by Mark Murphy
"I'll give it a shot."
Malcolm entered the text, his hands shaking, fingers fumbling like they'd been anesthetized:
Birkenstock escaped. Im headed 2 house at Rose Dhu. Grls there. Txt me back if u get ths.
Vague constellations of light flashed past—gas stations, a CVS Pharmacy, clusters of nondescript chain restaurants, a fire station. Malcolm's eyes saw them but they did not register in his mind. He tried to wet his lips but his mouth was parched, his tongue a smoked herring glommed onto the roof of his mouth.
They hurtled beneath the Truman Parkway overpass, a concrete monstrosity that eclipsed the sky as it vaulted the Vernon River and poured waves of traffic into Abercorn Street and the arterial highways beyond. Beyond it there were a few small businesses housed in a dilapidated strip mall, sad little affairs that came and went like the phases of the moon. Malcolm never went into any of them. He could scarcely remember what had been there through the years. They were like weeds, perennial and forgettable, pulled up by the roots on an annual basis by the cruel hand of commercial failure.
They passed the Baptist church. A marble cross stood stolidly out front, silent and accusatory, backlit in dramatic fashion by a set of gleaming halogen floodlights that hurt Malcolm's eyes. Purple vestments, draped across its arms, fluttered in the soft breeze. The illuminated sign beside the cross cryptically admonished passers-by to "Listen to God or Face the Consequences." The sign stood hard and close by the road, a final marker of the wages of sin before one left the brilliant lights of the commercial district and entered the nether regions of the southside. The transition was abrupt and complete, a razor-sharp margin that seemed to suck all of the oxygen out of the air.
It was light, and then it was dark.
Live oaks now crowded the edges of White Bluff Road, their thick-ridged moss-draped branches looming overhead so as to create a tunnel of vegetation that blotted out the night sky. Some of these oaks dated back centuries. They had lined White Bluff in the colonial days, back when it was a rutted shell path leading from downtown Savannah to the plantations carved out of the rich marsh-lined forests south of town. And then the Civil War came, the plantations crumbling into disrepair, their slaves freed at last. But after the war many of the slaves stayed right there, carving lives out of the very earth that had been the source of their enslavement. They built proud churches with the hard-earned labor of freedom, laying their foundations right along the roadside. And these churches saw them marry and baptize children and raise them up to be God-fearing young men and women, men and women who themselves grew up to raise hard-working families. They lived in the area lining this ancient road, a road built to serve the plantations they had outlived. The area came to be known as Coffee Bluff, the old White Bluff Road transitioning to Coffee Bluff Road at a specific point deep in the old maritime forest. And it was still a forest, subtropical and dense, dotted with the lights of the occasional residence but as dark as pitch in between.
It was this dark road that China drove along now, hurtling toward Rose Dhu as fast as the Civic could carry them.
Malcolm nearly missed the turnoff.
Rose Dhu Road broke away from Coffee Bluff Road at a right angle, heading straight for the Vernon River before turning again to parallel the river's edge. But Malcolm, lost in thought, was not paying attention. This was the road to his home. His drive along this roadway was rooted deep in his cerebellum, nearly automatic.
Only Malcolm wasn't driving.
"Turn here!" he said suddenly, pointing across China's face to the Rose Dhu Road sign.
China's speedometer was pushing eighty miles an hour when he said this. She whipped the wheel hard left, nearly flipping them over as the car teetered up for a second on two wheels and then slammed back down again.
"Jesus! A little warning next time, perhaps?" China said.
"I'm sorry. Should've told you that was coming."
China sighed.
"It's okay."
They made the next turn to parallel the river.
Moonlight glimmered across the water. The marsh grass was a dark rim along the shoreline. Malcolm could have almost seen the house now if it was light, its roofline peeking between the trees.
"How much farther?" China said.
"About two miles. The road curves alongside the river, but it is usually pretty deserted. There's a guard gate at the entrance to the subdivision. It's a big stone thing. You can't miss it."
China hit the accelerator, pushing their speed back up near eighty.
Malcolm tried to call Amy again and got nothing.
When Malcolm looked back up after trying the phone call, he wasn't certain what he was seeing.
Something was blotting out the sky. It was undulating like smoke, occluding the moon and the stars as it reached out its tentacles out towards them. Whatever it was triggered a deep-seated literary recognition in Malcolm, a thought that simply sprang into his brain and stood there, unmoved.
Mordor, he thought.
"What the hell is that?" he murmured, craning his neck upward.
China only glanced up for an instant.
When she looked back at the road, it was too late.
The ambulance was parked clear across the road in front of the massive stone-and-wrought-iron gate at the entrance to Rose Dhu. It was positioned so that there was no way anyone could steer around it.
China hit the brakes with both feet, but the Civic slammed into the boxlike rear of the emergency vehicle in a hard skid to the left, decelerating from seventy-five to zero in the blink of an eye. There was the acrid stench of burned rubber, an explosion of glass and metal, twin secondary detonations as the airbags deployed, and then it was over.
The air was still. All that could be heard was the hiss of the ruptured radiator and a syncopated drip-drip-drip beneath the car's ruptured chassis.
Overhead, the cloud moved toward them, an amoeba swallowing the sky entire.
There was a scattered caw caw at first. A cry from a lone blackbird, or perhaps two, echoing among the trees.
And then the chorus began, a grating cacophony of illegitimate sound that drowned out anything and everything. Had Malcolm heard it, he would have covered his ears, for the noise was as loud as a 747.
But Malcolm heard nothing.
He was dead to the world.
46
"I can make it easy or hard on you."
The Shadow Man spoke to Amy as if he had imparted some great mercy.
"What do you mean? Death is death," said Amy.
"Ah, that is where you are—please pardon the pun—dead wrong. All deaths are not created equal. I could make this incredibly painful, inflicting torture so exquisite that you would beg me to end your life. But I have nothing against you, Amy. You're just another pawn in this game. Play nice and I'll end you quickly. Your husband is who I'm after."
"Are you going to kill him, too?'
"Perhaps. That was not in the original plan, but I'll do what I have to."
She looked into his eyes for the first time.
"Why us?"
He stepped toward her. She stepped back.
"Why you? Why not you? I mean, seriously. Look at this place. The old plantation house, now restored to its former glory. A storybook family. Money, prestige, the whole shebang. You think Malcolm deserves all of this? I'm a better surgeon than he is. I'm smarter than he is. What has he done to deserve all of this?"
Amy said nothing.
"Answer me!" he screamed.
"My husband is a hundred times the man you are," Amy said.
"Bullshit!"
"You go to hell," said Amy.
The Shadow Man lunged at her. She jumped back.
"I'll tell you what—you let me kill you quickly and I'll go easy on your daughter. I'll even throw in a humane death for that mangy mutt of yours. How's that for a deal?"
Amy glared at him.
"You leave my daughter alone."
"I know she's upstairs, Amy. I was
listening in the den when you sent her up there. She's sleeping away the night, dreaming sweet dreams of cute boys and flowers and whatever else teenage girls dream of. She's clueless, of course. She has no idea that those dreams will never be reality for her. They end tonight, for both of you. That's your destiny."
"If you touch my daughter, I'll kill you."
"How can you kill me if you're dead?" he asked.
Amy turned and sprinted toward the kitchen, pushing past a swinging paneled oak door that Malcolm had bought her as a surprise one year on a trip to France.
The Shadow Man covered the distance between them in two bounding steps, but it was not enough. Amy slammed the heavy swinging door across his hand, crushing his fingers.
"You bitch! Now I'm not going to play nice!" he screamed.
"Come and get me, asshole!"
Amy pulled a knife from the knife rack, the biggest one she could find—a meat cleaver, razor sharp, her favorite kitchen knife. She gripped the familiar handle as hard as she could. The blade was a mirror. She could see herself in it, her eyes wide, the myriad chandelier lights dancing behind her.
He had circled around to the other doorway to the kitchen, but Amy had anticipated this. She slashed at him as he rounded the corner. The knife caught him across the shoulder, slicing open his deltoid and spilling blood across his alabaster skin.
"Damn you!" he bellowed.
He took a swing at her with his uninjured left arm and missed. Amy retreated behind the granite kitchen island, brandishing the knife in front of her.
"Get out of here," she hissed.
"Not on your life, missy. And I do mean exactly that."
He leapt then, catapulting his whole body onto the island and sliding across the polished stone surface in a single fluid movement, landing on his feet on the other side like a cat. He moved faster than she had thought possible, too quickly for her to compensate. He swept his legs under her, collapsing her to the ground.
She hit hard, cracking her skull against the floor. The impact dazed her; the knife falling from her hand.
"Not so brave now, are we?" he said.
He raised a leg to stomp on her chest, but she rolled away somehow, and his foot slammed heavily onto the floor. The knife went skittering away from her, clattering beneath the cabinetry.
Amy pulled herself to her feet. She was dizzy. Tiny points of light pulsated behind her eyes.
She ran across the room, but he outflanked her.
"Time to die, bitch," he growled.
He grabbed Amy by the shoulders and spun her around, choking her from behind, the way he had before when he had ambushed her in the yard. His scent filled her nostrils, a sour odor of yeast and sweat. But then he jerked her up off the ground, her legs flailing, his thick arm constricting mercilessly around her neck. Her arms flapped around wildly. She wanted to claw his eyes out, rip off his testicles, but she could do nothing. Her arms were useless, essentially vestigial, unable to reach far enough back to get at him.
Smoke seemed to be filling the room, rolling in from the marsh, and the stars winked in and out in front of her.
She thought she saw a blackbird staring at her through the window, its head cocked to one side.
I'm losing it, she thought.
She knew she would miss Malcolm. She was sorry it had to end for them like this.
The Shadow Man was bending down over her, folding her up like a pretzel. She could feel his stinking breath at her ear.
She flailed her arms again, more weakly this time.
And then her fingers caught something smooth and cool, something she knew, and it shocked her back into reality.
Mimi. Got to save Mimi.
She had the handle to the oven door in her hand.
Amy tensed her shoulder muscles and slammed the heavy oven door down on the Shadow Man's head with all of the force she could muster. She felt his grip loosen.
She slammed it down again.
And again.
His knees buckled beneath him. His hold slackened. She tore his arms away and slammed the oven door against his head once again.
"Not . . . in . . . my . . . house," she croaked. "You will not kill me in my own house."
The Shadow Man crumpled to the floor, face down. His skull made an odd thock! sound as his head struck the hardwood, like a croquet ball being struck with a mallet.
Gasping, Amy rubbed her neck, which felt swollen and thick. She looked around for the knife but couldn't find it.
The Shadow Man lay motionless. Amy couldn't tell if he was still breathing. A thin rivulet of dark blood trickled across the kitchen floor.
Just get Mimi and get out, she thought. Leave him here, call the police and be done with it.
"Mimi?" she called upstairs, not daring to take her eyes off of the man lying on her kitchen floor.
There was no answer.
Amy decided she'd have to chance it. She charged upstairs and flung open Mimi's door, flicking on the lights.
"Hon, get up," she said, shaking Mimi by the shoulder.
Daisy hoisted herself up on heavy legs, groaned heavily and stood, sniffing the air. Suddenly, her ears perked up. A low growl rumbled deep inside her throat.
Mimi sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"What's going on, Mom?" she said.
"The guy that tried to kill us—Birkenstock, whatever—is back. I knocked him out downstairs. He's lying on the kitchen floor. We need to get out of here."
"Mom? Are you serious?"
"Yes. Now."
Mimi vaulted out of bed, suddenly wide awake. She pulled on her jeans and yanked on her dad's vintage Eagles t-shirt that was draped over a chair.
"I'm ready," she said.
They went downstairs, the old steps creaking and popping, Daisy muttering a low growl all the way.
Amy peered into the kitchen through the swinging door.
The Shadow Man was gone.
There was a pool of dark blood on the ground where he had once been, but he had vanished.
Amy had to make a decision. The most direct way to the car was through the kitchen. If the Shadow Man were hiding in there, waiting for them, that could be trouble. But if they circled back around to the front door, that would take valuable time. And he could be looking for them elsewhere in the house, or outside.
Amy thought for a moment, listening hard for any noise at all.
There was none. Even the dog had stopped growling.
"Is it okay, Daisy?" Amy whispered.
The old dog wagged her tail.
"All right. Let's go," she whispered.
They swung open the kitchen door. Mimi and Daisy were in the lead, followed by Amy, who warily surveyed the kitchen for any evidence that the Shadow Man remained.
She saw him, just the edge of him, too late.
There was a flicker of movement out of the corner of one eye. The Shadow Man swooped down from the top of the cabinets like a giant bat and hit her squarely in the lower back, his arms wrapped around her in perfect open-field tackle form. Amy's jaw struck the edge of the granite countertop, shattering a tooth, before she slammed face-first into the floor. The impact made her bite clean through her lower lip. Her mouth filled with the salt-and-rust taste of her own blood.
Dazed, Amy forced herself up on all fours. Hot, sticky blood poured from her mouth. She could see Mimi standing frozen, eyes wide. Daisy had vanished.
"Run, Mimi! Get out of here!"
"Doesn't feel good, does it, bitch? Hitting the floor like that? I'll tell ya—it fuckin' hurts!"
The Shadow Man slammed a knee into Amy's lumbar spine. Something cracked there. She felt the inside of her thigh go numb.
"Time to watch Mommy die, little girl. And you're next."
He straddled Amy's back, forcing her to the ground once again. He grabbed a handful of her hair and slammed her battered face against the floor.
What's that?
Blood was in her eyes, opaque and crimson, rendering ever
ything an indistinct blur. But then Amy saw something. A sliver of light, slim and compact, like the sun shining through the edge of a doorway.
Is that you, God?
But no.
No, indeed.
It was the knife.
Amy swept her hand out, her fingers finding the sculpted handle, seating it just right in her palm, waiting for the moment.
Daisy gave her that moment.
The old dog had circled around the dining room behind them. She propelled herself at the killer's thigh, sinking her fangs deep into his right hamstring. With her jaws locked in place, Daisy shook her head vigorously, her teeth tearing deep into the Shadow Man's flesh.
"Jesus Christ!" he screamed.
He kicked the old dog with his left leg, causing Daisy to tumble into the kitchen table. She lay there on her side, panting shallowly and whimpering.
Amy took a deep breath.
Now or never.
In a single motion, Amy rolled right and slashed behind her with the knife. She cut cleanly through the killer's right calf muscle just below the knee.
The Shadow Man screamed.
His screams came in shuddering gasps. The muscle had contracted into a ball of flesh and was bunched up into a bloody wad just above his ankle. His hands clamped over his damaged leg like twin cuttlefish. Blood poured between his clenched fingers.
"You bitch! I can't believe you did that! I can't buh . . ."
There was a clong and his words stooped short.
The Shadow Man toppled back onto the floor.
Mimi was standing over him with a frying pan. It was raised up over her shoulder in the follow-through to the perfect arc of her swing.
"Shut up, asshole," she said, gazing at the Shadow Man's crumpled body.
Amy sat up and rubbed her throbbing jaw, then struggled to her feet.
The two women stood there for a moment, breathing heavily, staring at the killer's body sprawled at their feet. "Mom, are you okay?"
"I'm fine, hon. Just a little banged up."
There was a rattling noise at the front door.
Amy scrambled to her feet, still clutching the knife.
They heard the beep-beep-beep of the alarm code being entered.