Afraid

Maggie considered banging on the floor and wondered what the point would be. She knew the man downstairs was Sal. Who else could it be?

Right?

Their lake house was the last one on Gold Star Road, and their nearest neighbors, the Kinsels, resided over half a mile down the shore and had left for the season. The solitude was one of the reasons the Mortons bought this property. Unless she went to town to shop, Maggie would often go days without seeing another human being, not counting her husband. The thought of someone else being in their home was ridiculous.

Reassured by that thought, Maggie closed her eyes.

She opened them a moment later, when the sound of the microwave carried up the stairs. Then came the muffled machine-gun report of popcorn popping. Sal shouldn’t be eating at this hour. The doctor had warned him about that, and how it aggravated his acid reflux disease, which in turn aggravated Maggie with his constant tossing and turning all night.

She sighed, annoyed, and sat up in bed.

“Sal! The doctor said no late-night snacks!”

No answer. Maggie wondered if Sal indeed had a hearing problem, or if he simply used that as an excuse for not listening to her. This time she did swing a foot off the bed and stomp on the floor, three times, with her heel.

She waited for his response.

Got none.

Maggie did it again and followed it up with yelling, “Sal!” as loud as she could.

Ten seconds passed.

Ten more.

Then she heard the downstairs toilet flush.

Anger coursed through Maggie. Her husband had obviously heard her and was ignoring her. That wasn’t like Sal at all.

Then, almost like a blush, a wave of doubt overtook her. What if the person downstairs wasn’t Sal?

It has to be, she told herself. She hadn’t heard any boats coming up to the dock or cars pulling onto their property. Besides, Maggie was a city girl, born and raised in Chicago. Twenty-some years in the Northwoods hadn’t broken her of the habit of locking doors before going to sleep.

The anger returned. Sal was deliberately ignoring her. When he came upstairs, she was going to give him a lecture to end all lectures. Or perhaps she’d ignore him for a while. Turnabout was fair play.

Comforted by the thought, she closed her eyes. The familiar sound of Sal’s outboard motor drifted in through the window, getting closer. That Evinrude was older than Sal was. Why he didn’t buy a newer, faster motor was beyond her understanding. One of the reasons she hated going out on the lake with him was because it stalled all the time and—

Maggie jackknifed to a sitting position, panic spiking through her body. If Sal is still out on the boat, then who is in the house?

She fumbled for her glasses, then picked up the phone next to her clock. No dial tone. She pressed buttons, but the phone just wouldn’t work.

Maggie’s breath became shallow, almost a pant. Sal’s boat drew closer, but he was still several minutes away from docking. And even when he got home, what then? Sal was an old man. What could he do against an intruder?

She held her breath, trying to listen to noises from downstairs. Maggie did hear something, but the sound wasn’t coming from the lower level. It was coming from the hallway right outside her bedroom.

The sound of someone chewing popcorn.

Maggie wondered what she should do. Say something? Maybe this was all some sort of mistake, some confused tourist who had walked into the wrong house. Or perhaps this was a robber, looking for money or drugs. Give him what he wanted, and he’d leave. No need for anyone to get hurt.

“Who’s there?”

More munching. Closer. He was practically in the room. She could smell the popcorn now, the butter and salt, and the odor made her stomach do flip-flops.

“My … medication is in the bathroom cabinet. And my purse is on the chair by the door. Take it.”

The ruffling of a paper bag, and more chewing. Open-mouthed chewing. Loud, like someone smacking gum. Why wouldn’t he say anything?

“What do you want?”

No answer.

Maggie was shivering now. The tourist scenario was gone from her head, the robber scenario fading fast. A new scenario entered Maggie’s mind. The scenario of campfire stories and horror movies. The boogeyman, hiding under the bed. The escaped lunatic, searching for someone to hurt, to kill.

Maggie needed to get out of there, to get away. She could run to the car, or meet Sal on the dock and get into his boat, or even hide out in the woods. She could hurry to the guest bedroom, lock the door, open up the window, climb down—

Chewing, right next to the bed. Maggie gasped, pulling the flannel sheets to her chest. She squinted into the darkness, could barely make out the dark figure of a man standing a few feet away.

The bag rustled. Something touched Maggie’s face and she gasped. A tiny pat on her cheek. It happened again, on her forehead, making her flinch. Again, and she swatted out with her hand, finding the object on the pillow.

Popcorn. He was throwing popcorn at her.

Maggie’s voice came out in a whisper. “What … what are you going to do?”

The springs creaked as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“Everything,” he said.

General Alton Tope had barely poured a finger of twenty-five-year-old Glenfarcas into his crystal rocks glass when his pager went off. He unclipped the device from his belt and squinted at the display. The number 6735 appeared. Following procedure, he mentally added the four digits of today’s date, coming up with 6762 and frowning at the unfamiliar code. What the hell was a 6762?

General Tope headed for his bedroom, the scotch forgotten. He made sure the blinds were drawn, sat down at his desktop, and punched in his password. A military virus detection program automatically ran, deemed his equipment secure, and allowed him to log into USAVOIP—the U.S. Army Voice Over Internet Protocol. He snugged on the headphones, noted the attached microphone smelled faintly of cigarette smoke, and automatically reached for the pack of Winstons next to the monitor. He punched in another password and listened to the phone ring through the foam speakers hugging his ears.

“Good evening, General,” came the same soothing voice that always answered. “Please speak the alert code.”

General Tope sometimes imagined a buxom young blonde owned the voice. But the likely culprit was probably computer-generated, programmed by some overweight civilian geek with posters of Wonder Woman in his bedroom.

“Six-seven-six-two,” he said, shaking out a cigarette and hanging it in the corner of his mouth. The lighter was in the same place he always left it, in a paper-clip container next to the mouse. A plastic disposable. He’d had the same one for over three years; Tope smoked only during these encrypted calls, and they didn’t come often.

“We have a Fallen Angel, General,” the voice said. “Highest Priority.”

General Tope drew deeply, filling his lungs with heat. When he answered, he tried not to exhale.

“What type of unit?”

As the computer on the other end of the conversation processed his question, Tope closed his eyes, waiting the twelve seconds for the nicotine in his lungs to hit his bloodstream and activate the pleasure receptors in his