The Face of Midnight

by Dan Padavona

  I swung the bike off the sidewalk and bounced over the curb. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a dark shape accelerating at me across the sidewalk. I pedaled faster with no idea what I fled from, only that the black ferocity of its pursuit scared the hell out me. I wished I wasn’t alone on the streets in the dark.

  The lamplight caught the face of a man with an insane grin on his face. He emerged from under a canopy of leaves, riding a bicycle that looked at least two sizes too small for him. His knees nearly touched his chest when he pedaled. Racing emblems covered the frame. The man’s face was young but haggard, pockmarked by acne scars.

  I tried not to look at him and crossed the road toward Main Street. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him slash across the street, cackling psychotically as he angled toward me. As small as it was, his bike was built for racing, and he had little trouble catching up to me.

  “Where ya headed, boy?”

  He rode side-by-side with me, his pedals nearly clipping mine. I envisioned the bikes wrapping together, both of us flying over the handlebars and landing on the unforgiving macadam.

  “You deaf and dumb?”

  “Store,” I said.

  I looked straight ahead, doing a lousy job of not appearing scared.

  “Store, eh? There’s only one thing worth lookin’ for this time of night. I bet you’re out hunting for pussy, aren’t ya?”

  “I don’t want any trouble. Just want to get to the store before it closes.”

  “Ah, hell. You ain’t going to the store. You’re dressed for the dark. You a rapist, boy? Maybe a cold-blooded killer? Ha! That’s it—I’ve caught me The Midnight Killer.”

  “No.”

  I pedaled faster, my heart pounding as the cold October night tore into me. The stranger tirelessly paced me.

  “You can’t lie to me, boy. This is my world and you’re trespassing in it. The mayor knows everything that goes on in this town, and if you want to get to where you’re going without trouble, you’ll start telling the mayor the truth.”

  We cut down Main Street. I saw two people enter a mini market a block away. Otherwise, the street was deserted. I prayed for a police cruiser to drive past.

  “I’m telling you the truth. I just want to get to the store.”

  “Oh yeah? Which store?”

  My mind fumbled through the store names on this side of town.

  “That’s what I thought,” the stranger said.

  I changed strategy, opting to ride without acknowledging him.

  “You can’t ignore me. I’m not going away.”

  He swung the bike in a wide arc away from me, then angled back as though he meant to run me off the road. I swerved, my pedals nearly scraping the curb. The stranger shrieked laughter.

  When he swerved away and made another run at me, I called his bluff and held my ground. I gritted my teeth as our knees touched.

  “Hee-hee! This is fun, ain’t it?”

  As we cut onto Old State Road, I realized I was leading him to my stowaway girl. Through slashes of lamplight and darkness, Park Place emerged a half-mile away.

  Where could I lead him so he was faraway from her?

  He reached into his jacket.

  Christ, did he carry a gun?

  “How much money you got, boy?”

  So that was it. He was going to rob me. Then kill me.

  “I asked you a question. How much money you got?”

  “None.”

  “None? I thought you said you were going to the store? You can’t buy nothin’ without money.”

  “I don’t give a shit what I said. Where I’m going isn’t any of your damn business.”

  The stranger howled at the moonless sky.

  “Balls the size of cantaloupes. Too bad you’re wound tighter than a ten-day clock. I’ll fix that.”

  He reached back into his jacket.

  He’s going to shoot me.

  I searched for escape routes.

  Houses lined the street. If I suddenly swung into a driveway, I might lose him.

  Or he’d follow and shoot me on some stranger’s property.

  His hand surfaced from the jacket holding a plastic bag full of a powdery substance. Narcotics.

  “Behold,” he said, grinning. “You want to meet God?”

  “Not interested. Get that shit away from me.”

  Chuckling, he pushed the bag into his pocket and brought out a glass case of needles. His eyes were watery, gray nothingness.

  “Oh, so you want the really good stuff?”

  I rushed ahead. He caught up.

  The Lance Armstrong of junkies. I would have laughed had I not been so frightened.

  Park Place whipped past. The lights of storefronts shone far up the road, offering potential salvation if I could get there. Something told me he’d never allow me to get that far. He’d kill me, probably jam a rusty blade into my ribs and leave me to bleed out on the shoulder.

  I pushed the bike faster. The lamp lights were a blur now, the bumpy road threatening to upend me.

  A glint of light caught my eye. The stranger flashed something at me.

  A knife?

  We careened over train tracks. My heart surged into my throat as I nearly lost balance.

  The stranger vanished in a pool of darkness. He reappeared like a wraith under the next light.

  Something sharp pricked my arm.

  I jerked the bike away as the leering psycho tried to inject me with a needle.

  How many diseases dripped off the tip? Aids? Hepatitis? What had he tried to inject me with?

  When he came at me with the needle again, I grabbed his wrist and twisted.

  Our eyes locked.

  “Don’t fight it,” he screamed.

  I felt his arm wriggling free and slammed a fist into his jaw.

  The front wheel of his bike wobbled, and the stranger flipped sideways and slammed shoulder-first against the pavement.

  Thighs and lungs screaming, I pumped faster.

  “You can’t hide from the mayor! I’ll track you down and kill you, boy!”

  I flew past restaurants and storefronts, the psychotic stranger’s screams fading into the night. When I felt reasonably sure he wasn’t back on his bike and following me, I swung behind the department store.

  Breaking down cardboard boxes for the recycling container, a gruff-looking man watched me as I whirred past.

  Out of breath, I stopped behind the strip mall. Fans blew greasy scents out of a restaurant’s window vent. Lights flickered off inside chain stores, throwing the back lot into darkness. I listened for the crazy junkie and his bicycle. He was somewhere in the night hunting for me. He’d kill me if he caught me again.

  A car door slammed, making my heart skip. The lights of a sports car swept over my face as one of the last store employees to leave drove home for the night.

  Now it was just me and the crow-feather darkness. It felt as though Park Place and the girl existed on the other side of the world.

  I had to track her down, but the junkie might have been anywhere between the strip mall and Park Place, waiting for me to ride by.

  I started to feel the night’s cold. It had been there before, but I’d been too frightened to notice.

  When I cautiously rode out from behind the strip mall, the only vehicles left in the lot were parked in front of the restaurant.

  Bass thumped as a car drove toward the center of town. Otherwise, the road was deserted.

  The junkie was out there. I could feel him.

  I biked along the edge of the parking lot, keeping to where the lamp light failed to thwart the shadows. Dead leaves crunched under the bike tires.

  Although I could have ridden back to Park Place in five minutes, I jumped off my bike and walked it down the sidewalk. Where the lights were bright, I avoided the walkway and cut across shadowed lawns. The grass was wet with dew. It felt as though I was the only person alive in town.

  Still, someone might have been hiding in the bushes or behin
d the trees. I doubted the junkie could go undetected in this area of the city where property values were high and neighborhood watch signs warned away criminals.

  Now and then, a car would pass.

  It seemed I’d walked for hours when I crept around a hedgerow and nearly bumped into the sign for Park Place. Seeing the upscale homes and mansions lit up like Christmas trees melted away my fears. No psycho would dare come into this neighborhood, not with Buster the dog patrolling.

  I saw the stowaway girl’s house on the far end of the cul-de-sac.

  Why would a beautiful girl from a rich family sneak into my car? What did she want with me?

  On the front porch of the corner mansion, letters hung from a string and spelled HAPPY HALLOWEEN, the greeting fluttering with the wind. Next door, people laughed inside a two-story home with a raised balcony. Through translucent curtains I saw them gathered around an ornate table, dealing cards. I smelled pizza. My stomach growled.

  I watched for Buster and his owner, for anyone who might recognize the strange guy who’d slipped through their neighborhood last night. I was the lone adventurer exploring this nighttime kingdom.

  Some of the homes were dark, including the girl’s house. Was she asleep for the night? I doubted it; it wasn’t yet nine. She might be out for another night stroll.

  Maybe she was right behind me.

  Feeling the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, I swung around. Empty sidewalk extended back to the thoroughfare.

  More houses passed, and then I stood before the girl’s gray Cape Cod.

  It wasn’t the biggest, richest-looking house in the neighborhood, but it had one of the largest yards. It stood well back from the cul-de-sac, a long, winding driveway passing between towering oak trees which lent an added layer of privacy. Front lawn maples, oaks, and elms formed a natural barrier between the home and its neighborhood. Autumn leaves covered the lawn, choking the grass.

  Strange.

  I figured a family with enough money to afford such a nice home would pay someone to rake and manicure the lawn if they were too lazy to handle the job themselves.

  Hiding my bicycle between the trees, I crossed the lawn and knelt beside a line of shrubbery following the meandering driveway.

  No signs of movement inside the house, no lights.

  My curiosity piqued, I crept down the driveway, staying close to the bushes.

  I knew I’d entered dangerous territory: I was trespassing. To anyone watching, I’d appear as a cat burglar.

  The hot glare of headlights swept over my head. I stupidly froze when I should have dropped to the ground.

  Shit.

  The lights whipped across the Cape Cod as the car turned into a driveway a few houses away. The car door slammed, followed by the beep of a security system’s activation. Blood thrummed through my temples as I waited for the driver to shout that a prowler was loose in the neighborhood.

  The man from the car shuffled up his porch steps and disappeared inside.

  I exhaled. He hadn’t seen me.

  Following the driveway to a detached three-car garage, I peeked through the windows.

  Something huge and bulky loomed in the corner.

  I jumped back. What if the junkie was inside the garage?

  Ridiculous.

  My heart was a pickaxe chipping ice off my throat as I crept back to the window.

  Two car spaces were unoccupied. The bulky shape in the corner was a car under a blanket. Probably a vintage sports car or something valuable enough to protect from the elements.

  No other vehicles in the garage, and the girl walks everywhere she goes.

  None of it made sense to me. Maybe her parents were out of town and she wasn’t allowed to drive the expensive car under the blanket.

  Edging along the garage, I noticed the backyard was enclosed by a tall wooden fence, providing additional privacy to the isolated home. A dark mass of trees swayed behind the fence, marking where wilderness began.

  The back windows, including a sliding glass door to a concrete patio, were dark. I didn’t like it. I couldn’t be sure someone wasn’t watching me from inside the house.

  The breeze carried a car motor from down the street. I lay in the cool, wet grass until I was sure the car was headed toward the Old State Road intersection. Brushing grass off my shirt, I rushed to the house and flattened myself against the siding between a window and the deck door. I feared a face would be in the window when I looked.

  Yanking the hood over my head, I pulled the strings so only my eyes were visible. If someone saw me at the window, they wouldn’t get a good enough look before I ran.

  I took a deep breath and slid out of hiding.

  I couldn’t see anything at first. Though my eyes were acclimated to the night, the inside of the house was darker. It took me a few seconds before I made out shapes through the deck door: a table with four chairs neatly arranged around the perimeter, a large cabinet with what appeared to be picture frames on top. This had to be the dining room.

  Hoping the girl was in one of the photographs, I slipped the flashlight from my pocket and flicked it on. I only kept the beam on for a few seconds, afraid I’d draw a neighbor’s attention.

  I’d seen enough.

  I bit down on my tongue to keep from laughing.

  I hadn’t recognized my stowaway in either of the two pictures. What I’d seen was a family of four: two middle-aged parents, two children—one boy and one girl, each of high school age. All four were very Chinese.

  The truth slammed me with a closed fist. She didn’t live here. Not legally, anyway. The girl had sneaked into my car, and now she’d discovered a beautiful temporary home vacated by a traveling family.

  How brazen.

  How daring.

  How incredibly exciting.

  Now I understood the free and easy stride, the confident manner in which she carried herself. She didn’t play by anyone’s rules.

  As I stood panting and sweating, trying to grasp the scope of her risk-taking, it occurred to me that she might come home at any second.

  Home. I stifled another fit of giggles.

  I had to catch her this time.

  I couldn’t let her escape. Not again.

  Trees swayed with a cutting wind as I resurveyed the backyard. I was certain she’d enter through the back door, where the fence shielded her from prying eyes. Testing the deck door, I found it locked, as were the windows and the back entrance off the driveway. Did she have a key?

  Moving along the siding, I discovered a narrow pathway between the fence and house which led to the front yard. This was her escape route. If she saw me hiding in the backyard, she’d flee down this path. At her speed, I’d lose her in the trees.

  Two lawn chairs sat on the patio. I grabbed one and walked it around the side of the house, where I wedged the chair between the fence and siding. She wouldn’t see the obstruction until it was too late.

  Smirking, I crouched along the back of the garage and waited.

  The wait wasn’t long.

  After fifteen minutes of listening to the wind whistling through the trees and feeling the panels of the garage wall chill my spine, I saw a dark shape slip across the back of the house. She’d come down the driveway without me hearing. I was impressed. I’d been watching the driveway and still missed her.

  As she stooped near the back entryway and slipped something from her pocket, I crept off the wall, moving silently through the grass. I hadn’t even considered what I’d do once I caught her.

  What if she screamed?

  No, she wouldn’t. She was the trespasser, the criminal in the night. I held the advantage.

  The girl must have sensed me as she fiddled with the lock. She bolted for the driveway.

  I had the angle on her. I cut her off, but she reversed course so quickly that my knees buckled. Catching her was as impossible as snatching a dragonfly barehanded.

  With only one direction to go, she ran for the fence. A split second after she
turned the corner, I heard her smack into the chair and yelp. Panicking, she turned around and sprinted for the backyard. I shot out of the shadows and dived at her ankles, barely able to grasp a pant leg before she leaped past.

  I threw myself atop her squirming body. As I turned her over and pressed the girl to her back, her eyes caught a sliver of moonlight through the clouds and stunned me. They weren’t so much green or blue as they were aqua. Aqua like sparkling Caribbean waters at sunset, aqua like a gem Indiana Jones might scavenge from a forgotten cavern. Looking into those eyes made me feel as if she could drain my mind of its innermost secrets and drink of them like aged wine.

  Conflicted hysteria covered her face, the desire to scream and the knowledge that drawing attention to herself wasn’t a great idea. The last person she wanted to explain herself to was a police officer.

  “Stop it,” I whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Such an unconvincing plea. How many rapists use the same line?

  She head-butted me between the temples. I saw stars.

  She started to squirm out from under before I shook off the blow and pinned her wrists into the grass.

  We lay panting in the bitter wind, her breath warm against my face.

  “Stop fighting. I swear I won’t hurt you. But you aren’t going anywhere until you answer my questions.”

  “Get the hell off of me.”

  “Not a chance,” I said, confident.

  I thought I’d finally captured her. I was wrong.

  In one blinding motion, she twisted her wrists and threw me off. Before I knew what happened, she reversed our position and sat astride my hips. I tried to tumble her off. The sound of a switchblade snapping open stopped me.

  The point touched under my chin.

  “Don’t kill me.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  Those aqua eyes turned dangerous.

  “I’m not a rapist, for Christ’s sake. You don’t recognize me, do you?”

  The hood was still tight around my face. She studied my eyes and shook her head.

  “You broke into my car,” I said. Keeping the blade fixed near my throat, she reached down and pulled back my hood. Recognition flashed in her eyes. “Does that ring a bell?”

  “I didn’t break into your car. The doors were unlocked.”