Watchers of the Night

by Matthew Keith

* * *

  It turned out the envelope contained only two pages with very simple, minor instructions. An address in St. Ignace, Michigan was listed with the instructions, ‘there will be a phone call in the master bedroom on the second floor at 11:47p.m. this evening. The side of the conversation you can hear is your Target.’

  Paul and Steven agreed that the Target seemed simple enough; listening to one side of a telephone conversation while potentially standing right next to the person on the phone didn’t seem like much of a challenge at all.

  On the second page was a map of St. Ignace with one red circle labeled ‘DROP’ and a second red circle labeled ‘TARGET’.

  “So obviously the one labeled ‘DROP’ is where we’re being put down,” Steven said, pulling the pages closer in front of him. “That’s where we begin.”

  After concentrating on the map for a couple of minutes, Steven said, “Doesn’t look like a very big town. Shouldn’t be too bad. We’re being dropped right near the edge of Lake Huron, so my guess is we might be in a shipping yard or some kind of outdoor storage area.”

  Paul watched and listened, delighted as Steven dug in and broke down all of the specifics of his route. Steven put Paul in charge of searching the internet whenever he needed specific information, which worked out well because Paul was quick with computers. Steven had never been terribly comfortable with most types of technology, being more at home in the woods or playing basketball with friends. The limit of Steven’s technological advancement pretty much ended with his smart phone and YouTube videos.

  They found that they made a great team—at least that was their opinion—and by 11 a.m. they felt they had all the details worked out. Paul found himself drawing more upon Allen’s mapping and maze training than he’d realized he’d learned. Most of the issues they perceived to be big problems, at first, turned out to be no-brainers, like when they pulled up the information on the drop point and found that it was a shipping yard that was surrounded by an electrified twelve foot chain link fence.

  “We got to find a way to get you through that fence,” Steven had said, deep in thought.

  “Dude,” Paul said. “I’ll just climb it. It’s not like I’m going to feel an electrical current.”

  “Oh yeah…”

  And on it went like that. Once they had the route established, Steven took a red marker and drew it on the map. Remembering the hedge maze and how it had been easier for him to remember numbers and turns instead of the whole maze, Paul applied the same principles to his path through St. Ignace. Steven suggested that he use letters for directions—‘L ’ for left and ‘R’ right was simple enough—and then numbers to represent the number of streets he would have to pass before making any turns.

  “So if my first turn is the first street on the left; that would be ‘1L’?” Paul asked.

  “Exactly.”

  Paul’s simplified code for the route was 1R, 4L, 1L, 3R, 4L, T. The ‘T’ being for Target.

  They ran through his directions a half dozen times, Paul reciting them back each time without any errors.

  “Soon as I stepped out on the very first street, I’d be like, ‘7L, 16L, 4L, 1R?’”, Steven remarked. “I’d end up landing myself in one of the Great Lakes. Glad you got that insane memory thing going for you.”

  At 12:30 Hodge came down into the Sanctum, sarcastically saying, “Better get your ass topside, redneck. Wouldn’t want the bird to leave without you.”

  Rolling his eyes, Steven grabbed their mission pages and put them back into the original envelope. “See you in Michigan.”

  “Not if I see you first,” Paul replied.

  “Homos,” Hodge scoffed. “Let’s go, New Guy.”

  Hodge led the way to his safe room, stopping just outside the door. “Don’t touch a damn thing,” he warned. “You can sit in a chair, but don’t lay on either of the beds. It’ll either be my bed or Rex’s, and both of us agree that we don’t want you laying all up in our personal space.”

  Rolling the cogwheel and pulling the door open, he added, “If you gotta piss, now’s the time. Once we get there, if it’s still not dark, you won’t be able to go without an escort.”

  Always classy, thought Paul. But Hodge made sense, so Paul went to the end of the hallway to take care of business.

  After washing his hands, as he was grabbing for the handle of the restroom door, it opened in on him. Stepping back, he was shocked when Lisa slipped in and locked the door behind her.

  “What are you—”

  “Shh!” she cautioned. “Listen to me. Hodge is planning to set you up tonight.”

  “What?” Paul exclaimed, getting another ‘shhh.’ “How? What do you mean? What could he possibly do?”

  “Trust me,” she whispered. “He can do plenty. He hates you. He’s threatened by you and he wants you to fail.”

  “Lisa, you and I haven’t said more than ten words to each other since I got here. Why would he be worried at all?”

  “It’s not just me. It’s you. It’s how bad they want you to be part of everything they have planned. He hates that they think that they need you so badly. He wants you gone and he figures the best way to do that is to make you look incapable.”

  “Well don’t worry,” Paul said. “I can handle your boyfriend.”

  “Paul, you don’t know him. He can be so spiteful.”

  “Then why are you with him?” Paul demanded. “If he’s such a bad guy, just tell him to piss off!”

  Sighing and looking at the ceiling, Lisa said, “It’s not that simple. There’s history. And then there’s my father and…”

  “You sound like a bad soap opera script,” Paul interrupted. “So why are you telling me all this, then? If you’re ‘with him’ this is a strange display of loyalty.”

  “Because you’re…” she trailed off. She may have been hoping that Paul would speak up and let her off the hook, but he waited her out. “Because you’re a nice guy,” she said finally, looking down at the floor. “And I don’t think you deserve this. It’s one thing to come here as a Walker and run missions, but what they want you to do is something that…”

  Sudden pounding from the other side of the door interrupted her. “Pinch it off, New Guy! Time to go!” Hodge called out.

  “I’m coming!” Paul called back. To Lisa, he whispered, “We’re not done. When I get back, I want to know what you were going to say.”

  Eyes wide and frightened, Lisa nodded and then squeezed into the linen closet, quietly closing the door.

  Paul flushed the toilet, ran the sink water for a few seconds and then grabbed a hand towel while opening the door. Hodge was standing on the other side and immediately looked in. Paul pulled his head back and looked at Hodge like he was crazy. “Stalker much?” Paul asked.

  Peeking around in the bathroom, Hodge said, “Smells like roses in here. Faggot.”

  They went back to Hodge’s safe room where Hodge directed Paul to sit in one of the desk chairs and buckle up. The only real amount of time Paul had spent in his own safe room had been to sleep, so he hadn’t realized that everything was not only bolted to floor, but that there were seat belts for every chair in the room.

  Hodge grabbed the handset off the wall, punched in a three-digit number and said, “We’re good to go.” He hung up without waiting for a reply.

  The noise of heavy metallic clanking sounded briefly from overhead, and then the entire room tilted slightly as Paul felt them rising, a lot like in an elevator, but with a swaying motion added. He looked over at Hodge, who was watching his reaction closely. Knowing that they were probably already dozens of feet in the air suspended by a helicopter and rising further to what would likely be hundreds of feet in the air, Paul fought against his natural urge to panic and instead forced himself to look calmly at Hodge and say, “And we’re off.”

  Clearly disappointed, Hodge said in a taunting voice, “Allen told me how much you like heights.”

  Refusing to take the bait and not trusting himself to sp
eak without his voice cracking, Paul instead forced a yawn and said nothing.

  Hodge snorted, grabbed a magazine from one of the desk drawers and began reading, ignoring Paul as if he wasn’t there.

  It went on like that for almost two hours; Hodge not speaking and Paul sitting there saying nothing. That was fine with Paul. He was fully in his comfort zone with silence. Once, Paul began to look around for something to read for himself, but Hodge said, “Touch nothing,” without looking up from his magazine. So Paul instead spent his time mentally going through the upcoming mission, working to recall every detail he and Steven had worked out earlier in the day. Ironically, it was a lot like all the nights in Radcliff he’d spent on his bench waiting for the sunrise. He was no stranger to the boredom that came with spending time in his own mind.

  Finally, well into their third hour, Hodge put down what he was reading, unbuckled his seat belt, and stood up. Paul hadn’t realized that was an option and moved to do the same, but Hodge snapped, “Don’t even think about it. One solid blast of the wind and we sway all over the place. Surely you’ve felt a few of those already. You slam your head into a metal wall on this mission and it’s my ass.”

  “Then how come you’re…”

  “They ain’t gonna say nothin’ if I’m stupid enough to hurt myself,” Hodge interrupted. “What? You worried that they’d blame you? Their golden boy?” Sneering, Hodge used the wall as balance to make his way to his bed and flopped down. “Hell no.”

  Having to turn in his seat to see Hodge because he was still buckled into his chair, Paul awkwardly said, “Hodge, why can’t we bury the hatchet? I’m not after your girl, I’m not after your glory. It seems like I could learn a lot from you and, after all, we’re supposed to be on the same team.”

  “We ain’t even close to ‘on the same team,’” Hodge replied. “You’d like that, though, wouldn’t you? Well I can tell you without any doubt whatsoever—we ain’t never gonna be best buds. And you’ll be damn lucky if you get as far as calling me ‘co-worker.’”

  Paul just stared, completely at a loss as to how to respond to such unequivocal dislike. There had been plenty of people back home that hadn’t liked him for one reason or another, but never in his life had he ever been faced with someone who felt so irrationally negative toward him.

  They spent the rest of the trip that way, in silence, with Paul staring at the wall in front of his desk and Hodge lying on the bed. When their descent finally began, Paul was relieved to know he’d soon be seeing Steven’s friendly face. It was close to six p.m., which meant they had less than two hours until sunset.