Lost (33 page)

Walter could see Julie Klevan moving
around the kitchen. Her car wasn’t there, so he assumed she was alone, or maybe
some of the kids were out. He knew the older two boys could drive. She was a
pretty woman. She looked young for her age, just like his Cindy. She moved with
an ease about her. She was comfortable, safe—or so she thought.

His phoned
trilled, signaling a text message. He looked at it.

She’s here.

It was from
Ethan.

Walter’s first
instinct was to crank the car and go back to the Klevan’s house, to help his
friend, but they had come up with a plan, and they both promised to stick to
it.

Now, all he
could do was sit and wait.

“Sam! Can we do the Ferris wheel one
more time?” The girls pleaded with him, even Karie joined in.

“We ran out of
tickets. We need to go get some—,” he started, but Jessie and Maggie had
already snatched the $20 bill he had in his hand and ran over to the ticket
line.

Karie put her
arm through Sam’s. “You’re a good big brother.”

“Yeah?” He
smiled down at her. “Shouldn’t I get a kiss for that or something?”

Karie obliged.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him. A few
seconds later, he heard giggling. The girls were back with $20 worth of tickets
clutched in Maggie’s hand. They giggled, and Sam grabbed Maggie throwing her
over his shoulder.

“Come on
midgets—one more time on the Ferris wheel.”

He saw the oldest boy throw one of the
little girls over his shoulder. He sensed her laughter rather than heard it.
The pretty girl the boy had been kissing grabbed the other girl’s hand, and
they ran to catch up to the boy.

He stood behind
a tent, the night hiding him from most people. When the boy had driven off in
the van with all the children, he’d felt compelled to follow them.

The boy, the
oldest boy—he was a good-looking kid. Tall, strong, and devoted to her. She was
his mother. He knew that much. He’d heard him call her “Mom.”

The Woman was after
the boy. He didn’t know how he knew it, didn’t know why he was so sure of it.
But the boy was in danger.

Ethan was hiding at the back corner of
the house. He texted Walter, and then put his phone away. Ethan wasn’t a
religious man, but he figured he had nothing to lose at this point, and so he
prayed. He prayed that he would see his son again, that he and Walter would
share a beer and watch the Super Bowl. He prayed that Melissa knew how happy he
was for her. But the one thing he prayed for the most, begged for, was to do
whatever he could to make sure this woman didn’t hurt anyone.

It didn’t dawn
on him to pat himself on the back. He’d been right about her all along. He’d
been right that she was back, and that she was after this poor widow and her
young children. He saw a young man on the ground, 20 years ago, his chest
ripped open and blood pooling under his lifeless body. Ethan prayed that he
would be able to give that victim, and any others, the peace they deserved.

He moved closer
to the door and crouched under the kitchen window. He peeked up and looked in.
The woman wasn’t in the kitchen any longer. He heard a crash from the second
floor and took a deep breath.

Time to go
in.

He moved over
to what used to be the back door and looked at it. It had been ripped right off
the hinges, and now lay about 20 feet away. He’d seen the door. It was a heavy,
reinforced, solid wood door. He guessed it weighed at least 140 pounds. There
was no way that woman should have been able to chuck it 20 feet into the yard.
Ethan ignored the warning in his gut and stepped into the kitchen, gun drawn.

He could hear
her upstairs. Crashes and bangs filled the house, he didn’t know what she was
doing, but her rage came raining down on him. He crept over to the stairs. A
guttural cry came from upstairs, and the hair on his arms stood on end.

It sounded like
an angry animal was tearing apart the house. Ethan said one final prayer and
started up the stairs.

“Ohh, I love this song!” I couldn’t
sing, not well anyway, but I didn’t care. I turned up the volume and sang
along. I was alone in the house, the cabbage had been cut, and I was whipping
up a dressing for the coleslaw. P!nk filled the kitchen, and I sang along. I
danced around the kitchen and opened up the fridge to get the champagne vinegar
I had picked up at Target the other day.

I looked at the
clock—8:30. I didn’t expect the kids to be home for at least another hour, so I
turned up the volume on my iPod even more and sang along as Bruno Mars took over
the kitchen.

He watched the boy get off the Ferris
wheel with the girls. They looked so happy. The boy looked happy. He wondered
briefly where the other children were. They must have split up at some point.

One of the
girls held the boy’s hand, and the other little girl held the older girl’s
hand. They pulled the bigger kids toward a cart that had a man selling cotton
candy. The boy shook his head, but the older girl bumped him with her hip and
took some money out of her own pocket. The vendor handed her two bags filled
with the spun sugar. She gave one to the girls and opened one herself. She held
out a tiny pillow to the boy, and he opened his mouth, taking it from her.

An image
flashed in his mind. They were at a carnival—no, it was nicer. They were at an
amusement park of some sort, and she was eating cotton candy. The children were
all there, and they each held their own bag of the sugary sweet. The beautiful
woman was there. She held out a sampling of cotton candy to someone… to him?

He made a fist
and pounded it against his leg. He had to remember. Something told him that
their lives depended on it.

The stairs didn’t make a sound. Ethan
was relieved. He had crept all the way up to the second story without making a
sound. Blood drummed in his ears, and he was struggling to control his
breathing. He flinched as something flew out of one of the bedrooms—a dresser
drawer.

The hallway was
littered with debris. Pieces of furniture, clothes, toys, sports equipment had
all been flung out of the rooms.

“Bitch!” A
voice said with a growl.

He heard it,
and it flashed him back 20 years ago. That same voice had haunted him for
months following that night at 7-Eleven. It didn’t sound human.

A crash and the
sound of splintering wood filled the house.

“
My
son!
That’s MY SON!”

Ethan heard a
mirror break. A cry filled the air. At first it sounded like a woman crying out
in pain, and then it dissolved into an angry, gritty growl.

“Oh, God. Shit…
Oh, God!” Ethan braced himself.

Walter sat in his car, not moving. He
had turned off the radio. He told Cindy he picked up an extra shift, and he
texted her. He didn’t trust himself to call. His wife would hear the fear in
his voice.

Hi, Babe! Love you!

He hit “Send.”

Immediately his
phone jingled—a picture. His wife had snapped a picture of herself… naked. He
moaned.

Wearing nothing but my new earrings!
Miss you!

Walter sat up
straight.

“Please, God.
Just let me make it home. Please,” he said aloud.

Ethan crept into the master bedroom, but
he didn’t see her in there. She must still be in the bathroom.

He took one
last breath and called out, “I know
what
you are.”

Silence. The
breaking glass had stilled.

“YOU!” And she
filled the doorway.

“Holy shit!”
Ethan muttered.

She seemed
caught between two worlds. She walked upright, her face was still beautiful,
but her shoulders had hunched-forward, powerful muscles rippling under the
skin. And her hands…

He flashed back
20 years ago to those hands. Claws at least four inches long were where her
fingers should have been. And she ran them along the wall. A screeching sound
filled the room, and Ethan struggled not to flinch.

“No weakness,”
he told himself.

“You have
no
clue what I am!” She spat out at him.

A feeling of
calm settled over Ethan. He accepted whatever was going to come. If he died, he
was going to die trying to do the right thing.

“No, I know
exactly what you are. I remember what you are—what you did!” Ethan fired back
at her, rage building within him.

She looked at
him—those strange silver eyes piercing. But she didn’t laugh. She seemed to
sense that he was serious. He was willing to sacrifice himself—if it meant
taking her down. And she took a step back.

That one step
bathed her in shadows, but he could see her change. She was smaller now—nothing
more than a beautiful woman. She stepped toward him again.

“Officer, I’m
sure there’s something we can do here. I just want what’s mine. That’s all.
Give me what’s mine, and I’ll leave,” she offered.

“And you’re
gonna find what you lost in this woman’s bathroom?” Ethan asked. Was this
woman, this thing, really trying to bargain with him?

His sarcastic
tone angered her, and she brought her hand down, shattering the thick counter
of the vanity. “I want
my
son!”

Ethan had
jumped at the loud sound, but stood his ground. “Lady, or whatever the fuck you
call yourself, I guarantee you, your son isn’t in this bathroom.”

The woman stood
there staring at him and didn’t move. She tilted her head to the side,
appraising the gun he had trained on her. And then she moved.

She moved so
fast that Ethan didn’t even have time to fire. She knocked the gun out of his
hand and stood in front of him, power spilling off her in suffocating waves.
Ethan removed the knife from the sheath at his hip, and when she reached for
him, he buried it deep in her shoulder.

She roared in
pain and flung him against the wall. His head swam, and he felt sick.

“Get up!” She
roared again. “GET UP!”

Her eyes
glistened. Her hands changed back to those he remembered from all those years
ago. She smashed the door to the closet, which had been shut, and a hole
appeared in the center of it.

Ethan shook his
head, trying to clear it, and got to his feet. She hadn’t bothered to remove
the knife, and it stuck out of her. Ethan looked around for his gun. He didn’t
see it, and he picked up the lamp on the table next to him instead. He threw it
at her, a last ditch effort.

She swatted it
aside. “Really? Stupid...” She taunted with an ugly laugh and came at him
again.

This time,
Ethan anticipated her move, and he ran toward her, unsure of what he could do,
but knowing he was running out of options. She growled furiously, and he met
her tone with a bellow of his own. She slashed out at him with her claws, and
he felt pain blossoming through his chest. She shoved him aside. He put his
hand to his chest, and it came away crimson.

Ethan sank to
the ground, and she came over to him. She squatted down, and he tried to back
further into the wall. She reached out and traced a nail down his cheek. When
he looked up and met her eyes, she leered at him.

“I just want
what’s mine,” she said, reasonably. “He’s my son. He belongs to me.”

And with that,
she ripped Ethan’s knife from her shoulder and brought it down, burying it into
his outstretched leg.

But Ethan
remained quiet, biting his tongue and refusing to cry out in pain. He wouldn’t
give this bitch the satisfaction.

“Fuck you!” He
told her.

She laughed. It
was a foul sound. She leaned in and whispered in his ear, “Oh, officer. I’d eat
you alive.”

Her warm breath
tickled his cheek, and he tamped down the vomit that threatened to come up.

He turned to
her and peered into those silver eyes. “Eat shit and die.”

It had been almost 15 minutes since
Cindy had sent him the picture, and maybe 20 since Ethan’s text. Walter was getting
restless. Ethan was the one with the “gut,” as Cindy used to say. Ethan had
“feelings,” and he was right more often than not, but occasionally, Walter
sensed something.

It was one of
those nights.

He leaned
forward and looked up at the moon. A deep red hue had settled over it. And it
looked bigger, closer. He took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves.

He sat back in
his seat and watched Julie Klevan dance happily in her kitchen. And he waited.

His phone went
off, almost scaring him.

She’s Coming.

Ethan had
texted. Walt let out a strangled breath and leaned against his steering wheel.
And just like his friend, he prayed.

“Please, Lord.
Let me see my Cindy again. Watch over Ethan and give me the strength to do what
I need to do tonight. Save this family, from whatever is coming.” Walter said all
of this out loud and sat up.

He was ready.