Closet Treats

by Paul E. Cooley

  "You're the crazy one," Dick breathed. "You tell me."

  Trey blew out a hiss between his teeth. "I-- I saw it. The thing."

  "The thing," Dick repeated.

  "Yeah," Trey agreed. "The thing."

  "You remember those aisles of boxes?" he asked. Trey nodded. "I-- I had my flashlight pointed down there. Saw something move." Dick turned his head and coughed. It sounded like broken glass being shaken in a jar. "It came up from the floor, Trey." He stared into Trey's eyes with a haunted look. "Like it had been there all along, scuttling, or slithering there."

  Trey felt a shiver creep up his spine. Dick pointed toward the water bottle sitting on a metal tray. Trey picked it up and placed the straw between Dick's chapped lips. Dick managed a few sips from it before letting the plastic straw pop from his mouth. He nodded.

  "You're welcome."

  "Bastard rose up from the floor," Dick said. "Stood there. I--" Dick swallowed a sob. "I just froze, man. The flashlight beam lit up those, those teeth. The lips. Saliva dripping..." Dick shook his head, tears leak- ing from his tired eyes. "I just froze."

  "Shh," Trey said. He reached out and held Dick's hand. The skin was hot and clammy. "It's okay, Dick. No more, man. Just let--"

  "It said something to me. Said something. And then those claws..." Dick let the words drift off, his eyes closing tight. "It attacked me. One swipe."

  "Yes," Trey agreed. A tear tried to escape his eyes, but he fought it. "It's over now."

  "The cops," Dick said, swallowing hard, "they get him yet?"

  Trey shook his head. "No, Dick. But they will."

  Dick opened his eyes, struggled to sit up, and clenched Trey's hand. "Did you tell them?" he asked, his voice practically a yell.

  Trey flinched. "I told them--"

  "Did you tell them he's--he's not human?"

  Trey opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it.

  "They wouldn't believe us anyway," Dick whispered. He closed his eyes. Dick's grip went limp. Trey tucked his friend's hand back under the sheets, but refused to let go. He sat, watching Dick's chest rise and fall in an uneven, ill rhythm.

  Chapter 57

  "Mr. Leger?" a quiet voice asked.

  Trey's eyes fluttered open. For a moment, he didn't know where he was. He felt something warm and clammy in his left hand and turned to look. He was still holding Dick's hand. "Shit," he whispered.

  "Trey?" the quiet voice said.

  Trey turned and looked at the room's door. Dressed in a crisp suit, not a hair out of place, Detective Dewhurst stood in the doorway with a calm, almost disinterested expression on his face.

  He looked back at Dick. His friend was still asleep, his breathing uneven and shallow. Trey let go Dick's hand. It dropped without resistance. He tucked Dick's hand back under the sheet. "Get better," he whispered.

  As quietly as possible, Trey stood from the chair and walked to the door. He fought the urge to turn and look back at his friend. Dewhurst nodded toward the hallway. Trey returned the nod and the two men left the open doorway. They walked in silence toward the bank of elevators, Dewhurst in the lead. Trey's back twinged. He wondered how long he'd been asleep in that chair, listening to his friend struggle to breathe.

  Dewhurst turned around. "Cafeteria?" he drawled.

  Trey shook his head. "I need a smoke." Dewhurst smiled and then nodded. The elevator took its time in coming, but it gave Trey a moment to shake off the sleep. He stood as straight as he could and then leaned back from the waist. His back popped like bubble wrap. Even with the din of the nurse's station, it was loud enough for Dewhurst to raise an eyebrow at him. They rode the elevator in uncomfortable silence.

  When the doors opened on the lobby, Trey walked out, Dewhurst following, and headed toward the revolving glass doors. The cold bit into him immediately. After the hospital's warmth, the air seemed colder than ever. Shivering, Trey pulled out his pack of smokes, slotted one between his lips and lit up, his teeth chattering.

  "Nasty habit," Dewhurst said with a smile. "Mind passing one over?"

  Trey blinked at him and then silently handed over the pack and his lighter.

  "Used to smoke these all the time. Afraid the department frowns on it, but every once in a while, I just have to have one." Trey nodded, looking at the sky. "How is Mr. Dickerson?"

  Trey shrugged. "Bad fever. I talked with the nurse a little after I convinced her to let me stay." Trey took a long drag. "She said the heart attack was minor. The infection that's causing the fever may require them to send him back to ICU." Trey exhaled smoke from his nostrils and turned to regard Dewhurst. "Guess he didn't get off so light after all."

  "I'm sorry to hear that."

  "What did you want to talk about, Detective?" Trey asked.

  "Are you, um," Dewhurst coughed into a hand, "sure you're up to talking about yesterday?" Trey nodded. Dewhurst cleared his throat. "After he attacked Mr. Dickerson, why didn't he attack you?"

  Trey shrugged. "I don't know, Detective. He could have." Trey turned from the slate sky to regard Dewhurst. "I was on the floor, behind Dick. All I had was the damned flashlight in my hands. I'd sort of dropped the wrecking bar." Trey blushed against the cold. "Afraid I didn't make much of a stand."

  Dewhurst nodded. "Doesn't make sense, though, does it? I mean after he attacked Mr. Dickerson, sounds like he could have killed both of you. Or at least attacked you without any interference from Mr. Dickerson."

  "Yeah," Trey said. The taste of the cigarette grew sour, and the sudden surge of acid in his stomach didn't make it any better. Trey ignored both and took another long drag. "Maybe he thought we'd already called you guys," Trey said. "Fuck, I don't know, Detective."

  "There was another freezer," Dewhurst said quietly.

  Trey dropped his cigarette to the concrete sidewalk. The breeze rolled it away into the street. "Another freezer?"

  Dewhurst nodded. "Yes, sir."

  "Do I want to know?" The sudden pained expression on Dewhurst's face gave him the answer. "Fuck."

  "We figure six children. Altogether. Six, Mr. Leger. Six."

  Trey shook his head. "How is that... You identified them, yet?"

  Dewhurst shook his head. "It'll be days before we manage that. Going to have to go against missing persons and then against dental records. By the looks of things, I will bet that the other four children were from the poorer side of town. Maybe from one of the wards."

  "But how could he have done this for so long without getting caught?" Trey asked.

  "Oh, I know the answer to that one." The Detective snapped his cigarette between his index finger and thumb. The burning tip fell off and fluttered in the wind. He pocketed the butt. "Kids go missing all the time, Mr. Leger. They go missing in the wards more often than I'd like to admit. It's normal, I guess. And I'll be frank for a moment." The Detective cleared his throat. "Some of the poorer members of the city don't exactly trust the police. And I guarantee you some of these kids belonged to illegal aliens. And they definitely don't trust us. So they use the gangs to go looking for their kids."

  Trey shook his head and then furrowed his brow. "Do you think that's why it--I mean, he, moved on?"

  Dewhurst shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe one of them tracked him down, figured out what he was doing. Maybe they started asking questions. Either way, he moved his hunting grounds up north."

  Trey nodded. "Where no one would believe it could be him."

  "Maybe," Dewhurst said. "Just maybe."

  "So now what?"

  "Well," Dewhurst said, "we have an APB out on him, although we really don't have much of a description." Dewhurst coughed into his hand. "The, um, description you gave is not exactly one we can use."

  "I thought I saw something on the way out of the station last night."

  Dewhurst cocked an eyebrow. "Really? And what might that be?"

  "I thought I saw, well, I saw a tall homeless man. He stood on the street opposite the station. And he, well-- he looked like the guy."

&nb
sp; The detective nodded. "It would be a good disguise," he said to himself. "I'll add that to the APB, sir. That's good information to have." Dewhurst shivered. "I think it's time for us to get out of the cold, Mr. Leger." Trey nodded. "Would you like a ride home, Trey, or you going to stay a while longer?"

  "I think," Trey said with a smile, "I should stay. I have the buses to get home." He offered his hand to the detective. "But thanks for the offer."

  "My pleasure," Dewhurst said with a grin. The man ran his hand through his thinning hair. "You have a good day, Mr. Leger, and please let me know if you think of anything else."

  "You'll let me know if you find anything?"

  "As much as I can," the detective said.

  "Thank you."

  Dewhurst tipped an imaginary hat and walked toward the parking garage across the street. Trey watched him go. He shivered again in the cold as the breeze bit into him once more. He turned toward the revolving glass door and walked back into the warmth.

  Chapter 58

  After Dewhurst left, Trey started for the elevator. He looked at the clock on the wall. It was already 1300. Trey cursed and pulled out his phone. He'd turned it off while he was in Dick's room, remembering the dictates from the hospital. They claimed the cellular signal interfered with their machines. Trey wasn't sure he believed them, but he'd turned it off anyway.

  He turned it on and waited for it to power up. The hospital lobby was busier, people wandering in and out of the elevators. Although most were dressed in street clothes, he saw quite a few sets of scrubs and wondered if it was lunch-time for the second shift. The phone finished powering up and immediately buzzed. Trey looked at the text messages and saw one from Carolyn.

  Clucking his tongue, he selected her name from the contacts list and pressed her phone number. The phone rang in his ear. "Carolyn Leger."

  "Hi, honey. It's Trey."

  The voice no longer sounded tired and bored. "Hi, T. You still at the hospital?"

  Trey nodded in reflex. "Yeah, I'm still here."

  "How's Dick?" she asked.

  "Not good," Trey said. He took in a sharp breath. "The heart attack was minor, but he's got a high fever."

  "What's the doctor say?"

  "Didn't get a chance to talk to anyone except the nurse."

  Carolyn paused on the other end of the phone. "Trey? Go up there and ask the doctor what's going on. Dick doesn't exactly have anyone but us."

  Trey nodded to himself. "Yeah, okay. Look, I'll go up and figure out what's going on. I don't know if I'm going to be home in time to pick up Alan, though. Can you leave early and meet him?"

  "Does he know not to wait for you?" she asked. Her voice sounded strained now. Near panic.

  Trey paused. Had he told Alan that? Had he? "I, um, think I told him that, yeah."

  "Okay," Carolyn replied. "I'll leave a message at the school for him. Just in case you, um, forgot. Or he does."

  Trey smiled. "Yeah, okay. Love you, C."

  "Give Dick my best, T. Call me and let me know, okay?"

  "Sure will."

  "Love you."

  The line went dead. Trey turned the phone back off and headed to the elevator. He waited with a large group of people crowding around the bank. He had to wait for the 2nd elevator to get on. Packed. He felt the claustrophobia trying to blanket and strangle him but he pushed it away. Just people, he told himself, just people. Nothing to worry about with all the people.

  When the doors finally opened to the third floor, Trey breathed out a long sigh and stepped off. The nurse's station was empty save for a single woman. An alarm was going off at the desk. The nurse behind the counter typed frantically on a computer. He walked toward Dick's hallway and stopped. The alarm was louder. He watched as three people ran into Dick's room. Trey blinked. "Fuck," he whispered and then he was running too.

  He made it to the doorway of room 334 and peered inside. The three people in the room, two in red scrubs, and a young man in blue scrubs, were chattering to one another in frantic voices. The blue scrubbed young man grabbed a pair of paddles and had them on Dick's chest. "Clear!" he called out and then pressed the paddle buttons. Dick's ashen skinned body jumped in the bed. Trey began to cry. The steady, annoying tone continued.

  "Sir?" a voice said from beside him. "Sir?"

  A stabbing pain in his head. His eyes burned, feeling scratched and too dry. "What?" He was still staring into the room. A white sheet covered Dick's body. No one else was in the room with the body. "Where's--"

  "Sir?" the voice said again and Trey felt a hand on his shoulder.

  He turned slightly. The young man in scrubs was beside him, eyes frantic and concerned. "What's going on? Why is--"

  "Sir? Do you have epilepsy?"

  "I--" Trey coughed into his hand. "What happened to Dick?"

  The young man nodded to him. "Let's walk over here, okay?" The man led him by the elbow to an empty room down the hall. Trey wanted to shrug the man off, but he felt strangely weak. He allowed the man to sit him in one of the visitor's chairs. He stared up into the man's blue eyes. "Sir? What's your name?" the man asked as he pulled a penlight from his scrub pocket.

  "Trey Leger," Trey said in a broken, scratchy voice.

  The man flashed the light into Trey's right eye, then his left. Frowning, the man put the penlight back in the pocket and reached for Trey's wrist. Trey said nothing. "I'm a doctor. You've had an absent seizure."

  Trey blinked at the doctor as he took Trey's pulse. "Yeah," Trey said in a flat voice, "I guess I did."

  "So you've had them before?"

  A tear fell from Trey's eye. "Dick's dead," he whispered.

  The doctor looked up from his watch. "Mr. Dickerson?" Trey nodded. "I'm sorry, sir. Yes. He is." Trey tried to shrug off the man's hand, but the young doctor just tightened his grip. "Sir? Please let me do my job. I want to make sure you're okay."

  "How long was the seizure?" Trey asked.

  "Too long," the doctor said.

  "How fucking long?" Trey growled.

  The doctor looked up from his watch and took a step backwards. "Five or six minutes, I think. That's how long it took for us to notice you," the doctor said.

  "Fuck," Trey whispered. He held his head in his hands.

  "You need to see someone about this immediately," the doctor said.

  "No," Trey said, "I need my friend." The doctor said nothing. Trey sobbed once, wiped away another errant tear, and then stared up at the doctor. "Why? What did he die from?"

  "I don't know," the doctor said. "His fever spiked. I don't know why."

  "Will there be an autopsy?" Trey asked. The world felt unreal now, as if it were made of fog and he was somehow trying to walk through it. The doctor's face grimaced.

  "Mr. Leger?" the doctor asked. "Do you see lights?"

  Trey cocked his head and stared at the man. He smiled. "No. I don't. I never have," Trey said. "Will there be--"

  The doctor nodded. "Yeah, there will be. If the family allows it."

  "There is no family," Trey said, standing from the chair. The doctor came forward to try and lower him back down, but Trey shrugged off his hands. "I'm the only family he has," Trey said.

  The doctor blinked. "Are you on his--" The doctor swallowed hard. "I need you to wait here, Mr. Leger. I'll-- I'll get someone. But I want to make sure you're okay before we let you leave."

  Trey nodded and watched the man go.

  Chapter 59

  The last meeting of the day. Thank God, Carolyn thought. She wondered if another two hours of meetings would have caused an aneurysm. Her head already pounded from the constant questions. The client, a French company, had sent her one of the dumbest women on the planet. Each time Carolyn answered a question with a negative response, the woman rephrased the question, somehow believing that would change the answer.

  Just when Carolyn was on the verge of saying "The law is the law," the woman would move on to a new topic and the cycle would repeat.

  Carolyn opened her
desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Excedrin. She popped off the childproof cap, shook three of the tablets into her palm, and dry swallowed.

  "Great," she thought, "an hour from now and I'll get her idiot stink off my brain." She stared down at the cell phone on the desk. It had rumbled twice while she was in the meeting.

  She reached for it and checked the screen. Two missed calls from Trey. She sighed and clicked the "messages" button. One message from Trey. She frowned at the phone. Two missed calls, but only a single message. Carolyn pressed the "play" button and listened to the message.

  "He's dead, Carolyn. Dick's dead," Trey said in a broken voice. "I'm trying to find out what happened and I may be here a while longer." Trey paused. She could tell he was trying to get control of himself. He cleared his throat. "I'll call you when I know something. I love you."

  Carolyn stared down at the desk. "Dick," she whispered, the phone still held to her ear. She slowly placed it on the wooden surface, fighting the urge to throw it against the wall. Dick was dead. Trey sounded... broken. She shook her head.

  3:15. Alan would be leaving school soon. He'd be heading home to an empty house and he would have no idea the neighbor would never be coming home. Carolyn choked back a sob.

  She stared out the window, looking into the darkened sky. It would rain soon, or, God forbid, sleet. The temperature was already hover- ing just above freezing. If any moisture came down, it would turn the streets into a skating rink.

  "I have to get home," she whispered.

  She quickly packed her valise and placed her laptop inside. Donning her coat, she grabbed both her purse and the valise and headed toward the office door. Traffic was going to be murder. If she left that minute, she might be home in an hour. That was, of course, if everyone else in Houston hadn't noticed the weather and decided to leave at the same time.

  Chapter 60

  The buzzer droned. Instead of a crowd of crazed children heading toward the exit, his classmates moved with slow, trudging steps. Alan knew it was the weather. Too cold outside for recess, they'd played in the gym. Bored and listless, most of the kids headed toward the school parking lot through the front doors.