shaking, a coiled snake of nausea flexing in my gut. My mouth flooded with saliva, and I thought I would vomit.
He Tasered me again before the previous shock had begun to wear off. I wondered if the effects were cumulative, if enough of them could fry the nerves, induce a stroke, cause death.
He spoke only one more word to me: “Scribbler.”
For a while, I seemed to be floating in the blackness of deep space, the floor under me no longer a floor but a spiral galaxy slowly turning.
My sense of time had been temporarily short-circuited. When I discovered that I had the capacity to crawl, and in fact to rise to my feet, I did not know whether one minute or ten had passed since my last Tasering.
I was surprised to be alive. If, like a cat, I had nine lives, I had used up eight of them one night a long time ago.
The taste of blood remained from my bitten tongue, yet when I called Penny’s name, my voice broke as if my mouth and throat were not only dry but desiccated.
She did not answer.
Waxx must have taken Penny with him, to what purpose I could imagine, to what end I refused to consider.
One moment more of blindness was intolerable. Faint moonglow at the edges of the blackout draperies led me to the windows. I found the cord, revealed the glass, the night, the looming lunar face.
“Cubby?”
Either she had been unconscious when I called to her or she had not heard me because my voice was even weaker than I thought.
After the unrelieved gloom, the merest moonlight was sunshine to my eyes, and I saw her pulling herself to her feet at the dresser.
I went to her, speechless with gratitude. Her breath against my throat, the graceful curve of her back under my right hand, and the sweet smell of her hair were poetry that words could never equal.
She said the only thing worth saying: “Thank God.”
On the nightstands, the digital clocks came back to life and began flashing to indicate that they needed to be reset.
The alarm keypad brightened. A yellow indicator light announced a functioning system, and a red bulb confirmed that it was armed.
The recorded voice that reported on status changes remained silent, as though the alarm had never been disabled.
Neither Penny nor I said “Milo,” but we hurried to his room, switching on lights as we went.
As my hand closed on the knob, a growl rose from the far side of the door. Lassie greeted us with raised hackles and bared teeth. As if we were not the real Penny and Cubby but evil replicants, she continued to threaten violence if we crossed the threshold.
Dogs have a sense of shame, in fact stronger than most people do these days. Penny played to it, disappointment in her voice: “Growling at me but not one bark to warn us about that lunatic?”
Lassie stopped growling but continued to bare her teeth.
“Not one bark for the lunatic?” Penny repeated.
The dog’s flews quivered with what seemed to be embarrassment and relaxed to cover her teeth. Her tail wagged tentatively.
I came to Lassie’s defense: “She was ready to protect Milo. Good girl.”
The boy lay in bed, snoring softly. He didn’t wake when Lassie sprang onto the mattress and curled beside him.
“Stay here,” I whispered. “I’ll search the house.”
Voice hushed but adamant, Penny said, “Not alone. Call the cops.”
“It’s all right. He’s gone. I’m just making sure.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Call the cops.”
“And tell them what? Did you see Waxx?”
“No. But—”
“I didn’t see him, either.”
Her eyes narrowed. “He said something, a word.”
“Three words. Doom. Hack. Scribbler.”
She bristled. “He called you a hack?”
“Yeah.”
“He should die hard. Point is—you heard him speak at the restaurant.”
“Only one word. I hardly know his voice.”
“But you know this was him.”
“Evidence, Penny. Isn’t any.”
She pointed to a pair of red marks on her left forearm, like two spider bites. “The Taser.”
“That’s not enough. That’s nothing. How often did he sting you?”
“Twice. You?”
“Five, maybe six times.”
“I’d like to castrate him.”
“That doesn’t sound like the creator of the Purple Bunny books.”
“Call the cops,” she insisted.
“He’ll say we made it up, to get back at him for his review.”
“He didn’t review me. Why am I going to lie about him?”
“For me. That’s what they’ll say. You know the media—if you give them a stick, they love to knock you down.”
I couldn’t say there was an event in my past about which I never told her. If I made accusations about Waxx that he denied, tabloid TV would start digging. They probably wouldn’t be able to learn who I had been, as a child, but I didn’t want to test their skills.
I said, “Besides, I have a feeling like…he wants us to call the cops.”
“Why would he want that?”
“Either he wants us to call them or he doesn’t care if we do. This is so screwy. I haven’t done anything to him. There’s something about this we don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand any of it,” she declared.
“Exactly. Trust me on this. No cops just yet.”
Leaving her with Milo and the dog, I searched the house, found no one. Nothing had been damaged. Everything seemed to be in order.
All the doors were locked, and the security chains were engaged. The window latches were secure. No panes had been broken.
Christmas was little more than six weeks away; but Waxx had not come down a chimney and had not departed through one. All the dampers were closed tight.
In the master bathroom, I stripped off my pajamas and quickly dressed. I retrieved my wristwatch from the vanity, where I had left it before retiring for the night. The time was 4:54 A.M.
Catching sight of myself in a mirror, I didn’t like what I saw. Face pale and damp with sweat, skin gray and grainy around the eyes, lips bloodless, mouth tight and grim.
My eyes were especially disturbing. I didn’t see myself in them. I saw someone I had once been.
When I returned to Milo’s room, he still slept.
Lassie had gotten over her shame. From the bed, she stared at us imperiously and issued a long-suffering sigh, as though we were keeping her awake.
Penny said, “I’m gonna scream if I don’t have a cookie.”