Do Not Call

by Julian Folk

  Fuck!

  And the taste…

  Vincent vomits Connor’s infected flesh.

  Zombielike indifference falls across Connor. His hand emerges, not to punch… It shovels snow in Vincent’s bloody mouth. Vincent laughs. The force of his laughter expels some snow and vomit. But then Connor handshovels in more snow. Connor can’t punch with both hands, he’s not trained to, but he can use both to handshovel snow in Vincent’s mouth. And now his nose.

  Vincent thought his bully was kidding.

  But he’s not. Connor’s hands feel cold to the touch but not frozen. He wore gloves under the snow, until a minute ago. Connor’s aggression escalates. Vincent has so much snow in his mouth, it props his jaw open. Connor shovels more in. Vincent clears a nostril and Connor plugs it good.

  Damn. Vincent stuffed Big Bro’s package in his own mouth. That gave Lil’ Bro the idea to stuff Vincent’s mouth.

  Connor’s infected jaw gushes blood and pus. The residual taste aggrieves Vincent. The attacker’s indifference induces envy. The bully’s killing him mindfully, while Vincent’s fighting back mindlessly. Connor packs snow in Vincent’s mouth, bedeviling Vincent, as Vincent’s hands uselessly bat Connor’s face.

  I cut off your balls, you fuck.

  How do you kill a man who meant so much to you?

  How do you kill him in such a bullshit way?

  Now Connor holds Vincent’s mouth and nose shut.

  Suffocation.

  “I knew what you wanted, Eric,” Connor says, the drained and eaten mass barely slurring his speech.

  The name “Eric” paralyzes Vincent. Eric was weak, nerdy, reckless. Vincent buried Eric Rice. This man you’re speaking to, the man you’re killing, is Vincent DeSantis.

  “You always thought we weren’t good enough, Eric. You didn’t understand. It was an opinion, not a fact. That we weren’t good enough. You hated things about yourself. You hated things about me. You assumed that because you hated those things, they were bad, they were wrong. But there was nothing wrong with you to begin with. There was nothing wrong with me. Everyone can always do a better job. As a husband, an employee, whatever the fuck. But not by forcing. It just doesn’t work. You gotta grow into a better person. Like a fucking tree grows and fills out and stands up. I don’t know; I don’t really give a fuck. What I do know is the fact that you’d be cool right now if you’d just done nothing. You’d be cool right now if you’d done nothing about the shit you hate about yourself or me or anyone else. You’d be totally asleep at home right now with a wife and kids.

  “Instead, Eric, you’re fucking dead.”

  Catharsis, like a primal scream but in the form of laughter: Connor unleashes a primal laugh.

  Vincent ceases his resistance. He accepts his homicide. Dad will be so ashamed of him. Vincent cries. His body forces him to keep attempting to suck air out of his nose and mouth. But snow blocks the passages, and Connor’s hands block the openings.

  I should’ve used my brains and my skills to get rich.

  You can train dogs. You can even train tigers. But you cannot train certain human beings. Especially human beings of Connor’s disposition.

  The worst are inheriting the earth.

  “I think I killed your worthless father, too,” Connor says.

  Vincent’s tears flow in torrents. He believes Connor. He wouldn’t be surprised if Bud lets Connor live. Or if Jasper uses, or used, Nikki to neutralize Bud.

  I love Jasper and he wants me dead.

  Nobody told me helping people was so dangerous.

  I was used.

  I should’ve minded my own business.

  From day one.

  I’d still be here if I didn’t try to help anyone…

  Connor lets go and falls to Vincent’s side.

  The heart quits pumping blood. Nothing moves. But Vincent remains conscious, aware. Whether Vincent is alive, dead, or between states, awareness lingers.

  This is his curse.

  The porch door opens and closes.

  “Don’t be afraid, Connor,” Nikki’s voice. “I killed Bud. He bit my thigh and shot it but I’m fine. Ayelet killed Maisie and saved my life. Connor Jr.’s okay. You’re the most fucked up of all of us.”

  “They’ll still kill us.” Connor’s voice.

  “No.” Camera flash. “Bud’s phone. Fingerprint-activated—I sawed off his finger. I’m tweeting our survival right now. Let me take a picture of this dead freakshow.” Camera flash. “I’m tweeting his death, too. Jasper has no choice but to let us live.”

  “I want to hold my son.” Connor’s voice, a whimper.

  “We’re here Connor.” Ayelet’s voice. She wails. So does the baby.

  “Allow me to put a couple bullets in Vincent’s head. If you don’t mind…” Nikki’s voice. So casual. Businesslike.

  She towers above the corpse. Her nose got wrecked. Her soul got happy.

  “Are you sure he’s dead?” Ayelet’s voice.

  Emotion mangles her words.

  Vincent would rather go to hell than listen to these people.

  “Random motor movements.” Nikki’s voice. “I think he’s gone. Piece of shit.”

  Vincent witnesses three more things: fire in the barrel, bone and brain kicking up and snow accumulating on his eyeballs.

  He experiences four last things: no heaven, no hell, no here, no now.

  Chapter 38

  Nikki marvels at the four thousand retweets.

  She tweets a selfie of the survivors. Connor’s color catches her eye: bluish, a real bad kind of blue, Lazarus Blue. He looks so risen-from-the-dead.

  “Main Street,” Nikki says.

  “What?” Ayelet asks.

  Connor sways on his feet. His gaze recedes from the room. An end-of-life stupor takes him.

  The ongoing destruction of Main Street drowned out the battle in the backyard. Nikki caught Connor and Vincent fighting on a routine check. One decked in sanitation getup, the other bundled to run the Iditarod. Connor mounted Vincent. Nikki assumed it was the reverse. The idea bubbled up to shoot the man on top. She lasered on the entangled men. Those hands rising from the snow. Big, powerful. The manicured fingernails glistened.

  The man on top shoveled snow at the one underneath. Not on him, though. In his mouth.

  Vincent’s a professional, Nikki thought. Too experienced to choke a man and suffocate him that way.

  Vincent’s expertise cost him his life.

  Nikki pulls up a chair in the dining room. Connor falls backward on it but exerts himself in resisting gravity’s desire to drag him to the floor. Ayelet cleans the wound adjacent to his mouth. Vincent’s teeth tore away much of the infected mass. Though the gush of blood and pus is stanched.

  Connor’s body’s shutting down.

  “You sure Bud’s dead?” he mumbles

  “Heard the snap, babe,” Ayelet says.

  “Thank you, Nikki,” he mumbles, “for protecting my family.”

  “You’re very welcome,” she says. “Thank you for having such a great brother…”

  “Hey, I’m the one who killed Maisie,” Ayelet says.

  Nikki giggles and turns her back, ashamed of her tears. Bud’s phone rings. Jasper’s name.

  Don’t kill us, you fossil. Go away. Nikki can’t even…

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “I read your tweets and viewed your photos, Nikki. What vivid pictures you take. I suppose the professor requires medical treatment immediately—”

  Nikki glances at Connor. He shivers; his posture falters. The man used up everything he had. She’s in the dark about how he even got home.

  “If I were you, I would seek the help of the first responders tending to the bonfire that was Main Street,” Jasper says. “The Official Story, the truth, what I call ‘The Narrative,’ is currently being drafted. Here’s the gist: Dangerous hacker Eric Rice fakes his death. Becomes Vincent DeSantis. Infiltrates the federal government. Meets rogue contractor Noland Bridgewater o
n the Dark Web. Cultivates Iran and other foreign baddies. Gathers like-minded rogues in D.C. Goes on a rampage. Carries out a personal vendetta against the Yard family. Leading to Robert’s death, the Honolulu bombing, the North Berkshire mishegas and, who knows, perhaps Connor’s death, too. The Narrative is tentative, subject to change. In fact, it undergoes revision as I speak it—”

  “We need to get to Main Street,” Nikki says.

  “But you won’t survive five minutes unless you understand one thing,” Jasper says.

  Nikki says it first: “There’s no such thing as No Touch Kill—”

  “Repeat it for me.”

  “There’s no such thing as No Touch Kill, sir.”

  Still expecting to be shot dead, Nikki parts the blinds and spies on the street. Snow spanks the neighborhood. Lighter, thinner snow.

  Bud’s truck is deluged.

  The block hasn’t been plowed since Main Street exploded.

  Even if they have a sled, the snow’s too soft.

  One option: walk, carrying Connor and his son.

  Nikki holds the baby and feeds Connor a water bottle. He appears to be conscious and floating in limbo. This ex-prettyboy professor rose to the occasion—slew his super-bully, saved himself and his family—not to be boxed-up in a casket and dumped in the ground. His life is an endless succession of missions. Now the mission is, Save Connor.

  Ayelet turns boxes upside down and unearths winter wear and a baby carrier. She bundles and packages the infant for blizzard travel.

  “Help’s down the block, Connor,” Nikki says.

  His eyes fight to stay one-third open.

  “Take his right shoulder,” Nikki says. “I’ll take his left. And I’ll hold the baby.”

  Ayelet obeys.

  Nikki watches Ayelet suppress signs of severe pain.

  They lift Connor to his feet. Take a couple practice steps. The blue hero supports very little of his own weight but it might be enough.

  His blue color darkens.

  If they don’t hustle, he’ll lose his face.

  “Are you sure you have the strength?” Ayelet asks Nikki.

  She guffaws. Her torso contorts in offense. “I kick ass every day of my life,” she says.

  The front door opens and reveals a landscape invaded and occupied by white.

  “You didn’t kick ass on that roof,” Ayelet says, laughing.

  “Um, smoke inhalation, you know,” Nikki says. “Otherwise I would’ve torn that bitch limb-from-limb.”

  “Alright…”

  The storm door won’t budge. The snow drift levels off at Nikki’s belly button. Ayelet lets go a gallows-type laugh. Nikki shares in it. For a moment. Then she presses her finger to her lips.

  Ayelet shushes.

  Movement outside. A shovel scrapes the stoop. Rescuer or killer? Or killer posing as rescuer?

  Regardless of what he says, Jasper’s bias is toward killing.

  And the emergency responders have their hands full on Main Street.

  “If someone’s coming to kill us—” Ayelet says.

  “We sit Connor and the baby down and fight,” Nikki says.

  Ayelet flicks on the porch light. A short figure, not 5’5”, in a heavy blue coat, shovels his or her way up the steps. Shovels fast. Moving huge chunks of white.

  “Are you here to kill us?” Ayelet yells.

  “Nope,” she yells back. The figure materializes at the storm door and scrunches her face at Connor, who slumps, and whose body leaks life. Isoldi.

  She pushes a button on her radio:

  “Professor’s eighty percent dead. Is a chopper available?”

  The answer, emphatic and immediate:

  “Yes.”

  Ayelet transfers her half of Connor’s weight to Isoldi. They hurry down the shoveled path. Connor’s contribution decreases by the step. A snowplow grinds up the street. Isoldi halts their progress. “We wait.” The plow circles back and inadvertently builds a wall of snow separating them from help.

  A Fire Department SUV slips and slides up to the house.

  Connor Jr. smiles under the falling snow but Ayelet cries as Connor hangs limply.

  “This is trending on Twitter,” Isoldi says, “viral everywhere else.”

  The wind whacks snow across their cheeks like a frozen bamboo cane.

  Nikki and Isoldi lift Connor to the top of the plow-built wall. Firefighters pull him over. Then Ayelet and Nikki. Leaving Isoldi.

  The chopper lands by the pond at the NBCC campus.

  Ayelet testifies to the injury on Nikki’s thigh. Nikki negotiates her way onto the chopper. Treatment can wait, she knows.

  She just doesn’t want to be alone.

  EMS workers compress Connor’s chest and perform mouth-to-mouth.

  An hour later, Nikki overhears a doctor tell Ayelet that Connor is undergoing open-heart cardiac message.

  Chapter 39

  Springfield, Massachusetts

  Jan looks after Jimmy and Connor Jr. at the hotel.

  The doctor puts Nikki’s nose in a cast and refers her for a consult on reconstructive thigh surgery. Ayelet attends the consult. The plastic surgeon lifts the bandage and snickers at the missing flesh. “What happened, cannibal attack?” she asks.

  “Bearded cannibal,” Nikki says.

  Nikki and Ayelet pass hours in the waiting room any way possible, while a battalion of surgeons reconstructs Connor’s smile. Despite still-risky weather conditions, the surgeons flew in from New York, Princeton and Boston. A top UCLA surgeon supervises via Webinar.

  Ayelet carries Connor on her insurance. The insurance company acknowledged the importance of a person’s face. It made no fuss about shelling out big bucks.

  State police guard the hospital like they would an inverted Supermax prison, protecting those inside from the public. They guard it in layers, beginning outside the hospital doors. Troopers stand post at the elevator banks on the surgical floor. They guard the waiting room and operating room. That Vincent, Maisie and Bud got their toes tagged means nothing. Jasper could give the order to anyone at any time.

  Connor wallows in critical condition, anesthetized, and Nikki is injured and has no friends. Connor and Nikki showed up for Ayelet and her baby. Ayelet needs to ignore her compulsive urge to write Book IV and show up for them.

  A text pings on her new phone:

  Dov says he’s back at CAA and The Mother of the World is a go.

  “They bought your bullshit about the hacked emails,” he says.

  Ayelet zips the phone in her bag.

  Connor Jr. awakens and bawls. People in the waiting room bury their faces deeper in their hands. Nikki cringes. Ayelet lifts him and sniffs his infant ass. The pungent stink disgusts her.

  “Pee-yew,” she whispers and waddles to the hallway.

  She flashes a grin at the trooper standing guard. He touches the brim of his hat with his thumb and index finger.

  What a shame. This trooper has such a dangerous assignment. Unless he’s Jasper’s guy.

  Vowing not to breathe, Ayelets unfastens the diaper. The little guy swims nowhere on his back. He pees sideways and the stream strikes her baby wipe, so she grabs another and guides the chunky stew from his skin into the diaper.

  My murdered mother changed my diaper.

  Grief suddenly savages Ayelet. Her good mood caves in, positively implodes and the bits and pieces of it disintegrate. Tears rush, slide along her face and drip down.

  Val had no nanny. The family wasn’t rich yet. She changed Ayelet’s diaper just like Ayelet does for her son now. Even in the middle of the night, Val did it.

  Ayelet’s helplessness thirty years ago is Connor Jr.’s helplessness now.

  Val raised Ayelet. She didn’t excel at it. But she created the home environment and supplied Ayelet the tools she needed to be a productive person in the world.

  Mom and Dad did okay, at least ’til she left the house.

  Now they sleep in a freezer. The coroner butchered their
corpses for law enforcement purposes. Their wake and burial waits on Connor’s surgeries.

  Before this moment, Ayelet didn’t care.

  Ayelet exhales and cleans her son, neurotically attentive to fatty folds and creases. After a minute of calm, the wipes chafe, he bleats and Mommy apologizes.

  Commotion.

  Set off by a roar. A profound roar. Emitted by an aged throat. The roar of an old lion. A lion so old the jungle’s turning on him. He roars again. Ayelet discerns the words “killed my son.” The old lion’s throat shreds the word “son.” A gunshot. Did he shoot the ceiling?

  Officer Rice.

  An emotionally and physically wounded lion. His roars louden. They migrate closer to the bathroom. No one shoots.

  A trooper, calm and collected, says, “Please, sir. No one else needs to get hurt. You’re bleeding…”

  Officer Rice hurt himself to gain admission to the hospital and concealed a weapon on his body, or stole one.

  But why won’t they shoot him?

  Prick’s got a hostage.

  So, despite Connor’s defeat of Vincent DeSantis, despite the ER doctors’ heroic efforts, despite the in-progress surgery to fix Connor’s face, she might lose Ayelet anyway.

  Officer Rice migrates past the bathroom and roars:

  “Show me the bully that killed my son. Show me the bully that destroyed my family. Show me the bully that ruined my life.”

  Writerly curiosity hooks Ayelet. Silencing Connor Jr., she exits the bathroom. Nikki, who hid behind the desk in the waiting room, emerges and waves her hand in a go-back-inside-are-you-crazy motion.

  But Ayelet refuses. Whatever happens, she insists on bearing witness. So Nikki stands in front of her, weapon drawn, inching ahead.

  Four troopers surround Officer Rice. They move with him. He aims a gun inside a nurse’s open mouth. The nurse streams tears. A dotted line of blood marks their path. The old lion’s pallor speaks to severe injury. Significant blood loss.

  He fucking shot himself.

  Officer Rice’s slow procession yields a result.