JMariotte - Boogeyman Page 4

  Before he was even a few steps away, though, he heard another noise, even stranger than the first. It sounded like someone balling up a gigantic piece of aluminum foil, the size of a city block, and it set his teeth on edge just like that would have. A loud, metallic crinkling. He glanced about—something so loud must be huge, he knew, but he couldn’t see anything in the dimly lit park that might have made such a sound.

  But there was nothing.

  Just trees. Shadows. A man standing with his back to Tim, near a trash can. A homeless guy, maybe, scrounging for enough soda cans to buy a late dinner or a drink. He wasn’t the strange shadow man. But the crinkling sound continued, louder now, and it was joined by a noise that sounded like a buzz saw ripping through sheet metal, and a clanging as if Tim stood inside a giant bell, and the cacophony was all too loud to be believed. Tim put his hands over his ears, but that just made it worse, like his head would tear apart from the inside out. He started to say something to the homeless guy who just stood there, seemingly oblivious, but if he was really talking he couldn’t tell, his own voice was so overwhelmed by the din. Either way, the guy didn’t turn around. Tim was starting to wonder if he was one of those lifelike statues, when finally he moved.

  At least, his hair moved.

  Tim shook his head. None of this was making any sense.

  The guy had a mop of greasy black hair, and it slowly parted—though no fingers were touching it. Little by little, it moved.

  Revealing a pair of dark, malevolent eyes, looking at Tim. He couldn’t have said why but he got the sense that they were challenging him. He had a momentary flash of Travis Bickle inTaxi Driver .Are you looking at me?

  As quickly as it had come, all the noise died. Absolute silence reigned, broken only by Tim’s shallow, frightened breaths. None of this was right, none of it could be happening. But denial would have been a lot easier, Tim guessed, if his senses didn’t seem to be working just fine now. He could see the park, the trees, the grass. Stars dotting the sky. He could hear distant traffic, a horn honking, an airplane streaking past overhead. The right sounds, the proper sights.

  Except for the guy with the freaky eyes in the back of his head, staring at him. And then another blur of motion snared Tim’s attention. The shadow man, black and distorted, moving toward him. If a man could even survive, so twisted and misshapen, he shouldn’t be able to move as fast as this guy was—covering the ground toward Tim as fast as a cheetah, as a NASCAR racer.

  Tim started walking again, fast, almost a run, his legs scissoring crisply. He closed his eyes as he went, screwing them tight, and counted on his fingers as he did. One, two, three, four, five…

  Risked a glance over his shoulder.

  The shadow man wasn’t there. Someone else, someone who could have been the homeless guy with the extra eyes, except that he looked normal now, walked along pushing a shopping cart full of plastic bags and aluminum cans. Tim shook his head once again, knowing as he did that it wouldn’t help a bit. Either he was going nuts and imagining all this stuff, or…

  …well, there isn’t really a better option, is there, Timmy?

  You’re crazy, or the whole world is. You like that any better? You want to be the last sane one?

  That, Tim knew, was the most unlikely scenario of the evening. He’d been called a lot of things in his life.Sane wasn’t usually one of them.

  Four

  Tim never thought he would be so glad to leave the park. Until tonight, he had really enjoyed his experiences in there. Now he wasn’t sure he ever would again. He left it behind as fast as he could, hurrying the last couple of blocks to his apartment. When he got there, he jammed his key into the lock, turned it, then repeated the process in the other two dead bolts. Finally, the door swung open and he was home. He reached inside, flipped on the wall switch. Light blazed.

  Home was safety. His loft was light and open by day, and at night he had his lamps positioned just right to chase away any shadows that might have tried to encroach on his turf.

  The loft was all one big room. Kitchen on one side, cabinets open to the light. Everything was neatly arranged, orderly. Glasses arrayed nicely, plates stacked just so, flatware and utensils in clean plastic baskets. In his sleeping corner, his mattress rested right on the floor, so there could be no shadows—or anything else—beneath it. His closet was open to the room, clothes hanging precisely. Another open-faced cabinet held carefully folded underwear, T-shirts, socks. Shoes in a straight line on the closet floor. A visitor, a writer who sometimes worked for Tim, had once said that it looked like Tim had taken his red pen to his own apartment and excised everything that was out of place, everything extraneous, just as he had done to that writer’s last article.

  He hadn’t been far off. But Tim knew the motivation wasn’t quite the same. His place was organized this way for a reason, but that reason wasn’t editorial precision or Eastern simplicity.

  As Tim walked around the loft, switching on lamps, the light from his array spilled into every corner, every nook. Tim’s goal was the banishment of shadows, of dark spots. Of places where something—anything—could hide.

  This was his sanctuary, after all. This was where he came to get away from the world and its dangers. This was where light ruled, and the darkness was not invited.

  He snatched the phone from its cradle, ignoring the glowing red 1 telling him he had a message, and dialed a number he knew well. While it rang, he helped himself to a beer from the refrigerator and popped it open. The fridge had one door he allowed to be closed, and he tried to pretend he was fine with that, but that one time the bulb in there had burned out, all the food had spoiled before he’d been able to bring himself to change it.

  Beep. Leave a message. “Hey, Jane. It’s Tim. Jensen. Are you there?”Apparently not, Einstein . “No? Listen, I’m…uh…I don’t know if it’s ’cause it’s the holidays or ’cause I’m going to meet Jessica’s parents or what, but I’m…” How to describe it? Stark raving bonkers? He decided to take a more subtle approach. “I’m feeling a little more messed up than usual. What’s new, right?”

  Because that would reassure her, wouldn’t it?

  “Anyway…I was hoping you had some time to see me. Thanks. Bye.”

  He hung up the phone. What if shedid have time? What if she called back tonight, or tomorrow morning? How would Jessica take it if he said he had to blow off Thanksgiving with the family because he was afraid he was going batty and had to see his shrink?

  But then, how would she like it if he came to dinner and started hallucinating? Who knew what he’d see next? Maybe the turkey would get up off the table and dance a jig. Maybe all the female relatives would line up and dance like the Rockettes, and when they turned around they’d all have eyes in the backs of their heads, winking at him.

  Yeah, that’d be terrific.

  He’d made the call, though, so there was nothing he could do about it now. And anyway, the chances of getting an appointment immediately were slim to none. Calling this week only increased his odds of getting one within the next several weeks. He pressed PLAY on the answering machine, and recognized the voice immediately.“Tim, it’s Uncle Mike. Listen, I know you’re having Thanksgiving with your girlfriend and all, but it’d be real nice if you could make it out to see your mom this weekend. She’s not doing so well, and…you know. It’d be good for her to see you. And I got some stuff for you to sign too. House stuff. All right, that’s all.”

  His uncle had disconnected then. Not like he could have done much more damage to Tim’s already precarious balance. The last thing he needed was a guilt trip about visiting his mother, on top of everything else.

  He hated the place she was living, even though Uncle Mike said it was the best place for her, that she couldn’t take care of herself at home any more—not that she ever could. He found it depressing to see her there, weak and haggard, looking as if she had already given up and was just waiting around for the end. Whenever he went there, he was treated to a litany o
f her ailments, and a long list of people she knew who had recently died.

  But it was a long weekend. He could try to get out there, try to see her. It was never fun, always difficult. But he supposed she needed it. He probably did too.

  Just like sometimes you need a root canal, Timmy. Like sometimes you have to open the fridge, even though the bulb’s burned out.

  He would try. That was the best he could promise.

  The Brittan house was big. No,big was too small a word. For that matter,house was too small a word.Manor, maybe, which was, to Tim’s mind, just slightly less grand, less absurdly ostentatious, than a mansion. Either way, the house wasbig, the kind of place where rich people lived their lives that were so different from everyone else’s. Tim had known that Jessica came from money, but the realization had never felt as concrete as it did the moment that he parked his battered blue Mustang in front of her house, slotting it between a Bentley and her BMW.

  Just to be sure, he checked the address scrawled on his palm before he’d left home that morning with the one on the house. Right place.And they probably spring for notepads here, he thought, wiping his hand on the car’s upholstery. He gave himself the once-over in the mirror—tie knotted and straight, hair neat, nothing between his teeth. His jacket was navy, shirt white, tie blue with a gold pattern. Khaki pants. As good as it got; nothing else he could do now, short of cosmetic surgery. He grabbed a bottle of wine he’d spent too much money on (too much for him, although in this place they’d probably think it was a trivial expense) and his overnight bag and climbed out of the car.

  Before he even reached the front door, Jessica had come out to meet him. He was a little stunned, as he always was, to realize just how beautiful she was. Her straight blond hair caught the sun like a cascade of molten gold. She wore a red silk dress, just this side of formal, and the way it clung to her figure made him think that it had been made just for her. Probably it had. It also made him think that it was a bit too sexy for a family Thanksgiving dinner, but maybe that was just him. At any rate, he found himself grinning widely as she bounded toward him. He dropped the bag, held onto the bottle, and spread his arms, welcoming her into them. She smelled as good as she looked—clean and fresh, with a floral undertone. And she felt even better than that, pressing her body against his as if trying to mold to him.

  “Hey,” she said, taking the wine from his hand so he could grab his bag. “I see you got the car started. Were the directions okay?”

  He instinctively closed his hand, hoping the ink stains were gone. “Perfect,” he replied. He hoisted his overnight bag, raised it toward the magnificent structure behind her. “Shouldn’t we wait for the bellhop to come take my bag?”

  “Shut up,” Jessica said with a laugh. A beautiful laugh, Tim thought, to go along with the rest of the package. There were times he couldn’t believe his luck, and this moment was one of them. “It’s their house, not mine,” she continued. “What’s with the tie?”

  Suddenly self-conscious, the fingers of Tim’s free hand went to the knot. “I don’t know. I figured…meeting the family and all…why not, right?”

  He released his tie and Jessica grabbed his hand again, squeezed it hard, and began to lead him toward the house. “I like you like you,” she said, their private phrase, hearkening back to junior high crushes. “Come on, we’ll put your stuff in the guest room.”

  Thanksgiving dinner was less like ones Tim remembered from his childhood and more like ones he’d only seen in movies and TV shows. His own early years, it had usually just been Tim and his parents with a scrawny bird. Sometimes his mom put on Christmas music, so the silence wouldn’t seem so oppressive. By the time food was on the table, Dad had had hours to watch games and drink beer, and his mood was often foul. After he had…had gone…it had been even worse.

  Jessica’s family, though, could have been a cast of actors, each and every one attractive, well groomed, and for the most part well mannered. As the meal wore on, Jessica’s Uncle Murphy, who was downing wine a little too fast, and her sister Chelsea’s three-year-old son Jarod both got a bit tendentious. The meal was exquisite: turkey, of course, with molasses glaze and all the trimmings, cranberry sauce, several kinds of stuffing, mashed potatoes, a variety of fresh vegetables, and buttermilk-sage biscuits—not the kind that came in a tube. The eleven of them gathered around a vast dining table, set with fine bone china, Waterford crystal, and real sterling silver.

  Jessica’s mom, Arlene, who was definitely a major contributor to her daughter’s beauty, Tim discovered, finished her wine (which had apparently, contrary to Tim’s expectations, been a popular choice) and Jessica refilled her glass.

  “Thank you, dear. Maybe just one more glass. It’s very good.”

  “Tim picked it out,” Jessica said.

  Arlene gave Tim a smile that looked oddly familiar to Tim, before he realized that it was very similar to Jessica’s own flirtatious grin. She held his gaze long enough that he almost felt dirty for thinking how pretty she was. “It’s delicious, Tim,” she said.

  He was about to launch into a long, no doubt uncomfortable and boring monologue about how he had come to choose it, but Conrad Brittan, her dad—silver-haired and distinguished, wearing a suit that probably set him back the equivalent of a month of Tim’s salary—interrupted him. “So, Jessica tells us you two met at the magazine?”

  “Yes, sir,” Tim said, grateful for the question.

  “Are you in the art department with Jessica?” Chelsea asked.

  Tim shook his head. “I’m an associate editor.”

  “That sounds very impressive,” Arlene said. She was still eyeing Tim with an intensity that made him feel ill at ease. He’d been hoping Jessica could sneak into his room tonight, but suddenly feared that Arlene might show up instead.

  “It’s really just a glorified fact-checker,” he said, trying to downplay the “impressive” thing. Not that a millionaire’s wife would have any reason to be impressed by an associate editor, but at this point he wasn’t about to try to build himself up into anything more than he was.

  “Tim’s very good at his job,” Jessica offered helpfully.

  Conrad Brittan, whose only “job” seemed to consist of managing his family’s wealth, changed the subject again. Tim didn’t mind; work was such a mundane topic in this rarefied atmosphere, and probably not suited to holiday conversation anyway.

  But the area he changed it to was one that was even less comfortable for Tim.

  “How about family?” Conrad asked him. “You got any family nearby? Any brothers? Sisters?”

  “No, sir,” Tim said flatly, hoping a less-than-enthusiastic response would prompt him to drop it. “No brothers or sisters. It’s just me.”

  “How about your folks?”

  Tim caught Jessica’s eye and she gave a sympathetic smile. Before he could answer, Jessica’s grandmother, who seemed to miss about a third of any given conversation, broke in. “Let the boy eat!” she commanded.

  Conrad sighed and addressed her with the weary patience of someone who’d had this discussion many times before. “We’re just talking, Mother.”

  “Dad—” Jessica started.

  But Tim interrupted her, hoping to put a lid on the whole topic. “The family thing’s kind of complicated, sir.”

  “Complicated?” Conrad asked. “How so?”

  He clearly wasn’t going to drop it easily. Now Arlene, also seemingly recognizing Tim’s discomfiture, stepped in. She raised a forkful of the pistachio and apple stuffing that Jessica’s sister had made. “This stuffing is delicious, Chelsea.”

  But Jessica had already gone into defensive mode, and she continued her statement. “Tim’s always had kind of a strained relationship with his parents.”

  “Well, who hasn’t?” Conrad asked with a wry smile. He refrained from glancing at his mother, but Tim noticed the old woman stiffening a little. She missed a lot, but she hadn’t missed that line.

  “Tim’s father ran out when he
was eight,” Jessica went on. Now she was carrying it farther than her dad probably would have, and Tim fervently wished she’d put on the brakes. She had an argumentative streak, Tim knew, and was probably just going on to give her dad a hard time for bringing it up at all. But Tim was the one who’d end up getting the worst of it.

  “Jess…” he started.

  “Oh, that’s sad,” Chelsea interrupted.

  Jessica didn’t miss a beat. “Then he had to go live with his uncle, in a tiny room in the back of his bar.”

  “Really?” Chelsea asked, wide-eyed.

  “What about your mother?” Conrad asked.

  And there it is, Timmy. Topic number one on the hit parade of issues you don’t want to discuss at Thanksgiving dinner, especially with the girlfriend’s parents. Tim glanced at Jessica, who was looking at him expectantly, along with everyone else at the table. No help there. “Uh, that…uh…” he stammered. How to phrase it? There was no good way, no easy out. “She sort of had a tough time…after my dad left.” That was pretty non-specific. Also sort of incomplete. It hadn’t just been her, after all. “It was pretty hard on both of us.”