Brian Freeman - The Night Bird

Fifty yards away, the footprints stopped. He saw furrows in the slope where someone had scrambled up the hill, clawing at the ground with hands and feet. Above him, he saw a moving shadow on the next terrace of the trail. He couldn’t see who it was.

Frost stayed beside the lake and found a switchback leading uphill from the water. He climbed on a soft trail of pine needles. Footing was treacherous on the wet slope, making him struggle to keep his balance. The storm closed in on him, as if the White Lady were unhappy with trespassers. Through the trees, lightning split across the sky, and a rolling, rumbling clap of thunder followed. A shower of leaves blew from the trees with the next gust of wind. Then another crack shot through the rain.

This one came from a gun.

Frost dove off the trail behind a thick redwood tree clinging to the slope. He didn’t know where the shot had come from, or how close it was. High above him, someone shouted. Two voices, back and forth. He squinted uphill, but it was too dark to see anyone. With his gun in his hand, he ran. As he did, another shot echoed across the hilltop.

Strawberry Hill leveled out at its summit into a patch of sawdust and picnic benches nestled inside the grove of trees. Where the land opened up, rain sheeted down to the wet ground, bringing a heavy scent of eucalyptus and pine. He crept onto the top of the hill and swung back and forth. The storm brought the forest to life. The evergreens around him were like tall black soldiers, and he glimpsed the dark panorama of the city through a web of branches. He took each step slowly. The wet ground sank under his feet.

“Darren Newman!” he shouted. “Todd Ferris! This is the police. I want to see both of you in the open with your hands up.”

The drumming of rain overwhelmed his voice, but he knew they could hear him. No one broke from the trees.

Frost stayed on the fringe of the hilltop and made a circle around the summit. Where a massive tree had been cut down, he caught a glimpse of the bay, but the eastern hills were invisible under the clouds. Blurry lights sprang up in the neighborhoods below him. His clothes were soaked. He was cold. He could barely see. With each footstep, he stopped and listened, trying to find a human noise hiding behind the roar of the downpour. If they were still here, the two men were silent, huddled in the protection of the woods.

It took him five minutes to circle the summit and arrive back where he started. He worried that he’d been lured here as a ruse and that both men had slipped back down to Stow Lake on one of the other trails. He holstered his gun. He slid his phone from his pocket to call Dr. Stein.

When he turned his back for a split second, he felt a rush of movement behind him.

Frost reached for his gun and spun around, but the back of his skull erupted into a fire of pain. His eyes burst with light and went black, and he sank to his knees and then pitched into the mud. Through the roaring in his ears, he heard shouting and pounding steps, but the noise went wildly up and down. He tried to stand. Dizziness screwed through his head like a spike, and he collapsed again. When he opened his eyes, the world was upside down.

Somewhere, far away, he heard another gunshot.

He crawled toward the slope. Mud and leaves covered his face, and lights exploded behind his eyes like pinpoint fireworks. His fingernails scraped at the bark of a redwood tree, and he used the tree trunk to pull himself to a standing position. He leaned against it, feeling the world spin as it righted itself. He could hear the two men on the hillside below him. They were getting away.

Frost pushed off from the tree and took a step down. His brain felt sucked up into the cyclone. He opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn’t say anything at all. Rain trickled down his back, but it wasn’t rain. He tasted metallic wetness on his fingers, and it was blood.

He felt himself falling sideways, with no way to stop it; he fell, hit the slope, and rolled. His body slid, spun, slammed against tree roots, and the hill carried him shoulder over shoulder to the dirt of the next trail fifty feet below him.

He landed hard, and he passed out.

Lucy sat by the window with a mug of tea. She leaned her head against the cold glass and watched the rain sweep through the street. A MUNI bus plowed down Haight like a ship slicing through ocean waves. Three teenage girls splashed through puddles on the sidewalk. Lights had come on in the other apartment buildings, and she could see people inside.

She felt anxious, as if she’d walked into a room and couldn’t remember why she’d come here. She had something important to do, but she had no idea what it was. She’d felt that way all day, and the rain didn’t help.

She was depressed about Frost rejecting her. He would have been the perfect man for a rainy night like this. He was funny and serious, mature and playful, handsome and boy next door. That was exactly what she’d always wanted and what she’d thought she would never find. She’d let herself hope there might be something between them, so it hurt to find out that he was looking for a sister, not a girlfriend. She still wanted him. It was easy to imagine him kissing her and making love to her, even if it was never going to happen.

Where was her life going? Nowhere.

Seven years on her own in San Francisco, and she still felt like a visitor here. The city overwhelmed her. There was too much of everything, and she found herself carried along, not choosing where to go. She wasn’t like Frost. Or Brynn.

Growing up in Modesto, she couldn’t wait to get out to the big world. Her parents lived in a boring suburb where girls became teachers and married guys who worked in banks or insurance companies. She’d wanted to escape all of that, but now it didn’t sound so bad.

There was a lot of sunshine in Modesto. There were no bridges.

She sipped her tea and thought again, I have something to do.

What?

Lucy peered down at the street below her window. The police car was still there, hammered by the rain. She’d met the officer inside, a woman about her own age named Violet Harris. Two hours earlier, Officer Harris had walked with her to the corner to get take-out coffee, and Lucy had bought her an almond — white chocolate scone. They talked about Macy’s and makeup, which was a strange conversation to have with a cop. When Lucy went back upstairs, Officer Harris told her to stop by the car if she needed anything. She’d be on duty until midnight, and then someone else would take over.

“I’ll have to use the back door to the alley,” Lucy murmured to herself.

She sat up sharply, almost spilling her tea. She had no idea why she’d said that or where the thought had come from. It just popped into her head.

Lucy got up and paced, unable to shake her restless, anxious feeling. Nothing felt right. Time barely moved. She didn’t want to put on music. She didn’t want to eat, because she wasn’t hungry. She turned on the television, despite Frost’s warning, but five minutes later, she turned it off. She wished he would come back, but she knew it might be hours before she saw him again. And even if he did come back, it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be what she wanted.

“This is stupid,” she told herself.

She reheated her tea and took it to the window to watch the black clouds slouch across the sky. The downpour sounded like fingernails tapping on the glass.

Luuuucy.

She spun around, stifling a scream. The mug slipped from her fingers and spilled. She’d heard a voice, but no one was there. The apartment was empty. She was alone in the silence. And yet the voice was in her head, as crystal clear as if someone were standing next to her.