See Tom Run (2 page)

“I will.”

Tom went to the closet, took out his coat and gloves
then left through the side door. The snow was coming down hard and
it looked like Columbus was finally going to get its first blizzard
of the season.

Excellent, Tom thought. It was about time.

He got in and started the engine then grabbed the ice
scraper lying on the back seat floorboard. He went about the task
of clearing the windshield and windows, taking his time as he did
so. The frigid air felt good and he was in no particular hurry to
get back to the others.

As he backed the Jeep Laredo out of the driveway, Tom
found himself pondering his present dilemma. He had in fact been
thinking about it the entire day—dismayed to discover that even the
euchre game had failed to relieve the incessant nagging
thoughts.

Was he doing the right thing? Or should he tell Frank
the whole ball of wax and let fate take over from there?

“Yeah, right.” he breathed out loud.

Face it, Grayson—this is a no-brainer!

He reached the supermarket and pulled into the
parking lot. The Jeep’s interior was still uncomfortably frigid so
he left the engine running, hopped out and pressed the lock button
on the key remote.

Once inside the neighborhood market, Tom began
searching for the soft drink section. Although he’d been here
countless times, he couldn’t recall where it was. He stopped
agonizing over his thoughts long enough to walk the entire length
of aisles, peering down each one until he finally located the
beverage section near the far end of the store.

Tom picked up a liter of Seven Up and headed toward
the checkout lanes. He paused at the cigarette counter long enough
to pick up Julie’s Marlboros then joined the throngs of people
waiting in line. It was obvious that New Year’s Eve was just around
the corner when he observed the enormous amounts of wine, champagne
and beer piled up in the carts.

As the thought of New Year’s Day entered his mind,
Tom considered it’s profound symbolism. If he were to do what he
should morally do, this New Year would mark the beginning of a
whole new life for him: the end of his comfortable existence with
his wonderful wife and kids in their quaint but beautiful home in
suburban Worthington, and the likely termination of his job as art
history professor at Capital State College. And to think that he
had just received tenure this year …

His turn came and Tom paid the cute young cashier
with his check card and headed for the exit. He sneezed loudly
along the way and cursed his sinuses—how long had it been since
he’d been able to smell or taste anything? What he had once thought
was a head cold had now become full blown sinusitis. Peg was
pushing him to see a doctor about it and he had to admit he was
getting tired of not being able to breathe half the time. Maybe
he’d go have it checked out after all, he resolved dismally.

The snow was coming down hard now—in fact it was a
full-blown blizzard. Tom could barely make out his Jeep parked just
twenty yards away.

He got in and stared out at the driving snowstorm.
Instead of pulling away, he sat there mesmerized by the wintry
scene and resolved that he must come to a definite decision about
Tracy Adams. He already knew what the answer would be, but the
moral aspect continued tugging at him hard, making it difficult to
fully and unequivocally commit to it.

Unfortunately, the fact that Tracy was pregnant with
his child wasn’t the only issue here—as if that weren’t enough.

He had to consider the other person involved in this
as well—the poor black girl who had been dumped off in the alley
over a month ago. Tom learned from Frank, who was a trial lawyer,
that the young woman had in fact been abducted and raped but had no
clear memory of what her assailant looked like. The police were
looking for anyone who may have possibly seen the woman’s attacker
or his vehicle on the night of the crime.

This had really thrown Tom for a loop. And as guilty
as he felt about not coming forth with any info for the police, he
was still too paranoid to even consider getting involved in the
investigation.

Once it became public knowledge that the police still
had no leads in the case, Tracy started calling Tom on a daily
basis to update him on her pregnancy and beg him to go with her to
the police station to report what they had witnessed.

But Tom didn’t want to hear any of this. He just
wanted everything to go away.

A week ago, apparently fed up with his noncommittal
attitude toward their unborn child and the rape case, Tracy gave
him an ultimatum. If he didn’t take responsibility for his actions,
she would go to the police by herself and give her account of what
they had seen that night. She assured Tom that she would keep him
out of the picture, so he needn’t worry about being involved. She
would have their baby all by herself, without any involvement from
him whatsoever, and he would never be allowed to see their child or
be a part of its life.

In essence, she was telling him that he would be off
the hook.

Tom could hardly believe what he was hearing—he was
absolutely elated. For not only would he get out of having to
testify in a court case, he wouldn’t have to worry about his little
secret ever being found out. All would be good again!

Or so he thought.

His conscience was gnawing away at him. The girl
obviously loved him and her feelings were hurt. Although that
certainly wasn’t his fault—he’d made it clear to her all along that
he loved his wife and would never leave her—it nevertheless wasn’t
making him feel any better about this.

But the clincher was that Tracy still hadn’t gone to
the police in all of this time. Her threat of reporting the
incident had just been a bluff—a last ditch effort to heap the
maximum amount of guilt on him in hope that he would relent. She
wasn’t going to go to the police unless he accompanied her—that
much he was certain of now.

So in essence, the burden of dealing with this whole
mess fell on his shoulders.

Damn!
he
thought. If only he had never accepted the girl’s offer to go out
for “an innocent beer” that day. None of this would have ever
happened. But he had let her incessant flirting win him over and
make him forsake the first cardinal rule of teaching: never get
personally involved with a student. And now he was paying the price
for allowing the ill-fated May-December romance to go on as long as
it had—

Tom’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the
absolute fury of the raging storm that was now obscuring virtually
all visibility outside the Jeep. Knowing that Peg and the others
would be concerned, he threw the gearshift lever into drive and
carefully pulled out of the supermarket parking lot.

He kept his speed at around 20 miles per hour as he
deftly navigated the Jeep over the snow-covered roads through the
blinding frenzy. Ten minutes later, he pulled into his driveway and
parked. Clutching the grocery bag, he got out and headed for the
side door.

The first thing he noticed when he entered the house
was that the laundry room light was not on. Glancing over at the
light switch, he saw that it was in the ‘on’ position, yet the
fluorescent ceiling light was out cold. Odd.

Then he noticed the deadly silence.

The kids had been noisy all afternoon while at play
in the living room. Perhaps they were back in the family room with
the adults.

He entered the kitchen. The lights were out. The
light switch was on.

The storm must have killed the power, he thought. He
removed the liter of Seven Up from the bag and took Julie’s
cigarettes with him into the dark living room. As he neared the
family room, he could feel his heart beating faster as the
overwhelming silence began to register full tilt.

When he entered the family room, he was utterly
shocked at what he discovered—

Not a soul was in sight. The card table was just as
it had been before he left—the playing cards strewn around in
random stacks, the half empty bowl of chips sitting near the center
and everyone’s drinks, including Peg’s half finished daiquiri,
sitting there among the rings on the tablecloth. Three of the
chairs were pulled away from the table about the distance they
would be if they were occupied. When he noticed this, Tom felt the
hair stand up on the back of his neck.

It was as if they had all vaporized.

Then he chuckled to himself nervously. Surely this
was some kind of gag. A little pre-New Year’s prank dreamed up no
doubt by Frank, the perennial jokester. That had to be it!

Tom decided to play along.

“Here are your coffin nails, Julie,” he announced to
the empty room. “Oh, imagine that! The damn things must have
already killed you and your cancer-ravaged body has been carted off
to the morgue. Oh well, I guess I better find out where everyone
else is and let them know that we need to start making your funeral
arrangements.”

Half expecting someone to suddenly run out from
behind the furniture and reveal their cover, Tom quickly turned
around. Nothing. Then he headed through the living room to the
stairs leading to the second floor. Most likely they would all be
hiding up there somewhere, he thought. He took the stairs at a
leisurely pace, giving everyone adequate opportunity to hide
themselves. He could almost see the kids, Kelli in the lead,
jumping out from behind her parents’ king size bed and screaming
bloody murder to scare the mortal shit out of him.

He tiptoed to the master bedroom door and opened it
slowly.

“Anybody in here?” he said.

He walked past the dresser over to the bed and sat
down in it. He fell onto his back and peeked over the edge on the
far side. Not a soul.

“Hmm. I wonder if there’s anyone in the closet.”

He got up, went over to the walk-in closet and opened
the door.

“Gotcha!” he cried, his arms outstretched like a
ghoul.

But there was nothing but clothes and dark, muffled
silence inside.

Tom closed the door and felt his senses sharpen as he
left the bedroom and headed down the hall to the kids’ rooms. He
now realized that his theory was ludicrous — the notion that Peg,
Frank, Julie and the three kids had all gotten together while he
was gone and decided to play hide and seek just didn’t float. It
simply didn’t seem realistic, especially given the fact that the
power was off, which the snowstorm had apparently prompted.

Unless they had decided to trip the circuit breaker
themselves, which would be less likely and even more ridiculous.
Peg, in her typical level—headed way of running the house, would
never have allowed that to happen for such a cheap thrill.

He went to Kelli’s bedroom and peeked in. The room
was shrouded in semi-darkness but it was clear that nobody was
there. He went over to Tyler’s bedroom and discovered the same.

The basement was his last shot. Annoyed and put off
now by this whole farce, Tom went back downstairs and headed for
the basement door located near the entrance to the kitchen. When he
opened it, all he saw was absolute darkness. He went to one of the
kitchen counter drawers and found a mini Mag-Lite, switched it on
and trained the beam on the stairs as he made his descent.

The basement was little more than a large storage
room and a place for the rarely used Brunswick pool table. There
was also a half-bath and a small area that Tom used as a darkroom
for his photography. It took only thirty seconds to determine that
the basement was unoccupied.

The silence was intense as Tom went over to the
circuit box panel and opened it. He shined the light on the breaker
switches and saw that all of them, including the main switch, were
on.

So there had indeed been a power failure.

So where the hell is everybody?

Tom closed the panel and went back upstairs, taking
two steps at a time. He could now feel his pulse pounding like a
drum in his neck as he realized that he was experiencing a keen
sense of dread. His wife, kids and close friends were
gone—seemingly evaporated from the house!

Coats! He thought. If they had left the house, they
surely would have worn their coats.

He ran over to the hallway closet and gazed inside.
He saw Frank’s gray wool coat and Julie’s blue parka along with
their kids’ winter coats.

Tom’s sense of dread now became absolute fear.

In a panic, he ran over to a window and peered out at
the street. As expected, he saw Frank and Julie’s gray Chevy Tahoe
still parked along the curb out front—he recalled seeing it there
when he’d returned from the supermarket. He ran over to the front
door and stepped out onto the porch. He looked up and down the
street as far as could see and noticed that all of the lights in
the houses were out, as were the streetlights.

The phone! He thought. He would call the power
company and find out what the deal was with this power outage.

But first he would call the police.

He ran back inside and picked up the phone. There was
no dial tone. Recalling that the cordless phones didn’t work when
the power was off, he ran into his study and picked up the old
analog office phone on his desk. It was dead as a doornail.

He located his cell phone in his briefcase and booted
it up. The sound of the welcoming chime was music to his ears. Now
he could finally get to the bottom of all of this.

He stared at the LCD and awaited the welcome screen
to come on. When it did, he noted that there were no signal bars
showing up as he keyed in 911 and brought the phone to his ear.
Nothing but pure silence. He tried again. Nothing.

“Shit!”

Now he was absolutely mystified. There was no power,
no phone service and no sign of his family or friends. He stared at
the phone a few seconds then flipped it shut and shoved it into his
back pocket.