The Soul Hunter (5 page)

Early Sunday morning, these creatures return to their dens and hibernate their hangovers away.

Which meant the parking lots this morning were full. Completely.

Southern Methodist University is a private university. An expensive private university. When I drive onto the campus, I’m always struck by the vast gap between my income level and those of my students. I work there, but I could not afford to attend my own classes. I have more in common financially with the janitors, in point of fact.

The cars I was passing were late model BMWs, Land Rovers, Mercedes. I drive a pickup. A crummy 1972 Ford pickup that I
bought for seven hundred dollars. It needs a new muffler, so it has all the delicate engine whir of a dump truck. The bench seat is cracked, patched with duct tape, and lets out a mighty squeak every time I hit a bump in the road. The paint is a nondescript shade that used to be brown, I think. And there is nothing automatic about it. Not the windows, the locks, or the transmission. It’s three-on-the-tree, stiff clutch and all.

I love my truck. I have sort of a twisted sense of pride in that truck.

I cruised the lot, circling several times before I finally found a spot as far away from the pool as it could possibly be, between a Mercedes convertible and a bright yellow Hummer, the largest street-legal passenger vehicle known to man. Why a college student would have need for such a behemoth, I could not imagine.

I had about six inches on either side after I parked. I squeezed myself out the door and scooted out from between the cars, grabbing my swim bag from the back of the truck.

My breath hung in the air as I walked, and I could see steam rising from the surface of the outdoor pool in big, white, cloudy puffs. Normally I’d swim inside on a day as cold as today, but the indoor pool was only twenty-five yards long and I needed the full fifty meters of the outdoor pool. I wanted to put some distance between myself and the wall behind me before I hit another one.

I changed clothes quickly. The locker rooms were chilly, but not nearly as bad as my house had been this morning. The pool, at eighty-two degrees, would feel positively balmy after the shower I’d just had. I shouldn’t have even taken that stupid shower. I should have just come straight to the pool. Even if I hadn’t decided to swim, I could have taken a hot shower here.

Moron
, my brain said to me.

Wearing my favorite tank suit with the peace sign on it, groovy purple goggles, and my swim cap—I always feel like a Q-Tip in that thing—I ran the distance between the locker room
and the pool. I threw my towel onto the starting block and dove into the middle lane, knifed cleanly into the water, holding a long streamline and taking my first stroke about a quarter of the way down the pool.

The rhythm of swimming calms me, steadies my mind. I took long, slow strokes, getting used to the water, enjoying the way it felt on my skin, watching the billows of steam move around me as I looked to my right for each breath. Stroke, stroke, breathe. Stroke, stroke, breathe.

I had the pool to myself. No one else was foolish enough to be swimming in the outdoor pool at 7:45 in the morning when it was twenty-five degrees out. I let my mind go.

Peter Terry’s reappearance confused me. I’d had one direct encounter with him a year before, a few distant glimpses, and lots of indirect warfare. He’d trashed my house and my life. At least I blamed it on him. I’d never quite figured out how much of it had been his doing.

But I hadn’t seen hide nor hair—or scalp, I should say—since then. Not in a year. A year and a half, nearly.

I’d started to wonder if I’d imagined him somehow.

I thought of that thing in Hebrews. About being hospitable to strangers because you never knew when one might be an angel. It stood to reason, I figured, that demons wandered around like that too. In the flesh, so to speak. Posing as people.

Interesting that the arrival of Peter Terry in a dream bothered me more than finding a bloody ax in my entryway. The ax was a problem, mind you. I wasn’t diminishing that disaster for one slim second. But that problem seemed more solvable to me. I was innocent. I hadn’t done anything except open my door and pick up the ax. And in spite of all I’d been through recently, I maintained an optimistic, if naive, view of the American justice system. I was certain I wouldn’t be held responsible for something I didn’t do.

Peter Terry, on the other hand, was not a solvable problem.

I hadn’t imagined the door slamming open, the burst of cold wind from a closed garage, the blown pilot light. I wasn’t positive about the footsteps, but I was as sure as I could be without a recording or something. Peter Terry was coming around again. And something important was happening that I did not want to be a part of.

I took a breath, glided into the wall and did a flip turn, pushing off the wall, feeling the stiffness in my legs from my thigh workout the day before. How many laps was that? Five or so, I thought. Five hundred meters. Fifteen hundred was a mile, give or take. I wanted to get in at least that today. Maybe a little more. I was a third of the way there.

I felt someone dive in behind me. Maybe in the next lane. I felt a little resentful about sharing my pool. I had been downright serene swimming alone, despite the tumble of thoughts churning around in my head.

Another wall. Breathe, duck, flip, push, glide…stroke, stroke, breathe. My arms slapped against the water in rhythm.

The other swimmer must have been only a few yards behind me, because by the time I took my first stroke, I was alone in front again. I hadn’t caught sight of anyone at the turn. Whoever it was, he was swimming in my blind spot.

I glanced back over my shoulder, but couldn’t see anyone behind me through the steam. The turbulence of two swimmers was roiling the air and the water, producing a thick layer of steam. I could only see a few feet around me, lane ropes on either side and still water in front.

I forgot about the other swimmer and settled back into my rhythm, my thoughts returning quickly to the night before. The ax. Who had left the ax? Was Peter Terry responsible for that? He had to be. It was too much of a coincidence that he’d shown up the same night. He had a history, with me anyway, of leaving
tantalizing little trails for me to follow. Which I tended to do, just as blind and oblivious as a puppy running into traffic after a ball.

Had I walked into a trap by picking up the ax? Was he trying to frame me for something? Had someone been murdered with that ax the night before? Horrible thought. And if so, what could that possibly have to do with me?

I did another flip turn, hoping again to catch a glimpse of the other swimmer. We must have turned seconds apart. I could sense the turbulence in the water behind me, see the steam billowing, but couldn’t catch sight of anyone.

I switched sides, breathing to my left, thinking I might get a glimpse over the other shoulder. I still couldn’t see anything, but I could tell the other swimmer was keeping up with me.

Kicking hard to give myself some speed, I increased the length and turnover of my strokes, pulling all the way through, brushing my hand against my thigh at the end of each stroke. Another wall. Another turn, another streamline. Coming up for my first stroke, pulling a hard breath of cold air. Kicking faster. Six beat kick.

The other swimmer was racing me, it seemed. Or chasing me.

I took a breath, put my head down, kicked hard, and threw my shoulders into my stroke, sprinting to the wall. I grabbed the gutter and stopped, sucking wind and turning to look behind me.

No one was there.

My wake was still coming into the wall, rolling little waves of clean blue water. But no one glided to the wall beside me. I ducked back under the water, looking for another pair of legs. Nothing. Underwater, I could see about halfway down the pool, though not all the way to the other side. As far as I could tell, the pool was empty.

I pushed off the wall again, and switched to breaststroke, popping my head up and looking around at each breath. A full
fifty meters, back to the other end of the pool. And no sign of the other swimmer. I took a breath and let myself sink to the bottom of the pool, looking around again.

I pulled myself out of the water and sat on the icy tile on the edge of the pool, steam rising off my wet body. I yanked my goggles off and squinted into the fog. I could see only a few yards ahead, but the pool was silent. I couldn’t hear anyone else in the water.

I pulled my feet out of the water and stood up on the deck, my arms crossed tightly. I couldn’t see anyone else on the pool deck. I couldn’t see into the water through the steam.

By that time, my hands and feet were blue with cold. I’d be better off back in the pool. But the chill I felt had little to do with the freezing air. I was not getting back in that pool.

I grabbed my towel and wrapped it around me, running on tiptoe the full length of the pool deck and down the steps and into the natatorium, grateful for the warm, humid air that hugged me as I stepped inside.

I was ridiculously relieved to see other swimmers in the indoor pool. The slap, slap of their arms against the water comforted me.

I turned around and looked through the door at the sidewalk outside. I could see my wet footsteps leading from the pool, down the steps, and into the natatorium. The rest of the view was uninhabited. Downright barren of life. Even the grass was dead.

I sat and watched the swimmers a while, analyzing their strokes. A couple of them were good swimmers. Better than me. I made a mental note to add stroke drills to my workout in addition to my new Thigh Recovery Program. I didn’t know anyone in the pool, so decided to hit the shower. The locker room was empty, though one locker was open and had a swim bag sitting beside it. Even the presence of the bag—evidence of human life— felt better to me than nothing.

I peeled off my suit, my skin goose-bumped and cold, grabbed my shampoo, and headed for the shower. I almost sang with joy as I stepped under the hot stream. I could feel myself calming down, my mind clearing as I experienced my first real warmth in twelve hours.

I was losing my mind. That, at least, was obvious. Someone else got in and out of the pool without my seeing them. That’s what happened, probably. It’s perfectly logical and ordinary. You, on the other hand, I told myself firmly, are a lunatic. A fruit loop, wacko, nut-ball.

Whoever had been in that pool, I was not going to let them ruin this perfectly sublime shower. I soaped, I rinsed, I soaped again. I warmed myself up and rinsed myself off, thrilled at the simple luxury of hot water as it ran through my hair and over my sore, grateful muscles.

No more outdoor swims for me until spring.

I finished my shower, my skin glowing red, and got myself made up and blow-dried. I didn’t look too dreadful, considering I’d had no sleep. Not bad for my first day as a thirty-five-year-old. I threw my sweater over my head and pulled on my jeans.

On my way out of the locker room I ran into Duke, the pool manager. Duke is a large and intimidating Cajun with fewer than the normal allotment of teeth. He is territorial, a bulldog of a man who likes to kick people out of his pools for the tiniest little violation. He randomly invents violations.

For some reason, Duke had taken an early liking to me. I am proud to say the SMU pool is one of the few things I have never been kicked out of. A rare streak of non-rule-breaking behavior on my part.

“Morning, Dr. Foster,” he said. “You up bright and early this Sunday. Morning.” His speech had an odd limp to it. Must be a Louisiana thing.

We exchanged pleasantries for a minute. I always ask about
his wife. He always pats his enormous stomach and tells me she’s trying to kill him with her fried chicken.

“Not working, though,” he said. “She can try. But she gonna have to use more than an old yard bird to get rid of me. No sir. Not rid of me.” He laughed, cracking himself up with a joke he’d told a thousand times.

“Listen, Duke. Did you happen to see anyone in the pool with me this morning?”

“Outside? No, no, honey. No one else dumb enough to swim outside on a day like today. You done lost your mind doing that.”

“Are you sure? I’m positive someone was swimming behind me.”

“Not like I watched you the whole time. But I’m telling you, no one else dumb enough to swim outside today. You the only one.”

“Thanks, Duke. That’s quite a compliment.”

“You a professor, Doc, but you might not be too smart.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” I turned to leave. “Say hi to Mrs. Duke for me.”

I decided to take another look at the pool on the way back to my truck. I walked back up the steps and onto the pool deck, wondering what I’d been thinking to swim outside today. Duke was right. I’m a professor. But I might not be too smart.

The steam covered the surface of the water, but it was still and the air was silent. The pool was clearly empty.

I walked the entire circle around the pool. As I passed the starting blocks, I noticed something.

Footprints.

Wet footprints leading from the pool toward the back gate. There were only a few, diminishing in clarity as they got farther from the pool.

I leaned down to look at them. They looked like ordinary footprints. No claws or hooves or extra toes or anything.

They must have been made just moments before. They were still puddly.

I straightened and looked around. Still, I saw no one. There was no movement in the parking lot. No cars starting themselves ominously. I squinted at the back gate. It was padlocked.

“Hey!” The voice behind me nearly frightened me out of my sneakers.

I turned to see Duke walking across the deck toward me. “You not thinking of jumping back in, now, Doc, are you?” he said.

“No, I was just looking at these footprints.” I pointed down.

They were gone. The blasted prints were gone. They could not possibly have dried that fast.

“There were wet footprints here a minute ago,” I said.

Duke stopped beside me and looked down. “Don’t see any prints, Dr. Foster. I’m telling you, no one else swimming outside today. No one but you. And you might need a little rest. Or something, maybe.”