Servant

by J. S. Bailey

  Randy didn’t answer. Instead he retreated from the bedroom, poked his head into the bathroom, and shook his head. “She might have felt threatened about something and run away.”

  “Her purse is out in the living room, though.”

  “Great.” Randy made a visible effort of composing himself. “If I’d been with her, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “We can ask the neighbors if they’ve seen anything. Do you think they’re home?”

  Randy’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed more of his distress. “Let’s find out.”

  Bobby led the way out of the apartment and waved at Phil, who had fixed his gaze upon the apartment door.

  Bobby stepped off the sidewalk and motioned for him to roll down the car window.

  “What’s going on?” Phil asked. A small gun rested in his lap. He stared out the windshield at Randy, who had walked onward to a neighboring unit with purpose in his step and was now knocking on the door.

  “We’ve had a change of plans. Lupe isn’t home.”

  “And that explains why Randy’s decided to visit the neighbors?”

  “Let me rephrase that. Lupe is gone, but her things aren’t.”

  “Great.” Phil slid the gun into a holster hidden in his waistband and climbed out of the car. “For once,” he said, tugging Bobby’s Muse shirt down over his belt, “I would like to have a boring day where nothing happens.”

  They met up with Randy at the neighbor’s door, where he was speaking with a middle-aged woman wearing a calico-print dress that reminded Bobby of a shower curtain. “I haven’t seen her leave the apartment all day,” she said, “but I’m not always spying on my neighbors, you know. Sorry I can’t help you.”

  “Did you see anything unusual this morning?” Randy asked, his voice almost pleading. “Even the slightest thing might help.”

  She squinted at him, and then at Bobby and Phil. “What is this all about? You don’t look like police officers to me.”

  “That’s because we’re not,” Phil said. Bobby noticed a muscle twitching in the man’s cheek. “Now if you could answer Randy’s question, that would be great.”

  The woman was only slightly taken aback. “Like I said, I don’t think I can help you.ˮ She broke off, the light of an inner epiphany shining in her eyes. “You know, there is something strange, but I didn’t even think about it until now. Yesterday when I was carrying my groceries up to the door, a man let himself into that apartment like he owned the place. It was around five o’clock, I think. No later than five-thirty.”

  Randy’s eyes grew wide. “He had a key?”

  “Of course he did. At least that’s what it looked like. And I thought it was a little odd since I don’t remember seeing him before, but I figure since he had a key he must have been that girl’s father come to help her out with something.”

  “What did he look like? Do you remember?”

  The woman’s brow creased as she strained to think. “He had dark hair, but I thought he looked a little too old for that, so it probably came from a box, if you get my meaning. He shuffled a bit, too. I don’t remember what he was wearing.”

  “Can you remember anything else about him?”

  She shook her head. “You’re lucky I can tell you that.” She stared at Randy for a moment, silent. “And you don’t know where Miss Sanchez is?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t think that man I saw might have something to do with that, do you?”

  “We don’t know,” Randy said, giving Bobby and Phil a sidelong glance. “But thanks anyway. You’ve been very helpful.”

  She nodded, suddenly looking anxious. “I do hope she’s okay,” she said. “We may not have talked much, but I always thought Miss Sanchez was a sweet girl.”

  THE THREE of them gathered in Lupe’s living room to discuss their next course of action, Phil having chosen to leave his post in Bobby’s car.

  “Yesterday,” Randy said as he paced the room. “At five o’clock. That was seventeen hours ago!”

  Bobby felt bad for him. There was no telling what Lupe had been going through for that length of time. Having nothing else to do at the moment, he sent up a silent prayer for her safety.

  “Maybe we should call the police now,” Phil suggested, glancing at Bobby, who simply shrugged.

  Randy’s eyes became surprisingly livid. “And tell them what? That Graham Willard took my fiancée somewhere? They’ll think I’m mad.”

  “For goodness sake, Randy, what’s the matter with you?” Phil raised his voice. “This isn’t about hiding a body anymore. This is about Lupe. You’re just going to let some creep have his way with her because you’re too hardheaded to bring the police into this? They’ll know what to do about finding her. You don’t.”

  Randy shook his head. “She’s been with him before and hasn’t been hurt. She says he’s been forcing her to meet with him, and he even made her cut the brake line on my car. He doesn’t care anything about her. He’s just using her to hurt me.”

  Bobby felt his eyes widen at Randy’s admission. “You mean Lupe’s the vandal?”

  He gave a slow nod. “If she’d refused to do it, he would have killed her. She only did what anyone else would have done.”

  Bobby couldn’t believe it. “This is nuts. If I hadn’t been there to stop you from getting into that car . . .” His stomach gave another squirm. He liked Graham Willard less and less, and he hadn’t even met the guy.

  “There’s no point in dwelling on what might have happened,” Randy said. “What we need to do is figure out how we’re going to find where Graham has taken her. If he’s taken her.”

  An idea popped into Bobby’s head so unexpectedly that he clapped a hand over his mouth so he wouldn’t blurt it out. It was a lousy idea. An insane idea.

  But as far as he could tell, it was the only one that might work.

  “What are you thinking?” Phil asked.

  Bobby cleared his throat, feeling the crushing weight of terror squeeze his chest again. “We think we know where Graham is, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And if he leaves and we follow him back to wherever he’s staying, Lupe might be there.”

  “How do we stop him from noticing us?” Randy asked, his interest piqued.

  “Easy. I park in a driveway close to yours, and when Graham leaves, we follow him at a distance. We might even be able to get his license plate number and give it to the police. Assuming you let us call them, of course.”

  “This is suicide,” Phil said.

  “It looks like it’s our only option,” Randy said, his face long.

  “If you end up getting yourself killed . . .”

  Randy crossed his arms. “I don’t plan on dying today.”

  Bobby started to object. “But my premonition—”

  “Didn’t tell you that I am going to die, right?”

  “I don’t want me or Phil to be killed, either.”

  “Better you than me, right?” He winked, though there was no humor in his eyes. He moved toward the door. “Besides, this was your idea. Graham might not stick around for long once he realizes I’m not there. I think it’s best we get going.”

  WHEN RANDY’S house came into view at the end of the gravel lane, Graham decided that the younger man was an honest-to-God idiot. The house looked even worse in person than it did in the photograph Jack showed him online, and he suspected that Randy had taken extra measures to make sure the structure appeared to accommodate only mice. What a way to bring down the neighborhood property values. One might think Randy was paranoid. Ha.

  Jack, having returned from one of his excursions, had told him the place looked bad. Graham just hadn’t guessed it would be in such an advanced state of decay. Even a burglar would shy away from a place like this because nothing of value could possibly be contained within its walls.

  “He probably wants to make it look like nobody’s home,” Jack said.

  “Why would he do th
at?” Graham asked.

  “Can’t you guess? To throw you off his trail.”

  “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Jack had just shrugged, and they’d left it at that.

  Graham parked his car in front of a sagging garage. No other vehicles lay in sight, but if he knew Randy, his Ford was probably concealed behind the half-rotted garage door if already back from the shop.

  The familiar bloodlust rose in his veins. His days of sneaking were over. He would boldly charge through the front door and gun the boy down where he stood or slept.

  As he made his way up to the house, it occurred to him that none of this might have happened if not for the accident in which he’d been involved as a young man of thirty.

  It was curious how one single moment could change everything, and oftentimes Graham wondered what his life would be like today if he had taken a different route home that night, or if he’d left the drug store earlier or later than he had.

  Graham had never been a violent man. He’d never sought to kill anyone. But while he drove home from work that fateful night, a drunk had staggered into the street right in the path of Graham’s car.

  There was no way he could have prevented the collision that would so drastically alter his life. He had been cruising along at forty-five and didn’t have enough reaction time to stop a safe distance away from the man.

  The drunk was run down instantly with an impact that jolted Graham so hard that for one horrifying second his rear end left the driver’s seat and he hung suspended in midair.

  The car screeched to a halt. Bile forced its way into Graham’s throat as he realized he’d very likely just killed a man, though the accident had not been his fault.

  He’d rushed out of the vehicle and found the man lying behind his car. Moaning.

  He wasn’t dead yet, but the extent of his wounds told Graham that he would be soon.

  Graham had emptied his stomach onto the shoulder of the road before turning to the man to comfort him in his final moments like any good Christian would have done—after all, his spiritual gift was Ministry. He’d held the man’s hand and prayed with him. Told him that no matter what happened, everything would be okay.

  To the drunk’s ears, it probably sounded like he was raving mad.

  The man had flashed the faintest of smiles through his pain, and then after a few brief minutes of drawing in ragged breaths that hurt Graham to hear almost as much as it hurt the man himself, he died.

  Graham watched, enraptured by the sudden cessation of life. Questions began to fill his head. What had the man just seen? What did he feel? What was it like?

  He’d peered into the man’s lifeless eyes, hoping to catch the image of what had been seen in those final moments, but saw only the dull red glow of his car’s taillights reflected in the man’s pupils.

  If only he had thought to ask him what he was experiencing!

  Not wanting to face the accusing questions of the police who would find a way to make sure he rotted behind prison bars for the rest of his life, he had taken the man’s broken body and buried it far back in the woods on one of his properties. The man carried no identification and looked as though he hadn’t bathed in about a decade, so he was likely a drifter. No one would miss him. Lisa wouldn’t even suspect a thing since Graham often worked late. Now Graham was off the hook, and life could return to normal.

  But it didn’t.

  Each night, Graham dreamed he was with the man, begging him for the answers he sought about death. Being the Servant had been extraordinary—the closest thing to heaven he would ever be able to find on earth, because he had felt God with him at his side more strongly than he could feel his human companions whenever they were with him.

  It was not that way with all of the Servants. They could all sense God, yes, but many experienced severe attacks of anxiety after prolonged contact with the evil spirits they drove out of people.

  Graham counted himself lucky to have never felt the latter.

  His awareness of the divine had diminished into nothing the moment he’d passed the mantle of Servitude on to his successor, a tiny man named Alex who’d gotten married the year before Graham’s accident and moved out east to be near his wife’s family after passing the mantle to a brawny ex-football player named Aaron Carpenter.

  Graham had never worked up the courage to ask Alex if he’d felt depleted, too. It nearly devastated him when Alex took his place. When the Spirit left him it felt as though he was no longer whole.

  Graham had to find out if being in heaven was remotely the same as being the Servant. Would he be whole again in heaven? Would he be in communion with God once more, or would God overlook him to focus his attention on the other millions of souls who had passed on ahead of him?

  He had to ask. He had to know. But the drifter was dead, and the dead tell no tales to those who speak to them.

  It soon became an obsession to learn more about the process of death. He had to know what happened. Not knowing caused him more anxiety than the possibility that heaven might not be so heavenly after all.

  The only way to have his questions answered was to find another dying person and ask them about it.

  In the present, Graham smiled. If only he’d known who he would become. If only he’d known to what lengths he would go to learn the answers to his questions.

  He had no guilt about those he had killed in his pursuit of knowledge. They were all dying anyway because every human being is born dying. He was merely speeding up the process—and since they all would go to heaven when they breathed their last, he was sure they would thank him.

  He arrived on Randy’s porch and tried the knob. Locked, of course. But no matter. He was Graham Willard. A locked door couldn’t stop him.

  He withdrew a key ring from his pocket and let himself into the house.

  It took several seconds for his eyes to register the fact that the interior of the home did not match its outside appearance. The place was immaculate. Cheap but clean furniture. Painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the wall. Nice. Very, very nice. External appearances could indeed deceive.

  Graham waited on the threshold for several seconds. The house remained silent.

  He resisted the urge to call out to the man as he took slow steps across the floor, which creaked beneath his feet like unoiled hinges on a door. He passed through what was probably supposed to be a 1950’s-style kitchen. Beyond it lay a hallway running left to right. Right led to an outer side door, and left led to three additional doors and a flight of stairs.

  The interior doors opened to a basement, bathroom, and empty bedroom. After an in-depth inspection of each (especially the basement, which greatly intrigued him), he ascended to the second floor, which consisted only of an upper landing and an additional bedroom and attached bath that appeared to be, like its first-floor counterpart, vacant.

  The bedroom was more sparsely furnished than a monk’s cell. A royal blue bedspread with matching pillowcases covered the queen-sized bed, and a rectangular crocheted doily he recognized as Lupe Sanchez’s handiwork lay draped across the dresser.

  That was it. Even the closet contained only a cheap suit and a pair of dress shoes, which Graham couldn’t recall Randy having worn on any occasion.

  It occurred to him that Randy would have bought the suit to wear at his and Lupe’s wedding.

  The wedding that would not happen if Graham had his way.

  He stood there, agitation welling up inside of him like magma. Where could Randy be? He couldn’t just turn invisible. Though maybe he really wasn’t home. Randy could be gone all day, and then he would see Graham’s car the moment he returned. Nothing would stop him from calling the police and blocking the driveway, and despite Graham’s overall good health, he didn’t think he’d be able to successfully evade law enforcement on foot.

  He silently cursed Lupe. She had made him angry and forced him to leave in haste, and as a result he hadn’t thought this through with a clear head.r />
  He should go home and have another long chat with her. Yes, he would do that. It only served her right.

  On his way back through the kitchen, Graham noticed that the coffee maker sitting on the counter was switched on.

  Interesting.

  He stepped up to it and touched a finger to the partly-full carafe. He jerked his hand back in surprise when it burnt him, rubbing his fingertip against his thumb to stifle the pain.

  How long could the pot have been like this?

  He turned and stared at the kitchen table. On it sat three mugs of coffee containing varying levels of the beverage. A fourth mug sat upside down in the sink.

  A faint buzzing began to sound in his skull. If Randy had guests, they would have finished their coffee before they left, so something must have made them get up and leave in such a hurry that they couldn’t waste any time downing the rest of their drinks and switching off the pot.

  He walked into the living room in search of clues that might indicate why everyone had left so quickly, but Randy kept the place too tidy.

  Graham could make no sense of it. They couldn’t have known ahead of time that Graham was coming unless Lupe had smuggled her cell phone into Graham’s house and called to warn them.

  No. That didn’t make sense, either. If that had been the case, Lupe would have phoned the authorities last night while Graham slept.

  So no phone, then. But what? What could have caused Randy and his guests to flee?

  Graham closed his eyes and willed himself to think. Four coffee cups. No cars. Could it be mere coincidence that they had all abandoned ship right before Graham’s arrival? It made him think of the case of the Mary Celeste, the vessel discovered adrift and abandoned in the Atlantic Ocean with the missing crew members’ belongings and provisions still in place as if the men had been drinking and dining one moment before ceasing to exist.

  Only this was different. Randy and his guests were not lost at sea. They had gone into hiding.

  Graham would start by searching the woods surrounding the house. And if he still couldn’t find them, he would go back inside to see what he’d missed.