The Dark Knight (Apocalypse Weird 2) (8 page)

At six o’clock, Cory, no longer
wearing his Batman costume, left the house, remembering to take the key from
around his neck and lock the front door.  It was still hot out.  There weren’t
many people on the street.  All the houses in the typical 1970’s white stucco
block-and-angle construction Southern California tract home neighborhood were
quiet.

Cory walked three houses over to Mrs. Sheinman’s.  When he
opened the door, he could smell the soup she always made him.  Tomato.  There
would be a grilled cheese sandwich also.  He went right to the lace-covered
dining table and sat down, waiting.

“I made soup Cory,” came a thin, weak voice from the back of
the house.

She usually fed Cory his supper on days that Cory’s dad had
to be in to work early.  Colin had called her, telling her he’d been ordered in
to deal with some developing situation.

The soup came out and they both sat in the quiet, eating
together.  Cory was not a talker, but that didn’t matter as Mrs. Sheinman was.

“It’s been quiet out today, Cory,” she said and coughed
delicately behind her thin bluish wrist.  Cory said nothing.

“Are all the kids back in school already?”

And...

“I hope they do something about those fires over in Orange,
the smoke is playing havoc with my allergies.”

When the soup was finished, Cory with business-like
commitment stacked his dishes in the sink and went to sit back down at the
table, staring at his folded hands.

Mrs. Sheinman finished her soup.  Except she didn’t really
finish it, she just stopped eating.

“I didn’t feel well enough to make dessert today, honey,”
she told Cory softly.  “I didn’t even make it to the store to get my diabetes
medication.”

Cory stood up, pushed in his chair, and went and sat down in
the rocker near the silent TV.  After dessert, they would usually watch
Jeopardy and then Cory would sleep in the guest room until after midnight when
his father would come back, pick him up and take him home.

Late at night the two of them, Cory and Colin, would sit in
the kitchen as Cory’s dad scrambled eggs and had his dinner.  He would talk
about the day and the shift and Cory would say nothing.

Then bed.

But tonight there was no dessert.

Mrs. Sheinman sat down after doing the dishes.  She always
sat on the couch across from Cory.  She would read her novels with the covers
of well-muscled men and raven-haired beauties looking longingly at each other. 
But tonight she seemed tired.

She turned on the TV.  Jeopardy wasn’t on.

Only the “Stay Tuned to this Station for an Important
Announcement” stared back at the two of them.

“Well,” sighed Mrs. Sheinman.  “I wonder what this could be
about.”  They waited, but there were no special bulletins or important
messages.  After a while, as late summer twilight surrendered to deep evening
dark, she switched off the TV and sat by the lone light in the living room.  It
cast an hourglass of yellow light above and below the lampshade, leaving the
rest of the room in shadows.

Cory could smell the flowers in the garden coming through
the open window near the rocker he drifted back and forth in.  He liked the
smell of the night.

It reminded him of his mother.

Mrs. Sheinman looked out the window.

“It’s so dark out tonight, Cory.”

Normally they could see the lights of other houses out
beyond the backyard, but tonight it was indeed, truly dark out.  And quiet.

Cory continued to gently rock back and forth, enjoying the
motion and comfort the rocker provided.  He liked the barely audible
squeak
it made as it rocked forward each time. 

Like music he could make.

Mrs. Sheinman tried to read but her eyes kept closing, the
book suddenly dropping to her lap, as her head sunk to her chest.

“I’m afraid...” she began, almost groaning, her voice a
tired croak.  She didn’t finish.

She got up slowly, went into the kitchen and Cory could hear
her using the phone.  When she came back she was pale.  Even Cory could see
that.

“Cory, honey,” she began and knelt beside the chair.  She
had never done that, come so close to his personal space.  “I need you to do
something very important for me, honey.”

Cory continued staring at the lamp and its hourglass of
yellow light.  Its twisting beveled butterscotch glass housing fascinated him.

“I need you to go down to the DrugCo,” she paused.  “Do you
know where that is?”

Staring straight ahead Cory said, “It’s right and left and
straight and right.  Cross the big street.  Don’t go to the freeway.  Candy
aisle and come right back.”

Mrs. Sheinman’s eyes were closed as she listened to Cory’s
monotone recitation of the path needed to arrive at the DrugCo.  “Yes dear,”
she said and it clearly pained her to do so.  “Can you go there and ask for
someone to take you to the pharmacy?  Dr. Liu knows you’re coming.  He’s going
to give you a bag and you need to bring that bag right back to me, honey.  It’s
very important.  Can you do that for me, dear?”

Cory stood up.

“It’s dark out,” he said flatly.

Mrs. Sheinman got to her feet.  Unsteady at first.  “Yes
dear, it is.  I’ll give you a flashlight.”

“I’m not s’posed to go out in the dark unless it’s a fire or
an emergency or it’s the Bat signal, not just the moon, ‘cause that means Daddy
needs help.  I’m not s’posed to go out at night.”

She sighed.

“I know that, dear.  I wouldn’t ask you to unless it was
very important, but you see, I need a medication called insulin and I forgot to
get it today.  If I don’t have it, I could become real sick, Cory.  I’ve called
everyone I can think of to go and pick it up for me, but none of the neighbors
are answering.  Dr. Liu told me he needs to close the store soon, but he’s
waiting to hand out medication to a few people like myself who are going to
need a supply of it for the next few days.  I just don’t know what’s going on,
dear.  But it seems serious and... well...  I need help.”

Cory stood up.

“I’ll be back.”

Cory walked to the door and left.  The door closed with a
heavy
thud
that left a gaping silence in the room as Mrs. Sheinman
crawled to the couch and leaned her head against it.

Ten minutes later, he was back and Mrs. Sheinman couldn’t
believe he’d gone to the store and come back so quickly.  Or had she passed
out?  Lost time?

Cory stood framed in the doorway in his child’s Batman
costume.  The police utility belt around his wide waist.  Heavy duty work
gloves on his large hands.  A dark blue school backpack on his back, beneath
his cape.

“I’m Batman,” he announced in the post-door-closing
thud
silence.

Confused, Mrs. Sheinman looked about.  Fear, worry and
mortality raced through her like sudden rivulets of ice water.  She felt the
walls closing in.  She struggled to her feet, walked toward him feeling foggy
and confused, then sat down with her own
thud
on the little creaking
bench in the foyer.  The one she and her husband Ed had picked out twenty years
ago.

She thought, well Ed, I guess I won’t be away from you much
longer. 

She patted the bench, remembering when she’d been younger
and they’d picked it out at a chic furniture store down in Newport Beach.  She
didn’t feel like she’d ever get up from it again.  Her body felt distant.

I never imagined I’d die on it though, she thought.  Life’s
funny that way, I guess.

“Oh Cory,” she mumbled.

“I’m Batman,” said Cory.  “Batman can go out at night.  I am
vengeance, I am the night.  I am Batman.”

Cory turned and walked out the door, across the grass of the
lawn, disappearing into the depths of the night.

The street that bisected the nearly
identical houses on each side stretched off and away from Cory.  A darkness
that seemed unnatural, even to Cory on this night, closed in about him.  In the
distance he heard a scream.  Once, briefly.  As if uttered in sudden horror and
terror.  Then it was gone, so gone in fact, it was as though it had never been.

As if it had been swallowed.

“I am the night...” mumbled Cory as fear began to pull at
the corners of his mind.

He remembered he must turn right first.

He turned right, made sure it was right and started walking,
holding the thick flashlight Daddy let him carry on the utility belt in his
gloved hand.

“It’s dangerous out at night, Cory,” he said to himself in a
soft monotone whisper.

He passed the house where Kenny Watt lived.  It was dark
inside and Cory searched all the familiar spaces of it with his eyes.  He did
not like the way the house looked when it looked like this.  Abandoned. 
Empty.  Dangerous.

“It’s not safe...” mumbled Cory again to himself.  “At
night.  For little boys to be out.”

Then he remembered Batman was never afraid.  Except, you
didn’t count the time Scarecrow made Batman afraid using poison gas.  Then
Batman had been very afraid but it didn’t count and by the end of that episode,
he remembered not to be afraid.  So Cory remembered not to be afraid too.  Even
though he was.

Nearing the end of the street where he must turn and leave
the neighborhood to cross the big road and then walk down the hill to the
DrugCo, Cory heard something in the dark behind him.

Something scraping against the sidewalk.

He turned, the bright flashlight playing its blistering cone
of white across the grayish street, onto the washed out green lawns, then
landing on the sidewalk behind him.  The flashlight illuminated everything
within that cone of withering washed out light to at least twenty feet away.

There was nothing.

Still, he heard the scrape in the darkness beyond the cone
again.

Then its source lumbered into the light.

It was a stranger.

“Stranger Danger,” flashed across Cory’s mind just like
Cory’s dad had taught him.  Stranger Danger meant certain, unknown people were
dangerous.  This man, this lumbering man came forward in a dark coat, pale
face, teeth bared, eyes gleaming with hatred.  This man was certainly the
stranger Cory had always been warned of. 

And if he was unsure... 

If he was unclear... 

If he doubted himself for a moment, which was something Cory
did often though no one could tell, that this Stranger meant him harm, then in
the next moment all Cory’s fears were confirmed when the bloodless stranger
reached long spindly arms and scabbed over fingers out for Cory as a thin mouth
whispered a guttural papery grunt.

Cory recoiled.

What do you do if a stranger tries to talk to you...

... or grab you, Cory?

Run, Daddy.

Run.

But where to Cory?  Where do you run to?

Cory was running already.  The flashlight bouncing ahead of
him.  The street, the sidewalk.  A slinking gray cat yowled at him, then darted
off into some bushes.

“I’m scared, Daddy.”

That was all Cory could think of.

“I’m scared, Daddy.”

Scared, blind fear.

“I’m scared, Daddy.”

He ran.

And then... where do you run to, Cory?

“To someone you know.  To a house you know, Daddy.”

Cory didn’t know people well.

But houses.  He knew houses quite well.  They were unique. 
They had personalities, and even if they all looked the same, the people in
them made them different.  Kevin Watt’s house. The Ruiz’s house.  Mr.
Montgomery’s dog’s house.

“I’ll run to a house I know, Daddy!”

Cory couldn’t recognize any of the houses this far up the
street.  It was dark and all the lights were out.

Another stranger came lurching out of the blackness, eyes
rolling white, mouth moaning.  The stranger’s throat bore a simple bloody
ragged tear.

Cory heard himself scream.

Then he pushed the lurching stranger with a loud, “No!”  The
stranger fell away, spinning off into the darkness and Cory ran until he
reached the end of the street.

What houses do you know, Cory?

Cory tried to think.

He could hear the scraping sound coming closer again.

There’s the Farley’s.  They have a dog that smells but he
kisses your face if you ever get pushed down to the ground when the Farley Boys
and their sister want to “play”.  One time when they were “playing”, Cory got
hit so hard he fell into the brick planter and cut himself on the forehead and
they took him inside and put “stinging” on the cut.  Their mom was nice and
yelled at them and gave Cory a small cookie.  Their house smelled like fall to
Cory.

He didn’t see the Farley’s tan and white house with the dead
flowers in the planter.

There was the house that belonged to the Chung family.  They
always had someone there for Cory to play with.  That was how Cory thought of
the Chungs.  One of them was always with another.  Always doing something. 
Sometimes Cory would come and stand over one of the Chungs and watch what they
were doing and only their youngest boy, Scott, would be mean to him.  Scott
Chung who talked like he was spitting.  His eyes always narrow and hateful when
he glared at Cory.  The oldest of the Chungs, Brian, always let Cory watch
whatever they were doing.  Building a go-kart.  Dissecting a bee.  Playing
catch.  Cory had never been inside their house because you had to take off your
shoes and there was plastic along the hallway.  Cory longed to take off his
shoes and walk along one of the plastic strips, but there was never a reason
for him to go inside and see if they had a mother who might want to give him a
cookie also.

Sill, in Cory’s mind, the Chung’s was a friendly house.  A
house he knew.

He saw it right where it should be.  At the end of the
street at the top of the block.  He crossed the empty street, hearing his daddy
say, “look both ways, Cory.”  You have to because they might not be looking
when they’re driving their car.  So you have to watch out for them.

Cory crossed whispering frantically, “I’m looking for cars,
Daddy!” 

On the other side of the street, he ran over the lawn of the
Chung’s house and stood in front of the door.

There were dim lights on behind the small window to the side
of the door.  Somewhere in the house but not up front.  Somewhere in the back.

Cory banged on the door, thinking of the plastic strips
along the hallway.  He started to take off his shoes.

The scraping sound out in the street was coming closer.  The
stranger was coming for him.  He picked up his large tennis shoes and clutched
them to his chest.

Stranger Danger, his mind screamed again.

That’s what he would say when they opened the door.  When
Brian Chung opened the door, he would say, “Stranger Danger!” and they would
know what to do.  They would know how to help Cory.

But no one opened the door.

The scraping sound behind Cory was coming closer and then,
abruptly, it was gone.

Cory ran to the side of the house and opened the side yard
gate.  He heard it bang shut behind him as he threaded the small side yard and
all the plants that clutched and scratched at his arms as he passed through
them.  He sat down heavily and put his shoes back on.

He didn’t like to be touched.

Even by plants.

In the backyard, he found a pool.  Its blue light shifted
and wavered as the water rocked and splashed against its sides.  A man
floundered at the bottom as Cory stood near its edge.

He wasn’t supposed to go near pools.  He knew that.

Daddy would be mad.

“Take a step back, Cory,” he heard Daddy say.

Cory took a giant step back and stood on his tip-toes as he
peered down at the man floundering at the bottom of the pool.  Arms waving,
clothes shifting, the man seemed to be trying to walk along the bottom but not
moving forward at the same time.

Cory turned toward the house.  Inside, he could see people
moving around.  All of them, maybe ten or so, moving and bumping into one
another.  Every direction all at once, slowly.  None of them saw Cory.

Cory was glad because if they did, they might come out and
yell at him to get away from the pool, because pools were dangerous for little
boys who didn’t know how to swim.

Cory liked swimming.

But he didn’t really know how to swim on his own without
Daddy holding him.  On Saturdays, whether it was hot or cold, Daddy would
always take him to the community pool.  He would hold Cory as Cory did
swimming.

Which wasn’t really swimming, as Cory hadn’t mastered the
not breathing while you’re underwater bit.  Still, Cory loved swimming.  As
long as Daddy was there to hold him.

“Hey Dummy!”

Cory looked up.  Scott Chung always called Cory, “Dummy”.

Scott was leaning out a window.

Cory heard a dull
thud
.  Thuds.  Thudding.  Now that
he was paying attention to something else besides the beautiful pool, which
he’d never known the Chungs had in their backyard, he was aware of all the
other things going on.

Thuds.

Groaning.

Someone crying.

Cory wondered how many of the other houses in the
neighborhood had pools.

“Hey Dummy! You better get out of here.”  It was Scott. 
Cory liked Scott, even though he was usually mean to him.  One time Scott had
let Cory play action figures with him when no one else was around.  Never again
after that one time.  But it had been enough for Cory to remember forever. 
They’d played in the dirt near a construction site, building a secret hideout,
and Cory got to hold the Batman figure.  Got to be the Batman who swung away
from the avalanche of dirt that destroyed the secret hideout they’d carved out
of a dirt mound.  Then some mean kids from the other side of the train tracks
had come and made fun of them, calling Cory a dummy and then Scott had left and
he never let Cory play action figures with him again.

Cory had five best days of his life that he remembered.  He
would remember them for as long as he lived.  The day he played action figures
with Scott was one of those days.  It was number three.

“Hey Dummy, I said you better get out of here.  Everyone’s
gone crazy.”

The thuds were coming from beyond Scott’s window.

“Cory get out of here!” he heard Brian’s voice yell from
inside the room with Scott.  But he didn’t see Brian. 

Then there was the sound of wood splintering.

And then there was a sharp
Crraack
as though a flimsy
bedroom door had suddenly given way and the strangers pounding at it from the
other side had rushed in through the place where it once was.  That kind of
sharp crack.

And then Brian was screaming, “Stay away from my brother!”

And Scott was yelling.  And then screaming.

All the dark figures inside the house were shambling up the
stairs toward Scott and Brian Chung’s bedroom.

Cory circled the pool, staying well away from its edge.  At
the back fence he looked up, trying to see inside the room where Scott and
Brian weren’t screaming anymore.  He only heard low growling now.  Growling
like the growling of the mean dogs that lived in a yard on the other side of
the neighborhood.  The yard of the mean man who always told Cory his dogs would
bite Cory if he tried to pet them.  So Cory never did.  Even though he wanted
to.

The stranger from the street appeared from the dark side of
the yard that led back to the side gate.  He reached out for Cory and snarled,
stumbling across the landscaping of the back yard.  Cory turned to the fence at
his back.

I’m Batman, he reminded himself as fear closed in about him.

He shot his right arm upward and made a “Bhuuuwwuush!” sound
with his lips.  This is what he does when he simulates Batman’s rocket-powered
grappling hook.  What he did when he wanted to climb things like trees or
fences.

“Bhuuuwwuush!”

When his imagination confirmed that the hook had gone up
into the dark trees beyond the backyard, Cory, satisfied, climbed the back
fence, then dropped down into the dark undergrowth that bordered the back of
the neighborhood.