Christie Road

He was already fifteen minutes late for practice with Mike and Tre, and still had to take his gear out to the car. But Anna stood holding the phone toward him, mouthing "It's for you--Lani," and, well, what could he do? He took the phone from her and tried to summon his thinning patience so she wouldn't think he wasn't happy to hear from her.

"Hey, baby, whatcha doin'?" he asked as cheerfully as he could.

"Karin and I walked down to the Circle K, and when I saw the pay phone, I had to call you to say hi."

"So you guys are just hanging out today?" he said, fumbling in his pockets for his car keys, trying to sound casual. "That's cool. It's beautiful out there!"

"Yeah, I wish we could get together and do something. I can't wait for this two weeks to be over!" The longing in her voice was impossible to miss. "What do you think the chances are you could come by later tonight and let me meet you down the block?"

Once again, the mental image of her father made him choose caution over impulse. "God, I'd love to, more than you know. But if we got caught, who knows how long it would be before he'd let you go out with me again? He doesn't seem to like me very much, so I think we better not give him any more reasons, don't you?" He tried to soothe her with his voice, resisting his normal urge to spit in the face of authority with as much attitude as possible.

She sighed softly. "Yeah, you're right. It just seems like such a long time, you know?"

He did know. "But it's just two more days, baby, and then I'll be right by your side again. Can you hold out until then?" He was pulling his battered sneakers on, balancing on one foot and cradling the phone on his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" she asked, laughing lightly. "You sound out of breath!"

Busted. He stopped struggling with his shoe and straightened up. "I'm fine, I was just getting ready for band practice. We talked with a guy yesterday about making an EP, and now we have to fine tune the songs we want to record." He carefully avoided the subject of touring, knowing it was something he needed to tell her about in person.

"Oh, Billie, how exciting!" she gushed. "I'm so happy for you! When do you get to record?" It was her turn to sound breathless now.

"Next week, so we don't have much time to rehearse. So, um, speaking of rehearsing..." he added, glancing at his watch. Twenty minutes late, and he hadn't even left home. Mike would be pissed, and Tre would be bored, which was even worse.

"Oh, I'm--I'm so sorry," she said, sounding a little embarrassed. "I'll let you go."

"No, it's okay! I wish I could talk to you longer--no, what I really wish is that I could see you...and hug you...and kiss you..." His voice fell to a whisper. "Especially kiss you..."

The shiver in her voice when she sighed again made his knees weak. He thought again of the months he was going to be away from her, and realized it was going to be harder than he expected.

*******************

They were running through the rain, laughing, and somehow their feet were barely touching the ground. Her blond hair streamed gossamer behind her, and her fingers laced through his held his hand tightly. He felt the elation of the ground streaking underneath him, reveling in the sensation, until he began to feel a tugging on his hand. She had fallen behind, struggling to keep up with him, but he couldn't seem to make his feet slow down. Her arm stretched to its fullest, her smile fading to alarm, and as he ran, she seemed to drift further and further away, until he realized they were no longer touching. As he turned toward her to try to catch her grasp again, his body slammed into a huge pile of pots and pans that was sitting inexplicably in the middle of the field, bringing them crashing down around him...

He bolted upright in bed, the dream evaporating like smoke, but the metallic echo still lingered faintly in his ears. Straining to listen in the darkness, he heard only the hum of the refrigerator and the ticking of the hall clock. Still, he knew he had heard something, and not just in his dream.

It wasn't fear that made his heart beat a little faster, exactly, but his senses were on alert for any sound or movement as he slipped on his pants and opened his bedroom door. Ollie and Anna's doors were still closed, and no light spilled underneath them--good, they were still asleep. For eight years now he had stepped into the role of protector, and he felt the responsibility keenly.

Every room looked as it always did as he crept through the quiet house. Nothing was moving in the yard, no cars were passing on the street--at 3:15 am, that was no surprise. He scratched his tousled head, perplexed, and was about to give up and go back to bed when he heard a soft thud under his feet.

The basement!

The sickly blue-white light from the street lamp glinted off the blade of the butcher knife, stuck like a steel fish to the magnet strip on the kitchen wall. It twanged softly as he pulled it free and crept silently toward the basement door. There was a faint click as the knob turned, and then the door swung open without another sound.

The pool of shadows at the bottom of the stairs could have concealed anything, but he steeled himself and started down the wood steps, the hilt of the knife gripped tightly in his hand. He peered over the side railing, making sure no hand was ready to reach up and grasp his ankle, and flipped on the light switch quickly.

"Gotcha!" he growled, but as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, he saw nothing but the accumulated clutter of thirty years, boxes and suitcases, hobby horses and dusty camping equipment. The old, rust-spotted washer and dryer stood sentinel in the middle of the far wall, and his weight bench snuggled beside them like a leathery old dog.

Creeping slowly across the cold cement floor, he tried to search his memory to see if anything had been moved. But at three in the morning, spotting any change in the random chaos was all but impossible. He peered into niches and behind boxes, not sure what he might be looking for.

The corner behind the furnace was the darkest, by virtue of being farthest from the stairs and the light. It was also the only area in the basement that was kept clear, Ollie's commitment to fire prevention. He had always hated that metal monstrosity, with its wheezing and banging, and couldn't remember ever venturing behind it before. Not that there had ever been a reason.

Time to man up, he thought to himself. Skirting the dull brown metal of the furnace widely, he squinted into the musty dimness, letting his eyes adjust to the shadows. Against the deep gray of the floor, he thought he saw a darker spot with no recognizable shape, sort of a puddle of blackness.

Curiosity aroused, he poked tentatively at it with the tip of the knife blade, and felt something soft and yielding, like fabric. He reached down with his free hand, and found that it was, in fact, something thick and cottony, with a strip of rough metal down the side.

Pulling it around into the dull light, he was surprised to see the battered old sleeping bag he had lugged to Mike's house on so many occasions when they were young. There was weight at the foot of it, and he reluctantly unzipped it, handling it gingerly in case some rabid squirrel or raccoon came exploding out of its depths and launched itself at his face.

Suddenly he dropped it like it was on fire and took two frantic steps backward. Something black and furry was poking out of the bottom corner, partly concealed under the folds of flannel. But it wasn't moving, and as he looked closer, it didn't seem to be real fur. Another furtive poke with the knife confirmed that it wasn't alive, and he pinched it between his thumb and forefinger to pull it out of the sleeping bag.

Several empty potato chip bags and an empty Diet Dr. Pepper bottle slid out along with it, and as he picked it up to examine it, his eyes grew wide with astonishment.

In his hand he held a very familiar-looking stuffed tarantula.