Infected

46.

Perry stared at the door, not sure he’d actually heard it, hoping he hadn’t.

Then came three more knocks. columbo Columbo columbo columbo

“Shut up!” Perry hissed through clenched teeth, the stress wiring his jaws tight. “It’s not Columbo.”

“Hey in there!” the voice called in. A male voice. He recognized the distinctively deep baritone of Al Turner, who lived in the apartment directly above Perry’s. “Would you stop your screaming? You’re driving me nuts.”

Al Turner was Mr. Blue Collar. One of those guys who, despite having passed the thirty-year mark, still measured his manhood by how much alcohol he could consume on a night out with the boys. A car mechanic, or something like that.

“Don’t bother ignoring me, I know you’re there!” Three more knocks. He was pissed. Perry heard the anger in his voice. “Are you okay? What’s going on in there?”

“Nothing,” Perry called back through the closed, locked and chained door. “I’m sorry, I was having an argument on the phone.” Perry felt relief with that top-of-the-head lie. That would work. That made sense. That was logical.

Al yelled back through the door, “Yeah? I’ve heard nothing but yelling from down here, and it’s starting to get on my nerves, you know?”

Perry had been screaming his head off for one reason or another in his battles against the Triangles and kill him he’d never thought about how much noise he was making. Al was kill him probably at wits’ end from all the commotion.

“Sorry Al,” Perry said. “I’ll keep it down, I promise. Woman problems, you know?”

“You can open the door, man. I don’t have a gun or anything.” Al’s voice sounded calmer.

“I’m buck naked, Al, just got out of the shower. Thanks for stopping by, I’ll keep kill him it down.”

Perry heard footsteps shuffle down the hallway. That had been as rude as can be, Perry knew, but he wasn’t about to open the door and let Al see the Blood-O-Rama inside the apartment. kill him

They’d said “kill him” again and again. Perry hadn’t heard them the first few times…or maybe he hadn’t wanted to hear them.

Perry whispered, “Why the hell would I kill him?” he knows, he’s a threat, kill him kill him

“He is not a threat!” Perry heard his voice rise again before he caught himself in midsentence, making “threat” come out several decibels lower than the rest of his words. “He’s my neighbor, he lives upstairs.”

High-pitch.

Fuzzy noise.

Perry assumed they were accessing the term upstairs, or perhaps the building’s layout. He was growing adept at knowing what they searched for; their retrieval process seemed to make images flash into his mind as well, bits and pieces of what they wanted. he lives right above us fucker he knows kill him he knows kill him-

“Shut up,” Perry said calmly, quietly, but with as much authority as he could muster. He might be as good as dead, but he wasn’t going to take Al with him. “You can just fuck off, how’s that? I’m not going to kill him. Forget it and stop asking. It’s not going to happen. The only one I’m thinking of killing is myself and you four along with me. So shut up.”

The lumpy sound came again, low and long. Perry laughed inwardly. It was like they were lovers; the Triangles searched for the right words to avoid an argument. don’t kill us or kill yourself fucker don’t we’re trying to stop Columbo

Trying to stop Columbo.

Trying to stop the Soldiers.

Had the right people at Triangle Mobile Home Sales gotten the message? Maybe he should have called 911 a long time ago-maybe they could have gotten the things out when it still mattered, because it was too late now.

Perry felt tired and drained. It really was like an argument with a lover. Whenever he had a knock-down, drag-out fight with a girlfriend, anger and other emotions flew around his head like dead leaves in an October storm. Such arguments exhausted him. He didn’t need to sleep after sex-he needed to sleep after fighting. This felt exactly the same. It was only about 6:30 P.M., but it was time to turn in.

He entered the bedroom but didn’t want to sleep there; the sheets remained spotted and streaked with blood. He was in there only long enough to grab a clean gray long-sleeved Detroit Lions T-shirt. Then he hopped to the bathroom, pounded four Tylenol and headed to the couch. He let himself fall into the inviting cushions.

He was out within seconds.