From Darkness Comes: The Horror Box Set (179 page)

“Then let’s
go.”

Ravna dropped a
napkin to the table and shook his head. His mouth drew tight and sharpened on
one side. “Are you serious?”

“I no more want
to be trapped in this place all night than you do. We should leave and let them
close up.”

“The story?”
Ravna asked, the second word ending on a quick uptick.

“Well, we
cannot be in here after closing, can we? That is why you broke my concentration
and thread to the past, isn’t it?”

Ravna sat back
in his chair and sighed. “I like the cartoon Obi-Wan wisdom way more than your
sarcasm.”

The old man
winked at Ravna and stood. He waved at the boy behind the corner, arms folded
with a wet towel slung over his shoulder.

“The table
wiping. It belongs to you now.”

The teenager
huffed and thumbed at the old man while saying something to his coworker. Ravna
saw the whispering words but could not hear what had been said.

“The ‘fucking
old dude’ is not ‘fixin’ to be kicked down the stairs.’ I’d ask for a more
honorable exit than that.”

The girl
standing next to the boy behind the counter nudged his arm and shook her head
back and forth. She looked at Mashoka with a hint of empathy.

“It is fine. I
end up at the bottom of the stairs every morning, from the kick of Jack
Daniels.”

Ravna groaned
and led Mashoka from the café as the young baristas snickered.

“Calm down,
honey. We’re fine.”

Drew pulled
Molly and the kids into his embrace. They stood in the middle of the kitchen
amidst a sea of red-penned homework, unopened bills, and the delightful aroma
of Molly’s chicken spaghetti.

Drew
took a deep breath. He put his bag down and proceeded to check every door. He
turned the lock and yanked on each knob, testing its strength. Molly stood and
watched him as the oven timer beeped. She released a wave of delicious dry heat
before reaching in and grabbing the baking dish.

“When were you
at Denison Park last?”

Molly waved the
hot steam away with one hand before digging a stainless-steel spoon into the
dish and turning it over. She looked at the ceiling, her mouth moving without
producing words.

“The seventh? I
don’t know, hon.”

“Can you think
harder, please?”

Molly stopped
stirring dinner and looked at Drew. His red eyes bulged in the sockets and his
face flushed. She thought he looked drunk.

“Yeah, the
seventh. We were there with Sally and her kids.”

“Do you
remember seeing anyone suspicious or threatening?”

Molly gave up
on moving the pasta noodles from one side of the dish to the other. She
replaced the tin foil, folding the edges down over the outside of the glass.

“What is going
on?”

Drew stepped
through the kitchen and into the living room, where the cartoon
du jour
prattled through the airwaves and into the brains of Sara and Billy. Drew
pushed the “off” button on the television, which immediately darkened the
screen and produced a two-person choir of disappointment.

“Go downstairs
and play something. Mom and I need to talk and we can’t hear each other over
that thing.”

Sara crossed
her arms and furrowed her brow.

“I’m not asking
you again. Get down there or else.”

Sara stomped
through the living room and slammed the door on her brother. Billy dragged his
feet across the floor as if he was pulling a sled of granite. Drew shut the
door and turned to Molly.

“Did you see
anything weird?” he asked again, more out of desperation than anger.

“You know how
that place is, Drew,” she replied. “It’s a zoo without the bars. And less
manners. I swear if I see another parent texting while the kids are—”

Drew
interrupted her rant on negligent parents. “What about on the benches near the
street?”

Molly shook her
head. She looked at Drew, extending her gaze around the kitchen bursting with
dirty plates and soaking pots.

He reached into
his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. It had been folded in half twice
and attracted a host of pocket lint during its stay. Drew’s hands shook as he
held it out for Molly to take.

She turned her
head sideways and opened her mouth. She grabbed the edge of the paper and held
it up. Drew could see the blood drain from her face.

“What is this?”

“It’s a
photograph of you and the kids at Denison. Probably taken with a telephoto
lens. I’m guessing it’s from the seventh.”

The grainy, gray-scale
printout may have obscured the vibrant colors of children’s winter garb, but it
left no doubt about the focal point of the image. Molly looked at herself in
the picture and shook her head. She folded it up and handed the paper back to
Drew.

“Where did it
come from?”

He took the
print out and tossed it in the trash.

“Don’t do that!
We might have to give that to the police as evidence.”

Drew shook his
head left to right. “We’re not going to the police.”

Molly slammed
the stainless-steel spoon down on the counter. “Some psycho is stalking your
wife and your kids, taking pictures, and we’re not going to the police?”

She shivered as
she heard her own question and bent over to retrieve the paper from the
garbage. She pulled it out and held it in the air, the pocket lint having
attracted the skin of a clove of garlic from the top of the pile.

“Yes, Officer. That’s
right. Someone took a long-distance photograph of my family in Denison Park and
e-mailed it to me. Arrest him.”

“This was e-mailed
to you? This stalker knows our name, your name, your employer, your e-mail
address? Holy shit, Drew. Holy shit.”

Molly collapsed
into the kitchen chair. She ripped the apron from her waist and threw it to the
floor. He stood on the cold, dark tile of the kitchen, now sickened by the
smell of Molly’s best dish.

“What should I
do?” he asked in a wavering voice.

“Can we at
least call Home Sentry and have them install an alarm?”

Drew smiled. Molly
had managed to put her fear and emotion aside and think rationally about the
problem.

“The e-mail
address is anonymous. He keeps saying I need to pay attention to him, so it
could be a disgruntled client. I have to check my records on cancelled accounts
over the past year. There aren’t that many, so . . .,” said Drew, letting his
comment drift away.

“Our kids,
Drew.”

“I know. I
know. I’ll call a rep from the company tomorrow and have them give us an
estimate. In the meantime, be observant. Should we pull Billy from hockey this
session?”

“He would freak
out.”

“But that’s
clearly a routine, an easy way for this bastard to make contact. Or worse.”

Molly nodded her
head in agreement. Drew continued.

“Until I can
make some headway on this, let’s keep the family activities down to a minimum. School.
Shopping. That’s about it. The more random or unplanned, the better.”

Molly stood and
hugged Drew. He felt her warm body against his and closed his eyes.

“We’re
overreacting. This is probably some jerk angry with you about the way his
design turned out.”

He pulled her
tight. “I won’t let anything happen to us.”

Drew ate with
Molly and the kids, both of them doing their best to maintain an air of
normalcy. They played Monopoly after dinner until it was time for the kids to
shower and prepare for bed. Drew followed the routine until they breathed
lightly in their beds, slowly drifting into sleep. He walked downstairs and sat
on the couch next to Molly. She curled her legs up to his and he put an arm
around her shoulder. They stared mindlessly at the television through three
sitcoms, complete with laugh tracks and loads of commercials. The eleven
o’clock news began. Molly stood and went upstairs. Drew turned off the
television and walked to each door. He checked the locks for the seventh time
that evening.

***

Drew
picked up the phone and made a few calls that he had neglected. The rest of the
floor continued with an energetic buzz, full of rumors and wild speculation.

“I heard what
happened. C’mon.”

Drew hit the
last button on his keyboard, pushed the chair back from the desk, and stood. He
pulled his shirt down and hitched his pants up on his hips.

“You working
out?” asked Brian.

“Are you gay?”
replied Drew.

With a shake of
the head, he followed Brian through the cubicle rows to the private conference
room on the floor.

“Here’s what I
heard,” Brian began.

Drew
stiffened and rubbed his eyes.

“The woman
found in the Crooked Tail River last week is Vivian. It appears she was the
victim of a crime, not an accident. They think her resignation was not her own idea,
that it may have been part of her abduction.”

Drew shifted
his weight from one foot to the other.

“And, the
second body found in Crooked Tail River is Johnson.”

Drew shook. The
grainy image of his family at the park flashed across his vision. Sweat broke out
on his forehead and he wiped a bead from his upper lip.

“The guys in IT
are working on the network infrastructure to get us remote access to critical
apps so we can work from home.”

Drew shivered
and shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak but could not find the right
words.

“We’re all
shaken, bro,” Brian said to Drew, reaching for his arm.

Drew shrugged
off the gesture and looked Brian in the eye before speaking. “I think I’m
next.”

***

Ravna set the
stainless-steel kettle on the stove top. He ignited the burner with a pungent
whiff of natural gas, followed by the burnt smell of a long-forgotten meal that
managed to bubble over the lid and rest in the drip pan. He looked at the
microwave clock and did the math on the number of hours of sleep he would have if
he fell asleep that instant. The calculations were not in his favor. Mashoka
sat on the couch, staring at the television.

“Turn it on,”
Ravna said.

Mashoka shook
his head and dismissed the idea with a groan.

“Suit yourself.
Gonna take another ten minutes for the teapot to boil.”

“Ten minutes? I
don’t have that kind of time.”

Ravna deflected
the old man’s sarcasm like a March snowflake, annoying and temporary. He opened
several cabinets until he found crusty packets of artificial sweetener. He had saved
them for this exact occasion.

“You never know
when a senior citizen is going to drop in at 1:08 a.m. for a cup of tea to
tell you a story about hungry ghosts from Japan.”

Another groan
from Mashoka told Ravna that he had spoken too loudly. The teapot threw steam
in the air and the lid rattled as the water inside heated. Before it could
launch into a full-blown whistle, Ravna turned the burner off with a sharp
click as it moved past the igniter and suffocated the last of the natural gas
in the line. He poured the hot water into two mugs, each with a dollop of honey
at the bottom and a tea bag dangling on the inside of the mug. Ravna crumpled
the tea bag wrappers into a ball and tossed the “Chai Tea” into the garbage.

“It’s like ‘Tea
Tea’,” he said, looking for a reaction from Mashoka.

The old man had
not moved since he entered the apartment, and his eyes were closed as he gained
control of his breathing.

Ravna carried
the tray to the table, clanking the silverware and cups together. “Sorry,” he
said to Mashoka.

“Are you
finished?” he asked Ravna.

“I said sorry,”
Ravna replied.

Without
preamble, Mashoka came back to the story he had begun in the coffee shop.

“After the odor
forced me to vomit, and while I was still in hiding, I sat to collect my
thoughts. I knew the bombers were no longer flying over the island and yet I had
left the trail and entered the cave forbidden by the adults of the village. Here
I was, sitting behind a rock while two entities argued in a language I could
not understand. The pervasive, grisly noise and foul stench made me think that
it was not a place I was meant to be.”

Ravna poured
the water over the tea and honey and slipped a spoon into his mug. He pushed
the spoon through the water, careful not to ding the side of the mug with it.

“Every cell in
my body wanted out. I wanted to flee, run as fast as I could back home and into
my mother’s arms. The cave frightened me more than the bombings or the heinous
crimes of the rogue soldiers. My feet would not move. I slid my legs to the
side of the large rock in hopes of finding out exactly what was happening. The
stone felt damp and slick on my face and it repulsed me to the edge of nausea. I
fought the feeling and had regained my breath when the tearing sound increased
threefold.

“I eased my
head out from behind the rock until the entire scene unfolded, a scene I have
spent decades trying to cleanse from my soul. I saw three pitiful creatures
shackled to the cave wall. I must call them creatures, as they no longer resembled
human beings. Each one’s arms crossed at the elbows and were bound to an iron
hasp at the wrists. Their emaciated frames hung like light sheers on an open
window. They were men at one time in the near past, but their ages and races
were beyond recognition. Do you remember the story of the Buddha?”

Ravna tilted
his head to one side and stopped mid-sip. He put the mug down. “Yes. Why are
you asking me that now?”

“Do you
remember the carvings of the Buddha at the end of his six years of
renunciation? Can you recall his thin flesh, sunken eyes, and protruding bones?”

“Yes,” Ravna
replied, shaking his head. “He was eating one grain of rice per day and
drinking his own urine. As the story goes, he was probably a few days from
death when the village girl offered him the rice porridge.”