Chapter 9
He watched them pull away, Lucas driving the big bike with Opal on the back, her arms tight around her man’s waist.
“We’ll be back by dark!” she called out.
Harold waved, shut the door and locked it. Alone for the first time in three days, he couldn’t relax and sit still in Lucas’ strange, half-empty house. He went from one room to the next, looked in the fridge but took nothing out. Eventually he just flopped on the couch in the den. Next to the remote sat his brief case. He popped it open looking for some cigarettes, but the pack inside was empty. His hand fell on a folded piece of paper. He spread it out on the table, a short shopping list Bonnie had given him weeks before. Bread, milk, potatoes, Pepsi.
Memories came pouring in, and he couldn’t stand it. He threw the paper back into the briefcase and shut it tight. Leaning back he turned on the TV, a mindless movie to take is mind off of the memories, to keep him from thinking. He half-dozed, not enjoying it, not hating it either. The phone rang and he went into the kitchen to answer it.
“Hello.”
“It’s Lucas. Sorry sport, but this damn hog’s broke down. I’m puttin’ the wrenches to it. Me and Opal are gonna be a little late. Might be a little after dark, but not by much. You doin’ okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Look, will you bring me a freakin’ pack of cigarettes? I can do without the liquor, I’m no drunk, I was just drinking because I didn’t know what else to do. But if I don’t have a cigarette, I’m going to chew my fingernails down to the first knuckle.”
“You bet. See ya in an hour to two, maybe less.”
“Thanks Lucas. Not just for the cigarettes, for everything. You and Opal have been, I don’t know, just really cool.”
“Our pleasure. Lemme get back to that bike so we can cruise our butts home.”
“Sure thing. See ya in a bit.”
“Later,” Lucas said and hung up.
He hadn’t been alone after dark since the night at the bay, and he was fidgeting. After he checked to make sure all of the doors were locked, he got into Lucas’ easy chair and put on the headphones. Hitting the play button summoned up more BOC, and he relaxed a little. He was in a bank of songs that were clearly older. Most of the songs were hard to peg in terms of which decade they came from unless there were things like 70’s style organ riffs to give it away. This one did, and he thought it could have been a lost Yardbirds song.
Without nicotine or alcohol his brain couldn’t stay in one place, rattling in his head like a Mexican jumping bean. Harold put the CD player in his pocket and rooted around in the kitchen until he found some real coffee and made a pot, figuring that with some of that in him he might be able to focus. There wasn’t much in the way of snack food either, but he stumbled across some popcorn flavored rice cakes and downed a few while the coffee dripped.
Cup of coffee in his fist he went back to the easy chair to have a sip and listen. The next song on the CD that came up gave him chills; he skipped back and pumped up the volume to listen to it again, trying to figure out some the lyrics that he couldn’t catch.
The volume was up yet he was sure he heard a sound. He pulled the earphones around his neck and paused the CD. All he could hear was the buzz of insects outside the window, the whir of a fan and swish of the curtain against the sill.
Feeling jumpy he un-paused the disk, stood up, and put the earphones back on. He paced the floor with the CD player in his pocket. Certain he was just being stupid, went and warmed up his coffee with a dash from the pot. The song was good, but creepy, and it reminded him of what had happened to him at the bay.
Footsteps this time. He yanked out the earbuds. The sound of footfalls led his eyes to the little door on the interior wall not far from the front entry and he turned to face it. He had assumed it was a coat closet, not a door to the attic, but he thought it had to be, because there were the sounds of footsteps coming from above and behind it, and each icy little tap shrieked into his ears. His body reacted as if touched by a rigored hand, with automatic recoil, not wanting to see what was going to come through the door. He ran through the kitchen to the back door and out into the dark.
He kept running, not knowing where he was going, glancing back, seeing nothing but not slowing down. A few cars passed him on the road. Harold ignored them and ran on. On the right side of the road he saw a thick stand of bushes designed to cover a power substation. Behind the shrubs and beyond the fence there were bright lights. He headed for them, the only bright spot in sight. He wanted to be near the light. Circling the chain-link enclosure, he went to the far side and huddled against a small brick building. The metal door was locked with a deadbolt. He sat down in the gravel next to the door and leaned into the corner where the wall met the chain-link. Pulling up his knees and crossing his forearms on them, he rested his chin on his arms and stared out, rocking in the blue-white light.
A man came around the side of the building and stood staring at him with a heavy fishing knife in his right hand. Harold screamed and scrunched back into the corner with nowhere to run.
“This is a real honor,” the man said, sheathing the knife and showing his open palms. He was thirty-ish and sandy-haired, wearing blue jeans and a white short-sleeved dress shirt, but worn from a thousand washings but impeccably clean, his chest heaving from running.
“Come with me,” the man said, looking around almost as nervously as Harold had been before. “There are some people who want to meet you real bad, and we can keep you safe. And as for them bikers, they’re leading you astray. And you’re aren’t safe as long as you stay with ‘em.”