Dark Daze (8 page)

Without his usual six o’clock alarm to wake
him, Ian slept in until quarter past nine. He couldn’t believe he’d
slept so long. Last night had been…unusual, to say the least. He
sat up and yawned, scratching his head. Brie murmured in her sleep,
but didn’t wake.

 The terror of the day before had faded
to an unsettling memory. He couldn’t help but be a little ashamed
of the way he’d behaved. He liked to think of himself as a rational
man, beyond believing in the Easter Bunny and the Boogeyman. Even
the compulsion he’d felt when being intimate with Brie the first
time had to have been normal. It was because he’d found her so
disarming. So beautiful.

He stood, careful not to wake her, and moved
his neck in a wide circle to release the kinks. Buster stepped from
his bed and lengthened his body flat to the floor, stretching as
far as his four legs would allow.

“Morning, Buster.” Ian rubbed the dogs
back.

Buster wagged his tail in answer to the
greeting. Ian switched on the television, hoping to hear the
forecast for the day. “Sunny and beautiful,” said a young
meteorologist who shared the same attributes. She proceeded to tell
the listening public how the lovely weather would continue all
through the weekend.

“Perfect, boy. It will be nice for our guest.
She’s pretty great, isn’t she?” Buster whined, and Ian smiled,
petting his head. “I know, I’m not supposed to be dating. I’m
supposed to be working on things like rubbing your tummy and doing
the gardening so you can chase rabbits.” Yanking a pen from the pad
on the fridge, he scribbled,

Sleeping Beauty,

Gone for a walk with Buster. Be back
soon.

Ian

He grabbed a baggy and called for Buster.

“Want to go for a walk boy?”

Buster wagged his tail at the speed of light
as he fell into step at Ian’s left side. They stepped over the
threshold and down the porch where Buster went straight to the
trashcans and began to sniff. Ian moved closer as well, wanting to
get a look at the lids, and see if he could still use any of them.
His gaze moved to the spot where he’d imagined the creature. Just
trees of course, but tingles ran the length of his spine
nonetheless.

He grabbed one of the lids. Five wide claw
marks marred the lid. Did bears have five claws? He wasn’t an
expert.

He looked into the cans. The bear hadn’t
strewn garbage around the rocky ground. The trash hadn’t been
touched. Even if the bear hadn’t returned, why wouldn’t a
raccoon—or even just a squirrel or two—come for the tasty
dinner?

Because they were afraid of the thing in the
trees too.

No. None of those foolish thoughts this
morning. He was
not
a child anymore. He replaced the lids,
mangled though they were, and took Buster for his walk.

<><><>

Ian picked up the long pruning shear and
clipped a branch from the half-dead tree. After an anything but
idle day in bed with Brie, the last thing he wanted to do was trim
the tree, which had loudly dropped a branch in front of his house
less than an hour earlier. The setting sun painted the sky shades
of orange and yellow. Brie watched from the doorway, sipping
lemonade.

“You should always prune your trees in the
beginning of winter, just before the snow comes, because a dead
tree could fall on your house.” She smirked, obviously enjoying the
sight of him bungling what might have been an easy job for a
gardener. “You want to keep those roots firmly in the ground.”

“Ha ha.” He closed the clippers hard and
jumped to avoid the branch as it fell in an unexpected direction.
It slammed down on his foot. Muttering, he picked up the offending
tree branch and tossed it to the ground by the trashcans.

She laughed. “Perhaps you should just have
some lemonade and hire a gardener.”

He glanced over at her and tilted his
head.

“No one likes a smarty.” He started stacking
the branches into a pile. With all the wood gathered, he called
Buster into the house.

Buster, who’d been snuffling intently at the
growing pile of wood, took one last long sniff and turned toward
the house.

“Did you find an interesting bug?” She patted
the dog’s head, then continued inside the house. “You keep having
your fun spoiled today, don’t you? And with us spending the day all
locked up, too. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t worry about him.” Ian shut the
door then put his arms around her waist. “We’ll go on an extra long
walk tomorrow, and he’ll be just fine.”

He kissed her, a soft peck. She smelled so
incredible, he nearly drew her right back into the bedroom. A
flashing light drew his attention toward the i-com port’s monitor,
and he shuffled her toward the side table and hit the keyboard’s
space bar to start the V.R. program.

“You have eleven messages.”

Ian kissed Brie’s neck. “Go on vacation, even
for a day, and look what happens.”

The machine voice told him, “The first
message is from your mother at nine fifty-five a.m.”

His mother’s voice rang out from the speaker.
“Ian? Boy-o? Are you there?”

He frowned. The nickname always made him feel
like a child. She said she’d try him later and then ordered the
disconnect.

“The second message is from Mandy Knight at
twelve oh five p.m.”

“Paul told me about the last date. I kept
telling him she wasn’t for you, but we have a friend who is. Did
Paul tell you all about our friend Brie? I know she called you. She
said you made a date, but she wouldn’t say anything else, and Paul
said he couldn’t violate the guy code. Stupid guy code.” Mandy
paused for a second, and Brie put her arms around Ian’s waist from
behind. “Anyhow, call me when you get this. And don’t let her name
scare you off. She had new age parents. I mean…but she’s brilliant.
A little unusual, but so brilliant. Call me, and I’ll give you all
the details.”

“‘A little unusual’ means crazy. You’d have
probably thought I talked to inanimate objects, or wore underwear
with my name sewn into the band.” Brie laughed. “Or flipped into
the minds of other people.”

“Oh, Mandy’s just determined to set me up.”
He turned in her embrace. “She’s either real concerned about the
state of the nuclear family, or she’s some sort of evil genius with
nefarious plans. We may never know.”

The image of Paul, the mindless marriage
robot, made him smile as the robotic voice gave the time for the
next call, twelve thirty-two. The third message made him roll his
eyes. Once again, his mother reminded him he’d agreed to come for a
visit this weekend. Judging by the dejected tone in her voice, he
never visited her, but he’d just gone for dinner last Sunday. He
stopped by every weekend for the same Sunday dinner they’d had
since he was a boy.

“The fourth message,” the disembodied voice
of the machine told him, “is from…error, the caller is
unidentifiable…at four forty p.m.” He glanced at his watch, Five
o’clock. Strange, he hadn’t heard the i-com ring while he gardened.
And why didn’t the voice recognition program recognize the caller?
It had never failed before. What else was it good for? Ian released
Brie and turned toward the machine.

The message sounded like a man with a bad
cold clearing the phlegm from his throat. He skipped to the next.
Every two minutes seemed to be a raspy wheeze or a thick, gurgling
sound. Message nine was a long sniff, which sent a tingle down his
spine. He crossed the room and locked the deadbolt on the front
door.

“What is that?” Brie rubbed her hands over
her arms as she backed away from the i-com port.

The night before came to his mind with a jerk
as he listened to message ten. The deep throaty growl didn’t sound
anything like a bear. His i-com rang. The island music emanating
from the speaker startled him and he yanked it off the port and
almost threw it. His i-com rang again.

Wouldn’t Paul get a kick out of his most
recent behavior? If his friend heard, the torment would never
end.

“Another foolish moment.” Ian smiled at Brie.
“A bear can’t use an i-com. Not even a circus bear. It must be a
prankster on the V.R.”

She chuckled, but her shoulders were tense
and her eyes didn’t leave the monitor.

He looked at the call ID box, but it didn’t
tell him who the caller was. He hadn’t intended to take any calls
unless he recognized the caller, but his thumb seemed to push the
button of its own will.

He paused. “Hello?”

Scraping startled him, like a sharp object
raking glass. Buster barked. He glanced at Brie, who grabbed the
table, her eyebrows raised in alarm. His gaze shot to the window
where the sounds seemed to come from and an instant later the
sound—both the scraping and the barks— repeated in the i-com next
to his ear.

<>

Ian dropped the i-com, and a sound, either a
growl or a laugh, came from outside the window. Brie’s heart
pounded. The spot in her head started to tingle, and she held tight
to the table as if it would ground her. Keep her from flipping.

Ian rushed to the closet and threw the door
open. Grabbing a gun out of a box on the shelf, he held it toward
the window where Buster stood on guard in case of attack. She
picked up the i-com and pushed the speed dial number for the local
police.

“Officer Hanson, here. What is the
trouble?”

“We received a threatening call, and we
believe the person is outside of the house.”

She gave him the address and heard Hanson
call over two officers and tell them to check out the house.

“What threats did the caller make?”

“Well, they didn’t exactly say anything. They
just growled, or laughed maybe, and scratched at the windows.”

“Sounds like it’s just a couple of kids
messing around. I wouldn’t worry too much. The officers will be
there soon, and if they find anyone, they will take care of it.
Meanwhile, just sit tight in your house and wait.”

The officer disconnected before Brie had a
chance to speak again. Ian held the gun trained on the window. His
skin took on a bluish hue then faded to normal. Brie covered her
gasp. This must be his gift.

Goosebumps rose on her arms.

Buster sniffed and growled. He crept toward
the door, as if keeping pace with something outside, and then
barked once when he reached it. A sound beyond the wood, as though
a claw screeched down its length, made Brie jump back.

“Oh God.” Her voice wouldn’t rise above a
whisper and her lungs locked closed, as if her breath were hiding
in her chest. “What’s going on out there?”

Ian stepped closer to her, gun steady. The
long sniffing outside the door made her shake.

Brie’s heart pounded. Thundered. Sweat beaded
on her skin. Beside her, Ian gripped the gun in both hands, shaking
as well. A low alien growl, almost like a liquid gurgle, emanated
from behind the door. Then the wood started splitting and cracking
under the force of some unseen attack.

 ”Buster!”

The dog barked wildly and ran with them into
the exercise room at the back of the house. Ian locked the door,
and pushed the heavy treadmill in front of it for extra support.
Brie tried to help, pushing at the machine.

Ian braced the gun with his left hand. Buster
jumped up on the treadmill and placed his nose to the crack between
the door and the machine.

Brie backed away from where Ian stood, his
thumb resting against a tiny button on the handle of the gun and
his finger over the trigger. Just one simple movement would send a
bullet into the intruder. But it was his skin she couldn’t stop
staring at. Now glowing blue, it began to crackle. The hair on the
back of her neck stood in response.

Something sniffed at them from beyond the
window. Buster jumped over the treadmill, an impressive leap, and
ran to the sound.

The shrieking glass, raked by unseen claws,
grated her nerves, like fingernails on a chalkboard. She shuddered
as Ian turned the gun, putting himself between her and the threat.
She didn’t dare pull up the blinds, so she stayed next to Ian.

“Listen, whoever you are. I have a .45, and I
know how to use it. Unless you want a few extra holes in your body,
I suggest you leave. Now!” When he finished yelling the words, a
car door slammed.

“This is the police, open up.”

Brie sighed and helped Ian push the treadmill
away from the exit.

“Just around back, it might still be there,”
he yelled as he cleared the doorway.

The clamoring cops made more noise than the
thing had, while they searched the area around the house. It would
certainly escape since they announced their every move.

Brie opened the door to the exercise room and
leaned against the jamb, trying not to rub her arms. Ian put the
gun back in his closet before stepping through the entryway. She
followed him to inspect the pile of wood chips, most of it nearly
sawdust, on the threshold. The solid mahogany had been clawed to
the thickness of a pane of glass. The cops came to the porch,
gaping at the door with what might have been fascination.

“I’m Officer Langley.” The tall, overly
tanned cop pointed at himself, then to his partner, a middle-aged
balding man. “This is Officer Dunstan. You’re the home owner?”

Ian nodded. “Thank you for coming,
officers.”

“Sign here.” Langley handed Ian a report.

“What you need is animal control. Looks like
a bear to me.” Officer Dunstan hitched his belt over his belly.

“We saw some trash can lids shredded over
there.” Langley pointed his flashlight toward the ruined trashcans.
“A bear is likely your culprit.”

“How do you explain the calls, officer? We
received several unusual calls.” Brie walked to the port and
pressed the space bar to restart the V.R. program.