Story Sampler
By Robert P. Hansen
Copyright 2014 by Robert P. Hansen
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Connect With Me
For reviews, updates on my writing, excerpts from my novels, samples of my poetry, and links to my work online, visit my blog at: https://www.rphansenauthorpoet.wordpress.com/.
Follow me on Facebook at: fb.me/RobertPHansenAuthorPoet
Additional Titles
Fantasy Novels
The Drunken Wizard’s Playmates and Other Stories
Angus the Mage
Book 1: The Tiger’s Eye
Book 2: The Viper’s Fangs
Book 3: The Golden Key
Book 4: Angst
[Book 5 is the Aftermath series]
Aftermath
Book 1: Aftermath
Other Novels
Installments (mystery / literary)
Please Don’t Eat the Penguins (science fiction)
The Snodgrass Incident (science fiction)
Short Story Collections
Exploitation and Other Stories
Have You Seen My Cat? And Other Stories
Worms and Other Alien Encounters
Poetry Collections
2014: A Year of Poetry
2015: A Year of Poetry
2016: A Year of Poetry
A Bard Out of Time and Other Poems
A Field of Snow and Other Flights of Fancy
Last Rites . . . and Wrongs
Love & Annoyance
Of Muse and Pen
Potluck: What’s Left Over
Acknowledgments
“Baby Jesus” copyright 2006 by Calliope. Originally published in the Jan.-Feb. issue.
“Code 13 B” copyright 2012 by Robert P. Hansen. Originally published in the March issue of The Fifth Dimension.
“Exodus” copyright 2003 by the University of Northern Iowa. Originally published in the 2003 issue of Inner Weather.
“Plague” copyright 2000 by Fading Shadows, Inc. Originally published in Alien Worlds: Beyond Space & Time #9.
“Playing Thief” copyright 2012 by The Corner Club Press. Originally published in Vol. II, Issue VII.
“Stranded” copyright 2013 by Robert P. Hansen. Originally published in the June issue of The Fifth Dimension.
“Sturgeon’s General Warning: Too Much Science Fiction May Be Hazardous to Your Health” copyright 2000 by Fading Shadows, Inc. Originally published in Startling Science Stories #31.
“Washishisha” copyright 2011 by Robert P. Hansen. Originally published in the December 2011 issue of The Fifth Dimension.
“Worms” copyright 1999 by Fading Shadows, Inc. Originally published in Exciting UFO Stories #5.
Cover copyright 2015 by American Book Design.
Special thanks to Ronda Swolley of Mystic Memories Copy Editing for the copy edit.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Connect With Me
Additional Titles
Stories from Have You Seen My Cat and Other Stories
Baby Jesus*
Playing Thief*
Crossing Over
Natural Selection
Code 13 B
Stories from Worms and Other Alien Encounters
Worms
Sturgeon’s General Warning: Too Much Science Fiction May Be Hazardous to Your Health
Plague
Exodus
Stranded
Washishisha
Mock Turtle
Story from Last Rites . . . And Wrongs
Resurrection
Story from The Drunken Wizard’s Playmates and Other Stories
A Skunk’s Tail (or The Invention of Magic)
*“Baby Jesus” and “Playing Thief” were also published in Last Rites . . . And Wrongs.
About the Author
Baby Jesus
It was the kind of thing that happens in ghettoes. That’s what everybody said; that and “This kind of thing just doesn’t happen here.” It shouldn’t happen anywhere, if you ask me, and when it happened in our little Iowa town (pop. 218), we just didn’t know what the hell to do.
It started out this way: Reggie Pederson, my neighbor, was putting up Christmas lights just before dawn on the day after Thanksgiving. But I had fixed him. I had started at midnight, and as soon as I saw him outside, I flipped the switch and voila! My house lit up like a Christmas tree in heat. He paused, and even in the twilight of impending dawn, I could see Reggie’s mouth drop open. Then he started muttering to himself. He was probably cursing me, but I couldn’t quite make it out.
I had my normal lights, of course. Tiny white and green ones were hanging from the gutters like flashing neon icicles, flickering blue and red patterns were scattered through the hedges by the curb, a steady kaleidoscope of colors clothed the railing around the deck, and a three-foot-tall Santa stood by my door to bid everyone welcome. Rudolph and the other reindeer (along with three elves I named Pixel, Nixie, and Rocko) held the roof down. My driveway was candy-cane lane. All of this was normal, expected. In my house, I had a little tree with tinsel, ornaments, and a few lights; Christmas cards taped on door frames, window frames, and mantle; and a small plate of Oreo cookies (Me, bake? Ha!). I really don’t have much of the so-called “Christmas Spirit,” but I can’t stand Reggie having one up on me. And that was why I had added the Nativity scene to my Christmas ensemble.
I put it to the left—pardon me, on the south side of the house, the one closest to the Pederson’s. There really wasn’t anywhere else to put it; my yard’s not that big, and I had to have it where Reggie could see it when I turned on the lights. I bought it at an internet auction and had it delivered to my sister’s place so he couldn’t suspect anything. I’d brought it home in my 1999 indigo blue metallic Isuzu Hombre after Thanksgiving dinner (my sister’s a good cook), and left it there until after Reggie’s lights had gone off. So, when I flipped the switch, the first thing Reggie saw was the Nativity scene: Mary, Joseph, the Wise Men, an Angel, a sheep, a dog, and a donkey all looking in at Baby Jesus nestled in straw under a wooden canopy. It took a long time to set it up with only a flashlight to help me, but I’d gotten it done. It looked pretty fair, all things considered, and filled up a good chunk of my lawn. The hollow statues are about half life-sized, and the paint had held up nicely during the shipping. There were a few chips, here and there, but they weren’t noticeable until you got close. Reggie’s look was precious, and, before he turned back to his own decorating, I took a quick picture for posterity. Or it would have been if my flash had gone off. A Kodak moment if ever there was one, and it came out a blurry gray blob. I showed it to Reggie, anyway, so I could gloat and say, with a straight face, “Remember this?”
This was the day after Thanksgiving, before it happened. We don’t really know when it happened though, because, like most of the people in town, I left my Christmas decorations up until New Year’s Day. That was when the shit hit the fan, so to speak, because it was on New Year’s Day that I started taking mine down. I’d already boxed up the lights from the gutters, hedges, and deck when I turned to the Nativity scene. I carried Joseph, Mary, and the Wise Men into the garage and had just taken down the canopy when I noticed it. There was snow on the ground (it was cold, too; almost zero), and the color was all wrong. Baby Jesus, as far as I could remember, hadn’t been wrapped in a pale blue blanket or wearing a topaz stocking cap with a cute little yarn ball on top of it. The one I’d
put there was painted white with a beatific halo. So, when I bent over for a better look, I didn’t see my statue of Baby Jesus. Instead, there was a dead baby in the manger, one that wasn’t part of the package I’d bought on-line. Someone had tossed a baby away in my Nativity scene.
At first, I couldn’t believe it. Then I got angry because it was my Nativity scene that got violated. Then I got cold as hell because I’d stood still too long. That was when I went inside and called the Sheriff. Then I called the fire department. Then I called the news. Maybe I shouldn’t have called the news, but my neighbors would have done it, anyway, and the money from the hotline would come in handy. Christmas isn’t cheap, and neither is an ex-wife. Besides, the fire department showed up first. Or, more precisely, the volunteers pulled up one at a time or in pairs until all ten were milling around wondering what to do and telling each other not to touch anything. Mike Tavers, who had arrived first, had called them all on his cell phone. Then he called the Highway Patrol. Then the news. They told him they were already on their way (the news people, that is), and he was a bit disappointed that he wouldn’t get the $500 for the tip.
Jim Norberg, a burly guy with a good heart, was crying when he started asking me questions. That was bizarre. I never thought of him, an all-conference halfback in high school, as the crying type, but the tears oozed from his hazel eyes, trickled down his pudgy cheeks, and formed tiny icicles that dangled from his salt-and-pepper moustache. I guess the numbness wore off faster on him than it did on us, and he needed to do something. I was too busy being queasy to cry. Sick to my stomach, as the saying goes. His voice caught, and he had to clear it twice, before he got his first question out. No, I told him, I didn’t recognize it. No, I don’t know who could have done it. Yes, lots of people came to look at my lights (I made the “must see” list of Christmas lights for the fourth time, by the way). No, I don’t remember seeing anybody taking a closer look at the Nativity scene. But it must have happened before it snowed (Dec. 18th) because there hadn’t been any footprints in the snow when I started taking down the Nativity scene. I would have noticed them. Oh, you might want to talk to Reggie about it. He got woken up by a car driving off a few weeks ago, so maybe he can help pin down the date.
Then the Sheriff showed up. He asked me the same questions, and I gave him the same answers. I also told him I hadn’t smelled anything unusual, but it had been below freezing most of the time and the canopy gives lots of shade. He wanted me to show him what the Nativity scene looked like before I started taking it down, so I said, “Wouldn’t it be better to leave the crime scene as it is?”
Crime scene, not the kind of thing you want to say about your own back yard—or side yard, for that matter. That was when he took out the yellow tape with bold black letters saying—POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS—over and over again. When he started cordoning off my front door, we got in an argument. That’s when he said I couldn’t be ruled out as a suspect, and I almost hit him. I told you I was angry. But he relented, and I went inside, fuming.
Then the Highway Patrol showed up, and I answered the questions again. When I asked if they ever compared notes, she laughed and said they would, later. In the meantime, did I know who the baby’s parents were… ?
By this time, there were so many cop cars that the whole street looked like Christmas had returned for an encore. People—firemen, highway patrol officers, sheriff and deputies, and nosy neighbors—were coming and going as if they owned the place. My place. It was into this bedlam that the news reporter came and started asking questions. The same ones. Only, this time, the reporter also asked “How does it feel to find a dead baby in your Nativity scene?” Those were his exact words (I have a copy of the interview tape), and that’s when I got arrested. I shouldn’t have hit him, I know, but he did ask me how it felt, so I showed him. He wasn’t very understanding. The money from reporting the news covered the fine for assault and battery and most of the court costs, so I figured we were even.
Well, the various investigators investigated, asked questions, and tromped all over my lawn for most of the day. I was glad I didn’t have a coffee pot (I never touch the stuff), and by the time they left, I wished I didn’t have a bathroom either. I do have a mop, though, and had to use it several times to clean up the melting, dirty snow. In the end, they left, took the baby, took the Nativity scene, and hauled me off to jail. (It’s difficult to sweet-talk a reporter before you slug him; you try it after you’ve given him a black eye!)
It was while I was in the cell waiting for my court hearing (it was a holiday, remember?) and watching TV that the news came on. The reporter had a nice shiner and told the world about “Baby Jesus,” the name they had given it instead of “Baby Doe.” He never once mentioned how he got the black eye, but I couldn’t keep from laughing when they were showing the footage of my interview and cut it off just before I slugged him. He finished the segment with “When I asked him how it felt, he said he was angry, very angry.” His eye twitched a bit as he said it. Or maybe I just thought it did.
A few days later, after I’d paid my fine and done “time served,” I saw a news update. The baby was dead before it was put in the manger and had been healthy when it died. A few days after that, the name of the parents were released, but they weren’t charged with anything. Apparently, they hadn’t committed any crime other than “improper disposal of a corpse.” There wasn’t any abuse or murder at all—not that I was disappointed, exactly, since it ended a lot of speculation for the town gossips. The baby had just died one night in its sleep—the doctors call it “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome”—and the parents had been mortified. Worse, they didn’t have money for a funeral, and when they were driving by and saw the Nativity scene in my yard, they hoped I would have enough Christmas Spirit to help them out. So they had left their baby and taken the statue with them. The father said they left a note, too, but I never found one. Maybe it blew away when it snowed.
When the police picked them up, the mother was rocking my statue back and forth, a bottle held to its mouth, murmuring lullabies.
No, I didn’t want to press charges—as long as I got the statue back.
Somebody with more Christmas Spirit (and more money!) than me paid for Baby Jesus’ funeral. (His real name was Kirk McDougal, but I’ll always think of him as Baby Jesus.) The mother received psychiatric treatment at the state’s expense. And me? I conceded Christmas to Reggie and auctioned off all my Christmas decorations on the internet. I made a bundle on the notorious Nativity scene, especially the Baby Jesus. Some people will collect anything.
Playing Thief
He must have had two Y chromosomes. That’s the only way I can explain it. Men with two Y chromosomes make the worst criminals because they usually aren’t bright enough to get away with their crimes. That’s what one of my psych professors said, anyway. She was talking about a study that criticized another study for saying that men with two Y chromosomes tended to be violent criminals. That’s not true, even though there seems to be a disproportionately high number of men with two Y chromosomes in prison. It’s really because they do stupid things. I remember this because of the story my professor told us about one of them.
This guy wanted some money so he decided to steal an ATM machine. He wrapped a chain around the machine and hooked the chain to his bumper. He got in his truck, revved the motor, and promptly pulled his bumper off. Well, the bumper, chain, and license plate were still there when the police arrived, and it was easy for them to track down the would-be thief. The video was just the nail in his coffin, so to speak, and after viewing it, the public defender, once he stopped laughing, took the first deal the prosecutor gave. So much for two Y chromosomes and the criminal mastermind.
OK, much of that last paragraph isn’t really what the professor told us, but the gist of it is. There was a bumper and video, I just ad-libbed the rest of it to help you understand what criminals with two Y chromosomes do. I know, because I ran into one in a Laundromat—or more precisely, he ran in
to me.
It’s a cheap Laundromat; I don’t have a lot of money to spare on the better places. Too many student loans to pay back. It’s only a few blocks from where I live, and I usually walk to it. The front door scares the hell out of me; it’s got one of those big swinging arms at the top, and one of the bolts is loose. Someday, it’s going to fall and hit someone in the head. I’ve left notes about it in the “Problems” box, but whoever owns the place doesn’t care. If it comes down on me, I’ll sue. (I’ve even signed the notes and made dated copies for my records.) Even so, I always enter cautiously and involuntarily duck.
Inside, there’s only a dozen washers and dryers. Most of the washers look like they’ve been there since the 80s, but there are a few newer ones on the end. I try to use them as much as possible, which is pretty much always because I do my laundry at midnight on Sundays. It’s a good time to do laundry, and I like the solitude. The few times others have come in, they’ve dropped their laundry in the washers, left, and come back to put them in the dryer. Usually, I’m gone before they get back again.
The dryers are a bitch. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t. I’ve left scorching notes about that, too, and they sometimes helps and sometimes don’t. The owner has a rather cold heart, I guess.
There’s not much to do while I wait for my laundry to wash and dry, so I always bring a book with me. The TV doesn’t have cable, and the reception of the local stations is pathetic. There’s not much on at midnight on Sundays, anyway, so it doesn’t matter. The video games, though, are another matter, and I usually spend a dollar or two in the pinball machine before I get frustrated. I’ve never been very good at pinball.
There’s a bulletin board by the door, too, and I’ve read the flyers posted on it a few times. One about confidential testing for AIDS. Another about church meetings. Lost dogs or cats show up, sometimes. The “approximate” time for the washers and dryers. Underneath the bulletin board is a little table that would feel at home in a junkyard. On it are magazines that were probably stolen from a junkyard. I read part of one, once, a two-month-old copy of Entertainment Weekly, and that was enough for me. After that (my first time there), I started bringing a book with me.
Well, this particular Sunday night I had just put my clothes in to wash and returned to the novel I was reading. It was Heinlein’s Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and I had finally gotten the knack of reading the pidgin prose of the narrator. He never uses “the” except in dialogue, and sometimes he uses an “Understood I” as a subject. If I hadn’t read a lot of Heinlein’s other books, I probably would have given up on this one after a few pages. Anyway, as I opened the book, I saw this guy out of the corner of my eye. He was walking toward the door—there was a big picture-window with “Suds Plus Laundry” painted on it—and had something black in his hand. The street light glinted off it, and I got a bit nervous. I generally don’t like being around people, and that’s why I do my laundry when I do it. Well, he opens the door and—
No. The hinge above the door does not break; the arm does not fall and clonk him on the head. True, it would have simplified everything if it had, but that wasn’t my luck. Instead, he opened the door, brandished a knife, and said the one cliché no one wants to hear: “Give me your money.”
Well, that was a problem. I hadn’t brought any more than what I needed for my laundry. All I had in my pocket was two dollars in quarters. And lint. Lint never goes away; it accumulates. Especially in dryers like they have at Suds Plus. Anyway, I must have looked dumb because he repeated it, more loudly, and stepped closer.
I shrugged, stood up, reached into my pocket, and handed him my handful of quarters.
He looked at them, scowled, threw them on the floor—they clattered like the slot machines in the casino I went to once—and demanded. “I said give me your money!”
By now, you can imagine how frightened I was. It was bad enough to be robbed, but to be called a liar, too? I looked helplessly at the few quarters still rolling on the floor, waved my hand, and said, “That’s all I have.”
“What?” he growled, as he took another step toward me.
“Look,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets and pulling them out. The only thing that clattered to the floor was my key ring. (The lint fell silently.) “Do you see any money?”
He opened his mouth to snarl something, and I half-screamed, “Look around you! Do you think anyone with money would come here?”
Something must have registered, because he looked around for the first time and thought about what I said. Maybe it was my fear that had sunk in, maybe not. But what he did next baffles me to this day. He started toward the dryers with his knife, turned toward me, and said, “Get out of here!”
Well, I didn’t need any more coaxing than that: I left. After I was out the door, I looked in through the window and saw him prying on the coin box of one of the dryers. Then I ran three blocks to the gas station and called the cops. I was standing on the corner, waiting, when they showed up about fifteen minutes later. I watched from across the street as they went inside. The thief turned, dropped his knife, and that was that. No fight, no fuss, he just dropped the knife and shrugged.
After they cuffed him, I crossed the street and went in. The police were busy with their prisoner, and I had my keys and three quarters in my hand before they stopped me. “That’s evidence,” one of them said, taking the quarters from me.
“No,” I said, shaking my hand and pointing to the floor. “I dropped two dollars worth when he came in. I need them to dry my clothes.”
“No you don’t,” the thief said over his shoulder as they led him outside.
“Hand them over,” the cop said, opening an “evidence” bag.
“Fine,” I said, dropping the three quarters in the bag. “But I’m keeping my keys. If you take them, I can’t get back in my apartment.”
He thought for a moment, looked at the evidence around him, and said, “All right.”
Ah, the evidence around him. The thief had been busy. He had jimmied open most of the dryers and a couple of washing machines before the cops arrived. His cache of quarters was scattered on the bench we fold clothes on, and the officer went over with his bag and started counting them. When he finished, I asked how much he’d gotten out of the machines, and the policeman shook his head. “A lousy twelve dollars,” he said, glancing back at the vandalized machines. “And he probably did a couple hundred dollars worth of damage in the process.”
Twelve dollars. A misdemeanor, I suppose. A slap on the wrist. Then the officer’s partner returned with his note pad and started asking me questions. Later, I’d have to give a more complete statement at the station, but he wanted to get the basic facts from me while they were still fresh in my mind. When I got to the part where the thief threw my quarters on the floor, the buzzer for one of the dryers went off and we jumped. The second one went off a few moments later, and I stared at them and started laughing. After a few moments, the officer asked, “What’s so funny?”
I pointed at the dryers and said, “Those are mine.”
“So?” he said, still not understanding.
“They were in the washers when I left.”
Crossing Over
“I was running,” I told the heavy-set man with a limp in his voice, as if he were talking around an unlit cigar. “I don’t know why,” I added, giving him chestnut brown hair, shiny like the coat of a sweaty mare after a brief run, and a thick moustache, the kind that dangles about an inch on either side of the mouth. No beard though; it didn’t seem right. “I might have been running to something,” I paused, raising my head. He would have hazel eyes, lightly flecked with burnt umber streaks, slightly dilated from his discomfort. “Or away from it,” I finished, wondering if he would have an earring.
He jotted down notes, slowly, with a long, heavy stroke. Maybe he was doodling? I shook my head, mostly to clear away the image that was developing in my mind. “I shouldn’t have been running,” I said in a rueful, self
-deprecating tone; at least, that was how I felt, and I did nothing to conceal it. “I ran into something,” I added, pointing at my broken nose. “Something hard.”
“The alley wall, perhaps?” His voice was gruff, just below the range of a tenor. “It will heal, though,” he added, a tinge of harshness in his voice, the kind of tone a father would use with a wayward child who had played with fire ants and gotten stung. You know, the “I told you so” voice parents have mastered before the second child pops out. He didn’t mean it, of course, and it was a barely noticeable deviation from the detached, not-quite-friendly, not-quite-unfriendly, utterly disinterested, completely bored tone the detective had been using up to that point. “I need the whole story. Start at the beginning, and leave no details out, no matter how trivial they might seem.”
“All right,” I sighed. “I suppose it started when I left home that morning. It was early, and the sun was warm on the left side of my face when I stepped outside. It was fairly quiet—a few cars idling, a few doors closing, footfalls of passersby, subdued chatter—all the normal range of sounds for that time of day. There was an overall chill in the air, a damp one, like what happens when a fog is lifting. The smells were normal: a touch of sea salt on the breeze, the foulness of exhaust, the pungency of new asphalt from one block over, the tantalizing aroma of fresh-baked bagels from the bakery on the corner. I wasn’t tempted by the bakery, though; I had already eaten. Two eggs over easy, with toast, milk, and a little orange juice. The orange juice was a bit too pulpy for my taste, but I drank it anyway. The milk seemed watered down; like it always does when I buy it from the discount chain. I like to add a light sprinkle of nutmeg on my eggs, and I had overdone it that morning. They were still edible, but the nutmeg was too strong, it almost overwhelmed my taste buds, nearly drowning out the other tastes. The toast was pretty normal; I like it lightly browned with a healthy spread of butter. If I hadn’t eaten, I would have stopped at the bakery for a custard-filled long john dipped in chocolate. I try not to overindulge, though, and keep my donut days to three a week, sometimes four.”
He sighed and asked, “Is this really important?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. You said to start at the beginning, and that’s what I’m doing. Nothing that day was typical. I woke up earlier than usual, and, being a Tuesday, I normally had that foot long. Usually, I walk down the street to the bakery and catch the bus on the opposing corner. This time I walked up the street, turned into the alley to catch the other bus, the one that goes by the classic arcade. I don’t play, of course, but I love the sounds of those old-time games, especially Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. I used to play them, years ago, and it brings back memories. So, when I’m feeling nostalgic, I stop by the arcade for a few of those memories on my way to or from work. That’s how I was feeling on that Tuesday. Nostalgic.”
“And that was,” he said, rifling through his notepad. “Three days ago, right?”
I frowned. “So you say,” I replied slowly. I had decided he had an earring. Not the normal kind of earring, though; he would never be ostentatious about it. A stud, put on backward so only the little pin would show. He probably had a nipple ring that matched it, but I stopped conjecturing at that point; some images are not worth pursuing, and this seemed to be one of them. “The morning you say I disappeared.”
“As best we could determine,” he replied, “you went into that alley about 8 a.m., and you came out of it a few hours ago.”
“But I didn’t disappear,” I protested. “I—“ How do I explain it to him? He hadn’t been there, and I’m not entirely sure I had been there. It felt like I was in a different place, and the things I encountered seemed to be radically different from what we have here. But I couldn’t be sure. And if I told him what I thought had happened, they’d put me in a straight jacket and haul me off to the loony bin. That’s what I would do with me. But, then, that would probably be a good place to be for a few days, so I plunged on. “I shifted. That’s the best word to describe it. I was in the alley one moment, surrounded by the reek of garbage, and I noticed something unexpected: the scent of death. I have smelled it a few other times, and it isn’t an odor I like. It’s a rancid, overpowering odor, and I have a very sensitive nose. I gagged and fought back the urge to vomit. I’ve smelled a lot of bad odors before, and it only takes a few minutes to adjust to them, to push them out of my mind. The smell of death, though, that’s far worse; it isn’t something I ever get used to. Put a pound of hamburger on the window sill for a few days, and you’ll get the idea. It stays with you.”
“I know the smell of death,” he muttered under his breath, not expecting to be heard. He definitely had a nipple ring. And a tattoo of a dolphin on his right bicep when he flexed it; when it was relaxed, it looked more like a sardine.
“Whatever it was,” I continued, “it had been dead for two or three days. Less than that and the decomposition isn’t rancid yet. More than that and the odor begins to dissipate. This was a strong smell—or, perhaps, the nutmeg had made my nose more sensitive than usual. I held my breath, pinched my nose, and continued through the alley, my ears grasping for any little sound, my fingers alert for any unexpected twinges, some little bump that shouldn’t be there.”
“What do you mean by that?” he asked. “Were you groping around?”
I laughed, “Are you kidding?” I said when I half-regained my breath. “If there was something decaying in the alley, I didn’t want to touch it.” I shook my head. “No, I meant with my cane. I’ve walked through that alley a hundred times. I know where the garbage piles are. I know where the potholes are. I know the downspouts and puddles. I can walk it with my eyes closed,” I added, feeling my lips curl up a bit on the left side of my mouth as I tilted my head slightly the other way. “Then my cane struck something, something soft, something that squelched.”
“Ah,” he said, and the scratching of his pencil stilled. There was a slight rustle as he shook his head. “That explains that.”
“Explains what?” I asked.
His chair squeaked as he leaned backward, and a moment later he said, “You weren’t the first to disappear, you know.”
“Oh,” I nodded. “I know. I heard about four disappearances in the news. But none of them had returned.”
He shifted again and said, “One did. Just before you disappeared.”
“I must have missed that news broadcast—“ I paused, beginning to realize the implications. “Where?” I asked, my chest tightening a bit. “Where did he return?”
His chair squawked again, and when he replied his voice was a bit closer, as if he were leaning forward against his desk. “In the same alley from which you disappeared.”
“Oh,” I said, digesting the information and finding it distasteful. But I had to know. “When did you find him?” I asked.
He hesitated, and when he replied, his voice was a little less gruff, a little less bored. “The day after you disappeared,” he said. “We found his body while we were looking for you.”
I shook my head, and when I spoke, I said each syllable with great care. “The decomposition.”
“Yes,” he said. “The body was—“ he paused for a moment, as if he were searching for the right word, then settled on “disfigured. It must have been your cane.” He paused again before adding, “We’ll have to take a look at it.”
I placed it across the arms of my chair, my hands on top of it. “I need it,” I told him.
More chair squeaks, this time as if a great weight had been lifted from it, and he walked around his desk to stand beside me. “Let me see that,” he said, not quite to me. “There’s—“
I nodded. “I know,” I said, noting that his cologne had been applied with a considerable amount of restraint. It was rustic, and not altogether unpleasant. His breath, though, was another matter. “There is still a faint odor of decay.”
“I tell you what,” he said. “Let me send it down to forensics, and they can get the samples they need while we talk. I’l
l make sure they bring it back before you leave.”
The heavy weight of his hand fell on my cane, and the smooth wood added a slight pressure on my palms as he gently tried to lift it from my grasp. I resisted, but said nothing.
“You know we have to do it,” he said.
I nodded, but still kept my grip on my cane. “Not yet,” I said. “I need it.”
“Not in here,” he said. “If you need to go somewhere—“
I shook my head. “You don’t understand,” I said. “You can’t understand. Not yet.” His hand was still on the cane, but I refused to let him take it.
“Look,” he said. “I have probable cause, and withholding evidence is a serious crime.”
I shrugged and didn’t let go. “I know,” I said. “But I still can’t give it to you.”
“Why not?” he demanded as the pressure eased a bit.
I pursed my lips and shook my head. “You won’t understand. I have to tell you what happened, first. Then, if you still want it, I will go with you to the forensic lab, and you can take your samples there.”
“We can get you a different cane,” he said, one last effort to convince me. But I didn’t let go. “All right,” he said, finally releasing his grip. “I’ll have them come up here to get their samples.” The light breeze told me he was returning to his side of the desk.
I waited for him to make the call, and then waited some more. Eventually, he prompted me to continue. I still waited. I was still looking for the words to explain what had happened to me. My fingers clenched my cane much too tightly, and I forced them to relax, one finger at a time. Eventually, I began, “When I was a boy, I watched cartoons. Just like everyone else, I suppose. And I remember this one. I don’t remember which one it was, exactly, but I think it was Bugs Bunny; I watched a lot of Bugs Bunny when I was a boy. It doesn’t really matter, though.” I paused, my fingers felt as if they were glued to the cane, and in a sense, they were. It had been that way ever since I had returned. “Anyway,” I continued, “it was one of those philosophical moments that sometimes pop up in cartoons. The character was looking directly at us, and then, when it turned, we find out it’s a flat, two dimensional being. Maybe you’ve seen it? Or something like it?”
“Yes,” he said, “but I don’t know why you’re telling me about it.”
“Well, something like that happened to me,” I said. “I was making my way around that—“ I paused, forcing myself to say it “—the body, and I felt this sort of tingling sensation. The hairs on my right arm stood on end and tried to run away. It was exhilarating and perplexing. My left arm,” I paused to lift it “felt normal, but my right,” I paused again and lifted my right hand, fingers splayed outward. The cane dangled horizontally from my palm, and I shrugged. “It felt strange, as if it were being attracted to something.”
He had stopped writing, and I didn’t need to see him to know he was staring. I pretended like I was dribbling a basketball, and the cane never once left my palm. He gasped, and I smiled sadly before continuing.
“Something had grabbed my cane,” I said. “It pulled.” I paused for a moment, trying to think of an analogy. Then I had one. “Have you ever had a scarf caught in an elevator’s doors? It pulls you toward it, and if you’re not quick or lucky, you might get strangled. Well, it was like that. Something had grabbed my cane, and I was being pulled along with it whether I wanted to be or not. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But I got pulled along with it, and we went through.”
I heard him stand and walk around the desk again, and a few seconds later, he tugged gently on the cane. I felt it briefly disconnect from my hand, but only for a moment. I don’t know how far away from my hand he got it before he began to grunt from the effort, but when I curled up my fingers like a hawk’s talons ready to strike, he let out a gasp, and the cane returned to my palm with a sharp, painless slap.
“I don’t really know how to explain it,” I said, “except with that cartoon. I wasn’t turned into a two-dimensional figure—at least, I don’t think that’s what happened to me—but it was something like that. I felt my body change, starting with my right arm. I don’t know if it flattened me or not, but what started as a tingling in my right arm pulled the rest of me toward it, and I sort of pivoted on the z-axis.”
“Z-axis?” he asked.
I heard someone come up to the door of his office, the soft steps of a man in loafers. He knocked, solidly, but not forcefully. The door opened, and, amid the sudden tumult of muffled telephones, typing, and conversation, the man asked, “Detective Green?”
“Garth,” Detective Green replied. “Come in, and close the door behind you. I want you to take a sample from this man’s cane.”
“Why didn’t you just send it down?” he asked as he entered and closed the door.
I had a sudden, strong impression of him, and I said, without turning or thinking, “Short-cropped black hair, carefully manicured eyebrows, and no moustache or beard. He left the wrinkled white lab coat behind, but brought a bag to collect the samples. He is wearing blue jeans and brown suede loafers with double-knotted laces. He slips them on and off easily, since it takes too long to retie them. His silk shirt is a light gray, short sleeved, and with a smudge on the left side of his collar. It has a hint of mustard on it.”
“What?” Garth asked. “How did you know that?”
“More to the point,” Detective Green interjected, “how did you describe him so well?”
I sighed and shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “Any more than I know you have a nipple ring and tattoo of a dolphin on your bicep.”
“But—“ Garth began, stepping closer. “Everyone around here knows about that tattoo. And you could have seen my reflection in the window.”
“Yes,” I agreed, sadly. “If I could see.”
“What?” he said as he stepped rapidly forward until he was in front of me. “That’s impossible!” Then he realized I was blind and muttered, “How—“
I shrugged again. “I don’t know, Garth. I just had an intense impression of what you looked like, even down to your fly being open.” A moment later, I heard a zipper close. “I don’t see you, not really; but my imagination has been far more active since I came back. Now, when I hear people talking, fleeting images of them come floating into my mind. Sometimes those images are rather intense, like the one I had of you.”
“Perhaps,” Detective Green said, “you should collect that sample.”
Garth hesitated a long moment, then set his case down with a thump. It snapped as he opened it, and that balloon-being-stretched sound followed quickly after as he put on the latex gloves. When he tried to take the cane away from me, Detective Green said, “Don’t bother. Just scrape some of it off and test the DNA. It should match the Tanner case.”
“But—“
“Not now, Garth,” Detective Green ordered. “I’m in the middle of his statement. After that,” he paused for a few seconds as Garth collected the sample. Garth needed to use a better deodorant, but his hair smelled like apples—not of apples, but like them; a slight metallic tinge told me it had been synthesized.
“Careful,” I said as his scalpel—at least, that’s what I assumed it was—scraped across the surface of the wood. “I would prefer not to have the cane damaged. Also, if you have something to clean and disinfect it, I would appreciate it. The scent is fading but still noticeable.”
“It’s evidence,” Detective Green ordered. “I don’t know of what, yet, but it is still evidence. In the meantime, why don’t you continue? What,” he shuffled a few pages of his notes, and then finished, “What is this z-axis thing you mentioned?”
“Ah, yes,” I answered. “The z-axis is an algebraic term. The x-axis and y-axis are the length and width, and the z-axis is the vertical height. I had stopped when I encountered the body, and the cane was being pulled toward something. I tried to drop it, but it wouldn’t let me. Then, without moving, I was pivoted on the z-axis, kind of like a door opening
on its hinges. The cane was my hinge, and I was pivoting on it. I wasn’t moving, exactly—at least, not on the x-axis or y-axis—but I did pivot. That’s when the tingling sensation surrounded me completely, and all the normal things went away. The scent of garbage. The intense rancidness of decay. The distant grumble of car motors. The faint tinge of donuts. Even the nutmeg was a memory. All of that was gone, and in its place…” My voice trailed off into silence as I tried to remember. It had already begun to fade. Mostly, I just remembered the running. I did that a lot.
“What are you talking about?” Garth asked as he put his sample in his bag and closed it.
“Wait,” Detective Green said. “Take samples of his clothes, hair, and swab his mouth. Don’t do anything with them, though. Just collect them for me.”
I thought about protesting, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. So, I asked, instead, “What do you want them for? Am I a suspect?”
“I haven’t decided that, yet,” he said.
I waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t, I asked, “Which question did you answer?”
“Both,” he said, and I knew he was smiling. “But why don’t you tell me about that other place,” he prompted.
I nodded, slowly, and frowned as Garth began snipping samples from my clothing. “I’ll try to minimize the damage,” he said.
I shrugged. “Do what you need to. I’m going to throw them out later, anyway.”
“That makes it easier,” he said, snipping away.
“Scrape his shoes, too,” Detective Green added. “I want everything you can manage.”
“I’ll treat him like a rape victim,” Garth said, snipping a lock of hair.
I tried to ignore Garth as best I could as I started over. “I was running,” I said. “I did that a lot while I was there. Funny thing, that; I never ran into anything. There were plenty of things there to run into, but I always seemed to know where they were. I didn’t even need my cane. I couldn’t see exactly; rather, I felt everything. It was as if my sense of touch had extended outward, all around me, and whenever I was about to run into something, I touched it. I think that’s what’s still happening,” I mused.
“Oh?” Detective Green said. “You mean you felt Garth when he walked in?”
I frowned. “I suspect so,” I said. “Colors have a particular feel to them. Normally, I can only tell if they are dark or light by their feel, but now it’s much clearer. I wasn’t always blind, by the way, so I do know what colors look like. As for the shape of things, I think that’s the air circulating around them. If you pay attention to it, you can tell when someone walks by, but now I can sense how it compresses when I near things. That’s what I think happened when Garth opened the door. The sudden shift in air pressure let me see around him. The acuteness of the experience has lessened considerably since I’ve been back, and I was taken aback by the richness of the experience.”
“Since you’ve been back?” Garth asked.
“From the other place.”
“Other place?”
“Exactly,” I said, nodding. “Don’t ask me where it’s at, because I don’t know. I think it’s at right angles to this one, but there’s no way for me to be sure.”
“Right angles,” Garth said, scraping under my fingernails.
“He shifted on the z-axis,” Detective Green offered. “Why don’t we let him tell us about it?”
Garth paused when he got to my right hand and realized the cane was attached to it. He tried to push it down, and I smiled. “Don’t bother,” Detective Green said. “It’s attached to him, like a magnet.”
“Magnet?” Garth asked, testing the cane before working his way around it to collect his samples. “It’s made of wood,” he muttered.
“I think,” I said, “I was running in circles.”
“Tell us what it was like there.”
“Strange,” I said. “It was almost completely silent. Even my footfalls sounded like I was running on pillows. The colors were vibrant, chaotic, rapidly changing. I couldn’t see them, of course, but I knew they were there. Warm and cold pulsations all around. There were no smells, either. Nothing. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t smell, and what sounds there were were so muted that they could just as well not have existed. But I could still feel things, and I think my heightened sense of touch overcompensated for the absence of the other senses. I had that happen when I lost my sight, and this was like that, only different. It wasn’t natural—at least if we apply the rules of this world to it. There, I think it was natural.”
“It must have been disorienting,” Garth said, putting his hand on my chin. “I need to swab your cheek,” he added. I opened my mouth and let him do what he needed to do. “I think I’ll get samples out of your nose and ears, too.”
“Should I drop my trousers?” I asked, sarcastically.
“Well,” Garth began, but I cut him off.
“I don’t think so, Garth. And,” I added, “if I sneeze, it’s not my fault.”
“I’ll be gentle,” he said, probing indifferently for the samples. “And if you sneeze, it will just give me another sample to process.”
But I didn’t sneeze.
“All right,” Detective Green said. “You were running in a place you could feel but that was about it. Why do you think you were running?”
“I was scared,” I replied, not knowing why I said it. “It—“
A sudden sense of dread ran through me; my shoulders scrunched in upon themselves and I shuddered. My breath caught in my throat, and my anal sphincter squeezed as tightly as it could. My toes scrunched up. My fingers quivered so much that my cane rattled on the chair arms.
“What is it?” Garth demanded, setting his gloved hand on my quavering arm. “What’s wrong?”
I blinked a few times and my breath eased out of me. My hands stopped shaking, and I forced my muscles to relax. “Don’t do that,” I said. “Don’t put anything in my ear.”
Then I knew what it was that I didn’t want to remember, and I told them. “It was like running in a dream,” I said. “You know? Like when you’re being chased by something you can’t quite see? Something gray with shadow, amorphous enough to congeal into all of your fears wrapped together? That’s what it was like there. Something gray. No, not gray, really; something without color. Yes, that’s it. Something without color. Here I was completely surrounded by a kaleidoscope of rapidly shifting hues, and this thing approached me that was absent of all color. It reached out a tendril—not the kind of tendril that octopi have, but one like an amoeba stretching out a polyp to envelope a morsel of food. That tendril—“
I was talking too quickly, breathing too rapidly, and clenching my fists. I knew it, and so did Garth. It takes quite a while to process a rape victim, and he was still swabbing and snipping and scraping. “Easy,” he said. “It’s over. Whatever happened to you won’t happen again.”
“Ha!” I scoffed, glaring at him. At least, if I had eyes, I would have been glaring at him, so I let my voice do it for me. “How the hell can you know that?” I demanded. “If you had asked me twenty years ago that I would be scooped up out of this world and trapped in another one, I wouldn’t have believed it possible. But I was, and who can say it won’t happen again?”
“Easy,” Garth repeated. “It’s not happening now, is it?”
I continued to glare, then nodded, begrudgingly, I suppose, because he did have a point. I turned away from him, and snapped at the detective. “When that polyp touched me on my leg, my leg tingled, just like my arm had done, just before I pivoted. But it only tingled for a few seconds before it started to go numb. That’s when I started running.”
“So, it was that thing that dragged you out of this world?” Detective Green asked.
“I think so,” I said. “I know how strange it sounds, but I think it was fishing.”
“Fishing?” he repeated. “What was it using for bait?”
That stumped me. It wasn’t fishing, then. “Okay, maybe not fishi
ng,” I said. “But something like it. As I said, it was like an amoeba, and they send out probes to find food, and when they find it, it wraps its whole body around it. I was that food.” When I said it, I knew that it was true. “I was its food, and when I realized that, my fight or flight reflex kicked in, and I flighted like my life depended upon it, mainly because it did.”
“You ran,” Detective Green prompted, and I nodded. “And you ended up back in the alley.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I just ran. Eventually, I stopped running and realized how lost I was. But the thing wasn’t following me. I don’t think it could move fast enough to catch me, anyway.”
“How did you get back, then?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” I said. “Not then, anyway. I was stranded in a completely alien world. I was lost. I had no idea how to get back to where I had arrived. I had no food. I had no shelter. I had no water. I didn’t even know if that other place had those things. I knew it had air, since I wasn’t dead, and I knew it had at least one monster, but that was about it. So, I started looking for the other things. It took a while. I don’t know how long, since there didn’t seem to be any day or night; it could have been all one or all the other for all I know. But eventually, I found some water—or, at least, something similar enough for it to be a substitute for water. By then, it didn’t matter very much if it was going to kill me or save me, so I drank it. When it didn’t kill me, I started looking for food. After what felt like a week, I found some.”
“Wait a minute,” Detective Green interrupted. “You were only gone a few days.”
I nodded slowly. “So you say,” I agreed. “But for me, it felt like a lot longer.”
“How long?” he demanded.
I thought about lying at this point, but what was the point? He would either believe me or he wouldn’t. “How old do I look to you?” I asked in lieu of an answer.
He took a moment before answering, “About forty five.”
“Garth?”
“That sounds about right,” he said. “Maybe a little older.”
I nodded and asked, “What does it say my age is on the missing person’s report?”
Detective Green shuffled some papers on his desk, opened a folder, shuffled a few more papers, and said, “You were born,” he paused, then finished, “twenty-four years ago.”
I nodded. “According to you,” I said. “I was in that other place a long time.”
“Twenty years?” he scoffed. “You can’t be serious. You disappeared three days ago.”
I nodded again. “Time doesn’t work the same way there. That much I know for certain.”
“Wait a minute,” Detective Green said. “Let’s go back to the amoeba thing. You said it tried to eat you, right? Is that what happened with the others?”
I shrugged. “How should I know? I never met anyone while I was there. What I do know, though, is that there were more of those things in that place, and they were all fishing. Yes, I know that wasn’t what they were doing, but I don’t know what else to call it. Noodling? That might be better.”
“Noodling?” Garth asked. He had finished collecting samples but apparently hadn’t wanted to leave.
“I saw a documentary, once,” I said. “These guys would stick their arms under water to catch river catfish. They’d put their hands in holes and wiggle their fingers to attract the fish, then bring them out after they clamped down. They called it noodling. That’s what those things were doing: Sticking their polyps into holes to see what bit on them. I bit—at least, my cane did, and I was tugged along with it.”
“That might explain how you got there,” Detective Green said, “but how did you get back?”
I shrugged. “Patience, I suppose. Maybe desperation. I couldn’t trace my steps back, but I kept looking. The holes, over there, are black. Literally; they absorb all of the colors cascading about them. I didn’t realize this at first, though. I had been wandering around trying to find food, and I came across another one of those things. I saw its gray polyp being swallowed by a black hole, and watched it. I kept my distance, of course; I didn’t want to be its food, and after a while, it withdrew its polyp. That’s when I realized what had happened to me. This time, though, it had something I didn’t recognize, something that wasn’t from here, something that wasn’t able to run. It pulled it along with it until it was back in its lair, a concoction of colors that didn’t shift as much as the rest of the area. The thing it took into its lair made noises for a while, but eventually fell silent. I watched for a little while, and then I decided to try my hand at fishing.”
“You went noodling?” Garth asked.
I nodded, thinking back to the first time I tried it. “It was strange,” I said. “I had no idea if it would work for me the way it did for that thing, but I was so hungry I had to try. I didn’t even care if the amoeba thing came out of its lair and ate me. I didn’t think it would, since it was still ingesting its meal, and from what I remembered of amoeba, I hoped it would have to digest most of it before feeding again. So, I stuck my hand in that black hole and wiggled my fingers.” I frowned. “I didn’t catch anything that time, but I tried again and again until I finally did. I don’t know what it was I caught, but it nearly bit off my fingers. I can’t blame it, really; I would have bitten me too. But it didn’t stop me from eating it. Neither did the horrid taste of raw meat. After that, I started watching the gray things to see how they did it, and then I figured out a way to steal food from them. They were slow creatures, and all I had to do was avoid their polyps. I didn’t worry much about food after that, but I won’t tell you what I ate.”
“Did you eat people?” Detective Green asked.
I half-frowned, half-smiled. “That depends,” I replied, “on what you mean by people. If you mean humans, then no, I didn’t eat any humans. If you mean sentient, intelligent, human-like beings, then the answer is probably yes.”
“You mean you ate dogs or cats?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “The only window to our world that I saw was the one I went through. The others went elsewhere, and I’m pretty sure I probably ate a few sentient aliens. But I can’t be sure; I’m only guessing. I don’t think it would have mattered, anyway; I only ate when I was very hungry, since I tried to stay away from those amoebas.”
“You did this for twenty years?” Garth asked, as if he believed me.
“Yes,” I said. “But, somehow, I made my way back to the hole to our world.”
“How did you know it was our world?” Detective Green asked.
I frowned. Should I tell him? If I did, what would he say about it? “Well,” I said, hesitantly, then more forcefully. “I saw someone I recognized.”
“Someone you—“ he abruptly shifted gears. “Who?” he demanded.
“I didn’t see her, exactly, but I knew her voice. She was screaming and protesting, but there was nothing she could do. The amoeba was already swallowing her up. She would be dead within minutes.”
“Who?” he demanded more intensely.
I paused, lowered my gaze, and softly said, “Penny.” I closed my eyes and tried to force the image out of my mind. “The thing was devouring little Penny Lange. She lives—“ I stopped and corrected myself, “She lived in the same apartment complex that I do, room 313.”
Detective Green shuffled papers again. “She isn’t on my list,” he said.
“She will be,” I said. “Once her mother gets home from work.”
He typed on his computer for several seconds, pausing intermittently, and then declared, “There’s no indication that she’s missing.”
I shrugged. I didn’t need to have what I saw confirmed by them. I knew what had happened to her. “While it was ingesting her, I made my way up to the hole and stepped through. I tried to bring her with me, but I couldn’t. I reached out with the hook of my cane and tried to get it around her arm, but all I got was the amoeba’s polyp. I tried her leg, and the same thing. I even tried her neck,”
here, I shook my head and let my voice drain into silence. They could imagine whatever they wanted, but I didn’t have to; I can still hear the snap of her neck chasing me through the hole. At least it was better than what would have happened to her. But the sudden give when my cane snapped back… I shook my head again. “I was stumbling backward, through the black hole, the polyp stretching out after me, trying to capture the larger morsel. Then,” I finished, “I ran.”
After a few seconds of silence, Detective Green made a brief phone call, giving orders to go to my apartment building and check on a girl named Penny Lange. After he hung up, he said, “Just in case there’s something to your story.”
I nodded, adding, Or I killed her. I probably would be thinking that if I were a detective listening to my bizarre story.
“Why didn’t they eat Tanner?” Garth asked. “I mean, if they’re eating people, shouldn’t they have finished him off? He was still somewhat recognizable, at least in the general physical parameters.”
I nodded. “I don’t know what happened to him, since he was already egested before I was taken. But I did see a few of them regurgitate their meals. It didn’t happen often, and usually a few minutes passed before they spat it back out. I have no idea why they did it, but once they had, they sent it back through the opening. Usually, they moved to a different hole after that.”
“Makes sense,” Garth said. “I wonder what it was about him that they didn’t like.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said.
“There’s something else that is nagging me,” Detective Green said. “Let’s assume for the sake of argument that what you’ve said is true—and I’m not saying it is. Why did you survive and the others didn’t?
I thought about it for several seconds, then shrugged and pointed. “Perhaps it is because I have no eyes?”
“What would that have to do with it?” he demanded.
“The colors,” I said. “I couldn’t see them the way you do. I felt them, but that’s different. I suppose they could have had a hypnotic effect. That would explain why they weren’t able to fight back.”
“I find it interesting that you have answers to all of our questions, particularly since what you are telling us is highly improbable.”
I was expecting this; in fact, I was surprised that he had let it play out as long as he had. But I was ready for it. I nodded and said, “I know how it sounds, but I can prove it.”
“How?” he demanded.
“I can take you to the hole and lead you through it,” I said.
There was a long pause, then Detective Green said, “All right. Where is it?”
“It’s in the alley, of course,” I said, trying not to be patronizing. “But you can’t see it. I can’t either. But I can sense it. My cane will show it to me.”
“Your cane,” he repeated, then fell silent for a few seconds. Then he said, “Garth, why don’t you run through those samples and we’ll see what they tell us.”
“And miss out on this?“ The air circulated as if he were waving his hands around.
“You’re assuming we’ll find something,” Detective Green said. “I’m assuming you’ll find something.”
There was a brief pause, then Garth said, “You’re right.” I heard the contents of his bag settle as he lifted it, and felt his sleeve rub against my arm as he passed. The door opened, and he walked out. As the door closed behind him, the phone rang, and Detective Green answered it. He said very little beyond “Hello” and “Are you sure?” and “I’ll be there soon.”
“Let’s go,” Detective Green said, rising. I did the same, and he put his hand on my elbow to guide me out. He was rushed, and his grip was a bit too firm for a guide dog, but I let it go. I was pretty sure he’d just found out that Penny Lange was missing.