At Risk

by Inc. Thriller Writers

  Molly finally hit Print and the Kodak 470 rocked slightly sideways again as a squeaky fan belched heat exhaust from a vent in the rear. A vinegar odor rose from somewhere deep in the old machine’s guts. It rattled, wheezed and clanked one last time before spitting out the final product.

  Molly knelt into the heart of the chemical stench and retrieved the copied picture of her house and yard. The paper was hot to the touch, still vaguely moist, and curling a bit at the edges.

  “We’re getting a new one, you know,” Jasmine was saying.

  “What?”

  “Scanner. We’re getting a new scanner. It’s due in any day. About time, right?”

  Molly thanked her and headed back out into the parking lot, a bit chilled by the crisp fall air. The town was laden with maple and elm trees that shed their leaves into brilliant pools of sunlight collecting on the sidewalk. She drove home past the array of For Sale signs and pulled into her driveway. Rexall bag in hand, Molly started for the house only to notice that the paint seemed much brighter than it had just a few hours before. Molly realized she’d left her pocketbook in the car and turned to find herself facing a split rail fence that didn’t look dilapidated anymore, the posts and rotting rails having been replaced, as well. Molly was left wondering where the money to pay the bill for her husband Bob’s well-placed efforts would come from, as she opened the front door to find old, trusty Sherman lying stiff and still in the hallway making no move to greet or even acknowledge her.

  “Oh, no…”

  She felt a profound sadness, worse than anything spawned by greedy bankers or unfeeling dentists. A loyal friend she could always rely on was gone and, unlike a job, couldn’t be replaced. She felt through her bag for her cell phone.

  “Bob,” she said, after fumbling her cell phone to her ear, “it’s Sherman. He’s…gone.”

  She knew her husband; he’d sob the entire way home. He was always the crier in the house, losing it at movies most men dreaded. Chick flicks had been their one indulgence until Molly had begged off out of a purported lack of interest when lack of discretionary income was truly to blame. But it was strange how absenting themselves from movies about falling in love left them both feeling that they were falling out of it.

  Next thing Molly knew she was kneeling by Sherman’s body, and stayed there until she heard the familiar rumble of Bob’s Volvo pulling into the driveway, stroking his fur which felt strangely cold. Molly swabbed at her eyes with a sleeve, sniffling back her tears, and opened the door to find Bob standing there.

  She felt him hug her and she didn’t want him to let go, as if his embrace could make everything right as it had when they were mere kids themselves. But they were far from kids now and it couldn’t. His grasp felt flaccid, his hands cold from the poor circulation he’d inherited from his father. A paunch had grown over his once-flat stomach, pushing his white dress shirt forward, and his trousers sagged below his hips.

  Bob eased her away and she realized how much his brown hair had thinned and gone gray at the temples. His eyes looked like hers had in the scanner’s glass, only sadder.

  “How are we gonna tell Matt?” he asked, his voice childlike. Then, before she could answer, “Wait, what are you doing home?”

  Molly tensed. “I just…had this feeling,” she told him, even more anxious at nearly being caught in the truth she’d yet to share with him.

  Bob ran his hand through her hair, the gesture comforting in the fond memories it evoked of the days when they’d been truly in love.

  “I’ll take care of this,” Molly said. “You can get back to work.”

  Bob nodded, having trouble taking his eyes off the dog. “Thirteen years is a lot for a dog, but it’s not enough, is it?”

  “It’s never enough.”

  He spotted the shoe box full of snapshots on the foyer table and shuffled through them. “Where’d these come from?”

  “The closet.”

  His smile grew sadder as he continued to peruse the box’s contents just as Molly had in the Rexall.

  “You’re right, Molly, it’s never enough. But we’ll get through this. You know we will.”

  * * *

  The next morning she kissed Bob on the cheek and got Matt settled in his car seat for the drive to day care. The boy was holding a picture of Sherman romping in the front yard a few years before Matt was born; clutching it so hard it was crinkled and dog-eared by the time they got to the school.

  “Have a good day at work, Mommy,” Matt said, hugging her after she led him up to the front door.

  Molly pushed back the lump in her throat and kissed him on the forehead. She watched him grab his small backpack and dash into the building, obsessed for some reason with never being the last kid to class. She saw the teacher wave and she waved back, smiling.

  Then Molly remembered the picture of Sherman, twisted and tattered by Matt’s tiny hands, now lying on the passenger seat. She’d take it to the Rexall and blow it up to eight by ten. Spring for a decent frame as well so Matt could hold fast to it long into the night, keeping the only pet he’d ever known close to his heart and mind.

  She drove to the store and immediately headed for the back of the building where the Kodak 470 was kept, drawn to it like an old friend, equally battered and beaten down by life.

  “Hello, again,” Jasmine said when she saw her.

  Molly nodded and positioned the photo of Sherman on the working side of the scanner. She hit the scan button and the machine started clanking and rocking again, even worse than yesterday. And when she was finally ready to print, the vinegar smell was stronger and laced with something that reminded her of something smoldering on a hot stove.

  The machine groaned and Molly could see the first of her print pushing out from the feeder slot in one lurch after another, only to be sucked back in with a sound like an angry cat screech. The final product emerged slightly blackened along the top and bottom edges, but otherwise a perfect shot of a younger, romping Sherman.

  Molly spent the next four hours in a coffee shop featuring free Wi-Fi and refills, scouring the internet job sites for something remotely connected to her field. There was nothing, not just in the dental assistant field, but anything she felt qualified for period. Time crawled and the coffee kept sending her to the bathroom.

  Finally she went to pick up Matt, already composing the day’s workplace lies to share with Bob. She was reciting them out loud, softly so as not to disturb her napping son, when she pulled into the driveway and screeched to a halt.

  Because Sherman was standing there waiting. Younger, romping Sherman with tail wagging waiting to greet her. Matt was snoring in the backseat when Molly climbed out and approached the dog.

  “Sherman,” Molly said, the name nearly catching in the back of her throat.

  The dog came and greeted her just as Sherman had a million times. She nuzzled his mane and located his tag, craning her neck to better read it. Lost a breath and felt her heart skip a beat.

  Because the dog’s name was indeed Sherman, and this was the address to which he should be returned.

  “It’s Sherman, Mommy! He’s back!”

  The new Sherman knew where his dog bed was and recalled the hiding place of his favorite rawhide bone, half-chewed under the couch. Then Molly remembered the Rexall bag she’d left in the car. She rushed out to retrieve it and studied the slightly grainy enlargement against the dog waiting upon her return, right down to the collar and dangling dog license.

  Identical.

  Next she grabbed the shot of the front yard, repaired fence posts and all, copied on the Kodak 470 at Rexall yesterday. Compared it with the same scene pictured through the front bay window.

  Identical, too.

  Sherman, or whoever he was, loped into the kitchen and pawed at the door to the cabinet holding his food. Molly looked a
t him, then at the picture again.

  Could this be happening? Was she losing her mind?

  No, the scanner had done this. It had clanked and clunked and reproduced the photographs in reality as well as on glossy paper.

  She filled the new Sherman’s bowl with food and watched him dig in, surrounding the bowl with his big paws as he always did.

  Incredible, Molly thought, turning to find Bob standing halfway between her and Matt curled up on the couch watching Nickelodeon.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  * * *

  “You shouldn’t have bought this dog.”

  “Well, I…”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you lost your job?”

  “How did you—”

  “I called the office.”

  “I just couldn’t tell you.” Molly felt the tears coming, but pushed them back, not wanting to make a scene in front of Matt. “And I didn’t buy the dog, Bob.”

  “So, what, you got it from the pound or something?”

  “Something,” Molly said, hesitating. “You said we’d get through this. You remember saying that?”

  “I suppose,” he shrugged.

  “Then let me do it. Let me get us through this.”

  Molly wanted to hug him, wanted to feel him hug her back reassuringly. But the time for gestures was gone, and they stood facing each other with the few feet separating them feeling like a valley.

  “Bob? Please, trust me.”

  Bob shrugged again and nodded, his own eyes moistening.

  * * *

  That night, as soon as Bob drifted off to sleep Molly padded back downstairs to the computer, quickly locating an image of real piles of money with the caption, Did you ever wonder what a million dollars looked like?

  No sense getting greedy. A million dollars would change their lives plenty.

  Molly saved the image and then opened the real estate website that had posted the listing of their home. She found a picture of the bedroom and saved it to the desktop.

  She tweaked the images with Photoshop until she felt it looked perfect. It depicted the money sitting on top of the bed, the piles looking exactly as they had over the Did you ever… caption. Except the same piles now appeared atop their covers and neatly folded afghan, promising a better and happier life.

  Molly hit the print key and waited for the HP to roll out the resulting product. Her mind wandered while she waited, drifting back to the honeymoon they’d taken. Finances didn’t allow for the typical week in the tropics, so they’d opted to go white-water rafting, something neither of them had ever experienced. Pictures of them framed amid the rapids was part of the package, only once the photos arrived Bob’s face wasn’t visible in any of the shots. At her wits’ end, Molly had labored with paste and tape in the pre-Photoshop days to repair the omission, before finally coming up with something acceptable, Bob displayed clearly now alongside her.

  In creating it Molly had the sense that if she made things right on paper, they would remain just as right in life. Even though that had hardly been the case, the picture had remained her favorite of the two of them together for all this time. How often she had stared at it displayed on their family room wall as if to will such unrestrained happiness back into reality and how foolish that had made her feel.

  But maybe not so foolish anymore.

  The Photoshop effort of the money stacked atop their bed emerged from the HP looking even better than it had on screen. Molly trimmed the edges to make sure it would fit on the Kodak 470, stealing a glance toward the rafting shot hanging on an adjacent wall.

  Just one last time, she promised herself.

  * * *

  Molly was there minutes after the Rexall opened, Bob having offered to drop Matt off at day care after she told him she had an important job interview.

  “Back again?” Jasmine said from behind the counter, blowing a bubble. “Can you wait until tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  Jasmine tilted her eyes toward the Kodak 1000, a state-of-the-art scanner pressed up against the wall currently with protective plastic wrapped around its shiny frame in stark contrast to the 470’s worn and faded casing.

  “We’re installing it later today, matter of fact,” Jasmine told her.

  “No, the old one will do just fine.”

  With that, Molly positioned the Photoshop shot of a million dollars on the glass and hit Scan. The stench from the Kodak 470 was worse than ever, the thing rattling up a storm as soon as she hit Print, threatening to burst from its bonds and rampage through the store spewing chemicals in its wake. The machine’s corrosive smell assaulted her, blackening smoke now rising in thin wisps from its innards.

  Please, let it work. Just this one last time….

  The copied picture emerged from the slot in a series of fits and starts, much too hot to touch at first, but looking even better than the original she’d created.

  Thank God, she thought, brimming with hope and expectation for the first time in longer than she could remember as she moved to the counter.

  “Anybody ever have, you know, any strange stories about that scanner?” Molly asked Jasmine.

  “I don’t know about stories, but we’ve had plenty of complaints, especially in the last month or so.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, like people saying their pictures were gone by the time they got home.”

  “Gone?”

  “Washed out, colors all bleeding together, something like that. I called the company, but customer support doesn’t support the 470 anymore. That’ll be a dollar six with tax.”

  * * *

  Molly rushed straight home, breathless with expectation, the Kodak 470’s parting gift to her hopefully lying on the bedcovers. But she couldn’t stop from wondering why the machine, and the magic behind it, had chosen her of all people instead of the multitude of others who had seen their memories dissolve in a mishmash of blended colors. Certainly there was a reason and whatever the reason was, it stopped her from questioning the moral implications of what she had done. Besides, was it any different from praying in church for the impossible to come true.

  But what if this time it didn’t?

  She stepped into the bedroom with eyes closed, terrified she was about to learn she’d played herself for a fool. That it would turn out Bob really had hired someone to brush up the house’s exterior and the new Sherman was no more than a look-alike stray. She realized in those final moments between breaths that the machine had taken her hostage, enslaved her in hope. But what if that hope were false?

  Molly opened her eyes.

  And saw the money, big heaping piles of it stacked atop her bed exactly as it had been in the picture. The scale was identical, the denominations, she was certain, identical, as well.

  Molly reached out and touched the cash, half expecting it to be no more than an illustration set atop the spread. But, no, it was real. Smelled real, felt real, fanned like real. An assortment of neatly wrapped twenties, fifties. A million dollars.

  A million dollars!

  Molly sat on the bed and tossed packet after packet into the air, enjoying the thump when each one smacked the pile. Her family’s problems solved, the house to remain theirs. No For Sale sign added to the endless collection dotting their suburban world.

  Then a different thump, one car door and then another slamming closed, brought her to the window.

  A pair of police officers was heading up the walk, having exited their cruiser parked in the street. They looked dour, purposeful. Molly shrank away from the window so they couldn’t see her, heard the doorbell ring.

  Were they here to arrest her? Did they somehow know what she’d done? Surely this couldn’t qualify as counterfeiting; she hadn’t printed the money, she’d j
ust, well, brought it to life. Was that a crime? Was she going to have to explain this miracle to Bob from a jail cell?

  Molly debated briefly about not letting them in, then figured they’d get her sooner or later anyway. So after the second ring she went downstairs and opened the door.

  “Good afternoon, Officers,” she said, forcing a smile. “Is there a problem?”

  The cops removed their caps in eerie unison. Molly saw the look in their eyes and knew.

  * * *

  An 18-wheeler had run a red light and obliterated Bob’s Volvo, while he was on his way to drop Matt off at day care. Both Bob and Matt had been pronounced dead at the scene. Of course, if she hadn’t made up the lie about the job interview, so she could be at the Rexall when it opened, they’d both be alive now. Bob never would have been behind the wheel at that exact place and time. So this was all her fault, the scanner’s fault. Not a blessing, after all, but a terrible curse. A gift from hell, not heaven.

  “Ma’am,” one of the cops was saying, as Molly sat in a chair with broken springs that felt ready to swallow her. “Ma’am?”

  She wanted to wake up, wake up and find the fence posts still broken, Sherman still dead, and no million dollars upstairs in her bedroom. Because then Bob and Matt would still be alive. She was fresh out of miracles. There was no magic that could bring them back to life.

  “Is there someone we can call for you, ma’am?” the cop was asking now.

  Unless…

  Might the scanner, could it possibly…

  “Is there someone you can be with, someplace we can take you?”

  “Yes!” Molly blurted out, hoping against hope. “The Rexall! Please take me to the Rexall!”

  The cops did, both eyeing her strangely but not bothering to question a grieving woman. Molly wished only they’d drive with siren screaming and lights flashing the whole way, praying it wasn’t too late. But he drove at a modest clip and it turned out it was too late indeed.

  The Kodak 470 was gone, having already been replaced by the 1000 that glistened beneath the harsh fluorescent lighting in the Rexall.