The alarm on Mark Donovan’s watch went off for the last time at 6:45, the way it did every morning. He stretched, rolled out of bed, stumbled into the kitchen.
He opened the refrigerator, recoiled when the light hit him full in the face, blinked and reached into the cold for the coffee and set it by the coffeemaker. He yawned again and opened the pantry without closing the fridge. He took out the coffee filters, dropping one on the floor. He bent to pick it up without bending his knees.
The fridge light cast ghostly shadows through the kitchen as he put the fallen filter into the machine. He made the coffee strong, the way Vicky liked it.
He tapped his fingers while he waited, poured his first cup before the machine had finished working its magic. He gulped the hot liquid, racing the machine. He won. He poured another cup as the machine was steaming. He took a sip from his second cup, before pouring a third, for his wife. He added cream to hers and took the two cups into the bedroom.
Vicky enjoyed waking to coffee in bed, but probably not as much as he enjoyed waking her. He loved the way she looked with the morning light sneaking in through the curtains, basking the room in soft shadows. Vicky slept on top of the covers, in the nude, and the filtered light and morning shadows gave her sleeping form an artful, erotic appearance.
“ Coffee’s here,” he said, smiling.
“ So soon, can’t I sleep a little longer? It’s Saturday.”
“ No.”
“ But the bed is so soft.”
“ I know and the bathroom is so cold.”
“ Can’t we skip the riding today?”
“ If I had my way, we’d skip it everyday and sell the bikes. You’re the health nut. I was perfectly happy with donuts for breakfast and cheesecake for lunch.”
“ Don’t forget the steaks for dinner.”
“ Yeah, and steak for dinner.”
“ I don’t want a husband dead before he’s forty.”
“ I’m not going to die.”
“ You were eating yourself to death and you were getting fat. Look at yourself now.”
It was true, he had to admit it, since she’d put her foot down and made him ride with her every morning, he’d lost weight and had even started to regain the body he’d had in college. People were starting to notice and to comment on how good he was looking.
“ Honey, I’m worried about J.P.,” he said, changing the subject.
“ Why?”
“ I think he spends too much time with Rick.”
“ And what’s wrong with that?”
“ I don’t think Rick sets the right kind of example for the boy.”
“ What are you talking about?”
“ He’s a criminal,” Mark said.
“ Was a criminal, which is more than I can say for your precious brother.”
“ But Judy divorced him and now J.P. is hanging around someone just like him,” Mark said.
“ Rick is not just like your brother. Judy didn’t divorce Tom because he sold a few concert records, she left him because he couldn’t keep his thing in his pants. He was cheating on her every chance he got. She found out and dumped him and I say good for her.”
“ They could have worked it out if she really wanted to,” Mark said.
“ The only thing that kept her sane through it all was Rick and Ann. She moved here because she was able to rent the house next door to them. They were there for her when she needed them most and they still are.”
“ She should have stayed in Toronto.”
“ Come on, Mark, your brother loves Led Zeppelin more than he ever loved her.”
“ He does not,” he said. She was angry now and Mark was beginning to feel that he’d crossed the line.
“ You should be glad Tom brought Rick and Ann up last year for the Reggae Festival, because if he hadn’t, Ann never would have fallen in love with this place and they never would have bought that house. They would have stayed in L.A. and Judy would probably be living next door to them down there. You wouldn’t be able to see J.P. at all.”
“ I don’t see him that much now.”
“ Listen, Mark,” she said, calming down, “you’re not the jerk your brother is and Judy knows it, but you look an awful lot like him. Every time she sees you it has to remind her of the man she’s trying to forget. Give her a little more time and before you know it, you’ll be complaining about J.P. spending too much time here and not enough time with his mother.”
“ I hope you’re right.”
“ And one more thing,” she said, “Rick doesn’t do that stuff anymore, but your brother still does.”
“ But Rick got him into it.”
“ Oh come on, Tom was selling Zep bootlegs when you guys lived in Canada, before he ever met Rick. Rick just made it possible for him to make a living at it.”
“ Okay, I give up.” He raised his hands in mock surrender.
She laughed.
“ Come on,” he said, “let’s hit the shower.”
“ Right behind you.”
They took their coffee to the bathroom and showered together. Vicky was feeling a little frisky, so when Mark began soaping her breasts, she reached between his legs and the shower lasted longer than usual.
“ That’s a great way to burn calories, maybe we should do this every morning and leave the bikes in the garage,” Mark said after they finished making love.
“ In addition to, but not instead of.” Vicky laughed.
Mark stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel.
“ Throw me one too,” Vicky said and he complied. She toweled off before leaving the tub. She hated getting the floor wet, but didn’t mind when Mark did.
“ Do you want to wake Janis or should I?”
“ You do it, she loves the airplane noise you make in the morning.”
Mark put on his robe, then held out his arms, with hands and fingers extended, and started making a buzzing sound as he flapped down the hall to his daughter’s bedroom. She was sitting awake, laughing as he came through the door and jumped into his arms.
“ Okay, Janis on with your sweats.” He dropped her on the bed. “We’re out the door in ten minutes.”
“ Do I have ta?” She giggled.
“ Yes, you have ta.” He tickled her tummy. “Get a move on. We don’t want to keep Mommy waiting.”
“ I bet I beat you.”
“ I’ll bet you don’t.” He buzzed out of her room. Back in the master bedroom he caught a glimpse of his wife’s breasts as she slipped on her sweatshirt.
“ Better put those brown eyes back in your head and hurry or she’s going to beat you again.”
“ Not today.” He threw open his robe, jumped into his sweatpants and shirt.
“ I win, I win, I win,” Janis squealed, bursting into the room as Mark was lacing his running shoes.
“ You win again, but I’ll get you tomorrow.”
“ Let’s go.” She ran toward the front door. She loved riding on the back of her father’s bike.
“ Right behind you.” Vicky and Janis were out the door ahead of him. He wasted a few seconds getting his keys. He wore them around his neck when they rode in the mornings, because his sweats had no pockets.
“ Seven-thirty,” he told his wife as he unlocked the garage door.
“ Seven-thirty?” she questioned.
“ Seven-thirty, don’t you get it? Up only forty-five minutes and look what we’ve already accomplished.”
“ Wash your mouth out.” Vicky laughed.
They brought the bikes out and Mark locked the garage. Janis was laughing as he lifted her up to her seat and strapped her in. Then they were off, pedaling down Seaview Avenue toward the bike path. They turned right at the end of the street, onto the bike trail, and started picking up speed on the way to the Wetlands. Mark’s heart was beating fast as they turned into the nature preserve. Vicky hadn’t broken a sweat.
They usually made four laps of the Wetlands, the first and last at a slow, leisurely pace, because they thought Janis liked to look at the ducks. The second and third laps were the fast laps, and the ones that Janis really liked.
Peddling into the early morning mist was the best part of Mark’s day.
A half mile into the Wetlands, they started their turn to the right, past the duck ponds, back toward the entrance. Janis squealed with delight, leaning into the turn, urging her father to go faster and Mark picked up the pace, passing Vicky as they neared the entrance turn and the completion of their first lap.
“ Yeah, Daddy, we’re winning, go, go, go!”
Mark pedaled furiously, keeping his lead for the next half mile and started to pull away from his wife. Both Mark and Janis leaned expertly into the turn around the ponds for the second time, and leaned again around the entrance turn when Vicky started to gain on the straightaway, heading toward the ponds.
“ She’s catching! Pedal, Daddy! Pedal, pedal, pedal!”
Vicky passed them just before the ponds and kept the lead all the way back to the entrance turn, where she braked hard, hopped off her bike, laughing, and waited for her panting husband to puff his way to the finish, before starting their cooling down lap.
“ She always wins, Daddy.”
“ That’s because I have you on the back.”
Mark laughed, chugging his way to the finish.
“ I think I can, I think I can, I think I can,” Janis sang as they slowed down.
“ Wanna rest a second?” Vicky said. Mark nodded, sucking in great breaths of the crisp morning air.
“ Daddy sounds like a broken engine,” Janis said.
“ He sure does.” Vicky laughed. “We’ll just have to wait till the engine’s all rested up and ready to go before we do our last lap.
“ All right you two,” Mark said, trying to laugh and control his breathing at the same time, “let’s go.”
“ Can we feed the ducks?” Janis asked as they were approaching the duck ponds on their cooling down lap.
“ How? We don’t have any food,” Mark said.
“ I sneaked some bread.”
They parked their bikes by the turn and walked down to the duck pond, Janis in the lead, breaking up the bread. “Here ducks, here ducks,” she sang.
“ Stay out of the water,” Vicky said, cutting Janis’ stride short. The girl waited till Vicky caught up and they went down to the pond together, where Vicky watched as the ducks took the bread from her daughter’s hand.
Mark stayed back with the bikes.
Janis was chasing after the one duck that always refused to take the bread from her hand. It was the same every morning, the duck ran and she chased, but this morning as Janis ran behind the waddling bird, it stopped. Something caught its attention and Janis followed its eyes to the bike path and saw the beggar man.
He looked like one of those homeless people that hang out in the park during the summer, except she had never seen a homeless man that dirty. Dirt and grime were mixed up in his scraggly hair and it looked like he had wet his pants so many times that the wet place the pee makes was covered in black, like old engine oil.
The man turned her and she almost screamed when she saw the blotchy skin and bloodshot eyes, but suddenly the duck turned and was running toward her. She forgot about the beggar man and grabbed on to the duck she’d been chasing after for as long as she could remember.
“ I got you,” she squealed. She didn’t wonder why the duck didn’t fly or why it didn’t struggle and she didn’t see the Bowie knife in the beggar’s hand, gleaming silver as it reflected the sun’s rays.
Vicky turned to wave at her husband as the scrawny man stepped behind Mark, grabbed him by the hair, jerking his head back. He ran a knife across his neck, slitting his throat from ear to ear. The ragged man smiled, even as blood washed down the front of Mark’s sweatshirt.
She wanted to scream out, but she was struck dumb, paralyzed in place, as planted as any of the trees in the forest. She could only watch as the ragged man brought the giant knife up to Mark’s left ear and made another ear to ear incision, this time along the jaw line.
Then he ripped the skin off of her husband’s face.
Then he slashed the knife around Mark’s hair line, separating the skin and scalp from the head, pulling them off in a filthy clawed hand.
Then he jumped back as Mark Donovan, with only a bloody stump for a head, danced a quick, herky jerky, death jig, before collapsing on the dew damp ground.
That galvanized Vicky into action. Without thinking she grabbed the duck out of her daughter’s arms, threw the screeching bird aside, wrapped an arm around her daughter’s waist, tucked the child into her side like a football and started to run. Her system was working again, she was in excellent shape and the pumping adrenaline gave her added strength and endurance. She was an animal mother fleeing with her young.
She scattered ducks in her path as she ran flat out, hard and determined. She ran with the pond to her left and the bike trail to her right, seeking to put distance between herself and the evil thing that was carving up her husband’s body. She harbored no doubt as to what it would do when it finished with Mark. It would come after her and her child.
She broke right and crossed the bike trail into the forest. Brush and branch whipped against her, tearing into her sweatshirt, but she kept on. She tasted her own blood when a low branch ripped a gash in her face, but she ignored the coppery taste and slicing pain in her attempt to get away.
Then she was through the brush and on a deer trail that she’d walked many times with her husband and daughter. She turned left, picking up her pace, thinking now that maybe she had a chance. She knew these woods.
Then she heard the scream, up ahead to the left, probably on the bike trail. The wail, coming from the belly of whatever was up there, wasn’t indigenous to these woods. It was a bad thing. It was the evil that killed Mark and it was ahead, waiting for her.
It screamed again, a lightning blast to her heart. She stopped, fought her panic, turned to double back, when she heard something coming through the brush. “Another one,” she moaned under her breath. “There’s two.”
Then she saw it, a tall pine with ladder like branches. If she could reach those branches, maybe she’d have a chance. She could hold them off till help came. She ran to the tree and saw the futility of her plan. She could never squeeze through the closely packed branches, but Janis could, if she could hold her high enough to get a hold.
“ Janis, I’m going to lift you up to that branch. I want you to grab it and climb as high as you can. Do you understand?”
“ Yes, Mommy,” the terrified girl said.
“ Don’t come down for anyone or anything. Stay up there and hide, till I come back.”
“ When will you come?”
“ Soon, now come on.” She picked the child up and held her above her shoulders. She heard the thrashing in the brush getting closer.
“ I can’t reach,” Janis cried with her arms extended. “I can’t reach.”
Vicky was standing on her toes, holding Janis as high as she could. “How close?”
“ Real close, Mommy. I’m real close.”
“ Listen, baby, I’m going to jump and I want you to try and grab that branch, okay?”
“ Okay.”
Another scream ripped through the morning mist, closer, coming from the other direction. They’re closing in for the kill, she thought. Then she muttered to herself, “But they’re not going to get my baby, not Janis.”
She lowered herself, bending her athletic legs and jumped, straightening, pushing off the ground, holding Janis aloft. She felt the weight lessen and felt a moment’s satisfaction, knowing that Janis had grabbed onto the branch. But the satisfaction was short lived.
“ Mommy, I can’t get up.” Janis was trying to pull herself up onto the branch, but her child’s muscles weren’t developed enough to lift her body.
“ Let go, I’ll catch you.” Vicky could feel the evil closing in.
“ I’m afraid.”
“ You have to do it, honey.”
Janis let go and fell into Vicky’s arms
“ This is the last chance we’ll have, baby,” Vicky said. “I’m going to try and throw you. You have to grab on and climb or we’ll die.”
“ I’ll try.”
Vicky bent her knees and back and lowered Janis as low as she dared, an inner instinct told her not to let her daughter touch the ground, just in case the creature was following her scent. She straightened her legs with an adrenaline rush, throwing her hands above her head, and Janis flew up. Vicky’s aim was true. Janis sailed by the branch and came to a stop and started her descent. When it was at waist height, she reached out, grabbed hold and pulled it to her. She threw her leg over the branch and scrambled up on it.
“ Climb,” her mother said from below. She added, “I love you, baby.” Then she left the trail and went into the thick woods and was gone.
Janis started to climb and almost fell out of the tree when she heard the noise coming from the direction they’d been headed. She strained her eyes and looked down the deer path. The noise was getting louder, heavy breathing, like the sound made by the air machine on her fish tank, only louder and it was getting closer. She heard the scream again and knew that it was coming from the thing that made the fish tank noise. Then she saw it, a black blur coming fast, toward the tree, toward her. It ran past. She saw its slick black hair as it glided over the path beneath her. She held her breath and watched it go away. Then it stopped and turned. It was coming back.
It wasn’t running this time. It came slowly and stopped below the tree with its nose to the path. It was smelling the ground, smelling the ground and looking for her. It sniffed the area where her mother left the trail. It wasn’t looking for her, it was looking for her mom. She wanted to yell, to tell it to go away, but she was afraid, so she stayed still.
There was a breeze coming from the direction of the monster animal. It smelled like fish, not the fish from her tank, but the ones the fishermen brought in on the Seawolf. She could smell it, she hoped it couldn’t smell her. She stayed quiet, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.
She heard something else coming down the deer path. She hoped it was her father coming after them, he would take care of the monster below. Her father could handle anything. She started to yell, to tell her dad where she was, but she caught the words in her throat as the beggar man came into view.
He was skinny and reminded her of the stickmen that her kindergarten teacher drew on the blackboard, but he wasn’t wearing the stickman smile or carrying the flowers that those stickmen always carried. Instead he had a giant silver knife, a knife big enough to be a sword. The sun reflecting from the bloody blade, and the man’s crusty skin, combined to scream one word to the girl above, and the word was, bad.
She only saw the sores on his dried up face and his bloodshot eyes for a flash of a second, before he followed the scary animal that made the fish tank noise into the forest. She was afraid she would never see her mom again. Then she worried about her father and she started to climb higher.
It seemed like she had been up in the tree forever, but the sun said that noon was hours away. She wished her father would come and chase away the bad things.
Then she heard the fish tank noise again.
“ Oh, no,” she cried, “they’re coming.” She wiggled between the branches, climbing as high as she dared, tearing her sweat suit and scraping her skin, but she was afraid she wasn’t high enough. She strained, trying to squeeze between another branch, ripping a cut on her right arm. She wanted to scream, but didn’t dare.
She wondered again why her father didn’t come for her. She was sure he didn’t run away, but if he didn’t, where was he? And she was afraid for her mom. The things that had chased her into the woods were bad and now they were coming after her. She burrowed farther up the tree.
She saw something move past below and she squeezed her eyes shut till it passed, but it didn’t go far before it turned around and came back. She opened her eyes. She felt it getting closer. Then she saw her arm and the blood. Strange, she didn’t feel anything. It didn’t hurt. It should hurt. Always before whenever she cut herself it hurt.
She looked down.
“ Oh, no,” she cried, “it’s one of the monsters.” She tried to climb higher, but couldn’t.
The dog-like animal raised its head and Janis saw into its deep red eyes and right into its mouth, all the way to its belly. It had teeth longer than her arm. She hoped that it couldn’t climb trees.
It could.