Death Alarm Read online

  "What do you mean? You called me and told me to come over. You said you had an emergency."

  "No I didn't. I mean, it wasn't me." Jeb bolted his door and dragged his couch over to block it. He grabbed Becky's shoulders. "You are in danger. You must leave."

  "I don't understand." She looked at his bleeding arm. "Oh, my gosh, what happened?"

  "What?" He looked at the blood dripping from his wound. "Oh. It's nothing. Don't worry about it. We need to find help before he comes for us. I need to call someone."

  "Who comes? Maybe we should call the police?"

  "No," he snapped. "The police can't help us. I need to call Duck Bill. He's the only one who will help me." He rubbed his forehead. Think, damn it. What's his number? "I got it. I'll get his number from work." He grabbed his portable phone and dialed.

  A woman answered. "Tectrum Industries. This is Suzie, how may I help you?"

  "Suzie, it's Jeb. I need Bill's number right away."

  "Jeb?"

  "Yeah, you know, your night janitor. I need the security guard, Bill's, phone number. It's an emergency."

  "Uhhh." She paused and then said, "I don't know anyone named Bill. Or Jeb for that matter. We don't have a night guard or a janitor. You must have the wrong number."

  Jeb stared at the phone for a second, sure that he dialed the right number. Were they just pissing with him? Like the last time? He threw the phone against the wall, shattering it. Becky flinched.

  She opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but stopped short with a gasp. Jeb swung his head around. The stranger in black stood inside his room next to his fifth-story window. Jeb nudged Becky behind him and puffed out his chest like a superhero from the comic books.

  "How did you get in here?" he shouted.

  The big man didn't answer.

  "Get in the bathroom," Jeb said, and shoved Becky toward the bathroom door. She ran in and he slammed the door shut behind her.

  "Jeb, wait. Come in here with me. I need you to see something."

  He ignored her and grabbed the only weapon he could find, a set of pliers on his table. "Just you and me, big man. You may get me, but I won't let you hurt Becky. He lunged at the big man with the pliers. The man grabbed his arms, yanked the pliers from his hand, and bear-hugged his squirming body.

  "What do you want?" Jeb pleaded.

  The hulk grabbed Jeb's hair and held his face still. Jeb kicked and thrashed to no avail. The big man pinched Jeb's cheek between the pliers. Jeb grabbed his hands.

  The scream that left his mouth was loud enough for everyone in a three-block radius to hear.

  The big man twisted and pulled while Jeb held his hands and fought him.

  The flesh and muscle of Jeb's cheek stretched until it ripped and popped and tore free of his face.

  The big man let loose and Jeb dropped to his knees. He stared down at his own blood-covered hands. The pliers, along with the butchered meat of his face, sat in his own palms. He looked up at the man in a state of blurry confusion. The man stood motionless, emotionless.

  "Why is this happening again?" Jeb dropped the pliers and his chunk of flesh and slowly rose to his feet. When the man didn't attack, he backed to the bathroom and pounded on the door.

  "Let me in, Becky. Let me in."

  He twisted the handle. The lock clicked and the door opened. He squeezed in and kicked the door shut behind him. Becky engulfed him in her arms. Though Jeb was losing, he felt like a hero just the same. Those guys in high school who told him he would never amount to anything should see him now, fighting for his life and the woman he loved.

  Becky pulled away. She appeared afraid.

  "Jeb?" she whispered.

  "Yeah?"

  "Look in the mirror."

  "I know. That bastard hurt my face. But I'll get him for you. I'll protect you."

  "No. Not that."

  Jeb lowered his brows. "What then?"

  "Just look. It's happening again. You need help."

  He sluggishly turned his head.

  His reflection stared back at him, but there was something wrong. Yes, he had a gaping, throbbing hole in his face and his chin was covered in blood, but that wasn't what she was trying to tell him. He stood staring in the mirror with Becky at his side. Only, Becky's reflection wasn't there.

  What is happening?

  He turned back to her, but she was gone. Oh, no. Not again.

  He ripped the bathroom door open. "You monster," he screamed. "What are you doing to me?"

  The big man spoke for the first time. "I'm not doing it, Jeb. You're doing it to yourself. You need help."

  "No!" Jeb charged the man in black and collided against him. Both men tumbled against the window. Jeb heard the glass break more than he felt it.

  For the last three stories of his five-story plunge, Jeb couldn't stop grinning; he had saved Becky, wherever she was.

  He didn't feel much after he slammed against the concrete sidewalk, though he may have pissed himself.

  A car squealed to a stop in the street and out of the corner of his eye he saw the driver's side door fly open.

  A frantic woman leaped from her car. "Oh, my God," she cried as she dropped to her knees beside Jeb's broken body. He didn't hear much of what she said while she screamed into her phone for someone to send help as he watched the morning clouds lumber across the sky. They were beautiful, he thought and he couldn't remember the last time he had seen the morning sky.

  The woman leaned closer and said, "Help is on the way. I called 9-1-1." She began crying and took Jeb's hand into hers. "You'll be OK," she said between sobs. "Just hold on."

  Jeb stared past her at the sky as the world around him slowed. Blood filled his mouth and he gagged on its bitter taste. The woman's tears splashed down onto his face. He tried to speak but instead sprayed crimson droplets onto her white cashmere sweater.

  "Don't try to talk. Help will be here soon."

  "Where …" He choked and coughed. "The big man?"

  "Who?"

  "The man … who fell … with me."

  "There was no one with you. I saw you jump from that open window."

  Jeb's head screamed in pain, his legs and arms went numb, and his back hurt like hell. "What's … your name?" he asked between gasps for air.

  "What?" she said. "Oh. Becky. My name's Becky."

  Jeb chuckled and hacked blood into the air again. "Becky," he said. "I love you."

  She squeezed his hand. "You'll be alright. Hold on."

  The blue sky faded to bright white. Her car radio played behind her and it seemed muffled but he could hear it.

  "Well, we're doing mighty fine, I do suppose. In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes. But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back. Up front there ought to be a man in black."

  Jeb smiled. Johnny.

  And then he died.

  SKELWALLER LANE

  By

  Douglas R. Brown

  "I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." ~ Sigmond Freud

  1

  Sweat poured from Billy's forehead. He never realized how fast or how far he could run but, then again, he had never before been chased by someone wanting to kill him, either. His face stung with the memory of fists colliding against it. His nose bled like a waterfall regardless of how hard he pinched his nostrils together. Some of the blood drained down the back of his nose and into his windpipe, gagging him, yet he still ran. He glanced down at his button-down dress shirt which was now more wet red than dry white. His pursuer was fast—too fast—and he had barely escaped the first beating.

  He prayed for a full moon, or anything to light up the night enough to see more than a few feet of road ahead, but the night was as dark as a tomb. If he didn't know the road so well, he'd be paralyzed with fear and his enemy would surely catch him. Perhaps that knowledge of the road was the only reason he’d eluded his pursuer thus far. He glanced back. A bouncing beam from a flash
light gained ground and he panicked. He realized that he could never stop, no matter how much his body begged him. His pursuer seemed possessed, as if nothing could slow him; his angry eyes had said as much.

  So Billy ran, hoping for a wayward car to happen down the lane. But he knew his hopes were slim since very few people came out that way much anymore. Most people, the ones who knew better, were afraid of the house at the end of the lane, the house Billy had just come from.

  Without a wayward car, his only hope was knowing that two miles in the distance was an interstate and a 24-hour mom-and-pop gas station. He only hoped his lungs wouldn't give out before he made it.

  His lungs pled for him to stop, but he told them no. His sides ripped at themselves and, unable to fight the sting, he doubled over. He cursed his years of smoking as he shoved his hands to his knees and gasped for air. And then he thought how much he'd like to have a cigarette now. He gulped in lungful after lungful of manure-filled air as he listened. The scuffling of feet in the dirt told him that his relentless attacker was gaining ground. He squinted back toward the bouncing flashlight beam which was less than 100 feet away. If he kept running, he might make it.

  He wheezed in another nasty lungful of air, the blood from his nose finally slowing, and started running again.

  He wondered how the man found him in the first place. He was so careful. No time for that now.

  Billy kept running as his throbbing nose and jaw and lungs begged him to stop again, but he refused. He knew stopping meant death—he saw it in the stranger's eyes while the man pummeled him. He ran harder, pushing through the pain until he approached a rusted, broken down tractor sitting along the side of the road.

  There was enough distance between him and his attacker that maybe the tractor could give him sanctuary to catch his wind. He wanted to keep running to the store, but he knew he wouldn't make it without a break. The tractor was his only hope so he scurried through the weeds and hid beneath it. With the footsteps closing in, he feared his chaser would hear his heart's frantic beats as they tried to bust through his sternum.

  The footsteps slowed along the road until they stopped close by. Billy froze, the incredible urge to urinate filling his gut. Either the man needed to rest himself or he had guessed that Billy could be hiding there. Billy struggled to keep his involuntary gasps for air quiet.

  The man climbed from the road into the ditch and the thick brush. Billy slowly dragged his hand along the ground until his fingers met a rock the size of his fist. He dug his fingers in the dirt around the rock until it came free.

  The sounds of the rustling brush moved around the tractor to his rear before ceasing altogether. Billy wanted to turn back to see what the man was doing, but was too terrified that any movement would give him away. He wanted to cry.

  The quiet became too much to bear. If his pursuer knew he was there, what was he waiting for? Finally, Billy couldn't stand the quiet any longer and he slowly turned his head. The man's flashlight beam shot toward his face.

  The man shouted, "Get out here, you bastard."

  Billy scrambled farther beneath the tractor toward the side closest to the road. His attacker hacked his way back around the tractor through the brush with his arms and his flashlight. Billy scrambled toward the road, but a thick, strong hand grabbed his bloody shirt from behind. He let out an involuntary yelp.

  "Please don't hurt me anymore."

  The man grabbed his throat. He shoved the flashlight’s beam into Billy's eyes. With the rock still in his hand, Billy swung with all of his pathetic might.

  The man shouted, "Where is …" but Billy slammed the rock against his head. Blood splattered across Billy's face and the man tumbled backward into the weeds, his flashlight falling beside him.

  Billy climbed back onto the road and ran toward the store again.

  Headlights streaked across the interstate in the distance, telling him he was getting close. He secretly begged for someone to be at the store. Even though it was a 24-hour store, Billy was afraid that, with his luck that night, it would be closed because mom and pop had an emergency or something. As the store came into view, he saw an old pick-up truck in the gravel parking lot. He would have grinned if his face didn't hurt so badly. He glanced back. The flashlight bobbed along the road again and he wondered if his pursuer was the Terminator or something. He kept running.

  The lighted "F" of Frank's marquee sign had burnt out leaving only "rank’s gas," which Billy might have laughed at had he not been so terrified. He burst through the front door.

  "Help. Help me," he screamed, almost giving the old lady behind the counter a heart attack. She dropped her knitting needle onto the countertop. He ran to her. "Please, help me. Do you have a gun? Anything?"

  She lifted a baseball bat from behind the counter. "What is the matter, young man?"

  "There is a man trying to kill me."

  She touched her chest. "Oh, lordy. Now slow down. Why is someone trying to kill you?"

  Billy hadn't time for the questions and lunged across the table, scaring her. He yanked the bat from her hands without apology as dread painted her face.

  "Please, don't hurt me, young man."

  Billy ignored her and turned back to the entrance.

  The bells above the door jingled and Billy nearly pissed his pants. The stranger stood, almost filling the doorway with his size. A trail of gore ran down the side of his strong face where Billy had hit him with the rock, and he swiped at it with his arm as though the blood was inconsequential. More blood, Billy's blood, stained his hands and his once tan golf shirt.

  Billy whispered to the lady behind the counter, "Give me the keys to your truck." He didn't look at the woman, but heard the keys rattle in her shaky hand. He reached out and she put them in his palm. Then he raised the bat above his head with both hands.

  "I don't want to hurt you," he said with a wobbly voice. The man closed the gap between them in a fury. Billy swung the bat, but the man tackled him before he could connect.

  What little air Billy had recovered from his run exploded from his lungs with a grunt. The man landed on top of him, straddling his chest. He crashed his thick fist against Billy's left eye. The world briefly turned bright white.

  "Where is she?" the man yelled.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Billy cried.

  "Bullshit."

  The old lady from behind the counter shouted, "You get off of him, mister. We don't need that kind of behavior."

  The man ignored her.

  Billy tried to shake the fuzz from his head.

  The man stood up, grabbed Billy's shirt collar, and dragged him, kicking, toward the counter. He snatched a hunting knife from the sales display.

  "Oh, my God," the lady cried. "What are you going to do?"

  The man ripped at the packaging until he held the 8-inch blade in his right hand. He knelt over Billy as Billy begged for his life. The man touched the blade to Billy's left side, just below his ribs. "Last chance," he snarled.

  Billy didn't say a word. The man slowly shoved the blade into Billy's flesh. Billy cried out as the blade sank deeper and deeper.

  "Just kill me," he pled, his voice cracking from the pain. "Stop hurting me. Please."

  "I don't want you dead. Not yet."

  The old lady screamed like she was the one being skewered. Once the eight-inch blade was mostly submerged in Billy's side, the man slowly withdrew knife, allowing its serrated edge to cause more damage and flesh-ripping pain. Once removed, blood poured onto the linoleum floor and puddled around the men.

  "You tell me what I need to know or it'll get worse."

  "I don't know what you’re talking about," Billy cried again.

  The man grabbed his wrist and, with one painful swipe, severed Billy's pinky finger from his hand. Billy grimaced and shoved his face against the man's leg.

  "It ain't over yet, you bastard. Where is she?"

  Billy sobbed, unable to gather himself enough to answer. He tried to fight ba
ck with pathetic strikes to the man's chest but the man slammed a fist into his face again, which made his body momentarily go limp. The man ripped Billy's shirt open.

  "Please," Billy cried. The hate on the man's face told Billy that his pleas were useless. The man dug the point of the knife into Billy's chest in short, bloody strokes as if writing something. When he finished, he stood up.

  As the blood openly flowed from Billy's side, he felt suddenly weak. He strained to look down at his bloody chest. He was dying, there was no doubt, but he needed to see what the man had done. Even upside down he could read the word on his chest. As his world faded, the pain of his wounds turned numb. He choked back vomit.