Accidental Evil (13 page)

He raised his foot high and then thrust it forward, connecting with the metal trash can. It rocked back from the blow. He thought he felt a little tingle through his shoe, but it insulated him well from the shock.

The trash can tipped slowly and went over. Gerard watched as it clanged to the path. The thing rolled a quarter turn—he expected it to roll downhill and pick up speed—but then it defied his expectations. The rounded top of the can began to rise back up, like the thing was putting itself upright again. One day at his mother’s church, a man had brought in one of those fancy two-wheeled scooters.
 
Once turned on, the thing had stood by itself. That was what the trash can looked like. Gerard figured it must have one of those “gyro-sensors” like the scooter—whatever that meant.

He pulled his foot back to kick the thing again, but didn’t get the chance.

Before he could thrust his foot a second time, the trash can disappeared.

Gerard spun around, looking for someone laughing at him. He was more convinced than ever that this must be a prank. He swept a foot out in front of himself as he walked around where he’d last seen the trash can. He couldn’t find anything. He leaned over and waved his arms around. His teeth were clenched as he expected to get zapped again. Still, he found nothing.

When he heard the buzzing sound, he folded his arms and smiled. Someone would show up and explain that the whole thing was being filmed. He glanced back at the cart and wondered if he should run. Would they be mad that he was trespassing? He shook his head and the smile returned to his face. He would be a good sport about the prank and they would be good sports about the trespassing. Maybe he would make it on TV or something.

As the buzzing grew louder, he pinned down a location. Whatever was making the sound was about to crest the hill. He tried to look casual—bored even—as the source of the sound appeared.

It wasn’t what he expected. The noise was being made by a little thing. It was no bigger than a cat. It had a tiny torso. Most of the bulk and the source of the buzzing was the movement of all the metal legs. It was a tiny robot, marching through the grass. He saw two more, and then another five behind that. They formed a V. Gerard focused on the one in front. He backed towards the golf cart and thought again about making a run for it.
 

He was still convinced that he was the butt of a joke.

Gerard moved slowly to the edge of the pavement where the things would cross the path. He crouched down so he could study the movement of their little legs. He had seen a robotic bug on TV or somewhere. On that thing, the legs had moved in two sets. Three legs would slide forward and then plant while the other three moved. These metal bugs were different. They had way more than six legs and they moved fast even though the progress of the bug wasn’t extraordinary. While he watched, the one in front rose up its front end and seemed to regard him with a set of three yellow lights, arranged in a triangle. He wondered if there was a camera there.
 

Gerard waved at the thing.

It stopped.
 

The robot bugs behind it kept moving. They fanned out to the sides. Soon, he was looking at a
 
curved line of bugs. They had formed a concave shape, focused on him, and there were even more of the things than he had thought. They had kept coming over the hill while he had focused on the one in front. He saw where they were moving and realized that soon they would flank him on either side.
 

Gerard stood up.

When he did, the little bugs reared up on their hind legs. Each had a triangle of lights. It seemed like they had risen up so each could focus their tiny lights on him. Again, he suspected that they had cameras. Someone was studying him through the cameras.

The smile disappeared from Gerard’s face. The disappearing trash can and robot bugs must have been some kind of security team. He nodded to himself—that was it. They had sensed an intruder. Someone was probably coming to arrest him for trespassing.
 

Gerard glanced back at the golf cart. It was on the wrong side of the line of robot bugs.
 

“You gotta catch me first,” he said.
 

He took one big step towards the arc of bugs and then launched himself into a jump. He laughed as he looked down. The bugs tilted so far back they they were falling over underneath him. He landed easily on the other side and turned to see them waving their legs uselessly, like little robot turtles.
 

The leader—the one in the center of the line—figured it out first. It stopped waving its legs at the air and simply rotated them down. It didn’t flip itself over, it merely inverted its operation. The little head flipped over and it might as well have been right-side up.

Gerard chuckled one more time and began to back away. He glanced back. There were woods back there. The robots wouldn’t stand a chance at chasing him through the woods, regardless of how quickly their metal legs moved.

The line began to straighten itself. The ones on the ends were skittering closer to him once more. Gerard shook his head. They were never going to be able to…

One of the bug robots jumped.

He saw it sailing through the air towards him and he had no control over his own reaction. Instinctively, he swatted at it. His hand caught the thing right in its center of gravity and batted it easily to the side. He looked at his hand as he backed away and revised his opinion. He batted
most
of it to the side. The thing had left sharp little legs embedded in his flesh.
 

His feet tangled and he nearly went down. As he stumbled to the side he saw another of the robot bugs flash by him. Its leap had been aimed at where he was before he tripped. Gerard didn’t waste any more time. He sprinted for the woods.

[ Flight ]

He jumped over a bush and looked back over his shoulder. He was deep into the woods. He couldn’t even see the open land of the golf course behind him anymore. His hand still ached. When he looked at it, he had a new appreciation for the stupid robot bugs.

A couple of pieces of metal were still sticking from his flesh. His hand twitched—the legs were shocking him. It wasn’t much power, but it was enough to make his muscles contract when they went off. He jerked the barbed legs from his hand, one by one. The ends had tiny hooks, like porcupine quills. Each of them took a little piece of his flesh as he tugged them out. He almost wanted to save one, as a souvenir of the attack, but they were too jagged.

He had a bright idea.
 

Gerard dumped the cigar out of the glass tube and used a stick to push one of the robot legs into the cigar case. He corked it and then crouched down. He heard a buzzing sound. It was different from the sound of the robot bugs, but he was all about caution now. They weren’t going to catch him unawares again.

When the buzzing seemed to be moving away, Gerard started running again. He headed downhill, thinking it would be the fastest way to the road. Fortunately, he was right.

He caught his breath and slowed to a jog when he saw the pavement. A car sped by and he burst through the bushes as it rounded the curve. Gerard oriented himself and verified which way was north by the position of the sun. He adopted a shuffling jog in the direction of his new home.
 

His clothes were filthy and he was covered in sweat. This wasn’t the best way to make a good impression on the homeowners, but he didn’t have much choice. All his clothes were in the house. He went around the back of the house, glancing through the windows to see if he could spot anyone. The coast looked clear.

Gerard glanced down at the back porch before he climbed the stairs. He stopped. There were three yellow lights in a little triangle peering out from the darkness under the stairs. Gerard blinked and inched closer.

Her whisper was angry. “What are you doing?”

Gerard looked up. His cousin, Trina, was leaning through the doorway.
 

“Get inside.”

Gerard nodded. For once, he was tempted to open up to his cousin. “Trina, you wouldn’t believe what I just…”

She cut him off. “Get inside before someone sees you.” She waved him through the door and began to push him towards the study. “If they think for one instant that you’re not stable, they will never let us stay here.”
 

She closed the door behind them.
 

“I
need
this, Gerard. They’re only going to be here the weekend. Until they’re gone, you don’t leave my sight, do you hear?”

Gerard nodded. The idea that he could tell her about the golf course security passed quickly. She wasn’t someone who might sympathize with him or listen with an open mind. She was another one of those stern authority figures who didn’t care about the world around them. They only saw things they could control and ignored everything else.

“Come to the kitchen while I work,” she said. She looked at him again and squinted while shaking her head. “No. Get changed and get cleaned up first, and then come to the kitchen. Don’t let anyone see you walking around like a homeless person.”

“Okay.”

“And put on some deodorant or something. You smell.”

“Okay.” He turned his eyes down towards the floor.

“No more walks until the Hazards are gone.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t even look at Lily. She’s afraid of you.”

Gerard nodded, hoping that she would stop.
 

She did. When she left the room, Gerard looked at his bag on the day bed and then walked to the window. It had a view of the side yard—he couldn’t see the back porch. He wondered about what might be there. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was keeping Trina happy enough so she didn’t send him away. He had been away before, and it wasn’t good. He would rather battle all the golf course security robots in the whole world than go away again.
 

Gerard went back to his bag to find fresh clothes. He tucked the cigar tube—his trophy from the robot encounter—into one of the bag’s pockets.
 

[ Work ]

J
ULY
4

V
ERNON
RAISED
his head and blinked at the sun. The light filtered through the trees, but it was still bright enough to wake him up. He almost always woke up when the sun hit his face. Years of conditioning couldn’t be cast aside in a few short months of working an office job. It was a good thing, too. Today he needed to be up early.

He slipped out from under the covers and tried to get off the bed without waking Mary.
 

She flopped over and squinted at him.

“What are you doing?”

“I have to go in,” he said.

“What?” She began to shift herself towards the wall, so she could prop herself up with the pillows. Vernon started collecting clothes for the day from his chest of drawers.

“Go back to sleep,” he said.
 

“What time is it? Vernon! It’s 5:15 in the damn morning. Where are you going?”

“I said I would take Edgar’s shift so he could go visit his father today. It’s the Fourth of July.”

“I know what damn day it is. Why would an office worker take a shift on the logs?”

“Because his father is a veteran. The Fourth means something to him.”

“Let him visit on Memorial Day for Christ’s sake,” Mary said.

“Go back to sleep. I’ll be back by noon,” Vernon said. He gathered his pile of clothes and headed towards the bathroom.

“You come straight to the gazebo then,” Mary called. “Don’t you dare miss Ricky’s show. And don’t forget, 270 will be closed by eleven.”

Vernon grunted a response. He would have forgotten—it was a good thing she had reminded him. They closed 270 early so they could get all the cars off the road for the parade.

He made quick work of getting ready, and grabbed the cold hamburger that Mary had wrapped in foil. In Vernon’s opinion, there was no better breakfast than coffee and a cold hamburger. He liked the way the hot coffee cut through the congealed grease.
 

This early in the morning, he was able to take the main drag instead of sticking to back roads. Coming home, he would have to do the opposite—the main drag would be closed for the parade.

Vernon missed working the early shift. With an extra cup of coffee and a little willpower, the early shift was like getting an extra half-day every day. He used to work from five-thirty until two and got home in time to putter around the house or take the kids out fishing. And he missed how quiet the mornings were. The road was abandoned and his truck cut through the patchy fog that had settled in the low places.

Aside from the higher pay and clean hands, there was almost nothing better about having an office job. Office people didn’t laugh out loud, didn’t shoot the shit, and didn’t get to work off their extra energy by throwing wood around. He missed it.

Vernon saw a deer poking her head out between the leaves on the side of the road. He automatically slowed down to a crawl. It wasn’t the deer you could see that was dangerous. They always seemed to bound across the road in little groups. While you focused on one…

Vernon was right. Three deer jumped out from the bushes and bounded across the road. He smiled at their frantic, clumsy running.
 

He was still inching along, waiting to see if more deer would spring out, when he heard the horn. Vernon’s eyes jumped to his rearview mirror in time to see the headlights emerge from the fog behind him. His foot stomped down on the accelerator and he jerked the steering wheel to the right.
 

The headlights veered the other direction and Vernon heard the squealing tires. He waited for impact. It didn’t come from the rear. His car slipped off the road and dropped into the gully next to the pavement. The fender of his old truck scraped against the brush as he settled into the ditch. He turned to see the other car lurch around him like a drunken man stumbling across a dance floor. Vernon sucked in a breath as the car swerved back and almost clipped him with its rear bumper.