The Dead Man

Chapter Fifty-two

The wind picked up, a fine mist stinging my face. I zipped my jacket and stuffed my hands into my leather gloves. The weather was turning sooner than the weatherman had predicted. That didn't make him wrong; it made him early.

There's no way to sneak up on a house you're planning to break into in broad daylight when it's in a neighborhood watch area if people are serious about watching. The best option is to use the purposeful stride, a brisk walk marked by an authoritative posture, arms hanging loose at your sides, shoulders back and chin out front, the walk telling the neighborhood watchers that you've got every right to do what you're doing so butt out.

I started at the front door, ringing the bell and rapping on the door, waiting a reasonable time before stepping behind the evergreens and in front of the windows to the right of the door, cupping my hands around my eyes and against the glass and peeking inside. The lights were off. I tapped on the window, getting no response. If Corliss had a watchdog, it was deaf.

The garage was to my left, set at the back of the driveway like at my house. The overhead door was windowless and locked. The windows on each side were also locked; the glass dirty and streaked with layers of grime, making them more mirrored than transparent. The best I could tell, the garage was empty.

The backyard was fenced, a rickety, wooden perimeter, with a gate that squealed for oil when I pushed past it. There was a screened-in porch at the rear of the house, its door unlocked. I hesitated. So far, I was a mere trespasser. One more step and I graduated to home invasion. I reached for the doorknob, stopping when I heard a voice behind me.

"Police! Freeze!"

I tried but I couldn't do it. The first tremors shot from my gut to my neck, turning me into a life-size bobble-head doll. My knees were the next to go. I gripped my thighs with my hands, trying to stay upright.

"I said freeze! Keep your hands where I can see them!"

I couldn't do that either and I couldn't talk, my vocal cords twisting into knots.

"Sir, this is your last warning! Let me see your hands! Now!"

I reached out with one hand to balance myself against the porch, my other hand wrapped around my middle and hidden from the cop's view. I made a quarter turn toward him, my hidden hand making his eyes pop. He aimed his Taser at me as I opened my mouth, yelling nooooo without making a sound, though he wouldn't have stopped even if he heard me. The Taser pins bit my neck like bee stings, fifty thousand volts putting me on the ground and out.

The sun was shining in my eyes, making me squint. I shaded my forehead with one hand cutting the glare enough that I could see Kevin and Wendy playing at the ocean's edge, waves running up their legs, the chilly water making them shriek and giggle.

I didn't know how they got there. She was eight and he was four, too little to be in the water by themselves which was why Joy and I had forbidden them to leave the beach house we were renting without us. A minute ago, they had been in the kitchen. Kevin was watching cartoons and Wendy was playing with Monkey Girl, her favorite stuffed animal, while I scrambled eggs for breakfast, one pan runny the way Kevin liked them, and another pan hard the way Wendy preferred.

I ran to the beach, scooping them up in my arms but they slipped out of my grasp and ran away, Wendy holding Monkey Girl's hand, the monkey's feet dangling, leaving a trail in the wet sand. I chased after them, my feet bogging down, baffled at how they skimmed across the surface leaving me farther and farther behind. I yelled their names and they glanced back over their shoulders shouting at me to hurry.

I kept running, catching up to them as the beach became concrete and the ocean transformed into streets with trees and houses and shops, all flashing by in a blur. It began to rain, cold sheets that blurred my vision. I ran on, harder and faster than I had ever run, losing more ground as Kevin and Wendy grew older, their strides quickening and lengthening as they ran. I called their names again and again as they looked back at me, this time crying, begging me to run faster.

Kevin, now wearing the Dallas Cowboy's T-shirt we gave him for his ninth birthday, began to slow and stumble, his arms flailing as the pavement turned to mud. I churned and churned through the muck, getting closer to him; an arm's length back and I could hear his wincing breaths, a foot away and the fat rain drops splattering on his back splashed on me, then inches between us and I could smell him, the way he stank after a day in the sun, telling us he'd shower tomorrow. When at last I reached for him, he slipped through my fingers and the earth swallowed him.

Wendy ran on, her voice reaching back to me, saying hurry, please hurry. She was still clutching Monkey Girl though she had grown up, her face lean and gaunt, her eyes hollow the way they were when I found her lying in the street in New York. The rain stopped. The mud turned into a hard, ridged track, cracking under a resurgent sun that burned my face as I ran after her, the rough ground slicing into my bare feet, my footprints bloody. Then she tripped and fell, sprawling and skidding, disintegrating on impact into a million pieces, and disappeared into the earth.

I stopped running, whirled around, and saw Joy standing next to me, hands on her knees, her chest heaving. She'd been running alongside me the whole time though I never saw her. We should have saved them, she said, then looked at me and asked why we hadn't, but I had no answer. She bent down at the spot where Wendy had vanished and picked up Monkey Girl, sobbing and cradling it in her arms and walked away as I began shaking and crumbled to the ground, praying that it would claim me.