only thirty seconds prior.
So how had whatever that was gotten onto his eating bar?
With a sudden revelation, he stared straight up at the ceiling, following it to where it met the wall; bowing outward as it arched away from the house. The glass was all in place, no cracks or openings. It was sealed perfectly, as it had been when he moved in. Taking one step forward, he craned his head around the corner of the kitchen, staring straight down the hallway and into the foyer. There were no footprints on the Spanish tile, and he could tell from the size of the massive deadbolt that it was still engaged.
His blood coursed increasingly hotter through his veins as he fought the urge to inspect the object on the table. There was no way that it could have found its way onto his table as his house was sealed like a tomb, with a state of the art security system mounted on every surface that remotely resembled an opening. If a door or window had opened, there would already be police at the house. But he could see from the panel on the wall that the two green lights were on, meaning that the system was operational and hadn’t been triggered.
Closing his eyes, he tried to steady his nerves. His hands clenched at his sides, opening and closing rhythmically in time with his rapid panting.
Once again opening his eyes, he leaned over the table and inspected the object.
It was an oblong shape, larger at one end than it was at the other. Reaching out carefully, he picked it up between his thumb and forefinger, holding it up above the paper. Small chunks of mud sloshed off of the surface, landing in small splatters on the newspaper. Turning it over and over, he inspected it closely. It appeared to be a hat.
Glancing around the room one last time, he walked it over to the sink and turned on the water. Holding it beneath the rapidly warming stream, he scrubbed at the mud with his left hand, chunks falling into little brown piles on the Formica. Small lines of sand ran from the clusters towards the drain, separating into individual grains as they were drawn away from each other.
It was black and felt as though it was made of canvas. There was a black plastic band along the back with little pegs for adjusting the size. Turning it over, he stared at the front of the hat. The brim was a faded rust color, the thread in the seams peeling back in strands. And right on the front of the hat…
“My God…” he whispered, the hat falling from his hand beneath the running water.
Though it had been more than a decade since he had last seen it, he recognized it right away. After all, he had seen it every day of his life practically, prior to then anyway. There was an abstract bird, the Atlanta Falcons logo, the black bird framed by thin white lines, paralleled by red ones.
Snatching the hat out of the sink, he turned it over in his hands, looking inside the brim. There was a small, fraying tag peering out of one of the seams. He tugged on it, yanking it free of its stitching.
“MP,” he read aloud, the tag falling from his suddenly weak grip onto the floor.
He fell to his knees on the floor, his arms hanging limply at his sides, palms facing the ceiling. His chin rested on his chest, jaw hanging slack. All vital signs seemed to slow at once, the veins in his temples thudding deliberately, echoing in the empty room. Unblinking, he stared down at the tag on the floor, unable to steer his gaze from the small, yellow-stained piece of fabric, its tattered edges jostling beneath the heat that blew down from the vent in the ceiling.
Without even raising his head, Scott half-slid, half-crawled to the edge of the counter, grabbing the cord to the phone and yanking the entire cordless unit off of the counter. The base unit clattered to the ground, the pager button popping off and sliding across the floor beneath the refrigerator. Picking up the receiver, Scott dialed three buttons, the tone resonating within his skull. Pressing the phone to the side of his head, he backed himself along the floor into the corner of the room, flanked by lines of cabinets.
“911,” the voice on the other end of the line answered.
“There’s someone in my house,” Scott whispered, his eyes nervously darting from one side of the room to the other.
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THE BLOODSPAWN
Michael McBride
© 2004 Michael McBride. All rights reserved.
PART FIVE
Chapters 5 & 6
V
Sunday, November 13th
5:30 am
Tim Williams lifted his right foot onto the lid of the toilet, pulling the laces tight on his cross-trainers, and tying them into a knot. Switching feet, he laced up the left shoe. Pulling the cuffs of his sweat pants down to the tongues of his shoes, he paused, placing his fingertips on the linoleum floor and stretched his hamstrings. He bounced once and then stood straight up, leaning backward and placing his hands at the base of his back. Slowly, he rolled his head and shoulders back. With a sigh, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror.
His light brown hair had thinned slightly at the temples, but was still fairly thick throughout. There was certainly visible wear around his light brown eyes, and thin smile lines to either side of his thin, slightly chapped lips. His pale complexion stood out in rugged contrast to the dark blue, zippered sweat suit top.
Lifting up the bottom edge of the jacket, he crunched his stomach muscles and stood sideways in front of the mirror, patting the thin layer of skin atop his almost-rippled stomach. With a sly grin, he tugged the top back down and grabbed the pair of gloves off of the counter next to the sink.
Slipping them on, he walked out of the bathroom into the darkened bedroom. He could barely discern the dark outline of his wife slumbering in the bed, her long, dark hair spread across the white flowered pillowcase. Stopping at the side of the bed, beside the lump in the covers, he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. She made a muffled grumbling sound and rolled over onto her side, bringing her knees up to her chest. The sound of her light wheezing filled the air as Tim crept out of the bedroom and into the hallway.
Passing his study, the light from the power strip on the floor glowed red. The curtains ruffled lightly as the heater gusted straight up from the floorboards.
The next room on his left was completely empty, save for the stacks of boxes right in the middle of the floor. At some point, that was going to be the baby’s room, but until they were actually able to conceive, they weren’t going to set it up as such. And setting it up for anything other than a baby’s room would be an admission of failure. So, that room was going to sit with a small stack of boxes in the center until they were able to make something happen.
They had only moved into this house about six months ago, after having decided that they were ready to start a family. Tim and Vanessa had been married for close to five years now, having met in college, and married shortly following graduation. The last five years had been devoted entirely to starting their careers. Vanessa had landed a job as an accountant with one of the larger software designers in the area right out of school, and enjoyed the nine to five lifestyle. Tim, on the other hand, found himself in advertising, working for the Gazette. His days began by seven, and he found himself lucky to be home before eight at night. Granted, he had never worked a weekend day, but the weekdays were about enough to kill him; going from one account to the next to the next, setting up appointments, passing out rate cards, wining and dining the big bucks. The way he saw it, they should change his title to “brown noser.” And, unless he started to see more money coming his way, he was going to have to find another job.
It’s not as though he wasn’t making good money, but when you break it down and factor in the twelve or thirteen hour days, it was suddenly a whole lot more difficult to come up with the energy to make a go of it every day. That was why he initially started these early morning jogs.
He had found that with each passing morning, he awoke a little more tired than the day before, and after a
