Brian Freeman - Marathon

“What about Wade?”

“He needed surgery, but he’ll be okay.”

“And me?” she asked.

Travis pasted a smile on his face. “You? What about you?”

“What happened to me?”

“Hey, come on, nobody messes with my big sister.”

“Travis,” she murmured, because she could see right through him.

“What?”

“What’s up with my legs?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t move them,” she said.

“Aw, well, what’s the rush, huh? You got somewhere else to be?”

“Travis, be strong and tell me the truth.”

He opened his mouth, but the words stuck in his throat. He shook his head over and over. “Don’t make me, Shell. Don’t make me. I can’t do it.”

She stared at him silently for a long time. It was as if, without saying anything, he’d said everything. Her face softened. She looked at the ceiling, and she smiled, which made no sense to him at all. Shelly always said when she smiled like that, she was seeing angels.

“Push the button for me, Travis,” Shelly told him. “It hurts. I want to sleep.”

“Okay.”

He did, and he watched his sister close her eyes. Her body relaxed as the drugs worked their magic. In no time, she drifted away. He stayed to make sure she didn’t wake up again, and then he got up and went into the hallway and closed the door behind him. He was right across from the hospital lounge.

The television was on. A crowd of people watched it.

Travis went inside, and he saw a picture of a man frozen on the television screen. He knew exactly who that man was. That was the man who had stood right next to him in Canal Park during the marathon. That was the squirrely son of a bitch who ran away right before the bomb went off.

Before Joni died. Before Shelly lost her legs.

“That’s the one, huh?” he said to a nurse. “That’s the guy who did it?”

“Looks that way,” she said.

Travis walked out of the lounge, because if he’d stayed there, he would have pulled the television off the wall and thrown it through the third-floor window. He was filled with rage in a way he’d never felt in his entire life. If that man had been there, he would have put his fingers around the man’s neck and squeezed until the bastard’s eyes bulged and his skin turned blue and his lungs screamed and his heart gave up and quit beating.

Travis knew what you had to do to people like that. Every single murdering terrorist.

You had to exterminate them like bugs.

Khan parked his yellow cab in front of the Woodland Market, which was half a mile from his home. This was a quiet, small-town neighborhood in the northeast corner of the city. Pak’s favorite pizza restaurant was across the street. There were other small shops nearby, too. A barbershop. A hardware store. A bakery. A gas station. Tall trees ringed the intersection of Woodland and Calvary behind the buildings. In Duluth, no matter where you were, you were never far from the woods.

Rain assaulted his windshield, making the late evening even darker. He waited to see if the storm would dissipate, but it kept on in torrents, blown by a heavy wind. Finally, he shoved open the cab door and ran for the market. By the time he made it inside, he was soaked, and he stopped to shake off water from his hair and clothes and dry his glasses. The floor was slick where rain had swept inside. The store was cold.

He saw people in the checkout lines. A nurse in purple scrubs chatted with one of the clerks; a father wrangled two young kids; an overweight, twenty-something man in a wet leather jacket checked his phone; a teenager and his girlfriend bought a six-pack of Pepsi and a large bag of potato chips. Pop music played from overhead speakers.

Khan wasn’t familiar with the layout of the store. Ahdia typically did the grocery shopping. He spotted a store employee wearing a tie, and he approached him to ask a question.

“Excuse me.”

“Yes, sir, how can I help you?” Minnesotans were invariably friendly.

“I’m looking for shredded coconut. Can you tell me where to find it?”

“Of course. Aisle four, with the baking supplies.”

Khan nodded. “Thank you.”

As he headed past the checkout lines, he noticed the overweight man in the leather jacket staring right at him. Catching his eye, the man looked quickly down at his phone again. And then back at Khan. This happened three more times in rapid succession, and each time he stared at Khan, the man’s face grew more hostile.

Khan ignored him. He made his way through the market. Despite his many years in this country, the sheer abundance of items in American grocery stores always amazed him. Whenever he passed overflowing displays of fruits and vegetables, he remembered the want of his childhood, and he counted himself lucky that he’d found his way here. And this was just a small neighborhood market compared to others in the city.

In aisle four, he passed a young mother with a baby boy in her cart. She smiled at him; he smiled at her. Khan made a silly face at the baby and wiggled a finger to say hello. The child kicked his legs happily.

“How old is your son?” he asked the woman.

“Five months,” she replied.

“He’s a beautiful boy. What’s his name?”

“Thomas.”

“That’s a good name,” Khan said.

“Oh, thank you.”

Mothers liked it when you complimented their children.

He continued to the far end of the aisle. The market’s baking supplies included hundreds of products. All kinds of flour and sugar. Chocolate chips. Molasses. He hunted until he found coconut on the lowest shelf, and he squatted to examine the brands and compare the prices. He had no idea what Ahdia usually bought, and he hoped he wasn’t making a mistake by picking the cheapest package to save a few pennies.

As he got up with a plastic bag of shredded coconut in his hand, he glanced at the other end of the aisle. The man in the leather jacket was standing there. He had been in the checkout line; now he was back in aisle four.

The woman with her baby was gone.

When Khan looked his way, the man shifted his gaze, as if to examine cake mixes on the shelf. Khan had a chance to study him more closely. He was short and heavy, with a thinning crown of curly brown hair. He needed a shave. His hands were large. He wore a Timberwolves T-shirt under his jacket and loose-fitting gray sweatpants. When the man saw Khan watching him, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket and strolled away.

Strange.

The whole thing gave Khan an odd feeling.

He took his coconut and marched back up the aisle, but he didn’t spot the man in the leather jacket hovering nearby. In fact, he didn’t see anyone at all. As he passed each aisle, he noticed that they were empty. No one was at the deli or meat counters. He checked his watch to make sure that he hadn’t stayed past the store’s closing time, but he was certain the market typically stayed open for at least another hour.

When he returned to the checkout area, he noticed that every aisle was now closed except one, and the only employee in sight was the manager with the tie he’d approached when he first arrived at the store. The man’s Minnesota smile was still fixed in place, but Khan noticed that he was sweating, even in the cool air-conditioning of the market.

“Hello!” the manager greeted him with an unusually loud voice. “So, did you find the coconut you were looking for?”

Khan nodded. “Yes.”

“That’s good. Is that all you need? Is there anything else?”

“No, that’s all. Where is everybody?”

The man shrugged. “It’s like this every night. Crowds go up and down.”

“Oh.”

Khan took out his wallet and peeled off a five-dollar bill. The manager had the coconut in his hand, but he hadn’t scanned the price yet.