by D. K. Greene
But how would Peter drag him out of the office with no one noticing?
“It doesn’t affect you at all. It helps us track which stores have the highest redemption rate for future promotions.”
Glen shrugs. “If it doesn’t make a difference, scan it.”
Passing the UPC code under the red light of the barcode reader, Peter’s computer beeps appropriately. A new, pre-programmed response sends text scrolling across the window.
Congratulations! You’ve won the Alphabet Apes grand prize for Portland, Oregon.
Glen’s face stretches into an odd grimace. It takes Peter a moment to realize he’s smiling. He leans forward, perched on the edge of his seat. His fingers tap the table nervously as he takes a slow look around the room. “So, what’s the grand prize?”
Peter takes great pleasure in gesturing toward the pyramid of cereal. He claps Glen on the back with his other hand. “You, Sir, have won a year’s supply of Alphabet Apes!”
The smile dissolves on Glen’s face. It’s replaced by a visage of utter disappointment. “What?”
Getting up, Peter dances around the conference table. The cereal boxes almost glow under the room’s fluorescent lights. He gingerly pats the bent corner of the tainted box when he reaches it. With the crumpled disrepair of the package Glen brought in, there’s no way he’ll think anything of a meager depression in the cardboard.
He picks up a couple boxes from the pyramid and waves them in the air. “You’ve won a full year’s supply. Fifty-two boxes of delicious Alphabet Apes cereal. We want to make sure you enjoy the boxes when they’re fresh, so you’ll receive just twenty today. Thirty-two more will ship to your home address in about five months.
Discontent radiates from Glen’s side of the room. He eyeballs a nearby stack of gift cards. “Can I trade the grand prize for something else?”
Lifting his hands in a ‘what can I do?’ motion, Peter shakes his head. He pretends to be sympathetic. “Unfortunately, no. Prizes are non-transferrable. Only one prize per household.”
A light skip in his step, Peter returns to his seat to fill out the simple prize redemption form. It doesn’t include much more than Glen’s name and the address he wants the rest of his cereal boxes delivered to. When they’re done, Peter makes a couple trips to load the packages into Glen’s borrowed car. Glen doesn’t help.
“At least my grocery bill will be smaller,” the winner finally comments as Peter stacks the last few boxes in the back seat.
“Absolutely. One whole meal a day you won’t have to worry about for a while.” The happiness Peter exudes is genuine. He makes sure the tainted box is on top of the stack, easy for Glen to access. He imagines the gargantuan man placing it front-and-center in his kitchen cabinet. Peter looks away when he realizes he’s staring at his unsuspecting victim.
“Well... thanks, I guess.” Glen shuffles around to the driver’s seat and fumbles with the keys.
“Merry Christmas! Maybe Santa will bring that crossbow tonight.” Peter winks at him over the roof of the car.
“Christmas implies religious participation. I prefer happy holidays. It’s more inclusive.” Glen pulls the door open and shoves himself inside.
Peter takes a few steps backward. He’s even with the curb when the car door slams and the engine revs. He waves an enthusiastic farewell as he mutters, “Happy holidays, dick.”
Fifty-Four
Jeanne’s smile brightens the otherwise gloomy day. Dark clouds have hovered overhead since Christmas. Now, it’s nearly mid-January and the city moves in a strange duality, appearing sleepy and unsettled in turns. It was harder for Peter to book an appointment with Jeanne than it’s ever been. He supposes winter depression and fallout from family gatherings translates into a busy season for therapists.
“How were your holidays?” Jeanne holds a new pen.
“Great. Honestly, probably the best I’ve ever had.” Peter smiles at her and she beams back.
“Did you do anything special?” She props her notepad on her chair’s arm, tapping the page gently with the end of the fountain pen.
Peter leans forward, dipping his chin. He’s been practicing this lie, wanting to convince her he hasn’t been up to anything funny. “I delivered Christmas baskets. It was fun. Rewarding.”
“The volunteering bug has bitten you hard, hasn’t it?” Jeanne marks the notebook with scribbles about his giving spirit. Peter’s sure she finds the trait endearing. Attractive, even.
“Giving to the needy makes you feel good, you know?” They share a meaningful look.
“Yes,” Jeanne agrees. “We volunteer at a homeless shelter the day after Christmas every year. Most people want to help on Christmas Eve, but we try to make sure people feel cared for a little longer.”
“We?” Peter glances around the office for evidence of another person in Jeanne’s life, but only finds the same handful of photos of her with friends that have always been there.
“My girlfriend and I.” Her moist lips rise in a smile as Peter freezes.
“You only have the one?” he asks.
The therapist giggles. It’s a tiny, conspiring laugh that tells him they’re sharing an intimate secret. Peter tries to imagine holding her, but even in his mind she slips away. He gazes at her stocking-clad legs and imagines them clamped around the body of another woman. He’s so disgusted by the thought he has to avert his gaze.
Now, in this quiet space with her, the intimate moments they’ve shared are tainted. The acid in his stomach gurgles and he covers his mouth to keep from retching. He comes back to reality when Jeanne’s hand touches his knee. “Peter, are you all right?”
The touch isn’t electric like all the other times. Her hand feels dirty and makes his skin crawl. He pulls away. He can already feel her betrayal squeezing the life out of him. He can’t look at her. He can only mumble, “You can’t be a lesbian. What about our future?”
Jeanne sits upright. She appears flustered and confused. “Excuse me?”
“You can’t be with another woman if we’re going to be together. You have to leave her. Make this right,” he mutters, fighting the tremor in his voice.
“Where is this coming from? Surely in the context of our sessions my sexual orientation doesn’t matter.” Her expression is severe.
Peter steels himself against the nausea rising in his gut. Where a beautiful woman once sat, there’s now a disheveled hag. Her rosy cheeks have faded. Her soft skin has congealed.
“I can’t believe you’d do this to me. To us.” Peter rises from his chair. A tendril of fear creeps up his spine. “If my father finds out I’ve been with a lesbian, he’ll never talk to me again. You have to choose, Jeanne. Me, or her?”
The therapist looks away. She takes a deep breath, then turns her gaze to meet his eyes. Her voice trembles as she says, “Mister Wilson, I think you’ve misinterpreted our relationship. I’m your therapist. Not your girlfriend. If you have such strong emotions about my personal life, it’d be best if you found someone else to council you.”
Peter doesn’t respond. He crosses the room to leave, making sure he pulls the door shut tight behind him.
Fifty-Five
Arms stretched above his head, Peter rolls to his side and lets his eyes flutter open. He’s had the same dream a dozen times.
Glen pours a bowl of cereal from a box with a bent flap.
The cereal tastes funny, but he pushes through the unfamiliar taste and finishes his breakfast. It was free, after all.
Time speeds forward. Glen crouches over a toilet. He suspects food poisoning. But what has he eaten? It must have been bad sushi. Or the slice of old pizza. After a while, he feels better. He goes back to his normal life, hovering over his web store listings.
Weeks later, a neighbor notices a strange smell coming from the house. No one’s seen Glen in a long time. There’s no answer when they knock on his door. They call the police for a wellness check.
The police find him slumped against his desk. His ha
nds still splayed across his keyboard. His body is lifeless, and everyone realizes it’s for the best. He was an awful man.
A relaxed sigh whooshes through Peter’s nostrils. He rolls to his back and tucks his hands under his head. He stares at the ceiling. It’s been weeks since Glen picked up his grand prize. It’s possible he’s eaten the cereal by now. The fungi’s toxins might course through his veins right this second. Maybe he has a stomachache. Peter hopes he’s dead.
He rolls off the bed and gets ready for work. After loading Glen up with the prize, he decided it was time. He’d still give the remaining prizes away, eventually. But he figures it’s best if he isn’t actively running the contest when they discover Glen’s death. If they investigate, he doesn’t want to be out there dancing around boxes of the same cereal that caused his victim’s demise.
After breaking up with Jeanne, it seemed doubly important to resume regular life. He needs the steady rhythm of a scheduled workweek to get over her. He’s never felt so betrayed by a woman before, and sitting around waiting for Glen to expire is merely adding to his depression.
He replays the conversation with Charles in his mind as he showers. His boss sounded surprised to hear from him when he called. Even more shocked when he’d said his father made a full recovery and doesn’t need a bedside vigil anymore. It had taken some minor coordination to get Peter back on the schedule, but he’d prevailed.
Smiling, Peter shuts off the water and grabs a towel. He’s happy to trade the confused chaos of body hunts and giveaway schemes for the monotony of office work.
An hour later, he’s logging on to his work computer. A fresh project lands on his desk, and suddenly it’s as if he never left. He scans through hundreds of missed e-mails, looking for anything related to his leave. There’s nothing, not even a note from the lady in Human Resources welcoming him back to the job.
In every conversation, people act as if he’s been there all along. Peter wonders if it’s because they’re not sure what to say about his father’s illness, or if they hadn’t noticed his absence at all.
It comes as a surprise when he walks across campus to attend a meeting and Jeff, a random engineer Peter only knows from cc’d e-mails and projects on the fringe of his awareness, stops to ask how he is.
“I heard your dad was battling some kind of cancer. Who won the fight?” Jeff abandons whatever course he was on and matches Peter’s stride.
“You could say my dad won.” Peter looks at his companion with an indifferent expression. “For now, anyway.”
“That’s great!” Jeff pounds him on the back in congratulations. “How’s his recovery coming?”
“I’m not sure. We aren’t speaking,” Peter admits.
Jeff skips a step, then jogs forward until he’s moving with Peter again. “That’s rough. It’s good you were there for him. I lost my dad to throat cancer a few years ago. It was a lot to go through.”
“Sorry for your loss.” The reflexive statement rolls off Peter’s tongue without thought.
Jeff claps him on the back again. “I hope you two can patch things up. What’s the point in getting a second lease on life if you’ve got to live it without your family?”
Peter grunts in disagreement. “Sometimes, family is more of a curse than a blessing.”
Chuckling, Jeff takes the comment lightheartedly. “Don’t I know it. That’s how I feel about my wife some days. How are things going now that you’re back at work?”
“Fine, I guess.” Peter frowns. “You know, you’re the first person to ask me that?” They share an awkward glance. “It’s okay. I picked up a couple new hobbies while I was out. It helps balance the stress.”
“Sounds like you did a bit of growing.” Jeff grabs him by the elbow and pulls him to a stop. “Listen, I’ve got to run to a meeting. It was great catching up with you. Let me know if you ever need anything, okay?”
They shake hands and Jeff trots back the way they came. The exchange stays on Peter’s mind long after the engineer disappears. He thinks about Oliver and the offer to go out with the search crew he’s been ignoring. He wonders how his father is.
He spends the rest of the day pretending to work while skimming through obituaries online. Peter wonders if his dad ever poisoned anyone. He tries to imagine Ollie poring over newspapers, searching for proof of his handiwork.
He scoffs at his own wonderment. His father was never one to go pawing through the news the way Peter is now. Oliver Roberts is direct. Once he decides to do something, Peter doubts he walks away until his deed is done. Peter’s father is a finisher and never leaves a task incomplete.
Filled with exasperation, Peter closes his web browser’s open tabs. His father knows exactly how to help the grim reaper along.
Fifty-Six
Restless anticipation takes a reprieve as Ollie enters the visitation room. He takes his time joining Peter in the corner. A glare of discontent fills the distance between them and stamps out Peter’s consolation.
“Sorry it’s been so long,” Peter mumbles. “I had to work through some anger.”
“You abandoned me.” Ollie’s voice is small. There’s a twinge of whine in his tone that stabs his son’s heart with guilt.
Dropping his gaze to his father’s hands, Peter notices his fingers are slimmer than before. The skin is raw, slight cracks trailing between the creases of his joints. Ollie picks at a callused sore on his left hand. Peter reaches forward to touch him, but his father pulls back, tucking his scraggly hands under the table.
Peter feels the sting of tears and his chest constricts. “I’m sorry. I didn’t react well when I found out about the roofies. We can’t change what happened when I was a kid. All we can do is apologize to one another and work through the time we have left.”
Ollie’s eyes are hard and dry. “I accept your apology.”
Leaning forward, Peter’s eager to hear Oliver say he’s sorry, too. He could say he’s sorry for being absent while Peter was growing up. Or, he could tell Peter he wishes he’d been a better parent. An aching wound throbs in Peter’s chest as he waits for his father to say he never meant to hurt him.
All his father does is smile, content to have received Peter’s remorse.
“Do you have anything to say to me?” Peter leans so far forward in his seat that if he moves another inch, he’ll fall.
“There are three bodies in a warehouse in Salem.”
The lack of apology comes like a slap to the face. Peter slides back in his chair, the moment of hopeful anticipation deflating like a worn-out balloon. He feels his father studying him as he falls from an adoring son to one filled with shame. Their relationship’s repair is once again hacked apart by Oliver’s self-absorbed confession.
Peter droops, unfulfilled, his back landing against the hard steel of his chair. He waves to someone in a corrections uniform. The guard comes over and leans so close Peter can feel his breath on his cheek.
“Call Inspector Douglas. If he’s not available, get Special Agent Jones. Tell them we’re going to Salem.” Peter tries to bolster his voice as he makes the announcement, but the guard looks at him with pity all the same.
He leaves to make the call as Peter stares at his father, who looks pleased with himself. Employing a lifetime of practice, Peter pushes the pain of his unworthiness aside. He takes a deep breath and shifts his focus. “Who are they?”
Oliver’s smile widens. He leans forward to share his secret. “Runaways. I collected them the summer I met your mother.”
A mixture of frustration and awe flood Peter’s mind. “How on earth have you kept bodies hidden in a warehouse that long?”
Laughter rolls like thunder from the older man. “Warehouse managers don’t much care what’s in the barrels you store, as long as the rent’s paid on time and nothing leaks. Getting the monthly fee to them took some doing after I got caught, but when the banks invented auto-draft, it got much easier.”
“You’ve been paying rent on warehouse space longer than I�
��ve been alive? How the hell can you afford that?”
Fatherly concern drifts over Ollie’s features like a storm cloud. “It’s called budgeting, Hen.”
Fifty-Seven
Standing at the mouth of a gaping metal building on a Sunday, Peter peers inside. Flashing lights pulse around the interior. It reminds him of late nights hanging out at the roller rink as a teenager, the disco ball lighting up the floor with flashes of color.
The wind crashes against the warehouse, forcing the officers to stand shoulder-to-shoulder to hear one another talk. Oliver puffs on a cigarette, cupping the rolled tobacco in his hand so the embers don't blow away before he finishes.
“How’s that little project of yours going?” Smoke leaves Ollie’s mouth with each word spoken. It vanishes on the wind in an instant, but the smell somehow lingers.
Peter’s thin smile is all he can muster. “It’s done.”
Oliver’s eyes light up and he presses his shoulder against Peter’s in congratulations. “That’s wonderful! I wasn’t sure you’d do it.”
The wind captures Peter’s relieved laugh and carries it away on the whipping air. Special Agent Jones looks over casually, but doesn’t appear concerned about the outburst from their conversation. “I wasn’t going to. But this guy showed up, and I knew he was the one.”
“I told you that’s how it would be. It’s like they’ve been searching for someone like us, isn’t it?” A sparkle glints in the old man’s eyes.
A twinge of discomfort tickles Peter’s spine. This is the pride he’s always searched for, but it doesn’t feel quite right. “Not exactly. He isn’t miserable or anything. He’s just an asshole.”
“You mean, he was an asshole.” Oliver grins. He takes the last drag of his cigarette and drops it to the ground, rubbing it out with his shoe.