I kept blinking, waiting for the Preacher to fade or float off into the day, because that’s what nightmares are supposed to do.  They get sun-bleached when the day sets the sky to blue.  But he didn’t.  He just stood there, drinking in the sun, loving every minute of it, and collectively shredding the conventions of every “boogey-man” story I ever read where they shrink back into the gloom at dawn.

He lost interest in me, as he did inside, and his eyes were at once looking away to something else.  He reached into his pocket and pulled a key that took the light and shot a sharp glare back into my eyes.  I blinked and there it was. 

A stark white car.  One of the big, steel classics, but I couldn’t pin down the make.  Something Al Capone might have traveled in.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, where normal, rational thought was still hopefully taking place, I took note of the silhouettes of heads I saw in the back seat.  Three maybe more.  Small.  Like children.  I couldn’t tell if they were looking back at me or not, and it was that growing sense of unease when you can’t tell if you’re being watched or not that shifted my gaze back to the Preacher.  He was stepping around the car, tapping glass as he went around.  He eased into the driver’s seat and started the thing up.

It gave a sharp squeal, like someone who tried to turn the key to a car that was already started.  Screams.  It sounded like screams.  A low rumble followed and the car was off around the corner and out of my sight. 

I’m not sure how long I stood there in the doorway, cooling the entire damn neighborhood, as my father would have put it.  It wasn’t until the sweat stung my eyes that I understood the midday sun had become afternoon, and was now shining in my face before it fell below the trees down the street.  If anyone had noticed me standing in the doorway for the last few hours, soaking my shirt with sweat and stink, they weren’t telling. 

           I slammed the door behind me, trying to bring myself out of whatever fog had taken hold.  My mind flat refused to process any of it.  People in the real world do not have cryptic conversations with horrifying things wrapped up in people clothes.  It doesn’t happen.  There’s a tumor in my head pressing up against some little bit of grey that houses all my horror movie knowledge, and it’s being squeezed out of my eyes.  And that’s all there is to it. 

I wanted to talk.  I was tired of holding an insane discussion with myself in my head, but it felt like a rough slug had taken the place of my tongue and it didn’t want to cooperate.  I staggered into the kitchen and was filling a glass with water right from the tap.  Maybe the metallic taste of chemicals and other unsavory things in faucet water might help remind me that I do in fact live in the real world, which is bland, and tends to leave an aftertaste.

No sooner had I filled the cup than my rubbery legs, gave way.  I curled my knees into my chest and ran face first into sleep.

***

The noise woke me up.  It was dark, and when you wake up at an unusual time it only completes the disorientation.  My water looked down at me.  I emptied the glass into myself.  Life seemed to pour in with it, and it brought sanity and reality along.  I don’t know what just happened, but it couldn’t have been what I was afraid to even think about.

The noise again.  There was a knock at the door, heavy and deliberate.  All of my newfound animation froze and those dark thoughts that I was trying so damned hard to keep on the outskirts came bullying back.  Walking back out into the hall was my only option.  There was no phone in the kitchen.  I didn’t even have a land line anymore in the new age of cell phones.  No calling for help.  I could run out the back door into the street, but that seemed foolish.  I had a fleeting thought of grabbing a butcher knife, but quickly suppressed it.  Maybe some passerby had called the police when they saw me staring into the sun today and my rounding the corner with a deadly weapon wouldn’t be the better end to today. 

I peeked around the corner and saw a normal person standing outside.  An older gentleman with an unassuming face, thick about the waist.  He’d opened the door. 

“I’m sorry. I thought I’d heard someone groaning.  I’d knocked a few times.  You’re Ray Davers right?

That’s right.  My name is Ray Danvers.  It took a moment to realize that I’d only thought my response and he was waiting for a proper answer.

“Yes. Do I know you?”

“No. But I have a feeling you know the Preacher.”

“Get out of my house right now,” I said, mustering any authority I could add to my voice.

“No, no, just hear me out. I’m not a threat.”  He held his hands out as if to confirm it.  “You let him in didn’t you?  He asked about your family didn’t he?”

Without even realizing it I’d taken a step forward.  A small pint of rage had just dropped into my belly.  “I want you out of my house NOW!” I croaked.

“Fine, fine,” He said, backing up a step.  “We can do this outside, or even at a coffee shop, just hear me out ok?”

I know he backed up to show me that he wasn’t a threat, but it opened his windbreaker just enough for me to see the revolver sticking out of his belt.  With energy I would never have been able to plan, I bolted forward and broke left to stumble up the stairs.  What I had under my bed upstairs wasn’t a kitchen knife, but then you don’t bring those to a gun fight.

The guy glanced down at his open jacket as I hit the stairs and saw his mistake.

“Wait for Chrissakes!  I’m not going to hurt you!”

I hit the top of the stairs and took a tumble, cracking my knee on the top step.  I yelped, but wasn’t about to stop.

“He asked you about family memories right?  He asked about your kids right?”

I crumpled in front of my bedroom door, leaving a streak of sweat on the doorknob.  I reached for it again.

“He did didn’t he!  I bet you told him something specific, a camping trip or a dinner or something.  Do you remember?”

I leaned into the door and I turned the knob.  I could hear the cheap thing splinter.  It flew open and I hit the floor again.  My knee burned, but it felt far away.  I could hear what he was saying, and while my body crawled for my bed, my mind went with the fat little man.  The Preacher had asked about my family.  My wife and kids.  I did tell him about something.  I couldn’t remember what.

“You can’t can you!  He took it.  That’s the first thing he takes!”

I found the box under a pile of forgotten socks and undershirts.  I pulled out a black Beretta that I bought sometime after my family died.  I’d thought about eating it more than once.

“Listen to me dammit!” The man screamed.  “He’s not done! He did the same thing to me!”

            I chambered the first bullet and tried to stand.  I stumbled again and almost drove the barrel of the gun into my leg.  I was not an action hero.

            “He took from me too.  THEN HE DUG UP MY DAUGHTER!  Do you hear me?  HE DUG HER OUT OF THE ****ING GROUND!”

            Little heads in the backseat. 

           “WHAT DO YOU THINK HE’S GOING TO DO TO YOURS?  WE’RE NOT THE ONLY ONES!”

           Hearing a stranger talk about my dead family set the pint of rage to boil.  They were mine and after today I didn’t want to share them with anyone ever again.  I found my feet and steps to the bedroom door.

           “I’LL BET HE TOOK SOMETHING ELSE TOO!  YOU PROBABLY HAVE A SHOVEL!  HE TOOK IT!  HE HAS TO TAKE SOMETHING OF YOURS TO DO IT WITH!”

           I couldn’t hear anymore.  I entered the upstairs hallway ready to kill the little fat man in my house.

           He was gone.  With no person in front of me the rage that was puppeting me around drained out.  It was a long time before I regained enough to make it back down the stairs.  Calling the cops was out the window.  I had no idea what to tell them anyway.  The little fat man left a sheet of paper at the foot of the stairs.  On it was a list of names, at least twenty.  Yep, my name was right there, sixth from the top. It was neatly typed, but you could tell the page had the wear of something read many times.  At the top in marker he’d written:

                         We aren’t the only ones 

            One of the names was circled.  Raymond Chandler with a hand written number next to it.  I wondered if that might be the little fat man.  I also considered eating the bullet again for the first time in a year.