Kill Whitey

There were no windows in either of the bathrooms or the break room, and no exit doors either. There was no way out, except maybe through the basement. I figured the chances were good that there were no exits from there, as well. We were trapped.

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “I don’t know what to do.”

Sondra suddenly grabbed my arm. Her long fingernails dug into my skin.

“Ouch,” I cried. “What the hell is that for?”

“Listen,” she whispered. “I think I hear something. A footstep?”

I held my breath and listened. My ears weren’t ringing at all anymore, but there was no sound. If the cops had stormed the building, we’d have known they were there. The silence meant that we were faced with the alternative.

Whitey was coming.

Thinking quickly, I took Sondra by the hand and led her behind the soda machine. It stuck out from the wall, leaving a narrow crevice wide enough for both of us to squeeze into. Sondra’s breasts and my belly both pushed against the back of the machine. It was a tight fit, but we made it. The space between it and the wall was filled with dirt and spider webs. I held my breath, trying not to sneeze when the dust tickled my nose. The soda machine’s power cord had been cut, exposing naked wires. I hoped they weren’t live. It would really suck to get electrocuted before Whitey could kill us himself.

Out in the machine shop, the back room’s door crashed open. We heard it slam against the wall. Sondra jumped. I reached down and squeezed her hand again, making sure she stayed silent. I waited for someone to shout, ‘Police!’ and listened for the sounds of radio static, but instead, there were only footsteps. Familiar footsteps. Calm, slow, assured footsteps. The sound of nice dress shoes on concrete. A sound that filled me with dread and resignation. The sound of death.

We stayed motionless, barely breathing, and listened as the footsteps came closer. Whitey searched the back room and then entered the hallway. His footsteps stopped for a moment. I imagined him standing there, staring into the darkness, grinning. Could he smell us? Smell the blood on our clothes? Smell our fear? I remembered what he’d said to Sondra when we were hiding with Yul in the warehouse—that he could tell where she was hiding, that he could sense her baby. I’d chalked it up to bullshit at the time. Figured it was just an attempt to psyche us out, force us to reveal our location. But now, knowing what I did, I wasn’t so sure.

I’d never believed in the supernatural. Well, not completely anyway. Pennsylvania Dutch powwow magic and Appalachian folk healing were one thing. Demons and monsters and psychic powers were something else entirely. Powwow, when you boiled it down, was nothing more than herbs and alternative medicine, combined with a little bit of good old-fashioned religion. Some of the ingredients in your average powwow spell were also available at the local health food boutique or in the organic aisle at the grocery store. Monsters and things that go bump in the night—they weren’t so easily explainable or obtainable. They had no root in reality. I didn’t encounter them on a daily basis, therefore, they didn’t exist. But despite my feelings and my disbelief, a monster walked among us. A corpse, fueled by hatred or obsession or something else, that wouldn’t stop until we were dead. I’d seen the proof with my own eyes. Call him a zombie, call him possessed, call him whatever the hell you wanted to, but the fact remained that Whitey Putin was still stalking us when all laws of medicine, science, and simple fucking logic dictated that he should be lying down dead.

If Whitey had the superhuman ability to do those things—to stay alive with half of his head blown off, to slaughter policemen while they pumped him full of lead, to survive blood loss and mutilation and major organ damage—then why couldn’t he sense the baby? Why couldn’t he track us through the seed he’d planted in Sondra’s belly? It made sense. Supposedly, he needed those stem cells. Maybe they called to him, pulling at him the same way that Sondra had pulled at me all those long, lonely nights when I’d watched her on stage.

The footsteps slowly came down the hall. The men’s room door squeaked open. We heard it swing back and forth on its rusty hinges. The footsteps echoed as Whitey searched the bathroom. Then he entered the hallway again and did the same with the women’s restroom. When he was finished searching, he came out into the hallway once more. The footsteps stopped at the break room door.

Fear is an amazing thing. It coursed through me then, but all of my pain was gone. I felt totally alive—if only because death was so close.

“I have a gun,” Whitey said. “I took it from one of the policemen outside. I do not think he will mind, since he is currently on fire. Actually, I’m sure he’s nothing but ashes by now. What is the American saying? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust? Somewhat appropriate, don’t you think?”