by TJ Klune
There was toothpaste in the en suite bathroom, halfway rolled up. His mother must have forgotten it the last time she’d been here. There was no toothbrush. He squeezed some directly into his mouth and swished back and forth. It burned his tongue and caused his throat to close. He hacked it up into the sink. The water guy wasn’t coming until tomorrow, so he cleaned it up with an old hand towel. His mom had always hated when he or his brother left bits of toothpaste in the sink.
He lifted his head and stared at himself in the mirror.
His eyes were wide.
He had toothpaste on his chin.
He wiped it off.
Stepped out of the bathroom.
And began to pace.
It went on for hours.
Nate wasn’t stupid. He had a keen mind able to make the connections that most people couldn’t see. It was why he’d been good at his job. He could find the story that others couldn’t. He was charming when he needed to be. Cunning when the situation called for it. He could be ruthless, too, when he had to. You couldn’t survive in DC and not be. He would have been chewed up and spit out a long time ago.
It hadn’t hurt (helped?) that he’d been so young. A beat reporter covering fluff pieces bordering on puffery (Agnes Richards is eighty-seven years young and completed her first marathon! Moxie may be blind, but she is still man’s best friend, and oh! Would you look at that! She’s been adopted!) that had somehow managed to work his way up the ladder, stepping on whoever he needed to, slashing throats of those who’d considered him a friend. He didn’t have friends. He couldn’t and do what he did.
Not that that mattered anymore.
That was gone now.
Back and forth he went in that little room.
Eventually birds began to sing in the trees outside the cabin.
The sky began to lighten.
He wondered if he should just escape through the window.
Or maybe yesterday had been a weird dream.
He’d open the door and he’d be alone. There would be no one there named Alex Delgado with bushy eyebrows and a weird little girl called Artemis Darth Vader. He wouldn’t have to worry about guns or becoming toast or how a padlock to a shed housing a generator could be unlocked without the aid of a key.
He would make himself breakfast. Maybe some eggs. No toast. An omelet. Yes, he would make himself an omelet and coffee, and he would take his meal to the back deck, bundled up in a coat and breathing in cold, cold air.
After, he’d unload the truck, putting everything in its place exactly where it should be. It would be fine. Everything would be fine.
Yes, there would be some questions later, like how he could have imagined such a thing as Alex Delgado and Artemis Darth Vader and bullet wounds that weren’t gaping wide open. But he could potentially chalk it up to his grief. He was here, after all, in this cabin, for the first time since his parents had died violently. This place held terrible memories of his father’s bigotry and—maybe even worse—his mother’s complicit silence, and he was dealing with it. Why, anyone would go a little bit crazy, right? It was a wonder he’d held himself together for this long.
Of course none of this was real.
Of course he’d made it all up in his head.
He felt better.
He wanted to change his clothes. He’d been wearing these same jeans for damn near twenty-four hours. The same underwear, even.
He’d get his duffel and take a shower, and then there would be breakfast on the deck with as much coffee as he could possibly stand.
He tilted his head side to side, feeling his neck pop.
It felt good. That, and having a plan.
He moved to the door.
He opened it.
And was met with… silence.
Because of course he was. There was no one there. He was alone in the cabin in the middle of the woods in the Cascade Mountains, just as he had expected to be when he’d made the decision to come here in the first place. There was no gun being pointed at him. His imagination had always been overactive. All his teachers had said so come report card time. He’d even toyed with writing a novel—most journos did at one point or another. But every time he sat in front of that open Word doc, cursor blinking, he would freeze. He could deal in facts. He didn’t understand fiction.
He’d been tired the day before. The events of the past few months had finally caught up with him. He’d made it to the cabin, stumbled inside, and dreamed the whole thing.
Yes. Yes, that sounded just fine.
There was a bedroom door across from him.
It was shut.
He tried to remember if it’d been closed the night before.
He couldn’t think clearly.
He was tired.
It was still too early. Which is why he’d thought about taking a shower. He couldn’t. The water was still off.
He needed coffee. And his toothbrush.
And underwear.
He thought about opening that door.
He put his hand on the doorknob, but then a little voice in the back of his mind whispered what if?
What if he opened the door to the second bedroom with the two twin beds that he and his brother had shared to see a little girl in one and a large man in the other? Granted, the bed would almost be too small for a figment of his imagination that size, but what if?
He stepped away from the door.
He needed coffee and a toothbrush and underwear.
He’d feel better after that.
He moved down the hall quietly.
It felt like he was sneaking, which was ridiculous since he was alone.
The wooden floor creaked in that one spot it always did. He’d forgotten about it.
Nate winced and stopped. Listening.
The house was quiet.
Of course it was.
He could see the couch.
The afghan was folded neatly and laid across the back.
There were no dishes on the dining room table.
It didn’t even smell like soup or toast.
Outside, the generator hummed.
Sunlight filtered in through the east windows.
He looked around the living room.
He was alone.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
“What are you doing?” a gruff voice asked.
He didn’t scream.
He didn’t.
It was more of a gasp that he choked on as he twisted around, almost losing his footing. He stuck his hand out and held himself up against the wall, heart pounding as he struggled to take another breath.
There, standing in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with a cup of coffee in his hand, was the man who called himself Alex Delgado. He wore the same pair of pants from the day before. The flannel shirt was gone. Instead, he wore a white undershirt. Nate couldn’t tell if the bandage had been removed.
“Why did you sneak up on me like that?” Nate demanded, sounding more breathless than he would have liked.
Alex scoffed derisively. “Haven’t moved.”
Nate didn’t know what to feel. Embarrassed, probably. Angry, sure. There was the urge to find the biggest knife in the kitchen and stab the man right in his face. Nate wasn’t violent by nature, but he figured everyone was allowed to be at some point in their lives.
It was just finally his turn.
“What are you doing?” he asked instead.
Alex looked down at his steaming mug, then back up at Alex. “What’s it look like?”
It was too early for Nate to be dealing with breaking-and-entering strangers who also turned out to be assholes. “I’m going to my truck,” he announced grandly.
Alex didn’t say anything.
Nate waited.
Alex sipped his coffee.
“Right,” Nate said. “You just… you stay right where you are. And don’t touch anything else. This is my house, and I don’t want your dirty ha
nds on my things.”
Alex snorted.
Nate backed away slowly, keeping his eyes on Alex.
Alex stared back.
Nate bumped into the dining room table. It scraped along the floor.
Nate flushed.
Alex was stoic. With coffee.
Nate was out of the kitchen, and he turned around, ready to rush the front door when—
He stopped.
There in the living room was everything he’d brought with him.
Well. Not everything. All the foodstuffs were gone. The water. The cooler.
But there was his duffel bag.
His boxes of books.
His PowerBook.
His Nokia, sitting on the old coffee table.
Someone had unloaded the truck for him.
He turned slowly.
Alex sipped his coffee again.
“Where’s all the food?” he asked, even though that wasn’t the question he’d intended.
Alex didn’t answer him. Instead, he jerked his head toward the pantry.
Nate didn’t believe him.
He went to the pantry.
All of it was there. The cans. The flour. The baking soda. Hamburger Helper. Boxes and boxes of Hamburger Helper, because he was a single man in his twenties. Stacks of bottled water. An empty cooler.
He went to the fridge. Eggs sat on the shelf next to packs of bacon. Lunchmeat. Mustard. Mayo.
The freezer held hamburger meat. Chicken. A bag of peas, because he’d felt guilty about not having any vegetables. He never planned on eating them. He thought peas were disgusting.
“You unloaded my truck,” he said, staring into the freezer.
Shockingly, Alex didn’t say a word.
Nate closed the freezer door. He took a breath. He said, “Where is the little girl, and are you on the run because you murdered someone?”
Alex choked on his coffee.
Nate felt great satisfaction at that. He hoped it burned.
Alex set down the mug on the counter, black liquid sloshing out. He was muttering something under his breath, flipping on the faucet.
Nothing came out.
“No water,” Nate said mildly. “Hasn’t been turned on yet. Used to be from a well, but it went on the county in the late eighties.”
Alex grabbed a paper towel instead, wiping it over his face. He had thick stubble on his cheeks and neck that was thicker than it’d been the day before.
Alex threw the crumpled paper towel on the counter.
Nate waited.
Alex glared.
Nate waited some more.
Then, “I know there’s no water. I had to use the bottled stuff you brought for the coffee. It’s the first time I’ve made any since we got here.”
“Uh-huh. Right. Okay. Why are you—”
“I didn’t—I’m not. We’re not on the run because of murder.”
Nate squinted at him. “But you are on the run.”
Alex didn’t say anything.
“You don’t speak much, do you?”
Alex proved his point and didn’t say a word. He picked up his mug instead.
That’s when Nate noticed it for the first time. Ink, on Alex’s right arm.
His shirtsleeve covered most of it, but there looked to be the tip of a knife. Talons of some kind of bird. The bottom curves of what looked like letters. As he lifted the coffee again, the sleeve stretched just a little against his bicep, pulling back slightly. Two of the letters were clearer.
MC.
It only took him a second.
The talons probably belonged to an eagle.
The knife would be a KA-BAR.
MC belonged to USMC.
United States Marine Corps.
A grunt. The haircut made sense now. But he was older, right? The girl had said he was… what. Forty? Career, then. He was built for it, sure. Big arms. Big chest. Thick thighs that probably looked—
Nate coughed. “Eggs,” he managed to say. “I need to make eggs.”
Alex didn’t say a word.
Nate got out the eggs. He’d only brought a dozen, figuring they’d last until he made a supply run down in Roseland. He hadn’t expected to have guests. Granted, they weren’t guests as much as they were squatters, and he didn’t owe them a damn thing. He had plans—omelet plans—for breakfast on the deck. He rarely ate breakfast, usually having no time for such indulgences. Instead, he’d be gulping down coffee on the Metro. Sometimes he’d even have a banana. Or an apple.
So he didn’t have time for such things. He was a busy, busy man.
Or rather, he used to be.
Now he was a jobless man standing in a kitchen with a large Marine who might or might not have murdered someone and stolen a child.
He made all the eggs.
He didn’t mean to.
He started with three, planning on his omelet.
They turned scrambled instead.
And he just kept going.
The whole dozen.
He took down plates.
He made more toast.
He wished he’d thought to bring cheese.
There was bacon. Yes. The bacon would do.
He made that too.
“What is that?”
He startled slightly.
Standing next to him, yawning quietly, was Artemis Darth Vader. She had pajamas on. They were pink and a little small, the sleeves not quite reaching her wrists. Her hair was a mess.
She was also wearing a pair of oversized neon green sunglasses that slid down her nose.
She looked ridiculous.
“What?” he asked, unsure of what else to say.
“That,” she said, pointing to the bacon sizzling in the pan.
“That’s… bacon.”
“Bacon,” she repeated slowly. She looked over at Alex. “Will I like that?”
Alex shrugged.
“Where does it come from?”
“The store,” Nate said.
She grunted, and the noise sounded so much like Alex that Nate wondered if he’d stolen her or if she was actually his daughter. “No, where did it come from?”
“I don’t—”
“A pig,” Alex growled.
Art cocked her head and stared at the bacon. “I thought sausage came from pigs. I’ve never had it, but I read about it.”
Nate wasn’t sure what was going on. “It does.”
“And pork chops.”
He nodded. “Those too.”
“And hot dogs.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far—”
“And now bacon comes from pigs too?” She shook her head. “What magnificent creatures. I wonder who looked at them for the first time and thought to themselves how many meals they could make out of them.”
Alex made a noise that coming from anyone else would have possibly been approaching a laugh. But coming from him it sounded like a monotonous release of air.
Suddenly and quite viciously, Nate felt the need to find a way to break him in two. To crack him right down the middle and see what spilled out. Curiosity had always been his downfall. He’d always stuck his nose where it didn’t belong. And the fact that there was this—this mystery before him was causing his skin to itch. He was pragmatic, yes. The world had an order to it. If something didn’t make sense, if something was unknown, he would poke and prod until he found the thread that led to the truth.
He was confused. He didn’t like being confused.
“Did you sleep well?” Art asked him, pushing the sunglasses back up her nose.
“I don’t… know?”
“Oh. Why don’t you know?”
“Art.”
She glanced back at Alex. “What?”
“Leave him alone. Come here.”
She went.
He put a hand on the top of her head as she leaned against him. It might have been endearing if Nate hadn
’t thought it was meant to be protective. Alex was protecting her from him. As if he thought Nate would take a scalding pan of bacon and smash it upside her head.
Which—okay. He hadn’t exactly thought of that, but…
And besides. He wouldn’t do that to the girl.
To Alex, yes. Hell yes. If he thought Alex was going to hurt him, he’d burn his fucking skin off and beat his face in with a pan of bacon, no question.
She leaned against Alex, yawning.
The sunglasses slid down her nose again.
He turned back to the bacon.
He put some on each plate next to the eggs.
He switched off the stove.
Alex and Art didn’t move as he put the pan in the sink. They both watched him instead.
He went back to the plates. Maybe he was showing off a little as he held one in each hand and the third on his forearm. He’d worked his way through school slinging hash and waiting tables in Tucson where most of the staff and patrons didn’t speak English. He’d picked up serviceable Spanish quickly. The pay had been shit, but he could put in the hours he needed for a little pocket money. His parents had paid for the tuition and the dorm and the books just like they’d done for his brother, but anything more, he’d needed to earn himself.
Alex didn’t look impressed.
Art stared avidly.
You win some, you lose some.
He set the plates on the table. He went back for forks. Napkins. Those went on the table too.
There was a half-full pot of coffee.
He poured himself a cup. There was sugar in a tin above the pot. It was a little crusty, but he broke off a chunk and dropped it in.
He went back to the table, sat down in front of a plate, and sighed.
It wasn’t an omelet on the deck by himself.
But it could work.
Maybe.
He looked back toward the kitchen.
Alex’s eyes were slightly narrowed. Art was fidgeting.
“Well?” Nate asked.
Alex hesitated. And just when Nate thought he’d have three full plates all to himself, Alex gave a little push to the back of Art’s head.
She ran to the table and climbed on the chair, nostrils flaring as she gnawed on her bottom lip. The eggs on her plate were reflected back in the lenses of her sunglasses.
Alex came too, though he didn’t run with enthusiasm as Art had.
He moved much slower.
Art didn’t touch the silverware until he sat next to her, the chair groaning under his weight.