Gregg Hurwitz: The Tower

He ran his hands through the water, petting it as it edged forward to meet him again. It rose through his spread fingers, climbing clingingly up his forearms, and he dug his hands shovel-like into the moist ground and clenched them loosely. The water drew the matter away to reveal two fists of small wriggling crabs, alive and free in every handful of sand.

The first light of morning broke through the low clouds and cast a bluish glow over the beach. The storm had passed in the night, and the ground was damp with morning dew. A crab scuttled across the sand, back toward the water, its ragged claws leaving small trails in its wake.

Allander turned his head and coughed, then rolled over and threw up. His vomit smelled clean and fresh, his stomach acid diluted with saltwater. The swelling on his shoulder had gone down during the few hours that he had been passed out. He had slept deeply, but his eyes were puffy and sore.

At one point, from the depths of his stupor, Allander had thought he heard voices. Panic washed over him momentarily as he imagined cops or security guards dragging him from the beach. But then he realized that the noise came from a group of passing teenagers, and they dismissed him as a harmless bum.

Rolling to his forearms, Allander rose to his haunches, squinting even in the dim morning light. "'Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I am free at last,'" he mumbled. He laughed, a choke thick with irony.

He pulled himself to his feet, but stood stooped, favoring his swollen shoulder. Facing the breeze with his bare chest, he wandered from the beach, looking much like a scarecrow that had freed itself from its post.

He gazed up at the houses in the hills as he climbed the stairs that led from the beach to the residential neighborhood. Manicured bushes lined the sidewalks, but as the street wound higher up the hill, the neat shrubbery gave way to thicker underbrush. The houses sat farther back from the road behind larger gates. Their mailboxes were all that were open to the outside world, and even those were built into protective brick structures.

Blending with the shadows, Allander made his way up the street. It was early in the morning and no one seemed to be up yet. He could probably have proceeded up the middle of the road, but he kept to the shadows out of habit. He glanced at the gates as he passed them, amused at the false sense of security they created for their owners.

At the top of the hill, he stopped at a white stucco house that peeked out behind an elaborate fence. Reaching through the gate, Allander slipped the bar. He swung the gate slightly open and slid through, disappearing into the bushes at the side of the driveway.

He ran his thumb gently over the bloody tape covering his finger. It was damp and the edges were frayed. Ocean water was cleansing, he reminded himself thankfully.

Making his way slowly through the landscape, Allander flanked the house, occasionally peering between the bushes to scan the area. Although he knew nobody would be awake at this hour, he didn't want to risk a bold approach.

He made his way behind a garden shed twenty feet from the side of the house. Sliding open a window, he crept through, noticing the equipment stored within. He had always prided himself on being able to make do with anything he could lay his hands on. So many tools could be found around the average house-tools of death, destruction, torture.

After digging through a toolbox, Allander held up a lengthy awl, studying it in the light that filtered through the dust and cobwebs.

The doorbell rang.

"Who the hell? At this hour?" A shrill voice issued forth from beneath a white beauty mask and a set of rollers. Henry was startled until he remembered his wife's new habit of rising early to apply beauty products. "Go get the door, Henry," she urged.

Henry grunted and shifted heavily in the bed. "It's probably just the paper boy."

"Get the door, Henry."

Henry sighed and stumbled out of bed as his wife rolled back over on her side, her arms crossed on top of her red nightgown. It had been one pain-in-the-ass thing after another since they'd let the maid go last week for stealing a bracelet from his wife's bureau. Just can't trust people anymore, Henry thought groggily as he padded across the tiled floor of the foyer.

"Who is it?" he called, and then mumbled in the same singsong voice, "You annoying asshole."

He looked through the peephole and saw nothing, then opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. Nothing. A bird called out twice from its perch in a tree and Henry relaxed and inhaled deeply, stretching his arms. He bent over and picked up the newspaper.

As he walked back down the hallway to the bedroom, the doorbell rang again.

"I thought I told you to get the door," his wife screeched from the bedroom. Henry winced at the sound of her voice, raising his shoulders above his neck as if to block out the noise.

"I got it. Just go back to sleep." He walked back to the door muttering to himself. He leaned forward to check the peephole again; there was a tinkling sound as the glass from the peephole broke. Henry convulsed and slumped forward. His body seemed to hang on the door from his head.

Allander pulled the awl back out through the peephole. Poised in his other hand was the hammer he had used to force the awl through the small hole and into Henry's eye. The door shuddered softly as Henry collapsed to the floor. His body showed no visible sign of violence except for the small puncture in the iris, through which the awl had entered his brain.

Allander pushed the door open, shoving against the weight of Henry's body.

Vanity breeds contempt, Allander thought. If you hadn't wanted the white castle on top of the hill, you'd still be dreaming of breakfast.

He crept softly toward the master bedroom, holding the hammer tight in his fist.

A familiar sensation invaded him, filling him slowly, leaving him with a tingling in his stomach-the ecstasy of the kill. Somehow, he knew that it was what he was made to do. And he didn't feel angry. In fact, it was the only time he didn't feel angry.

The woman's form under the blankets was barely visible from the doorway, yet Allander could sense the inconsistency of her femininity. It scared him, the inconsistency. It always had.

He approached her slowly, his knees trembling. His left foot came down on a lipstick cylinder and it cracked like a walnut.

The woman rolled over in bed and saw Allander's sickly, pale skin covered with sand trails and dried seaweed. The white mask over her face opened to emit an enormous scream. Allander backed up, momentarily fearful, bumping against the cabinet.

Throwing the covers aside, the woman grabbed the phone from the nightstand and hurled it at Allander's head. She screamed her husband's name over and over: "HENRY! HENRY! GET THE CHILDREN! HENRY!"

The phone hit Allander in the face and split open his upper lip, spilling blood over his mouth. He cowered until he tasted its richness, then he felt himself energized.

The white mask was out of bed and running for the door. As she passed him, Allander stepped forward and swung the hammer's pointed end at the back of the woman's head. It struck her in the soft nape of her neck and stuck. He jerked it back and swung again, lodging it firmly in the wound.

The woman fell as if in slow motion, jolting momentarily on her knees before pitching face first to the carpet.

Her final scream reverberated within the room, then there was quiet. The silence was broken by the distant crying of children.

A young boy's voice sounded from around the corner, "Mommy? Are you all right? Daddy?" It was a beautifully pitched voice, a soprano full of prepubescent innocence. It trembled delicately, like a feather approaching the blades of a fan.