Jon Merz - Vicarious

“How can you be sure? You said you only caught a glimpse of him. You said there was a mustache.”

She took the photo and a pen out of her pocket. Curran watched her scribble across Darius’ upper lip.

Lauren leaned back.

“My God. It’s him.”

The house looked different now, thought Lauren as she walked toward it.

After she’d left Curran, she’d taken the train out toward Boston College. She’d walked slowly down the streets of this neighborhood, almost oblivious to the growing wind and ever present drizzle. But she did look behind her a number of times. Part of her almost expected to see the man again.

Her stalker.

What did the Soul Eater want? Lauren wanted to know the answer to that question worse than anything she’d wanted before. She stopped. What if the answer’s not good?

She frowned. Of course it wouldn’t be good. The Soul Eater was a minion of the Devil. How could anything he wanted be good? It wouldn’t be. Better to just resign myself to the inevitable rush of horror that will happen when I discover what it is.

If I discover it, she quickly corrected herself.

She drew close to the front steps. There was no sign that anything had even happened here. No tape marks from where the police would have put up the yellow crime scene tape. After all, there was no crime scene. No bodies. No nothing.

Darkness had fallen on the neighborhood almost an hour ago. Deep shadows bled out from the shrubs surrounding the small house. There were lights on in only one or two of the houses further down the street. Most of the people living close by weren’t home from work yet.

Perfect.

Lauren looked at the front door and frowned. It would, of course, be locked.

There had to be another way in.

She saw a small flagstone path running down one side of the house and took it. It led her to the back door. Lauren tried to door handle and found that locked as well.

From her bag, she took out a roll of duct tape and penknife. She drew out a long strip of the silver sticky tape and then cut it. She pressed it diagonally across the pane of glass. Then she repeated the process, this time pressing the line of tape in the other direction so there appeared a gossamer ‘X’ on the back door.

She paused, glanced around, and shook her head. Lauren Fields, she thought, nun and burglar.

She slammed her left elbow at the intersection of tape and heard the glass give. The tape held it fast though, keeping it from shattering and making an awful noise. Lauren kept breaking the glass until she could reach her hand through and unlatch the bolt.

Two minutes after she’d started, she entered the back hall of Sister Donovan’s home.

She closed the door behind her and shivered. Inside the house it felt like a glacier had settled there. Her breath came in small wisps of heated air that warmed her face as she walked.

In the kitchen she looked around. Some dishes still littered the sink. An empty box of spaghetti stood as testament to the dinner Sister Mary had never finished.

Her last meal, thought Lauren. All because of me.

She pushed through the wooden swing door separating the kitchen from the rest of the house. It felt warmer in the dining room. Lauren peered into the china cabinet and saw an old set of dishes. Bone china? She thought it looked so, but she wasn’t there to appraise Sister Donovan’s estate.

She moved beyond the dining room and into the living room. A small television set and VCR sat on a low shelf at one corner of the room. A couch and armchair, both in a blue gingham pattern, occupied the majority of the room. She could see a stack of magazines in a small tray between the two pieces of furniture.

She must have had an office somewhere.

Lauren veered toward the hallway and found herself retracing the steps she’d taken the other night. A weird sense of dreadful deja vu sprung up over her. She felt her heartbeat increase. Her breathing came in short rapid gasps.

Calm down, she told herself. That was then. This was now.

Find the journals.

Find the journals.

Her breathing slowed. Steeled now, she pressed on into the bedroom. The oxygen tank sat close to the bed. Pictures on the walls showed Sister Donovan in a wide array of locales. Most of the pictures she stood smiling with what looked like native peoples. None of the framed photos had captions, but Lauren guessed some showed regions in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia.

Quite the traveler.

The other night, Sister Donovan had started to say something when she’d been killed. Had she been alluding to some reservoir of information that would help Lauren now?

She looked around the bedroom. Aside from the bed, there was a bureau with a big mirror. A stack of religious texts sat on top. A few more magazines lay by the bed.

But otherwise…nothing.

Lauren got down on her hands and knees. She lifted the skirt of the bed and glanced under. It seemed even darker under there.

Should she turn on a light?

Someone might see it and wonder who was inside. Lauren doubted news of Sister Donovan’s death had reached many people in the neighborhood, but she didn’t want to chance someone calling the police.

Her eyes had adjusted pretty well anyway. And the streetlight in front of the house sent some of its light into the house. Not much, but enough to make out things.

Lauren went back to the kitchen and found a flashlight in one of the drawers. She headed back to the bedroom and opened the closet door.

She switched the flashlight on and instantly a beam of yellow cut into the swath of dark. Mounds of books met Lauren’s eyes. Clothes on hangers draped over the stacks.

It must be here, she thought.

Again she got down on her knees and began going through the piles. Most of it was a substantial collection of science fiction novels. Apparently, Sister Donovan had been quite a fan. Lauren smiled. It made her feel closer to the old nun knowing that she’d been human as well as divine.

Behind her, at the entrance of the closet, a pile of books began to form a mound. Lauren kept passing the books out over her shoulder. The closet seemed much deeper than she’d originally estimated. The more books she got through, the more stacks appeared before her.

Until at last, she saw wall.

How many books did she have time to read, thought Lauren. There must be at least two thousand here.

Her hands touched cool plaster. The back of the closet. She shone the flashlight at the side walls and pressed into them trying to find some sort of cubbyhole or secret panel.

Nothing.

She leaned back on her haunches and sighed. Where would it be?

She shivered, feeling the cold of the house. She hoped Steve and Dr. Kwon had their eyes on that Darius fellow. The last thing she wanted to think about was him showing up here right now.

Put it out of your mind!

A creak from somewhere else in the house startled her. She jumped and the flashlight dropped, hitting the floor of the closet with a bang. The light vanished.

Darkness swallowed the closet again.

Lauren sat very still. Her ears strained against the heavy silence, probing, trying to find another sound.

Was someone there with her?

Steve?

She frowned. No. He’d be busy with Kwon.

Lauren drew the small gun he’d given her earlier. Ever so quietly, she pulled back on the top of the gun, chambering a round. Each tiny click and clack made her hold her breath.

Off came the safety.

She aimed the gun at the closet opening.

Listening.

Maybe it was him.

Maybe he’d eluded Steve and Kwon.

Gotten away.

And had only one thing on his mind.

Lauren.

Her thighs burned from squatting. The gun, small though it was, began to feel heavy in her hands. She wanted to put it down. She wanted to slump against the cool wall and rest for a moment.