Glimpse

by Steve Whibley

  “She gave you fair warning, champ,” my dad added, patting me on the shoulder. “Okay, kids, Dean knows where the sleeping bags are. If you need anything, just holler.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I groaned.

  “Come on, Dean,” Colin said once my parents had left the room. “No one’s going to believe that you killed a couple of muggers if your little sister can knock you off your feet.”

  “She’s stronger than she looks,” I grumbled.

  Lisa shook her head. “You really shouldn’t tease her about her hair. It’s clearly a sore spot.”

  Colin laughed. “So you’d hit a guy if he made fun of your hair?”

  She took a step toward Colin. “Are you saying there’s something funny about my hair?”

  Colin swallowed and shuffled back a step.

  “Good. But if you had something nasty to say about my hair, I wouldn’t kick you in the shins.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “I’d hit you somewhere else. And I’d use my knee.”

  ***

  We finished setting up outside by eleven, and the light in my parent’s bedroom window turned off by midnight.

  “Okay,” Lisa said. “Let’s go.”

  “Just like that?” I said. “We just walk across the street and start peeping through the windows?”

  “You have a better plan?”

  “Um… no, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

  “C’mon, guys,” Colin said, already halfway across the lawn. “Let’s go save this old geezer.”

  Chapter 15

  We crept across the street and into Mr. Utlet’s backyard. Colin was a bit more excited than I would have liked. He kept pouncing behind trees and rolling across the grass. But once we made it to the house, he calmed down a bit. We crouched behind a shrub at the back of Mr. Utlet’s house and peered through the partially drawn curtains hanging over a large picture window.

  “I can’t see anything,” Colin said. “Do you guys see anything?”

  “We need a better view,” I said.

  Lisa gestured toward the backdoor at the other corner of the house. “Colin, go look in those windows over there, and Dean, you go around the front. If you see anything suspicious, come back here.”

  “Who died and made you boss?” Colin grumbled.

  Lisa gave him a stern look and he stalked off, sliding his back along the stucco wall. I gulped back a feeling of dread that had taken post in my throat, and moved toward the front of the house. The moon wasn’t full, but it still cast a bluish light that seemed too bright for what we were doing. Even plastering myself against the house, I felt exposed. There just weren’t enough shadows. I kept imagining one of the neighbors—blue-haired Mrs. Barton, perhaps—poking her head out a bedroom window and catching us peeping into old man Utlet’s windows. They’d call the cops for sure, and what would we say? “Oh, we were just looking in to see if he was still alive.” Yeah, they wouldn’t have a problem with that explanation.

  I peered around the corner and thought I heard a muffled grumble. I braved another step, then another, following the noise. While I was kneeling on a bed of perennials at the other end of the house, I noticed that a small window just above my head was open a crack and the grumbling was coming from inside. Only it didn’t sound like grumbling anymore—it sounded as if someone were choking or struggling for breath.

  No longer worried if anyone could see me, I jumped up and pressed my face to the glass. The blinds were only half drawn, and the moonlight cast a soft glow over Mr. Utlet’s body. He was lying flat on his bed, wearing the same clothes we’d seen him in earlier; a brown book lay open on his chest. The noise coming from him was ungodly. I opened my mouth to shout for Colin to call an ambulance, sure Mr. Utlet was suffering from some kind of seizure, until he turned to his side and smacked his lips.

  Snoring? He’s snoring?

  I stared down at the old man, disturbed and relieved in the same instant. On the one hand, the fact that he was obviously alive relieved me, but on the other hand, the fact that any human being could sound as if they had swallowed a chainsaw and still be considered okay was something I had trouble wrapping my head around. I probably would have stood there for the rest of the night if Lisa hadn’t come out of nowhere and tackled me into the bushes.

  “Shhhh!” Lisa pressed a finger to her lips. Her eyes were the size of grenades, and she looked on the verge of panic. I opened my mouth to speak, but she shook her head quickly and pointed over my shoulder.

  I turned and stared back across the manicured lawn. It was as empty as it had been when we arrived. I didn’t see anything particularly strange… But then a movement at the edge of the lawn caught my eye. Two men clad in dark clothing rounded the corner of the house and moved toward the front porch. My heart jumped into my throat while my mind struggled to make sense of what was happening.

  A robbery?

  I risked a glance at my watch. 12:46. We still had almost an hour before… well, before whatever was going to happen would happen. They’ll try the door, it’ll be locked, and they’ll move on. At least I hoped they would.

  The leaves to my right rustled, and Lisa tightened her grip on my arm. A third man stepped out from the bushes only a couple feet away. He was about thirty, or maybe late twenties, and had a shaved head and a mean scowl. He was close enough that I could see the tattoo on his forearm: an eagle landing on a sword. All he had to do was look to his right and he’d spot us, but his eyes stayed glued to the house. He strode across the lawn as though he had all the right in the world to be there, unconcerned that he was in plain sight of anyone who happened to be watching from surrounding homes, and reached for the door at the top of the porch. I held my breath as he turned the knob and pushed the door.

  Locked, thank God.

  He gestured to the other two men, signaling them to go around opposite ends of the house. One man moved toward us in a half crouch, shifting back and forth like some caveman cat burglar. His head was the shape of a partially deflated football, and his skin was pasty white. When he got to Mr. Utlet’s bedroom window, he paused and poked his head above the sill. It was then that I realized the yard had become silent. No noises at all. Mr. Utlet had stopped snoring.

  The man hovered on the stoop for a moment, taking stock of the homes across the street, seemingly searching for any sign that he’d been spotted, before making his way around the corner and down the side of the house. When he got halfway down, he stopped next to another window, peered inside, and then shoved something under the pane. The wood groaned and a second later the window was open and the man had hoisted himself inside. I turned back to the front of the house. The man with the tattoo was kneeling before the door and using something that looked like a very narrow screwdriver to mess with the lock.

  So this was how it was going to go down: a bunch of burglars would rob an old man, kill him, and for what? Some old war medals? A giant coffee tin filled with pennies?

  But we still had time. We could stop it.

  “Call 911,” I whispered over my shoulder. Lisa didn’t budge.

  I turned. Lisa was eyeing the man on the porch as though her gaze could turn him to dust. “Hey,” I nudged her with my elbow, “call the police.”

  “Don’t you have the phone?” she whispered.

  “No,” I whispered. “Where’s Colin?”

  I heard a creak and glanced back at the porch just in time to see the man disappear through the front door.

  “Where’s Colin?” I repeated, more desperately this time.

  Lisa turned to the house, then back to me. “I don’t know. He was at the back. We saw those… those goons creeping across the lawn.” She looked down the side of the house. “The backdoor wasn’t locked, and Colin opened it to see if he could hear anything.” She jumped to her feet. “Oh, no. He must be inside. I’ll bet you anything he’s inside.”

  I grabbed her before she could run to the house. “Go back to my place and call 911.” She hes
itated and opened her mouth to argue, but I cut her off. “I’ll help Colin, but I can’t do it alone. And you’re the fastest.” If there was ever something we needed in a hurry, Lisa was the one to get it. There was a section on her bedroom wall covered in so many track and field ribbons you’d think someone had splashed a can of blue paint on the wall.

  “Be careful,” she whispered and then sprinted off toward my house.

  I clenched my fists at my side and tried to get my breathing under control. I couldn’t help the first two people I had seen in my visions. And I wasn’t able to help Mrs. Farnsworthy. But Mr. Utlet… I was going to help him. He wasn’t going to die. I checked my watch. 1:03. I had time. He wasn’t going to die.

  I crouched low and made my way toward the door. That’s when I heard the first gunshot. The second shot rang out when I opened the door.

  Chapter 16

  I burst through the door and rushed down an empty hallway. I heard scuffles from a room just up ahead and then a crash. I rounded the corner and rushed into the living room, not entirely sure what I was going to find, but afraid it would be Mr. Utlet bleeding to death.

  My mouth dropped when I finally saw what was going on. Mr. Utlet wasn’t shot. Instead, he stood over two of the men, one of whom was lying prone beneath chunks of porcelain and an overturned end table. The other, the man with the football-shaped head, was shuffling away from the old man, trying to prop himself against the wall. A bullet-sized hole in his right pant leg oozed blood.

  “You! What are you doing here?” Mr. Utlet barked at me.

  “I… we…” I blinked, trying to make sense of the scene before me. “You did this?”

  “They started it,” Mr. Utlet said, defending himself. He waved an object that took me a moment to identify as a gun. “This isn’t my gun.” He kicked the unconscious man at his feet. “This numbskull brought it. Bet you’re regretting that, aren’t ya, genius?” He looked back at me. “That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”

  “We were… um… trying to help you.”

  “We? We who?”

  “Colin and L—”

  “Put the gun down, old man.”

  The voice came from my right, and without thinking, I jumped to my left and ducked behind a ratty old armchair. The man with the tattoo gripped Colin by the shoulder and pressed a knife against his neck. He sneered at me and then turned back to Mr. Utlet.

  “Put it down!” he said again.

  “I don’t think so.” Mr. Utlet straightened his arms, pointed the gun at the burglar’s head, and narrowed his eyes.

  The tattooed man flexed his arm around Colin’s neck and shifted the hand that held the blade. Colin whimpered as a single bead of red trickled down his throat.

  “Drop the gun, old man. Or I’ll shove the blade straight through this little brat’s neck.”

  Mr. Utlet’s mouth twitched, and the muscles in his jaw clenched. I was sure he was about to take a shot, but at the last second he dropped the gun to the floor and gave it a little kick so it slid under his couch. “Let the kid go.”

  The burglar moved the knife away from Colin’s neck but kept a grip on his shoulder. He turned to the man propped up against the wall. “Darren, you okay?”

  “He shot me in the leg,” the man moaned. “I can’t walk.”

  “Do it anyway,” tattoo man ordered. “What about Jim?” He nodded at the man lying still on the floor.

  “The old man bashed him over the head and took his gun.”

  The man with the tattoo shoved Colin, sending him sprawling to the floor, and then moved toward his fallen comrade and nudged him with his foot. “Jim! Jim, get up.” Tattoo man’s buddy didn’t even move a finger.

  Colin scrambled across the hardwood floor and took a post next to me behind the armchair. He kept one hand pressed to his neck.

  “Get out of my house,” Mr. Utlet warned.

  “Tell us where you keep your money, and we’ll gladly leave.”

  “What money?”

  “Don’t play games, old man. We’ve been doing this long enough to know that all you old suckers keep wads of cash in your house.”

  Mr. Utlet’s eyes became slits. “Get out of my house.”

  “Or what?” Tattoo man flicked the knife in front of his face. “I have the—”

  Mr. Utlet moved like a jackrabbit. One second he was standing two or three yards from the burglar, and the next, his fist was connecting with the other man’s jaw. His punch only managed to knock the man back a step, but the knife clattered to the floor. Tattoo man growled and swung back at Mr. Utlet. I blinked, and the next thing I knew, the two of them were on the ground rolling on top of each other, fists connecting so fast the room filled with sounds like a gorilla beating its chest. Somehow the tattooed man managed to stand up and kick Mr. Utlet while he was down. Mr. Utlet groaned, then lashed out with his foot and connected with the inside of the robber’s knee with a resounding crack. The man howled and staggered back, knocking into a floor lamp. Colin and I shielded our eyes as it smashed to the floor. Opaque shards of glass scattered around the room. Mr. Utlet was on his feet again. He slammed his fist into the man’s ribs, and as the burglar staggered back, Mr. Utlet tackled him.

  “Get the gun!” the tattooed man yelled.

  The guy with the hole in his leg pulled himself to his feet and hobbled toward the couch. I could hear sirens in the distance. Help was on its way, but it wasn’t coming fast enough.

  I glanced at the ratty old armchair we were hiding behind, then at the man with the bloody leg, then back at the chair. “Push,” I said to Colin. Together, we pushed the armchair with our shoulders and launched it toward the man like some upholstered battering ram. His eyes widened, and he tried to move, but his injured leg didn’t allow it. We struck him full-on and knocked him back. He staggered, arms circling the air like blades on a broken windmill, until finally he crashed through the large picture window and thudded to the ground below.

  We risked a peek over the ledge. His eyes were closed, and he was wrapped in Mr. Utlet’s paisley curtains like an Egyptian mummy that had insisted on being wrapped in trendy bandages.

  “Move!” Mr. Utlet yelled from behind us. He had the tattooed man’s arm twisted in an unnatural position, and he was running him toward the window.

  Colin and I dove to the side just as Mr. Utlet tossed the burglar through. His feet clipped the ledge and he landed with a crunch atop his friend. Police cars and emergency vehicles careened to our block and drove over the sidewalk right onto Mr. Utlet’s lawn, headlights suddenly brightening the living room.

  Mr. Utlet limped to the couch, shoved it aside, and plucked up the revolver. He looked at us and a fleck of amusement played across his face. “I haven’t had that much fun since Beirut.” He nodded toward our armchair battering ram. “Quick thinking, boys. Nicely done.”

  He took a couple steps forward. I thought he was going to shake our hands or maybe pat us on the back. I didn’t find out because as soon as he stepped in front of the window and into the white beams of the police car headlights, we heard, “Freeze! Drop the gun!”

  That’s when all the color from the room bled away. Just like before, everything grayed and that feeling of undeniable dread engulfed me.

  Mr. Utlet smiled. “They think I’m the bad guy.” He turned to the window and raised his empty hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the lights. “Now see here!” he yelled. “These boys and I…” He gestured toward us and then froze.

  In the seconds before it happened, I saw what the officers were seeing from their positions behind the cruisers. I felt like I should run to Mr. Utlet and throw my hands out like a human shield to protect him. Instead, I didn’t move a muscle, frozen by fear and uncertainty, and watched my worst nightmare come true.

  Since his free hand was shielding his eyes from the headlights, the hand he used to make his gesture was the one holding the gun. To the police, it looked as though he were taking aim at a couple of unfortunate kids.
What happened next sounded as if someone had set a row of fire-crackers aflame. Mr. Utlet jerked and twitched in time to the bursts of noise. Then he dropped to the floor, and a shallow gray pool formed under his bullet-riddled body. As color filled the world again, the pool turned blood red.

  I took in a raspy breath as I looked down at my wristwatch.

  “One thirty-eight,” I choked. “It’s 1:38.”

  Chapter 17

  I didn’t leave my house for days. Lisa and Colin called from time to time, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to them. I’d known exactly what time Mr. Utlet would die, right to the minute. All I had to do was stop it. I should’ve called the police a few minutes earlier, or made a ruckus on the front lawn to scare those men away, or at least made them think that Mr. Utlet wouldn’t be an easy target. I went over and over all the ways the night could have played out differently. Each new possibility depressed me more than the last.

  My dad used his connections in the psychology community to pull some strings with the school board. Lisa, Colin, and I were excused from our final exams and given a pass into grade ten—not that I really cared. But we also had to attend group and one-on-one counseling. I’d already missed two sessions of both, but my parents were forcing me to go to the next group session.

  According to Dad, Lisa and Colin hadn’t missed a session and seemed to be doing well. Apparently, quite a few kids were having a tough time with the accident at school and were in counseling as well. Eric Feldman was among them. I was pretty sure Eric just wanted to be excused from his exams. Not that I could blame him, I guess. If I hadn’t been so devastated by what had happened to Mr. Utlet and Mrs. Farnsworthy, I’d have been overjoyed.

  The only good thing to happen over those few days was what didn’t happen: no more visions. No more screaming faces, no more shrieks of terror. Whatever nightmare I had been plunged into seemed to have ended. For now.

  I was brooding in bed, wondering if the past few days had been some test that I had failed, when there was a knock at my bedroom door.