The Reserve

by Matt Shaner

  Shawn let them inside, and I had to see what was happening. The downstairs lights of the house were turned on, and I decided to go out the back and sneak my way around to his house. My pulse started to rise, and I made my way to the back sliding glass door to the yard. I opened and shut the door, making sure not to wake Val in the process. Shawn’s living room light was on, like so many nights before reality fell into the dark hole.

  I looped around, staying at the fields that bordered our house, and ran behind Drew’s and Bryan’s former yards. The moon was only a sliver in the sky, and even though it was directly above and no clouds were around, it kept a faint light on the area. I walked around Drew’s place and around the construction on Bryan’s lot. It was beyond the point of any mental replays.

  Finally, after going through the construction, I started to make my way up to the house. The black car still sat in the lot. The layout of the backside of Shawn’s would make it easy to get close. His house was on odd design where it had more windows on the front and sides then the back. I only needed to avoid a pair of them, and at this time, all the bedrooms would be dark. His living room extended to the back of the house, like ours, so it provided an advance notice on the angles I would need to use to check out what was happening.

  By the time of my arrival at his house, the car was still there. A swing set that I never saw before sat in the back yard, and I assumed he was getting ready for his child to grow up. Pulling moves from every action movie I watched, I crept to the edge of his sliding glass door, being certain to stay in the shadows.

  He was standing in the doorway. It appeared that the two men never moved into the living room or kitchen. Shawn had his back to my position, but I could see the men clearly. They were dressed well and the size of a pair of refrigerators. One man gestured and spoke while the other stood behind him and off of his left shoulder. In any other environment, at a different time, this would look like three friends discussing last week’s football games. This was not any other time.

  The man in the back looked around the rooms. I watched as he slowly and intently scanned each area. I knew his eyes were moving to the stairs and over to the kitchen. He walked to the windows that faced the street and closed the curtains. How Shawn didn’t see this as a bad sign, I had no idea. He kept talking with the first man. Before the second guy returned to the group, Shawn started to shake his head. The talker reached into the pocket of his trench coat.

  There was no time for reaction. Now, as I consider it, I don’t think I wanted to react. A pistol came from the jacket and struck Shawn in the head. He scrambled to fight, but the second man moved into position and held him down. This was proof that Erica was gone since I could hear the noise outside and no more lights went on in the house. The violence lasted for a few minutes, and before the men left, the one pulled a file out from his jacket. He threw it on the bloody pile that was now Shawn and walked out the door. I decided to return home, and sooner than later, see what was in that file.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  The File and the Lies

  His daily routine was timed out in my mind, and two days after the night confrontation, I knew he would go to the store. He went once every week, spending about a half an hour, leaving at noon. The day in between passed, and when the time came, I planned the moment were I would sneak over and see what was going on inside the house and in the file.

  My heart started to race as I watched Shawn’s place. The time to hide my actions was over, and I just sat behind the closed curtain and parted a small area to watch through. He left at the same time as on other days. I placed it at the end of the lunchtime sports talk show on television.

  At forty-five seconds, he normally left around thirty, the garage door opened, and his car pulled out. He looked distracted, but I made sure he fully went down the road and left the development. I opened the door and stood out front of our house, acting like the yard needed a thorough inspection. Just before I could commit to the action, a vehicle cleared the hill outside the main road. It was from some lawn service. I watched it approach, and to my dismay, flip on the left turn signal. He turned into our development and stopped at Drew’s house. The guy was on a cell phone when he stopped the truck.

  This distraction did not help the situation. I checked my watch and the road again. He was sucking into my inspection time. He left the truck, pulled a seeding cart out of the back, emptied a bag of seed into it and started to walk up and down the yard. He was around twenty pounds overweight and displayed the image that anyone would conjure when thinking of a lawn service employee.

  I watched this play out for the span of five minutes. He made a casual path across the green expanse, and by my guess, actually covered maybe twenty percent of the surface. Time was getting short while this show passed on. He finally started to make his way to the truck after cutting eight minutes off my available allotment of space. He sat back in, wrote up the bill, walked it to Drew’s door, went back to the truck and drove away. I decided to waste nothing else and made my casual walk to Shawn’s place.

  Nothing moved as I progressed across the street. I’m sure birds were flying somewhere, and squirrels were running around, but in my little theater, nothing moved. When I hit his yard, a car came over the hill that I did not recognize, and it was too late to be concerned anyway. I had bought a pair of gloves that would be trashed after leaving the house and slipped them on. The entry point would be the back of the house.

  I took an angle that would keep me hidden in the shadow of his place when I finally reached the side. The building itself was starting to see the toll of time that I hadn’t noticed before. The foundation was cracked and the siding faded and warped in its attempt to escape. A thin layer of dust surrounded the windows, and one was cracked. The grass at my feet was past six inches long, and weeds popped up in varied and odd locations.

  It was only a few seconds when I finally reached the sliding glass door on the back where I had stood to watch the file get delivered. My nerves were there but not as much as before. Eventually, after enough surreal things, a body got used to the idea of doing something not average to humanity. Breaking into a house was the least of my worries. I elbowed the glass above the lock. His security was broken since a fight with Erica, as he mentioned a few months back, and I was willing to bet it wasn’t fixed. My bet was correct. I was not prepared for what awaited me inside.

  The inside was almost empty. The furniture was gone. The television sat on the floor. The kitchen was empty including the cabinets that all stood open. The floor sat down to the bare hardwood. The security system was not on as there was nothing to steal.

  Impulse took me up the stairs to find if the condition existed in other areas of the house. The floor creaked as I ascended, and it ran the thought into my mind as to exactly how long we were here. The advanced state of decay in the house made it seem as if the mortgage should be over and a few decades passed when, in reality, it was barely a year. The lay out of the top of the stairs was like mine, and I knew that Shawn’s bedroom would be at the end of the hallway. I skipped the close rooms and made my way to the payoff. If the information would be anywhere, it would be there. The creaking kept up as I went down the hall. The door to his bedroom was off the hinges and leaning slightly, so I carefully pushed against the wood.

  The door fell open, and sunlight from the afternoon reflected into my eyes, creating a momentary blindness. My eyes adjusted to the sight, and I’ll try my best to catalogue what was there. The wall to my left was covered with photographs and newspaper clippings. Everything from the last few months was shown in the new wallpaper. The far corner faded from articles to photographs. All pictures from him and Erica as a young couple to our last get together were chronologically in order on the walls. A pillow and a blanket were on the floor, and I noticed no mattress.

  The wall to my back was down to the studs and insulation. It seemed to explain why the door fell off th
e hinges. I noticed a sledge hammer on the floor. The wall to the right provided the cause of the sunlight. It was all mirrors. How or when he brought everything up here, I had no idea. The windows were open, and a breeze came in. I heard movement above me and watched as a picture floated down and landed at my feet. It was a shot of Erica. I picked it up, and by my guess; it was a high school picture. I looked up, and the entire ceiling was covered in her pictures.

  One of the scariest points in life was to come in contact with the example of instability. Obviously, we had flashes through this entire experience, and standing in that room, I was surrounded by a mind that had jumped over its edge. In perception, he would never be alone. Every wall held images, and with the reflection, he would see them even in his dreams. A sound came from outside and gradually increased in volume. I inched my way to the window hoping that the noise, a car engine, would be from a different car.

  Shawn pulled into the drive, and I heard the garage door open from in the room. This was not the way things were planned. I looked at my watch, and normally, I had another fifteen minutes. The door from the garage to his kitchen opened and shut. I decided the only place to go was the closet. I could attempt to run, but if he called the cops, that was the last thing I needed before the trial. I could try the window, but in broad daylight, he would certainly see or hear me, and breaking an ankle was not an appealing choice. I dove for the closet and shut myself in.

  Our closets were newer and not slotted, which provided me a small partition between the panels through which to look. His closet was also nearly the size of ours and around four panels wide so I could move if needed. It was empty except for one area with three shirts on hangers. This threw the idea of hiding out of the way. I listened as he walked up the stairs. The steps slowed in the hall, and hopefully there was no sign of my presence on the floor or anywhere else between here and the bedroom. Then I remembered I left the door wide open. The steps, at that point, had stopped.

  I heard him run towards the room and through the door. He stopped in the middle of the floor, almost standing on his makeshift pillow. His eyes were fixed on the picture that now sat on the floor. I cursed myself for not picking it up. He did the job for me, picking it up, folding it, and putting it in his pocket. He checked the windows and did a scan of the room. It worried me that he was not calling the police.

  He looked past the closet and left, walking at a normal speed, to go back downstairs. Before he left, he locked all the windows. It seemed that he was playing his bets, assuring that anyone left inside would have to leave through the lower level, and he would be ready. Someone in his state of mind would be carrying protection, and it was not a good day to get shot. I gave him five minutes after he exited. He placed the door back on the room, and I knew that he would hear any attempt to move it.

  I inched the closet open, taking my time. He would focus in on anything, and I really did not know if he even left the top floor. When I could slip my body out, I moved one foot, and then another. The floor, like the others, was down to the wood, and I hoped things wouldn’t creek. I was in no mood for a fight, but I knew Shawn had nothing to lose.

  I kept one foot outside of the closet door before making another move. I was shaking and hoped that the added stress would bring some focus to the situation. The window ran around ten steps away. There was no way I planned on going downstairs. The only chance for an even escape lay in getting outside and possibly breaking an ankle or leg. The day was nowhere near over, and the lack of darkness would hinder my chance to not be recognized. After what seemed like an eternity, I took my second step.

  My target was the window. The lock, from this vantage point, was not engaged, and as a new window it would not make too loud of a sound when opened. I heard the television downstairs and took another step. Watching the television was way too calm, in my opinion, for having someone in your house and not finding them. He may have thought the door fell, but there stood no reason to bet on his mental state. For all I knew, he was waiting for me outside.

  I took a third step, and the window beckoned me. It would be quite the fall, and I knew that there was no roof below it to block any of the impact. It was straight down to the grass. I remembered watching some show about stuntmen and hearing, that to break a fall, you should use your knees as springs to absorb some of the impact and then collapse into a roll to let the surface area of your body absorb the rest. Everything was put in a mental note, and I concentrated on the goal.

  I took a fourth step and heard him on the stairs. The window was now in reach, and his footfalls started in the direction of the room. He was not coming up fast, but it still sounded on the way. It was time to make the move. I gave him an extra second to make sure the steps were coming and went for the window.

  When I threw the window open, he burst in the door and sent it crashing to the ground. I pushed the screen out. He made a comment I couldn’t understand, and I went for my exit.

  The next thing I remember is the sharp pain in my knee. I thought it would be an ankle or wrist, but it settled in the knee. The door to our house seemed an eternity in the distance. I pulled myself towards it. I heard another comment and glanced back to the window. He was looking out. I stood on one good leg and walked then stumbled then crawled to the door. He could have chased me down by now, but he stayed looking in the window. I reached our door, opened it, went inside, closed it and passed out. I woke up in the emergency room.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  The Trial

  It arrived before I was prepared. Shawn never called the police from my attempt at a break in, and as far as I knew, kept it to himself.

  Val and I woke early and dressed up for the trial. We had breakfast in a small diner on the way to the town to talk everything over and make sure we were on the same page. The diner was crowded, for a Monday, and the entire place smelled of grease. They could prepare an omelet in three and a half minutes, and we took advantage of the quick service.

  As we sipped our strong coffee, I decided to tell her about the confrontation with Shawn. She knew mostly everything but this part of the action. I thought, as we entered the most important time for us, it was worth telling her all she needed to know.

  “I need to tell you something that just happened last week,” I said. I stared into the coffee cup. It was easier then looking at her beautiful face.

  “By now, you should know you can tell me anything,” she responded. I felt that she meant what she said.

  “In my down time, I’ve started to, well, keep an eye on things outside. Shawn, the other night, had a confrontation. I think it was men involved in everything that’s going on. They roughed him up a little and left a file there.” I sipped my coffee.

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I went over there late one night and watched it.” She didn’t look happy but stayed with me.

  “Okay. Do I want you to continue?”

  “Yeah. The other day, I went over to look for the file. He told me he wasn’t going to testify at the trial, and he would change his story. He thought it was my fault.”

  “That’s bullshit, and he knows it.”

  “So do I. Julia and her resources can be convincing. I went over there, and I snuck in and looked through the house. The place is all messed up.”

  “How so?” She kept her eyes fixed on me.

  “Everything, almost everything, is gone. It’s like he is preparing to move. I went up to his room, and he came home.”

  “You didn’t get caught?” She asked, always resourceful.

  “No, of course not.” The pain in my knee at the time turned out to be a sprain. I told her it was a gym injury and left things at that. “I never found the file.”

  “Do you think he is changing his story today?”

  “Just be ready,” I said. I tried to keep a defeated note out of my voice. It was a challenge.

&n
bsp; Chapter Forty-Eight

  The Courthouse

  The local courthouse was the copy of the gothic popular style that is in every movie in history. It sat in a bad section of town, and the lawyers and judges walking the sidewalk in their suits all fought to look comfortable. One block over, the relatives of those put in jail in that building walked the same streets, angry and thinking about revenge.

  The building had a parking garage connected on a lower level, and a nondescript sign stood in front that directed us inside to park. The press had satellite trucks stationed on the street. The drivers were huddled in a circle having coffee and joking. I’m sure they had stood there many times a year, waiting for some ten second feed on the trial of the week. This time, we were the ones involved. They did not let us get close to the entrance before they swarmed.

  I’d say it was like each prime time news clip. but that wouldn’t do it justice. The intensity of the situation was something to experience. Flash bulbs popped, and I hit the brakes as their lights shone like the sun had moved to right outside our window. Security guards were standing next to the car and assuring me that the driveway was clear and that I should keep going, but the lights stopped the effectiveness of my eyes, and I was afraid to hit someone.

  Val placed both her hands on the window. The security guard on my side now moved directly in front of me and started to yell. The questions of the reporters were drowning out his yelling, and I slowly pushed the gas. When we moved into the garage, the brightness of the lights turned to night as the darkness came over the car. Guards were placed at intervals making a path in the garage. I followed them to a spot that had an orange construction cone in it. A guard removed the cone, and we parked. One opened each of our doors.