I did feel better with my dad home.
That night, my mom and dad and I shared a bowl of popcorn and watched an episode of Magnum P.I. that made my dad laugh because he always laughed at cop shows and then an episode of Love Boat that actually got a chuckle or two out of my mom. Max sat behind the couch and I snuck him handfuls of popcorn whenever my dad wasn’t looking.
But eventually they sent me off to bed, and I found it nearly impossible to get to sleep. I tried reading and that was a no-go. I even went to the TV room and tried to find something on cable, but there was nothing. Finally I just climbed into bed and watched the ceiling fan spin, hoping I’d drift off but knowing I wouldn’t. I was wound too tight for that.
I don’t remember what time I gave up on TV, but I do know it was 11:43 when Max started barking. I remember hearing him growl, then let out three rapid-fire barks. I sat up in bed, looked at the clock, and realized that I had almost drifted off to sleep. Then Max started barking again, this time in a continuous, stuttering roar, and I threw back the sheets and ran down the stairs.
My dad was coming out of his bedroom at the same time, wearing only his boxer shorts, his shotgun at the ready.
“Stay back,” he said to me, and went to the sliding glass doors that led onto our backyard.
Max was already there at the doors, the hair along his back standing on end, his ears pitched forward, every muscle tensed. He barked again and my dad put his open palm in front of Max’s face. “No bark,” he said. And Max instantly went quiet.
I came up behind my dad. “What is it? Is it the hairy man?”
“Get down,” he said. “Stay low.”
My mom came out of the bedroom rubbing her eyes and flipped on the living room light switch.
“Turn that off!” my dad snapped. “Turn it off right now.”
The light went out.
I heard my mom say, “Wes, what is it?”
“Shhh,” my dad whispered. “Everybody quiet.”
He held his shotgun at the ready as he scanned our backyard. Beside him, Max still bristled at the darkness, though he didn’t make a sound. I couldn’t see anything. I could make out the shapes of shrubs and trees and the little arbor with the covered swing where my mom liked to read her journals when it was cool outside, but nothing else. Nothing moved.
“Mark,” my dad whispered, “go into my bedroom and get my radio from the nightstand.”
“Yes sir,” I said.
I hustled past my mom, who was standing in the doorway to her bedroom, looking lost and frightened, and got my dad’s radio.
He took it from me and keyed up.
“Bravo HPD One Ninety-One.”
He had turned the volume nearly to zero, so when the dispatcher acknowledged him her voice was barely audible.
“Bravo HPD One Ninety-One, I think you’ve got some units on special assignment in the Brook Forest subdivision. I need one of them to cover me at one-six-one-one-four Clearcrest. I have a prowler in my backyard.”
“Ten-four, Bravo. Any units close?”
“We’re right around the corner, Five Double O-Three. Be there in a second.”
“Ten-four,” the dispatcher said. “All units hold the air until I hear back from Five Double O-Three.”
My dad put the radio down on the fireplace mantel.
I said, “Dad…?”
“Shhh. Hold the air.”
He was still watching the backyard, his grip tight on the shotgun. Beside him, Max was antsy. He was staring at the yard, ears perked up, but clearly not sensing anything. He looked confused.
I heard the sounds of an engine revving and tires skidding on pavement. That was the Harris County Sheriff’s Office on the way to our house, I realized. They were just seconds away.
A car skidded to a stop in front of our house and I heard car doors slam.
“They’re here,” my dad said. “Everybody stay down.”
“Are you going to go out there?” I asked.
“No. Stay down, Mark. My job is to stay here and protect you. I can’t do that from out there.”
A moment later a pair of Harris County deputies rushed into the backyard, and Max went nuts. He started barking and wouldn’t quit.
At the same time there was a flash of movement from above as the hairy man leapt from the roof of our house to the grass, catching the deputies by surprise.
One of them managed to squeeze off a shot, but it went wide and blasted off the top part of one of the boards in our fence. The hairy man let out a howl of rage. And for just a moment, he turned toward our house and seemed to stare into the darkness of our living room.
It looked like he was staring right at me.
Then he turned and ran.
The deputies chased after him, but the hairy man was much faster.
He moved in that same simian crouch I’d seen out at that abandoned house in the Swamp, his arms swinging, his back hunched over forward. He reached the fence and bounded over it in an almost liquid motion that left the deputies far behind. They clambered over, but they were clumsy about it, and it was obvious to me they weren’t going to catch him.
One of the deputies, panting and excited, got on the radio.
“Five Double O-Three, I’ve got one running. Northbound from Clearcrest, headed toward Locke Haven.”
“Ten-four,” the dispatcher said. “Do I have a unit on Millbridge and Plum Hollow that can respond?”
“Five Double O-Two, we’re at Millbridge and Locke Haven, standing by.”
“Ten-four,” the dispatcher said. “Five Double O-Five, you close?”
“On the way from Plum Hollow and Ledgestone, Five Double O-Five.”
I could tell they weren’t going to catch him. Already the deputies were sounding winded and confused, with men shouting instructions, sometimes contradictory instructions, back and forth on the radio.
Nobody had a visual on the hairy man.
In the few seconds it had taken him to scurry over our backyard fence, he had melted into the night and lost the cops.
He was gone.
I think my dad realized it too.
He lowered his shotgun and told me to go into the master bedroom with my mom. “You can sleep in the recliner,” he said. “Go on, I’ll be in soon.”
I went, because I trusted my dad with his shotgun, but I couldn’t help but think that the hairy man had jumped from our roof.
The backyard part of our roof.
The part right outside my bedroom window.
* * *
I went into my parents’ room and saw my mom sitting on the side of the bed.
“Mom, you okay?”
She sniffled and nodded. “I’m fine,” she said, and managed a slight chuckle. “Just had a bit of a scare.”
“Yeah, you and me both.”
That brought another chuckle from her and she turned a little toward me and held up both hands in a gesture for me to come give her a hug, which I did.
“Dad said I could sleep on the recliner tonight.”
She nodded and sniffled again. “Good. That’s good.”
“I love you, Mom.”
She squeezed me tighter. “I love you too, Mark. I get so scared thinking about you growing up. I know it’s a cliché, but I really do think you’ve grown up in the blink of an eye. I still remember you crawling around the living room in your diaper, pulling my books down from the bookshelves.”
“Mom, come on.”
“Hey, I’m your mother. I get to have moments like this if I want to.” She huffed, and then released me. “Go on,” she said. “Go get some blankets.”
I went to the linen closet and got a pillow and some blankets and then tried to make myself comfortable in Dad’s old recliner, which wasn’t easy because it was hot inside the house and my legs kept sticking to the leather. Finally I gave up on trying to get comfortable and just sat in it, the thinnest blanket I could find draped over my torso. My thoughts turned first to my mom, because I could hear her sobbing in the dark. I could hear the off-balance sway and bump of the ceiling fan, and the mechanical drone of the air conditioner, but overall the noises of our house during the quietest moments of the night, I heard my mom’s sobbing.
Listening to it, I wanted to cry myself. I hated feeling this way, so small and helpless, like I had no options. There are very few feelings as bitter and as hateful as being at that stage in life when you realize you’re not quite a kid anymore, but then something comes along and stuffs it back in your face that you’re not really an adult either. I wanted to have the answers. I wanted to not feel helpless. But the truth was I was fourteen and there were actual men, men like my dad and Detective Travis, who knew how to handle this kind of business.
No matter how I looked at it, the situation seemed out of my hands.
I hated it.
But somewhere along the way that hate must have yielded to exhaustion, for I started awake with Max licking my fingertips.
I rubbed Max’s head, then sat up.
My dad had clearly not gone to bed, for he was walking into the bedroom, still in his boxers, his shotgun resting on his shoulder.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, Mark.”
“Is the power out?”
“Huh? No, it’s not light yet.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting dressed for work. Max has to qualify on the course today.”
“But I thought you were staying home.”
I nearly said, “…through the full moon,” but managed not to.
“I can’t reschedule this. It’s state mandated.”
“Oh.”
“I won’t be gone too long,” he said. “I should be back by midafternoon. Stay here with your mom, okay? I’ll be home well before dinner. When I get home we’ll watch a movie or something. Sound good?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
“You didn’t sleep much, did you?”
“No, not really.”
“That was pretty scary last night.”
I looked up in surprise. “You were scared?”
“Sure,” he said. “Anytime my family’s threatened it scares me.”
“I know that,” I said. “I meant you, though. When that guy jumped from the roof, that didn’t scare you? He was trying to get into the house.”
“I know he was. He was right outside your room.” My dad stared at me for a moment, then let out a sigh. “Look, Mark, it’s okay to be scared. Everybody gets scared. Sometimes, at work, I’ll corner a suspect, and there’s this moment, there’s always that moment, right before you engage the guy. You can see the desperation in his eyes, and you can feel this sick, empty feeling in your gut right before you put your hands on him. That’s fear. It never goes away. I felt the same thing last night watching that guy run across the yard. But you can’t let your fear rule you. We are gonna get this guy. I promise you that. We’re gonna get him, and if I get him first, I’m gonna put a bullet through his head. I promise you that.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay, really? You’re okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks, Dad.”
He smiled. “It’s what I do.”