Suspenseful Tales Part 10

He shook me hard, in spite of his bloodless muscles that must have gone soft.

His mouth, only inches from my face, spewed forth fetid breath that struck me like a blow. I wanted to faint, but my body didn't cooperate.

A security guard ran up to us. He clapped a hand on Stone's shoulder. "Hey, mister, let go of-"

With stunning quickness, Stone released me and spun around and punched the guard in the nose, his fist bursting and spilling fluids like a giant pimple. The guard dropped to the carpet, holding his bleeding nose.

Seemingly unaware of his ruined hand, Stone whirled to face me.

"Your turn, boy."

I bolted across the lobby, into the waiting area, where several upholstered sofas and pine end tables sat.

I needed some kind of weapon, and I had a vague idea that something suitable might be over therea"though what could hurt a man who was already dead?

Stone pursued me, shambling like something out of a horror flick.

Hadn't he looked in the mirror lately? Didn't he realize that he had died? Or was he so dead to the world that not even seeing the mushy stump that had once been his hand could awaken him to the truth?

Soon, only a sofa separated us. He drummed his fat fingers on top of it, grinning at me with teeth that would've given my dentist nightmares.

"When I get done with you, boy, you're gonna need your own death certificate."

He chuckled, a nasty wet sound.

He slung one leg over the couch, began to clamber over it.

As I moved away, the back of my legs. .h.i.t something. I reached behind me. I touched the solid surface of an end table.

Stone was almost across the sofa.

"And after you, I'm gonna take care of that lying sonofab.i.t.c.h agent who sold me that policy."

It was either him or me. And since he was dead already, I figured I had the right to keep on living. So I s.n.a.t.c.hed up the table, raised it high, and brought it down on his skull with all the force I could muster.

His head exploded like a watermelon hit with a sledgehammer; rotted flesh and stinking liquids splattering everywhere.

The headless corpse rolled off the couch and thudded to the floor at my feet. It lay there. Motionless. Silent.

I wiped cold sweat off my brow.

The entire bizarre episode seemed to have occurred in some realm of h.e.l.l, but, thankfully, it was over.

In addition to the security guard who'd taken the punch in the nose, a couple of company housekeepers had gathered around, their wheeled garbage cans beside them. They held their noses.

"Why don't we get this mess cleaned up, guys?" I said. "Come on, I'll help you."

Strangely, not one person who had witnessed the incident ventured an opinion about Stone. All of us maintained a weird code of silence, keeping our thoughts to ourselves, preserving our feelings for later reflectionsa"or nightmares.

It took a while, but we managed to clean up the cadaver and remove all signs that it had ever been in the lobby. I believe people deserve a proper burial in a respectable cemetery, but Stone wasn't getting another one of those. One was enough. This time, he was getting s.h.i.+pped to the local trash incinerator.

When we finished, I returned upstairs.

I sat behind my desk. Drew a few rejuvenating breaths. Took a sip of coffee.

Finally, ready to work again, I grabbed the next file from the stack of them on my tray. I opened it.

I saw my full name written on the topsheet: KEVIN PAUL JACKSON.

What?

I looked closer.

And then I saw that familiar blood-red stamp on the topsheet: DECEASED 3-6-2000.

"No," I said, my face flushed with heat.

I tore into the file, found the death certificate, and read the cause of death: Internal injuries due to auto accident.

Auto accident? That couldn't be. At the last instant, I had avoided the collision with the eighteen-wheeler. It had been close, a miracle, actually, but I had escaped. No, this was a joke, and it wasn't funny at all. I was going to find out who had pulled this prank. I was going to find them anda"

My phone rang.

Automatically, I picked it up.

"Good afternoon, this is Kevin Jackson. How may I help you?"

"Where's my check?" It was a woman, with a thick Brooklyn accent.

On days such as these, I believed that if G.o.d ever decided to condemn me to h.e.l.l, he would put me somewhere exactly like this, to deal with mad customers for all eternity.

Realizing the truth, I didn't say a word to the woman.

I dropped the phone, grabbed fistfuls of my hair, and began to cry ... soft, weeping sounds that would stay with me forever.

NOSTALGIA.

You can leave home, but something might follow youa I saw the house when I was driving home from work late one evening.

I had decided to try a different route from the office to my apartment, because in the five months that I'd been living in Atlanta, I'd been following the same paths to everywhere that I frequented: my job, the Winn-Dixie supermarket, the barber shop, the bank, the Blockbuster Video store, the bar-and-grill with the icy beer and the hot wings. I felt as though I were already working in a rut, like a dog that runs the same dusty trail back and forth across a yard. Five months ago, I had moved here from Illinois to experience something new. But unless I made the effort to see new things, the new would quickly become commonplace. Taking a different route home was one small but meaningful way that I demonstrated my commitment to experiencing a fresh perspective.

When I saw the house, however, I was reminded of the life that I had left behind in Illinois.

The house was located on a residential street named Common Avenue. Although the road ran parallel with a busy thoroughfare that handled most of the traffic in the area, the abundance of tall, leafy trees that lined the road enveloped the street in a tranquil oasis. Stylish contemporary homes with trimmed lawns and s.h.i.+ny autos parked in front of two-car garages sat on each lot. I saw children playing in yards; a young woman powerwalking across the sidewalk, her black Labrador trotting beside her; a man in a grey suit climbing out of a sedan, gripping a briefcase in one hand, his other hand unloosening his tie, no doubt relieved to be home after a long day at work. In the middle of this tableau, perhaps halfway down the block, I noticed the house.

As though my foot had a life of its own, I stamped the brakes. I rocked to a halt. I stared.

I could not believe what I saw, but I could not argue with my own eyes.

Unlike the other homes on the avenue, which appeared as though they had been constructed within the past ten years, this house looked to be at least thirty years old. It was a Colonial model, painted eggsh.e.l.l white, with red shutters. A three-car garage painted the same colors was attached to the house.

It sat atop a slight hill; a wide, blacktopped driveway extended from the garage to the street. The gra.s.s was a bit too long, which was especially noticeable since the surrounding lawns were trimmed. A mature elm towered on the perimeter of the yard.

In every visible respect, the house was the same as the one in which I had lived for the past eight years: my grandmother's house. I had moved in with Grandma almost immediately after my grandfather had died, charged by my family with the responsibility of doing the "man's work" around the house, and, even more important, keeping Grandma safe.

Grandma would've had a fit if I had let the gra.s.s grow that long, I thought. Grandma had been a stickler for numerous things, but nothing rivaled her zeal for having the gra.s.s cut. It was something about her that I'd never understood.

Her voice came to my mind with such clarity she might have been speaking into my ear: Lord, have mercy, we got the worst looking yard on the block. If you don't cut that gra.s.s, Rick, I'm gonna have to pay somebody to do it. You know I ain 't got the money for that. I know you busy and all, but that gra.s.s- I shook my head, clearing away those old mental cobwebs. I realized that I had halted the car in the middle of the street. I parked alongside the curb.

I turned back to the house. Although it was half-past seven and my stomach hungered for dinner, I would not be able to leave until I had taken a closer look.

I got out of the car and crossed the street. I stepped onto the sidewalk.

Who lives here? I wondered. Another widowed black grandmother and her grandson? Do Bible studies take place in the bas.e.m.e.nt every Monday night? Is there a Doberman roving around the back yard, kept mainly because Grandma knows a dog will scare away thugs?

I did not see any people moving around in the house, and I did not hear a dog barking. There were no cars parked in the driveway, either. The only indication that someone lived there was a glowing porch light above a storm door that opened into a breezeway.

The light illuminated the numbers on the weathered black mailbox: 2118 Common Avenue.

A chill coursed through me. My grandmother's address was 2118. The name of her street was George Avenue, which was hardly similar to Common, but the match of numbers was eerie.

Well, so what? I thought. It's a coincidence. I had once heard a theory that every human being in the world had a person, somewhere, who looked exactly like him. Why not a house? There were probably several dozen homes across the country that looked identical to my grandmother's.

But down to the last detail of the landscaping? I wondered. That elm tree looks exactly like the one I used to climb when I was a kid. How could I explain that?

No ready answer came to mind. Slowly, I walked up the asphalt path that led to the front door, searching for a discrepancy, a detail that would differentiate it from Grandma's place.

As a child, I had spent many lazy summer afternoons playing on this walkway, capturing ants in jars, or riding my bike along it as if it were a motorcycle ramp. Other times, Grandma would emerge from the door and holler that it was time to eat, and my cousins and I would scramble up the path, racing one another to the dinner table.

No, it wasn't this walkway, I reminded myself. The one I remembered was in Illinois. But I'd be d.a.m.ned if I didn't see the same slight cracks, lines, and indentations in this pavement underneath me.

I shook my head. This was too incredible. I plodded forward, looking at the ground. I was searching for something. If I found it, I would-- "Oh, s.h.i.+t," I said aloud. I stopped and bent to my knees. Gaped at the sight below.

On the walkway, beside the garage, I saw the imprint of a child's shoe. It was embedded in the concrete, like some little kid's Walk of Fame.

A garage had been added to my grandparents' house when I was five years old. Shortly after the concrete foundation had been poured, while it was still soft, I had ventured into the area and dabbed my foot in it, ruining my shoe, but strangely proud that I had made my mark. The builders (who were actually friends of the family) never bothered to smooth over the imprint.

And here, several hundred miles away from that home in Illinois, was an identical footprint, in front of an identical garage, beside an identical house.

Heart pounding, I stood.

I did not understand what was happening, but I was compelled to find answers. I could not drive away and pretend that I had never seen this.

Because, two months ago, Grandma's house had burned to the ground. She had been inside, alone. She had died in the blaze. It was a freak accident, caused by her leaving on the gas burner before she had went to beda"something that never would have happened if I had still been living there, because I had always checked the range before turning in for the night. It had been one of my self-imposed responsibilities.

And I have not slept well since.

I have nightmares perhaps three, four times a week. It is always the same haunting dream. I am on the sidewalk in front of Grandma's house, hugging her good-bye, because the day has finally arrived: I am moving away from home and to Atlanta, a city in which I have no friends and no family, only the promise of a new job and a new life. Stifling tears, I turn away from Grandma, take a step ... and I am instantly upon an airplane that is standing on a runway, seconds before takeoff. Except the runway is the street that runs in front of Grandma's house. I sit in a pa.s.senger seat beside the window, and through the gla.s.s I see Grandma on the walkway, waving good-bye. Behind her, the house is on fire, flames and black smoke flapping against the pure blue sky. The airplane begins to roll forward, and still Grandma stands there, waving. I press myself to the gla.s.s as we rumble ahead, straining to keep Grandma in sight... and the last vision I have of Grandma is her walking into the burning house.

I always explode out of the dream with a scream bursting from my lips.

Shaking away a chill, I looked at the house before me. There was no fire, like there was in my dream. If it were not for that glowing porch light, I would have a.s.sumed that the home was vacant.

Someone lived here. I had to find out who.

I stepped toward the front door. A closed wooden door stood behind the storm door, so that you could not enter the breezeway without first getting through both barriers. At night, Grandma would lock every possible entryway. She worried constantly about break-ins. Sometimes, my cousins and I had jokingly called Grandma's house "The Fortress."

A doorbell was attached to the storm door frame. I pressed it.

If someone answered, I did not know what I would tell them. I hadn't bothered to think of a story that would explain my visit. Maybe I would tell them the truth.

h.e.l.lo. Excuse me, but I had to see who lived here. My grandmother's house in Illinois looked exactly like yours. See, Grandma died in a fire that burned down the whole place, and I had to make sure that, you know, my Grandma wasn't actually alive and well and living here in Georgia. She never liked the thought of me being far away from her, if you know what I mean.

In spite of myself, I almost laughed out loud.

After a few seconds, no one had answered. I took a few steps back and gazed at the front windows, to see if anyone might be looking outdoors. I didn't see anyone peering through the Venetian blinds. I did, however, notice bright purple petunias blooming in the long flower box beneath the window. The same kind of flowers that Grandma had tended devoutly.

There was coincidence, and then, on a higher level than coincidence, there was Strange Stuff. No doubt, this was Strange Stuffa"something that utterly eluded a rational explanation.

I stepped to the doorway again, pressed the bell once more. No response.

I slid my hand to the door handle. Pulled. No luck. It was locked.

What would I have done if the door had opened, anyway? I thought. Walked inside? No matter how much this looks like Grandma's house, it was private property. Was I crazy?

Asking myself those questions brought my senses back to me. I didn't know these people who lived here. Whether they were home or not, what would they think of a stranger snooping around their yard? And what about the neighbors? I had probably already invited their suspicion. People tended to pay attention to unfamiliar men who stopped and approached houses in their neighborhood.

My curiosity was not satisfied, but it was time to leave.

I returned to the car.

Before I pulled away, I glanced at the front windows of the house. I saw a gap in the Venetian blinds, as though someone were gazing through the gla.s.s.

I blinked, trying to see more clearly.

The blinds quickly fell back into place.

I frowned. Had I actually seen them parted, or had I been fooled by the summer twilight?

I peered at the windows. The blinds remained still.

I rubbed my eyes. They felt grainy. I had been staring at a computer monitor for over eight hours, and after such a long day, I couldn't rely upon my vision to see discern everything clearly, especially as night approached. Most likely, I had imagined the movement in the windows.

Nevertheless, as I drove home, I had the nagging feeling that I would be coming back to 2118 Common Avenue. Soon.