Sheep's Clothing

by Gary Lewis

  An annoying ringtone continued to get louder as Janice rubbed her groggy eyes, focusing in the dark room. The brightly lit screen of David's phone slightly lit the living room from where it still rang on the glass table. A form rolled over on the other couch as David stretched to slowly sit up.

  "What time is it?" he asked in a weak tone.

  Janice looked around the dark room for a few seconds. "Your phone was going off."

  David sat up with a lean forward and lifted his phone. "It's 8:30. I just fell asleep about an hour ago," he said, his bright screen now shining in his face.

  Janice stretched her arms and legs with a long yawn. "Well, I feel a lot better now."

  "It was Sarah," he mumbled before pressing the phone to his ear.

  Janice reluctantly remained silent as David returned her call. "Hey, what is it?" he asked. Her undiscernible words blared from his speaker with a scolding voice. "Alright. Alright. Just calm down. Are you okay?" David asked. Her shouts became louder as David pulled the phone several inches from his face with a wince, finally hanging it up.

  Janice felt a warm concern wash through her face as she looked into David's troubled eyes through the dark room. "Are you okay, David?"

  "She's fine. Something set off the trap behind her house and she thinks it's still out there."

  Janice sat up to listen. "That's not what I asked though," she whispered just hard enough for her voice to traverse the room. As David drew his face back to her, barely lit by the moonlight that cut through the crack in the thick curtains, she scooted to the end of her couch closest to his. "I want to know if you're alright." Janice cautiously reached her hand out to his armrest. She felt his fingers brush against her palm until they clasped between hers with a gentle but firm grip.

  "You're going, aren't you?" she asked. Through the darkness she could see David rubbing his hand over his face before brushing it through his hair. "I have to," he said with a firm whisper.

  Her wounded soul tried to justify letting him go. He didn’t just ruin my life. He did so with Sarah and they kept it from me this entire time. She huffed down at the dimly lit, dark green carpet before raising her eyes back to the moonlit gleam that still shined across his tired face. They even joked about it. Her resentful thoughts clashed with the very real possibility of losing him forever as the memories she still held onto began to tug from her heart.

  As Janice looked back into David’s exhausted face, his concern still burned brightly in his deep blue eyes, focused only on her.

  “David,” she said hesitantly as her mind tried to hold back the words that her heart continued to speak. “There’s something I need from you.”

  His solemn eyes spoke to her before his words. “Anything, Jan.”

  She stared back with open eyes as her slow, deliberate words expressed the severity of their meaning. "Can you promise not to hurt me like that again, David?"

  He stared back at her through the dark living room.

  "David... It's the only thing I need to know."

  His words rang with a solid certainty. "I promise, Jan."

  "Are you sure?" she asked again.

  His voice grew deep and calm as he stared back into her eyes and gripped her hand tighter. "Yes, Jan. I'm absolutely sure."

  "Then I'll drive," she said with conviction as she rose to her feet. "You're tired."

  Once in her mom's minivan, twenty minutes of high beams shining between the dark forested hills along empty roads found them approaching Sarah's driveway. "It's a good thing her grass is so high," Janice said, carefully pulling in with a slow right turn. "It helps guide me."

  David smiled. "Don't let Sarah hear you say that."

  The nighttime breeze slightly waved the tall grass, revealing tall strips of blueish green hues that blanketed Sarah's front yard with a thick mat of vegetation. The windows were all black. Her front light was off above the dark, deadwood porch that welcomed whatever doom awaited just beyond.

  She saw David's eyes turn serious as he leaned to the windshield, glaring around Sarah's yard. "Park it right here in case we need to get out fast," he said.

  "Okay." Janice calmly put the van in park and David cracked the passenger door, looking intently at Sarah's porch.

  He turned to her. "Maybe we should call her to come out," he said.

  "I think we should go inside," she told David with a long-drawn look into the center of his large, black pupils.

  After a few moments of peering around their unseen surroundings, listening for every sneaking scurry that could barely be heard, Janice opened her door and walked around the front of the van. The darkness that loomed behind her neck was far more menacing than anything she could see, no matter which way she turned.

  David's door opened with a squeak as he stepped out before lightly closing it. As he walked to her side, her fear of what was behind vanished, only to be replaced by the dread of what was ahead.

  They stepped toward Sarah's dark front porch. With David at her side, Janice swiftly slung her feet through the grass until he stepped ahead and they walked up the steps on the side of the porch before pausing at the door. She eyed the cracked, peeling, pale blue paint that coated the exterior walls of Sarah’s blacked out, silently still home. It looks so dead.

  David raised his right hand timidly, turning his head to face Janice. She stood on the top step, beside the outer wall of the house, just out of sight from the front door. "Guess I'll knock," he said.

  The door yanked open with a sudden squeak. "What the hell took you so long?" Sarah's voice shrieked from inside with a shrill that Janice's skin tried hard to reject. "Where the hell have you been anyway?"

  "I wasn't home," David said, hands up as if to avoid being shot. "Jan drove me."

  Sarah's head shot out of the doorway. Wide eyes of shock aimed her open mouth at Janice as she stood silently at the top of the stairs. "Are you fucking kidding me?" She aimed her malicious stare back at David before withdrawing back inside with a slam of the door.

  Janice remained quiet as she studied the darkness that surrounded them. It concealed anything that might lurk between the hefty bushes that stretched out over the tall grass. She became more cautious as the front door had now become a wall where they could be cornered. David's arms swung about as he shouted through the door. "We came as soon as you called!" A vulnerable sensation traveled along the back of Janice's neck that went down the skin of her shoulders with a chilling rush that spotted her arms with goosebumps.

  "David?" Janice said, turning to face the yard as she backed slowly in his direction on top of the creaking porch.

  "It's okay. I'm here." David's voice came from behind her shoulder as he grasped the side of her arm.

  The inky shadows that loomed along the line of foliage at the edge of Sarah's yard drifted in the darkness. David's grip became tighter as they now stood side by side, stepping back an inch at a time.

  The door flung open again to Sarah's angry face. "Just get inside already," she said with a reluctant sternness while she scooped at the air, waving them inside.

  After rushing into her pitch dark living room, they spread several feet apart. The sound of a clicking light switch came from beside the front door as Janice stepped closer to the dining area.

  "Don't you think I would've tried that by now?" Sarah scolded David.

  "Sorry, Sarah," Janice said. "I wanted to make sure David got here okay."

  The dim glow of moonlight that entered the edge of the window glimmered across Sarah's face as Janice saw her tighten her lips with hatefully pressed eyes at David.

  "What the hell happened?" he asked.

  "Something huge set off the trap outside. Now it's shorted and I have it hardwired to the main breaker. It'll just trip back off if we flip it on."

  "So how do we fix that?" David asked.

  "Someone would have to go out there and unhook the drop cords where they're plugged together in the middle of the backyard." Sarah's voice began to break apart as Janice faintly saw
her set her forehead in her hand.

  "Out there?" David asked. "Didn't really think this through, did you?" His frustration blared in his tone.

  "Fuck you, David." Sarah's voice from the living room didn't sound any more distant, despite Janice feeling her way around to the kitchen through the pitch-black house. Their shouts continued raising above one another in matching volume as Janice finally reached the dim moonlight that shown through the glass pane on the backdoor, shining onto an open panel just beside it. There's the breaker box.

  Janice could still hear them fighting as she turned the doorknob and eased the backdoor open, letting the barely audible sound of the gentle wind inside. One foot at a time, she felt her way from the porch to the cinder block steps that descended into the grass. She grabbed the thick rubber cord that dangled from the porch rail and gave the wall end a hard tug. "That's not going anywhere," she said. Cord in hand, she slid her fingers down its length, venturing further away from the house. The tall, black mountain of trees that bordered Sarah's back yard rose higher to cover the moon in the deep, dark skies as she was now halfway between the house and the forest. The woods snapped alive with mysterious movements from every direction.

  Janice's hand finally reached a bulge of tape bound cord and she started peeling around at it with her fingernails, searching for the end of the tape in the dark. "Dammit, Sarah," she said. As the sounds in the forest grew close, she abandoned her futile search and gave them a tug in both directions. A loud crack sounded from somewhere just behind the shed, certainly closer than the woods. With a hard jerk, she yanked the two cords apart from one another. "There."

  Janice jogged through the grassy yard and hopped onto the porch. She ducked under the rail and rushed to the backdoor where Sarah and David could still be heard arguing from the living room. She fumbled her fingers around the multiple switches until she discovered the large one on top. With a snug push from the bottom, she flipped it up. The house became brightly lit as a few beeping appliances sounded with the air conditioner.

  "What the hell?" Sarah's voice could be clearly heard.

  "Where's Jan?" David asked. Janice strolled toward the living room as David and Sarah rushed around the wall that separated them, almost colliding into her.

  "What the hell did you do, Janice?" Sarah asked with concern in her eyes.

  "I just went out back and unplugged the-"

  "What were you thinking?" David asked loudly. "That thing could still be out there."

  The uneasy confusion that dropped into Janice's stomach reached her feet. She stepped back as Sarah turned to David. "Thanks mister-knight-in-shining-armor. I've got this, okay?" Sarah said.

  Janice looked across the room to the dining area where a large, shiny revolver rested alone on the table. It was the place they had their first meeting about the attacks. Sarah paced past the table, slowing down as she passed it. Janice eyed David as Sarah was turned away. Let's leave. Janice mouthed silently at him with a sharp nod to the front door. Now.

  David glanced around the room before lifting out his hand. "I guess we better go."

  Sarah turned around and stared straight at Janice for the longest second before turning a sideways look at David. She retreated down the hallway and shut her bedroom door just short of a slam. Janice hurried to the front door where she turned to look back. David hesitated, looking down the quiet hallway.

  Janice whispered across the room. "Are we going?"

  She watched his eyes settle slowly toward the carpet as he still faced the hallway. He turned and walked toward her. "Yeah," he said with a sigh.

  Janice started the engine and began backing up in the bumpy driveway as she turned to speak. "There was nothing out there, David."

  His sigh followed a tone of reluctant acceptance. "I figured."

  The occasional flickering streetlight stood alone and far between in the dark, distant stretches of county road as Janice navigated the empty space below the stars on their voyage back home. It seemed there was so much to say that the words themselves clogged her throat for the entire trip until she finally found herself coasting through her neighborhood. Her evenly graveled driveway welcomed the minivan into its carport home.

  "I'm glad you stayed over, David." She tried to continue, but the words again failed her.

  David twisted to look at her from the passenger seat as he reached to open his door. "But?"

  Janice's eyes lowered between the seats for a moment before rising once again. "I think there's something you need to decide on your own." She stepped out and softly shut the driver door before his shut as well.

  David walked beside her as she stepped toward the carport, looking down at the dark gravel until it was replaced by the smooth concrete that led to her stairs. "But I already have, Jan. I've always known," David said from where he stood on just behind her on the bottom step.

  She turned to look down in his deep blue eyes. "No, you haven't," she said softly with a long stare until David broke eye contact, shoving one hand in his pocket while he dragged the other back through his hair.

  Janice stood at the top step as she watched David turn toward his car. "Wait," she said, stopping him mid-turn. "There's something you should know." She watched David look back up at where she stood. "The group chat. Have you checked it since yesterday?"

  The disappointment in his eyes was apparent. "What about it?" he asked.

  "It says that it was seen by Tony. On the morning after Vance-" she stopped her sentence there with a slow nod before she gradually turned to open the door to her kitchen.

  "Goodnight, Jan." His words were cut short by the click of the door she had now pushed shut. The pressure that swelled inside her heart pushed heavy in her throat as she tried to give the door a final lock, but as it erupted into her eyes and streamed down her face, the strength to do so was lost on her.

  Chapter 22

  #Sarah#

  Charred, black film coated the metal wires that formed globulous bulbs of solidified copper where it had melted against the steel posts. The sun blazed on her from above as Sarah squatted in the burnt grass, inspecting carefully while she waited for Terry to arrive. It wasn't even noon yet and she could already tell that it was going to be a scorcher. But this fire hadn't started with the rising sun.

  Sarah rounded the corner of her house just in time to see Terry's new, white car pulling up into the driveway. He didn't bother to turn beside hers as he parked it right where he pulled in. Terry swiftly hopped out before shutting the door and jogging over to her.

  "What do we got?" he asked, eyes open wide behind the lenses that he pressed firmly up the bridge of his nose with his finger.

  "Something set off my trap out back last night,” she said before sinking beneath the wave of disappointment that washed over her as she looked to the ground beside Terry's feet and continued. “But David brought Janice with him shortly after, so it could have been anything."

  "Let's check it out," Terry said as he strolled around her, taking the lead into her unsightly backyard.

  "If you insist." Sarah reluctantly followed.

  "You know, if you need someone to mow the yard for you," Terry said with a glance over his shoulder. "We have a community service group through the church that will do it for a good price."

  "I'm good," Sarah said as they continued toward the burnt wires.

  She folded her arms as Terry kneeled beside the incinerated plant life. "So, I guess you heard," he said.

  "Heard what?" Sarah asked, waiting impatiently for Terry's delayed reply. "If that bitch has something to say about me, she should have let it out last night, when I was... nice enough to not leave her outside!" Sarah held her hand out, pointing toward the front yard.

  Terry rose his head with an open mouth to look Sarah in the eyes. "No. It's not that at all." He looked down as he slowly stood, pulling his phone from his pocket.

  "Well, what the hell is it?" she asked. Her impatience spread into her sweeping hands. It begged her to yank the phone
from him and see for herself, but her self-control won the battle this time.

  "According to the group chat, Tony has been online." Terry's words threatened to crash into Sarah's perfect portrait of Janice sprouting fangs and claws.

  "That doesn't mean anything." Sarah swung her open hand to her side. "Tony never locked anything. He trusted everyone. If Janice has his phone, all she'd have to-"

  Terry's voice interrupted. "Sarah." Behind his eyeglasses, his eyes moved deeper into hers with a calming compassion that misted the red coals in her core. "Search yourself for a minute. Are you sure you're not letting your feelings cloud your judgement?" His hand gently grasped hers, but his calming mist became a sizzle against the embers that still glowed brightly in her soul.

  Sarah smacked his hand away and folded her arms to stare him in the face. "Leave," she said, firmly planted in place.

  "Sarah, I just want to make-"

  "Leave!" she shouted, throwing her finger to point to the driveway.

  Terry nodded as his shoulders slumped and he slowly walked away without another word.

  As he left, the turmoil that raged within her guided Sarah's steps into the house where she promptly sat at the dining room table. She reached for the revolver that still rested where she left it. Lifting the weighty memento of Vance, she turned it over with her hand before laying it in her lap. "It won't be much longer now." Her bloodshot eyes filled heavy as they turned toward the open living room curtains. The window glared with an arid midday blaze that beckoned the call of darkness to consume it.

  #David#

  David's tires burned against the hot pavement to his soft music on his drive through town. In the passenger seat rested a large paper bag filled with two large fries and a grilled chicken sandwich, no tomato, just the way Janice liked it. Leaning over the bag, a plastic-wrapped rose was still fresh enough to scent the interior of his car. It was a spontaneous purchase on his way out of the gas station, but fit the moment perfectly. David exhaled a deep breath as he slowed his approach to hit the turn signal.

  The minivan still sat exactly as it was the night before. David parked just behind it. He grabbed the bag of food with his left hand, rose with his right and hid it behind the bag as he walked to the front steps.