by Mark Lukens
The killer would be coming for her and she was going to be ready.
That’s why she had cleared her schedule for the next few days. She told her clients that she was going on a self-deserved mini-vacation. But in reality, she was going to be hiding inside her house in fear, waiting for the killer to come, waiting to shoot him before he got to her.
Miss Helen checked the doors and windows again. She made sure the OPEN sign in the window was turned to CLOSED. The front of her home, which would normally be a formal living room, had been converted into her meeting room. The clients came in and sat down at the table in the middle of the room which was covered with a large purple cloth. The archway that led into the dining room and kitchen was covered with another purple drape and strings of beads – Hippie beads, her brother used to call them.
God, she missed her brother right now. He would’ve stayed here with her and protected her. He would’ve known what to do. She kept his ashes in an urn on the window sill in her kitchen over the sink where she could see it every day.
The rest of the décor in the front room was what she liked to call New Wave/Spiritualist. She had a Buddha statue in one corner among a few plants in pots. She had a carving on one wall of a Hindu god (and honestly, she wasn’t sure which one it was). She had the Christian and Jewish religions covered with many icons and statuettes around the room. She didn’t want to offend anyone who came through her door. She wanted to express a Oneness with the universe and all religions when it came to her services.
And she believed in that Oneness. She believed in a Supreme Power, but not an angry god who sent people to hell if they didn’t believe a certain religious scripture word for word.
She knew there was a Supreme Power, a Great Spirit, a God. She could feel it. She knew there was goodness in the world; she could feel that, too. But she also knew there was a terrible evil in the world. It couldn’t be denied, one couldn’t pretend that it didn’t exist – it could be very dangerous to pretend that it wasn’t real. One couldn’t only believe in the good and ignore the evil.
And Evil was coming. Tonight, maybe. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. But definitely soon.
She shuddered as a sense of anticipation buzzed through her; it made her stomach feel light and it felt like every nerve-ending on her skin was sizzling.
The only noise in the house was some small water fountains she had running, creating a soothing sound of trickling water. She often had light and flowery spiritual music playing in the background, something that might help customers imagine being one-with-nature, but she didn’t play the music now – she didn’t want any distractions. Her hearing wasn’t the greatest anymore and she wanted to make sure she heard any sound that came from outside no matter how subtle it might be.
And she didn’t have to wait too long.
2.
It was early evening as the Shadow Man stood in a stand of trees watching Miss Helen’s house. To the west the sun was setting the horizon on fire with gory splashes of yellows, oranges, and reds. To the east the sky had become a deep blue that was quickly turning to black. A full and bloated moon was about to rise above the trees into the night sky. Insects chirped in the woods, a final symphony before they bedded down for the night and let the mosquitos take over.
The Shadow Man watched the house for another few minutes. He had seen the woman in the window staring out at the darkening world, but she wasn’t at the window anymore.
She’s inside waiting for me, he thought. She’s sitting at her table with the purple cloth draped over it, staring at the front door and waiting.
He knew she could sense him coming for her, but there was nothing she could do about it. He was always going to be one step ahead of her.
He stepped out of the trees, dressed in dark clothing. A few objects rattled together in his pockets as he walked towards the front door. He wanted to show these objects to Miss Helen – he had a big surprise for her.
3.
Miss Helen sat in her chair at the table which faced the front door. There was a window in the door and a sheer curtain covered that window, but she could see through it easily with the porch light burning. The porch light would help her see the killer when he came to her door.
On the table in front of her, laid out on the royal purple table cloth, was a set of Tarot cards. They were facedown. Beside the Tarot cards was her cell phone, turned on and ready for use.
Miss Helen glanced down at the hand of cards that she’d dealt. She reached for the one closest to her. She was about to turn it over, but she hesitated, her fingers trembling. She had taken the gun out of her pocket and laid it on her lap. The gun was heavy, but it felt reassuring.
She took a breath and turned the card over that would tell her future.
It was the Death Card.
She stared at it for a long moment until a sound at the front door tore her attention away. She looked up and saw that the porch light was flickering, and then it went out.
Even though the light was out, she could see the shadowy figure right behind the window of her front door.
Miss Helen watched the door handle as it jiggled slightly, like the man was trying the handle to see if it was locked.
She should shoot him right now. He would be an easy target right there behind the glass of the front door. She should grab the gun off of her lap, lift it up, aim, and squeeze the trigger. And then pull the trigger again and again, just how her brother had taught her.
But she didn’t do it. She couldn’t kill him while he was still outside. What would she tell the police? She needed to wait until he was inside to shoot him.
Even though she had rehearsed this in her mind a thousand times over the last few days, now that the moment was here she discovered that she was suddenly frozen with fear. She never thought the fear would be this paralyzing.
And it wasn’t a fear of death. She had made her peace with death for a while now, like many older people do. You fear it when you’re younger because you still have so much to live for, but as you get older it just becomes something inevitable. It’s not like she wanted to die, or like she was ready to die, she just knew that when the time came she wouldn’t fight it kicking and screaming like some did. No, what she feared wasn’t death; what she feared was the evil behind her front door, a supernatural evil, something beyond human. And the evil held her in its hypnotic gaze as she watched the lock on the door handle slowly twist.
She watched the door handle turn.
The door opened.
The man entered her parlor. She had another chance to shoot him as he closed the front door. But what if she missed? What if ducked back out the door and she ruined her one shot at surprising him? No, it would be better to wait until he was closer, she told herself.
He stared at her. He might have seemed like a normal man to other people, but she could see the evil in his eyes, she could sense the evil oozing out of his pores, she could feel it smothering her.
He was dressed in dark clothing and he wore some kind of black latex gloves on his hands that went well up underneath the cuffs of his shirt sleeves. He wore heavy boots, maybe motorcycle boots, but he didn’t make a sound as he walked to her table and sat down opposite her – like he was floating half an inch above the floor, walking on a thin cushion of air.
He stared at her for a long moment with dark eyes that looked like polished black stones, and there was no mercy in those eyes.
She had a choice to make in a split second – shoot this man right now or call for help. Without even thinking about it, she grabbed her cell phone from the table and dialed 911. She held the phone to her ear, but she could hear nothing but static.
“It’s not going to work,” the man whispered to her.
Miss Helen dropped the phone back into her lap near her revolver. She was glad that it hadn’t clinked against the gun.
“I knew you were coming – seen it for days now,” Miss Helen said, and she was surprised and a little proud that her voice was steady and even.
Maybe her hands wouldn’t shake so much when she finally picked up the gun and aimed it at him. Maybe she would be able to hold it still as she pulled the trigger again and again and buried bullet after bullet into this abomination that pretended to be a human.
“I knew you were coming,” she said again. “That’s why I prepared myself.”
She lifted up the gun and found that her trembling had subsided. It was the anticipation that had caused her tremors – now that she had done it, now that she had lifted up her gun and aimed it at him, she found herself calmer – like the Alpha waves in her brain had just kicked in. Everything was in motion now, there was no turning back.
And now it was time to finish this.
Her visitor sat in silence in front of her, his hands in his lap. He showed no emotion. He didn’t flinch back from the weapon pointed at him. He didn’t seem surprised, either. He just stared at her with those inhumanly dark eyes.
And then he lifted his latex-sheathed fists up from his lap.
For a moment she thought he had a weapon, that he’d brought his own gun to this shootout. But there was no gun in his hands, only his clenched fists which he moved in slow circles over the purple table cloth like a magician preparing to do a trick.
He had something in his hands, hidden inside his fists. He had something he wanted to show her.
She didn’t want to see anything this monster wanted to show her. She needed to end this while she still had the courage. Her finger tightened around the trigger, ready to pull it.
But she hesitated as he opened both fists in one quick release.
Six bullets fell from his fists, three from each hand. They clattered down onto her purple table cloth. One of the bullets rolled all the way across the table and stopped right on top of the overturned Death Card in front of her.
No, it couldn’t be. Those couldn’t be her bullets, the bullets from this gun in her hand.
Miss Helen pulled the trigger.
Click.
She pulled the trigger again and again.
Click. Click.
There were no bullets in her gun.
They were on the table.
“The cards don’t lie, Miss Helen,” her shadowy visitor told her. “You can’t change your destiny.”
Miss Helen glanced down at the Death Card with the bullet on top of it. She lowered her hand and the heavy gun fell out of it and landed on the table with a thud. She looked up at her visitor.
“How?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer, but she saw a vision of the killer slipping into her home earlier, perhaps when she’d been with her last customer. She saw him as a shadow slipping through her window – a Shadow Man. He went straight to her nightstand for the gun, like he already knew where it was. He took the bullets out, but left the gun behind, like this was a big game to him.
“How did you know I didn’t put more bullets in it?”
The man didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. He just knew.
Miss Helen knew her death was coming very soon. She knew before too long that she would be with her brother again, and her mother. She just prayed that her death would be quick and that she wouldn’t feel too much pain.
“Why us?” she asked. “Why do you come after us?”
Again, the killer didn’t answer her question, but she already knew why.
Because we’re so easy to read, so easy to take things from.
The visitor reached across the table for the gun. Miss Helen didn’t flinch, she just watched him pick up the gun from the table. He opened the cylinder and picked up a bullet with his rubber-sheathed fingers and loaded it slowly, methodically.
Miss Helen watched him load the gun with all six of the bullets. She could try and run, but she knew she couldn’t outrun this man, she couldn’t outfight him. She had never stood a chance.
“There’s someone you want,” Miss Helen said. It wasn’t a question; it was more of a statement to herself. At this point, so close to death, her psychic powers were stronger than she’d ever felt before. Or maybe it was because someone so strong sat across the table from her and it magnified her own powers. She wasn’t sure, and it didn’t matter now. She could see what this murderer was after; what he was planning to do.
And she saw why he was after this young woman, why she was so important to him, and the terror and fear chilled her to her soul.
How could God let a creature like the one in front of her ever be born?
After he loaded the gun, the man pointed it at her.
“I need something from you,” he said.
4.
It was dark now. The sun had slipped below the horizon in the west and there was only a dark blue line to show that there had ever been daylight. The rest of the sky was black, the clear night sky glittering with the light of ancient stars and the bloated Harvest moon.
Miss Helen’s house was a dark shape in the night.
A moment later there was a flash of light from inside her house, and the sound of thunder from a gunshot rumbled.
CHAPTER TEN
1.
It was dark inside Tara’s apartment as she slept on the couch. She hadn’t turned on the light over the stove before she fell asleep, but at least she’d left the TV on. The TV with its reliable flickering lightshow, an ever-watching sentinel that kept the monsters pushed back into the shadows.
Tara barely moved a muscle as she slept. Her body needed the rest, the chance to rebuild and heal. And for a moment there was peace from the dreams.
But then the dreams came.
Tara fidgeted in her sleep. She turned over on the couch and her arm fell down beside her towards the floor, her hand clenched in a tight fist inches above the wood floorboards. Her fingers relaxed and her hand opened up.
Six bullets from a revolver slipped out of her hand and dropped down to the floor making a loud clattering sound as they hit the wood.
Tara jumped awake, sitting bolt-upright on the couch. Her eyes were wide with fear. She lunged for the lamp next to the couch and her fingers found the switch in the flickering light from the TV. She twisted the little knob and heard the distinctive click from the lamp.
The room was bathed in soft light.
She looked down at the floor.
There were no bullets on the floor. It had only been a dream.
She sat back down and buried her face in her hands. She felt like crying. She felt like sobbing. There was a sense of loss in her. Someone else had died. Someone else had lost their life as this killer worked his way through his victims to get to her.
All for her. All because of her.
She glanced at the coffee table, making sure that there wasn’t a new piece of paper there with a new set of hurried sketches and scratches, and new numbers and puzzling words written at the edges.
It was just the same sketch as before – the revolver and the six bullets.
And now she knew what it had meant – it had been a clue. But what kind of clue was that? How could she have prevented someone’s murder with that kind of clue? It wasn’t fair.
She looked back down at the floor where she’d heard the bullets from her dream land. There were no bullets on the floor, but there was something there – Agent David Woods’ business card; it had fallen off of her stomach and fluttered down to the floor during her nap.
She picked it up and stared at it. Should she call him? Could he even help her?
2.
Tara hurried into her kitchen. She turned on the light over the stove and opened her refrigerator. She took a sip of her bottled water, but it wasn’t quenching her thirst. She wanted something more. She wanted some wine. She searched her refrigerator and cabinets, but she didn’t have any kind of alcohol in her apartment.
She would go get some. Yeah, that’s what she’d do.
She left the light on over the stove and she left the lamp in the living room on, but she turned off the TV. She slipped her socked feet into her sneakers, grabbed her purse and car keys, and marched to t
he front door.
She needed to get out of her apartment for a while. Maybe a drive in her hulking Jeep would do the trick.
She turned her porch light on and slipped out into the night and then closed and locked her front door. She hesitated for just a moment before walking out to her Jeep, looking at Steve’s apartment. She wanted to go over there and knock on his door. She wanted to talk to someone, be around someone else right now.
But he wasn’t home. His pickup truck was gone.
He probably didn’t want to see her now anyway.
She hurried out to her Jeep Cherokee and climbed inside. She jammed the key into the ignition, twisted it, and the Jeep roared to life. It was obnoxiously loud; she wasn’t a mechanic, but she was pretty sure that there was something wrong with the muffler.
She backed out of her parking spot and turned her headlights on, then shifted into drive and headed towards the entranceway to her apartment complex.
Tara didn’t see the man hidden in the bushes watching her leave.
The man stepped out of the brush after he was sure Tara was gone. He had long hair and his face seemed to be all scraggly beard and wild eyes. He wore many layers of clothing and reeked like a garbage dumpster. He touched the giant homemade cross that hung from his neck with his grimy hands.
3.
Tara went to Publix, a supermarket not too far from her apartment complex.
She pushed her cart down the nearly empty aisles and discovered that besides her craving for alcohol, she was hungry. The food in the deli looked good. She usually stuck to a sensible diet, but tonight she felt like splurging, perhaps gorging on decadent food and spirits, maybe some exotic cheeses and crackers to go with the wine.
Like a death row inmate’s last meal.
Where had that thought come from? She drop-kicked it out of her mind, knocking it back to whatever morbid place it had crawled out of.