No Fear

by Darcia Helle

  A horn blasted behind him. Someone had double parked. Cars lined the street like sardines in a can. Angry faces behind the windshields, ticking away the minutes with fingers drumming their steering wheels. Afternoon rush hour at its best.

  Keeping his head low, he hobbled back down the porch stairs. He stopped himself from grabbing the railing for support. He didn’t want to leave bloody streaks behind. The box was all he could give. Nothing of himself.

  ***

  Sheri trudged down the city sidewalk. The day had been long and brutal. When people found out that she was a dance instructor, they’d always remark about the fun she must have at work. Those people had never been in a room full of hormone-ravaged fourteen-year-old girls or tried to get ten three-year-olds to pirouette at the same time.

  The studio was only a block from where she lived, so she could walk off much of the stress on her way home. Most days, she enjoyed the walk. The city sounds might irritate some, but she found the blasting horns and random shouts oddly comforting. The noise allowed her to convince herself that she was never alone. Today, though, she wished for a car and silence. Her muscles ached from a long session of choreographing a dance routine and her head throbbed from the piercing voice of an overly involved mother.

  She smiled as she turned the corner onto her street. A hot cup of tea and a shower were only minutes away. She’d prefer a glass of wine and a bubble bath, but she didn’t have time for that. She only had time to shower off the day’s grime and maybe grab a quick bite to eat.

  Sheri stepped onto her porch, pausing when she spotted the box. UPS never left boxes on her front porch. This was the city. Things weren’t safe inside, much less out in the open. That thought brought a wave of sadness. She bit her lip to keep it from quivering. She would not cry. She’d done enough of that this past week.

  The box had her name scrawled in black marker. No return address. No shipping label. For a moment, she had the ridiculous thought that it might be a bomb. Crazy stuff was happening all over the world. Just yesterday she’d read about a teenage boy who’d blown up his neighbor’s car with a pipe bomb. Thankfully, no one had been hurt.

  Pushing those thoughts from her mind, she reached down for the box. The contents rattled a bit. A flash of panic almost had her tossing the box out to the street. “Wimp,” she muttered. She’d probably ordered something and had forgotten. That must be it. No one had delivered a bomb to her door.

  Inside, she set the box on her kitchen table. She feigned a casual attitude as she filled the pot with water and turned on the burner. Then she laughed at herself. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t wait to rip open the box. And who was she putting this act on for, anyway? Last time she checked, she had no husband hiding in the closet or under the bed.

  Sheri grabbed a pair of scissors from the kitchen drawer and slit open the box. What she saw inside took her breath away. Without realizing it, she sank onto the chair with a thud. She looked away, then back again. The contents remained the same.

  “Oh my God…”

  She reached inside and carefully lifted the music box. Her music box. A beautiful ballerina graced the top. Sheri wound the key and Tiny Dancer played. She ran her finger over the porcelain. Perfect.

  But how could this be? Her music box had been destroyed in a fire last year.

  Three years ago, her mother had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Sheri had dropped out of college and gone back home. Taking care of her mother had always been more important than her personal life. So she’d stayed and done her best to care for her mother.

  Sadly, the Alzheimer’s was aggressive, and the disease progressed faster than anyone expected. Sheri had to work two jobs to keep up the mortgage and pay the medical bills not covered by insurance. Even then, they were barely making it. She couldn’t afford a full-time nurse and, consequently, her mother had spent a few hours alone each day.

  One evening, Sheri got home late and stepped inside to a house full of smoke. Flames shot from the kitchen. She had only enough time to get her mother out. As she huddled on the sidewalk with her mother and dialed 911, she watched the fire consume the home she’d grown up in.

  She shuddered at the memory. They’d lost everything in that fire, including the music box that now sat on her kitchen table. Her father had given her the music box for her fourth birthday. Two days later, he was gone. She’d never seen him again.

  After the fire, she’d had no choice but to put her mother into a nursing home. Doing so ripped her apart with guilt but her mother wasn’t safe on her own and Sheri couldn’t be there all the time. Nor could she afford the help they needed. The homeowners’ insurance claim money had been swallowed by the state, by the nursing home, to pay for her mother’s care. Sheri had rented the townhouse she now called home and did her best to ensure that her mother had the best care possible.

  She watched the ballerina dance to her song and fought back the tears. Her father used to sing the song to her each night before she’d go to sleep. He’d called her his tiny dancer.

  Swiping the tears from her eyes, Sheri looked in the box for a card. For an explanation. Instead, wrapped inside pink tissue paper, she found something that made her gasp. She spread the tissue paper open on the table as Tiny Dancer tinkled to an end. For a long time, she could do nothing more than sit and stare. Finally, she reached out and touched the cash. She’d never seen so much money at one time.

  Resting on top of the money was a note. Only four words but that was enough to trigger an onslaught of tears.

  For my tiny dancer.

  ***

  George stood in the alley across the street and waited. When he spotted Sheri, tears sprang to his eyes. His little girl, all grown up.

  He watched as she picked up the box and disappeared into the townhouse. The ache tore at his soul. He’d been out of her life a long time, though he’d never truly left her. He’d promised her that. I will always look after you, my tiny dancer.

  She’d been young, too young to understand. Then again, maybe she understood better than most adults. Better than her mother did. Sandy tried. She knew the facts. Always had. But she never really understood.

  George had not married Sandy. He certainly hadn’t meant to have a child with her. That wasn’t his life, couldn’t be his life.

  The day Sheri was born had been beyond perfection. That day remained his best memory in the shattered stream of craziness that made up his existence.

  He’d tried. During those first few years, he’d had brief spells when he almost managed to convince himself that his life could be normal. That he could pull it off. Then he’d get a call and be out the door again. Gone for months at a time.

  George worked undercover, and he was damn good at his job. Maybe too good. The day before Sheri’s fourth birthday, he’d gotten notice of a reassignment. This was deep undercover. No contact with family or friends. Cut ties and get out. Otherwise, he’d be endangering himself and the job. His biggest fear—he’d be endangering Sheri.

  His job had always come first, Sandy said. And that was true. Mostly. He was not husband material. He wasn’t great father material. But he loved his daughter beyond measure. And he would never completely desert her. Somehow, some way, he managed to keep track of her. He made sure she was safe. He sent money to Sandy throughout Sheri’s childhood. He couldn’t be there. Not physically. But he never left them. Not really.

  Life had gotten more complicated over the years. Deep undercover had become a lifestyle. And now, here he was, cutting through a urine-soaked alley on his way back to his car, where a body lay stinking up the trunk.

  Sandy having Alzheimer’s broke his heart. She’d been intelligent and so full of life. That she had to go out this way wasn’t fair. As bad as that was, what ripped apart his soul was that his daughter bore the burden. Their house had gone up in flames while he’d been trekking through a desert, hunting bad guys. Sheri needed his support and all he could do was watch from afar.

  When
the news finally trickled back from his sources, he’d immediately requested a transfer back to the city. He’d step out from undercover permanently if he had to. His daughter needed him. That should have been a priority all along. He’d been selfish, addicted to the adrenaline rush, convinced that his government needed him more than his family did.

  He’d received his reassignment orders on the same day he’d received the results from his recent physical. The source of his chronic headaches was not stress or high blood pressure. He had a brain tumor. Inoperable. Deadly.

  Too late. He’d been too late to be a father. He would not bring his burden to his daughter. Instead, he agreed to this last assignment. He hadn’t wanted to play things so close, but his target had been uncooperative and the ordeal took longer than expected. Time was not a luxury he’d been given. His flight left in two hours. He’d spend a week or so being debriefed, clarifying all the intel he’d gathered over the past year. Someone new would be stepping into his shoes and that person would need to know all the little details not found in reports. After that, he’d be lucky to have a couple of weeks left. Maybe he’d be able to take care of himself a little longer. Maybe not. He wasn’t about to leave that to chance.

  And so he’d rushed through the city, not stopping to clean the blood off his hands, and delivered the music box, along with the stash of cash that no one would ever miss. His last gesture of love for his tiny dancer.

  Mad Scientist

  “My name is James.”

  His voice cracked and flaked like dried up rust. No one heard his words. He was alone in this prison room. He’d spoken only to hear his own voice. To remind himself who he was.

  James sat on the edge of the cot. The bucket between his feet smelled of vomit. His stomach roiled in protest.

  Sweat trickled down his spine. He shivered, cold and hot at the same time. Slumped forward, he cradled his head in his hands. Intense pain, like something eating his brain.

  James coughed up a chunk of thick black mucous, spit into the bucket. He collapsed backward and the cot squealed in protest. He wanted to scream, to pound on the walls, to jump through the window that mocked him with a view of the trees beyond. But he could barely stand, and his voice evaporated into dust.

  Time passed. He waited for someone to come. For something to happen. No one. Nothing.

  He lifted his head. Black dots and spinning walls. How long would he be this way? Alone in this room with his vomit and dirty sheets. Would his body, like his voice, dry up and crumble? Evaporate into the air as if he’d never existed?

  The pain crept up the back of his head, exploded through his forehead. He closed his eyes, hoped it would be over soon.

  He awoke to darkness. Music playing. Tinny, like a cheap boom box. His eyes fluttered, too heavy to hold open.

  The hand felt warm on his cold skin. The jab of the needle barely registered. Voices, far away, drifting. Then nothing.

  ***

  Tom wrapped the thin, lifeless body in the soiled wool blanket. “Ready?” he asked.

  Eddie positioned himself by the feet. “Yeah,” he replied. “Let’s get this done.”

  “Watch that spot of vomit,” Tom said.

  Eddie’s eyes skittered over the crusted stain near the center of the blanket. The smell was rancid, sour. The body inside the blanket stunk worse than the puke. Days of sweat and filth and fear. Dead less than a half-hour and already it smelled like a rotting corpse.

  Eddie grabbed the place in the blanket that covered the ankles. Tom slid his hands under the shoulders. They lifted it off the floor, carried it down the stairs. Eddie was always surprised at how heavy they were. Alive most of them were wasting away, so light he could toss them around like a sack of potatoes. Then they were dead and suddenly their bodies resisted, as if some sort of gravitational pull kept them rooted to the earth.

  Outside, they dropped the body on the ground. Frogs called out from the swamp beside the property. The damn things never shut up. Eddie couldn’t imagine living out here. He was thankful for the big modern house and the boat dock outside his back door.

  Tom yanked the van’s side door open. They stuffed the body inside. Tom slid into the driver’s seat, Eddie the passenger side. “Same place?” Eddie asked.

  Tom nodded. “We might need to find an alternate soon.”

  Eddie grunted in response. A new place meant this wouldn’t be ending any time soon.

  Their boss kept reminding them that they were working for the greater good. Sacrificing the few to save the masses, he would say. They were close to a cure. Soon no one would die of cancer ever again.

  The Mad Scientist, they called him. JBK had been denied funding by all government agencies. His work, they said, was too dangerous. JBK scoffed at that. His work was cutting edge, revolutionary. The government had backed off not because of the danger but because they were content to sit back and allow cancer to eat away at the country. That made the pharmaceutical companies happy, since they grew richer as the nation grew sicker. And, in return for government support, the pharmaceutical companies and their lobbying groups kept government officials in summer homes and fancy cars.

  Eddie cracked the window in the van. The smell of rotting corpse floating out into the night.

  JBK had once worked for the largest pharmaceutical laboratory in the nation. When he told them he was close to a cure, they’d fired him. They didn’t want a cure. They wanted medications that kept people alive long enough to use up every dollar of insurance money and drain bank accounts. They wanted treatments to manage symptoms, not cures.

  Or so JBK said. Sometimes Eddie wondered if JBK hadn’t been fired because he insisted on using people as lab rats. Infect them with cancer, then try to cure them. He claimed this was the only way to truly find a cure. The argument made sense, after all. Rats did not react to cancer in the same way as humans did. Nor did they respond the same way to a cure. Many millions of dollars had been wasted on treatments that worked on rats but not on humans.

  In those quiet moments, when Eddie was alone in his bed or out in his boat in the middle of the ocean, he couldn’t help but wonder about it all. How many lives would be sacrificed before the cure could save the masses?

  Tom pulled the van down the path and parked by the swamp. They hefted the body out. A wave of nausea gripped Eddie. Vomit burned the back of his throat. He couldn’t wait to get this over with, so that he could crawl into his bed and sleep for twelve hours.

  The final half-mile had to be traveled on foot. By the time they reached their destination, Eddie’s muscles had caught fire. He dropped his end into the muck, turned and vomited.

  “You okay?” Tom asked.

  Eddie coughed up the last bit of bile. His stomach had long been empty. “Yeah,” he said.

  “That's the third time you’ve puked today.”

  “Fifth. But don’t worry, I doubt it’s contagious. Probably something I ate.”

  Tom stared at him, his eyes wide. “Eddie…”

  “What?”

  “The boss only has three people left in his study.”

  “Yeah, I know. We’ll probably have to go out tomorrow, looking for a replacement for this kid.”

  “I asked him about that. He said it had already been taken care of.”

  At first, Eddie didn’t understand the implication of what Tom was telling him. But the look his friend gave him, pity mixed with fear, set him on edge. Then suddenly he was shaking violently, backing away from the stink of the boy in the blanket. “No…”

  “How long have you been feeling sick?”

  “I…”

  “Eddie?”

  “He wouldn’t. JBK wouldn’t infect me. Why would he?”

  “Last month, when you were telling me that you didn’t want to do this anymore, did anyone hear you? Did you tell anyone else?”

  Eddie collapsed to the ground. The smell of death and rot surrounded him. Sacrificing the few to save the masses. He’d become one of the few.

  P
olite Indifference

  “That lady’s sad, isn’t she, Mummy?”

  The mother tugged the little girl’s hand, pulling her away as she hissed a caution. “Ssh! It isn’t nice to talk about people.”

  “But you and Aunt Maggie do it all the time.”

  “Move those little legs,” the mother said, probably more sternly than intended. “The playground is filling up and there’s one empty swing waiting just for you.”

  Jane held her position on the bench. She didn’t swivel her head in their direction, nor did she show any sign of having heard their exchange. She continued staring off at nothing, while a part of her ached to tell the little girl that, yes, she was sad, and then explain all the reasons why. But the child was too young to carry that kind of burden. And the mother was just another in a long line of people who didn’t care.

  The woman probably thought Jane was homeless or mentally ill. People tended to presume the worst. Easier to scurry away than to be forced into any sort of exchange of pleasantries with a stranger who might be unstable, or hungry. Or lonely.

  Jane burrowed deeper into her coat, as a brisk wind snuck an icy finger down her spine. She’d come to this country on a spur-of-the-moment getaway. An escape. She’d packed clothing into a small duffle bag—a worn pair of Levis with a Tweety Bird patch sewn onto the right thigh, a faded Keith Urban concert t-shirt, an emerald green silk blouse, and a tan plaid chambray shirt. She’d left the little house on the cul-de-sac in Bristol, Maine, and driven to Logan Airport in Boston. She didn’t have a ticket or even a destination in mind.

  Once inside the airport, Jane had gone straight to the international flights. An unexpected decision that wasn’t really a decision at all. She’d merely reacted, as she’d been doing all day. Pack a bag. Get on a plane. Not to Minnesota or California or Florida. Not even Canada. No, somewhere far away.