The SEAL in My Attic

by Jan Irving

  “Wow, you like Rex Stout?” I asked.

  “I… Yeah.” He frowned. “Weird I can remember the plot to most of his books and not what I did last Monday.”

  “You really need to get a proper work-up.” I waved my hand when he opened his mouth. “After we settle this. Promise me.”

  “If it’s feasible, Doc.”

  “Caleb…”

  “I can’t make promises like that. I don’t know if I’ll have to disappear.”

  “Disappear? Shit.” I rubbed my eyes again. “I don’t want to know.” This thing between us was as doomed as it had been the first time. “I don’t grow orchids but when I have time away from my crazy schedule I like to garden.”

  He nodded. “I noticed the piled rocks and pond at your place and all those spiny little plants that look like cacti.”

  “Succulents. They’re tough enough to get through the winters if you put them somewhere protected.” I didn’t add that I’d done all the heavy lifting for that garden when he’d left me. I’d wanted to be exhausted, to stop thinking about him, to stop missing him. “I wonder if you could eat them.”

  I blinked. “Eat succulents?”

  “I’ve had to forage in some unfriendly places sometimes. I always check out the plant life.”

  “Like a hunter-gatherer.”

  “Essentially. What else do you like to do in your free time?”

  Dance with you. But I couldn’t say it, of course. He didn’t remember. “Go to clubs. Hook up with hot guys.”

  “Liar.” But uncertainty flashed like lightning in his blue eyes.

  “I’m really more of a home body. It was a fluke that I met you at all.”

  “Bet you wish you hadn’t.”

  I closed my eyes. “Yeah, sometimes.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have stayed away from you. I don’t know why I didn’t… I must have known…”

  “Known what?”

  He shrugged. “We’re ten minutes out from Mason depot according to the GPS. Can you take the map out of the glove compartment? I want to take another look at this side road.”

  I pulled it free and fanned it open. “Wow, whole lot of nowhere around this place,” I noted. I looked at him. “I’m not even sure it’s still in operation. It lists it as some kind of train and bus depot but it looks like maybe the route was abandoned.”

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  Fifteen minutes later we pulled up beside a rusted chain stretching across the pitted secondary road. A drunken sign with neon graffiti splashed like blood across it read ‘Mason Depot’.

  “Not very promising.” I got out of the car, needing to stretch my legs to stay awake. It was very quiet and very, very dark. I couldn’t make out the light from buildings anywhere close by. We were alone with the whisper of leaves rustling and the sky studded with cold stars and the setting moon.

  Caleb stood frozen in front of the chain.

  “What?” His posture was giving me the creeps. It was like he was listening for something I couldn’t hear.

  “I’ve…been here before.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “This is a bad place,” he said softly. “A very bad place.”

  Chilled, I wrapped my arms around myself. I had the same feeling of being watched I’d had when the men had attacked us in my woods.

  He unclipped the chain and tossed it in a heap on the side of the road. “You should stay here with the car, Doc.”

  “I feel a helluva lot safer with you than waiting alone.”

  “So be it.” We both got back in the car and I felt a primitive relief to feel the metal and glass as a shield between me and the stretch of lonely countryside.

  Caleb drove without the lights, inching us forward. Finally he stopped the car again and looked at me. “Dawn’s about an hour away.”

  I imagined staying here in the car, listening hard at every night sound, waiting for Caleb. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “You do exactly what I say,” he said. “In case you hadn’t picked up on it, we’re not alone out here.”

  “How do you know that? Is it something you remember?”

  He shook his head. “I feel it.”

  Great. That was just great. “I don’t see a sign for the depot. Are we lost?”

  “It’s further on. Safer if we walk there.”

  He handed me one of Lilah’s kitchen knives. I shoved it back at him. “I don’t think I can use that!”

  “Not even to save your life or mine?” He held it out, waiting. “Put it in your jeans pocket, Doc.”

  I took it from him, swallowing hard.

  He pulled his gun out. “Stay behind me. Walk where I walk.”

  I nodded. My heart was thundering. I didn’t want to do this. I wasn’t cut out for this.

  I was going with him anyway.

  He eased the door on the car shut and I emulated him before crunching gingerly across the gravel-strewn road to stand behind him. He stood there, T-shirt billowing from a sudden chilly wind, eyes gleaming catlike under starlight. I could hear the faint sound of his breathing. Then he ghosted forward and I stumbled less gracefully after him, wincing as I crunched a twig under foot.

  “This road hasn’t been used in a while. Look at all the debris.”

  “Yeah,” he grunted. Then he cleared his throat. “How’s your brother doing?”

  I looked at him, surprised he remembered me talking about my family. “He just finished his third year in law school. He’s met a girl and it’s getting pretty serious from what I understand.”

  “Sounds…nice. Regular life.” He made it sound exotic. But, to him, maybe it was.

  “I guess. We were close once, but he couldn’t handle what happened to Dad, the dementia.”

  “I remember that much.” Caleb nodded soberly. “You said your father clung to you like a life raft when his short-term memory went.”

  “Yeah.” It hurt even now, remembering those years. I’d been in first year medicine. “He didn’t want me to stop, to just leave school and take care of him full-time. Whenever I brought it up, we fought.”

  “Love is the last light to go out,” Caleb said. “When the darkness comes.”

  My throat tightened. He understood. “What about your family? You never talk about them.”

  “Foster brat,” Caleb said. “Didn’t have any. Then I joined the Navy and I found my place.”

  “More like earned it, if what I’ve read about hell week is true for SEALs.”

  His lips twisted wryly. “That, I wish I could forget.”

  I looked at him then, couldn’t help myself. In the dim light I caught his blue eyes smiling into mine, his unshaven jaw, the rumpled brown hair that looked like I’d run my fingers through it.

  He almost looked like the very hot boy-next-door, except there was something more to him, an edge I’d felt from the beginning.

  Dangerous. He was a dangerous man, capable of things I couldn’t imagine.

  “I called you,” he said, gaze falling away.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I, uh… I read the obituary for your father and I called you.”

  “You read it?”

  “I got your local paper. I watched over you, Doc.”

  “I didn’t get your message.”

  “I didn’t leave one.”

  “Oh.” I sucked in a deep breath, remembering those dark days when my father had passed away and Caleb was gone. “I appreciate the thought, I guess.”

  “It was a mistake. That’s probably how they learned about you. I just couldn’t let go.”

  “Caleb…” But when I looked up from my careful watch of my footing, Caleb was gone. Cold iced my back and instinctively I stopped, crouching, feeling horribly exposed.

  “Caleb?” I whispered.

  The breeze picked up, scattering leaves like crackling paper. Shadows moved, swaying like worshipping dancers under the sinking moon. Soon it would be light but it wasn’t much of a fucking comfort right n
ow.

  I got to my feet, veering to the side of the road and into the deepest pool of darkness. Heart thumping, I made my way as quietly as possible down the road. We’d come here to find a locker in Mason depot, which was apparently abandoned. Caleb had given me the key for safe keeping so I was going to follow through. What else could I do?

  Finally, after I’d walked what seemed like another mile, a rectangle of darkness blotted out the moon. I stepped over rusted train track that bisected the road. Across from me was a raised concrete platform above the train tracks. Mason Depot. Okay, this was it. I walked across the tracks and then hefted myself up onto the platform, seeing the door to the men’s bathroom was sagging open. A silver clock was frozen at two-twenty p.m. In the station house window, glass gleamed like secretive eyes, dark and fathomless.

  I wrapped my arms around myself, rubbing briskly.

  I was staring so intently inside the building that I caught the flicker of movement. My heart pounded and I took a step back. Jesus. Someone was in there. Was it Caleb?

  Two choices. I could stay out here sweating or go inside.

  I swallowed then made up my mind. The door into the station creaked in cranky invitation as I opened it.

  All right. Lockers were usually right inside for travellers to stow their belongings en route. I’d go in, check it out and hopefully find the locker we were searching for. Then, if Caleb still didn’t show up, I’d retrace my steps to the car.

  I hoped to hell Caleb was already in here and it was him I’d caught a glimpse of. Or maybe it was a cat. Yeah, I liked that. A big, fat tomcat feasting on the mice that no doubt inhabited this deserted building.

  Taking a gulp of air as if I were about to do a deep dive, I walked inside. I could just make out the pay window on one side, the round open glass where you could speak to the ticket master, the metal slot where tokens and cash or credit could be exchanged.

  Lockers. Must be… I spotted them opposite the ticket station, some hanging open. I pulled the key out of my pocket, brushing my fingers against the knife Caleb had insisted I carry.

  The knife.

  I grasped it tightly with my free hand, holding it up so it spiked towards the ceiling.

  I reached the first of the lockers, had to squint to read the number. Two-five-six… I was searching for three-eight-nine. I’d have to go farther down the stalls, but that was a problem because it was so goddamned black I couldn’t make anything out.

  Light switch… Did this place still have power?

  I froze at the first note, ghostly as a flute.

  Whistling. Someone was whistling.

  Chapter Five

  I hunched close to the lockers, sweat stinging my skin.

  The whistling stopped.

  “Here, birdie-birdie,” a voice called in a high, sing-song voice. “Come out and play.” A bad place, Caleb had said. But I’d only imagined a place with more men like we’d

  encountered in the woods outside my house. I hadn’t imagined the creepy whistler. The locker door I was leaning against trembled from my weight. Oh shit! I had a second to see disaster coming. I swung around to try to catch it but it was too late. The empty metal shell crashed to the floor with the percussion of a collapsing drum kit.

  Silence except for the sound of my ragged breathing. I inched further back into the cavernous space, careful this time not to put too much of my weight against the lockers.

  “Birdie’s here,” the soft voice called. “Birdie, birdie…”

  My tormentor had moved. Now he was standing directly between me and the way I’d come in. I couldn’t leave and run back to the car. I couldn’t search for the locker that had brought Caleb and me here in the first place.

  “Comin’ to get you, birdie.”

  I caught the gleam of milky eyes in the wash of moonlight. Weird eyes that glowed. My stalker was coming closer—

  I shoved two lockers.

  “Fuck, that hurt! I’ll tear your fuckin’ head off, birdie. You’ll bleed!”

  I backed away and hit the wall. Nowhere to go. He stood, face twisted, eyes…eyes were wrong. It was so dark but they seemed to burn hate.

  “Got you!” he sang.

  I gripped the knife.

  More lockers crashed, falling like dominos.

  Caleb. I saw him in a flash of movement. My stalker whirled and then they both went down, the darkness amplifying the sounds of their struggle. A choked-off hiss, a slap of flesh against flesh.

  I plunged forward, stumbled over someone’s leg. I reached the light switch on the wall and hit it. For a moment nothing happened, then a bulb directly above flickered. In the yellow light I saw Caleb underneath a man roughly the same size as he was, my stalker giggling as if he was wrestling for fun.

  I dropped the knife and picked up a fallen plastic chair and hit the man from behind. He didn’t let loose of Caleb even though I could see Caleb bucking and fighting savagely to be free of him. Instead, the man looked at me. His eyes were almost pupil-less, swimming with fluid. “Wait your turn,” he ordered.

  He leaned closer to Caleb. “You’re back. You haven’t been around here for a while…”

  “I…was here?” Caleb gasped.

  “They didn’t let me play with you,” the man’s voice was mournful. “I like to play with birdies, rip their heads off.”

  “Dooocc, help me—”

  The man’s fingers tightened around Caleb’s throat. Caleb wasn’t weak, despite his terrible thinness. Why was he so outmatched?

  “Hey!” I yelled.

  My stalker looked up, mouth open to reveal teeth filed to sharp points. Tears dripped freely from those terrible, oozing eyes.

  I hit him again with the chair, smacking one leg deliberately into his pale, swollen face.

  He screeched and leapt off Caleb, coming for me now, his hands fisted into claws.

  Caleb grabbed him from behind, arm around the stranger’s neck. His face was utterly expressionless as his gaze met mine. At the last moment I looked away. A sharp crack. Heavy breathing. The thud of a body hitting the floor.

  I jumped when Caleb touched my arm. “Are you…” He coughed. “All right?”

  “You left me.”

  He blinked. “Ah, yeah, I did. I had a feeling we were being watched. I needed our friend here focused on you so I could sneak up on him. It’s not easy to…” He coughed again but I was unmoved. “To…sneak up on one of them.”

  I looked at the crumpled form. “One of them? Oh, God, oh, Jesus.”

  Caleb caught me, shaking me. “Come on, Doc, keep it together.”

  “What the fuck? I was not fainting. And, if I was fainting, I don’t want you to ever shake me—it pisses me off.”

  “All right.”

  “Ever!” I glared at him, then I grabbed him, holding tight.

  “It’s okay, Doc. I told you I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you.” His lips covered mine and it was fever. He’d just killed a man and I wanted him. My hands were in his hair, tearing it in my impatience to get closer, to get under his skin, to become a part of him.

  “Missed you,” I croaked. “You bastard.”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  I bit his mouth. “You son of a bitch.” I kissed him. I was on the bare dirty floor and he caged me with his arms, his blue eyes molten as he took my mouth.

  “I am a son of a bitch. I’m a bastard. You need to stay away from me,” Caleb panted.

  I wrenched him closer with a fistful of his T-shirt. “Too late.”

  “I’ll take care of you, Doc. I’ll take such good care of you if you let me—” Caleb tore at my jeans and I lifted up. I was both submissive and demanding. I took his hand and put it on me.

  He stroked me as he kissed me, his hand a little rough, the way he knew I liked it, while his kisses gentled, became delicate-tasting. It was unbearable after all these months. I’d been waiting for him. It was so uncool to face that, but it was true. All this time, and my heart had opened again when I’d found him in my attic
.

  I wanted him. Only him. Oh, Jesus, this was bad.

  “I thought you’d left me again.”

  “No. You think I ever wanted to leave you? I took you with me into the dark. You were the prayer on my lips.” He sucked in a breath, his voice still hoarse from the throttling he’d endured. “You’re so beautiful. Look at you, wanton for my hand on you. I love the way you let yourself go with me.”

  “Harder, God damn you. I want to come. You are going to make me come. Now.” I arched up, groaning as the sweet friction rode me hard. I could picture myself, legs open, lower body exposed, slutty and driven with his hand on me. “Now… Oh, God…”

  “Come apart for me. Let go, baby,” he whispered. “Give it up for me. I want to see you, taste you. I want to be the man who makes you perform.”

  “Too many words.”

  He laughed. “I’m trying to be…thoughtful.”

  “It’s not you.” I looked him dead in the eye. “I know who you are. A killer. And my lover.” I needed him to be both. I needed him to keep me alive so I could—

  The cry burned like acid out of my throat. I came again and again, shaking and grabbing for breath in the aftermath.

  Caleb pulled me into his arms, kissing my cheeks, the side of my face as I leaned against him, dazed and satisfied. “God damn, you owed me that,” I growled.

  He laughed. “Doc, is it any wonder I couldn’t completely wipe you from my mind?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, afraid I’d say something embarrassing like ‘I love you’. Another declaration of love was all this car wreck needed. No way was this going to have a happy ending any more than the first time we’d got together.

  But I held onto him, smelt his skin, felt his warmth and protectiveness and the rasp of his growing whiskers against my hair and face.

  I cleared my throat. “All right, give me some space.”

  He laughed again. “Gracious as always.” Then he sobered. “You used to be so sweet.”

  “Look where that got me.”

  “Yeah.” His voice was soft. “I’m a bad bet.”

  “Preaching to the choir.” Lacking any way to clean myself up, I peeled off my T-shirt and used it to wipe my lower body. I would not think about the hours we’d once lingered in bed, when Caleb had licked me clean after climax, made me so sensitive, held me down and made me take it again…