Twisted Fate (Tales of Horror) (22 page)

“No, I probably wouldn’t,” the cop said. “Tell me.”

“We found him in the basement, under the stairs. He’d removed a panel to hide in. It probably saved his life. For those five days he’d only used his hands to dig …” Jim’s brother stopped and grabbed another Kleenex to wipe his nose.

“Dig?”

Jim stood there watching this exchange as rapt in hearing his brother tell it as the officer was.

“Yeah, he was digging into the wall, trying to get out of the house. He kept saying,
don’t shoot, don’t shoot
, over and over. We found out later that the guy who robbed the house had given my eight-year-old brother a pistol and told him it wasn’t loaded. He had him aim it at mom and pull the trigger for pretend. The guy whispered something into mom’s ear and then mom said to go ahead and play the game. According to Jimmy, the gun went off and half of mom’s face went with it. Little Jimmy was never the same after that. When things were overwhelming for him, he’d chant,
don’t shoot
.”

The suit lowered his notepad and stared at Jim’s brother.

“That’s some story. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. That was over thirty years ago.”

Jim’s brother walked over to the TV and bent down. He came up with the broken frame and the picture of the three of them after their mother’s death.

Someone knocked on the apartment door and stepped inside.

“Are you the landlord?” the suit asked.

“Yeah, my name’s Mike. What a fucking mess. This is going to take me weeks to clean and how am I going to fix that wall? Shit!”

The landlord’s alive? His name’s Mike? What the hell’s happening?

“Where’s your sensitivity?” his brother asked.

Mike looked over. “Ah, shit. Didn’t see you there. Sorry.”

One of the uniformed cops yanked on Rita and pulled the poster down.

In a second Jim was standing beside the cop. He recognized his own socks. They were buried in the hole on a pair of feet.

He suddenly felt joy that he’d done it. He could now be like the entities that floated around. He had dug far enough. They allowed him into their world.

He raced over to his brother and tried to take the picture but he couldn’t grasp it. He tried again and again, each time with growing vexation.

“Did you feel that?” his brother said out loud.

“Feel what?” the suit asked.

“A breeze of some kind. Like something ran by me.”

“Nope. Didn’t feel a thing. Look, if you want, we can do the positive ID thing back at the morgue.”

His brother walked over to the door and leaned on the wall beside it. “I’ll stay here. When I leave this apartment I’m going home to make funeral arrangements. I don’t want to drag this out.”

“Suit yourself. It’s going to take a while to remove the body properly, but it’s your choice.”

Jim watched everything with growing disdain. He wanted them to leave. This was his apartment. He headed for the kitchen to grab a knife as a warning.

His mother approached from the side.

“Mom?” He couldn’t believe it.
 

“Yes …”

It was her voice, but still, he refused to believe it. Where had she come from?
Why
had she come? She looked as radiant and beautiful as the day he shot her.

“It’s time to come home,” she said.

“But I am home. This is my home.”

She shook her head. “No, this was your earthly home. You need to realize that and move on.”

“No, you don’t understand. I finally made it. I’m invisible like the entities that have always haunted me. I’m very much alive. You can’t convince me otherwise.”

“Jim, it’s okay. Come with me.”

“No!” he shouted. “I don’t need food and I don’t need to breathe. I’m able to move at a thought. I’m free. I finally did it. So don’t come around here telling me I’m dead. I’m more alive than ever before.”

He reached for the knife on the counter but missed. He reached for it again. The knife remained on the counter.

When he turned back around, his mother was gone. He looked over his shoulder and saw everyone staring in his general direction.

Jim screamed as loud as he could.

The men visibly jumped. The landlord slipped out the door. The suit started for the door and Jim’s brother edged along the wall closer to it.

Jim had made it. He could stay and make noises for others like they did to him.

It was Jim’s turn.

He rallied all the energy he possessed and shouted his favorite two words, “Don’t Shoot!”

The men ran from the apartment leaving Jim alone in his darkness, waiting for others to enter his domain.

He climbed into the hole in the wall and laid down where he knocked incessantly and whispered hateful things for a very long time.

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About Jonas Saul

Jonas Saul is the author of the Sarah Roberts Series and The Mafia Trilogy. Visit his
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www.jonassaul.com
for upcoming release dates, and to sign up for the newsletter. Jonas lives in Washington, USA.

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