Stalker Page 2

  beep: “Still gone, huh Dan? Or maybe you’re there with Janet? Ooo-la-la! Hi Janet! See you tomorrow. Be good, you two!”

  Dan could have picked up the phone and talked to him, explained to Jerry that Janet wasn’t there, but he just didn’t have the energy. The beer had taken its toll. Before the glowing numbers of his clock reached 11:45, Dan Freeman passed out.

  *2*

  Cold rain caused him to shiver. He looked up at the sky, dark and menacing. A powerful storm brewed.

  He was following the woman from the movie theatre again, only this time the two little boys were holding Janet’s hands. Before he had mistaken her for Janet—but now it really was her. He was going to go through with his urge to throttle her. It would feel good to get out some of his frustrations…

  They walked along a row of houses, each one bordered by a white picket fence with red tulips leading up the walk to the front door where a welcome mat waited. Dan thought that was odd, but didn’t pay it much heed. After all, Janet didn’t have any children, yet here she was with two boys.

  He proceeded on, cautiously.

  He flowed with the skill of the Steadicam operator from Stalker. He barely felt his feet on the ground. But he was completely unprepared for what he saw next.

  A horrifyingly familiar scene greeted him when he rounded the next corner. The idyllic houses lining the street quickly faded from sight, replaced by open fields of tall grass and weeds waving wildly about, buffeted by the cold gusts. The streetlights disappeared, replaced with the swirling lights of rescue vehicles: police, paramedics, fire. Beyond that laid the accident. Janet and the boys were nowhere to be found.

  He felt a growing weight on his back and shoulders, and looked over to see his news camera perched there, red light blinking, ready to shoot.

  “Jesus Christ, Dan. Look at this! Are you shooting?”

  Numb and confused, he shook his head no.

  “Well get to it, man!” Jerry said, jotting some notes. The blue ink smeared over the yellow paper, erasing his words almost as fast as he wrote them. “We’ve got an exclusive here!” he pronounced with excited glee.

  Obeying blindly, Dan pressed the record button, sending the tape deck spinning into motion. He brought his eye to the lens cup, the rubber cold and slick, and set his focus. Through the lens he saw Jerry rushing off to talk to some officials, gathering details. What’s Jerry doing here? he thought. Then, in a flash, it came to him.

  He and Jerry had been up north ice fishing on one of their getaway weekends. It was December so getting time off was a bitch since it was the time when everyone wanted to go, but few could, since the news still had to go on as scheduled, 24/7. The one caveat to their trip was they had to take a camera along and shoot a sort of “Jerry Stevens on Holiday” piece for a future feature. During this trip Jerry made a classic blooper when he fell down on the ice talking to some fishermen.

  On the way home they came upon the wreck. Jerry insisted on staying off the highway because people were driving like lunatics in the sleet.

  But if he was just now coming back with Jerry, where did Janet fit in? He had forgotten her for a moment amidst all the chaos. One minute he was stalking her through city streets, the next he was here on a backcountry road. It didn’t make any sense.

  “Stay back! You’re liable to get hurt!”

  Dan spun around and saw a policeman waving him off. He nodded his understanding and backed away, returning his attention to the job at hand and forgetting about Janet for the time being.

  This was the first time he really took a good look at the scene of carnage displayed in front of him. An Amtrak passenger train had slammed into an auto at a desolate railroad crossing. The collision knocked the first four or five train cars off the track, where they lay twisted on their sides, smoldering. Wide-eyed passengers wrapped in blankets milled about the remaining cars, stopped on the track. A small band of uniformed men tried, with limited success, to keep them under control.

  Dan edged his way closer to the main wreckage, camera recording. He overheard a snippet of conversation:

  “Any casualties?” asked a paramedic, as alternating colors of blue and red played across his face in the dark.

  “One dead. We just don’t know about the rest.”

  Dan then realized that all the others arrived only moments before he and Jerry did. There had to be more than one dead. The crossing didn’t have a railing, only a light, and Dan guessed the car must have tried to beat the train. Dan turned the camera on it and saw a grisly image. The car was crinkled like tin foil, one arm dangling out of a shattered window, blood trailing to the ground from limp fingers. The windshield held a large red stain, matted with hair. Cracks in the glass disseminated from the impact point like tentacles. There was the one dead—Dan figured they must not have gotten to the train yet.

  He was thankful to be looking at everything through his black and white viewfinder rather than in living color. He wasn’t sure he could handle it. Over the years he had shot his share of accident video and crime scenes, but they were never this fresh, the blood not as shiny and bright, and never still flowing. This was the most gruesome thing he had ever shot. Back in the editing bay the editor and producer could decide between what was fit to air and what was deemed too offensive or tasteless, but now he wanted them to have enough material to choose from.

  Finishing with the car, Dan pointed his camera at the derailed train. Clearly, no one had attended to it yet. He looked back at the police cars. Jerry was asking questions, and others were dealing with the rest of the passengers. That left a handful of paramedics to contend with, and he knew they’d be too busy to stop him from getting the footage he wanted. He hated it when he had to resort to tactics and trickery to get shots, but that was his job, and he was paid to do it well. He scurried down the embankment and headed toward the nearest overturned car.

  It laid on its side, encrusted in the snow, the roof facing Dan. Climbing tenaciously with his cumbersome camera, he scaled up. He found a broken window and dropped into the car. At this skewed angle it took him a moment to get orientated. But even then, he could never be prepared for what he saw.

  People were strewn on the floor, unconscious, injured, dead. Shattered glass littered everything. He spun around and encountered a young woman crawling toward him, holding something in her arms. She spoke incoherently, a desperate pleading in her tear-filled eyes. A little girl stood next to her, undoubtedly her daughter. The girl stared lifelessly out, a pain of glass embedded in her forehead, blood trickling into unblinking eyes. Dan trembled, backing away. He dropped the camera when he saw what the woman was holding out to him, like an offering. The body of a baby was swaddled in blankets stained red, its head sheared clean away. The woman stared at him, a faint hope in her eyes, as if he could repair the damage done to her son the way he could sew the head back on a rag doll or stuffed animal.

  Dan’s bladder let go and his legs lost their strength. He stumbled back, and slipped in a blood slick. He crashed down hard, the wind knocked from him. Lying on his back, gasping for breath, looking skyward, he addressed his God, long neglected, begging that this wasn’t happening. His eyelids fluttered, his heart pounded. He was about to pass out. As his head lolled to one side, he caught sight of the baby’s severed head, wedged between a metal support rod and the wall. The kicker was the light blue pacifier still in his mouth.

  Dan suddenly found his breath, and screamed vehemently. It was a primal scream, all anguish and terror, his dry throat rasping, the cords on his neck standing out as the raw pain surged through his larynx.

  He repeated the scream, over and over, again and again…

  *3*

  Dan bolted upright on the couch, clawing at his chest, gasping for breath. In the dark his panicked eyes darted about, searching for something familiar. They landed on a poster from the film Maniac, in which a ragged man is holding a bleeding, decapitated head by the hair. Another scream rose in Dan’s throat, and he bit hard on his knuckles
to keep the sound from escaping. But seeing the poster snapped him to his senses, and he realized where he was. He tried to breathe easy, but his breath still came in stitches.

  The dream was as fresh in his mind as when the events actually occurred last year. With a chill, he remembered how he finally mustered the strength to claw his way out—on hands and knees—of the overturned cabin. The young mother blocked the way and Dan had to squeeze by. He became physically ill when his hand brushed the damp blanket. She grabbed the back of his coat, shrieking for help; he broke free and scampered out the way he came in.

  Running like a deer, he fled into the nearby field, not stopping until he was at least two hundred yards away. When he finally stopped, he leaned over and violently wretched into the snow. Small puffs of steam rose up from the mess he made, and as he stared at it with glassy eyes it dawned on him that his camera was still inside the car.

  Back in his apartment, Dan tried to forget the awful events. He had wanted to quit, but Jerry talked him out of it. Instead, he spent two months in therapy. He thought therapy had worked. Over time the images faded—until they came rushing back tonight.

  He felt closed in. He decided to go walking, take in some fresh air, clear his head. Sleep wasn’t going to come for some time.

  Jerry

  *1*

  Jerry Stevens sat across from Laura Danvers. She was on the phone. Jerry occupied himself by looking around the room. He had been in the news director’s office a hundred times, but he never really stopped to look. Laura had small parts of herself on the walls: press awards, an autographed picture of Tom Selleck, candid shots of people in the newsroom. He saw one of himself and Dan. Jerry smiled sadly.

  Laura finished her call and briskly hung up. She was an economical woman, even down to her gestures. “Made up your mind, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t have to tell me your answer—it’s written all over your face.” She looked away from Jerry at some papers on her desk. “You’ve decided to go to Michigan State.”

  “It wasn’t because your offer wasn’t enough,” Jerry stammered. “In fact, it was a very good offer, extremely generous. I feel bad turning it down. But you see—”

  “I saw this coming a year ago. Talent like yours doesn’t stay put for long once it’s flushed out. No apology is necessary. I’m just sorry I’m losing you.”

  They clasped hands over the table. “Thank you. The position starts soon, but I’ll be glad to continue working beyond two weeks, as long as I can, until you find a replacement.”

  She smiled. “A generous offer. Thanks, but I don’t think it’ll be necessary. I’ve been looking at several résumé tapes since you approached me, and a couple of them are very promising.”

  Jerry politely nodded. It all seemed so fast: the phone call from the University, visiting the campus, being wined and dined, all the while keeping it a secret. He had warned Laura that this might happen. She hired him, and put a lot of effort and investment into him. He thought it only fair to include her in his decision.

  “How does Dan feel about this?”

  Jerry dodged her eyes. “He doesn’t know yet.”

  “Oh,” Laura said softly.

  When word came from East Lansing he meant to tell Dan immediately. Somehow the timing never seemed right. Knowing he was going to resign today, he tried the cop-out method of calling him last night. In a way he was glad Dan didn’t pick up. This was too personal to say over the phone.

  “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t post any memos just yet. There are a couple of people I’d like to hear it from me, not a sheet of paper tacked over the drinking fountain.”

  “I understand. I’ll hold off on this until tomorrow.”

  Jerry thanked her again and returned to the newsroom of WKBC. Full of people, it would soon empty out as stories were assigned and staff dispatched to cover them. Everything would come together about an hour before the broadcast as everyone returned and worked like hell to make their slot. Since Jerry was a feature man he basically found his own stories. Now he sat quietly at his desk, pretending to work, waiting for Dan.

  Jerry never heard him come up from behind. He simply turned around and there he stood. Jerry scanned his face and noticed the bloodshot eyes, the general puffiness of his cheeks, the creases in his forehead. He opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of aspirin, handing it to Dan.

  “You look like hell. Are you hungover?”

  “A little.” He shook out a tablet and swallowed it dry, stroking his throat, trying to coax it down. Jerry grimaced. He could barely take aspirin with water.

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  “I had a fight with Janet. It shook me up.”

  Jerry kicked out a chair for Dan. “What happened?”

  Dan explained how he couldn’t get in touch with her and how she wasn’t at her apartment.

  “That doesn’t sound like Janet,” Jerry commented. “Why don’t you try her again? I’d think she’d be over it by now.”

  “I’m afraid to, okay?” Dan admitted. “What if it’s over between us?”

  “That serious?”

  Dan sighed. “It wasn’t that the fight was intense. It was the feeling I got from her, like she didn’t care anymore.”

  “Maybe she has a problem at work, or with her family?” Jerry probed. “Her mind might be elsewhere.”

  “I’d like to think that we have the kind of relationship where she can tell me those things.”

  “It’s not a perfect world, Dan. We all have our secrets.”

  “Maybe,” Dan said, fidgeting. He changed the subject. “What did you call about last night? Two times—that’s gotta be a record.”

  Speaking of secrets… Jerry took a deep breath. “The offer came from Michigan State yesterday.”

  Dan gave his friend the once over, seeing the obvious. “And you took it.”

  “I gave Laura my notice just before you came in.”

  Dan’s expression soured. This saddened Jerry, for he always had a vision of celebrating his success with Dan. He continued, “You know it’s a great offer to teach some photojournalism courses at MSU. The guy who did it is retiring.”

  “I guess I didn’t think you were that serious.”

  “I’ve mentioned that I’d like to teach. It’s no secret.”

  “But I thought you meant in the future.”

  “And so did I, before this opportunity came along.”

  Dan didn’t reply, and that didn’t make Jerry feel any better. Jerry drummed his fingers against his chin. How could he fix this problem? Maybe if they just got to work things would smooth themselves out.

  *2*

  It didn’t turn out that way. Dan avoided people all day, except when work forced interaction. Finally he found some solace in a dark editing bay.

  As Dan cut Jerry’s story together, he thought back to his working relationship with him. There were other reporter/photojournalist teams at WKBC that simply couldn’t get along. He and Jerry never had those problems. They could read each other’s minds. Doing a story was child’s play to them. And they were the best of friends.

  One feature Jerry did won him a regional Emmy, was picked up by the network, and also spurred a State Representative to sponsor a new bill in the State House. The bill didn’t pass, but it encouraged a lot of debate and caused people to look at public transportation in a new way. Public pressure caused some reforms locally. All that from a humorous piece satirizing a simple uptown bus ride.

  He’s talented, Dan thought. Maybe he’s right about taking that teaching position. Maybe he’s right about another thing too…

  *3*

  Janet heard the phone ringing as she fumbled for her key out in the hall. She quickly got the door open and dashed for it.

  “Hello?”

  “Janet? You’re home.”

  “Obviously,” she replied, irked.

  “This is Dan. I called to…” To what? Suddenly he didn’t know what to
say. He hadn’t rehearsed anything in his mind like he usually did when he apologized. Hell, he didn’t even think she would be there. “To apologize, I guess. And to make sure you were all right.”

  “What made you think I wasn’t?” she asked.

  “I haven’t been able to reach you,” Dan explained. “I called you around 11:30 and didn’t get an answer.”

  Janet laughed lightly. “I was home, I just wasn’t in the mood to pick up. I figured only you would call me that late.” She paused. “That note you left me had a subtle hostility to it.”

  “Yeah, I suppose it did,” he admitted. “Were you there when I slipped it under the door?”

  “No. I found it when I got back. After our little spat I didn’t feel like dealing with you. I went over to a friend’s house to get some space.”

  “I did the same sort of thing. I drove around, saw a movie, and finally got trashed.”

  “Getting drunk and hiding at a friend’s house aren’t the best ways to deal with our problems.”

  “What do you say we try again?”

  “I’m not sure. Past fights have never affected us quite this way. I think we might need to reevaluate our relationship.”

  Dan’s stomach dropped. Still, he tried. “I’ve got those steaks from last night, and the wine is still cold. Why don’t you come over and we’ll talk this out?”

  “I’ll come over, but don’t knock yourself out. This could be a very short meeting.”

  “Meeting? You make it sound like we’re business partners. I usually call it a date.” Dan waited to see what kind of response that would illicit. None came. Not wanting to spark another confrontation, he quickly wrapped up the conversation. “How about eight? Is that good?”