Afraid

by Jack Kilborn

  At first, Duncan recoiled in terror and even cried a little. He knew about Stranger Danger and the awful things some men did to little boys. He couldn’t stop thinking that Mom was right, that he was too young to stay home alone, and it was his fault a bad man got in the house.

  After a few minutes of crying, the man began to flick his lighter. That was scary, but it calmed Duncan down somehow, gave him something to focus on. The man hadn’t hurt him, hadn’t touched him, hadn’t said a single word. He just stood there, switching the flame on and off.

  “Who are you?” Duncan finally asked.

  “I’m—hehehe—Bernie.”

  Bernie’s giggle sounded like a little girl’s.

  “Where’s my dog?”

  In the flickering orange, Duncan watched Bernie smile. He touched the flame to the dog collar he still held in his other hand. The nylon collar began to melt.

  “Acrylic. This black black dark black smoke contains chlorine, chlorine, dioxins, and furans. Very very very bad to inhale. But I can’t help taking a little sniff, a little tiny sniff, because I really—hehehe—like it.”

  Bernie stuffed his nose in a plume of oily smoke and made sniffing sounds.

  “Did you … burn Woof?” Duncan asked, voice cracking.

  “Smell it? Do you smell your dog, Duncan?” Duncan had no idea how the man knew his name. “When fur burns, it smells like hair. Have you—hehehe—smelled burning hair?”

  Duncan shook his head. Bernie dropped the collar onto the hardwood floor, where it quickly went out, and reached for Duncan. The boy tried to duck away, but Bernie clamped a large hand around his neck.

  “Smell this. Smell it.”

  He giggled and touched the jumping flame to the side of Duncan’s head, above his right ear. Duncan heard a sizzling, snapping sound, like bacon frying, and then smelled the awful odor of his hair melting.

  Just as he began to feel the heat, Bernie turned off the lighter. He slapped Duncan’s head, smothering the flame but almost knocking him over.

  “Smell it. Smell. Bad smell. Did you smell your dog? Answer me! Answer—hehehe—answer me.”

  “No, I didn’t smell that.” Duncan touched the side of his head. His hair there felt sticky and hard, like he had gum caught in it.

  “After the fur burns, smells pretty good. Like hamburgers. Dogburgers. Hehehe. People smell like barbecue ribs when they burn. Hehe—and they taste like ribs. Smoky. Smoky and good. Have you ever been burned?”

  Duncan was very close to wetting his underwear. He couldn’t answer but managed to shake his head.

  “Pain. Lots of pain. See?”

  Bernie lifted up his black shirt and showed his chest. His whole body was covered with shiny pink scars, and it looked a lot like the spiced ham Mom bought at the deli for his school lunch.

  “Bad burn. Dead nerves. See?”

  Bernie touched the fire to the scar tissue and held it there.

  “Can’t feel it. But smell—hehehe—smells good. Good smell.”

  A sickly sweet odor invaded Duncan’s head, pushing away the stench of burning hair. The fact that it smelled tasty made it even more disgusting.

  Bernie pulled his shirt back down. “Hungry, hungry, makes me hungry. Hehehe. Give me your hand.”

  Duncan put both of his hands behind him and backed away.

  “You won’t die. I want to show you. First-degree burns, first degree, only affects the epidermis—the outer layer of skin. Causes redness, swelling. Hurts. Like a sunburn.”

  Bernie walked after Duncan, trapping him in the corner of the bedroom. Duncan didn’t know if he could stand up anymore. His legs wanted to quit. He sobbed, and the sobs turned into hiccups. Where was Mom? How could this be happening?

  “Second degree,” Bernie continued, “causes blisters. Very painful. They fill with fluid. Can be a few skin layers, layers deep. Papillary and reticular dermis affected— hehehe. These are the burns I use when I’m asking someone questions. Going too deep makes them third degree. Tissue damage. Skin and nerves burned away, so the pain isn’t as bad.”

  Bernie reached around and grabbed Duncan’s arm. Duncan tried to pull away, but Bernie was too strong.

  “Fourth fourth, fourth-degree burns are when the skin is completely gone, can’t ever heal. Fifth degree, the muscle is gone. Sixth degree, bone is charred. That takes a lot of heat. Fourteen hundred degrees. I can’t get that hot with my lighter. I need this.”

  Bernie tucked his lighter into his belt and took out a tiny silver cylinder. He pressed a button and a blue flame shot out.

  “A butane torch. Isn’t that pretty? See how thin the flame can get? I can use this to write. See?”

  Bernie released Duncan and began to roll up his sleeve. Duncan tried to scoot around Bernie, but the man nudged his hip and pinned the boy against the wall.

  “Isn’t this cool?” Bernie said, showing Duncan his forearm. The raised scar tissue formed the word BERNIE. “Maybe cool is wrong, the wrong word. This is hot. Very hot. You want your name on your arm, Duncan? Hehe. You want to be hot like Bernie?”

  Bernie stretched Duncan’s arm over his head, and Duncan bawled. Then there was a buzzing sound. Bernie tugged something out of his pocket, something small with a screen that lit up. He peered at it, reading something. Then he pressed a button and spoke.

  “Understood. Tell me when I can get rid of the kid.”

  Bernie put the device away and smiled.

  “My friend Taylor has your mother. We may not, may not need you—hehehe.”

  At the mention of his mother, Duncan found his voice.

  “Why … why do you have Mom?”

  “We need to ask her some things, some questions. Taylor is good at asking. He doesn’t use fire. He bites. Taylor likes to bite. He’s killed over seventy people. Good at it. So when your mom tells Taylor what she knows, I won’t need you anymore.”

  “You’ll let us go?”

  “Hehehe—of course not. I’m going to build a really big fire, then cook you and eat you.”

  The thought that this man wanted to eat him brought Duncan back from hysteria. He recalled from Stranger Danger class what to do if someone grabbed him. Bernie’s shoes were thick, so grinding his heel on the top of his foot probably wouldn’t work. And since Bernie dressed like a soldier, he probably wore one of those sports cups on his privates. But Bernie’s eyes—they were unprotected.

  Duncan stuck out his pointer finger and jammed it, hard as he could, into Bernie’s eye.

  Bernie flinched, crying out, and briefly backed away from Duncan. The boy slipped out of the man’s grasp and ran for the stairs fast as he could. He jumped down the last several, landing hard on his bare feet and almost tripping over something furry.

  Woof!

  Duncan knelt down, felt the rising and falling of his dog’s chest. He shook him, trying to get Woof to wake up.

  “You little bastard!” Bernie, at the top of the stairs. “I’m going to burn your eyes out!”

  Duncan knew he should run, but he couldn’t leave Woof. He shook the beagle even harder and felt a lump on the dog’s head. Bernie must have hit him or kicked him.

  “Woof! Come on, boy! You have to get up!”

  A growl, deep in Woof’s throat. He twitched, then rolled onto all fours.

  “Thatta boy, Woof!”

  Duncan felt Woof’s warm tongue on his face, and he wrapped his arms around the animal’s neck. Then Woof went rigid and began to bark.

  “I’ll burn you, too, dog,” Bernie said, just before Woof lunged and dug his teeth into the man’s calf.

  Bernie howled, falling onto his butt, and Duncan ran for the front door with Woof on his heels. The night was cold and dark. Duncan knew to go to his neighbor, Mrs. Teller, for help when Mom wasn’t home, but Mrs. Teller’s lights weren’t on. In fact, no one on the block had their lights on. Duncan figured the electricity was out all over. He and Woof ran to Mrs. Teller’s front door and he banged on it with both hands.

  Somet
hing glowed behind him. Duncan turned around and saw orange fire flickering through the windows of his house. Bernie appeared in the doorway, lighter raised above his head, and spotted Duncan. He began to limp after him.

  “Mrs. Teller!” Duncan banged harder on the door. “It’s Duncan!”

  Woof began to bark like crazy. Bernie got closer, close enough for Duncan to hear his manic giggling. Behind Bernie, the fire had spread throughout Duncan’s house. He could now see flames in all four front windows, and smoke rose from the roof.

  Bernie’s face stretched out in a grotesque smile. He came closer, and closer, and got within fifteen feet when Mrs. Teller’s door finally opened.

  “Stop!” she commanded. Duncan looked at her. Mrs. Teller was close to eighty years old, and her back bent in the shape of a question mark, and Duncan had to help her open jars. But she looked totally scary standing there with Mr. Teller’s old shotgun.

  Bernie must have thought so, too, because he didn’t come any closer.

  “Shoot him!” Duncan cried. “He broke into my house and burned it down and hurt Woof and wants to kill me!”

  Bernie giggled. “I saw the house on fire and tried to help.”

  “He’s lying, Mrs. Teller!”

  “The boy, the boy is obviously upset and confused. I saved his life.”

  “You’re not from around here,” Mrs. Teller said.

  “I was passing through. Good thing, good thing I did, or else he’d—the boy—would be dead.”

  “Where’s your car?”

  Bernie’s grin faltered. “What? Oh, there, on the street.”

  “That’s the Chavezes’ car,” Mrs. Teller said and then aimed and pulled the trigger.

  Santiago probed his chest and winced. The liquid body armor—Kevlar fibers soaked in a sheer thickening fluid suspension of nano-silica particles in polyethylene glycol—had done its job and stopped all four rounds. It not only repelled penetration, but the energy of the impacts had been diffused, preventing blunt force trauma. But it still hurt like a bitch. Santiago promised himself he would pay back in kind when he caught up with the sheriff again.

  He sat up and stared at Ajax, who was palpating his own body armor, the usual blank expression on his face. Ajax never had any expression, even while he was ripping off a man’s arms.

  Santiago turned to face the woods and squinted. The Red-ops team all had enhanced night vision. Santiago vaguely recalled it having something to do with increased rhodopsin stores in his rods, yet another benefit of the Chip. A quick survey of the area failed to reveal the sheriff or the firefighter who had saved him.

  A brief swatch of memory clouded his mind, and Santiago thought back to an earlier time, to his home in Bolivia. He remembered the room where prisoners were taken to be broken. Sometimes for interrogation. Sometimes to use as examples. Santiago always had a talent for causing pain.

  When he was fifteen years old his family had a small farm, eating some of the goats, cattle, and chickens they raised, selling the surplus at the marketplace in town. But something began killing their livestock, mutilating the animals in grotesque ways. The eyes and genitals were gouged out. The entrails removed and tied into knots and braids. So many bones broken they no longer had any form.

  The villagers spoke in hushed tones of a chupacabra on the loose, an evil creature of legend.

  Santiago knew better. He was the one who led the animals, with food and gentle coaxing, to a cave in the woods where he would tie them down and torture them for hours.

  After several years of butchery, he made the easy transition from the village’s livestock to the villagers themselves. Abducting a particularly loud young girl led to his capture and imprisonment. But rather than rot in jail, he was recruited by the secret police, getting paid to indulge in his appetites.

  He plied his trade for many years. Santiago grinned, recalling a particularly enjoyable interrogation involving a vise and a cheese grater. He could vividly see the man’s face, hear his screams …

  The Chip sensed the increased electrical function in the amygdala and hippocampus prodded by the memory and instantly ordered a reboot.

  “Charge,” he said.

  Without thinking, Santiago reached into his pants and pulled out a capsule of Charge, breaking it under his nose. The fumes took away the pain, stepped up his heart rate, and dissipated the extraneous thoughts and memories, leaving only the next mission objective: Find Sheriff Streng. Santiago didn’t question his orders, any more than he questioned the fact that this was obviously American soil. The mission was the only thing that mattered.

  Santiago stood up and faced Ajax. The giant was also sniffing a Charge capsule, his eyes rolled back into his skull. A moment later the two of them were sprinting through the woods with the speed and agility of pro athletes, Santiago ducking and dodging foliage, and Ajax knocking it out of the way. They didn’t become tired or winded, and their pulses remained under seventy beats per minute—resting heart rates for normal people. Ajax stopped once, to pick up the trail, and within fifty paces the sheriff and his friend were within their sights.

  The Red-ops members switched to stealth mode, blending into the woods, silently flowing through the environment like liquid. The sheriff wouldn’t get away again.

  • • •

  Fran Stauffer, lying in the parking lot, her arms tied behind her with a plastic zip line, had never felt such hatred. Fran was a member of Amnesty International. She protested against capital punishment. She even forgave the unknown driver who caused the death of her husband.

  But this man, Taylor, had completely shattered her faith in humanity. He did it with one short sentence: “We have Duncan, and we’re going to hurt him.”

  Suddenly human rights no longer mattered. Neither did the sanctity of life. If Fran’s hands were free, she would have ripped Taylor’s throat out without a bit of guilt or regret.

  “You seem angry,” Taylor said. He smiled. Taylor didn’t look like a monster. He had a strong, angular face that could be regarded as handsome. And his smile was deceptively charming. But Fran had seen what he’d done to Al, and had no doubt he’d do the same, or worse, to her. And to Duncan.

  “Leave Duncan alone. He’s just a child.”

  “I believe Bernie wants to eat him. I’ve seen him do it. In Bosnia he roasted a man’s leg and ate it while the fellow was still alive. Personally, I prefer mine raw.”

  Taylor grinned again and snapped his teeth. Fran fought the revulsion and tried to keep her voice steady, even though it felt like her heart might explode from beating so fast.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to know where Warren is.”

  “Who’s Warren?”

  Taylor smiled, as if he liked that answer, and lifted Fran’s injured foot up to his mouth. Fran tried to kick away, but the man had fingers like steel cables.

  “This little piggy went to market,” Taylor sang, running his teeth over her big toe. “And this little piggy stayed home.”

  Fran anticipated even more pain, and she wanted to vomit.

  “Please, I don’t know anyone named Warren.”

  “This little piggy had roast beef …”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “This little piggy had none …”

  “You have to give me more information! I can’t tell you what you want to know unless you tell me what you want!”

  Taylor’s tongue probed her injury, making her gasp.

  “I said before,” his teeth knocked against her exposed bone, “I want Warren.”

  “Who the fuck is Warren!”

  “Warren Streng.”

  “The sheriff’s brother? Why the hell would I know where—Jesus Christ!”

  Taylor bit down just as Fran succumbed to another panic attack. But this time it was a blessing; she hyperventilated, became oxygen deprived, and blacked out.

  The blessing didn’t last. The sharp odor of ammonia shot up Fran’s nostrils, making her eyes burn. She shook her head
to escape the smelling salts, realized what was happening, and began to yell for help. As she screamed, Taylor stroked her hair and ran his fingertips over her lips, tracing the O of her mouth.

  Then, like an answered prayer, red and blue flashing lights appeared. They became brighter, and Fran watched the emergency vehicle pull into the lot. A fire truck.

  Josh!

  Since her husband’s death, Josh had been the only man Fran had seen more than once, and she had actually developed feelings for him. Unfortunately, the feelings weren’t mutual, and after four terrific dates Josh had stopped calling. Fran had assumed it was because of Duncan—not too many men had the desire to become instant fathers. A shame, too, because Duncan seemed to like him as much as Fran had.

  “Josh!” Fran bellowed, extending his name out into three syllables. “Help me!”

  Taylor patted Fran on the cheek, then walked casually over to the tanker truck. Fran’s vision was blocked by her car, so she scooted up onto her butt. Taylor stood next to the driver’s door, speaking casually through the open window. She couldn’t see into the truck or hear any words.

  “Josh!” Fran cried.

  Taylor waved at her and smiled. Then the fire truck began to pull away.

  A sob escaped Fran. This couldn’t be happening. Why would Josh leave her there? Didn’t he hear her?

  Fran pushed back against her car door, got her legs under her, and stood up. Then she ran. Behind her she heard Taylor chide, “Don’t make me chase you.” She ignored him, focusing on catching Josh. If he saw her, he’d help. He had to help.

  The truck didn’t seem to be in any hurry, cruising down Main Street at a languid pace. Fran’s injured foot seemed to catch fire every time it slapped against the pavement, and her balance was seriously threatened by the binding on her wrists. But slowly, agonizingly, she reached the rear of the tanker.

  “Josh! Stop!”

  Rather than stop, the truck picked up speed. Only a few miles per hour faster, but Fran couldn’t match it. She scraped her toe bone against the tarmac, and the spike of agony made her slow down. Miraculously, Josh also slowed down. Did he see her?

  Energized, Fran pushed on. The truck was within twenty yards. Ten yards. Five. She made it!