Things That Go Bump In The Night by me

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—Franklin Delano Roosevelt

                Fear is a visceral response of prey to a predator.  It is a mind-bending, gut-wrenching emotive force that Sylvia had come to know well.  And courage is not the absence of fear, but bravery in the face of it.  Sylvia didn’t know if she could muster anymore.

  The stairway was positioned between an adult bookstore and a tobacco shop.  It disappeared into the recesses of the shadows the further one climbed toward the second story.  Sylvia hesitated on the fifth step before the doorway at the top where the smells of tobacco and mildew contradicted one another.  She took a deep breath, climbed the last few stairs, and opened the door.  There was no question from where the mildew aroma originated.

 A doorbell chime proclaimed her presence.  The lighting was cheap and incandescent but bright, and, if one could block out the street noise, there was a buzzing, humming noise underneath it all that sounded like a familiar lullaby.  It took a few seconds for her eyes to adapt to the light and for her ears to block out the hum.  She took a deep breath crossing the threshold, trying hard to find some courage.

                The dilapidated room had peeling, eggshell-colored paint on the walls and threadbare.  There were no windows to speak of but the room was full of glass display cases, inside of which were guns, hundreds of guns.  There were guns of every size, shape, and variety, and shelf upon shelf of ammunition.  Sylvia started looking around.  The owner of the gun shop was wearing well-worn blue jeans and a ‘wife- beater’ undershirt. He had pleasant facial features except for a long scar from his right ear down to his chin. Sylvia could feel his eyes looking her up and down as she was browsing through the vast collection of firearms.   She could pass for Middle Eastern with long black hair which looked like it had been straightened, deep and penetrating hazel eyes, and very full lips on which there was no lipstick.  In fact, he doubted she wore any make-up at all.  She thought he was impressed by this since it appeared he used concealer on his scar, to no avail.  “Can I help you?” he asked.

                His voice startled her.  “I hope so,” she said.  “Do you have any .38’s?”

                Sylvia contemplated all the reasons people bought guns.   Sometimes it was of malicious intent,  sometimes for sport, sometimes for self-defense, sometimes for revenge.  She wondered what he thought she needed a gun for, and she thought he would probably be wrong.

                “Yes,” he said, “I’ve got a number of them.”

                She responded, “Show me.”  He led her over to the glass case along the furthest wall, inserted his key into the keyhole, and opened the case.  He then selected one that she thought looked perfect.  It was small enough to not be a nuisance, but large enough to be effective.  She turned it over in her hands several times, getting a feel for it.  Her eyes widened and she smiled at him, “This will be perfect.”  There were fingerprints on the glass case.   She instinctively pulled out her pocket hand sanitizer—she felt dirty.

                They sauntered over to the cash register.  He said, “I need your driver’s license to run a background check on you before I can sell you a gun.”

                Her heart skipped a beat and her mouth went dry.  She had not anticipated a background check and did not know if she would pass one.  But it was too late to turn back now.  She handed him her license.  She hoped her old criminal record was not attached to her latest identification.

                Five minutes passed.  Her heart was beating rapidly.  Then ten.  Her hands were clenched into fists.   Fifteen.  She had broken into a cold sweat.  “It’s taking longer than usual,” he said.   Her abdominal muscles were tightening and she tasted bile in her throat as though she might vomit.   Finally, twenty five minutes along, she passed the background check.  She paid for the gun and some ammunition, and politely took as well directions to the nearest shooting range, where she could take practice, although she was in truth a master at markmanship.  She had an enormous amount of practice and experience.  She looked at the gun and the ammo in the bag.  She certainly never wanted to be at the wrong end of that gun.  She observed as she left a black BMW parked across the street.  One didn’t see many of those around this neighborhood.,

                It was dreadfully cold out, even for January.  She shivered despite her heavy coat, not knowing if it was the temperature or the fear that someone may be watching her, a valid fear given the past few years.  Being a fugitive was getting old.  She climbed into her little red  Ford Escort.

                Sylvia kept scrutinizing the rear view mirror to see if she was being followed.  Fear gave way to panic, which in turn became paranoia.  She drove, fully alert, directly to her daughter’s day care center.

                The drive was memorable for a John Denver tune that played on the radio and reminded her of the “Final Destination” series of movies, part 1.  The closest parking spot was two blocks away, and Sylvia felt she would freeze solid before she got that far.

“How was school today?”  Sylvia inquired of Amber, trying to create a cool façade while tendrils of her warm breath floated skyward.

                “I liked my new school mommy, and I’ve already made some new friends.”

                “That’s wonderful honey.  What are your friends’ names?”

                “Carolyn and Jessie.”

                “Maybe sometime we could invite them over to play with you.  How does that sound?”

                “That would be great,” Amber answered, animatedly.

                As they pulled into the driveway, Sylvia noticed there was a black BMW parked next door.  Her hands became clammy and her heart rate accelerated.  She stared at it again. It certainly was not the very same one, was it?   Most certainly  a coincidence she thought to herself.  She tried to steady her hands as she helped Amber with her backpack.  She wished that Bill, her husband, was still here.  Everything was magnified in his absence. 

                Nine months passed since he was killed.  The three of them had been in the witness security program and were supposed to have been in safe arms, protected from harm.  The U.S. Marshals’  arranged new jobs and new identities for them.  They abandoned their friends, their families, and their jobs; all so that Bill and Sylvia would be able to testify against Abdul Hamid, an al-

Qaeda top-man.  They had been taken to a secret, secure, temporary holding location prior to the trial.  Somehow, one night, someone sneaked past all the levels of defense and executed Bill with one silent gunshot to the forehead.  Why this person did not kill Sylvia was not known.  Never in the history of the witness security program since 1970 had anyone who obeyed the rules been murdered, until Bill.  His murder had ruffled the feathers of the CIA, the FBI, the Attorney General, Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and especially the U.S. Marshals.  No one knew how security had been breached.  The trial had been postponed because of the compromise.  Hamid was very big game.

                Both Bill and Sylvia were American al-Qaeda operatives.  Both were born in America and raised in the Middle East.  Both were trained in hand to hand combat and related terrorist behaviors.  Both were integral parts of the latest subway bombing in France and Bill was also a specialist in interrogation and persuasion.  It was ironic that it was Sylvia who recruited Bill into al-Qaeda yet he was the one who ended up dead.   Sylvia figured she was a target that night also but someone had spooked the shooter after Bill was murdered, and interrupted a second assassination.  Now Hamid’s men would be coming after her, despite U.S. Marshal protection.    But she had fled because she could no longer trust the U.S. Marshals, for they had failed her.  She was now running from two enemies.

                Sylvia had the brains and Bill the brawn.  They made a perfect couple and a perfect team.  She was devious and he devoted. She was clever devising plans and Bill clever at pulling them off.  That was how things had gone down in Paris.  Hamid had provided the money and the means to make it happen.

Sylvia, with Amber, had escaped both Hamid’s men and the U.S. Marshals, presuming  that if Bill hadn’t been safe with them then neither would they.  Sylvia, naturally, was more worried for Amber’s safety than for her own.  So she became a very wanted fugitive, constantly running and looking over both shoulders.  She kept their new identities but had moved to a different city in an effort to avoid detection.  She removed all the cash from their bank account so that neither Hamid’s men nor the Marshals would be able to track debit or credit card purchases.  Everything had gone smoothly until she noticed an ominous black BMW twice in one day, and she was uncertain even about that.

                Now, what to do?  It might just be a coincidence.   After all, she was not certain it was the same BMW.  She could wait, and hope she was overreacting—or run, take to the roads one more time.  She was tired of running from hotel  to hotel; it was nice to have a sense of permanence at last.  A plan was taking shape in the back of her mind.  She was determined to evade both Hamid and the U.S. Marshals but she felt a terrible sense of foreboding.

                Right now, she had Amber to take care of so she fixed and ate dinner, then set about Amber’s bedtime routine.  First was a bath followed by a bedtime story.  Tonight, though, Sylvia had to talk to Amber about guns, now that there would be one in the house.  So Sylvia showed Amber the .38 and explained how it was not a toy and that she was never, ever to touch it no matter what.  Amber promised.

                “You know what’s next mommy,” said Amber, who hated things that went bump in the night.

                “Yes honey, it’s time to check for the monsters.”  So Sylvia retrieved the flashlight from the kitchen and went back to Amber’s room.  Together they looked under the bed, behind the Disney princess curtains, and finally in the closet.  “See honey, no monsters,” she said.   She tucked Amber in  with a good night kiss.

                Sylvia found a bottle of red wine and opened it with a corkscrew.   Then she poured herself a glass and went to her bedroom to read for a little while before going to sleep.   She tucked the .38 under her pillow.

                She must have nodded off quickly because when she awoke she was disoriented.  The glass of wine still set there half empty, the lamp was still on, and she had not pulled back the covers.  She knew she had awakened for a reason but she couldn’t remember why.  Then she heard Amber calling from her room, “Mommy.”

                She jumped up, tried to find the gun but it seemed to be gone, so she quickly abandoned that thought and ran to Amber’s room.  “What is it honey?  What is wrong?”

                “Mommy I saw a monster out my window,” she was crying.

                “Amber honey, remember we checked for the monsters and there weren’t any.  Do you remember that?”

                “But this one was outside the window,” Amber replied.

                So Sylvia went over to the window and immediately noticed it was unlocked.  She opened it, and shone the flashlight outside in every possible direction.  There was nothing there.  She had checked the window earlier had she not?  She really was becoming paranoid, she doubted she was being followed again for she had been too careful, but she could not take the chance she was wrong.  “Honey, “ she said as calmly as she could muster  to Amber, “there’s nobody out there.  Maybe you were having a dream?”  Then she re-locked the window, making sure that Amber saw it.

                “Mommy, will you lay down with me?” she asked.  Sylvia hated to give in, but given the events of the last few months, she acquiesced.  So she lay there until Amber was breathing deep and rhythmic, then she crept back to her own room.  She finished the glass of wine in a couple of gulps and lay down once more.   She found the gun under the pillow after all, it had just been pushed far back against the wall. She and Amber slept fitfully through the rest of the night.

                Sylvia awoke early, and went around the house to Amber’s window, and directly underneath it were fresh footprints and two cigarette butts.   Sylvia’s uneasy apprehension turned into raw, naked fear.  Someone had been outside Amber’s room.  But why had they not attempted to abduct Sylvia and Amber while they had the chance?    Now she was certain she was being pursued so she instantly started thinking about her course of action.  She hoped they could stay one more night, but then they would have to move again.  Today she would need to get a prepaid cell phone that couldn’t be traced.  She would have to buy a new car for cash so that the car couldn’t be traced easily either.   But why was the window unlocked?  Did she simply overlook it?  Or something even more terrible?

                She looked up and down the street.  She saw no sign of a black BMW.  But she was frightfully certain that either Hamid or the Marshals were getting close to her.   She needed to finish her plan and finish it fast.

                The first thing to do was to take Amber to school; she had kindergarten in the afternoons.  Being no fool, Sylvia took Amber to her classroom herself and then asked to speak with her teacher and her principal.  Once the principal arrived,  Sylvia wasted no time in manufacturing a scenario.  “Amber’s father may try to take her but I wanted the both of you to know that no one except myself has permission to pick her up.  No one.  Are we clear?”

                Both the teacher and the principal nodded their assent.  Had Sylvia mentioned the past about Bill to them?  She was  hopeful that she had not.  The past she held very tightly, it was all she had left except for Amber.

                Next, Sylvia sped to her realtor’s office.  The realtor expressed surprise at her presence.  Sylvia said, “I’ve had a sudden change of heart and need to sell the house as quickly as possible.  I can’t go into reasons right now but I want it offered at  seventy-five percent of what I paid for it.  Can you make this happen and make it happen quickly?”

                The realtor looked puzzled but readily agreed—here was an easy three percent commission.

                Next, Sylvia called the post office in the town she had decided to defect to in order to obtain a post office box number.  They were kind enough to give her a number and let her wire the money a little later.

                She drove directly to the Western Union office to wire the money ASAP, then she stopped by the cell phone store and purchased three “disposable” cell phones.  As she was leaving the cellular store, she saw a black BMW in her rear-view mirror.  She knew only that they were enemies and not friends.  She drove slowly as she mentally examined her options.  One, she could speed up and try to ditch them.  Two, she could continue her day as planned and just let them follow her.  Or third, she could turn the tables on them and try to catch them.  Of the three options, she decided on number three.

                She was in the left hand lane heading east while the black beemer was in the right hand lane, and traffic was tight.  She made a sudden left that the beemer had no chance of making, and then two more lefts and she was back on the street she began on.  She sped a little to see if she could catch up to her quarry.  She drove for a mile without a single sign of them.  Suddenly she was directly on their tail.  The driver of the beemer spotted her almost instantly and accelerated in an effort to ditch her.  She let them go, she had made her point.  Sylvia patted her purse lightly, the .38 was there.  She then went to a cheesy used car dealer and essentially changed cars.

                She turned around and headed back toward home.  As she approached the  house, she couldn’t believe her eyes.  A black BMW was in the driveway of the house next door to hers.  There was also a moving van pulled in behind the beemer.  “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”, she remembered.  She decided to assert herself and pay a visit to her new neighbor.  She walked across the lawn and up onto their front walk.  The movers were coming out for their next load.  She yelled through the open door, “Hello, is anybody home?”

                A very professional looking man came to the door; he was in a suit and tie and well-polished shoes.  If there was a flicker of recognition,  Sylvia didn’t see it.  The man was cool as a cucumber.  He had short cropped black hair that looked like it would be wavy if it were to grow out.  His eyes were so dark that Sylvia couldn’t discern his pupils, and his lips were so narrow that one could scarcely reference them as lips.  He more closely resembled a stick figure with a line drawn in for the mouth.

                “I’m Sylvia, your neighbor,” she said, stepping forward and offering her hand.

                “My name is Adam,” he said as they shook hands.  His grip was firm but not tight. He reeked of tobacco.  Sylvia suddenly had an eerie feeling that she had seen him somewhere before, somewhere recent, and not associated with the black beemer.  A small mystery.   She would probably wake up in the middle of the night with the connection—her memory frequently worked that way.

                “Well, she said, I just wanted to say hello.  I’ve got to go pick up my daughter from school.  I’ll see you around,” and she waved as she walked away.

                “Yeah, see you later.”

                Sylvia drove first to the courthouse to legally change her name.  She chose Cynthia since it sounded similar, and for a surname she chose Walker, since she was walking away from her old life.  Finally she drove to Amber’s school.  As soon as she approached, she sensed something was wrong.  All of the kids were out on the fenced in playground, all of them except for Amber.  She looked again, scanning the playground in grids, but Amber was not there.  Frantic, she rushed into the school building and went directly to Amber’s kindergarten classroom.  It was empty.  As she turned to go find someone who could help her, she saw Amber’s teacher coming toward her.

                She could barely get the words out, her mouth was so dry and she felt out of breath.  “Where is my daughter, where is Amber?” she mumbled, nearly sobbing. 

                “Oh well we knew with the issue of her father possibly showing up that we didn’t want to take any chances.  So she’s down in the principal’s office, here, follow me.”  Sylvia was so relieved she started  crying.

                She gathered herself together before Amber could see her this way.  They walked down the impossibly long corridor all the way to the principal’s office at the end.  Sylvia opened the door ready to give Amber the biggest, tightest hug she could, but once the door was opened, the office was revealed to be empty.  No principal.  No Amber.  Amber’s teacher stammered, “They were just here right before I came down the hallway to get you.”

                Sylvia’s heart leapt into her throat and beat rapidly there.  Where could they have gone?  They looked in the adjacent secretary’s office and across the hall to the superintendent’s office.  Amber was nowhere to be found.  They raced again outside to the playground to double check there, but neither the principal nor Amber was there.  Sylvia started sweating.  She was afraid, of course, that Amber had been kidnapped by Hamid’s men and would be used as a pawn to get to Sylvia.

                At just that moment, the school doors opened and the principal and Amber emerged.  “Where, where have you been?” Sylvia asked as she smothered Amber with hugs.

                The principal, an austere gentleman apologized, “Amber had to use the restroom.  We thought we’d be back before you arrived.”

                “That’s okay, just so long as you are safe,” Sylvia said with catapulting emotions.  She started feeling fatigued, achy all over especially the head, and basically was spent.

                Sylvia picked Amber up and carried her to their car.  “We’ve got to go to the grocery store, okay honey?”

                Amber replied, “Okay.”  Sylvia wanted to stock up on food for what she estimated would be a two day drive.  By the time they came back outside it was nearly dark.  She put all the groceries into the trunk.   Sylvia hated driving after dark, her night vision wasn’t as good as it used to be, but tonight, she would have no choice.  They would have to pack up and get going in the middle of the night. 

               

                She needed to move,  the days of January are short.  As soon as she pulled out of the parking lot, she saw a car pull out behind her.  In an instant, she knew what to do—duck, drive, and evade.  The car was neither black nor a BMW.  But she knew a tail when she saw one.  Was it the US Marshal’s or Hamid?  She supposed it didn’t matter, both were enemies. 

                Sylvia wasted no time in getting on the highway, she knew she could drive faster there and hopefully lose her tail in the process.  She pulled over to the furthest left lane, and then crossed back to the furthest right.  Glancing in the rear view mirror and then the side mirror, she did not see the car.  This was too easy.  Something was wrong.  Then, from nowhere, the black BMW appeared right behind her.  What on earth was going on?  Were both the marshals and Hamid on to her?  She knew she was in danger, but she had to get to Amber and then get out of town fast.  Her hands were sweating but the rest of her remained calm and collected.  She could do no good by panicking.  She accelerated to as fast as the car would carry her, weaving perilously back and forth through the lanes.  When she could no longer see the BMW, she exited toward the car rental agency, carefully looking backwards for either of the two cars following her.  She could barely hear her own thoughts.

                She pulled into the rental agency and quickly surveyed the streets.  Neither of the cars were within sight.  She couldn’t fool herself though, they knew where she lived, and they knew where Amber was.  Amber was her weakness.

                She rented a medium sized truck with a car trailer attached to the back.  The serviceman helped her secure her car to the trailer, then she drove home in the moving van.  The black BMW was not in the driveway but there were lights on at the neighbor’s house.  Perhaps it was in the garage.

                Sylvia explained to Amber that they were going to move to a different city after all.  Amber was upset at having to leave her new friends, but she took it like a big girl.  Sylvia started packing and carrying to the moving truck, trip after trip.  She would leave the large furniture behind and send for it later.

                At about one in the morning, Amber was sound asleep after having had her nightly monster check, and Sylvia had finished packing everything that she could pack on her own.  She wanted to lie down for just a little while before they left.  She promptly fell asleep.  Sometime later, she awoke with a start.  There had been a definite noise inside the house.  There it was again!  Something being bumped into in the middle of the night.   Sylvia was still wound up tightly from the excitement of the day.

                She grabbed the .38 from under her pillow and crept as quietly as she could out into the hallway.  The noise was coming from just in front of Amber’s room.  Sylvia took the cell phone from her pocket and dialed nine-one-one.  She looked again toward Amber’s doorway.  She remembered where she had seen the man called Adam before.  There was a partial silhouette in the corridor.  One of them must be with Hamid and the other with the Marshals.  She took aim, released the safety, and fired toward where the intruder’s abdomen should be.  There was a thud and then silence.  Sylvia stood still, afraid to move.  She stood there for what seemed to be an eternity.

                Suddenly her front door splintered open, someone was kicking in the door.  Sylvia turned toward the door and pointed the gun once more.  The lights came on and the man from next door was standing there.  He saw the gun in her hands and, simultaneously with Sylvia, looked down the hall where Amber lay still, bleeding from the head.  “Oh my god!” Sylvia screamed, then more quietly, “what have I done?”

                The man from next door, wearing only his pajama bottoms, rushed across the room to Amber and made a quick assessment.  “She’s fine, Sylvia,” he said, “The bullet’s just grazed her forehead and knocked her down.  She’s breathing just fine and the bleeding looks worse than it is.”  Sylvia heard sirens in the distance approaching quickly.  The man from next door, this man who called himself Adam, walked toward Sylvia as if in a dream.  She let him put his steady hand over her quivering one that was holding the gun. 

“I am a U.S. Marshal, we’ve been keeping eyes on you.”   Again, Sylvia remembered where she had seen the man before.  He was one of the U.S. Marshals that had been around the night Bill was murdered.  The man took his free hand and held Sylvia tightly.  She realized what was happening one second too late.  Adam took her hand still holding the gun, his trigger finger over hers, and pointed it at her head and pulled the trigger.  He was happy with this outcome.  To police, the scene would look like an accidental homicide followed by a suicide.  He left the gun in her hand and laid it on the floor in the fresh pool of blood which was still spreading.  He took the phone,  dialed Hamid, and said, “The job is done, sir.  Praise Allah.”