Chapter 27
While squatting in the balcony enclosure, Jeff began breathing normally.
He looked back. The screen door to the apartment was closed, but the sliding glass door was cracked ajar. If necessary, they could flee through this entrance.
He wasn’t put at ease by that. There were many unanswered questions haunting him. Where were the girls? What was the shadow creature that had taken them? Who was this bum? Why did he want Jeff and Laura dead? They never hurt the bearded man in any way as far as Jeff could remember. But there didn’t need to be a reason. Some people could just be psychopaths who enjoy killing for sport. The bum certainly fit that role.
“Have you ever seen this nut before?”
Laura hesitated. “No.”
Her hesitation caused him to feel uncertain. But he had no reason to doubt her. As far as he could tell, she had been honest with him—though mysterious at times—since they met at the movie theater a week ago. This ordeal with the bum was enough to frazzle even the strongest person.
And what was that black stuff the bum kept throwing at them? Was it dark matter as described by modern physicists? If so, where did the bum get it? Was it related to the dark creature that stole Ashley and Tina? If it was, could it be a pathway to the girls?
Maybe it was the only way to the girls for adults who can’t see shadow creatures. If that were true, then psycho-Santa was Jeff’s salvation. But even if Jeff could reach the girls, how would they return?
Footsteps clapped cement somewhere in the distance, perhaps by the mailboxes.
He looked at his watch: 11:36 p.m. The footsteps could be just from a Saturday night partier coming home. Or they could be from a weekend worker with odd hours. It didn’t have to be psycho-Santa, who was evidently also a marathon runner and physicist with the key to dark matter.
But a party-person or weekend worker would be too easy.
Jeff’s life consisted of conflicts. Struggles weren’t uncommon for people, but he felt his had no surcease. Don’t normal people get a reprieve once in a while? In his life, strife kept raining down. Perhaps his choice of careers animated this acrid storm.
Trying to get people to heal was often like getting watermelon seeds to grow in the desert. It was slow progress, if any, and only at the client’s pace. Sometimes, no matter how much water you put in the soil, no matter how much time, effort, and care you provide, seeds won’t mature.
Some clients would come to therapy for a few months and then end treatment, saying they were fine and life was grand. This declaration was amidst the approach to paramount issues—such as cheating on their spouse, drinking alcohol in excess, verbal abuse. Their denial sent them flying away. It was the parch desert floor which made growth difficult.
Now, in addition to losing two adorable girls, Jeff was faced with the impossible task of retrieving them. He hadn’t even a concrete plan.
The footfalls slapped slower and closer.
While fingering the amethyst crystal in his pocket, he peeked between the railings. Luck. Luck. Grandpa. Please some luck.
The bum walked down the pathway. He could have gone left to miss them, but instead he went right—a correct decision on his part. Why didn’t he have more difficulty? Couldn’t he struggle for a bit? Even homelessness treated this physically fit man well.
“Should we let the black stuff touch us?” Jeff considered.
“That’s an interesting idea,” she whispered too close in his ear, sending not unpleasant tingles throughout his body.
He moved his head slightly away. “Are you being sarcastic?”
“What do you think?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Are you crazy?” she said, her quiet voice laced with scorn.
“Well … what if it’s the only way to the girls.”
“He said we’ll die, Jeff. Remember? I’m not ready to die just yet.”
“Shhhh.” They sat in silence as the bum continued to make his way down the path towards them.
He paused by the stairwell which led to their apartment balcony. The man wasn't breathing heavily. He took one step up the stairwell and stopped.
Jeff slowed his breathing to almost nothing, trying not to make a noise. He kept rubbing the amethyst stone for luck, hoping the bum would go back to the walkway.
It seemed like forever as the bum held his foot on that first step. Finally, he began to climb. The front door would be locked. Wouldn’t it? Why wouldn’t the apartment dwellers lock it? But they didn’t have the sense to lock their balcony door. Maybe they didn’t lock front doors either.
“What’re we going to do?” Laura barely whispered in his ear.
Since the vagrant was now hidden from view, Jeff continued to listen to the footfalls to make sure the heavy man continued up the steps. Then he rose and began to climb the balcony railing and waved to Laura to do the same.
The bum’s footfalls stopped, probably having reached the landing at the top that lead to the two apartment front doors.
Jeff waited for a knock, a ding from a doorbell, or a bang from a kick.
No sounds came, except for the chirps of a few night crickets.
What was the vagrant doing? Waiting? He didn’t seem like the type to knock or ring the doorbell. He seemed like the type to break doors down. Or use the black stuff….
The black stuff.
Maybe that could be used to nullify a lock. Or maybe the bum could pass through an object when the blackness enveloped it, like the front door. The blobs didn’t seem disturbing to touch for the homeless man.
Jeff turned to the sliding glass door and caught sight of a dark silhouette tip-toeing across the carpet inside the apartment.
Sneaky Bastard! he thought. “Go,” he said urgently to Laura. He didn’t have time to help her and himself down. But she seemed to be doing alright on her own. The sliding glass door made a swish as psycho-Santa opened it all the way.
Jeff made it to the lower railing of the patio below them before her. Another swish, higher in pitch, as the screen door moved. “Give me your foot.” And he held her healed sandal, but the bum already had clamped a large hand around her left wrist, and she screamed.
He had a sick smirch as he pulled up.
Jeff pulled down.
“Ouch!” she cried, evidently being strained by their opposing efforts.
“Let go!” he told the bum.
The man just laughed deeply. “Psychos!”
“My shoulder!” she cried.
Jeff would not release her ankle. In fact, he pulled harder.
“Someone, please stop.”
“Cancer! Murderers!” the bum spat.
Laura let go of the railing with her other hand and used her fingernails to scratch the bum’s hand that held her wrist, forming bleeding lines.
The bum groaned, releasing her wrist, sending her falling onto Jeff, causing him to lose balance, both of them falling off the bottom railing and into the bushes surrounding the patio below, scratching his arms and poking his back, but essentially breaking their fall.
As they pulled themselves out, Jeff asked, “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
The bum already had disappeared from the balcony into the apartment. Fear drove them into a run down the cement pathway, deeper into the nest of apartments, footsteps echoing down the stairwell behind them.
He yelled, “Faster.”
“I can’t.”
He took a few turns, hoping to confuse their pursuer, doubtful this were possible.
Footsteps slapped behind them. Something dark passed Jeff’s head and hit a small lamp sprouting from the ground ahead of them. It ate away the light.
They made a right at the next intersection of paths, which led to a driveway through the complex, where Jeff looked back briefly to spot the bum stooping to pick up the dark gob from the lamp, giving them a slight lead.
They headed straight to an exit with a seven foot high iron gate.
A blue sedan idled outside the gate while it slowly began to swing open. As soon as it was wide enough, he and Laura slipped through, and he opened his wallet and asked the teenage, male driver with short spiked hair if they could get a ride back to the coffee shop for forty dollars. They entered the vehicle and the sedan drove off, leaving the vagrant by the closed gate, staring through the steel bars.
The giant bum appeared sad for the first time. His expression gave the illusion of vulnerability and harmlessness.
Jeff almost felt sorry for him.