by Greg Lilly
Once I found the first two, the codes made more sense to me. The first character in the code told me which area to search, the second character which aisle, the third, shelf unit, and so on until I located the box where the fiche was supposedly in chronological order. Since I’d have to return these to their proper position, I decided to view three, then return them and get the next three until I discovered… Well, I’ll know it when I see it.
In the far corner away from the elevator, the microfiche machines sat in the shadows. Several light bulbs had been loosened in the ceiling’s fluorescent lighting fixtures, allowing the machine users to better see the black and white images displayed on the screen. Loading the second issue into the machine and finding the correct page, I found only another dead-end. This is going to be a long night.
A door slammed somewhere on the basement floor. I whirled through the filmed pages, found my destination, and then stopped to read. The silence of the air around me wormed its way into my mind. Where’s the person who just came in the door? No footsteps. No keyboard clicking. No shuffling through boxes. I turned to look toward the elevator and staircase, but all I could see was a forest of shelves. Maybe they’d turned and gone right back up the stairs. I dismissed it.
My third microfiche brought up nothing. I gathered the other two up and re-tracked back to their proper locations. I decided to pull ten of the issues to cut down on time spent roaming the maze of shelving. As I pulled down a box from the top of a corner shelf, a shadow moved in my peripheral vision, but when I turned to look I sawnothing. You’re paranoid, I thought, moving on to the next fiche code on my list.
I couldn’t hold the five microfiche rolls in hand and needed to drop them off at the reader station. Turning left, I hit a wall of shelving; to my right, I followed the path I thought I had taken, but again I came to a dead-end. “This is stupid,” I said aloud, disgusted with myself. “How can a grown man get lost in a basement?” I decided to look at the labels on the shelves, to follow them back in the right direction.
“Damn it.” I kicked a shelf. The index card labels on each unit didn’t follow a logical order. 5SG came before 2WR, which was not right, and not how it had been five minutes before. “Okay, Daniel,” I yelled, “the joke’s over.” Silence.
“I see you switched some of the tags.” No response.
“I admit it; this isn’t as simple as I thought.” I heard my voice shake. I put the rolls of film down, and climbed one of the shelves to look over the top. Just as my foot left the floor, the lights went out. blackness surrounded me. I could feel the cold metal of the shelf next to my cheek, but I couldn’t see it.
The scratchy voice sounded as if he stood three feet away. “Die, faggot.”
Chapter Ten
THE VOICE RANG in my ears. I held my breath to try to hear his movements. The basement held a dead calm. No sounds except the thunder of my own heart pounding; I was positive he could hear the deafening beat hammering in my chest. I inched my way off the shelf, my foot searching for the concrete floor.
“No use running. 1 got you.” The voice came from my right.
Inky blackness tightened around me. My hands groped and gripped invisible shelving to the left, away from the voice. I tried to slow my rapid breathing, quiet and deliberate.
My left foot trembled as I lifted it and listened, then took the next step. My right foot rubbed a shelf. Listening, I adjusted and positioned my foot down for another step. Then again, trying to take each step a little quicker. A misstep could cost my life; I froze in mid-stride at the thought.
I stopped to listen for him.
Nothing.
Feeling my way using the shelving, I slipped down the aisle. I reached the end of the row, hands out in front of me, searching for something to use as a guide. My hand hit a metal shelf with a thud. I froze.
The scratchy voice spoke again. “Where do you think you can go? No escape for you, faggot.” He was still only a few feet away.
A seed of rage sprouted somewhere in the dark corners of my mind. The son of a bitch isn’t going to hurt me, not without a fight. A weapon; I need something to defend myself with. I tried to think of anything useful to be found among the boxes and shelves, but I didn’t know who or what I would be up against. Maybe he had a knife, a gun, a baseball bat.
My trembling hand fumbled the shelving again, quietly, and I followed it until it ended; another shelving unit was not in arm’s reach.
Metal scraped across the concrete floor, from my left, about ten feet away. Was he trying to move one of the shelves? I waited for more movement. How could he see?
I checked my pockets for a weapon: cigarettes, lighter, pencil, car keys. I pulled the keys out of my front pocket. They clanged together in a frightening rattle.
Footsteps rushed toward me.
I tried to arrange the points of the keys between the fingers of my fist-a trick Emma had taught me-instant brass knuckles.
The full force of his solid weight hit my right shoulder. He let 3ut a surprised grunt at our contact. We both plunged into a shelf and dropped to the hard, cold floor. I still had the keys clenched in my fist.
“Bastard, son of a bitch,” I punched at the body on top of me.
His rough coat absorbed the blows. He grabbed my wrist and pinned it to the concrete floor. The odor of charcoal and cigarettes dung to his clothes, reminding me of a place, a place I had been recently, but I couldn’t lock onto it. He tried to grasp my other arm.
I wiggled under him to stay free. His face pressed hard against my shoulder, each hand pinning my arms. One more of Emma’s survival tips: I kneed his crotch with all the force and rage I could rally.
He rolled off me with a sharp yelp.
Grabbing the opportunity, I scrambled to my feet to run, but he gripped my right foot. I fell and kicked at the darkness until I hit something hard and solid, hopefully his face.
He released me.
With my hands groping in front of me, I found my way to a solid wall. If I can just follow this to a door or a light switch…Again, I stopped to listen for him, his breathing, his steps.
No sound came from the darkness around me.
I pressed my back against the cold wall and groped along no more than five feet before I felt a metal shelf abutted against the wall.
Damn. I retraced my silent steps; this time I traveled farther before finding another shelf blocking my progress. Now what? I lugged an outside wall, but the shelves boxed me into a dead end.
I slid down the wall to sit in the corner. Where was he? I strained to listen. A shuffling noise caught my attention. It came from somewhere out in front of me. He had to be on the other side of the shelves. Maybe I can just wait him out?
Boxes crashed, slamming onto the floor, microfiche scattering across the concrete with a squeal. Scrambling to my feet, I bolted out of the corner, climbing up a shelf and falling down the other side, Directly across from it, I hit another shelf, so I ran down the aisle, hands searching in front of me, away from the wall, hoping to find an exit. At the end of the row, I lost contact with the shelving, hands out, trying to find something in the blackness.
More boxes fell behind me, and I fumbled forward and discovered another solid wall. This time, I let my hand glide over the wall as I hurried to the left. I found a corner and swung around it and kept following the cold cinderblock wall.
A faint red glow in the distance welcomed my eyes as I tried to focus. An exit sign illuminated a stairway door.
Running at full speed, I didn’t care about my echoing footsteps. I hit the metal door with force, slamming it back against the stairwell. Bounding up the steps two at a time, I ran up to the main floor; bright light spots and starbursts almost caused my eyes to miss the entrance to the lobby.
I burst through the door.
With surprise, the night watchman looked up.
“Someone,” I panted, “tried to kill me!”
“What?” The old man came around his desk. “Calm down, son. What�
�s going on?”
I tried to catch my breath, but couldn’t. “In the morgue. Someone cut off the lights. Chased me.”
He guided me to a chair. “Stay here. Let me take a look.” He took the stairs down to where I had just come from.
I sat there watching the stairway door, wondering if I should go back down to help the night watchman. But my mind couldn’t settle long enough to make a decision. Glancing at the elevator, I saw the floor indicator over the door light up the B. The sound of the motor told me it was moving up. Someone was coming from the basement.
The ding of the bell sounded, and the door slid open. Without willing it, I moved to the stairwell door, silently opened it, and crept inside, peering through the glass to see who got off the elevator. From my vantage point I couldn’t see the elevator door for a potted ficus tree, but a shadow emerged.
He seemed to hesitate, then retreated back to the elevator.
I opened the door again as the bell dinged the door shut. Cautiously, I checked around the plant to see the elevator stop on the fourth floor. What floor was Daniel on?
I went behind the desk to look for a directory. Which floor is he on? Gendron, Groce, Herrin, Johnston, Kaperonis…Fourth? That’s where, the elevator stopped. My mind jumped to conclusions. But why? Why would Daniel do something like that?
HANDS STILL TREMBLING, I got off the elevator and looked around the cubicles. Two men and a woman stood in a small circle talking, laughing. Daniel’s cube seemed quiet; I walked to it, but he wasn’t there. His computer still showed his article on its screen,
stopped in mid-sentence. I looked around for him. No. No way. He couldn’t; he wouldn’t. Why would he?
“Hey, you finished already?” Daniel’s voice made me jump. He walked into the cube and sat down, smiling.
My eyes searched Daniel for signs from our struggle. Nothing out of place, no scratches, no bruises, no dirt or dust on his white knit shirt. I heard a sigh escape from my lips. He couldn’t have done it. “I got run out,” I said trying not to sound too scared, but failing.
“Run out? What do you mean?” he asked. His pursed eyebrows and the concern in his voice, reinforced his innocence.
“Uh,” I started, “I was in the shelves collecting microfiche and the lights went out. I heard a voice, one I had heard before.”
“Voice? Who?”
“Today, on the phone, someone told me to get out of town and that faggots don’t belong here.” I watched anger redden his face. “Then tonight, after the lights went out, I heard that same voice telling me he was going to kill me.”
“What?” He leaned forward in his chair. “Are you sure? Are you okay? Did you see anyone?” he asked, running fingers through his thick hair.
“Daniel, he killed the lights; it was completely black down there, He chased me. I’m lucky I made it out.”
He stood up, banging his chair into his desk. “I’m going down there.”
“Hold on, I told the guard in the lobby. He went to take a look.”
“What did he find?”
I felt stupid now for not waiting to see if he had found anything. “I came back without waiting around. I saw the elevator go from the basement floor to this floor, so I followed it.”
“This floor? You think he’s here?”
“I thought, at first, it might…” I looked down at my dusty shoes.
“Me? You think I would threaten you?”
“No,” I corrected, “at first, for a split second-I just didn’t think anyone here would know who I am.”
He held my shoulders firm and looked square in my eyes. “Derek, I would never hurt you or threaten you. I don’t want you to leave Charlotte; far from, it, I want you to stay. I want you around as long as possible.”
I felt his electricity move through his grip and sear my body. I wanted to hold him, to not let go, to feel safe in his arms.
“I’m going to check this out.” Daniel headed toward the elevator, then stopped and looked at me. “It stopped on this floor? You’d better come with me.”
Once the elevator doors closed and we had privacy, I wrapped my arms around him. “Thanks for not thinking I’m crazy.”
He returned my hug. “You aren’t crazy, just a little queer.” He winked and laughed.
‘Funny. Is that Charlotte gay humor?” I bumped his chest with my shoulder.
“Just trying to lighten up the moment.” He pressed the lobby button and then the basement floor button. “I want to check with Harold to see if he found anything in the morgue. You can stay there in the lobby while I check the basement.”
“No way. I’m going with you.”
The doors opened to the lobby. Daniel walked around the corner to the front desk while I held the elevator. He came back. “Not there. Maybe he’s still downstairs.”
We rode down to the bottom floor. When the door opened, the florescent lights illuminated the floor like mid-day. I searched the rows of shelving, looking for evidence of the struggle, overturned boxes, scattered microfiche, but I found nothing. Everything seemed to be in perfect order. Where was I?
“Harold, you down here?” Daniel called.
I glanced back to see him checking the stairwell.
“Hey, Harold, it’s Daniel, you here?” He closed the door. “Guess we missed him. We can check the front desk on our way back up.”
Walking back to the work area with the terminals, I checked for any sign that someone had chased me. I found the terminals; all was in order, my notes still there. But, turning a corner I saw it. A shelving unit leaned against another; boxes and microfiche littered the concrete floor. “Hey Dan-”
“Derek, come here, quick.” Daniel’s urgent voice carried over the high shelves.
When I found him in a remote corner of the morgue, he squatted over the limp body of the night watchman.
“Run call 911, he’s still breathing.”
Chapter Eleven
AFTER THE POLICE finished asking all their stupid questions, I turned to Daniel. “Is there any way this will stay out of the paper? I mean, here in the Observer building?”
“Everyone’s already asking questions.” He looked around at some of the other reporters who had gathered in the morgue. “The police record is open to us.”
“Great, just what I need. More publicity. I want to go home.” I turned to leave, but he didn’t follow me.
“Harold will be fine. Don’t worry about him.” His voice slapped me.
I turned back to see pain in his eyes. “Sorry.” Embarrassed, I tried to cover my selfishness. “I’m concerned about him, but you have to remember I was the one stalked and threatened; I-”
“All you think about is yourself. That’s so like the Harris family.” He turned and walked toward the elevator.
“Wait a minute. What upset you?” Anger boiled up in my throat. “Excuse me, but I did have my life in danger, maybe you wanted that to be me on the floor.”
Daniel jerked around to look at me. “No. That’s not what I mean. I just…” His voice trailed off. Swallowing hard, he bit his lower lip. “I’m worried about you. Why would anyone want to hurt you?”
“You mean besides being Charlotte ‘s token faggot?”
Daniel turned away from me.
I knew my words had hit him hard. “I didn’t mean it was your fault.”
“But,” he said without looking at me, “this wouldn’t have happened if not for my article.”
I didn’t have the strength to try to comfort him. The voice of the stalker haunted my mind; I needed to be back at Ruby’s, somewhere, anywhere I might feel safe. “Daniel, let me know how he’s doing.”
Facing me again, he asked, “Do you want me to drive you home?”
“No, thanks. I’ll be fine.” I pushed my way through the police officers and newspaper workers, glad to be leaving the morgue alive.
I DIDN’T TELL Ruby what had happened; instead I headed straight to bed. “Be sure to lock up,” I called with my toothbrush in my mouth.<
br />
“What?” Ruby yelled back.
“Make sure you lock the doors.”
“Honey, those doors are always locked.” She appeared in the bathroom doorway. Her crimson curls corralled in a hairnet, an emerald quilted housecoat wrapped tightly around her buxom form, for some reason she brought to my mind Miss Kitty from Gunsmokereruns. “You okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I rinsed the toothpaste out of my mouth. “The newspaper article makes me a little nervous.”
“A lot has happened since yesterday morning.” She handed me a towel. “Don’t worry about a thing. Walterene and I have a Peter Beater under the bed.”
“A what?” I watched her go to her bedroom, crouch, and pull a baseball bat from under the bed.
She held it with both hands as if ready to bash the lamp. “My Peter Beater. Any man who tries to get in here will get his peter beat with this bat.”
I winced and grabbed my crotch. “Invited men get to keep theirs, right?”
“Don’t worry about your little thing.”
“Hey!” I protested her choice of adjective.
“Nothing will happen to us with this nearby.”
I pushed the bat down to her side and kissed her cheek. “Goodnight, Wonder Woman.”
BEFORE BREAKFAST, I decided to take a run around the neighborhood. The cool breeze and brightening sunshine would cleanse the memory of the past night. I wished it had been a dream. Picking up the Observer from the driveway and scanning its pages for any mention of the incident in its own basement, I found nothing and set the paper inside the door for Ruby. “I’ll be right back,” I yelled to the kitchen. “I’ll only run a couple of miles around the neighborhood.”
“Don’t go too far. Breakfast will be ready soon,” Ruby replied.
Closing the door, I stretched in the driveway. Several cars and a school bus drove by-Friday morning rush hour in Sedgefield. I jogged up Wriston Place under the sheltering branches of oaks and elms, their new spring leaves bright in the rising sun. Their roots had buckled the old sidewalk, so I kept my focus on my path. The street ended at Dorchester where Saint Paul ‘s Methodist Church kept a steady eye on the neighborhood. Beyond its steeple, the Bank of America tower presided over downtown Charlotte ‘s skyline. Jogging over to Poindexter, I cranked up my speed to a steady run.
