"Yes."
"I stole that vial. Some is on Rita Jones's white T-shirt. The rest is on the others."
"What others?"
"I make a phone call, and you spend the rest of your life in prison, possibly death row..."
"I just want you-"
"Shut your mouth. You'll receive a plane ticket in the mail. Take the flight. Pack clothes, toiletries, nothing else. You spent last summer in Aruba. Tell your friends you're going again."
"How did you know that?"
"I know many things, Andrew."
"I have a book coming out," I pleaded. "I've got readings scheduled. My agent-"
"Lie to her."
"She won't understand me just leaving like this."
"Fuck Cynthia Mathis. You lie to her for your safety, because if I even suspect you've brought someone along or that someone knows, you'll go to jail or you'll die. One or the other, guaranteed. And I hope you aren't stupid enough to trace this number. I promise you it's stolen."
"How do I know I won't be hurt?"
"You don't. But if I get off the phone with you and I'm not convinced you'll be on that flight, I'll call the police tonight. Or I may visit you while you're sleeping. You've got to put that Smith and Wesson away sometime."
I stood up and spun around, the gun clenched in my sweaty hands. The house was silent, though chimes on the deck were clanging in a zephyr. I looked through the large living room windows at the black lake, its wind-rippled surface reflecting the pier lights. The blue light at the end of Walter's pier shone out across the water from a distant inlet. His "Gatsby light," we called it. My eyes scanned the grass and the edge of the trees, but it was far too dark to see anything in the woods.
"I'm not in the house," he said. "Sit down."
I felt something well up inside of me-anger at the fear, rage at this injustice.
"Change of plan," I said. "I'm going to hang up, dial nine one one, and take my chances. You can go-"
"If you aren't motivated by self-preservation, there's an old woman named Jeanette I could-"
"I'll kill you."
"Sixty-five, lives alone, I think she'd love the company. What do you think? Do I have to visit your mother to show you I'm serious? What is there to consider? Tell me you'll be on that plane, Andrew. Tell me so I don't have to visit your mother tonight."
"I'll be on that plane."
The phone clicked, and he was gone.
Dweller
A bonus excerpt from Jeff's novel, DWELLER, also available in the Kindle Store...
When Toby next met the monster, his hair still had traces of Nick Wyler's urine. Nick hadn't actually peed on Toby, thank God, but he'd seasoned the toilet bowl before Toby's head plunged into the murky depths.
"C'mon, hurry up!" urged Larry Gaige, moments before the dunking. Larry was far and away the biggest creep at Orange Leaf High. His physical build would've made him football team material, if he had any interest in fighting other kids his size. He held Toby against the wall of the bathroom stall, with Toby's head pressed next to a detailed but inaccurate drawing of a vagina.
"I'm trying!" Nick insisted. He stood next to the toilet, trying to relieve himself but suffering from performance anxiety. Toby personally had always had a real issue with the lack of doors in the bathrooms, so he could understand why it might be difficult for Nick to pee with two other guys in the stall.
Toby struggled some more, mostly for show. He was short, thin, and outnumbered, and knew he wasn't getting out of this bathroom undunked unless a teacher happened to walk in, searching for smokers. Calling for help was not an option. Larry got his thrills by causing humiliation, not pain, but he would hurt you if he had to.
"Let's go, let's go!" said Larry, kicking Nick on the back of the leg. Toby heard a few drops hit the water and a few more hit the seat.
"Why don't you do it? I haven't had enough to drink today."
"Are you kidding me?" Larry gave his friend a look of absolute disbelief. "Just yank the stopper out of your dick and take a piss!"
"Maybe if you left the stall for a minute...?"
For a moment, Toby thought that Larry was actually going to let him go so that he could focus his attention on beating the crap out of Nick. His optimism was quickly extinguished as Larry slammed him against the wall hard enough to make him bite his tongue. He winced and tasted blood.
The sound of a healthy stream of urine hitting the toilet water filled the stall. Nick was cured.
"Okay, that's enough," said Larry. "We've gotta hurry up."
"I can't stop once I've started!"
"Jesus Christ!"
"Just let me finish!"
Larry stood there, visibly fuming, as Nick continued the challenging process of relieving himself. Toby kept praying that a teacher or some other adult visitor would walk in and question the presence of three teenage boys sharing a restroom stall, but as the stream slowed to a trickle and then to a spatter, Toby knew his moment of extreme indignity had almost arrived.
Larry shoved Nick out of the way before he was completely done. Nick punched him in the arm. "I bought these pants with my own money!"
Ignoring his friend, Larry pushed Toby to his knees in front of the toilet bowl and then quickly pushed his face toward the aromatic liquid. Toby squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath as his face dipped into the warm water. He gagged and desperately tried not to inhale as the toilet flushed and the water swirled around his head.
Once the water had completely exited the bowl, Larry let go of his neck. He and Nick walked out of the stall, laughing. Another scrawny twerp successfully humiliated.
Could've been worse. Had been worse, several times. Still, Toby's cheeks burned from shame and he felt like he was going to throw up as he coughed and gagged and gasped for breath.
Toby left the stall, turned on one of the faucets, and tried to rinse the piss out of his hair. He could tattle on those jerks and get them suspended, but suspensions were temporary, and there wasn't much the school board could do if the bullies decided to lie in wait for him next to his front porch with tire irons and broken bottles.
Okay, he didn't actually believe that Larry and Nick would kill him, or even hospitalize him. The most violence they'd inflict was a hard punch to the stomach, maybe some light bruises elsewhere. But there was a code of honor at Orange Leaf High: you didn't rat out your peers. Not even awful, reprehensible, deserve-to-die peers. Nobody liked a rat fink. If Toby went to his parents or a teacher, he'd be scorned by every kid in school.
He was already the Weird Kid in a school that was severely lacking in other weird kids. If he became the Weird Kid Who Was Also A Rat Fink, he might as well kiss any glimpse of hope for making friends--real friends, maybe even a girlfriend--goodbye. He didn't have many friends in elementary school or junior high, but at least the kids there talked to him, sometimes. But most of his half-friends had gone to West End High, and his out-of-the-way address put him in the Orange Leaf High district, so he was starting over.
Anyway, someday he'd get Larry and Nick back. He was doing chin-ups every day. He could do eleven or twelve of them now. By the end of the year, who knew how big his muscles might be?
"Time for a dunking!" Larry might say, pulling Toby into the stall. Toby would drop to his knees, and Nick would laugh and laugh at how easy it was to overpower him. But, oh, how his laughter would stop when Toby suddenly used his brute strength to rip the toilet right out of the floor!
"Holy cow!" Nick would scream. "How many chin-ups has he done?"