Allan Leverone - Mr. Midnight

Out of the corner of her eye, Cait saw Kevin’s fingers flex once and then he straightened his body quickly, lifting the chair as he did so. He pivoted and took one long step toward Milo, uncoiling like a baseball pitcher striding toward home plate. He whipped the chair in a sideways arc, head-high, as Milo swiveled toward the oncoming danger.

Virginia cried out in surprise, her grunt muffled by the duct tape, and Milo flinched, leaning away from the makeshift weapon as it whistled through the air. Kevin seemed to have planned for that reaction, though, as the chair’s trajectory was taking it to a point behind the monster with the knife. By reacting as he had, Milo was effectively backing directly into the danger.

Time seemed to slow from Cait’s perspective. She watched for what felt like an eternity as the heavy wooden chair flew through the air, eventually crashing into Milo’s body. His reflexes were surprisingly quick, and he ducked his head out of harm’s way, lifting his shoulder and turning, taking most of the blow on his back. The chair shattered, the seat and legs falling to the floor where they thudded into the corner of the room, the seat-back exploding, sending dozens of wooden projectiles flying around the room.

Milo tumbled, falling in a shower of splinters. The force of the blow ripped the knife from his hand and it clattered across the varnished floor, sliding like a hockey puck on an ice rink. Cait screamed as Milo rolled, reaching for the knife, his hands and feet scrabbling for purchase on the slippery hardwood.

Kevin fell to the right, off-balance after striking the blow. He dropped to one knee, almost tumbling onto his side; then he put his right hand to the floor and pushed off hard, launching himself in the other direction. He took one long stride in an effort to leap over Milo’s scuttling form, desperate to beat him to the knife, and his foot slid out from under him and he crashed in a heap in the exact spot Milo had occupied seconds ago.

He wasn’t going to make it. Cait could see he wasn’t going to make it. She realized only now that she should have been halfway to the knife already. She swore at herself and stood, far too late to make a difference now but wanting to do something to help her fiancé, although she had no idea what to do.

Kevin lunged, crawling over Milo and diving for the knife. His fingertips grazed the handle but then Milo snatched it away as Kevin crashed again to the floor. Then the lunatic rose to his knees and half turned. He raised his arm sideways and in a slashing motion, buried the knife up to the handle in Kevin’s chest.

Blood gushed thickly, soaking Kevin’s shirt. Cait heard another scream and she realized it was coming from her. She took a step toward her injured boyfriend and Milo yanked the knife out of Kevin’s body, sensing the approaching danger. He took a backhanded slash at her without even looking and she pulled up short as the deadly blade whizzed past, droplets of Kevin’s fresh blood splattering her blouse in a delicate pattern.

“Sit down!” Milo screamed. “Sit down!” Cait did as he said. She had no idea what else to do. She backed toward the couch, watching Kevin, desperate to help him, wondering how badly he was hurt. She was still screaming. She thought she might never stop screaming. The backs of her calves struck the upholstered cushions and she fell heavily onto her butt.

Kevin rolled onto his side, clutching his injured chest, and then, incredibly, pushed off the floor to take another shot at Milo. The moment he removed his hands from the deep wound, blood pulsed out. It was bright red, running like a river, and Cait realized with horrifying clarity that there was a very real chance she was watching her boyfriend die.

Milo turned back toward Kevin, raising the knife and slashing at him again in a quick, panicked motion, before relaxing as he took in the sight of the badly injured man. Kevin stopped and clamped his hand over the knife wound in a vain attempt to stanch the bleeding but succeeded only in soaking his palms with his own blood. He swayed on his feet and began moving again, shuffling grimly toward Milo.

Milo laughed, the sound grating and unexpected after the events of the last few seconds. He stepped forward and shoved Kevin backward and Kevin pinwheeled his arms weakly, the blood once again welling up and out of his chest the moment he removed his hand from the wound. Kevin stumbled once, tripping over the smashed chair seat, then crashed heavily to the floor, the back of his head bouncing off the polished hardwood with a loud Crack!

Kevin blinked once, twice, three times. He shook his head. He rolled onto his stomach, gravity increasing the effect of the stab wound, causing the blood to flow even more heavily. He pushed himself onto his knees, eyes glazed from pain and shock. Then they rolled up into his head and he tumbled face-first onto the floor and lay still.

And Cait screamed again.

Boredom was the part of police work that Hollywood never seemed able to capture in their silver screen portrayals of law-enforcement officers. Or, more likely, they could capture it, they just didn’t want to. Rico Petralli figured that was probably it. After all, who wanted to pay twelve bucks a ticket, not including highway robbery charges for snacks and drinks, just to watch bored cops drive around all day in their cruisers busting teenage punk gangbangers and rousting smelly homeless guys from park benches? Moviegoers wanted to see car chases and flinty-eyed detectives and gun battles, Rico figured. He certainly did when he went to the movies.

But the fact of the matter was real police work involved mind-numbing boredom, hours of it, day after day, much more often than it involved car chases or flinty-eyed detectives doing anything besides sipping bitter coffee on stakeouts. Certainly more than it involved gun battles. Rico had been an Everett cop going on four years now and had never once fired his weapon in anger.

So when the Granite Circle call came in—an old lady worried about her neighbor—he shook his head wearily. He was only a quarter-mile away, closer than anyone else, which meant that he had no choice but to respond. He hated these types of calls—“Is everything all right, ma’am? Are you sure, ma’am?”—even more than most. They represented not just boredom, but awkwardness as well.

Rico knew he would have to explain that the next-door neighbor—who had undoubtedly been peeping out her bedroom window—was concerned and had been sticking her nose into business that wasn’t hers. The “intruder” would end up being a visiting relative who had shown up unexpectedly or something. Rico sighed and shook his head wearily.

Boredom.

Rico’s day hadn’t been all that great to begin with, and was undoubtedly about to get just a little worse. He pulled into Granite Circle, struck by the absolute stillness of the neighborhood. There didn’t seem to be a single person around, which was silly. There had to be at least one—the citizen who had gotten a glimpse of something that had made her nervous and called it in.

He scanned the numbers on the fronts of the houses and eased to a stop behind a Buick parked in the driveway at Seven Granite Circle. He reached down and picked his hat off the seat next to him and placed it on his head, turning off the cruiser’s engine and climbing out of the vehicle reluctantly. Something was not right. Something was…off. It took a moment for him to figure out what that might be, and then it struck him like a sledgehammer.

The place was quiet. Too quiet, as the cliché went.

The house was graveyard-still. The silence was unnerving. It was deathly.

Rico climbed the stairs and pressed the doorbell and waited, his right hand resting on the butt of his service revolver. For a long time nothing happened, and he began to wonder if he had gotten the address wrong. He looked around. The neighborhood remained quiet and still.