On Tenterhooks

by Greever Williams

  The steps led to his daughter’s dorm room on the sixth floor. He rarely took the elevator; climbing these stairs was his only regular workout.

  Maybe not a workout by most standards. But since I visit almost every weekend, at least it is regular.

  He paused to catch his breath at the clean, well-lit fourth-floor landing. The stairwell was silent, as usual. Fire drills were the only reason the dorm’s inhabitants would bother with the stairs.

  “Ought to be,” he mused, “with what I am paying in tuition!”

  The red emergency phone gleamed in contrast to the brightly lit walls around it. He leaned on the wall next to the phone and cleared his throat. The echo catapulted to the ground level, and then bounced back up at him.

  He turned and grabbed the cool steel railing, pulling himself up the last two flights of stairs. Opening the fire door, he was relieved to be out of the sterile glare of the stairwell lights. Here in the hallway, the lights were much more subdued, and the carpet was a welcome relief from the unyielding steel steps.

  “All’s quiet here,” he thought. No echoing of footsteps on stairs, no clinking discord as his metal watchband hit the steel railing. Just calm lights, soothing tufted wool and quiet.

  “Since when is a girl’s dormitory quiet on a Friday night?” he asked himself.

  Where were the pounding bass, the shrill buzzes and beeps of two dozen smart phones and laptops? Why was there no giggling, no chattering from the twenty-something girls who lived on this floor with his daughter Maggie? He had expected girls everywhere, primping with hairdryers in hand and shouting back and forth to each other about what to wear for the night’s sorority mixer.

  He picked up his pace toward Maggie’s room. The persistent been-here-before feeling inched darkly toward dread as he walked the dormitory hall. It was dead quiet—unheard of on a Friday night.

  And why am I even here on a Friday night?

  He always picked Maggie up around noon on Saturdays. He’d take her to lunch or a movie, talk about her classes, life in general. But never on a Friday! He knew there had been a perfectly good reason for the change in routine; but he couldn’t put his finger on it now. He reached her room, the last on the left, and knocked on the door.

  “Maggie, honey?” he asked through the door. “It’s Daddy, sweetie.”

  No response. He could see light under the door. He knocked again, softly.

  “Mags?” he repeated through the door.

  He heard rustling. Was someone moving across the carpet? He saw a shadow move under the door, but still no response. He grabbed the handle of the door and turned. Locked.

  He pounded the door with his fist.

  “Maggie!” he shouted at the door. “It’s your father! Open the door. Mags, what’s wrong?”

  He heard a faint cry — Maggie’s cry. He cursed. He frisked himself, searching his pockets.

  “Damn!” he said. He’d left his cell phone in the car. He turned and pounded on the door across the hall. No response. He considered sprinting back to the stairwell, using the emergency phone to call for help. He was afraid to leave her. He turned back to her door.

  “Maggie, it’s okay!” he shouted. “I’m gonna try to break down the door, honey! Move away from it if you can!”

  The shadow beneath the door shifted. He backed up across the hallway.

  “Just like on the cop shows,” he whispered. He took a giant step forward, and then smashed against the door with his right foot using all the power his six-foot five, two-hundred pound frame could manage. The door rattled against its frame, but didn’t budge. The pain in his leg was a firestorm. He cried out and fell on the plush carpet, with its now-faded plaid rendition of the school colors. He’d broken his ankle; the knowledge was as certain as the pain. From behind the door, he heard a girl scream.

  “No!” he screamed back. “I’m coming, baby! Hold on!”

  He pulled himself up using the doorknob. He backed up again across the hall and gritted his teeth. He knew it would permanently damage him, but he didn’t care. Maggie was behind that door, and she was in trouble.

  “Gonna do it!” He focused his mind on the door. He would break it down. He took a deep breath and held it. Leaning gingerly on his right leg, he stepped forward on his left leg. At the last moment, he clenched his thigh muscles, pushing all of his force into his shattered right ankle. He connected with the door, directly above the doorknob. He heard the wood shatter at the same time he felt and heard a wet popping sound at his knee. He screamed once again, this time in sheer agony. The pain was a white light of fire racing through his body. He collapsed in the doorway, as the door itself flew open wide.

  Propping himself up on his elbows, struggling to rise above the pain, Martin saw Maggie. She was lying on her bed, face up. Her eyes were sunken and glazed, surrounded with deep circles of purple. Her face was a pale gray. Her hair hung in matted clumps around her face, glistening with sweat.

  Standing above her was a thin man in a dark suit. He tipped his black-brimmed hat to Martin with a crooked half-smile. Martin’s first thought was that Maggie had died, and this man was administering priestly last rites.

  “No!” he screamed. “Maggie!”

  At the sound of his voice, Maggie blinked, and she focused on him for the first time.

  “Daddy?” she whispered. “Daddy, help!”

  Martin tried to pull himself up. The stranger began to pant, smiling and staring at Martin.

  Rut rut rut rut

  Martin forced himself up, steadied his elbows on the floor in front of him, and tried to crawl toward the bed, his useless right leg dangling behind him. He tried to pull himself across the floor. The stranger continued the vile panting, like laughter, watching with an amused smirk on his face.

  Left elbow up, right elbow down. Right elbow up, left elbow down; over and over. But Martin couldn’t gain any ground. He was still in the doorway. “Leave her alone!” he screamed. The fire in his leg was intense, and he felt helpless.

  The stranger’s laughter stopped and he turned to Martin holding up his hands like a magician. The long, bony fingers were an eerie translucent white. Martin could see ugly blue veins pulsing in the flesh just beneath. Then the man crossed them in front of each other repeatedly until they became a white blur in the air. When he finally stopped, flourishing his fingers like a Japanese fan, each became a massive cluster of foot-long syringes with needles of glistening steel. White tendrils of smoke floated from the end of each needle. Even from the floor, Martin could see bubbling black tar in each syringe.

  The stranger tinkled the needless together on each hand. They chimed in time with the rhythm of his hands.

  “No!” screamed Martin, crying. He pushed himself up to crawl toward her again.

  The stranger turned and stepped up on the balls of his feet. He sucked in air through pursed lips, raising his arms wide, like a giant bird of prey stretching his wings to take flight. With the grace of a dancer, he held his arms up in the air above Maggie, tinkling the massive needles again. Maggie’s eyes followed the movement above her, but she remained still. The stranger cackled once and plunged all of his finger needles into the soft flesh of her belly, through her shirt, through her skin and through her bone.

  “Maggie!” Martin cried. From behind, he felt an iron grip pick him up by his left ankle and fling him through the doorway into the wall. Darkness.

  Martin woke up in his bathroom, sweat-drenched and sobbing. He was lying sideways in his bathtub. Every time, it was the same dream. Every time, he could see Maggie there, in pain, but he could never reach her. Every time, he felt like he’d been there before. But during the dream, Martin couldn’t remember what happened next or that he’d ever witnessed the scene. Each time it played through his mind, it was new and just as terrifying as the last. When he woke, he’d be aching, sobbing and somewhere other than his bed.

  The dreams were frequent—twice in the past week. Maggie had died nearly two months ago yet the dreams remained
persistent and painful. Martin could only guess at the details of the accidental overdose that took Maggie’s life on that Friday night. Beyond that, he chalked the horror of the dream up to the stress and the pain of losing his only child.

  Chapter 5

  “Guess what? I forgot to tell you! You know Martin, the pharmacist I was telling you about?”

  Pause.

  “Yeah, the one whose daughter just died. Well get this—I have to help him do the pharmacy inventory next weekend.”

  Pause.

  “I know. It totally sucks!”

  That’s all Martin could hear through the thin walls of the break room at the back of the pharmacy as Tina, one of the store’s cascade of teen cashiers, talked on her cell phone.

  “I’m gonna miss the Atomic Raisin concert on Saturday, and I heard today that Shopping Maul was gonna be a special guest. This totally blows. I love them, and now I don’t even get to see the show! I’d blow off this inventory thing, but I think he’d have me fired or something. He used to be pretty cool, but lately he’s all grumpy all the time.”

  Martin was sitting on a stool, sorting capsules on a tray, while his assistant, Kathie, stood near the cash register waiting for customers. He shook his head as he tried to concentrate on his work rather than Tina’s cellular rant. Kathie turned to face him. He sighed, but continued counting.

  “Funny how expecting people to work for their pay and stick with a job makes me ‘grumpy’ these days,” said Martin, more to himself than to Kathie.

  The rosy cheeks on Kathie’s full face lifted in a smile.

  “Ignore it, Martin. She’s an idiot. Teenagers are all idiots. Remember how bad I had it with Roy when he got into high school?” She continued without waiting for an answer. “That boy was hell on wheels! And then when he got his driver’s license? Lordie! I thought we were done for! Staying out late, drinking beer and shooting his .410 down by the river? My God, him and his daddy about came to blows several times!”

  She chuckled and then sighed, shaking her head. Martin smiled at the story he had heard a dozen times before, continuing to count the pills.

  “Yes sir, he was trouble. They all are!” she lamented.

  She paused, lost in years past.

  “He grew out of it though,” she continued. “We’re so proud of him now. College degree, good job. You’ll see Martin, as soon as Maggie. . .”

  She stopped short and sucked in air the way she always did when she was flustered. He knew the sound well, after working with her for the better part of his 22 years at the pharmacy. He paused his counting, but didn’t look up. He took off his thick-framed glasses and set them on the counter, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger—his age-old way of heading off a headache.

  “Oh my God, Martin,” said Kathie, tears welling in her eyes. “I am so sorry. I get to flappin’ my gums so much sometimes that I get ahead of myself. Oh God, Martin.”

  “It’s okay, Kathie. It’s okay.”

  He couldn’t blame her. Maggie had only been gone for two months. Death created all sorts of conversational gaffs. And he was grumpy anyway. Lack of good sleep was catching up with him.

  “No, it’s not,” she insisted. “I would never purposely disrespect the memory of your daughter. You know I loved her. And I love you and June. . .and you’ve just had that divorce. . .and now this on top of it. . .and I can’t imagine how you are feeling now. . .and I made it worse. . .and now I don’t know how to fix it. . .” Her words trailed off into tears.

  He stood from his work and hugged her. He was a foot taller than she was. He pulled her in and squeezed her shoulders.

  “Kathie, it’s okay.”

  She sobbed for a moment and drew away from him, sniffling. When she went to the back of the pharmacy to find a tissue, Martin returned to the counter, pulled his stool up and sat down to recount the pills. Tina’s conversation continued at a distracting volume behind the wall. He flipped on the small radio he kept on the counter and turned it up to drown out her words.

  Chapter 6

  Susan Nikko paused before knocking on her daughter’s bedroom door.

  “Abby?” her mother asked, standing outside the doorway of her bedroom. “Can I come in?”

  “Sure,” replied Abby, stretched out on her bed. She took out her earbuds and set her music player on the nightstand.

  Smiling as she walked in, Susan sat on the foot of the queen-sized bed and stared at her teen-aged daughter, still in her silk pajamas. With her long, curly, blonde hair, deep emerald eyes and full lips, Abby was beautiful, effortlessly so, and didn’t really know it.

  Although Abby would always be her little girl, Susan was amazed at how much the child had grown up in the last few years. Her eyes trailed across Abby’s bedroom. Posters of country bands canvassed one wall. On the opposite side were her pop idols and heroes of hip-hop. Admittedly, she preferred her daughter’s country music tastes, but she didn’t discourage any of the girl’s listening habits. Lately, Susan had decided the music was probably a good medication for Abby.

  Across the room, the desk was a mess of schoolbooks, paperbacks and psychology journals. Abby’s laptop seemed to teeter on the edge. Yesterday’s clothes and her backpack hung from the back of the chair. Her dresser was clean and closed. The nightstand held an alarm clock, her music player and a reading lamp. Her closet was closed, and her hamper bulged only slightly.

  Pretty darn clean for a teenager.

  Opposite the bed, newspaper clippings, mostly from the Sports pages, filled a bulletin board. Susan perused the familiar titles: Nikko Leads S Tech to Fourth Victory of the Season, Zack the Attack As Quarterback Does Just That in Saturday’s Away Game, Freshman S Tech Quarterback Shows Promise, On and Off the Field.

  Then Susan spied one of the more recent ones, and her eyes stung: S Tech’s Zack Nikko Dies in Freak Sideline Accident. She turned back to Abby, who was watching her.

  “Sweetie, it’s almost eleven o’clock,” she said. “It’s a beautiful Saturday morning. Do you think you might join us downstairs?”

  Her tone was light, loving and full of concern.

  “Sure, Mom. I just didn’t sleep all that well last night.”

  “Thinking of Zack again?” her mother asked.

  Abby nodded.

  “You know, Abby, we could go back to the doctor—get you something to help you relax.”

  “Thanks, Mom, But it’s not that. My body feels relaxed, but when I’m in bed, at the end of the day, when I try to go to sleep, my mind goes crazy. I keep thinking of him.”

  Susan gently pushed Abby’s long golden bangs out of her eyes.

  “I miss him, Mom, I really do.”

  “Oh sweetie,” Susan replied. She crawled up the bed and lay down, pulling the rose-colored comforter up around both of them.

  “I know you do. I do, too. We all do.”

  They were silent for a moment. As her mother gently smoothed her hair, Abby snuggled closer.

  “I’ve been thinking that maybe I shouldn’t go to S Tech anymore,” she blurted.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because, Mom, think about it. Those people had Zack on the brain. He was the ‘football hero.’ Jeez— he was the football team.”

  “Abby, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go to school there. Football isn’t everything.”

  “Oh please, Mom. They gave him a name! Do you know what that means? You don’t get a football nickname for no reason, especially at a college like S Tech! Zack “the Attack” Nikko isn’t something people are going to forget anytime soon!”

  “I’m not asking you to forget him!” It came out stronger than she had intended. She sighed.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” Susan continued carefully. “I am not expecting anyone to forget your brother. I don’t want anyone to forget him. But S Tech is a huge school, and they have a great Psych program for you. I thought that’s what you wanted to do.”

  “It was. . .it is! Argggh. . .I don’t know wha
t I want anymore.”

  Abby turned and buried her face and screamed into the pillow. She sobbed. Susan rubbed her daughter’s back with the same light touch she had used for years to tuck her into bed. After a few minutes, Abby rolled over, wiping her eyes and sniffling.

  “I do want to go there Mom. It’s the only place I want to go. Ever since you and Dad took us there when we were little kids, it’s been my dream to go there. You know that.”

  “Good.”

  “But now that Zack’s gone, I’m scared it will seem, well. . .weird. What if people know who I am? What if they ask me about Zack?”