Miles To Go Before I Sleep

by Bentley Little

  Keith took a step forward. “Wait a minute. I want to—”

  “Let’s get out of here!” Elena screamed. Her voice echoed, disappearing into the rumble of the machinery.

  Lisa looked around the edge of a boiler. The concrete here was darker than everywhere else, but she saw against the blackness a wisp of white.

  She bent down to look, frowning, and she leaped back as though shocked.

  Her father’s handkerchief. It was her father’s handkerchief. One of the set she had given him last year for Father’s Day.

  No, it just looked like her father’s handkerchief. It wasn’t really. It couldn’t be . . .

  “What is it?” Keith demanded, coming up behind her.

  Lisa turned around, shaking her head, trying to quell the panic in her breast. “Nothing,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing!”

  He pushed past her, picked up the small square of white cloth. “This? What is it?”

  Don’t tell! a part of her brain warned. You don’t know for sure!

  “It’s my father’s,” she said. “It’s my father’s handkerchief.”

  NINE

  Ed felt strange this evening. It was not merely the way Lisa looked at him with that snotty suspicious expression she’d been putting on the past week. It was not merely the fact that he had gotten rid of the boxes in his car and they had come back again.

  And again.

  No, it was something else, something different, and it made him restless. He sped through dinner, wolfing down his food, ignoring the shared glances of his wife and daughter. He tried to read, tried to watch TV, but always he found himself walking anxiously through the house, prowling about.

  Then he realized what was wrong.

  He was bored with being awake.

  He wanted to sleep.

  He should have been frightened, and he knew he should have been frightened, but he wasn’t and he didn’t care. He glanced over at Barbara, sitting on the couch, watching a cable movie. Did she look different today? She did. She looked happier or healthier or something. Her skin looked flush, like she’d gotten a tan.

  Or had sex.

  Could that be possible? For the first time in nearly a week he felt apprehensive, unsure of himself. The cocky, almost arrogant self-confidence that had been his since he’d started dreaming he was—

  Freddy

  —whole again, had left, replaced by the old self-doubts. He studied Barbara’s face. God, she was pretty. And she was still young. It was only natural for her to want—

  No, a part of his mind said, a cold strong part that would brook no argument. It was not natural for her to want anything. And if she even thought about another man, she deserved to—

  He cut that thought off before it was finished. He still felt restless, ill at ease, but he forced himself to sit down in his chair. He stared blankly for a few moments at the tripe on the television, then looked at Barbara and Lisa out of the corner of his eye.

  God, he wanted to sleep.

  He faked a yawn, a loud melodramatic yawn that quickly got both Barbara’s and Lisa’s attention. “I’m tired,” he said. “I think I’ll hit the hay.”

  “Okay,” Barbara said.

  Lisa simply stared at him.

  Before, he would have kissed them both good night, but tonight he didn’t feel like kissing anybody. He walked down the hallway to the bedroom, where he took from the closet his sweater and the hat he’d purchased the other day.

  He put them both on and crawled into bed, closing his eyes, smiling.

  He couldn’t wait to sleep.

  He couldn’t wait to dream.

  TEN

  The clerk at the hardware store had the face of a trout.

  It was like something out of Ripley’s.

  Elena tried not to stare as she made her way past the cash register toward the gardening section, but she could not help glancing to the side as she passed the clerk. Above the white-collared neck of his shirt protruded an elongated head, shiny with gray scales. Beneath carefully parted hair bulged two huge gelatinous eyes. The man had no nose, but his lipless O-shaped mouth opened and closed in rhythmic counterpoint to the sound of her footsteps on the tile.

  Elena hurried down an aisle, desperate to hide herself as far from the clerk as possible. She should have turned around and walked out the instant she had seen him, but in an extension of the polite pity she felt for the handicapped, she had not wanted to hurt his feelings and had decided to pretend she hadn’t noticed his deformity.

  It was a decision she now regretted. The hardware store was quiet, apparently empty of customers save for her, and there was no way she could walk back outside without attracting the clerk’s attention.

  She stared at the shelves before her, but where there should have been nuts and bolts, pipes and plumbing fixtures, she saw only row after row of different-sized Barbie dolls.

  Her heart started pounding. She was suddenly afraid of something much worse than the fish-headed clerk.

  She ran back down the aisle the way she had come. Her footsteps were loud, but they were not loud enough to cover the heavy awkward thud of the work boots behind her. She was being chased.

  By Freddy.

  She did not dare turn around. If she saw him, her legs would turn to jelly and she would not be able to run. The aisle opened out. She could see the doorway up ahead.

  And Freddy was standing behind the cash register.

  Impaled on his razor fingers was the bloody trout head of the sales clerk.

  The monster licked one of the fish eyeballs, bit down. Green juice squirted out. He grinned at her, his rotted teeth square and crooked and somehow too small for his head. “Delicious,” he said. “Want to try a bite?”

  She found herself shaking her head.

  Run! she told herself. Run! But her body would not obey.

  Freddy walked slowly around the register counter. His arm dropped to his side, the fish head fell to the floor with a muted squish. He beckoned to her with a bloody razor finger. The metal clicked loudly in the silent store. “I like all kinds of fish,” he said.

  And then he was standing next to her, and then his arms were around her, and then she was screaming.

  Keith was at a Mexican restaurant with Hogan and his buddies from the football team. That was weird. Ordinarily Hogan, the most popular and successful jock at school, would not give him the time of day. But now they were seated at the biggest table in the restaurant, talking like old buddies.

  It must have been the holiday season, for a Christmas tree was prominently displayed in the center of the room. The tree was lit by multicolored lights and decorated with rodent heads and dried beetles.

  Rodent heads? Beetles? Keith frowned. There was something wrong with that, but he could not quite put his finger on what made it seem out of place. He turned his head to look at the booth behind him, and he saw one man, naked, lying flat on the table while two seated men used steak knives to carve pieces out of his flesh.

  “. . . but something’s different about him,” Hogan was saying. “He doesn’t seem like Mr. Williams. I passed by him the other day in the hall, and just looking at him gave me the creeps.”

  The waiter arrived and placed before them large plates on which were perched Tonka trucks. “Be careful,” the waiter said. “The plates are hot.”

  Keith looked down at the truck on his plate, then looked up—

  —and he was in the bathroom near the boy’s locker room at school. Hogan and the other football players were standing around him, but they were all silent. He realized that they were scared.

  There was a low rumble, a deep Sensurround sound, and the door to the bathroom flew open with a loud crash.

  “It’s the coach,” Hogan said. His face was bleached white.

  Keith turned to face the door.

  And it was Freddy.

  “Today we learn about hygiene,” Freddy said. Grinning,
he held up a toothbrush, only instead of bristles, hundreds of tiny pins and needles were embedded in the red plastic of the handle. He pointed toward Jimmy Heath, the smallest football player on the team. “Take it,” he said.

  He chuckled as the frightened boy took the toothbrush from his hand.

  “You have to brush after every meal,” he said. “It’s the only way to get rid of that plaque. And that enamel. And those gums.”

  Jimmy began to brush. The needles scraped loudly against his teeth. Blood began to flow from his mouth down his chin.

  Laughing, Freddy moved forward and put an arm around Keith. Razor fingers dangled suggestively over Keith’s shoulder. “I’m going to show you how to take a shower.”

  Keith wanted to escape, wanted to run, but he could do nothing as Freddy led him across the bathroom into the locker room and over to the showers. He felt his clothes being ripped off, felt himself pushed onto the tile, and then painful jets of scalding water were hitting him in the face.

  He screamed in agony.

  “Scrub good,” Freddy said. He speared a bar of soap with one of his razor fingers and began scraping the soap and the fingers across Keith’s chest.

  The blood flowed thickly onto the tile and slowly, swirlingly, down the drain.

  ELEVEN

  “Ed.”

  Louder: “Ed!”

  He awoke, jerking up and opening his eyes at the sound of the voice. For a brief, baffling second he wasn’t sure where he was. He thought he might still be in the boiler room. Then the fog cleared and he saw that he was in the maintenance supply office. Mr. Kinney was standing in the doorway.

  “Haven’t been getting enough sleep lately, eh, Ed?” The principal smiled, walking into the office. “Listen, Ed, I’d like to talk to you about . . .” His voice trailed off and a look of stern hardness came over his features. “Where did you get that?” he asked, pointing.

  Ed looked down at the glove. He was wearing it, and the razor fingers clanked awkwardly as he tried to take it off. “It’s nothing,” he said.

  “I know what it is,” Mr. Kinney responded, “and I want you to give it to me now.” His voice was shaking a little. “I don’t know if this is a joke or what, but if it is a joke, it’s in very bad taste. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Ed, but . . .” He held out his hand.

  Ed pulled away. “It’s mine.”

  “Ed.”

  “It’s mine.” He picked up his hat and put it on. The fingers snapped loudly as he did so. He felt suddenly angry, and he realized with surprise that he hated the principal.

  “Ed, I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Shut up, Kinney.” He spat the words out. “I don’t have to listen to you. I don’t have to do what you say. I don’t work for you anymore, you son of a bitch.”

  “What—”

  He pushed past the principal and walked out into the hallway.

  “You’re crazy!” Mr. Kinney called after him. “I’m calling the district! I’m calling the police!”

  Ed whirled around. “You do and I’ll kill you.” He turned his back on the principal and walked down the hallway, out of the building. In the open air he felt better, more like his normal self, and he stood dizzily on the steps for a moment, taking a deep breath as he squinted against the sun. He looked down at his hand, at the shiny razors dangling limply there, and he felt stupid, foolish. He took the glove off as he walked across the parking lot. It slipped easily from his hand, and he blinked, unable to remember why a few moments before he had been so angry at the principal, why he had hated the man so much. He opened the door of his car, dropping the razor fingers inside.

  “You bastard!”

  Ed turned to see the football star (Logan? Hogan?) and a group of fellow jocks storming across the parking lot toward him. They were obviously stirred up, and just as obviously after him. He could see the clenched jaws, the clenched fists. He could both sense and see the rage in their movements. But before he could get in the car and safely lock the doors, the ball players had surrounded him in a rough semicircle.

  “You murdering bastard,” Hogan said.

  The jocks crowded closer.

  Ed feigned puzzlement. “What?”

  “I know what you did. I saw you in my nightmare.”

  “Me too!” another boy shouted.

  “Me too!”

  “Listen,” Ed said, backing against the car. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You killed Cathy and you killed Keith and you killed Elena!” Hogan pushed him. “Now we’re going to make sure you can’t hurt anyone else!”

  “Do you hear what you’re saying? Do you realize how crazy that is?” He looked at them wide-eyed. Part of him believed his protestations, meant every word he said, but somewhere in his mind he also remembered Hogan from his dream the night before. He recalled Keith and Elena. He recalled Hogan’s little friend and the pincushion toothbrush.

  Ed glanced quickly toward the smallest boy in the gang.

  He saw the bandages around the kid’s strangely swollen mouth.

  “You don’t—” he began.

  They fell upon him, the entire team. He could only raise his arm to ward off the blows, and then he was down, able to see only red fists and redder faces and dirty white kicking sneakers. Fighting against the tide, he forced himself to rise, and with a supreme effort he opened the car door and grabbed the glove.

  The punching stopped.

  “I’ll kill you,” Ed said. His voice was quiet and low and did not sound like his normal voice. The kids looked at him with fear, and he felt good, strong, powerful. He put on the glove, fanned the fingers at them. He grinned. “Remember these, boys?”

  The jocks, so brave a moment ago, looked at him, looked at each other, and took off running.

  He laughed as he watched them flee.

  He was still laughing as he got in the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

  TWELVE

  Lisa tapped her foot nervously against the floor of the phone booth. Keith and Elena. Dead. Both dead. She wiped her forehead. She was hot, sweating. Her top stuck to her body, her bra felt too tight, and she could smell the sour stench of her own sweat. She wiped her cheeks. The phone rang. Again. And again. On the fourth ring the answering machine kicked in. She heard a recording of her mother’s slow, patient voice.

  Please Mom, she thought. Pick up the phone.

  But the message ended without anyone answering, and Lisa said what she had to say, talking fast, the words spilling out. “Mom,” she said breathlessly. “It’s me. I want you to get out of the house. Now. Before Daddy gets home. I can’t explain, but you have to get out of there. Don’t tell Daddy where you’re going. I have some money and I’m taking the bus to Chicago. Grandma’s. Call me or meet me there. But don’t tell Daddy. He’s dangerous.”

  In her mind, as she spoke, she saw the burned man of last night’s dream. Freddy. He had not seen her, had been making his way toward a hardware store and had not noticed her sitting in one of the cars on the busy street, but she had seen him. His face had been different, more angular, more cruel, but the way he moved, the way he walked, reminded her of her father.

  He had been wearing her father's red and green sweater.

  And her father’s hat.

  She had known then, for sure.

  She closed her eyes before hanging up the phone. “I love you, Mom,” she said. She closed her eyes, swallowing hard, leaning against the half-glass of the booth.

  She prayed. For the first time since she had stopped going to Sunday school in fourth grade, she prayed.

  She hoped God heard her.

  THIRTEEN

  Home was only a five-minute drive from school, but it took Ed nearly an hour to make the trip. He kept turning off on side streets, wanting to get away, wanting to stop himself from hurting Barbara.

  But why would he hurt Barbara?

  Because she was an unfaithful, lying slut.

  But he loved her.r />
  But she didn't love him.

  Once, he nearly drove into the lane of an oncoming truck, and for a brief flash of a second he felt good, felt as though he had made the right decision. Then reason reasserted itself and he swerved out of the way, ignoring the honks and screams coming from the other cars around him.

  Finally he grew tired, though. Finally he arrived home. He shut off the car, took the key from the ignition and sat there for a moment, staring at the empty face of the garage door. He looked down at the seat next to him. He saw the glove. He saw the hat. Slowly, he put them on.

  He got out of the car.

  He killed Barbara while she slept. She was lying in bed, taking an afternoon nap, smiling as she dozed, dreaming no doubt of some meaty young stud, and he pulled the glove tight and with a rattle of razor fingers slashed across the thin soft flesh of her stomach, the skin parting cleanly and absurdly easily, red blood welling from the evenly spaced slashes and streaming over her body onto the bed. She tried to scream, opening her eyes and mouth in shocked terrorized tandem, but he cut off her face and then the blood was everywhere.

  He backed out, closed the bedroom door, then walked calmly into the kitchen, where he washed off his razor fingers in the sink, the red blood turning pink as it dissipated in the water.

  He took a bottle of sleeping pills from the medicine cabinet next to the spice rack and put it in his pocket for later.

  Returning to the bedroom, he withdrew his battered hat and his red and green sweater from the closet. He put them both on, then again pulled on his glove. He saw the red light flashing on the answering machine, and with one pointed razor tip punched the Message Play button. He heard the frightened voice of his daughter, and he couldn’t help chuckling. She sounded so damn scared.

  But he was wasting time. They would be after him soon, searching for him. He knew that. It always happened that way.

  He walked outside and got into the car. In the backseat, right where they were supposed to be, were the two boxes: the Barbies and the Tonka trucks. That made him feel good. He liked to be prepared.