Followed

by Mark Lukens

  “She needs a chance to prove herself.”

  “She had a chance to prove herself last Saturday night. And she failed when she went outside.”

  Now it was Cathy’s turn to be angry, Phil’s fury infecting her. “Fine. What do you want me to do? Call Arianna’s mother and let her know Megan can’t go tonight?”

  “No,” Phil said, sighing. Frustrated. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  She watched as Phil’s anger seemed to melt away. “I’m sorry,” he said, sighing even more heavily this time. “You’re right. I’m still upset about what happened. I’m just being . . . being an overprotective father.”

  Cathy’s heart melted a little, just like Phil’s anger had melted away. Those sudden storm clouds that had accumulated between the two of them were clearing up. “And there’s nothing wrong with that. But you have to trust her a little. We have to let her make a mistake here and there, but then let her grow. Let her experience life.”

  Phil nodded. “I’m sorry. I just haven’t been myself lately.”

  That was an understatement. But this time she bit back the words before they came out. Instead, she hugged him like he’d just hugged her in the kitchen, kissed him like he’d kissed her. But she still felt the tension inside of him.

  • • •

  Fifteen minutes later Arianna’s mother was at the front door. Her mini-van was parked in the street with the side door wide open. Another girl sat in the back seat, her attention on her cell phone. Arianna had come inside, running past them to Megan’s room to get her.

  “You sure you’re going to be okay tonight?” Cathy asked Yvonne, Arianna’s mother. “They seem pretty hyped up.”

  Yvonne nodded, smiling. “I’ll be fine. They’re no trouble at all. Arianna’s been looking forward to this night for a while.”

  “Well, thanks for doing this,” Cathy said.

  “Not a problem at all.”

  Phil came to the door and stood right beside Cathy. Phil was tense again, the tension drifting off of him like heat from a radiator. He lurked there for a moment before beginning his interrogation. “Which movie theater are they going to?”

  The question seemed to catch Yvonne off-guard a little. “Uh, the multiplex on Ridgewood Avenue. I can’t remember the name of it.”

  “I know where it is,” Phil said. “What movie are they going to see?”

  Arianna’s mother showed a tight smile, her eyes darting to Cathy.

  Cathy looked at Phil, giving him a we-already-went-over-this look. “They’re going to see a movie called Night Terrors.”

  Phil frowned. “Night Terrors?”

  “We already talked about this, Phil. It’s a PG-13 movie.”

  An awkward silence blanketed them for a moment, and then it was broken by nonstop chatter as Megan and Arianna came rushing up to them. Megan was wearing the new bright pink hoodie she’d just gotten on Sunday. She gave Phil a quick hug, and she gave Cathy a longer and harder hug. “See ya tomorrow.”

  “Love you,” Cathy said.

  “Love you, too.”

  “Be careful,” Phil shouted at them as they were bouncing down the porch steps. “Remember what we talked about. Stay at the theater. No wandering off.”

  “Yeeeesss, Dad,” Megan sang out, and then she and Arianna erupted with laughter as they raced down the lawn to the minivan.

  “They’ll be fine,” Cathy said a little more forcefully to Phil than she had meant to. She looked at Yvonne who wasn’t doing a great job of hiding her discomfort.

  “Well, I better get going,” Yvonne said, giving them a weak wave goodbye and hurrying away.

  Cathy pulled Phil inside and closed the door, locking it. “Are you done grilling everyone, or do you want to call Megan’s cell phone and continue?”

  “I wasn’t grilling anyone.”

  Cathy didn’t bother responding.

  Phil sighed, ready to apologize again. “Sorry. I’m just a little nervous these days.”

  Ya think? But she was willing to let it go. She loved the fact that Phil was concerned about their daughter being out alone with her friends, but he was taking it a little too far. Still, it was sweet in a way.

  Cathy moved closer to him. She kissed him. “I know you’re just worried about her.”

  She pulled away and smiled at him. “We have some alone time now.”

  He sighed. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  She knew what that meant: he wasn’t in the mood right now—he never seemed to be in the mood these days.

  “Let’s check out that movie you wanted to watch,” he suggested.

  • • •

  An hour later they sat on the couch. Cathy had a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and a bottle of water. Phil had popped open a can of Coke, sipping it, still abstaining from the alcohol, replacing that urge with a sugary beverage. But he seemed fidgety and tense.

  Cathy felt a little bad about saying something about his drinking earlier and she thought she might give him her blessing to have one. It wasn’t that she forbid him to drink, she just didn’t want it to control his life again like it did when he was younger.

  Phil’s cell phone in the kitchen rang.

  He popped up to get it.

  “Don’t answer it,” she said, half-joking, but she knew he had to take calls; it could be an emergency with one of his patients. She didn’t bother pausing the movie—she didn’t think he was watching it anyway.

  Phil answered his phone in the kitchen. Cathy could hear him talking, but she couldn’t make out anything he was saying, almost like he was whispering. Then it seemed like he had moved deeper into the kitchen.

  She put the movie on pause and tried to catch what he was saying. But she couldn’t even hear him anymore. She thought he might have gone out into the garage to talk.

  Maybe a patient was calling Phil. On rare occasions, after Phil had met with a patient numerous times, he would give them his cell number in case they had an emergency. It didn’t happen often, but sometimes he’d get one of those phone calls.

  Cathy was about to start the movie again, but then she froze when she heard the low, familiar sound of the garage door opening.

  “Phil?”

  She got up and raced into the kitchen, then into the garage. Phil was backing his Lexus out of the garage, the lights on, blinding her. He reversed down the driveway, the garage door already closing.

  “What the . . .?”

  Cathy ran back into the kitchen and grabbed the cordless phone. She dialed Phil’s number. It rang four times and then went to voicemail. She left a message: “Phil, where the hell are you going?”

  She hung up, thought about calling him back, but she wanted to wait a moment. She wanted to calm down before she left a message on his voicemail that she would regret later.

  Maybe there was some kind of an emergency with a patient. But he would’ve said something to her if that was the case. He wouldn’t have left without a word to her. And why wasn’t he answering his phone? Maybe he was still on the phone with the patient. Maybe someone was threatening to kill themselves and Phil was trying to help.

  But it didn’t feel like that. No, this felt wrong. This felt bad.

  FIFTEEN

  Phil

  Phil sped towards the movie theater on Ridgewood Avenue.

  His cell phone rang again. He grabbed it, thinking it might be Carlos calling again.

  It was Cathy.

  He didn’t answer it. He couldn’t talk to her right now, couldn’t explain to her what was going on, couldn’t let her experience the terror he was feeling right now.

  Oh God, please . . . don’t let anything happen to her.

  The phone call from Carlos echoed in his mind. “Guess where I am right now?” Carlos had asked. And before Phil had a chance to say anything, Carlos answered his own question. “I’m at the movies.”

  Phil’s heart sank in that moment, everything in the world around him going gray and inc
onsequential.

  “There are a lot of pretty girls here,” Carlos had continued in his low, raspy voice. “But I’m looking at three of them right now. They’re about to go into the theater. No parents with them. Three little girls all by themselves. But one of them, she’s the prettiest. She’s wearing jeans and a bright pink hoodie.”

  “Don’t you do anything!” Phil roared into the phone as soon as he got into his car and started it, the garage door already opening.

  “I think I’m going to talk to her,” Carlos said.

  “No! You leave her alone! You hear me, you son of a bitch!”

  “You already know what I want from you,” Carlos whispered into the phone. “You know what I want you to do.”

  And then he hung up.

  Phil weaved in and out of traffic, cutting other vehicles off, running yellow lights, and then one red light. Thank God no cops had spotted him.

  Ten minutes later Phil skidded to a stop in a parking spot. He jumped out of his car and raced towards the theater. He ran up the concrete steps and entered the lobby, racing past the ticket booth.

  An older woman at the ticket booth yelled at him as he ran towards the wide hallway that led to the twelve theaters showing movies. Each film was advertised on an illuminated sign above the entryways to the theaters down the hall. And then he saw the sign for the movie Megan and her friends had gone to see—Night Terrors.

  “Sir, you can’t go in there without a ticket!” the old lady yelled.

  Phil ignored the woman, entering the theater even though the ticket lady was still somewhere behind him, demanding that he get a ticket.

  The movie was playing, the sound booming. It was still pretty dark in there, but the light from the movie allowed him to see a little better. He looked for the three girls, looking for Megan’s pink hoodie.

  “Megan,” he called out. “Megan, where are you?”

  Then a terrible thought occurred to him. What if she was in a different movie? What if she hadn’t heeded his advice and she had left the theater? Sometimes kids made up a story about going to the movies when they had really planned to go somewhere else.

  “Megan!”

  “Hey, asshole!” a man yelled. “Sit down!”

  Phil spotted Megan’s hoodie. Megan and her two friends were about five rows up from the front, a few seats away from the aisle. He could see Megan’s pale face as she turned around.

  Thank God she was okay.

  “Dad?” Megan said. “What are you doing here?”

  Two rows back, the man was still yelling at Phil. “Hey, we’re trying to watch the movie. Why don’t you sit down, man?”

  There was more grumbling from other people in the audience, more of them joining in with the man’s complaints, fueling the man to keep going.

  Phil ignored the man, concentrating on Megan. “I’m sorry. We need to leave right now.”

  Megan looked even paler now in the film’s harsh flickering light. “What is it? What’s wrong? Is Mom okay?”

  For a moment Phil considered telling a lie—anything to get her out of here.

  “Sit down!” the man yelled. He was closer now, maybe even out in the aisle.

  “I don’t have time to explain,” Phil told Megan, ignoring the man behind him. “We just need to leave.” He glanced at Megan’s frightened friends. “Sorry, girls. We have a . . . a family emergency.”

  “Is it Mom?” Megan seemed on the verge of tears now, about to get hysterical.

  “Hey. What are you doing to those girls?” The man was right behind Phil now, and Phil could feel the eyes of the whole audience on him now. The man was so loud. “Why don’t you leave those girls alone, you pervert?”

  Phil turned to face the man. He knew it wasn’t Carlos—he could tell by the man’s voice. But Carlos could be in this audience somewhere—he could be watching. “Mind your own business, please,” Phil told the man.

  “Leave that girl alone,” the man warned.

  “I don’t have time for this,” Phil said and turned back to Megan, grabbing her hand, trying to get her out of the seat more quickly. He might have grabbed her a little too hard, used a little too much force.

  “Wait a minute,” Megan squealed.

  The man yanked Phil back into the aisle.

  Phil turned and pushed the man as the rage boiled over inside of him. “What the fuck’s your problem? Are you with him? Are you with Carlos? Did he get you to do this?”

  The man scrunched his face in confusion. He was at least five inches taller than Phil and probably fifty pounds heavier.

  The sea of faces in the audience, all of their faces changing underneath the flickering light from the film, watched Phil. He searched for Carlos in that sea of faces.

  “That guy’s crazy!” someone shouted.

  “Pervert,” a woman said.

  Phil looked back at the man in front of him as his anger and fear boiled out of control. He pushed the man again without even realizing he was going to do it. “Get out of my way. I’m leaving with my—”

  But he never finished his sentence. The man punched him. Phil’s legs failed him instantaneously. He was down on the nasty aisle floor before he even knew what had happened.

  Megan screamed and stepped out into the aisle between Phil and the man. “Stop! He’s my dad!” She was crying now.

  Phil got back to his feet, more in shock than pain right now . . . but the pain would come soon.

  The ticket lady and a man in a white shirt and dark tie who must be a manager of some kind hurried down the aisle towards them. “That’s the guy,” the old lady said in her shrill, fire-alarm voice.

  “We were just leaving,” Phil told them.

  The man who punched Phil slipped away into the darkness, already back in his seat now.

  “Do you know this man?” the manager asked Megan. He had a hopeful look in his eyes that this disruption to his usually boring night would be resolved quickly and without further incident.

  “He’s my dad,” she told him. “We need to leave. There’s . . . there’s an emergency.”

  The manager nodded and moved aside, and so did the ticket lady even though she still gave Phil a scowl.

  “I’ll call you later,” Megan told her friends, and then she left with Phil.

  Phil glanced back at the two girls. He saw their horrified expressions.

  • • •

  Phil and Megan were quiet for a moment as Phil drove out onto Ridgewood Avenue, heading home. Phil had already assured Megan that everything was okay with Cathy as soon as they were in the car, but he had wanted to wait until she was in the car so she wouldn’t make a scene and run back to her friends.

  Now she was quiet as she ruminated over Phil’s words. “Then I’m sure you had a really good reason for ruining my birthday,” she said, not looking at him yet, staring out the windshield. She sounded so much like Cathy at that moment.

  Phil kept both hands gripped on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry I ruined everything for you.”

  Megan stared out the passenger window. It was like she didn’t even want to look in his direction right now.

  “Did you see anyone suspicious tonight?” he asked her.

  That got a look from her. “What do you mean?”

  “Did you see a man watching you?”

  “Dad . . .” Real fear now. “What’s going on?”

  Phil sighed. He was going to have to tell her about Carlos now.

  The cell phone rang.

  Megan grabbed Phil’s phone from the center console before he could get to it.

  “Megan, wait.”

  “It’s Mom.”

  Megan didn’t wait. She answered the phone. “Hi, Mom.” She listened for a moment. “I’m okay.” She listened for another moment. “I don’t know.” She looked at Phil and handed the phone to him. “She wants to know where we are.”

  SIXTEEN

  Cathy

  Cathy entered their bedroom. Phil was sitting in the recliner in the corner. He
had a drink in one hand and he held an icepack up to his jaw with the other. Apparently he’d broken his vow of abstinence and made a drink while she’d been in Megan’s bedroom, trying to calm her down. She wasn’t going to scold him about his drink right now—he probably needed it. Hell, she felt like she needed one, too.

  “You sure you’re okay?” she asked him. “Maybe we should go to the emergency room.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She came over to him, studying his face.

  He removed the icepack so she could get a better look.

  “It doesn’t look swollen,” she said. “Just a little red.”

  “How’s Megan doing?” he asked.

  “She’s a little freaked out.”

  Phil swallowed a gulp from his drink.

  “You asked her if someone was watching her in the movie theater. She thinks someone was trying to abduct her.”

  Phil didn’t disagree with that.

  “What’s going on, Phil? This guy who was watching her . . . you’re not talking about the guy in the pickup truck, are you?”

  Phil took another sip.

  “Phil, talk to me. No secrets, remember? I want to know what’s going on.”

  He exhaled a deep sigh and set his icepack down on the carpet. “I had this new patient yesterday. Renee told me that he’d asked for me specifically and that it was an emergency. He wasn’t a referral from a doctor or another patient, but I told her to squeeze him in as soon as possible. And she scheduled him for yesterday at one o’clock.”

  Cathy sat down on the edge of the bed, folding one leg up underneath her.

  “He came in at one o’clock. His name was Carlos. He started saying some very strange things. Talking about killing and torturing people. Acting threateningly. I went out to warn Renee, let her know to be ready to call the police. When I got back to my office, Carlos was gone. He’d gone out through the back door to the parking area in the back.”

  “God,” Cathy said. She was going to ask Phil why he hadn’t told her about this man before, but she knew Phil wasn’t allowed to talk about his patients with anyone else (even his wife) unless they became a danger to themselves or to others.