SCHULTZ PULLED INTO PJ’S driveway and went around the back of the house. It was nearly two in the morning and they were both tired. He was going to get a good dose of painkiller down her throat and put her to bed. The only thing they’d be sharing tonight would be a blanket.
They went upstairs. Thomas’s bedroom door was closed. Schultz brought her a glass of water and watched her swallow the pills. She kicked off her shoes, got into bed fully dressed, and fell asleep in moments.
She’d made him promise to check the cat’s food and water, and make sure the kitty litter was clean. He didn’t feel like going back down because his arthritis was acting up and his screwed-together foot ached. It was a measure of his love for her that he was standing in the laundry room with a kitty litter scoop in his hand when he heard the noises from the downstairs bathroom.
He drew his gun and checked the kitchen. No one. Looking down the hall, he could see that a slice of light was coming from underneath the closed bathroom door. That door had been open before he went upstairs. He moved down the hall quietly and stood outside the door. There were drops of blood on the floor. Amid the bumps and shuffling coming from inside the bathroom, he heard a familiar voice.
“Ouch,” Thomas said. “Damn it!”
“Son, you all right in there?” Schultz said. He hadn’t holstered his gun yet. There was no response to his question. “Open the door, Thomas.”
“It’s okay,” came Thomas’s voice, a little shaky. “I just got a paper cut, that’s all. You can go to sleep now. Everything’s all right.”
Schultz had heard better lies from street-hardened six-year-olds. “Open the door, son, or I’ll break it down.”
The doorknob turned and the door fell open a couple of inches. Schultz put one foot in the door to keep it from closing, and tapped the door open with the muzzle of his gun. There was no telling who was in there with the kid.
Thomas was alone. He stood in his boxer shorts with a package of gauze in his hands. “I can’t get this fucking stuff to work right,” he said. There was a clumsy bandage wrapped with gauze that was already slipping loose on his shin. His right forearm had a five-inch cut that had bled a lot. His left arm had a slice that did look like a giant paper cut. There were bloody towels in the sink.
“Let me see that, does that need stitches?”
Schultz took Thomas’s right arm and examined the cut. It was deep, clean edged, and gaping apart.
“You’ll need stitches, and we can’t wait too long. Come on out into the kitchen. We’ll get that covered and get you ready to go. You injured anywhere else? Feel dizzy or anything?” Schultz peered into his eyes. “Did you lose consciousness?”
Thomas headed down the hall toward the kitchen. Schultz gathered up the first aid supplies and followed him. After washing his hands, he gently cleaned both cuts and the leg abrasion with hydrogen peroxide, watching the liquid foam lightly in the wounds. On went non-stick four by four’s, and then gauze dressings neatly fastened with tape in picture-frame fashion. The two said nothing while Schultz worked.
“That feels a lot better,” Thomas said.
“You want to tell me how you got those?”
“I fell in my room.”
“Uh huh, and I’m the tooth fairy. Out with it.”
“Does Mom have to know?”
“Yeah, but there’s no sense waking her up yet. We’re going to talk about it, just the two of us. You didn’t do those with a razor, did you?” Schultz indicated the cuts on Thomas’s forearms.
“What?”
“Did you use a razor blade on your arms?”
“Oh, I get it. No, I didn’t try to commit suicide. If I had, do you think I would have bashed myself in the leg first?”
Schultz kept a smile from leaking onto his lips. He’d been worried at first, but now he could see that Thomas was on firm mental ground. “Kids have done stranger things, you know.”
“I didn’t cut myself on purpose. I swear.”
“I believe you. Tell me what happened, but make it fast. We need to get you to a hospital.”
Once Thomas got started talking, everything came out in a rush. Schultz wanted to interrupt and shout at Thomas, grab him by the shoulders and shake the shit out of him for going through with something like this. As Thomas related his activities, Schultz went from indifference at a teenage prank like sneaking out to anger to nerve-numbing fear for what might have happened. “Where are your clothes?” Schultz said, a few minutes later.
“Upstairs in the laundry basket. You’re mad, aren’t you?”
“We’re going to need those. There might have been some transfer from that time you shoved him. Have you ever seen that costume before, at a Halloween party, maybe?”
“Never. It was detailed, brown and hairy and had a mask with jowls like this.” Thomas puffed out his cheeks and then pulled down on them, distorting his face.
“You say the sword was real. How long was it?”
“I’m not sure. Three feet, at least.” Thomas looked down at his arm. “It cut right through my jacket, and he never really had a chance to get in a really good swing. I can imagine what would have happened next.”
“Enough of that,” Schultz said. He was doing enough imagining for the two of them. “How about his eyes? Did you get the color?”
“The eyes were covered with mesh to look like an insect’s eyes. Cyrotths are crosses between—”
“I get the picture. You couldn’t identify him, in other words.”
“Not a chance. Not by voice, either. You’re mad, huh?”
“Voice might be something we can work with. Maybe there’s not a lot of these voice, what did you say?”
“Voice-morphers. Anybody can buy them on the Net.”
Schultz frowned. He was hoping it would be something a little more exotic and easier to trace. “Let’s see those pictures you took with your cellphone camera.”
The pictures were dark and blurry. The security lighting in the tunnel wasn’t bright enough to get a good shot. “These look like the Abominable Snowman on a moonless night,” said Schultz.
“They could be enhanced. Don’t you know about that?”
“Don’t get smart alecky,” Schultz said. His voice was sharper than he intended. “Of course I know.”
“So you’re really going to report this?”
“Hell, yes. The guy shoving you into a dark room is bad enough, but there’s aggravated battery with that sword, and who knows how far that would have gone if you hadn’t kept your head, no pun intended, and gotten out of there. This is one sick gamer, if that’s all it is.”
Thomas tried to get in a few words.
“Don’t interrupt me. I got more to say. You’re fourteen and becoming a man and all that. Your mother is doing the best she can with you, but she’s not here all the time and you’re taking advantage of that. But you listen to me, you little shit. I’m watching you now too and you can’t pull this crap on me, because I’ve seen too much of it. And unlike your mother, I’m not going to sit down and analyze your behavior. You try anything like this again, and I’ll ream you a new asshole all the way up to your throat. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come here, son,” Schultz said. Tears threatened to well up in his eyes as he wrapped Thomas in a careful hug. “Thank God you’re safe.”
“Mmphh,” Thomas said.
“Now,” Schultz said, holding him at arm’s length, “we have to go to the hospital and then downtown for some pictures of your wounds and get your clothes and cellphone pictures turned in. But first it’s time to wake your mother up.”
“She’s gonna freak,” Thomas said.