Snap, Page 3

climbed the wall. Even though I’d carefully measured Allen’s routine against my plan, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that he’d leave the office for his hike before I got myself into the building.

  Just below the second floor windows there was a lip in the wall. I reached it, grabbed the cold stone tight, and unwedged my shoes. Through the wall, I heard the muffled sound of my psychiatrist talking. There was no stopping now. I walked my feet up the side of the building and lifted a leg up onto the lip. I pulled myself up and I could hear that Allen was still talking. While I caught my breath up on the lip, I listened. The psychiatrist’s voice stopped. I remembered that Doctor Allen sometimes recorded his thoughts on tape.

  I kneeled down on the lip and fit my fingers underneath the filing room window I’d cracked open that afternoon. I lifted with both hands evenly, careful not to pull too hard with one hand and jar a side of the window against the frame. The window eased open in a bunch of tiny wooden gasps. I pictured myself sliding an already pulled out Jenga block back into its hole.

  The window was open. I slipped inside and took off my shoes so I could step quietly. The Velcro on the empathy belly strap would’ve been much too loud. I slipped the strap over my head without undoing it, opened the pack, and took out an awl. It was exactly like the one in your garage, or the one your friend keeps in his garage. The nine inches of narrow, metal shaft came to a point at one end and were covered at the other end by a rounded wooden handle. The lacquered wood of the handle felt smooth against my palm and my palm did not sweat. I latched the pregnancy empathy belly back up and set it on the ground next to my shoes. I started down the stairs in my sock feet.

  No sound came from Allen’s office. It was his time for meditation. I took the stairs at almost normal speed, and I used the handrail. One great thing about stone stairs is they don’t creak. I stepped from the last stair onto the floor of the entry room and went quick around the side of the stairwell to hug the left wall. I listened. Allen’s office doors were open, but if I hadn’t been seen already I never would be. Against the wall, it was impossible to see me from inside the office. The only sound that came out of the room was the crackle of the fireplace. I padded along the left wall and turned right as that wall went into the wall separating the waiting room from the office. I inched up beside the office doors. Socks are quiet, but they give you no grip against slick marble. I took my socks off and ever so slowly I leaned my head across the door frame out into open space, so my right eye could see inside the office.

  Allen’s chair faced away from the door. The only part of him I could see was the top of the back of his head. He was just tall enough that it reached above the chair back. In the direct center of the back of Allen’s head, I saw his exact perfect bald circle. My eyes bored down into the bare circle of skin so it was the only thing in the room I could see.

  Barefoot, I walked into the room. I raised the awl above my head and brought it down in the dead naked center of that tiny pink dome. The sound he made was a dull pop. I kept my grip tight around the awl’s wooden handle and settled my headshrinker in his chair so he wouldn’t tip over onto the ground.

  For the moment, I left the awl where it was. I walked over to the fireplace and grabbed the tongs from the rack. Working the tongs with both hands like they were a giant pair of scissors, I closed the mouth around a glowing coal and lifted it carefully from the fire. I shook away the loose embers down into the fireplace until I was sure there were no more, and then I got the tongs into my right hand only, to free up my left. The tongs held the hot coal, I held the tongs, and all three of us stepped very carefully from the fireplace to Allen’s chair.

  With my left hand, I gripped the awl’s rounded handle and pulled it straight up out of my psychiatrist’s head. Careful not to rush, I used the tongs in my right hand to press the hot coal against the tiny hole at the center of the bald spot. The sound and smell of burning flesh came up from the doctor’s scalp. The hole was small. It wasn’t even half an inch wide. When I was sure the hole’d been closed up, I rubbed the coal back and forth for good measure and lifted it up to inspect my work. Allen’s skin had fused over the hole so that it was completely shut. I brought the coal back to the fire, hung the tongs on their rack, and I turned around. That’s when I saw Cath.

  She was lying there on the couch with her eyes wide open, and she was looking straight at me. I almost dropped the awl. I hid it in my back pocket. Cath didn’t move. I stood there frozen next to the fireplace. All I had was gone, just like that – Cath and any life I might have had, even a life without her. I never could’ve laid a hand on Cath. She just lay there on the couch, staring. It didn’t look like she was even breathing.

  “Cath,” I said.

  She didn’t answer me. Was it shock? Had watching me snapped something in her wonderful mind? I shuffled painfully to Cath’s side, repeating her name again and again. I looked into Cath’s eyes and I saw how her body slumped unnaturally on the couch and I realized that my Cath was hypnotized. She hadn’t seen me do what I did to the psychiatrist. She wouldn’t remember a thing. I only needed to snap my fingers like Doctor Allen snapped his, and Cath would wake right up.

  But waking Cath would have to wait. From my study of hypnotism, I knew that leaving Cath hypnotized for a while longer would not hurt her. If I wanted to be with Cath, I needed to carry out the rest of my plan. I had a schedule to keep. When I‘d finished getting ready, I came back up out of the basement. The schedule didn’t quite get kept, but it was close.

  One of the things I’ve noticed in my time watching others is that others watch too. People don’t watch well or very closely, but they watch all the same. They notice other people as they link up to their own daily lives. The mailman gets to your house just as you pull into the driveway for lunch. The woman next door returns from work about an hour before your wife. The background of your life is put together out of an endless amount of connections like those.

  The only time you really notice one is when it happens differently, or when it doesn’t happen. You’re waiting for a special package and your mail comes late. You aren’t there to sign for it. Your wife’s surprises you getting home from work. The woman next door didn’t come home on schedule an hour before and slam her door twice the way she always does.

  That’s why after I murdered my psychiatrist I walked out of town, gave three people two and a half waves, and went for a hike in the woods.

  Doctor Allen was always fond of the great outdoors. Originally fishing had been his favorite hobby. A couple years ago, my psychiatrist had changed to hiking. He’d wanted to control his waistline. Hiking one day a week wasn’t enough to overpower six days of eating too much and make the good doctor any less fat. It did seem to be enough to keep his weight steady.

  Every Friday after work, his overview, and his meditation, Doctor Allen changed into hiking gear, strapped on a giant backpack full of canteens, canned food, and compasses, and set out from his office on foot. His destination was wilderness. On his way Allen passed a few people who were only his acquaintances and he waved to them before he disappeared into the trees. This happened every Friday.

  Even though he’d been murdered, this Friday was no different. The good Doctor Allen left town just exactly the way he always did. People saw him. Some of them exchanged waves with him.

  Of course, you and I both know they didn’t really see my psychiatrist. That would be impossible. What they saw was me, in Allen’s clothes, with his backpack on my back and his hat on my head. To match his fatness I had the pregnancy empathy-belled strapped around my waist, and I wore a couple extra layers of clothes underneath his hiking gear. You understand, they couldn’t see Allen at all.

  I hiked my psychiatrist right on out of town and no one was any the wiser. The only difference between the two of us was our height. I’m not very tall, but I’m not as short as the doctor either. It’s not something you’d notice from far away and no one did.

  Moving around with all that extra weight wasn�
��t easy. Allen had to carry it every day, I suppose. I hiked late into the night before I got to my goal. A ravine ran through the forest. Next to the ravine, there stood a steep half-hill. It was half because it was only one side of a hill. The front was a regular, steep hill. The back, where the way down to the other side of the hill would’ve been, was a sheer cliff. It looked like a long time ago the hill had been a normal hill, with no ravine next to it, and then one day someone had carved the ravine out of the ground and taken half the hill along for the ride.

  The half-hill was pretty out of the way and wouldn’t have been any easy climb without all the extra weight I had strapped to me. When I go to the top, my legs were very tired and I was breathing hard. The heavy backpack came off my back. I peeled away Allen’s hiking gear and the extra padding. The pregnancy empathy-belly was last to go. I unvelcroed it and let the thing drop to the ground with a thud. Then, I rested.

  After I finally got my breath back I opened the backpack and took out two plastic wrapped bundles. The first was an electric lantern. I switched it onto the low setting. The light was nowhere near bright enough to draw anyone’s attention. It was a soft glow,