Paths

by David DeSimone

  It was almost too easy.

  She promised herself to delete the hidden account once her debts were paid. Set thing right again. But the money kept coming in and Liz got greedy. Two weeks ago she tapped into the accounts management program again and made a slight adjustment to the “other” federal deduction field, increasing the amount by $.50. It was a minor tweak that shouldn’t have gotten noticed, if she had put the decimal point in the right place. What was supposed to be a $2.50 deduction suddenly became a $25.00 deduction.

  The first call happened only a few hours ago.

  Liz picked up a phone call and heard a retiree’s complaint. It felt like her guts exploded at that moment.

  She immediately went into the program and erased the account, but the damage was done. More calls came in, more apologies and promises from her on behalf of InterLang to correct the error as soon as possible. It was only a matter of time before IT Security, an outsourced company called Grober, Inc., would trace the money trail back into Liz’s personal bank account.

  When hearing the news from Liz, Ana’s knees buckled. If a storage shelf hadn’t been within reach, she very well might have fallen.

  “What have you done!” she said in a loud whisper, instinctively adopting a cautious tone.

  Liz began to weep. “I just wanted to pay off my debts and then I was going to stop. I swear Ana! And it was only a couple of dollars. If this didn’t happen, nobody would have ever noticed the difference!”

  Flushed and still reeling from the shock, Ana could only shake her head.

  “I don’t want to go to jail, Ana!”

  Ana shushed her. “Calm down,” she said, touching Liz’s arm, feeling her lightly tremble under her fingertips, Liz’s skin was cold and clammy. A wave of pity for Liz overcame Ana and she wanted to hug her friend, tell her everything was going to be okay. But that would be a lie. Liz had dug a hole that she was not going to climb out of unscathed. The question was, would Ana allow herself to be dragged down with her?

  “I don’t know what to do,” Liz said. “Can you help me? Pleeeeease!”

  “I don’t know how?”

  “You can say it was a computer glitch, that the same thing happened to you.”

  “Liz, that’s crazy!”

  “Please say something! I need your help!”

  She was going to say something alright. Despite having strong reservations about turning her friend in, she had to do it. Otherwise she would be held guilty as an accessory. Ana never felt so torn. She wanted to cry right along with Liz.

  She fought the tears back and said, “Listen to me.”

  Liz looked at her wide-eyed. There was hope in those eyes. Ana felt a stab of pity.

  “You need to take the rest of the day off and call a lawyer.”

  “A lawyer?”

  “Yes.”

  “But how much is that going to cost? The police are going to put a freeze on all my accounts. I won’t have any money.”

  “I don’t know what they’re going to do. But if it comes to that I’ll try and help out as much as I can.”

  “But Ana, isn’t there a way you could-”

  “Stop! I can’t, and you know I can’t.”

  Liz fell back against a shelf and covered her face in shame and fear.

  “You’re going get through this, okay?”

  Liz nodded her head.

  “It won’t be easy, Liz. I can’t lie and say that it will be, but you’re going to get through this.”

  “Okay,” Liz said shakily, feeling a tad relieved.

  A thud echoed from the far end of the room.

  They froze, turned in the direction of the sound.

  “We have to go,” Liz said grabbing Ana by the wrist.

  “Wait,” Ana said pulling away. “It sounded like it came from the Janitor’s closet.”

  Quietly she placed the toner box on the nearest shelf. With Liz following close behind, she crept toward the main aisle on the opposite end of the room. Sitting in stacks of various heights atop countless shelving units, the supply boxes took on ominous shapes in the amber light, seeming to focus their dark interests upon the tiny figures passing them. There was an unsettling sense of danger, of things hiding around corners and in the shadows.

  When they’d reached the other side of the storage room, they turned right and started toward the janitor’s closet, which stood twenty feet away. As they got closer their pace had slowed to a crawl, pausing a few times whenever a thud was heard.

  As they moved within ten feet of the door, Liz stopped altogether. She waited as Ana continued to tiptoe closer.

  Another thud.

  Ana reached out and closed her fingers around the doorknob, felt the pounding pressure of her heart behind her eyes and in her ears.

  She slowly turned the doorknob. It turned smoothly, without interruption, until the latch bolt was completely pulled back.

  Ana opened the door.

  10

  Passionate sex was not what crossed Ana’s mind the instant her eyes fixed on the two figures intertwined. It was Dracula she thought. Rufus’ face was buried so deep in her neck that only the tip of his chin was visible. With his mouth stretched wide, it really did look like he was sucking blood out of her. The moaning that exuded from Shawna’s mouth was low and breathy. Heavy. It struck Ana momentarily as the sound of slow torture rather than pleasure.

  Shawna snapped her head to where the light had changed abruptly, the skin around her eyes smeared with runny mascara, and gave a bark of utter surprise.

  Still probing her neckline with his mouth and her buttocks with his hands, Rufus hadn’t yet noticed that Shawna had gone cold. She gave him several hard claps on the shoulder to get him to stop, and pushed him off.

  Ana could almost feel a wave of trapped heat at the moment of uncoupling. His pants were unfastened and partially pushed down, but fortunately he remained concealed behind the flap of his outer shirt. Quickly, he turned away from Ana, tucked in and zipped up while Shawna slid off the sink and straightened her skirt. She wiped her eyes, did the best she could do with her tousled hair.

  Ana, still agape, took three steps back. Behind her Liz looked just as shocked.

  “What are you doing down here?” Shawna asked between heavy breaths.

  Head down, mortified, Rufus slunk around and stood next to Shawna. He threw Ana a quick, pleading glance, but her eyes weren’t on him. The mouth that had worked feverishly over the surface of Shawna’s smooth salty skin just seconds ago had since snapped shut like a bear trap. There was nothing he could say to undo this. Time moves in one direction, forward. He would never again feel comfortable looking into Ana’s eyes, for in their reflection he would see a lesser man staring back.

  “I should be asking you!”

  No reply from Shawna. She made a few more adjustments to her hair and clothes.

  “Came down here for a quickie, Shawna?” Ana bristled.

  “Not quick enough,” Liz remarked.

  “No one ever comes back here,” Shawna said in a voice that was almost whiny.

  Ana could have said something half-witty about that but she tactfully held her tongue. She was glad Liz thought to do the same. This was no time for jokes, especially for Liz who stood a good chance of doing time; at the very least she would lose her job and face a hefty lawsuit.

  After today with Ana on maternity leave, Liz’s embezzling about to bite her on the ass and now Shawna screwing the boss on the job, the Lang-girls, as they knew it, was over.

  “How could you do this, Shawna, after all that you’d said about Cheryl having an affair with him?”

  Rufus managed an expression of shock, but remained silent.

  “What’s it to you anyway, Ana, who I decide to fuck! You’re not my mother!”

  Rufus tried to intervene but was promptly silenced by Shawna.

  Ana turned noticeably red.

  “What are you gonna do, girl, tell on us?” Shawna challenged.

  “I’m just shocke
d that you lied.”

  “What?”

  “You keep throwing Cheryl under the bus saying nasty things about her, when all the while you’re the one screwing the boss.”

  “Ana, if you weren’t pregnant I’d bust you-”

  “Hey!” Liz shouted coming to Ana’s aid. “Cool it, Shawna!”

  “Oh, now look at this! The cavalry’s arr-”

  “If you’re in love with him, why didn’t you just say so? Why did you have to hide it so nastily?” Ana said.

  For a moment Shawna didn’t know how to answer. Her eyes began to well up. “That’s none of your goddamn business!” Tears became more pronounced. When she spoke again, her voice began to crack. “And who says I’m in love with Rufus?”

  “And you,” Ana said glaring at Rufus. “What would your wife say about this?”

  She looked back at Shawna and said, “You’re both grown adults, and you’re right Shawna. It is none of my business. I’m just disappointed in the way you treated the people around you, Cheryl, Liz, me. Even Rufus. We didn’t deserve it.”

  “Shawna.”

  She turned to Rufus.

  When he saw the hurt in her eyes, he had choke down his own tears before he could speak. “I’m sorry.”

  Shawna began to cry in earnest.

  “I’m so damned sorry I did this to you.” He opened his arms, began to move toward her and she batted his arms away.

  When Ana tried to console Shawna, Shawna pushed her away and ran out crying.

  Ana and Liz went after her.

  Rufus followed.

  11

  After pursuing Shawna through the storage room and two long corridors, Ana, Liz and Rufus finally caught up to her. Ana seized her by the arm. “Shawna, listen to me,” she said before exhaustion stole her breath. She felt like she had just run a marathon.

  “I can’t talk now,” Shawna said, her cheeks stained with tears and mascara. “I don’t know if I can ever talk to any of you again!”

  From nearby, they heard banging noises and screaming coming from inside the interrogation room.

  Shawna fell silent. She, Ana, Liz, Rufus and various passers-by all stopped to listen to the commotion. Through the window, they witnessed figures wrestling, jostling for control. Of what, no one knew for sure. Ana saw Agent Singleton’s head pop into view, and then quickly disappear, as though yanked by a powerful arm.

  More sounds of objects breaking.

  More shouting.

  More screaming.

  “What’s going on?” Liz said.

  A heavy thud struck the wall from inside causing people to shriek in surprise.

  Another crashing sound.

  Rufus stepped between the women and the door holding an arm up like a crossing guard. “Get back!”

  The three women moved automatically away from the door. Rufus turned around placing his hands on Ana’s shoulders, tried to steer her away but before getting too far, the door burst open and bodies flew out. A fist struck Rufus in the side of the head and he went down.

  Liz attempted to leap back but it all happened too fast. She lost her footing, fell back and disappeared into the fray.

  A large man was whirling violently, trying to throw off several NYPD officers and agents, including Special Agent Beau Maxwell. He was a large young man, had dark features and wore a heavy beard. He towered over Maxwell, who stood 6’2”, and had arms the size of tree trunks. He shouted something in Arabic in an explosive voice that was terrifying. Fighting his way through the door was another man of Middle-Eastern descent. He wasn’t as large as Suspect #1, but of sufficient size and ferocity to require three cops to wrestle him to the ground. They bound his wrists with Zip Tie plastic restraints.

  At that moment the security alarm sounded throughout the building, echoing through the halls.

  Ana tried to run but her path was cut off when the force of Suspect #1’s blow struck an agent and like a domino effect, flew into an officer and that officer struck another, and he in turn fell in front of Ana, cutting off her path.

  Someone grabbed her arm.

  It was Shawna. “Ana!” she shouted swinging around to face Ana and protectively threw her arm around her. “Come this way!”

  They ran in the opposite direction heading for the stairs when Ana felt a sudden sensation of weightlessness. One moment she’s being whisked away by Shawna, the next Shawna is gone and she is airborne.

  Before her brain could register that something bad just happened, she found herself ensnared in a jumble of arms and legs. She fell to her knees, looked up and saw the large form of Suspect #1 coming straight at her.

  An officer bearing a stun gun stepped in front of her jamming the gun’s live wire deep into Suspect #1’s gut. It produced a rapid clicking noise not dissimilar to the chirping of crickets, insane crickets tripping on PCP. Suspect #1 came to a dead stop. His body convulsed and his face turned the color of a ripe tomato. Teeth gritting, he fought to move his legs, fought to bring his arms up and wrap his large hands around the officer’s throat, but the electricity coursing through him turned his entire nervous system into a tight net from which he could not pull out. His knees buckled. The world began to swoon.

  On his way down Suspect #1 fell against the officer who had tased him. The officer stumbled backward, his arms pinwheeling, and the hand holding the stun gun struck Ana squarely in the belly.

  She uttered a startled cry.

  The pain was incredible, like being shot repeatedly in the belly with a nail gun. Every fiber of muscle in her body became tense by the grip of the electrical current. Every nerve ending screamed.

  Before she fell to the floor, Ana was caught under her arms by a pair of large hands and whisked away.

  “Ana, are you okay!” Special Agent Beau Maxwell cried out.

  “Yes, I think so,” she said, looking around dazedly at the mayhem happening around her. Although her legs went through the motions there was no real traction with the ground. Mostly she entrusted herself in the arms of Maxwell. Shawna kept pace with them on her other side as they hurried down the corridor and made a left at the end. They took the stairs down one flight and, along with throngs of other frightened people, exiting through the main entrance.

  Hundreds of people crowded the building awaiting further instructions. It looked like the end of a massive fire drill. Among them were Rufus and Liz.

  Looking over the crowd and spotting Ana, Rufus called out to her.

  Ana looked, waved.

  He and Liz ran to her.

  “Ana, are you alright?”

  Ana nodded, a hand covering protectively over her belly.

  “What happened?”

  “She was accidentally hit by a stun gun,” Maxwell said.

  To Maxwell, Rufus said, “What was that all about?”

  “We hauled in a couple of suspects for questioning,” Maxwell said. “We’ve been monitoring their communications for months with Jordanians we suspect belong with Al Qaeda. They surrendered peacefully, so no one expected that they would suddenly jump out of their seats and attack us.”

  Bleating sirens introduced the arrival of police cruisers and a patty wagon that quickly closed in around the building. Several NYPD officers got out and rushed into the federal building. Others began parting the crowd away from the building’s entrance and cordoning off the space around it with caution tape and orange traffic drums.

  Special Agent Singleton arrived out of breath and disheveled, to tell Maxwell that the suspects have been detained and are being transported to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. He took a look at Ana, noticing with some concern her pale complexion and her arms covering her belly and added, “Ambulances are on their way.”

  12

  END GAME

  Something was wrong. Ana knew it from the moment she felt an unusually hard kick inside her womb, as if they were angry with her for allowing harm to come to them. Or worse: that being shocked with a thousand volts not only pissed them off but had chan
ged them somehow, turned them into angry little monsters. It was a ridiculous idea and she felt annoyed with herself for even thinking it, yet she could not prevent it from entering her mind. It was a reflex thought, a flash happening faster than she could process it.

  Another jolting kick sent her to her knees.

  Another jolt doubled her over.

  “Ana, what’s wrong?” Liz said, kneeling beside her.

  “Is it your stomach?” Maxwell asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ana said with cold, mounting dread.

  Another jolt.

  Ana cried out in pain.

  “Is it the babies?” Shawna said. When Ana didn’t respond, she asked again. “Ana, is it the babies?”

  “I...don’t…”

  Maxwell helped Ana to lie down, she resisted. Supported by Maxwell and Shawna, Ana instead decided on a sitting position, cross-legged, both arms cradling her belly. In her arms she felt what she guessed were the limbs from one or both twins pressing against the inner wall of her womb and moving in slow arcing motions, as if they were probing their surroundings, becoming familiar with the environment into which they had awakened. It was frightening in its deliberateness, suggesting an unusual awareness. She tried to dismiss it as more paranoid thoughts worsened by the pandemonium around her.

  She looked up and noticed that the daylight seemed to be fading, which was impossible. She attributed the illusion to her addled state.

  Hearing sirens, Maxwell looked up, said, “The ambulance is here.” He began helping Ana to her feet, Shawna assisting.

  “I left my pocketbook in the office,” Ana said in a sudden panic. “I can’t leave without my pocketbook!”

  “Ana, don’t worry!” Liz said. “I’ll go get your pocketbook!”

  “I can’t leave-”

  “I’m getting it right now.”

  Those were the last words spoken before everyone froze and turned their gazes toward the heavens.

  With growing terror, Ana realized that it wasn’t an illusion after all. The sky really was getting darker.

  13

  It swept over the great Manhattan skyline from the south, like storm clouds, negative space coming down from high above, expanding and stripping away the earth’s atmosphere in every direction, replacing it with a night sky void of stars.