Randy came out and grabbed my arm. Hard.
‘I don’t think we should be doing this,’ I said as he pulled me along the sidewalk. Rhett and Zelda gazed out the thrift-shop window at us. ‘I wasn’t kidding about her being in a secure building. We won’t be able to get in. I think you should let go of me and...’
‘Think again.’
A Toyota pickup truck was parked at the curb. Randy towed me into the street, pulled open the driver’s door and said, ‘Get in and move over.’
He kept the tight grip on my upper left arm while I climbed into the pickup. Then he followed me in. When he was behind the wheel, he shut his door. Then he jerked my arm, pulling me toward him, and stuck his face up to mine. ‘You gonna give me any trouble?’
‘No.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’
‘Good boy,’ he said and suddenly kissed me with his mouth open.
It’s me he wants? The Eileen stuff was a lie?
He shoved his tongue into my mouth.
Groaning, I twisted my head away. His lips and tongue slid across my cheek. He laughed as I wiped his spit off.
‘How’d you like it?’ he asked. He still had that grip on my arm.
‘Not much.’ My voice sounded almost like a whimper.
‘You’ll get it again if you don’t procure Sarah for me. Fact is, I’ll give you the works. It’s you or her, Eddie. Who will it be?’
‘Her,’ I said.
Randy let go of my arm, reached into a pocket of his jeans and pulled out his keys. The keys jingled a little while he searched for the one he wanted. Then he reached forward and slid a key into the ignition.
As he turned the key, I twisted sideways in my seat and pounded a ballpoint pen into him. It popped through his jeans and into the top of his right thigh.
He yelled, ‘Yahh!’
I flung open the passenger door and leaped out and ran. Not toward Dandi Donuts; I could too easily see Randy chasing me inside and dragging me out, nobody trying to help me. Instead, I ran past the rear of his pickup and poured on the speed. That’s what they tell you to do so the driver can’t chase you without going in reverse.
I glanced over my shoulder to see what was happening.
The back-up lights came on.
Eyes forward, I didn’t watch the pickup speed toward me but I sure heard it.
To my right was Division Street, to my left a row of store fronts. Nothing was open. I ran past recessed entryways and display windows. If I could get across the next sidestreet, I would be on a residential block where I could cut across lawns ... but the street was too far away. And if I did try to cross it, Randy might hit me with his truck.
His truck appeared beside me, moving backward, keeping pace with me. Its passenger door was still open. If he got any closer to the curb, it would hit a parking meter or light post.
I thought he might shout threats at me, but he didn’t.
Didn’t make a sound, just stayed even with me.
What if he’s got a gun?
I did a fast stop and reversed my direction. He kept going backward.
Just as his brakes squealed, I turned my head toward the store fronts and saw a dark space between two of the buildings - a space too narrow for Randy’s truck. I must’ve been looking the other way when I ran past it the first time.
I rushed in.
Behind me, brakes squealed again. Tires skidded. The engine shut off.
He’s coming after me on foot?
A door slammed.
He is!
I picked up speed. The space between the buildings was only three or four feet wide and paved like a walkway. It had a pale area at the very end, probably where the buildings stopped. Down in front of my feet, however, was blackness. No telling what might be there. Invisible debris crackled and crunched under my shoes. Sometimes, my feet landed on small, hard objects. I kicked a can and sent it skittering away. I crunched broken glass.
At any moment, something might snag my feet and send me flying headlong ...
I wanted to slow down, but didn’t dare.
Randy was coming, all right. I heard the quick pounding of his boots on the pavement behind me. They had an uneven rhythm. Because of his wound?
The way I’d stabbed his leg, it was a wonder he could run at all.
I wished I’d gotten him with my Swiss Army knife. But the knife was in the left front pocket of my jeans. Randy would’ve seen me go for it. If he missed that, he definitely would’ve noticed me struggling to pry out one of its folding blades.
So I’d used a ballpoint, instead.
Should’ve stuck it in his fucking throat!
At least he wasn’t gaining on me. He didn’t seem to be, anyway.
I’ll be okay if he doesn’t have a gun.
He must not have one, I thought, or he would’ve used it by now. Unless he’s afraid of the noise.
I suddenly smashed full-speed into something. I didn’t know what it was, at first. As I plowed it down and tumbled over it, though, the feel and sounds and aromas told me it was probably a shopping cart... a cart parked sideways in the narrow space and loaded past the brim with the treasures of its homeless proprietor.
I landed on him. He was cadaverous and stank of garbage and cigarette smoke and excrement and he screamed in my face. I tried to shove myself off him. His coat felt like sticky, moist tweed.
He clutched my shirt.
‘Gotcha!’ he gasped.
‘Let go!’
He didn’t. I slugged him in the face and he let go and I scurried off him and ran for the grayness at the end of the buildings.
Just as I got there, somebody either fell over the shopping cart or kicked it.
I broke into a lighted alley, cut to the right and ran hard for the cross-street at the south end of the block. Along the way, I glanced over my shoulder again and again.
No sign of Randy.
At the mouth of the alley, I dodged to the left and ran across the street.
No traffic anywhere in sight.
No people, either.
I ran farther to the left, rounded the comer of the block and raced past the first two houses. They had porch lights on, but the third house didn’t. That porch wasn’t screened in. It had no door, either, but was roofed and surrounded by a wooden railing about three feet high. The railing had a row of thick bushes in front of it.
I ran up to the porch, silently climbed its stairs and dropped to the floor behind the railing, totally hidden from anyone going by.
Chapter Fourteen
Every so often, a car passed. Or a truck. I didn’t dare take a peek. I figured it might be Randy in his pickup truck, searching for me.
But I’d been on the porch about half an hour, and he hadn’t found me yet. He probably wouldn’t find me, either - at least so long as I stayed put.
I’ll wait another hour just to make sure.
Ten minutes times six.
The hour would pass very quickly if I fell asleep. I was wide awake, though, sitting with my legs crossed, my back toward the front railing. From the half hour I’d already waited, my butt ached and my back felt a little sore.
Off to my right, maybe eight feet away, the porch had an old-fashioned swing that hung by chains from a ceiling beam.
I could stretch out on that, I thought.
But it would probably make all sorts of noise if I put my weight on it. It was noisy enough without me.
The swing liked to move all by itself. With the help of a breeze, I supposed.
After long silences, it would stir, taking me by surprise with groans and creaking sounds.
But that wasn’t my biggest problem with the swing.
About fifteen minutes into my first half hour, I’d noticed something unsettling about it.
Though some areas and shapes on the porch looked black, there were also gray places. I couldn’t always quite be sure what I was really seeing. Sometimes, when I looked at the swing, I thought someone was si
tting on it. Just sitting there, not moving at all - and staring at me.
I knew nobody was on the swing, but it gave me the heebiejeebies just the same.
I tried to stop looking at it, but it kept pulling my eyes back ... almost as if part of me enjoyed the torment.
If I’m staying any longer, I thought, I’d better get it settled - crawl over, reach out and touch the swing to prove nobody’s there.
But what if I reach out and my fingers meet someone’s knee? Or what if a hand suddenly clutches my wrist?
Ridiculous. These were fears for a five year old, and I was twenty.
Amazing, though, how being alone in a strange place at three o’clock in the morning shaves the years off. I felt like a kid again. A kid in bed late at night, wide awake, gazing at the partly open door of his closet, waiting for a horror to spring out and come for him.
Forget Randy... who’s that on the swing?
Nobody, I told myself. Nobody’s there at all. It’s just shadows.
Then ‘nobody’ struck a match.
In its flare, I glimpsed a leering, ancient face. An instant later, the match flew at me, followed by a quiet cackle.
Chapter Fifteen
As the match scratched a bright curve through the night and bounced off the sleeve of my sweatshirt, the sound I made was a quick, high-pitched, ‘Eeeeeee!’
Then I was scurrying up, twisting around and leaping from the top of the porch stairs. I hit the ground running. Without a glance back, I cut diagonally across the front yard. The sidewalk felt like a racetrack. I sprinted, arms pumping, legs flying, clothes flapping, sneakers smacking the concrete.
At the comer, I sprang off the curb and dashed across the next street. Partway down the block after that, I slowed to a walk and looked back.
Nobody behind me.
I’d been chased this far only by my goosebumps. Though breathless and sweaty, I still felt their chill. I was crawly almost everywhere: thighs, balls, spine, arms, nipples, nape of neck, scalp and forehead.
God Almighty, I thought. I must’ve been on that porch for thirty-five or forty minutes ... with him! Why’d he just sit there?
What was he doing there?
Probably just likes to sit out on his porch at night and watch the world go by.
At three o’clock in the morning?
Hell yes, I thought. That’s when all the good stuff happens.
I chuckled nervously.
Continuing to walk, I turned halfway around to make sure nobody was coming toward me from the rear.
The coast looked clear.
For no good reason, it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps the old man was stranded on the swing. Maybe he was paralyzed from a stroke or something, and his family had put him outside after supper so he could enjoy the autumn evening. Then they’d forgotten he was out there and gone to bed.
He hadn’t moved or spoken to me because he couldn’t. He only had use of his hands. The match had been his version of an emergency flare.
But why the cackle?
Because he’s a lunatic, that’s why. This damn town is FULL of lunatics!
It isn’t the town, I told myself. It’s the hour. At this hour, probably everyplace is full of crazy people. All the sane citizens are either at night jobs or asleep in their beds. The loonies rule the town.
But what if the old guy is paralyzed? I wondered. Maybe he tried to ask me for help but the cackle was the best he could do.
Should I go back and check on him?
‘Shit,’ I muttered.
I sure didn’t want to do that. But I felt that maybe I ought to.
No!
If he was capable of striking a match and throwing it at me, he could’ve let me know he was there when I first showed up. He wasn’t stranded on the porch; he was just a nutty old shit with a mean streak.
I didn’t go back.
Near the end of the next block, I heard the sound of an engine. I looked back. Headlights pushed their brightness into the intersection behind me. Not waiting to find out if they belonged to Randy’s pickup ... or whether it would turn in my direction ... I ducked and plunged into a row of bushes.
On the other side, I found myself at the edge of a lawn. In front of me was a two-story house, all its windows dark.
Crouched and motionless, I listened.
The engine sound was gone. If not gone, it had faded with distance until it blended in with the rest of the night’s quiet hum and buzz.
Unless perhaps the driver had stopped and shut his engine off.
Maybe nearby.
Maybe because he’d spotted me.
Staying low, I crept away from the bushes and hurried to the rear corner of the house. The back yard appeared to have a picnic table, lawn chairs and a barbecue. I didn’t see any people, so I hurried across the grass ... keeping my eyes on the chairs.
Nobody seemed to be in any of them. Looking at them gave me the creeps, anyway.
When I came to the cinder-block wall at the other side of the yard, I looked back.
I saw no one.
With nobody chasing me, climbing the six-foot wall held no appeal. So I walked alongside it, making my way slowly through the shadows between the wall and the house. Ahead of me, beyond the front yard of the house, was a sidewalk and a street.
What street? I wondered.
I had no idea.
I’m lost?
The notion gave me an uneasy flutter that was different from my fears of bodily harm by Randy, different from the eerie fright the old man had given me. This fear felt like a slip toward unreality.
What if I’m really lost and can’t find my way home?
‘Ain’t gonna happen,’ I whispered, trying to calm myself with the sound of my own voice.
Soon as I get to a corner and see the street signs ...
On the sidewalk directly in front of me, maybe thirty feet away, the mystery girl sauntered by. Face forward, one hand stuffed into a seat pocket of her jeans, one hand swinging by her side, hips swaying, ponytail flipping behind her head.
She looked as if she owned the night.
I didn’t move, just stood there astonished and watched her.
When she was out of sight, I began to doubt my senses. Certainly, someone had just walked by. But her? It seemed too strange and wonderful.
I hurried to the sidewalk and looked to the right.
There she was! Almost to the next comer.
When she started across the street, I followed her.
All thoughts of going home were lost. I’d found her! She was in sight! If I ran, I could catch up to her in a matter of seconds, see her close up, talk to her ...
Scare the hell out of her.
I didn’t want to scare her, though. I didn’t even feel up to meeting her. For now, all I wanted was to follow her and watch her. My mystery girl.
While earlier I’d felt the terror of a child waiting in bed for the closet monster to come for him, now I felt like the same child on a wonderful Christmas morning at first glimpse of the tree’s bright colored lights and the treasures brought by Santa.
Awestruck, shivery with an almost painful sense of pleasure, I followed her down the next block.
So far, she hadn’t looked back.
I picked up my pace. The gap began to close. She grew larger, more distinct. The nearer I came to her, the nearer I yearned to be.
Careful! Slow down! Can’t let her know I’m here!
We must’ve both heard the engine sound at the same moment.
Randy?
I froze.
The girl didn’t freeze, didn’t flinch, simply glided off to the side and vanished among the shadows of a lawn.
I rushed over to a tree in the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the curb. It had a trunk as wide as my body. I hid behind it, standing and ready to run.
Peeking around the side of the trunk, I saw a car cruise through the intersection. A car, not a pickup truck. But it had a rack of lights on its roof.
Cops!
The police car seemed to be in no hurry. It rolled through the intersection, crackles and beeps and senseless jabber coming from its radio, and kept on going.
Its sounds faded.
I watched the lawn where the girl had vanished.
And watched it.
Minutes went by, but she didn’t reappear.
What’s she waiting for?
While I waited, my mind replayed her vanishing act: the grace and speed with which she’d whirled and leaped and plunged into darkness. Like a ballerina. Like a sprite. Like a ninja.
Maybe she turned herself into a shadow.
Sure thing, I thought, scoffing at the notion even though it almost seemed possible given the strangeness of the night and the way I felt about the girl.
I continued to wait.
She didn’t come out.
What if she knew I was back here and now she’s staying hidden, waiting to see what I do?
Suppose I just resume walking and pretend I don’t even know she exists?
Heart thudding, I stepped out from behind my tree. On the sidewalk, I looked all around as if afraid someone might be spying on me (in case she was watching). Then I followed the sidewalk toward the comer.
She’s probably watching me right now!
My throat tightened. My mouth went dry. My heart beat even faster and harder.
Watching me, appraising me. Have I been stalking her? Am I a threat?
Soon, I was striding casually past the place where she’d vanished.
I kept my face turned away.
See? I’m not interested. I don’t even know you’re there. Besides, I’m harmless. You’ve got no reason to be afraid of me. Why don’t you come out?
She didn’t.
I reached the comer, stepped off the curb and walked across the street. I continued past the corner house, then doubled back in its yard and crouched in a dark place behind some bushes and waited for the girl to show herself.
I waited and waited.
And began to suspect that she wasn’t even there anymore. Instead of hunkering down and hiding, maybe she had slipped off into the darkness and hurried to someplace far away.
I wanted to return and search the lawn for her.
But she might still be there, patiently waiting. My return would confirm she had a stalker.