White Walker (3 page)

“And don’t you forget it, either,” Walter said as he
settled back into his seat. Then he leaned forward.
Was someone
out there?
He had only caught sight of them for an instant, and
he hesitated, questioning if he had really seen what he thought he
saw.

They started across the lot towards the entrance,
the truck rocking back and forth as the wind swirled around it, the
snow driven this way and that in patterns reminiscent of a flock of
birds preparing for the long flight south. Like the curtains on a
theater’s stage, the sheets of falling snow parted before them to
reveal a lone figure standing in the center of the entrance.

“What the hell?” Marie said as she eased the truck
to a stop not ten feet away from the figure.

Walter noted how the stranger was dressed, assuming
it was a he, wearing a long canvas riding jacket that was
sweat-stained and dirty, the hem ending well below the knee.
Beneath the collar a filthy red scarf was wrapped around the lower
portion of the stranger’s face. A battered leather hat completed
the image. He, she, it? Looked like they had just ridden in from
the range, back from a cattle drive, and as the stranger
approached, Walter was suddenly overcome by the desire to flee.

“Don’t let them in the truck,” he said to Marie.

“What? Why? What’s wrong with you? It’s freezing out
there. They’re probably lost and if we don’t help, who will?”

“I just have a bad feeling about this. Don’t let
them in, please.”

“What could they possibly do to us?” Marie said as
she slipped the truck into park and the stranger came around to her
side. She motioned for them to get into the back seat.

Built into the side of a hill, the rear of the
building occupied by Advanced Computer Services had an open dock
with a short roof that extended to the edge. There was a raised
concrete platform with a steel dock plate built in at a forty-five
degree angle to conserve space, allowing a delivery truck to back
in at a slant. The ground was higher in relation to the dock with a
steep incline leading to a paved road that created a trough behind
the building. The dock had become a smoking area for the employees
of ACS and was currently occupied by two smokers who stood in the
classic smoker’s stance, head down, shoulders bunched up while one
hand occupied a pocket, and the other tended to their
cigarette.

Norman dropped his cigarette butt into the
sand-filled five-gallon bucket next to him and glanced at his
watch.
There was still time to catch another.
He pulled the
pack from his pocket and slipped the filtered end between his lips.
As he bent his head to catch the flame of the lighter, sheltered in
his cupped hands, he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner
of his eye.

“Hey, who was that?” Norman said as he lifted his
head, his lighter forgotten for the moment, as he searched the
falling snow on his right.

“What was what?” Andrea said as she dropped her own
butt into the bucket and pulled her key card from her pocket.

“Didn’t you see him?”

“See who?”

“That guy, in the storm,” Norman said. He was sure
it had been a person standing at the edge of the overgrown field
behind the building.

“I didn’t see anybody,” Andrea said as she turned to
the door.

“Aren’t you gonna have another? We’ve still got a
few minutes left.”

“Too damn cold,” Andrea answered as she swiped her
badge and pulled the door open. “Are you coming?”

“Not yet, I gotta finish this.” Norman held up his
unlit cigarette.

“Well, you better light it first,” Andrea said with
a smile before she stepped into the building.

Norman glanced at his cigarette and reached into his
pocket to retrieve his lighter. As he lowered his head to light, it
an old memory surfaced.

Butterball.
It was the nickname the kids in
the neighborhood where he grew up used to call him. With the memory
came the all too familiar feelings of self-loathing and
worthlessness he’d suffered through his entire childhood as he
waged a losing battle against obesity. Beneath that lay a
smoldering rage and he imagined what it might have been like to
grab his tormentors by the throats and squeeze until their faces
turned purple and their tongues hung uselessly from their gaping
mouths.

“Is that what you want to do, Norman?” a voice
whispered from the curtain of falling snow beyond the edge of the
roof.

A sudden chill washed away his rage.

“Who’s there?” he asked, his voice barely above a
whisper. A primitive part of him did not want to draw any more
attention to himself. He swiveled his head back and forth,
searching for the owner of the voice, his gaze tracking across the
solid curtain of falling snow that shrouded the world with a
silence that inspired more fear than even the darkest night.

The falling snow parted like stage curtains pulled
aside to reveal the waiting set to the audience. Less than twenty
yards away a man stood, watching Norman from beneath the shadowy
brim of a wide hat that shaded his eyes. He didn’t need to see the
stranger’s eyes to know he was staring at him.

His cigarette slipped from fingers that had gone
suddenly numb. It didn’t matter if they wrote him up for not
putting his butts in the proper place. Suddenly nothing mattered
but getting back inside where he was hidden from that stranger’s
prying eyes.

He sidled to the left as his hand fumbled with his
key card. The stranger approached through the swirling curtains of
snow and it was then that Norman realized the wind had no effect on
the stranger. The filthy red scarf wrapped around the stranger’s
neck lay perfectly still against his chest. The collar of his heavy
brown jacket stood unmoving. Even his wide-brimmed hat remained in
place, untouched by the searching fingers of the wind that seemed
to avoid him, as if to touch would be a mortal sin.

Norman’s heart slammed against his rib cage as he
turned to the door and frantically swiped his card through the
reader. He yanked on the door to no avail, realizing when he looked
down that he had swiped the card upside down.

Behind him, he felt the stranger’s approach and he
glanced over his shoulder to see the man climbing the stairs to the
dock.

“Please,” he moaned as panic blossomed in the pit of
his stomach.

He swiped his card again and the key lock beeped.
Norman yanked the door open, hyperventilating as the panic
overwhelmed him. He’d been caught in the open by the stranger, who
was even now getting much closer than Norman cared for him to
be.

Then he noticed the smell, a mixture of spicy
sweetness with an almost undetectable undercurrent of decay. It was
a dangerous scent, awakening primitive fears that had been
subjugated by the conveniences of modern society and
technology.

He saw the short hallway before him. Bathrooms to
the right, break room to the left. Beyond the hall lay the
industrial-grade gray carpet of the main floor, where a maze of
cubicles housed small desks, each with its own computer and
telephone. He was so close, yet so far away. Before he could step
over the threshold, into the safety beyond, the stranger spoke to
him.

“May I come in?” he asked.

Unable to speak, his throat tight with fear, Norman
was only able to shake his head vigorously. He stumbled into the
hallway, pulling the door closed behind him, and stopped with his
shoulder against the wall.

With his heartbeat thundering in his ears, Norman
leaned against the wall of the short hallway that led to the main
floor. Behind him the wind rattled the door in its frame and he
glanced back over his shoulder, half-expecting to find that shadowy
stranger following him into the interior of the building. He didn’t
know what he’d do if that happened. Even though he was no longer
the fat kid, and outwardly he portrayed the image of a self-assured
man, or at least tried to, he felt completely helpless in the
presence of that stranger.

The door to the ladies’ room across the hall opened
and Andrea stepped out into the hallway.

“Are you all right, Norman?” she said as she crossed
to him. He felt her hand on his back, resting lightly between his
shoulder blades as she bent over to check on him.

“I’ll be okay,” he said between gasps. He struggled
against the panic attack. A familiar sensation he hadn’t
experienced in quite a while. In fact it had been over ten years
since his last attack. It happened the night of his graduation from
the local community college with an associate degree in office
management. He’d asked one of his classmates, a cute blonde named
Jennifer, if she’d like to have dinner with him to celebrate their
accomplishment. Her icy response had left him gasping for breath as
he struggled against the panic washing through him, promising
himself he would never allow himself to experience that feeling
again.

“Are you sure?” Andrea said, concern evident in her
voice.

“I’ll be okay, just give me a minute,” he said as he
nodded. Andrea’s hand felt good on his back, reminding him of how
his mom would rest her hand on his shoulder or arm when he was
younger. It was a touch that said,
I’m here for you.

He’d have to go see her this weekend. It had been
nearly a month since he’d been by, but she didn’t know that.
Alzheimer’s had robbed her of her ability to keep track of the
passing time. In her mind she was a young woman once again and in
that fantasy there was no room for a forty-year-old son. His father
had left shortly after the Alzheimer’s had reared its ugly head.
She’d always been a little absent-minded.
In danger of
forgetting her head if it weren’t so firmly attached
, she was
so fond of saying. But absentmindedness had quickly become
disorientation that led to the early stages of dementia as the
disease robbed her mind of her identity.

The last straw had come when Norman stopped for a
visit and his mother called the police to report a breaking and
entering.

May I come in?
That sinister voice whispered
again, this time in his mind, and he pushed himself up from his
knees.

“I’ll be all right,” he said as he took a deep
breath and drew himself to his full height.

Andrea looked up at him with a worried expression
and Norman got a really good look at her. With her head tilted up
the light struck her face in a way that highlighted her plain
beauty. She wouldn’t win any beauty pageants, but she didn’t look
half bad. She was a little on the heavy side, but who wasn’t when
the years started rolling by faster than anticipated.

“Are you sure?” There was genuine concern in her
voice and he felt flushed with a sudden excitement. He’d been
working here for nearly three years, Andrea even longer than that.
During that time he’d never paid much attention to his co-workers.
He preferred his own company to anything they might offer. He’d
spoken to them in passing, responding to their questions,
acknowledging their comments, but he had never perused the
conversation beyond that.

“There you are,” Leslie said from the end of the
hall. “We’ve been looking for you two, Ted has called a meeting. I
think they’re going to let us go home.” She turned and vanished
into the main room.

“Not much to go home to,” Norman said.

“Ever since my cat died last month, it’s been lonely
in my apartment,” Andrea said as she nodded.

He was surprised to learn Andrea once had a cat.
Most cat people had a certain odor about them. A faint ammonia
scent that heralded their arrival everywhere they went. He couldn’t
recall ever smelling that odor when Andrea was around.

“I didn’t know you had a cat.”

“I called him Smokey, had him ever since he was a
kitten. I miss him, but he had a good thirteen years with me.”

“That’s longer than some marriages I’ve heard
about.”

“What about you?” Andrea said. “What do you have
waiting at home for you?”

“A frozen dinner, a good book, maybe some wine.”

“There’s no Mrs. Norman?”

Norman shrugged. “My mom has Alzheimer’s. I’ve spent
most of my adult life taking care of her, never had much time for
anything beyond that.”

“Is she still with you?”

Norman shook his head. “She became too much for even
me to handle so I was forced to put her in a home last week. She no
longer even knows where she is. In her mind it’s 1969 and she’s
hitchhiking across the country to follow some band.”

“We better get going,” Andrea said.

“When are you off again?” Norman said as a familiar
panic rose to the back of his throat, threatening to strangle
him.

“Saturday, what about you?”

“Same here, would you like to go to lunch with me?”
Norman bulled his way through the panic, the last of his question
coming out at a near whisper.

Andrea nodded. “I’d like that.” And she reached out
with one hand to take his hand into her own. The contact was
electrifying for Norman, who until this moment had never gotten
beyond the initial meeting with a woman. His shirt collar, which
had become three sizes too small for him when he was asking Andrea
out, was now resting comfortably against his throat, and he was
filled with a sense of confidence he’d seldom known before.

Before they entered the main floor, he glanced back
at the door leading to the smoking area at the opposite end of the
short hallway. Through the small window he saw the swirling snow
beyond, driven this way and that by the relentless wind. As it
parted, he spotted that lone figure standing immobile on the bank
opposite the dock.

He looked away, suddenly very frightened, wanting
nothing more than to get away from this place. For the first time
in three years, he wanted to go home. He didn’t want to lose
himself in the anonymity of being a faceless voice on the
telephone. He sensed that tonight was not going to end well for any
of them.