by Mark Tufo
“Damn, at this pace I really don’t need to work, I’ll just take your money.”
“Don’t make me regret hiring you.”
Mike left the duty station in high spirits. He took an immediate left that led him through the break room and toward the corridor that housed a couple of offices, he jiggled the door handles to make sure they were locked and then headed the rest of the way down the long corridor to the double doors.
The one on the left was partially pushed open about a foot; it was difficult to see that far down but he had the distinct impression someone was peeking around the door, watching his approach.
The hallway’s bright. I would be able to see them, Mike thought as he slowly kept walking. He stopped when the door swung to the shut position. Okay, that was kind of creepy, Mike thought as goose bumps rippled up his arms and the back of his neck.
“Jed’s fucking with me,” he said softly. “Probably got Ted doing this. If I puss out he’s gonna bust my balls.” Mike looked to the camera behind him that got a good shot of the entire corridor and flipped it the finger. “Kiss my ass,” he said with exaggerated mouth movement.
Mike was not feeling nearly as confident as he had portrayed to the camera as he walked the rest of the way down the hall and pushed the double-hinged doors open. The warehouse was bathed in ghostly white from the safety lights perched every twenty-five feet or so up on the walls. The first thing Mike noticed when he entered was the absence of the coffee smell, it was something very subtle, something he remembered from his chemistry classes—at least when that stuff still mattered and he actually attended. “Rotten eggs—it smells like rotten eggs in here.” The word ‘sulfur’ came to mind.
Now Mike was shivering. “Shit, it’s cold in here, don’t remember that from the other night.” He cupped his hands and blew into them. If he had been paying attention he would have noticed the breath coming out of him. Must be the wet pants, he thought, even though they had finished drying while he was busy taking Jed’s money.
His attention was pulled to his right as he heard a loud clanging noise. “This isn’t all that funny, Jed,” Mike said. “If it’s about the money, I’ll lose on purpose the next few hands. It’s not my fault you suck at the game.” He waited for a response. The clanging happened again this time it was somewhat muted.
“This sucks,” Mike huffed as he headed toward the noise. He wished he had grabbed the large flashlight that was sitting on the desk next to Jed. He walked over toward the loading docks. The dozen or so doors were all the metal roll up variety, each had a chain attached to a pulley that could either be run manually or with a motor.
“Well, at least I know the source of the sound,” Mike said as he looked around. One of the chains to his left was moving slightly. But what caused it? Ted! It has to be Ted. But I would have seen his ass shuffling off or more likely he would have fallen asleep right here waiting for my arrival. It has to be Jed. Is he mobile enough to do this, though? Okay, so he’s probably in his fifties, he looks fit enough. There must be some other way down to the warehouse, so he hustled his ass down here and now he’s doing some new initiation.
“Fine, I’ll play your game!” Mike shouted, trying to bolster his flagging bravado. “If I catch your ass, I’m going to treat you like any other thief.” I don’t even have cuffs, he thought. I can make them stand in a corner while I call their mothers.
A blade of light illuminated the warehouse. “Hey, kid, everything alright?” Jed yelled from the doors on the far side. “You’ve been gone for a while.”
Mike looked up to the chain still swaying back and forth. “I thought I heard something!” Mike answered. “There’s no way he circled around me and I didn’t hear it. No fucking way unless he’s a damn ninja,” Mike mumbled.
“Come on, kid, I want to see if I can make my money back before the end of our shift.”
The door where the chain was moving rippled a little bit as if a stiff breeze were blowing outside, although it had no effect on any of the other doors. The wind forced through a small opening by the latch whispered his name along with the ominous words ‘your time has passed’. Mike moved as quickly as he could toward the light without breaking into a run. He wasn’t quite as sure this was a practical joke, but if it was he wasn’t going to give Jed the satisfaction of saying ‘Gotcha!’
“What’s the matter, Mike?” Jed asked with seemingly true concern. “The smell of coffee beans already getting to you?”
Mike scanned Jed’s face hard for any signs of exertion from running or trying to hide his inside knowledge of what was going on. But they had just played fifteen hands of poker and Mike knew Jed did not possess a poker face.
“Heard a noise, just checking it out.”
“Anything?” Jed asked.
“You tell me.”
“A joke? Not me, kid, I get a big enough kick out of the new uniforms. It could be rats, we’ve had problems from time to time. They don’t much care for the coffee, but a lot of the damn dock workers are constantly leaving food around. I’ll leave a note for the receptionist that she should maybe call the exterminator again.”
“The chain that rattled was three feet off the ground, if that was a rat I want hazard pay.” And they sure as hell didn’t open that double door, he thought but didn’t say out loud.
“I’ll put in your request, but don’t hold your breath. Sign the sheet that you were here. Let’s go back to the desk, in fact, just sign it that you were here all night. I don’t want you getting rabies or something on your first week, Jandilyn will be pissed at me.”
That was just fine with Mike. The rest of the shift went by without incident, Mike even increased his winnings by another six-fifty. He kept waiting patiently for an ‘aha’ from Jed which never came. No matter how he tried, he could not shake the niggling feeling from the back of his head that nothing even remotely similar to rats had been in that warehouse, although he completely forgot about the sulfurous smell.
By the time Mike got home that morning the entire event was a distant memory.
“Same time tonight?” a red-eyed Jed asked.
“Looking forward to it, I’ll be able to retire soon at this pace.”
“Keep talking, funny boy, you’ll be crying poor mouth by the end of the week.”
“Thanks for the ride, Jed.” Mike trundled up the five flights to his apartment. Jandilyn was right where he hoped she would be, snuggled up on the bed. He moved some of the pillows she had been hugging and nestled himself up in their place. They made love so long she was late for her first class.
“Not cool, Mr. Talbot,” she said as she ran around the apartment getting ready.
“Shhh,” he said. “I’m trying to get some sleep, that’s some exhausting work I do, keeping the national coffee supply safe.”
She tossed one of the heavier pillows in his direction.
“You throw like a girl.”
“I’ll be home by four.”
“I’ll have dinner ready.”
Mike was dead asleep when his dream began to turn south. He was up on Indian Hill enjoying a picnic with Jandilyn and she had gone to pick some wild flowers. He started to get concerned when she didn’t return right away. He watched as the fruit she had been eating began to at first brown from exposure and then begin to dry in the noon sun.
“Jandilyn!” he had yelled. But her name was picked up and blown away by a small breeze that increased in force until his clothes were rippling. The small blanket they had been sitting on was threatening to uproot itself, it was being held down by rapidly decaying food, the block of cheese they had been eating had molded over, dried and split.
“Jandilyn!” Mike shrieked again. A large metal chain barely missed his head as it swung past. Mike looked up, the chain had been looped around a large branch, the ends catching in the wind.
“Probably rats,” Jed said, looking up to the top of the chain.
“Jed? What are you doing here?” Mike asked in alarm.
“J
andilyn, sent me,” Jed said through a mouthful of broken and bloody teeth.
“Where is she?” Mike asked, panic welling up in his throat.
Jed just kept smiling his horrific smile, a large hairless tail was wriggling out through a gap in his now shattered teeth. Mike grabbed Jed’s shoulders and pushed him up against the tree.
“Tell me where she is!” Mike screamed, shaking Jed, his head striking the bark.
The clicking sound as Jed’s head struck the tree even in the context with which it was in, struck some nerve in Mike that was even more frightening than everything else that was happening around him. The faster Mike shook Jed the louder the clicking noise became until he heard the tree break. But that wasn’t quite right, it sounded like the tinkle of glass. Mike awoke with a start. He looked over to the bedroom’s lone window. A sharp black beak was poking through a small round hole in the center pane.
“What the hell, bird!” Mike yelled.
He threw the blanket off and walked to the window. The large black bird pulled its beak free but did not yield its spot on the ledge. It watched intently as Mike crossed the room. Mike stopped when he got closer, the bird had one black and one white eye.
“It can’t be,” Mike said, more as a statement of fact to calm his own nerves. Mike wanted to open the window and punch the offending bird in the head but something told him this would be an unwise decision. “Probably got encephalitis,” he said to the bird, but he wasn’t even sure if birds could catch that disease.
The bird swiveled its head first so its black eye got a good long look at him, then it turned so its unsettling white eye could get a gander. When it seemed satisfied it took off for parts unknown.
Mike surveyed the damage, the hole was little bigger than a BB shot but spider web thin cracks radiated out from the hole. It would need to be replaced.
“Well, scotch tape is going to have to do for now,” Mike said as he covered the hole and the small cracks to hopefully prevent further damage.
He swept up the small pieces on the ground into an electric bill envelope and then tried to reconcile his disturbing dream along with the appearance of a bird that eerily had eyes similar to his. He wondered if it shared the same visions as well.
“It’s just a coincidence, it has to be.”
“What is?”
Mike jumped up. “Shit, woman, you scared the hell out of me. What are you doing home?”
“I thought I’d surprise you, if you want me to leave I can go back,” she kidded.
“Not a chance.”
“What happened here?” she asked as she came up to the window. Mike shivered as she traced one of the cracks with her finger. That did not seem like a great idea.
Mike wavered between telling her the truth and going with the made up BB shot explanation. But combined with his inability to lie and her expert bullshit detector he’d be caught before he finished his story and then he’d have to explain why he was lying.
“It was a bird,” he said, deciding to go with the minimalistic truth.
“A bird did this?” she asked incredulously. “Did you piss it off?”
“I really don’t know what its problem is—was (he added hastily). I was sleeping and the damn thing was tapping on the window. He woke me up.” Well it was partly that and the fact that I thought something real bad had happened to you.
“What kind of bird was it?” she asked, her expression getting grave.
“Hummingbird,” Mike answered quickly.
“Mike.”
“A big fucking crow or raven, I guess.” With one dark eye and one white eye like me.
“And it was trying to get in?”
Mike didn’t need to say anything, the proof was in the pudding, he was still holding the makeshift dustpan containing the small bits of glass in his hand.
“What, Jandilyn? What’s going on?”
“Have you ever seen this bird before?”
Not the bird but the eyes, yes, he thought, but said, “How would I know one bird from another?”
Jandilyn eyed Mike suspiciously. “I’m afraid for you, Mike. There’s something here I’m missing or something you’re not telling me.”
Mike was thinking back to his dream and Jandilyn’s disappearance. That combined with the appearance of the bird was not sitting easily in his gut. “Sometimes a bird is just a bird,” he said, but the words felt dirty on his tongue even as he spoke them.
“I might believe you if you didn’t look like you had swallowed a worm while you said it.”
Could the hairless tail poking out of Jed’s busted mouth have actually been a worm? Mike thought. The similarities were too close.
Jandilyn was going through her catalog of internal knowledge. “Okay, let me think. Ravens actually get a bad rap in modern American mythology.”
“I love when you use big words,” Mike said, trying to steer the conversation away from its obvious conclusion.
“I was saying that most Americans think Ravens and Crows are harbingers of doom and death.”
“Wonderful.”
“But they’re wrong.”
“Wonderful!” Mike said, his inflection changed to the positive. Please let this be the end of the conversation.
“Their presence is actually one of light and hope. I’m pretty sure—I’ll have to go to the library on that.”
“Let’s just go with that.”
“No, that’s not all, Mike.”
It never is, he thought sourly.
“A bird in the house means something totally different, that does (she stressed does), mean something bad, I’m just not sure.”
“It wasn’t inside.”
“Maybe not all of it, but it wanted in.”
“Jandilyn, maybe it just had rabies…or distemper,” he added when she shook her head.
“Mike, has anything been happening lately?” she asked.
Besides the huge rat peeking at me from behind the door and the heavy chains swaying in the nonexistent breeze at work? And the freaky wind words? Absolutely nothing.
“Nope,” Mike lied.
“You’ve got that swallowed worm look again.”
“Any chance of a different analogy? My stomach is a little queasy at the moment.”
“You sick?” she asked with concern.
“Not yet, but if we keep this conversation up, probably.”
Mike was happy when Jandilyn finally let it drop.
“Let’s go out,” Jandilyn said, a smile coming across her face. “I bought some stuff for a picnic.”
As long as it’s not at Indian Hill and Jed isn’t there.
***
The remainder of the week went by without notice. No giant blackbirds tried to gain entry into their apartment and the rat specter did not reappear. Mike did not go into the warehouse, it was all he could do to go to the end of the hallway and sign his name on the sheet. By Thursday he finally wised up enough to remember to add all of his rounds at one time as opposed to doing it every two hours. The remainder of the night he would cautiously glance down the length of the hallway hoping the door was not cracked open and a hazy black figure looking out at him.
“I cannot believe I owe you twenty-two fifty,” Jed said as their Friday night shift was coming to a close.
“I want it in large bills,” Mike told him. “Don’t go trying to pay me in pennies you’ve been saving since the Kennedy administration.”
“Good man Kennedy was. I wish he had stayed alive long enough to do some of the good he had planned on,” Jed said with a faraway look in his eyes.
“Even he wouldn’t have been able to help your poker playing this week,” Mike quipped.
“I’m going to start charging you gas money, this week alone was most likely thirty bucks.”
“Well, then come on we’ve got enough time for one more hand and I can break even.”
“Funny boy, tell me again why I hired you?”
“Because I’ll actually do the rounds and you can sit here and ta
ke your frequent naps.”
“Oh yeah, there’s that.” Jed dealt one more hand.
***
“You alright, kid?” Jed asked as he dropped Mike off. “You seem a little distracted even for you.”
“I’m good.”
“Women troubles? I’ve learned if you nod a lot when they’re talking and say ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘yes dear’ whenever appropriate you can avoid about ninety-nine percent of issues.”
“Thanks for the advice, but I guess I just have a hard time believing anything from a man who can’t even beat his student in poker.”
“Poker is much like life, Mike, it has its ups and downs, I’ll be on top soon enough.”
“We’ll see. See you next week, Jed, thanks for the lift.”
“Have a great weekend. Don’t spend all my hard earned money in one place.”
“Hard earned?” Mike asked.
“You know what I mean.”
“Sure.” Mike waved as Jed pulled away.
Jed stuck his hand out and gave him the middle finger. Mike couldn’t help but laugh. Mike walked up the steps, not until the third floor landing did his good feelings leave him like rats from a burning ship. He bounded up the remaining two flights, fumbled with his key, and stepped into the apartment.
“Jandilyn?” he asked not too loudly in case she was asleep. He could see their bedroom door from where he stood, a steady stream of sunlight was coming out from underneath the closed plank. His heart eased as he saw shadows dancing through the gap between door and floor.
Good, she’s up, Mike thought as he took off his shirt. He walked down the hall and opened the door, the bed was perfectly made as if no one had slept there the previous night, the bathroom door was open, and the light was out.
“Jandilyn?” Mike asked again, only this time much more anxiously. “This isn’t really funny.” There were not many places to hide in a room that on a good day was twelve feet wide by twelve feet across. The bed was a platform bed resting on some space saving drawers, no place to hide there. So that left the small closet or the dark laden bathroom. “I know you’re in here, I saw your shadow under the door.”