A Long December

by Richard Chizmar

  Tear gas, Drake guessed, his eyes already beginning to sting and water. Trying to smoke me out. He shaded his eyes and ran for the stairs…and tripped face-first on the pile of broken boards. The gun flew from his hand and slid across the floor, settling somewhere near the bottom of the staircase.

  Drake crawled on all fours, fingers groping for the lost weapon. The gas was overpowering now; he could barely open his eyes. His throat felt on fire; he couldn’t stop the coughs that racked his body. No, his mind screamed. It can’t end so easily. Don’t panic now. Suddenly, his fingers touched something metal and cold and he knew it was the gun. Okay, get yourself together now, he thought. Find your way back upstairs. His fingers closed around the rubber hand grip…

  …and were crushed beneath an unseen boot.

  He screamed with pain.

  The boot released.

  Drake sensed movement above him, then felt strong hands pick him up and fling him backwards out the window, onto the waiting lawn several feet below.

  8

  “It is nature’s way, Mr. Drake.” The voice was soft and calm. Unbearably confident. “And it is our way.”

  Drake was stretched out on his back on the dining room table, his arms and legs bound with thick rope. A piece of tape covered his mouth. Jessie sat on a chair at the end of the table. Two men stood behind her.

  They’d surprised him at the bay window, and he’d surprised them right back by fighting like a wildcat. It had taken both men to take him down. One of the men sported a two-inch gash across his forehead and the other man’s lips were cracked and swollen. The third man was still inside the cabin, stuck in the window; he was dead.

  The men rarely spoke, but the woman had spent the past fifteen minutes repeating the same crazy sermon she’d told him earlier over the telephone. “We live by nature’s laws, Mr. Drake. It is our duty to make this earth pure again.” She motioned to one of the men and he removed the tape from Drake’s mouth.

  Drake sucked in air, coating his dry lips with a sweep of his tongue. The back of his head ached from where he’d been struck, and he longed to massage it. His eyes were the worst, though; red and raw.

  “Kill me now,” he hissed. “Just get it over with.”

  “Oh, but we have no intentions of killing you. We only kill when necessary to achieve our final objective, and you, Mr. Drake, are exactly that. By allowing you to live, by allowing the world to witness our power, we will set the highest possible example and hopefully deter future sinners from walking your path. Mother Earth’s message will be heard across the country very soon, thanks to you.”

  “You’re…you’re all crazy. My God, you killed Colin for no reason. You chased me all over the country because of a damn book.”

  “Ah, but a very popular book. A book that will, unfortunately, be read by millions. We told you, the film is only an extension of your vision. It is your message that must be stopped.”

  He spoke without thinking: “I’ll never stop writing.”

  “But you will, Mr. Drake. We will make sure of that. I know we have met once before, but allow me to formally introduce myself. I am Jessie Moore. Doctor Jessica Moore. And these two gentlemen with me are…”

  9

  Excerpted from the Monday evening edition of the Baltimore Sun:

  BALTIMORE—Bestselling crime novelist, Thomas Drake, was discovered early this morning suffering from shock and severe dehydration at his country home in the Western Maryland wilderness. The local author was flown to the University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Unit, where he is listed in serious but stable condition.

  Though officials declined to discuss details of Drake’s condition, the father-and-son team of hunters who stumbled upon the gruesome scene, Jim and Jeffrey Cavanaugh of Cumberland, claimed that the local author was suffering from bizarre wounds and was close to death when they first found him.

  “The first thing I noticed was that both his hands were missing, gone right at the wrist,” said the elder Cavanaugh.

  “There were bloody bandages wrapped over the stumps, but they were full of dirt and green pus and he didn’t even seem to notice. He was crazy as a goat, eyes staring all big and wide, slobbering all over himself, mumbling about his Mother and the earth and something about nature’s way. It was spooky as hell.”

  “And then we figured out why he was so hard to understand,” continued the son, Jeffrey Cavanaugh. “Someone had cut out his tongue.”

  Ironically, Drake’s latest novel The Prey, sparked by controversy over the recent film release, debuted at the number one spot on the New York Times paperback best-sellers list yesterday and…

  10

  “Stupid.” Although whispered, the single word echoed about the small hospital room. It was a small white-walled room; a private room with a washing sink, sitting couch, a single bed, and the usual tangle of hospital machinery. A skeleton of a girl lay stretched atop the white sheets, a clear mask covering her nose and mouth. Her long dark hair, its luster faded, snaked across the pillow. Her eyes were closed.

  “How could I be so stupid? I failed you again, my dear Chelsea.” Jessie, dressed in a conservative business suit, held a page from the New York Times vertically for her daughter to see. Thomas Drake’s The Prey was still perched atop the paperback list: eight weeks and counting. After a moment, she lowered the paper to her lap.

  “How could I be so stupid?” she repeated, as if insisting on an answer. “We knocked him out of commission, sent an important message, but our actions were merely counterproductive. The damn book is selling: even now his filth is spreading to the people.”

  She stood and unlocked the safety rail on the left side of the bed. “What shall we do, sweetheart?” she asked. “Help me see the light.” The bar lowered and Jessie leaned down and cuddled against the cool side of her daughter’s body. She slipped the mask down and softly kissed the girl’s lips, then replaced the mask.

  She sat down again on the stiff hospital chair and, as was her custom, began reading to Chelsea. Sometimes she read books or magazine articles, but always the newspaper first…to keep her daughter abreast of current events. Now, she read from the Times entertainment section. The lead article was about New York’s revitalized publishing world. Industry numbers were skyrocketing. Hardcover sales were up forty percent; softcover sales nearing fifty. Companies were expanding.

  She finished the article, dropped the newspaper to her lap, and watched her daughter’s lifeless face for a reaction, for an answer to her plea for help. Chelsea had targeted both Forrester and Drake, but Jessie knew it was she who had failed in the latter plan’s execution. Now, as Chelsea told her what to do next, Jessie’s pulse quickened.

  “Yes, yes,” she said, her enthusiasm mounting, a plan forming in her mind. “We won’t fail you, baby girl. We’ll go right to the top this time.”

  She ran a polished fingernail over the black-and-white photograph—of Putnam’s CEO and Vice President, standing together, smiling—then slashed the photo to shreds with a sweep of her nail and said: “We’ll go right to the top.”

  HOMESICK

  Timmy Bradley hates his new house.

  He hates the slippery, shiny floors and the long, winding hallways and the big fancy rugs. He hates the stupid, ugly paintings on the walls and all the weird looking statues that sit on the furniture. He hates just about everything.

  Including the strange way that his father and mother have been acting ever since they moved here. To this house.

  He sits alone in his bedroom—lights off, door closed—looking out the window at the darkened city. Crying.

  Timmy misses his old house and the way things used to be when they lived there. He misses his friends and Sarah and he even misses his school. But he especially misses the way that his father—even though he’d been busy back then, too; after all, his father had been the Governor of Massachusetts for goodness sake—used to take time out to play with him each and every day. That’s what they had called it back in those days—“
time out.” No matter what was going on, his father always found a few minutes to go out for a walk with Timmy or play a card game or watch some television. Sometimes he would even take Timmy along on a short trip when it didn’t interfere with school and his mother said it was okay.

  None of this happens anymore.

  His father is always surrounded by people now. And on those few occasions when he is alone or just with the family, his father is always so quiet and serious. And distant. Nothing at all like the goofball who once danced around Timmy’s bedroom with a pair of Jockey shorts on his head or the father who once bounced on his bed so hard that the frame broke and they laid there giggling for what had to be fifteen minutes.

  This house has changed him, Timmy thinks.

  He moves away from the window. He sits on the edge of his bed and stares at the back of the bedroom door. He is no longer crying.

  Timmy knows that his mother is trying to make things better for him. She, too, is much busier now, but still she plays with him a lot more often than before and seems intent on kissing him on the cheek at least a hundred times each day. Or at least it feels like a hundred times.

  And, of course, once or twice a week she gives him her little speech: “You have to understand, Timmy. Daddy’s job was important before, but now he’s the President. For the next few years he’s going to be very, very busy with real important things. But you’ll get used to it here; it’s such a beautiful house. It really is…”

  That is part one of the speech; some days he gets part two; other days, he gets both: “…And soon you’ll meet new friends and find fun and exciting things to do. You just have to be more patient and remember, we all have to make sacrifices. Especially your father. Don’t you think he’d rather spend time with us than go to all those stuffy meetings and dinners? Of course he would. He misses us, too. Just remember, sweetheart, he’s the President now, and that’s a very big deal…”

  Timmy almost always comes away from these talks feeling sad and lonely and a little guilty. Jeez. What can you say to all that talk when you’re only twelve years old?

  Some days—usually on those days when his father smiles at him the way he used to or spends a few extra minutes with him after dinner—Timmy thinks that his mother might be right. That things might turn out okay after all. He thinks this because sometimes if he concentrates long and hard enough, he can remember not being so happy in their old house for those first few weeks after they’d moved it.

  Back then, like now, there were so many adjustments to make. All the fancy stuff he wasn’t allowed to touch. All the secret service men and the stupid security rules he had to memorize. The stiff, new clothes he had to wear and all the dumb pictures he had to dress up for. And, worst of all, he remembers, all those boring parties he had to go to.

  When Timmy thinks back to all those things and how, over time, he’d learned to live with them, he sometimes thinks he is just being a baby. A big, fat crybaby, just like he’d heard his father whisper one night last week when he thought Timmy wasn’t listening: “I’ve got to get going now, dear. I’ll talk to him later. Besides, he’s just being a baby again.”

  Timmy sits back on his bed and listens to his father call him a baby. (He’s just being a baby again. Being a baby.) Just thinking about that night hurts his feelings all over again, makes his face red and hot and sweaty. And it also makes him angry.

  Who is he to call me a baby, Timmy thinks. He’s the one who messed everything up. He’s the one who made us come here in the first place.

  Timmy looks up at the picture frame on his dresser at the pretty smiling blond girl in the photo. His stare locks on the wrinkled pink envelope sitting next to it.

  Dear Timmy,

  I got your letter and the package. Thanks so much; it’s sooo beautiful. This letter is so short because I have to eat dinner in a couple of minutes. My mom says I have to stop mooning over you, can you believe that she actually said that…that I was mooning over you? Anyway, she said that I was wrong to promise you that we’d still go steady and she made me go to the dance with Henry Livingston this past weekend. I ended up having a lot of fun. Henry sure can fast dance. Not as much fun as I would have had with you, but what can we do?—you being there and me being stuck back here. Henry asked me to go to the movies with him on Friday and I told him yes. He’s a bunch of fun, not like you, but what can we do? So, I guess we’re not going steady or anything anymore. My mother’s making me show her this letter before I mail it, so she’ll know I “broke it off.” Sorry. Those are her words, not mine. I miss you, Timmy, and I’ll write again soon if my mom lets me. She said she has to think about it. Please write back as soon as you can and don’t be mad, okay?

  Love, Sarah

  P.S. Henry said to say hi and don’t be mad at him.

  Timmy feels the tears coming and looks away from the picture. But it’s too late. He’s already crying. Again. Jeez, maybe he is a baby. Maybe his father is right about him after all.

  But that doesn’t matter now. Timmy no longer cares what his father thinks. Besides, he knows this is different than last time. Last time they moved he didn’t get sick, he didn’t cry, he didn’t have nightmares. This time is different, he thinks.

  He looks at the bedroom door and wonders what is happening downstairs. He figures it is just a matter of time now. If all goes according to his plan, he’ll be back in Massachusetts in time for soccer season. Back holding hands and walking home from school with Sarah. Back playing video games and tag-team and roller-ball with all his friends (except for that back-stabber Henry Livingston).

  Timmy looks at the clock on the wall. It is after seven o’clock—Sarah and Henry are probably inside the movie theater by now—and he wonders again why it is still so quiet outside his bedroom.

  Just be patient, he thinks. Just like his mother always says, you have to be more patient, Timmy. To pass the time, he tries to imagine everything as it has happened. Inside his head, he watches himself as he…

  …pours the poison directly into their coffee, careful not to get any on the edge of the cups or on the tray. Then he swirls it around real good with his finger until all the white powder disappears. Finally, he pretends to stretch out on the sofa and read a comic book but he really waits and watches them take their first sips, then tiptoes upstairs to his room.

  He looks at the clock again. He can’t imagine what’s taking so long.

  He walks to the window and sits down with his back to the door. He wonders what movie Sarah is watching. He thinks of her there in the dark, eating popcorn and sipping soda, Henry’s fingers touching her hand. Closing his eyes, he whispers a quick prayer. He asks only that everything goes according to his plan. That soon it will all be over and they will send him home again. Back to Sarah. Back to his friends. Back to his old house.

  A few minutes past eight, when he hears the loud, angry voices and the heavy footsteps outside his door, he knows that his prayer has been answered. He is going home.

  DEVIL’S NIGHT

  ONE

  It all started on a wind-blown Friday night in October. It was the night before Halloween, the night we always called Wreck Night or Devil’s Night back when we were kids and Halloween was second in our hearts only to Christmas.

  At least the newspapers got that much right. The day, I mean. They pretty much screwed up the rest of the story.

  I was there that night. Let me tell you what really happened…

  TWO

  In the chill autumn months after my first child was born, I spent many late night hours driving the streets of my hometown. It practically became a routine. Two, three nights a week, around about midnight, I’d creep into the nursery one final time to check on the baby (a healthy boy named Joshua after my father) and then I’d kiss my amused wife goodnight and off I’d go, driving the streets in random routes until my eyes went blurry and my spine sprouted kinks the size of quarters.

  Driving and thinking. Thinking and driving. Some nights with the radio. Mos
t nights in silence.

  That was a little more than four years ago, but I still go out and drive some nights. Just not very often now; maybe once or twice a month, tops.

  My wife, Janice, is wonderful (and wise) and she’s known me for more than half of my thirty-six years, so she innately understands the need for these trips of mine. We rarely talk about it, but she somehow knows that this town where we both grew up and still live today, this town—its streets and houses and storefronts and lawns and sidewalks and the very sky above—gives me a real sense of peace and understanding I could never hope to find elsewhere. I know how funny that sounds, how old-fashioned, but it’s the best and probably the only way I know how to describe my feelings for this place.

  When little Josh was born it was an event that thrilled me to new heights, but also deeply troubled me. That’s actually a pretty big understatement, the part about it troubling me. You see…I worried about the baby. I worried about my wife. I worried a lot about myself. I worried a lot period. There were just so many new and important questions, and more and more of them seemed to be born with each passing day.

  Could I be a good father?

  Could I provide for the family with just a teacher’s salary?

  Could I protect the baby from a world so different than the one I grew up in?

  Fact is, I never found the answers to most of the hard questions that arose during that period in my life—hell, most of them still exist today—but the answers that I did find usually came to me during those midnight drives. They got me through some rough times.

  So, you see, that’s the reason I went out for a ride on that windy Friday evening. There were budget problems at school to be dealt with the following week and budget problems at home to be dealt with that very weekend, and I needed a dose of cool night air to help clear my head. We were just recently a family of four, having added a terribly fussy but nonetheless adorable baby girl to the mix. Josh and the baby were sound asleep and Janice was upstairs resting, a few hundred pages into one of those romance paperbacks she loves so much. The house was just too damn quiet. It was seven minutes past nine o’clock when I steered a hard left out of our driveway.