A Dangerous Mistake

  ***

  I wake up late the next morning. I always try to sleep late the night after traveling, to catch up and fix my internal clocks, but I feel particularly exhausted today. In the sleepy brightness of the 10 o’clock sun, I run through the events of the night before in my mind. I was tired and frustrated from the drive, but I wasn’t so bad off that I couldn’t function properly. I hadn’t had anything to drink, other than coffee. I’ve never had a hallucination like that, either. Am I cracking up?

  I know the answer to that question, and it chills me to my core. I am not cracking up. I am perfectly capable of discerning real from imaginary, and what happened last night was real. The van and the kid and the accident were real. The thump was real.

  The sound returns to me like a black wave now, a haunting rhythm that accompanies my every move. It follows me into the kitchen, and each footstep sounds more and more like the thumping in my mind. My feet suddenly feel wet, and I look down to notice that my coffee has spilled and run off onto the floor. I remove the wet sock and leave it to soak up the rest of the puddle. I start imagining that I can hear it more clearly, too. It sounds like the crack of wooden sign against fiberglass bumper, wood against bone, and a puffed out woof of air from a child.

  I stumble to my living room and land heavily in my arm chair. I consider turning on the television as a distraction, but I can’t bring myself to reach out for the remote control. Instead, I just sit, staring blankly at the blinds on the front window. They’re the white plastic contractor brand, used to fill space and block light but not really for decoration. The previous owner of the home must have had kids or dogs or something, because there are two broken slats near the door that need fixing. I would’ve fixed them long ago, except for the convenience of spotting visitors coming up the sidewalk from my chair.

  The house faces south, and through the slot I can see the sunlight bathing the grass and sidewalk in bright, yellow light. And beyond the lawn, I can see the maintenance guy that my neighbors across the street must have called back. They can’t seem to keep their pipes draining properly, and I almost chuckle at the thought of those toddlers flushing washrags again. But the maintenance van is all wrong. It’s too old. Too scratched up and rusty.

  I fly forward out of my chair, landing on my knees near the window to get a better look through the slot. The side of the van has a thick maroon stripe down one side, a racing strip about the height of a car’s side mirror. The faded writing on the side used to say, “JOE’S PLUMBING.” I stay glued to my spot for a lifetime of seconds, my mind desperately trying to disconnect itself from reality.

  And then someone is knocking at my door.

  My elbows bang against the wooden floor and slide out from under me, the back of my head following them. My feet are performing an independent high wire act, peddling backward in a desperate attempt to keep me from falling and, more importantly, to push me away from the door. Away from the knocking.

  He might not know I’m here yet. He might not have heard me hit the floor or seen me through the window. I instantly stop flailing and start holding my breath. I’m laying flat on my back about six feet from the window, my eyes sending lasers through the break in the blinds. God I wish I had fixed those blinds.

  The knocking was harder this time. “Anybody home?”

  I silently approach the door and place my eye against the glass spy hole. The man outside is shifting back and forth on shuffling feet. He’s wearing a worn khaki baseball hat cocked low on his head, covering his eyes in shadow. The rest of his face is full of thick black and grey hair. His hands are tucked into the pockets of a brown leather jacket.

  As his feet shuffle, the thumping sound returns, a rhythmic sucker punch that I can’t dodge. My mouth is dry with fright. He’s here because he knows. He knows about the boy, and he wants to get his revenge. He’s waiting for me to open the door just a crack, and then he’ll knock me down and be inside my house before I can stop him. He just needs to know that I’m home.

  And then he’s walking away, back to his van. I watch until the van is gone, and then I push myself back from the door. The thumping in my ears is now accompanied by the new disturbing manta of, he knows where I live.