Brian Freeman - The Voice Inside

It was Shack.

The cat flew across the room. He leaped, landing squarely on Eden’s head, his front paws on her cheekbones. With claws fully extended almost an inch deep, he ripped eight deep gashes up her face and sliced through her eyeballs. Eden reared back with a guttural wail of anguish. Blood sprayed. The knife vanished from Frost’s neck as her arms flailed. With a wild lunge of her torso, Eden dislodged Shack like a rodeo rider, but simultaneously, Frost slammed a fist into her head and knocked her sideways. He was free.

He tried to stand, but the room spun, and his knees buckled beneath him. He crashed down again. Eden slashed at him with the knife, and the blade cut a deep, red laceration across the bare skin of his calf. His foot shot out; his heel booted her chin and kicked her backward. She toppled against a pedestal lamp, which fell, and the knife spilled from her hand.

Frost half crawled, half dragged himself across the room. The dining room table was a few feet away. His gun was on the table.

Behind him, Eden was on her feet again.

She had the knife.

He groped around the smooth wooden surface of the table. Papers flew. His laptop skidded off and dropped. Then he felt it. The metal barrel. His fingers spun the gun around until the grip nestled in his palm. He scooped it up and cocked it; then he collapsed onto his back and pointed the gun across the room.

“Stop!”

Eden charged with the knife high over her head. Her face was streaked with ribbons of skin; her eyes dripped blood like the ruby eyes of a devil. Frost aimed straight up at the ceiling and fired once, cascading plaster dust over the room.

“Eden, stop!” he shouted again.

But she came and came.

He heard the voice of Rudy Cutter.

If I gave you the chance right now, would you put a bullet in the head of the person who cut your sister’s throat?

Eden jumped. Her arm swung down; the knife hurtled toward his chest. He rolled away from the blade, but as he did, he fired twice more at point-blank range at the body cascading toward him.

One shot passed through her neck. The other shot drilled into her forehead.

She was dead as she hit the ground.

It was two weeks before Frost had any semblance of his life back. He was in the hospital. He was on television. He was in the interview room at headquarters, grilled by the review board that dealt with officer-involved shootings. By the end, he didn’t even know if he wanted his old life back, but finally, Captain Hayden gave him the all clear and told him he was a free man.

That was on a Friday night.

He arrived back on Russian Hill to find Herb waiting for him on the bottom step of the stairs that led up to his front door. His friend wore a white painter’s smock, which was smudged with a variety of colors of fresh paint, and overalls beneath it. His long gray hair had a shiny new set of beads tied into the braids. Frost hadn’t seen him since the shootings.

Herb got up, putting a hand on his aging hip to steady himself, as Frost pulled up to the garage. He slipped off the painter’s smock and embraced Frost with a smile and a look of relief.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Herb said.

“So are you.”

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Fine,” Frost said. “I’m fine.”

“Everyone’s inside. Act surprised.”

Frost smiled. “I will.”

“I made you a little gift,” Herb told him. The smell of paint was the only thing that outweighed the smell of pot on Herb’s clothes. “It’s not completely original, but I think you’ll like it.”

Frost followed his friend up the stairs. Herb had fashioned a makeshift curtain at the topmost step, and he swept it aside to reveal his latest creation. On the landing, Herb had painted one of his three-dimensional illusions that seemed to rise out of the stonework to guard the door. It was a scene stolen from The Lion King , with Simba as the new king standing atop Pride Rock, ruling over the animals gathered in the savannah below.

But Simba wasn’t the king of Frost’s front step.

It was Shack.

Frost laughed out loud. “Now, that just may be the best work you’ve ever done, Herb.”

Inside the house, the king greeted him. Shack didn’t understand all the attention he was getting — and he hadn’t appreciated the bath he’d had to have to wash off the blood in his fur — but he was happy to climb up to Frost’s shoulder and stay there as Frost acted surprised by the people waiting to greet him.

His parents had come back from Arizona again.

Several of his police colleagues were there.

So were a dozen family members of the victims.

Duane was there.

Tabby was there.

Frost didn’t like parties, but he put up with it throughout the evening. Everyone else needed this more than he did. They needed a chance to commune and grieve. They needed closure. Duane had made the food, which was amazing; Herb acted as bartender and poured the drinks. Robbie Lubin was an amateur guitarist and singer, and he played a version of “Hallelujah” that had everyone in tears. Frost had a few too many ales and felt the buzz.

It was dark and nearly midnight before people finally started to leave. They poured out to the street, mostly emptying the house. He said good-bye to Herb. He walked his parents to their rental car, and Ned clapped him in a hug and whispered, “Thank you.” Janice put both hands on Frost’s cheeks and said simply, “I love you.”

He didn’t think she’d ever said that out loud to him before. He’d always known his mother loved him, but they weren’t the kind of family who actually said it to each other. It was simply understood.

He liked hearing it.

When they left, he stood on Green Street by himself for a while. It was December. The trees shook their branches at him in the wind. Holiday lights adorned the windows. It made him think about Christmas as a kid and about coming downstairs before sunrise to find Katie sitting cross-legged in the living room in front of the tree, with her chin propped on her hands, staring at the blinking lights.

God, he missed her.

Frost went back inside. Duane and Tabby were still in the kitchen, doing the dishes, although Tabby couldn’t do much; her one arm was in a sling. He took another beer from the cooler and went out to the patio, where the city sparkled below him. Shack hopped up on the table and enjoyed the breeze. He leaned on the railing with his beer, and then he heard the glass door open and close behind him.

It was Tabby.

She came up beside him. Their skin brushed together. They were silent for a long time, in the cool darkness, letting San Francisco charm them. Eventually, he extended his beer bottle to her. He felt pleasantly high on the night.

“Want some?”

“Can’t,” Tabby said. “You know, shot. I’m still on drugs.”

“Oh yeah. I shot you.”

“Just a little,” she replied with a grin.

“Sorry.”

“Well, there’s the whole saving-my-life thing, too. You get points for that.”

“Thanks.”

Silence lingered easily between them again. Then he said, “Will you be back at work soon?”

“Not for a while. One-armed chefs aren’t too useful in the kitchen.”

“Right.”

Tabby turned around and leaned the other way. So did he. She closed her green eyes; her lips made a peaceful smile. Her chin tilted into the starlight. There was something magical about her in the daylight, but at night, she was perfection.

He was thinking things he couldn’t afford to think.

“So you and Duane,” Frost said.

“Yes, me and Duane.”

“You wanted to know if he was serious. I guess he answered that question for you.”