Fishing in Brains for an Eye with Teeth (Thirteen Tales of Terror) (30 page)

Faith asked him, “What’s wrong, Frank?”

“Nothing.  I’m just tired,” he said, thinking,
I’m on my own
.

Sitting across the table from his family, Frank had never felt so alone in his life. 

            ******

Frank made arrangements to take the afternoon off.  His boss wasn’t happy about it, but Frank lied and said there was a problem with Bobby at school.

The first thing he did when he left work was drive home and hurry straight upstairs to the attic.  He located his gun, a .380 caliber double-action Beretta.  He hadn’t fired the weapon in years, not since Bobby was born.

After grabbing a sandwich, Frank drove by the place where his wife worked, just to make certain her car was there.  It was.

He then went to a gun shop, where he purchased four boxes of ammunition and a holster he could wear just above his ankle.  Frank spent the better part of two hours on a gun range practicing shooting.

After driving again by Faith’s place of employment, Frank headed home.

He found himself looking in the rearview mirror a lot.  He was more than a little paranoid about being followed.

At home, Frank put on a baggy sweat suit, with string-tied pants that were two sizes too big for him, so that he could hide his pistol in his ankle holster.

Over dinner that night, the boys were talking about U.F.O.s again.  Teenagers were still going out at night to stare up at the stars.

And, as usual, Faith was worried about Annie.  Again.  Still.

Frank’s mind was a million miles away.  

He couldn’t believe he was secretly wearing a gun.

Even more astonishing was the notion that he would probably have to use it.

He had no intention of being murdered by the hit man who had been hired by his wife. 

            ******

At night, as he lay down to sleep, all the fears he successfully suppressed during the day came bubbling to the surface.

Faith slept on the left side of the bed.  He slept on the right.  Each of them had their own nightstand.  The door to the bedroom was also on the right, on Frank’s side.

When he lay down, Frank tucked the pistol under his side of the bed.  It wasn’t an ideal place to stash it but, in an emergency, he would be able to access it quicker there than if it was inside the drawer of his nightstand.

Faith fell asleep long before he did.

Frank tossed and turned.

I’m
so
tired!  I’m going to be useless at work tomorrow
.

He kept remembering how the gun felt in his hands when he was firing it.

He couldn’t sleep at all.     

Four hours after Faith fell asleep, Frank was still awake.  His wife rolled onto her back.  After a deep sigh, she murmured, “Sweetheart!”

Agitated, upset, incredibly weary, Frank glared at Faith as she said, “You worry too much.”

His heart seethed when he saw his wife was smiling.

Faith said, “It’s all set for Friday night.  Once the bastard’s asleep, I’ll slip downstairs.  The hit man— I know!  I know how crazy it sounds for me to call him that but I’m
not
going to tell you his name, just in case something goes wrong!”

How considerate of you, darling.

“The hit man will be waiting for me.  I’ll let him in and then go into the kitchen, where I’ll spill a gallon of milk on the floor.  Then I’ll hide in the basement while . . .”

While the hit man sneaks upstairs and murders me
.

“Yeah.”

Frank shuddered. 
Friday
, he thought.
  The day after tomorrow
.

Faith talked rapidly, breathlessly, “After it’s done, he’ll tear the place up.  I told him to take anything he wants, anything of value.  We’ll rip all the pictures off the walls to make it look like he was trying to find a safe.  Basically, I’ll help him trash the place.  Then I’ll give him the rest of the money.  I’m not a total idiot.  So far I’ve only given him half of what I owe him.  He’ll get the rest Friday night.  I converted most of the money to Traveler’s Checks.

“The minute he leaves, he’s headed to the airport.  He’ll take whatever flight is available to whatever destination is available.  Then the next day, he’ll catch a flight to Germany.”

Germany!
  “Great.”  With no amusement at all, Frank thought,
She hired a
Nazi!

Faith continued, “There’s no phone in the basement,” Frank thought,
No, there’s not
, “so that will account for a short wait before I call the cops.  I’ll claim I wasn’t certain the murderer had left.  Finally, after I’ve given the hit man a decent head start, I’ll call the police.”

“Good Lord!” said Frank.  Hearing her describe his murder made it vividly real in his mind.

“I’ll tell the police I had a bad dream that woke me up.  The kids will back me up on that.  I’ve woken them up a lot lately with my nightmares.”

Frank shook his head. 
Actually, there was only that
one
time but that certainly made an impact on the boys.  Particularly Bobby.

“No way!  The kids will be gone that night.  I’d never subject
them
to all this.  It’s going to be hard enough on
me
when they make me identify his body.”

Bitterly, Frank thought,
Imagine how
I’m
going to feel!

It was spooky how calm Faith sounded, “I’ll say I was getting a drink in the kitchen when I heard gunshots.  I’ll say I panicked at that point and hid in the basement.  I’ll claim to have heard the guy ransacking the house.  I’ll say I didn’t hear him leave.

“Finally, I’ll claim after I waited a while to make certain he was gone, I came upstairs and called out but got no answer.  I want my reaction to be
raw
when they take me to see the body.  It’s going to be
awful
, I know, I
dread
it,”
Not half as much as I do
, thought Frank, “but I really think it will work.”

Frank thought it probably
would
work . . . if she hadn’t just told him the plan.

“The kids will be crushed, of course, but they’re young.  They’ll get over it.”

Gooseflesh prickled Frank’s arms.  Of all the things he’d heard Faith say in her sleep, that was the most chilling.

“I haven’t even thought about the funeral yet.  I don’t want to.  The less prepared I seem, the better.  I want it to look like this hit me like a bolt from the blue.”

That’s the way I feel, darling
.

Her final comment tonight was, “Only a few more days.  Then it’ll all be over.”

Then you’ll be free to start a new life.

Without me.

Suddenly, Frank was on the verge of tears.  He hadn’t cried in ten years, not since his father died.  He rolled out of bed and rushed into the bathroom, where he closed the door and began to weep. 

Over and over he remembered Faith saying,
“
The kids will be crushed, of course, but they’re young.  They’ll get over it.
” 

            ****** 

The next night, Thursday night, as Frank lay awake in bed, waiting for his wife to dream, he held his gun in his hands, clasped against his chest.

Tonight Faith had very little to say in her sleep.  She announced, “Tomorrow night’s the night.  Pray for me.”

Pray for me? 
“Pray for me?”  Hearing that made him absolutely furious.  Glaring at Faith in the dark, he thought,
Since when have you ever in your life ever asked anyone
to pray
for you?  You’re an
agnostic,
honey.  It’s one of the reasons I married you!

“Pray for me,” he grumbled bitterly.

Obviously, this was more nonsense she’d gotten from her lover.

Frank was tired of this.

Tomorrow night, it ended, one way or another.

When the hit man came to his house, Frank would be waiting.  He would kill the bastard who took Faith’s money as payment for taking Frank’s life.  He would shoot him the minute he walked through the door.  He would treat him like an uninvited vampire.

Afterwards, before involving the police, he was going to ask Faith some questions.

Like who the hell her secret lover was.

One way or another, he would get some answers. . . .

Tomorrow night
. 

            ******

Friday began as expected.  Frank learned Blake was staying at Howie’s tonight and Bobby was again spending the weekend with Faith’s parents.

Frank’s work day was brutal.  He was bleary with exhaustion.  He couldn’t remember when he last got a good night’s rest.  He spent the morning in a daze and the afternoon fighting his eyelids.

When Frank arrived home after work, Faith was waiting for him.

Grimly, she told him, “We need to talk.”

“What
now?
”

“Sit down, honey.”  She pleaded, but without any of the whining she exhibited in her sleep, “Please.”

Warily, Frank took a seat across from his wife. “What’s up?”

She hesitated, biting her lower lip.  She took one of Frank’s hands and squeezed it.  “I can’t take it anymore.  I need to talk to you about something.”

“
I can’t take it anymore.” 
He thought,
Weren’t those the first words I ever heard you say in your sleep? 
As he did that first night, Frank asked, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Annie.”

“Annie? 
Again
with Annie?”  He was too tired for this crap.

“Just listen, okay?  I know you aren’t going to believe any of this.  I’m crazy to even tell you but I just really need to talk to
somebody
.”  There were tears in her eyes again.  He couldn’t believe it.  “I’m having a really hard time dealing with this alone.”

Will you just spit it out? 
“What’s going on, Faith?”

“I guess I should just say it.”  Faith took a deep breath.  “I think Annie might have been abducted by aliens.”

He knew she meant extraterrestrials and not illegal Mexicans.  Already tired and flustered, he was now rendered speechless.

“Let me tell you what happened.”  Faith looked down, breaking eye contact.  “About a month ago, Annie took her kids to visit her mother for the weekend.  Her mom lives way out in the country.  Annie was driving home alone when she saw these strange lights in the sky.  She’s not the only one that’s seen them, you know.  A whole
bunch
of people have seen them.  The next thing Annie is aware of is arriving back home.  She discovered she had some strange bruises she couldn’t explain.  Worse, she couldn’t account for about three hours of time.  She arrived home much later than she should have.  She was a little disturbed about the lost time but she eventually just went to bed and forgot about it.

“Then, a few days later, she started having nightmares, and strange pains.  She’s afraid all the time, afraid of shadows, afraid something is hiding in the dark.  Remember when I said I thought something traumatic happened to her?  Well, at that time, I thought maybe she’d been attacked on the way home from her mom’s and then repressed the memory of it.”

Frank blurted out, “But now you think she’s been abducted by extraterrestrials?”

Faith sighed.  “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

“My God, Faith!”  He snapped, “A couple bumps and bruises doesn’t mean—”

“There’s more.”

“What?”  He didn’t have any patience for this.  It was nonsense, particularly in light of the fact that someone was planning on killing him tonight.

“Remember her surgery?”

“Yeah.  What about it?”

“They found something.”

“Found
what
?”

“That’s just it.  They don’t know.  It’s some kind of
shard
. . . almost like a piece of crystal, like glass, only it isn’t.” Faith shook her head.  “They don’t know what it’s made of or how it got there.”

“Got
where
?”

“In her
neck
.  At first, the doctors were frightened it could actually
kill
her, it was so close to her spinal cord.”

Frank shook his head.  “That’s crazy.  How did it
get
there?”

Faith shrugged.  “Nobody knows for sure but. . .”

“Annie thinks E.T. put it there.”

“Actually, no.  Annie’s in denial.  Annie made a little progress when she went to the psychiatrist I took her to but then she just quit going.”  Faith sighed with exasperation. “Annie thinks
Stan
is her biggest problem.”

Frank squealed, “So
you’re
the one who thinks she was abducted by aliens?”     

Faith became snappish, “Whether you believe it or not, it makes sense!  I’ve done some research on this and what’s happening to Annie fits a
pattern
.  Do you realize how many people report being abducted every year?”

Frank rolled his eyes.  “Do you realize how many people report Bat-boy sightings every
month
?”

Getting to her feet, her face clenched, Faith says, “I knew it was a mistake talking to you.”

“So why
did
you bring this up
now
, darling?  Huh?” 
Is this all some kind of Red Herring to distract me?
   “If this has been going on for
weeks
, why are you just now bringing it up?”

“Never mind.  Just forget it.”

Crying, Faith fled the room.         

Angry, Frank let her go. 

            ******

He had never been so nervous, so keyed up, while simultaneously so exhausted.

Faith went to bed early.

Frank waited a while, and then finally went to bed about 11:00.

He held his loaded Beretta to his chest, pulling his covers up to hide it.  For a long while he just stared at the ceiling, his heart beating fast.

Faith was already breathing the soft breaths of slumber.

Frank turned on his side, facing the closed door to their bedroom, his pistol still tightly gripped beneath the covers.

For the next ninety minutes, he didn’t feel the slightest bit tired.  He squirmed, wanting to turn over on his other side but he remained always facing the door.