Red 1-2-3

9

Sarah Locksley shifted about uncomfortably in her seat. She was dizzy, twitching, and felt both exhausted and energized, as if the two opposing sensations could happily coexist within her. Every second that passed was boring and exciting. She felt on the verge of something, whether it was passing out unconscious for twenty-four hours or taking aim and shooting the next person-who would be the first person in weeks-to knock on her door.

Over-the-counter NoDoz, Stolichnaya vodka and fresh orange juice, a large supply of candy bars, packaged donuts, and sweet rolls, and an occasional peanut-butter-covered banana had fueled her over the past few days. Fattening, calorie-filled, but she felt like she hadn’t gained a pound.

She wanted to laugh out loud. She imagined a cynical advertising copywriter: The dead woman’s diet. Just have an anonymous someone threaten to kill you and watch the pounds melt away!

She had placed a stiff chair in a spot where she could cover both the front of the house and much of the kitchen entranceway in the rear, and she had arranged a few pillows and an old sleeping bag nearby, so that when she’d had to sleep, snatching a few hours from night, she’d been able to tumble half-drugged and half-drunk into the makeshift bed. She was avoiding her bedroom. There was something frightening about concealing herself inside the place she’d shared with her husband. The room seemed suddenly prisonlike and she was determined that she would not allow herself to be murdered in the place where she had once known so much pleasure.

She knew this seemed totally crazy, but crazy was a state that she was willing to embrace.

She had constructed a homemade alarm system by the rear door-hanging a string across the doorway and tying empty cans and pots and pans to it, so anyone bumping into it would rattle and clang with noise. Just beneath the windowsills she had shattered empty liquor bottles into glass shards and spread them around, so a person-no, she thought: a Big Bad Wolf-breaking in that way would likely slice hands or feet clambering into the house. On the stairway leading to the basement she had strung strands of wire an inch or two above each riser to trip the Wolf if he tried to use the steps. She had also spread some ball bearings and old marbles around on the basement floor and unscrewed the light, so that the room was pitched into darkness and likely to cause her stalker to trip.

She had her dead husband’s gun close by and she periodically checked it to make sure that it was loaded and ready, even though she knew she had already checked it a hundred times. The area around her was a mess of plastic wrappers, empty Styrofoam cups, and discarded bottles. Sarah kicked away some of the trash accumulating next to her bare feet and sighed deeply. Well, this isn’t working, goddammit.

Her defense systems seemed straight out of the Home Alone movie, better preparation for a slapstick comedy than preventing a killer from sneaking unseen and unheard into her house and slaughtering her in her sleep. She knew she was likely to pass out at any moment and that when she did succumb to inevitable exhaustion, no clattering of pots and pans would wake her. She was all too experienced in the fog that accompanied booze and narcotics.

And mostly, Sarah doubted that the Big Bad Wolf was anything less than completely skilled at murder and professional at killing. She had no evidence to support this feeling, but she believed it to be the truth. Instinct. Sixth sense. Premonition. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew he would wait until the right moment, which would be the moment he knew she was at her most vulnerable.

Vulnerable. What a god-awful, pathetic, barely adequate word, she thought. More likely it described her every second of every day and every night, regardless of whether she was asleep or sitting waiting by the front door, gun in hand.

She looked around. Her back was stiff. Her head ached. Everything she’d done to protect herself seemed precisely what a middle school teacher would do. Scissors, sticky glue, and brightly colored construction paper-it was very much like a class project. All that was lacking were some excited fifth graders and happily raised voices.

She could see herself, clapping her hands together sharply to get their attention. All right, class! Mrs. Locksley has to protect herself from a psychopathic killer. Everyone bring their favorite materials to the middle, and let’s build a wall so she will be safe!

Ludicrous. This she knew. But she did not know what else to do.

She took a long look down at her right hand gripping the pistol. Maybe I should break my promise to my dead husband, she thought, and turn the gun on myself just before the Big Bad Wolf arrives at the door.

Sarah laughed bitterly. A sudden burst, as if from an unexpected moment of humor. Now, that would be a hilarious sight to see, when the Big Bad Wolf sneaks inside to kill me and discovers that I’ve beaten him to the punch. What the hell could he do? A killer without a target. Joke’s on him.

Except I couldn’t see it because I would already be dead.

Words to a song penetrated her memory: “‘No reason to get excited,’ the thief he kindly spoke. ‘There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.’”

She could hear the guitar riff as if it were being played in the distance. She could hear the gravelly voice. It made sense to her. No reason to get excited.

She sighed deeply, but that release nearly turned to scream when she heard a sudden sound at the front door. She first lurched away, as if she could hide, then she stumbled forward, gun outstretched, ready to shoot. She thought she was shouting aloud incomprehensibly, but then realized that all those noises existed only in her head.

There is nothing worse, Karen Jayson thought, than the racket caused by silence.

This held true, she insisted to herself, whether she was on stage, in her office surrounded by work, or alone in her home.

She was driving home after the day’s work. She had quickly adopted a habit that cost her time: After pulling off the main highway onto the quieter rural roads leading to her isolated house, if she spotted someone behind her in the rearview mirror, she would pull to the side and patiently wait for the car or truck or whatever to sweep past her before resuming her drive. No one was going to tail her. This constant stop, go, find another pullover, stop, wait, then resume made the trip tediously slow, but gave her a sense of satisfaction. She was not in any rush to return home. It no longer seemed safe.

The trouble was, at the same time that she felt unsettled about returning, she kept insisting to herself that there was no reason to feel that way.

She approached the turnoff for her gravel driveway. She could just make out the outlines of her house, partially obscured by the foliage even with the leaves all down for winter. Dark pines and deep brown oak trees, lined up like sentinels, were barriers to her sight. She took a quick glance behind her, just to make sure no one was there, and pulled into the driveway. Just as she always did, she stopped at the mailbox.

But now she hesitated. Crazy thinking, she told herself. Get the mail.

She did not want to get out of the car. She did not want to open the mail container. It was almost like she expected a bomb to explode if she did.

There was no reason for her to believe that the Big Bad Wolf would use the mail to contact her a second time. And no reason to believe he wouldn’t.

She tried to impose rationality on her heart. Medical school discipline, she recalled, summoning up memories of long shifts and soul-deadening exhaustion that she had managed to overcome. Get out. Get the mail. Screw him. You can’t let some anonymous joker disrupt your life.

Then she wondered whether this made sense. Maybe what made sense was to let him disrupt her life.

Karen remained frozen behind the wheel. She watched shadows slice through the trees like sword strokes of darkness.

She felt trapped between the ordinary-the mundane task of getting the daily collection of bills, catalogues, and flyers-and the unreasonable. Maybe a second letter.

Karen took her car out of gear and waited. She insisted to herself that she was being silly. If someone were to see her hesitate before doing something as routine as collecting the mail she would be embarrassed.

This did not reassure her.

She very much wanted to talk to someone right at that moment. She suddenly hated being alone, when for so many years that was all she wanted to be.

With a final glance up and down the road, she got out of her car, mumbling to herself that she was being paranoid and stupid and there was nothing to be afraid of. But still, she cautiously opened the box as if she were afraid there was a poisonous snake coiled inside.

The first thing she saw was the white envelope resting on top of a bright J.Crew catalogue.

She pulled her hand back sharply, as if it was indeed a snake. Fangs bared and ready to strike.

“Jordan, I am so very concerned,” the dean said with appropriate sonorous, serious tones. “Every one of your teachers is surprised by the precipitous drop-off in the quality of your work. We all understand the pressure that your home situation creates. But you need to recognize how important this year is for your future. College awaits, and we fear you will cripple your chances at the better universities unless you pull your academic record together rapidly.”

The dean, Jordan believed, could not possibly sound more pompous. But then, a daily dose of pomposity was the natural state of existence for all deans at all prep schools, so he couldn’t really be criticized for acting like he was supposed to.

If a mad dog bites you, is that dog being unreasonable? If a squirrel runs away when you come too close, is it being foolish? If a murderer wants to kill you, is that really a surprise?

Jordan imagined that she was becoming a philosopher. She only half-listened as the dean continued to mix encouragement with criticism, thinking somehow that just the right mix of pep talk and sympathy, colored with dire threats, would combine to make her shape up.

“We need to help you get back on track,” he said, as if this was an important, earth-shattering point he was making.

Back on track was the sort of phrase she’d heard a lot in the past months and which didn’t really mean anything to her anymore. It referred to the old Jordan, the one who was, if not popular, at least accepted, who got good grades, and who was looking forward to her next year. New Jordan wasn’t even sure she was going to live much longer.

She looked around the office. There were books in an oaken case and a large brown desk that matched. There were some framed diplomas on the wall adjacent to framed children’s drawings that splashed color into the room. There were also framed pictures of the smiling dean and his happy family on a rafting trip, another in which they were all arm-in-arm and posed in front of the Grand Canyon, and finally a montage of them all at the peak of some conquered mountain. An active, energetic, unified family. Not at all like hers. Hers was fracturing.

Something he said distracted her. “What can I do to help you, Jordan?” the dean asked.

Jordan realized that she was hunched over slightly in her seat, arms tight to her stomach as if she was in pain. She slowly rearranged herself so she wouldn’t appear so crippled. “I’ll work harder,” she said.

The dean hesitated. “I don’t know that it’s about hard work, Jordan. It’s about trying to regain your focus.”

“I’ll focus harder,” she said.

He shook his head, but only slightly. “You have to try to put some of these distractions aside and concentrate on what is important to you.”

“I’ll try,” she answered. She did not blurt out, Don’t you goddamn think that staying alive is what’s important to me?

“We all want to help you, Jordan, because getting through this difficult time is crucial for your future.”

I might just not have a future.

She took a deep breath and composed herself. The dean, she thought, wasn’t a bad guy. He really did mean well. She had a tinge of envy. She didn’t think her parents had any pictures on any wall of anything she had ever done, or anything they had all done together in happier times, although she couldn’t recall any happier times at all, or when they’d ever done something together.

She thought for a moment about her response. She understood that if there was a moment where she should bring up the Big Bad Wolf, this was it.

You think it’s just my parents’ ugly divorce that’s fucking me up? Hell no. Screw them. It’s really that there’s some crazy guy out there who thinks I’m Little Red Riding Hood and he wants to eat me. Not really eat me. He’s just going to kill me. It’s the same thing.

But she didn’t say this. It sounded too wild.

A part of her was shouting inside her head: You all want to help me? Well, get a gun. Hire a bodyguard. Call the damn Marines. Maybe they can protect me!

None of these angry thoughts tumbled out of her mouth. Instead, she quietly replied, “I’ll do the best I can.” She kept her voice low, almost as if speaking in a confessional, except she had never been to a confessional and wasn’t about to start anytime soon.

It wasn’t really the right thing to say. And she could see disappointment in the dean’s eyes. She liked that. At least he wasn’t being phony.

She started to open her mouth again, to let loose some great stew of pain over her parents, over her failures, over her isolation, and finally over her fear that she was being stalked and on a list to die and there was nothing she could do about it. She was halfway to letting it all tumble out, when she stopped.

She nearly gasped out loud.

If I tell him about the Wolf, maybe the Wolf will come for him, first.

She glanced around. Happy family pictures. She couldn’t put them in danger.

She saw the dean lean forward. Most people would have seen the motion as concerned. She saw it as predatory.

Maybe he’s the Wolf, she thought suddenly. She felt her stomach tighten. She clamped down, lip to lip, keeping her secrets to herself.

The dean hesitated, letting uncomfortable silence fill the room like pungent smoke. After what seemed like a very long time, he said, “Okay, Jordan. You know you can come talk to me anytime you want to. And you know I think you should return to seeing the school therapist. I can make the appointments, if you’re willing and you think it will help…”

A therapist with a big goddamn gun, she told herself. That might help. Or maybe a therapist who can double as the sturdy woodsman who saves Little Red Riding Hood with his stout axe. Except that’s not the ending that the Big Bad Wolf intends in this retelling, is it? She didn’t answer her question.

Instead, Jordan pushed herself out of her chair and nodded, but the nod quickly turned into a shake of the head no. Then she left, moving rapidly past the dean’s secretary, who half-smiled, half-scowled in her direction, and down a wide flight of stairs and through the doors leading to the school grounds.

The air was raw, but fresh, and she felt like she could bite off pieces of cold and chew them. What she wanted to do was head to the gym, get to practice early, and run harder than any of the other girls on the team. She wanted to sweat. She wanted to smash into other bodies. If she took an elbow to the lip and started to bleed, that would be okay with her. If she did that to a teammate, well, that would be okay, too. She took a couple of strides toward her dormitory, planning on tossing her book bag onto her bed and exiting for the practice courts, when she was suddenly overcome with a single, discouraging thought: The mail will be delivered by the time I get there.

She did not know there would be another letter from the Wolf. But the electric panic that raced around unchecked within her insisted that would be the case. She hated the sensation of knowing something that couldn’t possibly be true, but nevertheless was. It made her stop in her tracks, letting the cool air surround her. There will be another letter, she thought. I don’t know how I know it, but I know it.

She was partially correct.

There was an envelope waiting for Red One, Red Two, and Red Three.

But this time there was no letter.

Each envelope contained a single line of type specific for each Red.

Karen Jayson received: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsxty1xl.Red1.

Sarah Locksley received: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wftgh1xl:Red2.

And waiting for Jordan Ellis was: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgtsv1xl: Red3.

Each was signed with the initials BBW.