Twisted Fate (Tales of Horror) (19 page)

I bolt for the kitchen. My field press is waiting. I carefully wrap a string around the newspaper like a present and pick it up. When I peek into the hallway, the man has set the gun down. He’s got a cloth of some kind. I can see he’s applying pressure to the woman’s wound.

I hate her screams. I have to leave. In three steps I’m in the laundry room. I unlock the deadbolt and move out into the early evening air.

A voice comes at me from all sides.

“We heard a gunshot. Is everyone okay in there?”

It sounds like one of those handheld metal things cops use to make their voices louder.

“We’ve got the place surrounded.”

I look left and right. I don’t see anybody. I drop my shoulders and start for the trees. Maybe they won’t see me.

I’ve done nothing wrong. I helped a man back to his house. This is all a bad case of mistakes.

I’m running hard. I’m thirty yards from the trees. I’m going to make it. I feel great.

“Hey! You there! Freeze!”

I hate it when people yell at me. I always run when people yell.

“STOP! POLICE!”

I run harder. I didn’t run hard enough when the boys came to put boots to my head all those years ago. The trees are steps away now. Shelter, security, and comfort await me.

I already hear the trees calling my name.

Serenity can be found in the strangest of places, the oddest times. I thought of the many journeys I’ve had in forests just like the one I’m entering. How many times I’ve sat and stared at the sky while having lunch. How many times I’ve fallen asleep in a bed of grass and soft leaves.

Ohhh, the leaves. How I love leaves.

My arm doesn’t hurt anymore. I feel whole. When I sit up, I’m surprised at how fast I’m standing. It was like I stood with the effort of a thought.

I see my satchel on the ground. I see the umbrella, too. It’s still attached to the side of a man the police officers are surrounding.

One of the cops is using both hands to push on my chest. They’ve holstered their weapons. They must have shot me.

The field press sits by itself a few feet from my body. I’m standing by it now. My fingers try to touch the Honey Locust leaves before they’re blown away in the breeze.

They tumble from me. My soul aches. My spirit cries. I can feel it.

I’m a leaf collector.

I love leaves and they love me. We have an understanding. They whisper my name. They never yell.

I look around. The trees have won. All I ever wanted was to leave a legacy. All I ever wanted was to be loved, adored.

I had trespassed one too many times in a forest where the trees didn’t want me taking from their crowns.

But in the end, I don't blame the trees. I know in their own way they love me because I love them.

After the light allows me passage to a new home, I have all the lovely trees I can handle. I play with the leaves and set up displays and rummage through forests for hours and hours.

I love leaves and they love me.

I’m home now. No one yells here.

I’m a leaf collector.

Blood Money

I can’t believe that I’m actually doing this. People might see me. What if it’s someone I know? My neighbors wouldn’t laugh, but my friends would and isn’t that an injustice?

I’m not a thief.

There, I said it. Everyone seems to think so after cops found me sitting in a stolen car. The car was removed from its rightful owner by a friend of mine. At least I thought he was my friend. He picked me up to cruise in his
new
car. I actually thought he’d just bought it. Guy bailed on me at the first sight of cops.

The fact that I’m picking up garbage on the side of the highway is because I was ordered to do this community service for ten hours by a judge who didn’t want to listen to reason. I know everyone says it, but in this case, I actually am innocent.

A car raced by me as I reach for another piece of garbage. I looked too fast. The cut on my forehead made me wince. I touched the bandage with my palm. My supervisor sat on the other side of the road having coffee and chatting with one of the other community service guys.

Here’s my chance to hide from public view.

I drop below the edge of the highway and make my way into the ditch. It’s quite wide, opening to a flat area about twenty feet long before another small drop into a line of trees. This is the perfect area to pick up garbage without being seen by anyone driving by.

It’s not just me I’m protecting here, it’s my brother. He’s second in charge at the police station in our little town of 15,000 people. Everyone talks about everything in this shitty hole of a town and I wouldn’t want him embarrassed more than he already is.

Thinking of him reminded me about tonight. He’s supposed to be coming over for pizza and beer.

I notice a small tree bent in half to my right. If it was a storm that caused this deformation, how come none of the other trees around it seem to have any damage? I realize that I’m probably too far from the shoulder of the highway but I have to get a closer look. I drop down a six-foot embankment and step up to the little tree. There’s a large gouge in the earth about three feet behind it.

Something huge came through here. I part the branches of the small pines and see a car upside down, items from the interior spread out on the grass. Where it sits, this vehicle would never be noticed from the highway. When I was five feet away I couldn’t see it because the tree line was so thick.

I want to search the car but wonder if I’m going to find dead people. I hope not. The last thing I need is to be in the newspapers for discovering a dead body.

Much to my relief, there are no humans here, dead or alive. I notice a garbage bag perched on the sill of the broken back window. There’s a rip in the bag.

I gasp when I see a wad of hundred dollar bills sticking out of the rip.

I tear the bag open and discover it’s full of bundles of hundreds. It looks like they’re wrapped fifty to a pack, which would be five-thousand-dollar bundles. I deduce that I’m looking at half a million dollars or more.

Questions race through my mind while my heart rate triples. Do I report it? Or do I take the money home and let someone else find the car one day? The court’s already convicted me of a theft that I didn’t do. I might as well just take it. This can’t be called theft because I found it.
 

I have to decide and decide now. No one can see me from the highway. If my supervisor happens along, I’m toast. Since it appears no one was hurt here, and whoever was in this car accident left the bag of money behind, then I guess it’s mine.

Finders keepers and shit …

I quickly take out one of the bags the court provided me to collect garbage and pile the bundles of cash inside. Then I take off my sweater and toss it in the bag on top of the money. No way is my supervisor going to let me take a garbage bag home. If I show him the sweater and tell him it was too hot out, that I had to pack a few things in this bag, I might get away with it. I get up and start back for the highway, my nerves jingling against the beat of my rapid pulse.

It’s around seven in the evening. I’ve got all the lights in my house turned off except the one in the kitchen. The money is spread out before me on the table. I keep trying to count it but there’s just too much. There’s got to be over a hundred bundles here.

My gut keeps twirling. What if it’s drug money? What if someone very powerful comes looking for it?

I think it’s time to call my brother. I grab the hands-free on the wall and dial.

“Hello?”

“Heh, bro,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “How’s it going? You sound like you’re driving.”

“I am. What’s up?”

“I was doing my community service thing this morning and was surprised to see the constant flow of traffic racing by me.”

“You called to talk about highway traffic?”

I heard the laughter in his voice. I wonder what he’s hearing in mine. “I just thought, since you’re a cop and all, I could ask you about accidents around here. I mean, some of those drivers were acting crazy, passing each other without much room, and so on. I don’t read a lot of newspapers, but everyone hears about the highway carnage. Do you have to attend to accident scenes?”

“Sometimes. Why the interest?”

“No interest, really. Just curiosity. What about people or cars that go missing? Does that come up often?” I was going too far. Why would I be asking these questions? My brother would think it out of character. I suddenly felt the urge to terminate the call.

“Why? Do you know something about a missing car? We are looking for a Chrysler.”

“You are?” My voice cracked. I couldn’t believe it. If my brother was a psychologist he would know I was hiding something. Stupid, very stupid. This money suddenly became scary.

“You remember what happened three days ago. The Brink’s truck robbery downtown. Some guy rammed the money truck so hard the guards all got knocked out when the truck flipped over a curb. By the time we responded to the call they had garbage bags of money filling the bed of a pickup.”

“So why aren’t you looking for a pickup?”

“Because we got that already. One of the guys jumped out during the pursuit and carjacked a woman in her Chrysler. The woman and her car are still missing. Did you see a black Chrysler 300C somewhere?”

“No, not me.” Again, he’d know I was lying if he was a psyche major.

“It’s okay. All the money has been accounted for except one bag. Hey listen, we can talk about it in a minute. I’m pulling into your driveway.”

“You’re here?” He must have heard my surprise as I almost shouted those two words.

“Yeah, remember, we talked last night about how the chief said I should take a night off because I’ve been working so hard lately. You and I are supposed to have pizza and beer tonight.”

I heard his car pulling up out front. The money was still all over the kitchen table. I realize now that I’m done. I mumble something into the phone and hang up. I grab a new garbage bag from under the sink and start shoving all the money into it. I'm halfway through when the doorbell rings.

“Coming!” I yell. “Gimme a sec.”

The last batch of bundles won’t fit. I stuff the bag under the kitchen sink and go to get a little shopping bag for the rest.

My front door opens. “Hey, I let myself in. How come it’s so dark?”

A light flicks on from down the hall. My heart almost stops. I don’t have time to pack the last fifteen bundles or so. Scrambling on my feet, I head down the hallway to stop my brother from going into the kitchen.

“Have a seat in the living room. I’ll bring you a beer.” I’m trying so hard to keep my voice in check, really focusing on it.

“That’s okay. I’ll go in the kitchen and get one myself while you order the pizza.”

I step in front of him. “Not this time.” I say it like a command.

My brother stops and looks me in the eye.

“No,” I said. “You order the pizza. I’ll get the beer. Every time we do this you complain about the toppings. I want you to order whatever you want. No complaints.”

I turned away from him and headed to the kitchen without waiting for a reply. In thirty seconds I have the rest of the money hidden in my kitchen cupboards except for the one bundle I had opened. That one I shove in my pocket for safe keeping. With beers in my hand I head out to the living room to try to have a calm evening without really knowing how much trouble I could be in.

A half hour later the doorbell makes me jump almost out of my skin. My brother looked over at me. I know that face. Ever since we were kids that was his,
you’re weird
expression. Wanting to extract myself from the living room I tell him the pizza’s on me.

I open the door, grab the pizza box and reach for my wallet. It’s not in my pocket. Then I remember leaving it on my dresser when I got home from my community service highway cleaning. Since no one will notice a one-hundred-dollar bill missing amongst all the others I found, I reach in my pocket and use one from the open bundle I’d stashed there.

The evening with my brother went over rather well, all things considered. I had one scare when he helped himself to another beer. He stood right beside the cabinet that held the money, but there wasn’t any reason to start opening drawers, so everything worked out.

The phone rang. It’s 8:15 a.m. My second day at the highway doesn’t start until noon and I barely slept all night. Whoever’s calling can get the machine.

“Hey, man, pick up.” My brother. “Something weird happened. Remember that robbery we talked about last night. All the money that was taken was serial numbered and the local retailers were informed which series to watch out for. Apparently the pizza joint we ordered from last night had a hundred-dollar bill turn up. They’re trying to locate the delivery guy to find out if he remembers which house he got it from. It was a slow night. He’d only done six deliveries, so there’s a good chance he’ll remember. I’ll call you later.”