Blood Memory

The August night was perfect. A full moon hanging low in a silver sky, just enough hint of a cool breeze to banish the day’s heat. An automobile rumbling along a street somewhere and a squirrel scampering up a tree broke into the quiet. She watched her shadow fall around the golden retriever’s as he plunged ahead, straining against the leash. They were alone in the moon-filled night that wrapped around them.

They had reached an understanding, she and Rex, a kind of compromise. He would stay in the dog run at the side of the town house while she was at work. And she would take him on a mile-long walk around the neighborhood—good for both of them, she told herself— when she got home in the evenings. She’d gotten home later than usual tonight. It must be close to midnight. It was hard to get a look at her watch with the dog pulling her down the sidewalk.

Flattened behind the shadows on both sides of the street were townhomes that looked much like her own, fake adobe façades and red-tiled roofs reminiscent of Mexico or Italy, unlike the redbrick Denver bungalows that had occupied the neighborhood for the past hundred years. An enterprising developer, who happened to be her ex-husband, had bought up four blocks of bungalows and called out the wrecking crew before the historic preservationists could force a change in plans. Before anyone realized what was happening, a new neighborhood had been plunked down amid the old. “Upscale” is how the brochures termed the town houses, “green” for the young professionals who cared about such things, minimal landscaping that consisted of a few strategically placed trees and bushes arranged around neat patches of groomed gravel.

They crossed the street and started down the next block, the dog still pulling ahead. She could feel the strength in his muscles transported along the rayon fibers of the leash. They had already made two swings around the periphery of the neighborhood, and she was beginning to relax, the tension of the day melting out of her muscles and sinews. Ahead, something moved in the shadows in front of one of the town houses. Her heart took a little jump. She gave a yank on the leash and closed the gap with the dog, not taking her eyes from the spot where she’d caught the movement, so slight it might have been her imagination. It wasn’t there now.

A shadow adjusting itself in the moonlight, she told herself. Everything looked different at night, moved differently, even the spindlelike trees swaying in the breeze. Besides, the neighborhood was safe— perfectly safe, her ex-husband had assured her—the type of neighborhood a professional woman on her own, such as herself, could be comfortable in. She and her neighbors would have similar interests. And those interests would be—she gave the leash a little slack, watching the dog bolt ahead, shoulders rounded in the task—a total dedication to career, whatever the career might be, so total there was no space for anything else. Which explained the appeal of “green” gravelly yards, hardly the kind where children would be found playing.

A friendly neighborhood, he had said. That was funny, thinking about it now. Almost a year in the town house and she didn’t know a single neighbor, probably wouldn’t recognize a neighbor if she bumped into one at the deli. The sum of exchanges with the neighbors amounted to occasional eye contact across identical yards, nods and muted “Morning”s as they backed their respective cars out of upscale garages and down upscale driveways. But that was her fault, she knew. She had preferred to bury herself in her work, staying late, working weekends. The neighborhood passed for okay, and it was close to the Journal building. And Rex helped. A friend waiting at home when she finally got there. Her life was her career now. A journalist at the daily newspaper read by everyone who cared about what was going on in Denver. Even if there weren’t many newspapers left on the driveways, she suspected that her neighbors probably read her byline on the Internet in the mornings. The townhome was an interim place—a place to spend the night.

She pulled on the leash and wheeled around. Nothing except patches of shadow and moonlight. The sidewalk and street were empty, melting into the darkness down the block. She was imagining things in the night that weren’t there. Still she felt jittery. Such a distinctive sound, the scrape of boots on concrete. She searched the shadows again, then turned and started walking fast toward the corner ahead, giving the leash a lot of slack. Her townhome was around the corner and halfway down the block. She was five minutes from home.

She heard the sound again. The footsteps tapped out a brisk rhythm that matched her own. Someone was following her. A jumble of thoughts clanged in her head. She felt her body tense, a thousand electrical impulses set to fire. Rex must have sensed the tension, because he was now walking beside her. She made herself keep the same pace— yes, that was what she must do. Not change her pace and tip him off that she knew he was there. It was a man, she was certain, the footsteps heavy and definite. She slipped her hand into her jeans pocket, pulled out her house key, and closed her fist around the metal so that the sharp point protruded between her middle fingers.

She kept her head straight ahead, her eyes sweeping over the street and sidewalk and yards. Lights glowed in the upstairs windows of the town house at the corner. He wouldn’t close on her there, grab her from behind and try to pull her into the bushes. She tried to think the way he would think, a man planning to tackle and rape her, beat her. He would wait until she walked in front of a town house swallowed by the night. Until then, he had to think that she thought everything was normal. She was simply out enjoying a walk with her dog.

She reached the corner, turned past the thin slice of light on the sidewalk from the town house window, and glanced around. She saw him then, a tall, large figure all in black, shoulders hunched inside a bulky jacket, hands jammed into the pockets, elbows sticking out like those of a wrestler strutting into the ring. He was close, not more than two houses behind, backlit by the moonlight. She thought about running to the door with the lights on upstairs, then dismissed the idea. By the time anyone came down the stairs and opened the door, he would be on her, and he would be strong. She could almost feel the clasp of a fleshy hand over her mouth, the arms dragging her off to the side while someone leaned outside, looking around, seeing nothing, except for a dog barking and growling near the bushes, frantic. Go home! Go home! Damn people, why don’t they keep their dogs locked up? The door would slam shut, and she would be alone with him. At best, the person might call the police. The police would come, but it would be too late.

She kept going at the same steady pace, keeping the dark figure in her peripheral vision. The instant she passed the corner of the town house, out of his sight, she broke into a full-out run, running as fast as she could, pulling Rex along. “Come on! Come on!” she managed to order in between gulps of air crashing into her lungs. Her heart was hammering. She glanced back as she turned up her own sidewalk. He had just rounded the corner, and in the way he hesitated, turning his head side to side, she knew that she had only a moment before he started running after her. She lunged for the door, jammed the key into the lock, and slipped inside, holding the dog by his collar now, bringing him with her. She closed the door quietly, not wanting to signal where she was, and pushed the bolt. She had to lean against the door a moment to catch her breath. Her lungs were on fire, her heart exploding in her chest. The dog rubbed against her legs and emitted little whimpering noises, as if he grasped that whatever was wrong, they were in it together.

She removed the leash, then flattened herself against the door and peered through the tiny view hole. He had passed her house, and now he stood on the sidewalk in front of the neighbor’s, looking up and down the street. He had on a black ski hat, pulled low over his forehead. His face was distorted, filled with angry frustration, the face of a creature with a long nose and tight lips, half man, half monster. She watched until he moved down the sidewalk and into the shadows.

She’d left the light on upstairs, and a thin stream of light ran down the stairs and across the tile floor in front of the door. A Dave Brubeck CD was playing softly. She didn’t turn on any other light. There could be no changes, nothing to catch his attention and bring him to her town house. She went into the kitchen and threw the bolt on the back door. There were narrow alleys of gravel between the clusters of townhomes. The dog run was on the south side. But he might take one of the other alleys, come through the backyards. There were no fences, thanks to the homeowners’ association, which had decreed that the tiny yards should flow like a dry, gravel river along the back of the townhomes and create an illusion of space and privacy. It had practically taken an act of God to get the dog run approved, that and a phone call to the association president from her ex-husband.

She stared at the window. Moonlight winked in the black glass. She hadn’t pulled the blinds—God, why hadn’t she pulled the blinds? He could see her moving about in the faint light. She started to pull down the blind, then stopped. No changes. Her saliva tasted like acid.

She opened a cabinet, took out a bottle of Wild Turkey, and sloshed an inch or so into a juice glass next to the sink. She took a long drink, then backed across the kitchen, picked up the phone, and tapped out Maury’s number. She cradled the phone against her ear, finished off the bourbon, and concentrated on the buzzing noise of the ringing phone.

“Yes.” She swallowed back the acid erupting in her throat and threw a glance across the kitchen. She’d intended to bolt the doors, but now she couldn’t say for certain what she’d done. “He’s still out there somewhere,” she said.

She pressed the off key, then dialed 911, on automatic now, following directions as if she’d already done all she could to save herself and there was nothing else she had the presence of mind to do on her own.

“I think so.” She could feel him outside, somewhere close. A pervert, Maury had called him. A pervert who had targeted a woman who happened to be walking her dog too late at night. He would still be looking for her. She tried to catch her breath, but it was like trying to breathe past a tightening noose.

She hung up and, feeling disembodied, floating somewhere above herself, went back into the living room and sank onto the tile floor in the corner away from the window. She pulled her knees to her chest and crossed her arms around her legs. She could feel her muscles twitching, as if they were twitching in someone else’s body. God, she needed another drink. She pushed the idea away. She had to keep her mind clear, she had to think. She heard herself whispering, calling Rex. The dog skittered over, slid down beside her, and tried to fit his muzzle beneath her chin. She patted his head. “Good boy,” she said. “Maury’s coming.”

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there. A week, a month. Time had stopped. Probably no more than five minutes, she realized. Maury lived only a few blocks away in a Denver bungalow with a swing on the front porch and two strips of green lawn on either side of the walkway, all of it sloping down to the sidewalk under the shade of a big oak tree. He’d pull on a pair of jeans, stick his feet into the worn docksiders, wake up Philip to say he’d be back soon, and drive over. Six, seven minutes at the most. She could picture him running up her walk, dark hair tousled, face puffy from sleep, the tee shirt he’d been sleeping in smashed against his chest.

She uncurled from the corner and threw herself at the door, barely aware of Rex barking and jumping about. Her hand grasped the bolt, but she stopped herself from slamming it back. She peered into the tiny circle of glass. Maury was coming up the walk, his face expanding as he got closer. He looked as she’d imagined, except for the determined look in his eyes and rictus of resolve in the muscles of his jaw.

She pushed the bolt back and yanked open the door. “Thank God,” she said in the instant before everything exploded. It happened so fast that, even later when she tried to place the events in the order in which they occurred, she couldn’t be certain what had happened first. Maury had started to come inside, and she’d stepped back, pulling the door with her. Yes, that was how it went. Except that Maury had burst inside, as if he’d been shot from a cannon. Or had that happened first and then—with the shock of it—the door slammed back? The man dressed in black blurred like a shadow flitting across her vision and threw himself against Maury. Maury toppled like an oak felled in a field. The sound of Rex barking came from far away, background noise as Maury rolled over, jumped to his feet, and swung a thick arm against the figure dancing about, a grotesque marionette, swinging and dodging Maury’s fists.

Then they were locked together, stumbling about the living room, breathing hard. The coffee table crashed onto its side, a chair toppled backward. She staggered toward them, looking for something to grab, some weapon. She spotted the lamp on the side table, but before she could reach it, they crashed into the table and the lamp fell, shattering into minuscule pieces of glass that spilled marbles across the tile. Rex was circling about, barking and yelping. Finally Maury wrenched himself out of the man’s grasp. He rocked backward before he threw a fist into the man’s chest.

Then the man rocked backward. Yes, that was how it happened. There had been a moment when she’d thought that it was over, that the intruder would collapse. He staggered about, throwing his head around, and that must have been what she was watching because she hadn’t seen him pull the gun out of the pocket of his bulky jacket. Yet he was pointing the black gun at Maury. Maury moved backward, both arms thrust out, as if he could have deflected the bullet that exploded in his chest. She blinked at the deadened report of the gunshot, when she had expected an explosion like an accumulation of all the noise in the world. Maury fell backward, head and shoulders hitting the floor in the doorway to the kitchen, blood blossoming across the front of his white tee shirt, running across the tile.

She pressed herself down behind the upturned table near the foot of the stairs and held her breath, terrified that the sound of her breathing would lead him to her. She could hear the small noise of Rex’s whimpers coming from the corner where they’d waited for Maury. Her eyes were glued to the man standing over Maury, head cocked to one side, the knitted cap pushed up into a peak. At first she thought he was looking for her, then she heard the sirens and realized that he was listening. He glanced around, and she moved back into the shadows along the wall, still holding her breath. She felt as if a stone were crushing her chest.

She crawled around the table and across the cold tile to Maury. The black hole in his chest was like a crater sucking everything into it: tee shirt and blood and life, as if Maury himself would disappear into the crater. And yet it was his blood and life that were pouring out, turning the white tee shirt black.

She tried to find a pulse in his neck, her fingers as numb as dried twigs quivering against his warm skin. She was barely aware of Rex crouching next to her, or of the black boots and dark trousers of police officers moving toward them.