The Laughterhouse

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

His fist gets me in the side of the jaw and the first thing that happens is one of my headaches explodes into existence. It feels much worse than earlier this year when the glass jar was smashed against my skull. The second thing that happens is I stumble backward. Another fists gets me in the forehead and it’s like somebody has set off a flashbulb inside my head, one of those old press ones that would flash white, then have smoke puff out from around it as it went dark. For two seconds I can’t see a damn thing, but I can hear him coming at me. I lift up my arms but he manages to hit me again. I fall onto the bed and then his face starts to appear from behind the dark clouds and he looks as surprised as I feel. He jumps on top of me.

“Who are you?” he shouts.

The room is spinning. My back is sinking into the mattress.

“Huh? You fucked her as well?” he yells.

He puts his hands around my throat and squeezes. I grab his hands but can’t push them away. Something inside my skull is trying to break free, it’s stomping around and banging at the walls.

“Shaleb. .” I say, and it takes a lot of strength just to say his name, but it sounds different in my head and feels different on my tongue.

He lets go. I grab my throat and rub it. He climbs off me and steps away. “What did you just say?”

I get up onto my elbows. I start to cough, each cough vibrating through my skull. “Shisshen,” I say, my throat ticking, my mind woozy, “Shesh me shelp you.”

He comes in and takes another swing at me, I block it, but he buries his left fist into my stomach. The air rushes out of me. He turns and heads for the door and I get to my feet, half doubled over. My right arm hangs by my side, not working, it flaps around as I race out of the bedroom. By the time I reach the hall he’s already in the kitchen.

“Shate!”

He doesn’t wait. I reach the door and he’s already scaling the back fence. I manage two paces before everything changes angles-the trees, the fence, the house, everything shifting varying degrees and I throw up, first falling to the ground on all fours.

The headache fades a little. Feeling returns to my arm. I press at the sides of my head and get my eyes open and Caleb’s face is staring at me from the other side of the fence as he lowers himself down. Then he’s gone. I get to my feet. My legs take me three steps sideways and one step forward, then two sideways and two forward, and then more forward than sideways until I reach the fence. I hang on to it, suck in some air, and climb. I drop down into the neighbor’s backyard, where the lawn comes up past my ankles. Cole is almost at the opposite fence. The thing inside my head is still banging to be heard, but at least it’s no longer stomping around and setting off distress flares. It’s going to let me get through this and wait for the next opportunity.

I grab my phone and call Schroder. I reach the fence and he hasn’t answered. I drop the phone into my pocket and climb into the next neighbor’s backyard. When I hit the ground Cole is running down the side of the house. I pick my phone back up and it’s gone through to Schroder’s voice mail. I hang up and call the station. I try asking for backup but the words don’t come out. They ask me to repeat myself and I do, but it’s still no good. I reach the road and Caleb has gone right. I follow, but he’s still gaining ground. He turns down an alleyway. I suck in a deep breath and tell the dispatch officer who I am, and that I’m in pursuit of Caleb Cole, and none of the words come out how I want them to. The dispatch officer doesn’t hang up.

“Do you need medical attention?” she asks.

I try asking for backup.

“Are you intoxicated?”

I reach the alleyway and Caleb is already at the end of it. I can barely breathe. Four months in jail followed by two months of eating all the wrong food have me in the worst shape of my life. And getting smacked in the head hasn’t helped. I swing my arms harder and try to pump by legs faster but it’s not working. Caleb goes right. I’m at least ten seconds behind and the distance is increasing with every step. He looks over his shoulder and doesn’t look as convinced as I am that I’m losing the race, so he pushes himself harder. I push myself harder too but there’s nothing there. The legs won’t respond. Then he starts to slow down. He’s been in jail for fifteen years and had to eat that same shit much longer than I had to.

I close the distance. I shave a second off, then another, I close in on him and then I can’t run anymore. I start to pull up, my lungs burning, my energy levels drained. My throat is sore, my head is pulsing, my face feels like it’s going to explode from the heat. I think of the three girls and I keep going. Caleb sees I’ve closed in on him. He turns into the closest house and runs down the side of it. He pushes through a gate into the backyard of a house with run-down cars parked in the driveway. People are staring out the window as I follow him. They’re getting up and coming to the door, already yelling. Caleb scales the fence. The back door of the house opens and a dog races out after me, somebody yelling at it to “rip those fuckers apart.” I reach the fence and the dog grabs my leg and digs its teeth into my calf. I scream out, hug the top of the fence, and kick out with my other foot, connecting with the dog’s head. It doesn’t let go. I kick it again for the same result. I pull myself up higher, the dog coming with me, and Caleb is standing right below me on the other side. He grabs my shirt and pulls me down. I’m the rope in a tug-of-war between man and beast. The dog comes halfway up the fence and comes free when it starts to lever over the top. I hit the ground hard. Caleb kicks me in the stomach, steps back, then comes forward and kicks me again.

“You. You’re the guy from last night,” he says, puffing and leaning forward with his hands on his knees. “You’ve been following me?”

I try to talk. The words don’t form the way they should, but I grab hold of them, I force them out and they’re a little clearer now. The headache is leaving.

“Caleb,” I say, “I can shelp.”

“Let me do what I have to do,” he says, having to yell to be heard over the dog as it barks and bangs its paws against the other side of the fence, the taste of blood not enough for it. My cell phone must have hung up in the fall because it starts ringing.

“You can’t, can’t. .” I say, and have to spend a few seconds sucking in air. “The girls, shoe can’t shurt them.”

“What kind of monster do you think I am?”

He kicks me again, then takes off toward the house, runs down the side of it, and is gone. I get to my knees but can’t get any further. I roll onto my back and grab my phone. Before I can answer it the people from next door put their heads over the fence.

“You kicked my dog, you fucker,” one of them says, and he starts to come over. He’s joined by his buddy who says “you’re going to fucking pay.” Both of them have shaved heads with similar scars running across them that look like badges of honor. Maybe they got that way playing with knives.

I pull out my badge and show it to them. They look at each other, passing a look as if unsure of what to do next, unsure whether kicking a police officer to death is going to be worth the years in jail they’ll have to spend for it. I can already see their lawyers going to work, showing pictures of their dog and saying how it was my fault it bit me, how as humanitarians these two men had to defend its honor, that only coldhearted individuals wouldn’t have kicked the shit out of me.

“Just go back inside,” I tell them, the words feeling right now. “Backup is here,” I say, knowing how bad things are going to get if they don’t believe me. “Go back inside and don’t do anything stupid.”

“Pig,” one of them says, and the other one spits on me and the guy who spoke seems to hate the idea he didn’t spit on me first, so makes up for it by spitting on me twice. Then they climb down off the fence, yell at the dog, and take it inside.

My phone has stopped ringing. I wipe the spit off of me onto the lawn. I follow the path Cole took out onto the street, taking as much weight off my left leg as I can. Nobody comes out of the house. My pants are damaged, and when I roll them up there’s a row of puncture holes, all of them leaking blood. The phone starts ringing again. There is no sign of Cole. No sign of any of the patrol cars.

I sit down on the curb and put the phone to my ear. “Yeah?”

“We’re at the slaughterhouse,” Schroder says, and I have to press my finger into my other ear to drown out the dog, but instead all I can hear is my heart beating. “Cole was here. So was Dr. Stanton. Tate, one of the girls, Cole has left one of the girls for us to find. She’s fine, Tate, a little scared, but other than frightening her, Cole hasn’t hurt her at all.”