Everything Has Teeth

by Strand, Jeff

  "Don't tell me what to do," the old man shouted. "I don't take orders from kids!"

  Under much different circumstances, the "kid" comment would have been flattering. Warren revved the engine, though of course he had no intention of actually crushing the old man under his tires.

  Julia took her cell phone out of her purse.

  "I mean it!" said Warren.

  The old man bashed the rock against his rear windshield.

  "Aw, you can't be serious." Warren shut off the engine and opened his door.

  "What are you going to do?" asked Julia, eyes wide with concern.

  "I'm gonna get him out of the way," Warren said. "If I just let him bust out my back windshield, he might break yours next. I'll be careful, don't worry."

  Warren got out of the car as the old man bashed the glass a second time. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"

  "I hear you," the old man said, glaring at him. "I ain't deaf, you goddamned ageist."

  "Hit my car again and you'll be sorry," Warren told him. It was a pretty weak threat, but Warren wasn't used to having to show slender old men that he meant business.

  The old man gave him a look that reminded Warren of his daughter Yvonne when she was six, the look she would give him when he would tell her in a very strict voice to stop playing on the slide and come in for dinner, the look that said, essentially, "I understand what you're saying, and respect your authority in this matter, but I really don't fear the consequences," right before climbing the ladder for one more slide.

  The old man slammed the rock into the windshield again, spiderwebbing but not shattering the glass.

  Warren grabbed the rock out of his hand.

  "Give me that back," the old man said.

  "Get out of here. She's ready to call the cops."

  "I said, give me back the rock. It's not yours."

  Warren flung the rock over the fence. "Now it's gone. Find something else to do."

  "I'll kill you for that."

  "Just get out of the way of my car, all right? I don't want to squish you."

  The car alarm was still blaring. As was the tradition with car alarms, nobody was coming out to investigate.

  "Go on, run me over," said the old man. "That'll make you feel brave, won't it? Make you feel like a big man? Do it."

  Warren wasn't a super athlete, but he was in more than good enough shape to move a thin old man out of the way. He wrapped his arms around the old man's waist and carried him, kicking and screaming, about twenty feet away.

  He gently set him on the ground, though the old man promptly fell on his butt. But he seemed unhurt, if still rage-filled, so Warren rushed back to his car. He hoped that what he'd just done wasn't considered assault, but the line of broken car windows would show that there were extenuating circumstances.

  Julia was on the phone as he got into the car. "Okay...thank you," she said. She pressed her index finger to the touch screen to disconnect the call. "The police and an ambulance are on their way."

  "Good."

  "They want a statement, but I said that we didn't feel safe waiting here, so we'll find a place to hang out nearby."

  Warren backed out of the parking spot. The old man was getting up, but not quickly enough that he had to worry about running him over.

  "Sounds like a plan," he said. There went the last possible chance of salvaging the date. Oh well. He supposed that since they'd left a crazy woman, a bleeding valet attendant, and a destructive old man behind, they should probably tell their side of the story to somebody.

  He drove out of the parking lot and turned onto the highway.

  "What do you think is happening?" Julia asked.

  "I have no idea."

  "It can't be coincidence, can it?"

  "I don't know. I guess it could be. Or maybe the old man is the father of the crazy lady in the restaurant, and the valet is their crazy son."

  "Family insanity?"

  "Yeah," said Warren. "I mean, obviously I was joking, but it's actually one of the more logical explanations. It's not a full moon. Did some sports team lose a championship or something?"

  "Not that I know of. Maybe people are catching Mad Cow Disease from the food they serve at that place. I don't think Mad Cow Disease works that fast, but, I don't know, is there some kind of food poisoning that would make people act that way?"

  "Could be. I've never heard of it. But I'm not an expert on different types of food poisoning."

  "It's not like we're in a bad neighborhood," said Julia.

  "Nope. And even if we were, people breaking out car windows isn't anything unusual, but they do it in the dark, and they run away after they've done it. That guy didn't even care if he got arrested." Warren stopped at a red light. "The cops didn't say where to meet them?"

  "No. I said we'd come back in a few minutes."

  "Okay. We should probably park, then."

  After the light turned green, he drove through the intersection and then parked alongside the sidewalk.

  "I guess we didn't need to go this far," said Warren. "A block or so would've been fine. It's not like any of the psychos were chasing after us."

  "Yeah, but if one of them pulled a gun, we'd look pretty stupid for having only gone a block."

  "You're right. You're absolutely right. I feel much less cowardly now. Thank you."

  Julia smiled. "I'd just like to say that even though this evening has mostly been really, really shitty, I've enjoyed meeting you in person, and I hope we can have another date that's not so shitty."

  "Tomorrow? Same time, completely different place?"

  "Sure."

  "Great. We'll just pretend this one never happened. Make tomorrow our official first date."

  Somewhere in the distance, perhaps a few blocks away, a gunshot went off.

  "Great," said Warren.

  "Maybe the cops shot the valet."

  Warren laughed. "Arm or leg wound, I'm cool with it. I'd feel bad if they shot him in the head."

  "The sound was from the wrong direction, though."

  "Yeah, I know."

  Another gunshot. It sounded further away than the first, but it was still unnerving.

  "I hope this isn't the end times," said Julia. "That would suck."

  A car alarm went off, much closer than the gunshots.

  "Screw this," said Warren. "I'm taking you home. We can give them a statement in the morning if they want it."

  "Sounds good to me. Should I call them back and let them know what we're doing, so nobody thinks we're fleeing the scene?"

  "It can't hurt."

  Before Warren could pull back onto the street, a white truck sped past them, going way too fast. It raced through the red light at the next intersection.

  Warren was starting to feel a bit of panic now. He wasn't one for paranoia, but there were too many elements of chaos at once. All he wanted to do was get Julia home safely, go back to his own house, get a full night's sleep, and wake up with the world back to normal.

  Julia gasped so loud that it made Warren flinch.

  "Pull over!"

  She was pointing at something, but he couldn't see what it was.

  "I said, pull over! Hurry!"

  "There's no room."

  "Then brake!"

  Warren slammed on the brakes, thankful that there were no cars behind him.

  Julia threw open her door and got out of the car.

  "What's wrong?" he called after her.

  "That woman is going to throw that little girl off the balcony!"

  * * *

  Julia ran down the block, almost hyperventilating with panic.

  A heavyset woman stood on the balcony of her fourth-floor apartment. She had a baby strapped to her chest in one of those sling things, and she was also dangling a screaming little girl, maybe five or six years old, over the side.

  She was holding the little girl's hands, but it was clearly not a case where the girl had accidentally fallen, the mother had caught her hands in a last-second re
scue, and now was desperately trying to pull her daughter up to safety. The woman was smiling. In fact, were it not for the little girl's shrieks, it might have looked like a moment of dangerous but lighthearted play.

  "Hey!" Julia shouted, frantically waving her arms above her head. "Hey! What are you doing?"

  The woman looked down at her. "You really want me to wave back?"

  "No! Pull her up!"

  Warren, who had apparently left his car in the middle of the street, ran up next to her. "Holy shit," he said.

  "Pull the girl up!" Julia repeated. "Are you insane? What's the matter with you?"

  "Dare me to drop her?" the woman shouted down.

  "No!"

  "You double dog dare me? Truth or dare? I'll do it if you dare me!"

  "She's three windows down from the main entrance," Warren said. "I'll see what I can do." He ran to the front door of the apartment complex and went inside.

  The little girl began kicking and screaming so violently that the woman nearly lost her grip. "Stop struggling!" the woman shouted. "You want to get dropped? If you pop out of my hands, it's not my fault!"

  Julia took out her cell phone and dialed 911.

  "Put that thing away!" the woman shouted. "Now! Put it away or I'll let her go!"

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," said Julia, probably not loudly enough for the woman to hear up there. She put the phone back into her pocket and held up her hands to show that they were empty.

  "No! Get rid of it! Get rid of it or I drop her!"

  "Please, just pull her—"

  The woman let go of one of the little girl's hands. The woman lurched forward from the sudden weight on her other arm, and for a second Julia thought she was going to crush the baby against the balcony rail.

  Julia took her cell phone back out of her pocket. She watched helplessly as the woman pulled the girl up to where she'd been before. Julia couldn't hear what the woman said to the girl, but she thought it was "Give me your hand."

  The girl raised her free hand. It took a few swipes to catch it again, but the woman finally did. The girl stopped crying and went silent.

  "See what you made me do?" the woman shouted at Julia. "Now throw the phone into the sewer grate."

  Julia hesitated for a moment. She would gladly discard her phone to save a little girl, but if things continued to go crazy, if they got even worse, she'd be throwing away her ability to call for help.

  "I said, throw it!"

  There was absolutely nothing about the woman's behavior to indicate that she was bluffing, so Julia dropped the cell phone onto the sidewalk and then kicked it toward the sewer grate, hoping it would miss by a few inches. It did.

  "I didn't say to kick it away from you!" the woman shouted. "I said to throw it into the grate!"

  "Hey, shut up!" said a man, leaning out his open window and looking down at Julia. "I'm trying to watch my shows, for Christ's sake!" He leaned back inside, apparently without noticing what was going on.

  Julia walked over to where her phone had landed and kicked it all the way into the grate, feeling a bit sick at the sound of the splash.

  "Now pull her back up!" Julia shouted.

  "I didn't say I was going to do that! Never said that! Never!"

  What could Julia use to cushion the girl's fall? Julia quickly looked around, but there were no helpful items like mattresses or fluffy pillows in the vicinity. There weren't even any garbage bags. If she did drop the girl, she was going to fall four stories onto concrete.

  Julia couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like the girl was starting to slip out of the woman's grasp.

  "Listen to me!" Julia shouted. "What do I have to do so you won't drop her?"

  "I think I'm going to drop her no matter what you do."

  "Is she your daughter?"

  "Unless there was a swap at the hospital."

  "Why would you kill your own daughter?"

  "Do you have kids?"

  "No."

  "Sometimes you just want to kill them. Have kids of your own and you'll understand. Uh-oh, my hands are starting to cramp up. Oh, they're getting crampy quickly. I think Katie is going to go splat! Splat goes Katie, all over your nice dress!"

  Julia couldn't catch her if she fell. Even a small girl like that would shatter your bones if she landed on you from four stories high. Katie might survive, cushioned by Julia's mangled body, but Julia was honest enough with herself to admit that she wasn't quite prepared to make that kind of sacrifice.

  She suddenly noticed that a young couple was walking down the sidewalk toward them, about a block away, their arms linked at the elbows. They were watching what was going on with shock but didn't seem to be picking up their pace in order to help out. In fact, the guy looked like he was ready to turn around.

  The woman above noticed what Julia was looking at. "Hey!" the woman screamed at the couple. "Fuck off or I'll drop her!"

  They wasted no time in heeding her request, quickly breaking into a run.

  The girl still wasn't making any noise, though she was moving enough to show that she at least wasn't dead. Either she was conserving her movements to keep from slipping out of her mother's grasp, which was an unlikely decision for a six-year-old to make, or she was frightened to the point of catatonia.

  What was Julia supposed to do? She felt completely helpless.

  "Catch!" the woman shouted.

  Then she let the little girl go.

  * * *

  Warren ran up the steps as fast as he could, fumbling with his cell phone at the same time. He tried to punch in 911 with his thumb, put in 912 instead, but got it right on the second try.

  "911 emergency," a man on the other end said.

  "Hi, I'm at...crap, I don't know where I am. It's a few blocks north of Denton's, a restaurant on Ridge Avenue. There's this lady on the fourth floor, and she's...hello?" The phone beeped twice and he glanced at the display. He'd lost the signal. Stupid goddamn stairwell.

  He opened the door to the fourth floor and raced out into the hallway. At the end of the hall, a burly, gray-bearded man who looked like a Hell's Angel was leaning against the wall, drinking a beer. He looked over at Warren.

  "You live here?" the man asked, adjusting his sunglasses.

  "Me? No." Warren ran down the hallway, which had stained, faded carpet.

  "We don't allow trespassers!" the man said, picking up a wooden baseball bat that had been resting on the floor next to him.

  Why would this guy have a baseball bat in the hallway with him? Was he a player for the Hell's Angels league? What the fuck was going on tonight?

  The man raised the bat over his shoulder and walked toward Warren. He was not smiling.

  Warren's first thought was that he should probably be someplace else when the man made it over here, but he decided to remain optimistic and try diplomacy. "Hey, we've got a messed-up situation outside," he said. He pointed to what he hoped was the correct door. "A lady is going to drop her kid off the balcony. I could sure use your help."

  The man picked up his pace. He did not look like he was interested in providing any help.

  "Get out of my building!" he shouted, running and swinging the bat at Warren's head. This was not a warning swing. It was meant to shatter Warren's skull.

  Warren stepped out of the way, the bat swishing through the air about six inches away from his face. He could either flee or try to get the bat away from the lunatic, and if he fled, he suspected that the last sound he'd ever hear would be the crack of a bat against the back of his head. So he dove at the man.

  It wasn't as if the man seemed to possess superhuman strength, but he certainly had a lot more strength than Warren. Before he could even quite register what had happened, Warren was stumbling toward the wall. He smacked into it, shoulder-first, and let out a grunt of pain.

  He turned around and saw the bat swinging at his head again. He ducked and heard the bat smash against the wall, dropping a few splinters into his hair.

  Warren took seve
ral steps backwards. This was probably not a man who would be swayed by a rational argument, but Warren had to try. "Didn't you hear me? A little girl is going to fall off a balcony!"

  "Ain't my kid." The man held up the lower half of the bat, from which jutted several sharp pieces of wood.

  "Are you serious?"

  "If she was dangling when you ran up here, she fell by now."

  Warren tried not to think about that. "We don't know that. We might still be able to save her."

  "How do I know you ain't lying?"

  He pointed to the door. "We go in there. Instant proof."

  The man shook his head. "Nah."

  He charged at Warren again, this time lunging with the bat like it was a broken bottle. Warren dodged again, though a large splinter came off and hit him in the cheek.

  Warren was not one to run from a conflict, but when there was a scary biker-looking guy trying to murder you with a broken baseball bat, there was no shame in getting out of there. The man was blocking his way back to the stairwell, but there'd be an exit on the other end of the hallway.

  He turned and ran.

  There was not another exit.

  The man was right behind him. Warren stopped at the dead end, then moved out of the way yet again as the bat smashed into the wall, breaking through the plaster.

  Warren hadn't known he possessed such good reflexes. The biker must've been a smoker.

  He tried to move past the guy, but the biker held up his free hand and blocked him, slamming his palm into Warren's solar plexus. Warren fell to the floor, suddenly unable to breathe.

  A door flew open, two doors down from the dead end. "Enough already!" a longhaired college-aged kid said, not bothering to hide the bong in his hand. "Show some respect for the people trying to get high!"

  The biker immediately turned away from Warren and rushed at the stoner. He leaned back inside his apartment, slamming the door so quickly that it caught the bong, breaking it in half. Glass and bong water fell to the floor.

  The door across from the stoner opened as well. A man, clean-cut but almost the size of the biker, stepped outside of his apartment, looking ready to rip somebody's head off.

  The biker spun around and smashed the bat into the man's right arm. The man howled with pain, a howl that turned into a high-pitched screech as the biker bashed him again in the exact same spot. His arm hung limp and useless at his side as he lurched for his doorway.