Shadows Burned In (5 page)

“Come on,” said Stu, “I catch you!”

Kitts was lucky. The cardboard armor ripped open on the
razors’ talons. His weight carried him over, but he missed his grip on the
fence, tumbling fifteen feet to land atop Stu. Overhead the lights raked the
fence.

Catching his breath, Kitts asked, “You okay?” and Stu said,
“Yeah.” But lucky was the word for it all right, thought Kitts.
If I’d
caught myself on that fence, I’d have broken fingers right now
. “Come on,”
he said. “We got one more fence to go.”

But Stu held his arm. “But what about the electronic eyes?
We gon trip ev’ry alarm dey got here.”

“Too late for that now. We go now or we get shot. Your
choice.”

“But boss, de eyes, dey gon see us—”

“You comin?”

Stu looked Kitts in the eye, saw thirty years of planning,
patience, and perseverance that promised them that, one day, they’d be free.
“Yeah, okay, boss,” he said.

 “All right, then. Now remember . . . me first.”

They were up and loping across the no-man’s-land as quickly
as their old legs would carry them. Kitts imagined the invisible laser beams
being broken, and sure enough barely five seconds had passed when a wailing alarm
erupted inside the prison.

“Stay behind me, Stu, stay behind me!” yelled Kitts, trying
to be heard over the screaming siren without giving away his location to the
tower guards.

Searchlights scanned the area near both fences as the two
prisoners pulled up short at the second one. Kitts pulled Stu down beside him,
allowing the current sweep of the lights to pass overhead. The next pass would
be at ground level. He said, “Remember, Stu, me first, okay? Then you go over,
just like last time, right?”

“Right, boss,” puffed Stu.

The lights were gone for the moment, and up the fence Kitts
went. He ignored the arthritis now. Too much adrenaline pumping. Guards were
yelling at one another, trying to find the reason for the alarm. About once a
month, rabbits or possums would get under the fence and trip it. There hadn’t
been an escape from Huntsville in almost thirty years. Since as far as Kitts
knew the tattlers still hadn’t set off the main board, he hoped the guards were
looking for a possum instead of a prisoner.

He had crawled over the razor wire and begun descending the
other side before Stu realized what was happening.

“Boss, what you doin? I need to crawl over you—de wire!”

Kitts looked him in the eyes. Thirty years of friendship was
worth something, after all.

“Boss? What’s goan on? You gon throw me de cardboard, so I
can go over m’self? I don’t haveta crawl over ya, that’s okay.”

“Stu, you dumb bastard.” Kitts turned and ran as the
searchlights traveled toward the second fence.

Stu stood for a moment watching Kitts run away. Then he began
to panic. He couldn’t make it without Kitts. Kitts did it all. He was Stu’s
friend. Kitts looked out for him. Had done so for thirty years.

“Boss?” The sound squeaked out, barely breathed. “
Boss
?”
The scream brought the lights to him then as Stu tried to scramble up the
hurricane fence.

“Hey, Charlie’s in the wire!” whooped a guard, glad to find
something besides a possum to shoot at. “Charlie’s in the wire!”

Stu’s fingers screamed at him and he screamed at Kitts as he
went up the fence. The razors were slicing through his dyed jumpsuit as he
desperately tried to get over the other side to freedom, and to Kitts. He
hadn’t been without Kitts for longer than he could remember.

“Hey, you!” The voice blared at him from a bullhorn. “This
is the only warning you get! Come back down or you ain’t never comin back
anywhere!”

Stu was almost through the wire, struggling through it,
ignoring it as it sliced flesh, tearing at the patch he’d so carefully sewn on
like he’d once painted Ben Franklin’s face on the hundred-dollar bill. He
struggled through with blood leaking from him. Tears streaked the shoe polish
on his face.

burrrrrp burrrrrrrrp burrp
burrrp

The tracer bullets made a line from one tower, then another
as they converged on the spotlight and the contorted prisoner struggling
through the wire at the top of the fence. At first Stu hardly noticed the
bullets as they
thumped
into him, but then they ripped open his lungs
and sliced through his muscles. The arthritis in his fingers didn’t hurt
anymore and he had a moment to wonder at that, to feel relief, before the
hollow points shredded his heart inside his chest. He had a thought of
disbelief, then his hands betrayed him and he slipped, hanging loose in the
razor wire.

Tough to breathe now, and hot fire inside him—inside his
lungs, inside his chest—made the old arthritis feel like a pleasant memory. All
he could think of was how glad he was that it was thanks to him that Kitts was
free after thirty years, The Man hadn’t got ’im, and that if he had to die, at
least Kitts was free and The Man hadn’t got ’im.

As the bright light overwhelmed his eyes, Stu Metzger’s last
thoughts were that he’d made it after all, and that he was freer than even
Kitts was now, and how happy that made him feel, how lucky he was to be rid of
the pain now and how nothing else really mattered anymore.

Chapter 5

Last night was a real pisser
, thought David Jackson
as he got in the car to leave his new one-lawyer practice.
All Susan can do
is complain about coming here because she lost her big-city life. What was that
show in reruns when I was a kid?
Green Acres?
“You are my wife . . .
good-bye, city life!”

Well, that about sums it up
, he thought. Sitting in
his car, he stared at the outside of his new office. The brick exterior was
only that, a cheap veneer meant to look like more than it was.
I think
,
thought David,
if the big, bad wolf paid a visit to my office, he could blow
it down, bricks and all
. The paint was peeling a bit along the trim, and
the newest thing about the entire edifice—David Jackson, Attorney at Law,
stenciled in gold on the glass door—looked oddly out of place. It was one story
(
one boring story
, David japed to himself as he looked at the worn
exterior), but it was cheap, and despite the fact it looked cheap as well, he’d
done some decent business for a local lawyer in a town this small. Will
probates, mostly, with the occasional divorce or insurance settlement thrown in
for good measure. It was October, which meant heavy rains anytime now, and if
he was lucky, a hailstorm might spark some enmity between the odd homeowner or
two and their insurance companies. He could make a little off that. Not that he
wished anyone ill fortune. At least he didn’t chase ambulances.

The law practice in Houston had been profitable enough. He
had to agree with Susan there. But the big-city life

(the cars)

had finally gotten to him

(the smog)

and he’d decided one day that it was a small-town
practice he wanted after all, and the life there

(fresh air)

was bound to be safer for Elizabeth. So, he and Susan
would lose their weekly dine-out at La Vie en Parmesan. So what? Susan had
taken the news rather well, he thought, even enthusiastically; or at least
that’s how he remembered it. But now that they were here—and had been here for
nearly six weeks—she had begun backbiting him about the move. She missed this
and she missed that. She missed shopping with her girlfriends. She missed her
nurse’s job at the medical center. She missed her city. Despite the fact that
the Web gave her daily (and sometimes expensive) access to her old girlfriends.
They were less than an hour away should they want to get together. The local
hospital, small as it was, had been delighted to get a nurse with Susan’s
experience on its staff. From all indications she would be head of nursing when
the old biddy currently in charge retired.

And as for the shopping, hardly anyone shopped at malls
anymore. The Web had finally provided a viable alternative to department stores
about a decade earlier. Congress had passed the Internet Commerce Act of 2021,
providing real incentives to virtual shopping. Mortar-and-brick stores were
already going the way of the dinosaur. Almost everything was Web based now—from
virtual stores to virtual schools, where online monitors managed real-time
discussions of five to ten students, each of whom accessed the teacher and
subject from the comfort and safety of their own homes. The term
homeschooling
had taken on a whole new meaning.

Just as physical exercise had become a leisure pastime in
the late 20th century—something people a hundred years earlier would never have
believed—so now engaging in activities outside the home had become, in the
21st, a choice, not a necessity. Street parties, neighborly barbecues, jaunts
to the 3V monsterplex, and yes, even outings to what few specialty department
stores remained were all things people did for entertainment now. The necessary
day-to-day tasks of life were almost all done virtually.

Even preliminary diagnoses by the family doctor could be
done by the patient’s describing symptoms, the doctor’s doing a cursory visual
inspection over the Web, and the upload of the patient’s vitals via data
transfer from personal monitors. The doctor then made whatever recommendations
for further inspection and diagnosis that might be necessary. This made the
insurance industry happy because it was so efficient, it made doctors happy
because the pressure to spend no more than fifteen minutes with a patient was
gone, and it made patients happy because they felt a lot more comfortable
showing their symptoms in the privacy of their own home and over a secured Web
line.

Why am I thinking about this stuff?
David wondered as
he stared at the old office with his name and title stenciled in gold. Maybe it
was because he didn’t really need this office. With technology such as it was,
he could do all his client interactions from home, when he thought about it.
Well
,
he thought,
maybe
that’s
why I need it. To get out of the house
for a while
.
It was certainly cheap enough to maintain the space.
Office real estate was inexpensive as hell nowadays, particularly in little
towns like Hampshire.

So his office was a luxurious expression of the norm these
days, eh? To get out of the house and enjoy himself a bit. Somehow, catching
himself as such an obvious expression of the current culture put a bad taste in
his mouth. He’d always considered himself so independent. But the simple fact
was he had this office because he could afford to have it.
Because I want it
,
he thought.

David put the car in reverse. Gravel and shale popped under
the tires as he backed out of the parking lot.
A mile and a half from now
and I’ll be in the comfort of my own home
. The thought came laced with sarcasm.

Stopped at a light on Main Street, he tapped his fingers on
the steering wheel and thought about the evening to come. Maybe Susan would be
in a good mood. Maybe he wouldn’t come home to find another message from
Elizabeth’s monitor saying she was falling behind and holding up the rest of
the class to boot. Maybe the stock report would be
up
for a change.
Maybe this evening would actually be peaceful. What a pleasant thought that was
. . .

Something off to the right caught his eye. An old man in a Columbo
raincoat walking slowly along the side of the road.
It’s the Walking Man
,
thought David. He and Susan had named him that when they occasionally saw
him walking around town. The old man bent over the carcass of an animal,
probably an armadillo, and used the flat shovel he had to pry it from the
pavement. David winced his disgust.
Surely he won’t eat that. I mean . . .
come on. Surely not
. The Walking Man struggled to free the flattened animal
from the glue its blood and bile had made with the road’s surface. At last the
animal was free. The Walking Man put him in the gunnysack he dragged around
with him.

beep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

The impatient driver behind him pulled David’s eyes off the
grotesque scene, and he mechanically put the car into drive. With some effort
he pushed away the picture of the old man roasting a flat armadillo over an
open fire.

As he drove with muscle memory the short distance to his
home, David reviewed his decision-making process for moving back here. He’d
thought getting out of Houston would reduce the whole family’s stress level.
Susan had been happier in Houston, that was true, but he’d been sorely worried
about Elizabeth. Nowhere seemed safe to have a house anymore. Real crime, the
kind where someone got hurt, had shot up in recent years. White collar crime
had gone almost entirely cyber.

He hadn’t counted on the new stresses caused by moving back
here. Susan’s disappointment. Elizabeth’s distractions.
Maybe the big city
wasn’t so bad after all
. David grimaced at the thought, because it was
giving in, giving up, admitting defeat. Couldn’t do that. Certainly couldn’t
admit that Susan was right. Besides, Houston
wasn’t
better. It was just
bigger
.
And the bigger the town, the more opportunity for people to take advantage of
you. Here, at least, life was quiet. Home life, such as it was, was at least secure.

He turned onto Elm Street, now only a few blocks from that
security. And before he even knew what he was doing, he had pulled over near
the high-grassed ditch where the street began.

What?

Had someone spoken? He surveyed the street around him but
found no kids playing, no movement at all. He felt the sun on his neck as the
day began to surrender to early evening. When he looked again, he barely
noticed the house. And then it hit him exactly
what
he’d barely noticed.

The house.

A smile came across his face as he realized the sound he’d
heard. The kids playing had been the whisper of memory. He put the car in park
and stepped out and up on the driver’s side doorframe to peer across the
slightly stirring tall grass.
Needs mowing
, he thought. The Spanish moss
around the cracking, gray porch swayed lightly in the breeze. He squinted,
trying to look through the windows but saw only darkness.

Someone’s probably boarded up the old place from the
inside as a hazard to children
, thought David.

And that made the smile fade from his face. He thought back to
when he and Theron Taylor had come to the house on Halloween on a mutual dare
to see if they could spook Old Suzie. She was a big woman then, and somewhere
in the back of his mind David recalled she’d later died of something that makes
other people just shrug and say, “Well, she was old,” before going on with
their day.

But not back then. Back when he was a kid, Suzie was in her
mid-fifties, a big woman of . . . well, must’ve been 250 pounds. She wore her
husband’s old clothes after he’d run out on her. She’d literally stepped into
his shoes, his pants, his shirt, and his cowboy hat and begun working the
half-acre of vegetable gardens they had around back of the house. She drove his
truck to the store every Friday afternoon and carried her own groceries back
from there, even after David and his buddies were off in college and she was
collecting Social Security, even after ordering groceries over the Web and
paying a little extra for the convenience of having them delivered became the
standard way of doing things.

She was a hard woman
, David remembered, feeling a
fear in his bones from that night long ago. Leaning on his car roof, he stared
at the slouching house and remembered how much she’d scared two little boys.
Suzie was a recluse who only came out to work or “get supplies,” as he’d once
overheard her say in the grocery store, or to rent old DVD movies from the
7-Eleven because she couldn’t afford the satellite-based view-it-on-demand
service that killed cable television. He remembered seeing her riding atop an
old John Deere tractor in December, preparing the ground for seeding in
January, bouncing up and down and manhandling the steering wheel.

When she wasn’t working the land or buying supplies in town,
the only other time he really saw her outside the house was when she mowed that
big front yard of hers. On the odd cool evening between October and March,
she’d sit out on her porch swing and watch the evening pass her by. Her thick
legs pushed and pulled the swing lazily, its rusty chains creaking and
twanging. And she’d just sit there looking out over the front yard, listening
to the chirping of the crickets or the twittering of the birds and the distant

(always distant, if she was on the porch)

sounds of children playing down the street and cars
passing on Elm Street as folks made their way home from work. When the Web made
possible the work-at-home standard everyone enjoyed today, there was much less
of that, and Old Suzie seemed to spend more time on the porch then. She’d rock
and drink something out of a glass

(
“It’s baby pee, it’s baby
pee!” Theron Taylor swore back then)

that was probably lemonade, now that David thought back
on it. She’d listen and watch, and about the time the sun would go down, she’d
call it a day and go inside.

All the children thought she was a witch. David wondered at
that now, how children come up with those crazy ideas and torment other
children (and adults) mercilessly to play them out, just to give themselves
something to do and keep their own little lives from becoming too boring by
making others miserable. Or was that the human condition in general? Maybe
adults had learned how to be more subtle about it, less obvious. Yes, they’d
been convinced she was a witch all right, growing all those herbs and vegetables
in her garden to brew concoctions in cauldrons that she used to poison little
children

(and bake them in her oven)

and throw hexes on the townspeople. An entire mythology
had built up around Old Suzie, so much so that the town’s children refused to
give her a choice on Halloween. No treats would they have. Only tricks for
these kids, and those were the brave ones. For the first few days of November
every year, Suzie would spend her time picking toilet paper out of trees and
repairing at least one window after a rock
had broken it. That was
a festival ritual for the children, working off their year’s worth of fears
behind devil and skeleton masks. Even the parents, despite a public showing of
admonition

(“How’re you doing today, Miss Suzie?”

“I’m fine. Just in gettin supplies.”

“I heard what them kids did. I’m so sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Suzie would always say, shrugging. “They’s
just kids.”)

didn’t really mind too much, because they didn’t really like
Suzie much either; they were just less obvious about it. She was a strange old
bird who hadn’t had sense enough to be ashamed when her husband ran away, and
she didn’t try to make friends, and isn’t that old plantation house just
running down more and more every year, and ain’t it an eyesore, and what’s she
doin in there all alone every evenin, and why do you think she’s watchin the
children when she sits out there swingin on the porch?