Chalk Man

by Tony Faggioli

  The dot returned to Charlie, danced over his little forehead and then rested on his chin.

  Parker! Napoleon yelled in his head. Get out of there!

  But Parker didn’t run anywhere. “Not gonna happen, Nap,” he replied.

  Instead, he took another cautious step and continued his field assessment. “That sounds like an M24. He’s gonna need three to four seconds between each shot. Seven if he wants to aim carefully. He’s missing on purpose now, Klink. He’s toying with us. But that could change at any moment.”

  “Three to four seconds?”

  “Yep.”

  “Next shot, I’m going for him,” Klink said.

  Parker spoke through gritted teeth. “No, you’re not. You won’t make it either. At best, you make it in time to scoop up Charlie and get hit, possibly with the round going through you and into him. Don’t. Do. It.”

  “Then . . . what do you suggest?”

  “Next shot? Go for cover. There’s a concrete table and bench seats to your right. See them? And don’t nod. Only speak. He needs visuals and he can’t read our lips from behind.”

  “Yeah,” Klink said, “I see it.”

  “You can make it.”

  “And what about you?”

  Yeah, Napoleon seconded. What about you?

  “Don’t worry about me,” Parker said, answering them both.

  A few seconds of silence fell over the scene and then, without warning, little Charlie Henson sat back on his heels and began to rub at his eyes. When he did, the dot followed him. Those in the crowd who were close enough to see everything let out a chorus of gasps.

  Sandi Espinoza, meanwhile, and beyond all belief, turned, dropped to her knees and went back to drawing. As if it were just another day at the office.

  When the dot disappeared from Charlie, Parker grimaced as a third shot rang out. It did not hit him or Klink, but instead it struck the ground near Klink’s feet.

  “Now! Run!” Parker yelled. And Klink did so, bolting with abandon to the table and bench and making it just in time, as another shot barely missed him and struck a tree past his head.

  Taking advantage of the distraction, Parker took another step. Slowly. Tentatively.

  “Parker! Run for cover!” Klink yelled.

  Parker did no such thing. Instead, he looked at Charlie. “Hey, there, my man. Take it easy, Charlie,” Parker said firmly, shocking the boy, who looked up at him. “It’s gonna be okay, buddy.”

  “Parker!” Klink yelled frantically. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

  Parker, Napoleon pleaded. Please. Make a run for it. You can make it. But his voice was full of resignation at what he was seeing. Because he would always be Parker’s first partner. And as such? No one would ever know him better.

  A chorus of sirens, like distant birdsong, was closing in on the courtyard.

  None of that mattered.

  Parker smiled. It was just him, Charlie and Sandi Espinoza in the courtyard now. It was incredible, really, how a place could clear out so quickly when death arrived. Like ants on crack, people had moved at seemingly five times their normal speed. The cops ahead of him had drawn their guns in a useless show of force, as they wouldn’t even raise their heads from the massive planters they were hiding behind. Everyone had figured out by now that they had a sniper on their hands.

  Again, none of it mattered. Because this wasn’t going to happen. This boy was not going to die. Sadly, tragically, there were children all over the world who were dying, right at that moment, but not this one. Not today. Not on Parker’s watch.

  The sniper had asserted his control over the area. He’d gotten his three shots in.

  And Parker had gotten in his three steps.

  He was now perfectly positioned in the line of fire between the sniper and little Charlie Henson.

  No red dot could touch the boy now.

  Instead, Parker could practically feel it there, a tiny warm spot, right in the back of his head.

  Chapter 30

  Parker had just joined the army and was twenty years old when his uncle, a special forces veteran of the Gulf War, took him to dinner the night before he was supposed to ship out for boot camp. A man of few words, Uncle Frank had slowly worked his way through his chicken fried steak, covering it in swaths of mashed potatoes before each bite, as he swigged on his beer and mostly talked football. A man that Parker had looked up to most of his life, it wasn’t long before Parker had become frustrated. Surely, with the big step he was about to take, his uncle had some advice to give on what was ahead. But . . . no.

  Finally, Parker asked for some, point blank. His uncle had blinked, lowered his head and given a quick nod before saying, “Evan. Remember. In combat? There’s exposed. There’s vulnerable. And then there’s done for. Do all you can to not be done for.” And with that, he took a long pull on his beer and called the waitress over for the check.

  Standing now in the courtyard across from Pasadena City Hall, with his back to a trained sniper, there was no getting around it: he was done for. After four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, countless firefights in hostile terrain and ducking in and out of enemy territory in more ways than he could believe, he was going to die in a pretty little city known for the Rose Parade and surrounded by all the moms, dads, kids and hipsters that had taken shelter around him. Everywhere he looked there was a face of fear and dismay looking his way, like the audience at some Shakespearean tragedy, not wanting to look but not wanting to look away, either.

  He thought of Trudy and couldn’t suppress himself from speaking aloud in a trembling voice that he barely recognized as his own. “Dammit, Trudy. I’m sorry.”

  This had seemed like a good idea, to protect the boy. But now? Now that the decision was made, the second guessing began immediately. What had he done? Why had he done it? People would be invariably hurt by this, Trudy most of all. He glanced over at Napoleon, who was standing with a look of pure shock on his tan and slightly vibrating face, and this made him think of Napoleon’s nephew Efren, who was like family now. Young. Growing. Vibrant. Already having witnessed his uncle being gunned down in Evergreen Park at the end of the Fasano investigation, how would he handle it when he heard that Parker had been killed, too?

  Parker, Napoleon said somberly. What have you done?

  Parker pursed his lips and gave a look that said he wished to avoid any lectures. “I know, I know.”

  The sirens were coming in closer and when Klink spoke next, he sounded like a man on the edge. “Parker, you need to get to—”

  “I can’t, man. I’m all that’s standing between him and Charlie.”

  “What?! You don’t even know that he—”

  “His laser sight was on the boy the whole time, Klink. You didn’t see it, but I did. Each time after he fired at you, he put it right back on Charlie.”

  Klink fell silent. It seemed like everyone was waiting for what came next.

  Except Parker. He knew. There was no getting around what was supposed to come next. He was familiar with the weapon that he was pretty sure was trained on him right now. The M24 was a bolt-action rifle that shot 7.62 x 51 mm NATO rounds. Full loaded, with strap and scope, it weighed just over twelve pounds and was standard military issue for snipers. It had an effective firing range from eight hundred to fifteen hundred yards. All sorts of things could affect the accuracy in most instances, but the City Hall tower behind him was, at most, three hundred yards away. At that close of a range? On a dead aim?

  He was done for.

  Unless . . .

  He looked at Napoleon. “You’re gonna have to catch at least one bullet.”

  Napoleon looked at City Hall behind him, then back to Parker, before he shook his head. No. Whatever you’re thinking, Parker, come up with a different idea. I can’t.

  “There is no ‘different idea,’ man,” Parker said.

  Parker had no idea if Napoleon was an actual angel yet, but if he was then he was currently an angel in panic. His eyes darted in a
ll directions and it was obvious that his mind was working overtime to process what was happening. There might be—

  “Nap. It’s a miracle my brains aren’t all over the place yet, you know that, right?”

  But he hasn’t shot yet. There might be a reason for that. It could be a ruse.

  “A ruse? I don’t have the time to—” He paused. “Look, any second it could happen. He has all the control right now. We have to take that control away.”

  In front of them, Sandi Espinoza was working feverishly now, on the last corner of her sidewalk mural. Parker took a harder look at it: it was a massive Mayan mask, the eyes huge and shaped like bent teardrops. The mouth was a sickeningly wide smile of blocky teeth that took up almost all the space between the chin and two slits, which were the nostrils. Around the mask was a 3D image of a Mayan temple, with the standard step levels and chunky box top.

  But it was what was depicted on the steps that caught his attention even further: bodies, pierced and bleeding, some dismembered and others beheaded. When Parker forced himself to pull the focus of his eyes back, he saw that Charlie Henson was surrounded by hundreds upon hundreds of dead bodies, all in miniature.

  At the top of the temple, standing and unhurt, was the image of a weeping woman, wrapped in a cloth of some kind, her face turned down and to the side.

  “Nap . . . do you see this?”

  Yes. He’s trying to bring her back.

  “And in the process, he’s what . . . fantasized about slaughtering the whole city?”

  That one. Or this one . . . if he gets the chance.

  Parker glanced at Napoleon, and then it hit him. Looking back at Sandi Espinoza, it dawned on him. “He won’t take the shot until she’s finished.”

  You can’t be sure of that.

  “No, no . . . he can’t take the risk that taking me out won’t cause even more havoc. Maybe the boy flips out and starts running, or I get propelled into his little art project here.”

  Parker . . .

  “It doesn’t matter. She’s almost done anyway. We’ve gotta do this.”

  Parker! No!

  “I’m going for the boy on the count of three.”

  You can’t do that, Evan! I don’t know how . . .

  He had called him by his first name. Parker looked into Napoleon’s eyes and said with all the faith in the world, “You’ll figure it out. I mean . . . you’ve caught a hummingbird, right? Is there really that big of a difference between a bullet and a hummingbird?”

  It doesn’t work that way.

  “How do you know that? How do you know you can’t do it?”

  Parker looked at Napoleon and saw that his partner hadn’t answered because he didn’t know. It was written all over his face. He wasn’t sure he could do it, but he wasn’t sure he couldn’t, either.

  Sandi Espinoza put down a red chalk stick and grabbed a yellow one. Parker scanned the entire picture. All she had to do was color in the lower left corner. “Almost, almost, almost . . .” she said, before grunting and groaning in pain. She stopped, grabbed at her temples and screamed. “No! I don’t want to do this!” Her eyes flicked to normal, back to black orbs, then to normal again.

  Then, as Charlie Henson looked on in complete horror, Sandi Espinoza’s wrists began to bend awkwardly backward, then her arms, as if an invisible someone were prying her hands away from her head and forcing them back to work. “Almost!” she screamed, as tears rolled down her face. From blue eyes. She had blue eyes. Then? Snap. Like shutters closing over a window, they were black again.

  One final corner.

  Parker sighed. Good ol’ Uncle Frank. “There’s exposed. There’s vulnerable. And there’s done for.”

  If it were the last thing he did on this earth, he was going to follow his uncle’s advice and do all that he could not to be done for.

  “You always trained me to believe in myself, Nap,” he said. “Now? It’s your turn. I’m going on three.”

  What!? Parker. NO!

  “One . . .”

  Don’t!

  “Two . . .”

  What if I can’t—

  Parker looked at his partner. “What if all you have to do is believe that you can?”

  Napoleon’s face went slack with shock.

  “Three.”

  Parker made his move.

  Chapter 31

  Parker figured death was like a book, a different thing to each person. As he dove for Charlie Henson, he knew it would be impossible to outrace a bullet and probably even more unlikely that he’d even know it was all over if Alex Roland caught him with a clean head shot. Maybe things would all go black, like in the movies. Lights out. Character dead. Or maybe you went from what you saw last to seeing the bright, blue sky or the infamous bright light at the end of a tunnel.

  Or maybe, just maybe, the last thing you saw was what you most wanted to happen in the last seconds of your life. A sort of heavenly granting of a wish. So that when your car was tumbling down the freeway and you dreamed of escaping the crushing collision ahead? Sure enough, there you were . . . walking off the freeway telling everyone that you were fine. You had no idea how, but you were fine. So that the end of life was the most loving kind of con job, where your suffering could be slowed enough to allow you to process that the next life, far from being some distant thing in the future, was now something that had taken you firmly by the hand.

  If that were the case, then that might explain how he was still “alive” when he began running towards Charlie. But then he heard the gunshot and something in him registered that this was impossible. The target of a sniper never lives long enough to hear the report of the gunshot—unless the sniper misses or . . .

  Parker hit the ground in an evasive shoulder roll and began scrambling towards Charlie on his hands and knees. As he did so, he noticed that the boy’s face was bathed in awe. His small jaw had dropped, his crying had stopped, and his eyes were locked in a frozen gaze at something directly behind Parker.

  Parker only took a second to glance over his right shoulder, and when he did, he saw it there, a sinister looking gray slug caught in a vibrating net of blue energy. Ten feet beyond it was Napoleon, both of his hands outstretched, his fingers locked and knuckles bulging, his face a mask of pure strain.

  He had caught the bullet, but not for long. Screaming in panic, he swung his hands downward, driving the bullet into the concrete of the plaza, where it dug momentarily into the ground and then ricocheted into the side of a nearby wooden planter.

  Suddenly, the Mayan art on the ground began to pulse with energy. Parker, now in the midst of the artwork, glanced down and saw that the chalk had come alive, bits and pieces of it like tentacles of color, snaking out and grabbing at his ankles and wrists, and now trying to grow like flora over Charlie’s knees and legs. His eyes refused to accept what he was seeing as reality, but his mind overrode them. Whatever it was? It was happening. And Charlie felt the same way, evidently. He began to scream and claw at the paint as it moved over his waist and began . . .

  After a failed kill shot, and with a target that had not run to take cover, Roland would take his full seven seconds to aim this time, Parker was sure of it. And two of those were already gone. Fighting the panic that was gripping at his mind, Parker clawed at the chalk vines on his wrists and struggled to get free. He was close. So close to Charlie.

  With a loud chunk that reverberated the ground, the perimeter of the artwork rotated, first clockwise, twice, then counterclockwise, three times, like gears in a machine in the ground, and a bright red burst of light shot up through the sky and repelled the clouds like a drop of oil in a puddle of water. Parker could’ve sworn that within the light-burst were a series of steps, ascending upward. Then the image began to stutter, before the stairs crumbled apart.

  Something in the drawing, deep down below the ground, screamed with rage.

  He heard the wicked little whispers again, as he had so many times before, but this time their source was revealed; tiny Ma
yan totem-soldiers came alive inside the artwork and began to scramble up the steps of the temple drawn at the base of the mask. As they left the flat surface of Sandi Espinoza’s drawing, they animated into 3D form.

  In his head, he continued Roland’s count. Three. Four.

  Some were trying to get to Charlie, others to Sandi. As Parker scrambled his way forward and finally reached Charlie, he frantically clawed at the flora and strands that continued to ensnare them, pulling and yanking, trying to free them both.

  Five. Six.

  Some of the art gave way easily, but it was . . . sticky . . . and other bits were stronger. But his adrenaline was so high and time was so short that Parker managed to free them both. Covering Charlie in a bear hug, Parker rolled swiftly to his right.

  Sure enough, the second bullet struck the trashcan just beyond where he’d been in a violent explosion of metal on metal that sent paper bags, a coke can and French fries flying through the air.

  Instinctively, Parker looked back to his partner; Napoleon, having caught the first bullet, was fading, his image beginning to become transparent. He looked at Parker in frustration. It didn’t matter. Parker was on a dead run to Klink, the artwork beneath him still sticking to his shoes like tar.

  As he advanced, someone in the crowd screamed in horror and as Parker looked back, he could see why. Sandi Espinoza was on the ground, violently convulsing.

  A man somewhere yelled, “She’s having a seizure!” And Parker was reminded that not everything was as it seemed. Not everything he saw, they saw.

  Because he did not see a woman having a seizure. He wished he did. No. Instead, he saw a woman being stabbed to death by a dozen of the totem-soldiers, with their blocky mouths, clattering teeth and bulging eyes. Desperate to get away, Sandi spun over onto her stomach and began to claw at the concrete. But it was covered in chalk and offered no handholds. One of the soldiers, his mouth gnashing open and closed like a ventriloquist’s dummy, crawled on her back and began stabbing her in the back of the head repeatedly, his small knife making sickening thuds against the bone of her skull. She was trying to scream but two of the other soldiers had laced a thick strand of old rope through the opening of her mouth, like a horse’s bit, jamming her cheeks against her back teeth, as the rest of the soldiers piled on top of her and kept her flat to the ground.