Bentley Little - The Walking

"Liam? Sure. You want his card?"

"No, I want to ask you a few questions about him."

The man's expression shut down. What had been willing helpfulness became blank neutrality. "Sorry. Can't help you."

"I'm not a cop," Miles quickly explained. "I'm a private investigator.

I've been hired by Mr. Connor's daughter to investigate a possible stalker. Mr. Connor has apparently been followed and harassed recently, and his daughter is worded. I was wondering if he'd talked to you about any of this or if he'd mentioned any enemies that he might have."

"Liam?" The man let out a loud, gruffly obnoxious laugh that caused most of the browsers nearby to look in his direction. "Liam doesn't have an enemy in this world!"

Miles smiled thinly. "Apparently he does."

The laughter died. "Seriously? Someone's stalking him?" "We think so."

"Why? To... kill him?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. If you could just tell me whether he's talked to you about--"

"Wait a minute. Why are you asking me what he talked about? Why don't you ask him?" The man looked at Miles suspiciously. "You're investigating him, aren't you?" "No, I assure you, his daughter hired me--"

"His daughter's probably after his money or something." The man shook his head. "Nope. If Liam ain't talking, I ain't talking." He picked up the rag he'd placed on his lap and started polishing the small horn he'd been working on.

Miles knew better than to press the man, and he peeled off a card, dropped it on the blanket. 'ais is legit. Call Mr. Connor and ask him if you want. And if you think of some thing, give me a call."

The man just looked at him. He didn't reach down to pick up Miles' card, but he didn't tear it up either. Miles hoped that the man would keep it and change his mind.

Several other vendors knew Liam, and two of them were more than willing to talk, but neither of them seemed to have heard anything or noticed any unusual behavior on his part recently.

It was nearly three o'clock when Miles made his way dejectedly back out to the car. He knew no more now than he had when he'd first arrived.

The whole day had been a waste, and he wanted to just go home and take a nap. But instead he stopped by the hospital, and he held his father's hand and listened to his unintelligible whispers and lied to the old man that everything was going to be all right.

Derek Baur woke up knowing that he would die today.

He'd dreamed the night before about Wolf Canyon, and in the dream the people in the water had been his family: his parents, his sister, his brothers. He hadn't thought of Wolf

Canyon for year; decades, and that should have tipped him off that there was something amiss, but the premonition was not so logical, was not tied to a story line or a series of images or a specific dream scape. It was not something he had been told, not sOmething he had concluded or deducted. He just knew. And he was ready.

He'd turned eighty-six last March, and his wife, his friends, even his son, had all died years before. He was the last, and he had long since given up all pretense of interest in this life. There was no longer anything he enjoyed, nothing he looked forward to. Death was the only thing left.

How would it comes Derek wondered. Gently, in his sleep? Violently?

Or somewhere in the middle, like a heart attack or stroke?

He had given a lot of thought to the subject, and he had concluded that there was no pleasant way to die. In his midfifties he had almost choked to death on a piece of steak in a restaurant, before Emily had pounded him on the back and dislodged the obstruction in his throat.

Though the entire incident had lasted only a few seconds, to him it had felt interminable. Time was subjective, and he had realized ever since that while a death might be considered "quick" if measured objectively by the clock, to the victim it might seem to take forever.

So while he was ready to die, he did not relish the process. He rolled over, pulled open the drape. Outside, the Michigan landscape was covered with snow. In the rest home's parking lot, the cars looked like a row of igloos more than motor vehicles.

He was still staring out the window when Jimmy, the new attendant, brought in his breakfast. And he had not moved by the time the attendant returned to collect the tray and untouched dishes a half hour later.

"Not hungry, Mr. Baur? I'm gonna have to report you, yOU know."

Derek did not even bother to respond.

Why eat when he was going to die?

He would be glad to put an end to this existence. He was not mistreated here, but he hated the rest home, hated the indignity of it and the cold feeling of having paid caretakers rather than family sun'ounding him.

At least he could still get around---even if it was with the aid of a walker. Plenty of other residents in the home, many younger than himself, could not even get out of bed and were stuck full-time in their rooms.

He would have taken his life long ago if that had beth his situation.

Of course, most of those people didn't have any way to take their own lives.

He spent the morning staring out at the snow. Sometime before noon one of the doctors came in to speak with him-apparently Jimmy had made good on the threat to report him and since Derek was not in the mood for a lecture or lengthy discussion, he agreed with everything the doctor said and promised to eat his lunch. Jimmy returned soon after with a food tray, looking smug, and Derek ignored him. He ate his lunch and was once again silent as the attendant took the tray, leaving him alone. After a short, painful trip to the bathroom, Derek relocated himself to the room's chaff and spent the afternoon looking through magazines. Waiting.

He wondered how it was going to come.

There was no doubt in his mind that he would die today. He was not a religious man, but he knew there were things in this world that he did not understand Wolf Canyon

--that he would never understand, and he trusted the knowledge that had been supplied to him. He waited for death to arrive.

But sleep arrived before death and as the magazine slipped from his fingers, as he felt himself beginning to drop off, he wondered if he was going to wake up again or if this was it.

He did wake up. He awoke from another Wolf Canyon dream, one in which he was trapped in a house as the waters rose, his feet stuck to the floor as if they had been set in cement, resisting his efforts to pull them free and escape. He jerked awake just as he was starting to swallow water and drown.

He opened his eyes to see Joe, the night attendant, standing in front of him with a dinner tray. "Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Baur, but it's suppertime. You want to eat here at your chair today?"

Derek nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He was surprised to be alive, and for the first time he questioned whether his premonition was correct. Maybe he wasn't going to die yet. Maybe his mind was just going.

He picked at his food, then pushed the tray aside and, after another trip to the bathroom, settled back into his bed, staring out at the snowy landscape until he fell asleep.

The room was black when he awoke--pitch-black much darker than he had ever seen it--and he wondered for a moment if he had gone blind. The darkness was uniform, with no light anywhere, and only by reaching over to the nightstand, feeling for his watch, and pressing the button on the timepiece to illuminate the numbers, did he know he still possessed his sight.

He felt for the curtain, pulled it aside. He understood that the lights in the home were all off. But where were the lights outside?

The streetlamps were out and the house across the road was dark. There was no noon. It was as if every possible source of illumination--save for his watch--had been extinguished.