by Jeff Strand
“Yeah, she is,” I said, tightly holding Melanie’s hand.
The “scary man” had long black hair and wore sunglasses. Tracy had pointed to one of the other officers to indicate that he had a mustache and goatee.
“And he never brushes his teeth,” Tracy said.
Officer Reitz had pulled up a picture of Darren on his computer screen and asked Tracy if that was the scary man. She said no. He did some astonishingly quick work with the mouse and keyboard, and then showed Tracy the same picture, doctored with sunglasses, longer hair, and a mustache and goatee.
She said it was him.
But of course I had no doubt. Nor was I supposed to. The pocketknife was more than enough to let me know that he was back, and now he was after my family.
We had police protection twenty-four hours a day. Melanie cried a lot, and I comforted her and told her that everything was going to be fine. I believed it. If we were cautious and alert, he couldn’t hurt us.
I truly believed that.
We sat at the dinner table. Tracy Anne took a way-too-big bite of her bread and wiped her buttery mouth off on her sleeve.
“Napkin,” said Melanie.
Tracy used the napkin to wipe off her sleeve. “Mommy, where’s my birthday present?”
“Your birthday isn’t until tomorrow, sweetie.”
“No, the one I already got.”
“That wasn’t a real birthday present, sweetie. You can’t have that one.”
Tracy Anne cried.
We put bars on the windows and upgraded our alarm system. The old alarm system had been top-of-the-line when it was installed, but now we needed more.
Tracy slept in our bed.
I personally walked her into the preschool classroom each day. I would’ve stayed in the classroom all day if I’d been able to (my finger painting skills could use some development, anyway). A cop kept watch over her day care.
I watched for Darren in every shadow, every corner, every face in the crowd. He couldn’t hide from me, and he was not going to get my daughter.
But you can’t live like that forever.
The police stopped their around-the-clock surveillance.
Tracy moved back to her own bed. Every time I snapped awake, which was several times a night, I’d go check on her.
I had to let Tracy run and play with other kids, even if my heart gave a jolt every time I thought they were running a bit too far.
Weeks passed.
Melanie missed her period. Tracy overheard us talking, and bounced around the house shouting happily about the little brother or sister she was going to have. As it turned out, Melanie wasn’t pregnant but stressed out to the point where it affected her body’s internal rhythms. The doctor prescribed medication. Melanie refused to fill the prescription.
Tracy finally made the bully cry. Her sand castles remained intact after that.
I threw a huge surprise birthday party for Melanie. Everybody was required to show up as a historical figure without saying who it was, and during the party there was a contest to see who could correctly guess the most. We discovered that our friends had an extremely poor grasp of historical figures, but that Tracy made an adorable Joan of Arc. That night, I made love to Melanie while wearing my Napoleon hat.
Months passed.
We bought Tracy her first pet, a goldfish. Tracy decided that she wanted a great big goldfish and poured the entire canister of fish food into the bowl. Goldilocks perished. We told her that the fish had gotten so very big that it grew arms and legs and walked out of the aquarium and went off to live in the ocean.
My job continued to suck.
Melanie’s parents’house in California was damaged by an earthquake, and they came to live with us for three weeks. I realized that as much as I liked her parents, three weeks was way too fucking long.
Tracy lost her first baby tooth. Unfortunately, it was a direct result of trying to swing high enough to do a loop-de-loop.
I accidentally washed Melanie’s favorite white shirt with the darks, which somehow progressed to the worst fight we’d had in our entire marriage, and which was resolved with absolutely exquisite make-up sex.
And I had a dream where Darren slept in Tracy’s blood.
It was a year later when Melanie and I lay snuggled on the couch, watching television.
“Did you make the invitations?” she asked.
“All printed out and ready to go.” I slid my hand over her clothed breast.
“Behave.”
“It wasn’t me.”
She swatted my hand away. “Did you ask Mrs. Gonzalez if she could help?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“She said of course. Some people get giddy at the thought of doing traffic control in a house filled with five-year-olds.”
“Don’t be sarcastic.”
“I’m not being sarcastic. I think it’s great that Tracy wanted to invite her entire class. I’m just wondering how a pair of outcasts like us created such a social butterfly.”
“Maybe she’ll marry well and bring us riches in our old age.”
“Cool,” I said. “Do you hear her?”
Melanie listened carefully. “Is she singing?”
“Yep.”
“Maybe we should go check on her.”
“Because she’s singing?”
“She might be singing that she wants a glass of water.”
“That sounds like her. Don’t get up. I’ll be back.”
I extricated myself from the snuggle position and got off the couch. I carefully tiptoed down the hallway and listened at Tracy’s door which, as always, was open a few inches to let in just enough light to keep the monsters out.
“Choppie choppie choppie,” she sang quietly. “And the head goes ploppie.”
I pushed open her door. Tracy sat up in bed, playing with a rag doll.
“Whatcha still doing up, sweetie?” I asked.
Tracy shrugged. “Dunno.”
I sat down on the bed next to her. “It’s pretty late. You’ve got school tomorrow.”
She poked the birthmark on my chin. “Funny spot!”
I poked her chin back. “What song was that?”
Tracy raised her hand and pounded it three times against the doll’s neck, like delivering a karate chop in rhythm with the song. “Choppie choppie choppie, and the head goes ploppie.”
“Why are you singing that?”
“It keeps my dolls from coming alive.”
“Don’t you want your dolls to come alive? I think that would be pretty neat.”
Tracy shook her head, very slowly and very seriously. “They’ll get me.”
“You have friendly dolls. What makes you think they’d get you?”
“The man told me.”
This doesn’t mean anything is wrong she could be talking about anybody it’s just a song they could have taught it to her in kindergarten she’s not in danger…
“Which man?”
“The nice man.”
“Who’s the nice man?”
“He said he’d protect me.”
“Tracy, Mommy and I will protect you. We’ll always protect you. Is the nice man somebody from your school?”
“No.”
“Day care?”
She nodded. “Billy fell off the slide and he was crying and Mrs. Duza thought he had a ’cushun and the nice man came and talked to me.”
“And he told you about your dolls?”
“He said the song would protect me from them.” She chopped at her doll again. “Choppie choppie choppie and the head goes ploppie.”
“Don’t sing that anymore,” I snapped, much louder than I’d intended. “You’re supposed to always tell me when you meet a stranger. Always. You know that!”
“He protected me.”
“Damn it, Tracy, he could have hurt you!”
Tracy looked at me as if I’d slapped her. Melanie hurried into the room. “What’s wrong?”
�
�I think Darren is back again.”
“Oh my God.” Melanie scooped Tracy out of bed.
“Did you see him, honey? Did you see the scary man?”
Tracy shook her head.
“Do you remember what the scary man looked like?” I asked. “You saw him when you were almost four. Do you remember that?”
She shook her head again.
“It’s him,” I told Melanie. “It has to be.” I wanted to scream and kick things and hold my daughter tight. “Did the man tell you anything else?”
Tracy nodded.
“What?”
“He said that some dolls came alive still.”
“And what did he tell you to do?”
“Stab ’em with a pencil.” Tracy bared her teeth and made a stabbing motion with her fist.
Chapter Twenty
“We’ll run,” I said, pacing frantically but trying to speak softly and not wake up Tracy, who was in our bed. “We’ll pack up, get the hell out of here, and move somewhere where he can never find us.”
“Why won’t he just go away?” asked Melanie, wiping her runny nose with a handkerchief.
“I don’t know.” The scariest part was that he was so patient. He’d waited eight years to show up again. Then another year between the pocketknife and the chopping song. Had he been spying on us all this time? Maybe he spent every day secretly watching Tracy at day care, just waiting for an opportunity like Billy falling off the slide. Or maybe this was exactly how he’d planned it.
Pocketknife before her fourth birthday.
Scary song before her fifth birthday.
Would he wait another year before he tried something else?
It didn’t matter. We were moving. We’d move across the country, or go to Mexico, or go to fucking Antarctica if we had to. Anything to get away from that maniac.
“I can’t live like this,” said Melanie. “I can’t be scared all the time.”
“We won’t be.”
“We will be! As long as he’s out there, no matter where we go we’ll always be scared. What kind of life will Tracy have?”
“The police will catch him.”
“They haven’t caught him in nine years! Why would they catch him now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do, Melanie! He’s insane and he’s fixated on me—!”
“On Tracy.”
“—on Tracy, and I don’t know how to handle the situation except to put a bullet through his brain. Which I’ll do if I ever see the son of a bitch! But until then, we just need to get out of here. I’ll quit my job, we’ll pull Tracy out of kindergarten, we’ll pack up, and we’ll leave! We’ll change our identity! We’ll do whatever it takes!”
I could feel myself losing it. And this was probably exactly what Darren wanted. Why kidnap our daughter now, when he could make us fear for her safety for the next year? For the next ten years. For the rest of our lives.
The next day I quit my job. I’d wanted to do this since the day I started, but Darren had stolen the joy from this moment. Instead I felt sick to my stomach and depressed as I typed my e-mail of resignation. I’d fantasized about doing this hundreds of times, and even had a lengthy mental list of unflattering adjectives for Mr. Grove, but instead the e-mail was brief and regretful.
Melanie was absolutely heartsick over dropping out of school, but there was no choice. Most of her credits would transfer.
We had enough savings to sustain us for…well, not long at all, and that was if we cut into Tracy’s college fund. That idea wounded Melanie more than anything else, but I swore that we’d replace it.
The plan was simple. We were going to get in our car and drive away. Darren couldn’t find us if even we didn’t know where we were going. We’d pack only what we could fit in the trunk of our car and drive off to a new future.
In a way, it was almost romantic.
It was also unnecessary, because as I sat in a booth at the local fast food burger joint, eating a flavorless lunch as I took a break from tying up the crucial loose ends of our life here, Darren joined me.
“Howdy,” he said.
He looked horrible. He’d cut his hair short and the mustache and goatee that Tracy had reported were no longer there. But his face had a sunken look, as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks, and his complexion was pale and sickly. He smiled at me, revealing rotted teeth.
“I’ve got cops following me everywhere I go,” I told him. “You’re fucked.”
He shook his head. “No you don’t. Your daughter does but you don’t. Damn budget cuts.” He chuckled. “By the way, I’ve got a gun. You cause me trouble and I’ll start shooting people at random.”
“Let me see the gun.”
“Oooh, lost some of our trusting nature, huh?” He opened his leather jacket, revealing the handle of a pistol protruding from an inside pocket. He closed it up but kept his hand inside.
“You stay the fuck away from my daughter,” I told him.
“No.”
“If you touch her, I’ll kill you.”
“Maybe that’s what I want. Can I have some fries?”
“Fuck you. They’re mine.”
“You get feistier every time we meet, Alex. I think Melanie is really good for you. I was pretty hurt that I didn’t get invited to the wedding, though. Did you get the salad shooter I sent?”
I took a tasteless bite of my hamburger and didn’t respond.
“You’re actin’pretty brave there, buddy. Of course, you know that I’m not here to shoot you. If I wanted to do that, I’ve had hundreds of opportunities, and I’m speaking literally. Did Tracy sing you her song?”
Just lean over, you son of a bitch, I thought. If he got close enough for me to reach out and grab him, I’d slam the sick bastard against the table and bash him until his skull split open.
I might not even stop then.
“This is too public,” said Darren. “Let’s go for a drive.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He nodded at a booth behind me. “See that baby in the high seat? One shot and her head will look like the food they’re trying to get her to eat. Then I’ll shoot the mother, and then I’ll shoot you. Then I’ll slip out that door right there”—he pointed behind me again—“and flee the scene. I’ll lay low for a year, maybe two, and then I’ll find your wife and daughter. Do you like your daughter’s fingers, Alex? They’d make a beautiful necklace, don’t you think?”
“You rehearsed that, didn’t you?”
“I don’t get the feeling that you’re taking me seriously,” said Darren, pulling the gun out of his jacket. “Let’s rectify that.”
“No!”
He quickly hid the gun under the table. “I hate threatening babies,” he said. “Don’t make me do it again.”
“Where do you want to take me?” I asked.
“It’s a surprise.”
“I’ve seen your surprises.”
“You sure have. How often do you think about that hatchet going into her neck? I bet it made a great sound, didn’t it? Think she could see when you carried her head around?” He shifted in his seat. “Get up from the table slowly. Take the rest of the fries with you; I’m starving.”
I gathered up the fries and put them back in the bag. Then, slowly as instructed, I slid out of the booth.
“Go out the back door.”
I walked toward the back door, watching the baby happily coo as its mother teased it with a slice of pickle. I wondered if Darren really would have shot the baby first.
Yeah, he would have.
I pushed open the door and walked outside the restaurant. Darren stepped up right behind me and shoved the barrel of the gun into my back. “Let’s pick up the pace,” he said, as we moved across the parking lot.
I looked around for a cop, a security guard, anybody who could help me, but the only other occupants of the parking lot were a group of teenagers lost in their individual cell phone conversations. Somebody had to notice that he had a g
un in my back, right?
“It’s the blue one,” Darren said, prodding me again. “It’s unlocked. Get in the passenger side.”
I opened the passenger door of the blue sedan and got inside. Keeping the gun pointed at me, Darren got in the driver’s side. He switched gun hands, dug a set of keys out of his pocket, and started the car.
We pulled out of the parking lot, and then immediately into the parking lot of the grocery store next door. He drove around the back of it, next to a Dumpster, and then put the car into park.
“Get out,” he said, waving the gun at me.
“You’re letting me go?”
“Of course not. You’re just switching seats. Get out.”
I opened the door and got out. I considered making a run for it, but he could easily put a bullet into my back before I got anywhere close to safety. He reached down, pulled a lever, and the trunk popped open.
“I figured somebody at the restaurant would think it was suspicious if they saw you get in the trunk,” he said, getting out of the car. “Gotta think of these things, you know. If anybody sees us, they’re dead, so get in there quick.”
I climbed into the trunk.
Darren slammed the lid shut.
I had a wristwatch that lit up when I pressed on the face. 1:37. 2:15. 3:19.
The car stopped at 3:44. I heard sounds that I was pretty sure were Darren refueling the vehicle. He didn’t acknowledge my presence in the trunk with even a friendly tap on the lid.
We started off again. At 6:15 we stopped a second time, but I didn’t hear any refueling. Probably a stretch and pee break. I wanted to pound on the lid, to scream for help, but I also didn’t want to get anybody killed.
He refueled again at 7:42.
At 9:59, the car stopped. I heard something that sounded like an electric garage door opener, and then the car moved forward again and the engine shut off. I heard the garage door close, and a moment later Darren threw open the lid of the trunk. I blinked and shielded my eyes from the blinding light.
“Sorry about the ride,” said Darren with no trace of sarcasm. “I couldn’t risk anybody seeing you.” He extended his hand. “C’mon, I’ll help you out.”