After Midnight

It swept toward me.

For some reason, the porch light was off.

It shouldn’t have been off.

And nobody should’ve been standing on the front stoop, but someone was.

A tall, dark figure reaching for me.

I shrieked.

Through the noise of my outcry, he said something. I couldn’t hear it, though. Still shrieking, I swung the saber at him.

A left-handed, feeble try.

He staggered backward to avoid the blade.

It missed him, but he stumbled off the edge of the stoop and fell backward. He landed on the grass. A whoomp exploded out of him; the impact with the lawn must’ve knocked his wind out.

I leaped over the threshold, ran across the stoop and hopped down. Stradling his hips, I raised the saber high with both hands and swept it down as hard as I could.

It chopped his head down the middle, cleaving his face in half. It split his head open most of the way to his neck, but his jaw stopped the blade.

He thrashed and gurgled between my feet.

My saber was stuck, either between a couple of his lower front teeth or in the bone of his jaw. I shook it and tugged it. Instead of coming loose, it jerked his head this way and that.

At last, it came out.

I was all set to give him another chop, but he’d quit moving.

He looked pretty dead.

Pretty isn’t a great choice of words, under the circumstances. Anyway, there was no good reason to give him another whack.

I felt too shocked and worn out to do much of anything, so I just kept standing over him, his hips between my ankles. I had the sword clutched in my right hand, but held it off to the side so blood wouldn’t rub off or drip on me.

I stood there for a long time.

Staring down at the body.

It was lit by the dim glow from a lamp near the driveway.

It wore a short-sleeved plaid shirt, blue jeans and loafers. No socks.

It sure wasn’t my prowler.

I figured it was probably Tony.

6

DISCOVERIES

My guess was right.

When I finally recovered enough to move, I stepped away from him, put my saber down on the grass, then crouched beside him and searched the pockets of his jeans.

He had a comb and handkerchief in his left front pocket. A wallet in the left back pocket. In the right front, a leather key case and some coins. In the right back, a pistol.

A pistol!

Had he come here planning to stand guard and protect me?

Or to use the gun against me?

I put his things into the pockets of my robe, but the gun was too heavy. It felt like a hand tugging down on my pocket. Afraid it might ruin the robe, I took it out and carried it.

Back inside the house, I shut the door. I sat down on the cool marble floor of the foyer and inspected my findings.

The white handkerchief looked clean. I didn’t study the comb very closely; combs can be gross. He had eighty-five cents in change. Six keys in his leather case. Thirty-eight dollars in the bill compartment of his wallet.

The wallet was full of stuff, but I won’t bore you with a list. I’ll cut to the chase, as they say. It contained two foilwrapped condoms—meant for me?—and a driver’s license that identified him as Anthony Joseph Romano.

His date of birth was two years earlier than mine, which made him twenty-eight. The photo must’ve been taken a few years ago, because he hardly looked old enough to be out of high school. He had short blond hair, freckles across his nose, and a friendly smile.

It made me feel bad, looking at him.

Knowing I’d killed him.

He’d probably driven over here to protect me. Nothing more sinister than that.

He thought he was being a good guy.

Like they say, “No good deed goes unpunished.”

I felt rotten about killing him, but not particularly guilty. It wasn’t my fault he paid me a surprise visit and got his head chopped open for the trouble. I hadn’t invited him over.

He should’ve minded his own business.

Not only had he gotten himself killed, but he’d put me into a horrible situation.

What was I supposed to do now?

I stopped looking at his photo, and checked the address on his driver’s license. 4468 Washington Avenue, Apt. 212. (Sounds like a real address, doesn’t it? I made it up.) I knew the general area. It wasn’t far from here. Less than ten minutes. After hanging up the phone, he must’ve grabbed his pistol and hurried right out to his car…

No.

He probably hadn’t come here from the Washington Avenue address. He’d moved to a new place because of all the memories. That’s one of the reasons he’d tried to phone Judy—to let her know his new phone number.

Unless he’d made the move a couple of months ago, the address on his driver’s license almost had to be wrong.

I gave the wallet another search. Sure enough, tucked into the bill compartment was a folded slip of paper with an address scribbled on it in pencil: 645 Little Oak Lane, Apt. 12. (But not really.) This was probably his new address.

I put the paper back where I’d found it, set the wallet aside, and picked up the pistol.

It was a small, stainless steel .22 automatic with a black plastic handle. The fine print in the steel told me that it was a Smith & Wesson.

The safety wasn’t on.

I dropped the loaded magazine into my hand, then pulled back the slide. Tony didn’t have a bullet in the chamber. I shoved the magazine back up the handle until it clicked into place, then worked the slide, watching through the port to make sure it fed in a round. Then I thumbed the safety on.

After that, I just kept sitting there.

I didn’t have the energy to get up.

Besides, get up and do what?

Deal is, I didn’t know what to do next. So I just sat there, staring.

I’ve gotta do something, I kept telling myself.

What’s the best course of action if you’ve just butchered an innocent man?

The answer probably seems obvious to you: call the cops and tell them the whole truth about everything.