples around here somewhere. Tinned vegetables, non-perishables, crackers—that sort of thing. In case the end of the world came or whatever else men like him were afraid of.
The vast wide-open space worked in my favor, revealing another cornered off space similar to the living quarters along the opposite wall. It had also been sectioned with drywall, its door surprisingly unlocked as I twisted the handle.
Inside was his stash. Shelves of bottled water, MREs and assortment first aid items. It seemed that maybe he was actually ready for the end of the world, or at the very least a civil uprising.
I tore into one of the MREs, so hungry I didn’t care what I was eating and devoured the spaghetti without heating it. It wasn’t great, and I had never eaten pasta for breakfast, but my stomach and I weren’t fussy.
Following my entrée was water, the Aquafina bottle crushed in my hand as I gulped the liquid. Well, at least I knew I wouldn’t starve or die of thirst while I was here. I took what was left in the MRE—what looked to be Cheez-its crackers and Skittles—and continued to eat while I walked.
The rest of the warehouse was relatively benign. There was a workbench with one of those fancy red toolboxes mechanics had, but nothing else
remarkable. Except for an old wooden sailboat mounted on a trailer. While it seemed completely out of place like the fridge I’d seen in the kitchen, it looked like it had come with the space and been kept. Michael didn’t seem like the type of guy who liked to spend weekends fishing, so I imagined it hadn’t seen the water in a long time.
It was when I reached the very front—or perhaps it was the back, it was hard to tell in the dark last night which way we’d entered—that I discovered a big black fuse box. I had seen a few of them around, positioned in different parts of the warehouse. I assumed they connected the sophisticated security system Michael had wired throughout the place.
The sensors were discreet but I’d noticed them, as were the thin black wires running along the grey exposed-brick walls. This one seemed more important that the others, larger and more industrial looking, almost like a small locker.
Getting up onto my tiptoes so I was able to reach the latch and open the front. The door swung open and revealed three analogue meters running slowly, similar to a regular electrical meter, as well as a numerical touchpad. Nothing out of the ordinary except there wasn’t any way a representative from the power company would have internal access.
So what the hell was it?
I finished off my Skittles and went to grab one of the fold-up chairs, using it as a stepladder to get a better look.
With my fingertips, I traced along the thin bead of caulking sealing the border where the dials were held. It didn’t look right, the revolutions running twice as fast as the display below it indicated. So whatever I was looking at was a rouse, a fake and some kind of decoy. But for what, I hadn’t worked out.
My fingernails picked at the white caulking, the silicone protesting against my nails as I pried it from the wall.
Once I’d freed up most of it, I was able to pull out what essentially was a front panel, opening up to reveal the back. The other side proved that those meters were nothing but fancy props, their mechanical workings not hooked up to anything other than a power source. The touchpad, however, was authentic. The sheathed red, blue, green and yellow wires were connected in a complex configuration, and fed into the wall with the rest of the wiring.
So why have the fake meters and a larger than average box to house them in? None of it made sense until I pulled the panel out a little more and found a large envelope. The edges had yellowed either from time or moisture in the wall and judging from its tattered appearance it had been awhile since it had seen the light of day.
The skin on the back of my neck tingled in warning. Deep down I knew I had no business looking into whatever was contained in that envelope. But I couldn’t help myself, my curiosity getting the better of me as to why Michael had gone to such great lengths to hide this folder.
The minute I pulled out its contents I knew exactly why.
Inside were a birth certificate, notepaper, paper clippings, file pages and old photos—pieces of a puzzle that was obviously Michael’s life. I was caught feeling like an intruder while the investigator in me needed to know more.
Shoving the envelope under my arm, I did my best to right the meter box to the way I’d found it. Of course, it wouldn’t stand up under close inspection. The caulking was missing from most of the edges of the panel but if no one paid too much attention, it would look as ordinary as I’d found it.
I folded the chair and carried it back to the kitchen along with the envelope. I had no idea how much time I had before Michael got back, but I assumed when he said he didn’t know how long he was going to be, it was probably going to be a while.
Please, Lord, let him stay out a little longer, I silently whispered as I emptied the contents onto the table, the papers and photos scattering across the white plastic surface.
The police officer in me took over; examining each note, photo or shred of paper like it was important evidence in a murder trial. Slowly the man who had come to my door a few nights ago was starting to take shape.
He was abandoned at birth and left on the steps of Saint Margaret’s, barely clinging to life. Hospital reports—which he’d either stolen or hacked into the system to get—suggested he hadn’t been expected to make it through the night. Two nuns whose names were Sister Catherine and Sister Mary had apparently found him and rushed him to the hospital. And judging by the notations in the file, they had sat in at the hospital for days until he finally pulled through. No parents were listed on the birth certificate issued by the state, the name Michael Gabriel had been given to him by either one or both of the sisters.
The story then continues with documents from child welfare—once again probably illegally obtained—each page bringing with it one tragic heartbreak after another.
Michael was fostered a number of times. His first foster parents returned him to the state because he was inconsolable and cried too much after only three months. And then he was removed from the second family when he was three after he was found to be living in unimaginable filth and neglect.
It went on and on, the child being passed around like an unwanted toy until he reached the age of ten when he apparently found a stable home.
Social worker notes labeled him a “problem child, with an inability to show empathy or love.” Another caseworker went so far as to call him a “psychopath with criminal tendencies.” Page after page of psychological notes on how damaged he’d become and not a single mention of a prescribed treatment plan, therapy or a family who had loved him through his trauma.
Nothing.
They’d given up on him. Condemned him to the man he’d become.
The last of the notes said he’d run away as a teen. A police report was filed three days after he had apparently gone missing, but there were no notations on what investigations had been done. It seemed with his disappearance and his past problematic behavior, everyone just gave up on him all together. His file closed.
There were a few photos. Most likely taken by caseworkers on visits at different times. Each photo was a headshot, Michael staring directly into the lens of the camera. It was eerie taking that step back in time. His hair the same shade of brown but his skin was a shade paler. He looked thinner too, almost smaller and younger than the ages noted on the back. His face however hadn’t changed. It was completely empty of emotion, like he had known they had given up on him too. The little boy who stared back at me had the eyes of a lost soul, those deep pits—desolate.
There were no further notes or files as to what happened to him after he left his last foster home. No school records continuing after that date, no records for the DMV, registration to vote or service records of any kind. There weren’t even medical records; and as far as the state of Illinois was concerned Michael Gabriel was still listed as a missing person.
That’s what he had meant last night, when he’d said they wouldn’t be able to place him in the car with me.
He was a ghost.
There were so many missing pieces. Like, how a man who, according to records, barely attended high school seemed smarter than some college students. Or how he’d managed to buy property, register a car, get a license and at the very least exist, when on paper he didn’t.
I reexamined the envelope wondering if there was something I’d missed, or if there was a hint as to where more might be found. And there, stuck in the crease at the bottom, I found a tiny holy picture.
The small card was typical of what you’d get in a church, maybe on a saint’s feast day or another type of religious occasion.
On the front was an artist’s impression of Saint Michael the Archangel. His wings outstretched and his sword drawn with his foot stamping on the head of Satan. His body powerful and strong—that of a soldier, while his face remained beautiful and fearless. It was an image I’d seen repeated hundreds if not thousands of times through art and the history of the church. He was seen as the protector, the leader of God’s army against evil. So significant and fierce was his legend, that he is mentioned in other ancient religions such as Judaism and Islam. Ev
il, by whatever name it was known, was trampled under his feet just as he had done with Satan.
On the backside of the picture, the plain white card had a notation so faint I had to bring it right to my eyes to see. And there, in faded pencil, was the word “rose.”
Nothing else. No indication if it was the flower, a name, or even a street. The word was written without a capital letter or anything else after it, and seemed so insignificant. Yet instinct told me it was important.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
He came at me like a freight train, his arm pushing me back against the exposed brick as he held a knife at my throat. The blade just piercing my skin enough for me to feel a tiny drop of blood ease out.
I had been so engrossed in what I was doing I hadn’t heard a thing.
Hadn’t heard a car approach.
Hadn’t heard a door open.
Hadn’t heard the echo of boots on the floor.
And like the ghost he was on paper, he appeared before me, his teeth bared like a rapid dog, his eyes—terrifying.
“I-I.” Words refused to come out as my heart beat wildly in my chest and I struggled to breathe. I never thought he would hurt me, but looking at him now, I didn’t know anymore.
“I’ll ask you again.” His arm pushed harder against my chest, my lungs struggling to expand under his weight. “What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing?”
Each word was like a punch to my gut, as the fear bubbled up inside of me, another drop of my blood spilled onto my shirt.
“I’m sorry for what they did to you.”
It had leaped out of my mouth before I had a proper chance to consider what I was saying. What I should have said was I was sorry for invading his privacy, for breaking into his special meter box and for reading his file. But I couldn’t make myself say things I didn’t mean. Even when I knew my life depended on it, I couldn’t say I regretted what I did.
He knew almost everything about me, and I knew nothing about him. It hadn’t been fair that he had held all the cards, that I didn’t know who the man was that laid beside me last night. I deserved to know, so for that, I wasn’t and would never be sorry. But even though he loomed before me, literally a hair between his knife and my jugular, my heart hurt for the little boy inside of him. The one who had never been shown love or compassion. For that, for that I was genuinely sorry.
