“What the hell are you doing in that getup?” Liz exclaimed. She was sitting in her chair next to Sissy Boom Boom watching television.” You look like a freakin’ policeman.”
Deb had walked into the living room wearing tight black pants, high top black boots, her black leather motorcycle jacket and black motorcycle helmet, with flip down sun glasses.” I’m supposed to. I’m on patrol tonight. Remember? Citizen’s patrol. I told you about it. Just before Marlee left.”
Marlee had left a little before five, wanting to make sure she was home when Lew finished with work. Liz had wished she could have said or done something to lift her spirits, but the way Liz was feeling, she had all she could do to lift her own spirits. She had been watching an old black and white crime movie on TCM for the last hour and a half, unable to get comfortable. The pain in her back was throbbing fiercely.
“Yeah, I remember,” Liz said.” But I didn’t think you’d have it organized, this soon.”
“I don’t mess around, you know that.”
“Yeah. How many neighbors did you get to participate?”
“Just one so far,” Deb tried to be evasive as she hung her flashlight on her belt.
“You mean one besides yourself?” Liz offered, skeptically. She already knew the answer.
“Well there will be,” Deb answered.” Right now there’s just one of us.”
“You mean you’re the only one.”
“Well for now, yes. But when everyone sees I’m on the job. They’re bound to want to help out.”
“Bound to,” Liz agreed.” But do you have to go out there looking like an idiot?”
“No. Of course not. That’s why I dressed like this. Besides I’m patrolling on my black Honda.”
“I don’t know how I could have doubted you, Deb. But, what about those sunglasses? It’s almost dark out there now. How are you going to see where you’re going with them on?”
“Who cares? Just as long as I look cool getting there. That’s all that matters.”
Liz nodded,” Makes sense,” she uttered.
Liz heard Deb’s motorcycle go up and down the street five times before she finally drifted off to sleep. Each trip had been further apart. Deb had probably found a vantage point at each end of the street, where she could sit on her motorcycle and watch for a while before making another tour. If Liz knew Deb, she had probably found some sort of concealment to park her bike behind, just like what she thought a real policeman would do; or at least the movie and TV version of a motorcycle cop. One thing about Deb, she certainly was dedicated.
Liz’s sleep was fitful for an hour before finally succumbing to the shadows of deep sleep. Sissy Boom Boom slept quietly in her chair and silence covered the house like a shroud.
From somewhere out of the night, there was a faint stirring. A scraping sound from the sliding glass door that led out onto the backyard deck was hardly enough to arouse either Liz or Sissy. The sharp point of a knife blade slipped beneath the inside latch of the slider. The latch clicked open and the door silently slid aside very slowly, scarcely making a sound. A hand from outside, gripped the drape that covered the inside of the opening and pushed it back just enough to slip a booted foot through. A shard of moonlight and starlight from outside flashed into the kitchen and then was blotted out as a shadowy figure quickly filled the briefly opened space. The drape fell back into place as the intruder stepped all the way in.
Sissy Boom Boom awoke to the movement and the sound of foot steps approaching. Her ears pricked up and she tilted her head from side to side. She felt a chill and her hair began to stand on end. Her skin prickled and a growl started in her throat, her eyes peering through the darkness and seeing the shadow of someone approaching. Someone who did not belong there. She jumped to her haunches and started to bark.
A strong hand reached out from the shadows and grasped her by the loose skin of the back of her neck and yanked her off the chair. Another hand clamped over her nose and snout, holding her jaws tightly shut. Sissy wiggled and twisted, trying to break free, but before she knew it the intruder had tossed her through the open sliding glass door and slammed it shut before she could retaliate.
She jumped against the door, pawing frantically and barking as loud as she could, the sound echoing up and down the street in the crispness of a cool autumn night.
Inside the house, Sissy’s alarm could hardly be heard by the intruder. He moved on down the hallway toward Liz’s bedroom. In the silence, he could hear her breathing evenly in deep sleep.
But, somehow, even in deep sleep, the unwanted presence permeated the darkness and drifted into Liz’s unconsciousness and she began to stir. Her eyeballs began to move beneath the lids. REM, rapid eye movement which accompanied her dreams. The monster began to tug at Liz’s soul and she stirred with visions of shadows, demons and monsters; shaking her out of her slumber and jolting her wide awake with the pain and terror the monster always brought on. Shards of pain shot through her entire body. Her back pained and her legs were on fire. Her arms were heavy and wooden, paralyzed and useless.
Her eyes came wide open, but they ached and even in the darkness, she knew her vision was blurred. Only vague shades of blacks and grays loomed above her, but she knew there was movement in the darkness. A blob of black moved from the hallway and blocking out the gray of the bedroom doorway; a large, hulking shapeless shadow moving slowly and quietly toward her.
Closer and closer it came. Liz tried to move, but it was useless. With the return of the monster, she could not move a muscle. Her eyes couldn’t even open wider. She tried to scream, but her mouth wouldn’t open and her vocal chords couldn’t release a rasp or whisper. In her brain she was screaming, though no sound was uttered. She felt as if she would pass out, but she couldn’t physically do that. She shook with fear from the inside, but her body couldn’t even quiver.
The dark shadow slowly took a semblance of form as it came close to her bed. Arms were reaching out from each side of it and reaching toward her.
Above the silent screaming in her head, a roaring clatter echoed shrilly above it. A light beam swept momentarily through the front window in the living room casting a brief light into the hallway behind the moving shadow. Even through the blur of her vision, the shadow took the shape of a large man. He whirled around at the flash and the noise from outside. He had heard the drone of the motorcycle, but when the light swept through the living room and the engine ceased, he knew someone had pulled into the driveway. He turned and headed back down the hallway to make his escape before being found.
He was almost to the sliding glass door when the kitchen doorway to the garage swung open. The garage light flooded into the room. Deb Raymond stepped into the opening, unaware of the intruder. She had found Sissy Boom Boom wandering in the street and had brought her home.
Sissy Boom Boom growled and leaped from Deb’s arms and flew toward the intruder. Deb fell back a step with surprise, only catching a fleeting glimpse of the shadow moving toward the sliding glass door.
Sissy Boom Boom clamped sharp teeth into the man’s thigh and swung wildly from side to side as the intruder tried to shake her off. Large hands gripped the little pug and tore her loose from him, fabric and flesh still in Sissy’s teeth. He flung the little dog at Deb, striking her in the face. Sissy yelped with pain. Deb frantically tried to hang onto Sissy and hold her tight, preventing her from falling to the floor.
The intruder was gone out the back before Deb could gather her wits about her. She had only glimpsed a shadow in the dimness without getting a good look at who it was.
Quickly, she ran to Liz’s bedroom, holding Sissy tightly and stroking her head lightly; the little dog trembling in her arms. She switched on the hall light as she ran, letting light filter into the bedroom rather than shocking Liz with the brilliance of a bedroom lamp.
Liz was starting to move now. She still couldn’t utter a sound, but she could raise her right arm enough to indicate she was not hurt and motion toward
the back of the house where the man was escaping.
Deb had seen Liz waking up with what she called the monster, many times before. She knew this was one of those times and she would be alright as soon as the effects of MS wore off. She placed Sissy Boom Boom on the pillow next to Liz. The little pug licked her cheek, leaving traces of the intruder’s blood on it.
Deb, knowing there was nothing she could do for Liz right now, whirled and ran back down the hallway, pushed aside the drape covering the open glass door and saw the man was already over a hundred yards away, running across their back lot and heading toward a stand of trees at the end of their property that ran parallel to the highway behind. He had too much of a head start on her. There was no way she could catch him on foot now.
She turned and ran through the kitchen into the garage. She had left the overhead door up. She ran to the motorcycle, jumped aboard and kicked the engine into life, at the same time turning on her headlights.
Using her feet to help guide the machine, she backed it up, twisted the handle bars, and sent it forward into the street. She took the immediate left past the side of the house onto Beauregard Street, and fed the engine gas. The motor roared loudly in the silence of the night air and wind whipped against Deb’s cheeks. She worked the bars back and forth, swinging wildly in the street, trying to force her headlight beams off to the side in hopes of getting a glimpse of the running man, while still advancing forward.
At first she saw nothing out there in the open field and Deb feared that she was already too late and the man had gotten away. Then as she zig zagged again, a swath of head light flash revealed the runner. He was almost to the stand of trees. If he got in there and hid, Deb may never find him in the dark, but she guessed that he probably had a vehicle waiting for him on the other side of the trees, where Hickory Hill road ran parallel to Beaumont Street. It was an old rural back road, still gravel without the benefit of pavement or street lights. It would have been a good place to leave an escape vehicle. She turned up the gas and the Honda Rebel shot forward faster; this time taking a straight path down the middle of the street, without trying to keep the runner in sight.
In a matter of seconds she reached the intersection of Beauregard and Hickory Hill Road. She turned left, leaning into the turn, feeling the pull of the momentum and riding expertly through it. As she straightened the machine out, the beam of the headlight flooded the darkness of the back road. There was no parked vehicle there. Had she been wrong? Was the man really on foot and hiding out in the woods? She eased off on the gas and twisted the handlebars aiming her headlight to the side of the road. There was no sign of him coming out of the trees. Or had he already beaten her to the road and driven off? She whipped the front wheel of the bike back and aimed it straight forward down the road. Straining her eyes to look beyond the beam of her headlight and trying to adjust to night vision in the dark, she finally saw it. The glow of parallel red lights retreating at a high speed in the distance, winked in the darkness ahead. Tail lights! Her quarry had already taken off! Deb turned up the gas and shot forward, revving to eighty miles an hour within seconds.
The tail lights grew more visible as Deb quickly closed the distance between them. She could now make out the shape of the vehicle. It was a sedan, but it was still too dark and he was still too far ahead for Deb to discern the make and color.
The driver must have spotted her for the car’s speed seemed to increase and the red tail lights receded away. Deb pushed the engine to full throttle.
The red lights, ahead, suddenly disappeared as the car topped a rise and dropped over a dip in the road. Deb followed suit and rode into the dip just as the car disappeared over the hill beyond.
With the downward momentum behind her, the Honda rolled swiftly up the ensuing hill and picked up speed as it rolled down the other side. Wind was whipping at her face even around the protective visor of her helmet and, with the speed behind her, she rolled on through an intersection without looking right or left.
She continued on for several seconds before she realized that the fleeing car was no longer ahead of her. It must have turned off at the intersection. She slowed the bike, swung to the side, did a u turn in the narrow road and rode back to the intersection.
Here, she rolled to a halt and looked both ways; left and right. There was no sign of the car. No winking red lights in the dark. There were just dark, lonely and empty country roads around her. Save for the purring of the Honda’s idling engine drowning out the usual night sounds of locusts and crickets all was silent.
*****
Chapter Eight