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A young girl's cold hands tugged at his elbows. Harry stumbled against an unopened box as he lumbered out of his bedroom towards the kitchen to turn on the coffee maker. He hated mornings. He always woke, foul-headed and mealy mouthed, as if his brain had been shoved into his yet unpacked blender set on puree. The dream didn't help matters any. In the kitchen, littered with even more boxes, he managed to make his way to the counter. Pressing a couple of buttons and satisfied that the coffee maker was sounding a healthy buzz, he stumbled back out, nearly tripping over a box marked POTS. Cursing, he slammed himself in the bathroom and proceeded in his daily ritual of slapping himself awake. Harry had moved into the little town of Brentwood four days before, confident that as soon as he had himself fully unpacked, he would finally be able to set up his home office. He was so euphoric with the idea that he would be his own boss that he snatched up the quaint brick house because it was the first one in the area that he had seen in the for-sale listings. The realtor had warned him that there were other places he should have looked--places in more secluded neighborhoods--but Harry was adamant and impatient. If the house had been next door to the state prison, he wouldn't have cared. The house was in his price range and that had been enough for him. After slaving away as a corporate underling for a decade, starting his own business was forefront in his mind. The house perched on a gently sloping hill wearing a tiny front yard. A fenced garden circled the house, but dead prennials spotted the mulch since the previous owner never bothered to take care of it. Then there was a street, and across from that, the local elementary school. Harry hardly thought about it. He figured if he left his doors closed and refused to answer the doorbell, the kids would learn not to bother selling him cookies or magazines or gift-wrap. Ten minutes later, Harry drifted out of the bathroom and followed the scent of freshly brewed coffee. Breakfast was routine: first a gulp of his favorite stimulant and then something more solid--toast, cereal, or waffles. Once munching once of these items, he would amble into the living room, intent on turning into the morning news shows on the television. Today, the window caught his eye briefly. Three yellow school buses unloaded their precious cargo for the morning. Other cars, driven by work-harried parents passed to drop off children. One of those cars, a blue station wagon, parked at the curb in front of his house. On the television, the local morning news was on full swing. ...seven-year-old Alica Brown was found last night along I-85. She appeared to be strangled and dumped into the ditch about a week ago. It was the same time when she disappeared on her way home from a friend's house. Investigators are currently scouring the area for any clues pertaining to the young girl's death... He watched the television flash to a wooded area running along the main freeway that encircled Brentwood. Yellow tape marked the perimeter of the crime scene. Two cops loitered in the area carrying plastic bags in their gloved hands. There was no sign of a body. The footage only lasted about thirty seconds. The news immediately flipped back to Johnny, the weatherman who happily predicted sunny skies with the high of sixty along with a pollen update of seventy-five percent ragweed and the rest, mold. Harry made a mental note to stock up on Kleenex and lumbered back into the kitchen to get more coffee. * * * By late afternoon, he had unpacked his computer and printer. His reference books were shelved neatly, in alphabetical order by author, and a couple of fresh paper ads were stacked on the edge of his desk along with his five-year-old black mug with the slogan "I love slamming my finger in the car door" lettered in typewriter-white. The heady odor of fresh paper mingled with the musty references. An odor of accomplishment. Smiling, Harry took a sip from his mug and wandered out of his office. Perhaps he should also start unpacking the small knick-knacks that he had collected over the years. They had been gifts from his parents, his sister, and various other relatives. Those boxes, three of them marked with "M--fragile," queued up in a row facing his living room window. He knelt down and took the box cutter out of his back pocket when she caught his eye. The woman was in the driver seat of the blue station wagon that he had noticed earlier in the morning. He could only see her profile, a pale jagged line defining her forehead and nose, a slash of red for lips, and dark hair pulled back severely. She was motionless; a mannequin in a car. The angle of her head suggested that she was watching the school. It was nearly 3 PM and the yellow school buses began rolling out from the front of the school to take the children home. Harry shook himself from the momentary paralysis. He looked back down to the waiting boxes and proceeded to slash the top open. The first one was cushioned in the Sunday comics. Unwrapping it, he found a ceramic mask, the one given to him by his sister who had made it in a high school art class. "An apology," Danielle had told him, practically shoving it into his hands. "I should have listened to your warning about Tim. You have a knack for noticing the bastards at a glance." "I can't take this. Anyone could have told you he was a jerk." She shook her head. "Don't try to deny it." The mask was chalk white and smooth except for the brightly painted mouth and the gouge that ran from the left eyehole to halfway down the cheek. He ran a finger across the mouth. It was slightly rough like that of dead skin. He looked back out the window and found the street in front of his house empty. * * *
Harry had been thrust back into high school--into the familiar
hallways lined with dulling blue lockers and scratchy linoleum
floor. Between classes the hallways were crammed with bodies and
book bags, slowly crowding out any breathing space.
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