Frightened Boy

Chapter Five - Up and Down

5. Up and Down

She waved me in with a healthy pink smile.

“Has anyone tried to break in? Has anyone called?” I asked immediately.

“What? No. Nothing, flat, zero. Just another boring day,” she answered, stepping aside so I could enter my living room. “What happened?”

I told Erika everything.

“Very interesting,” Erika said in a faux-German accent. “If I didn’t know you, I’d say it was made up.”

“It wasn’t made up. I swear it really happened. They could be coming here right now.”

“And you didn’t tell the police that the footage in that cage has Escher recorded on it?” she asked.

“No! He knows where I live, you think I want to piss him off?”

“That seems very opportune,” she said wryly. “So do you think the police have that footage now?”

“I don’t know, maybe. Probably not.” I said miserably. “He has my wallet, Erika! I can’t believe it. You think I should have told the police?” I collapsed backwards onto the couch.

Erika stepped up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. The feeling was electrifying. I could feel her long nails digging into my skin as she kneaded my muscles. “No, I think you did the right thing. And the way you were so worried for me?” she asked. “That was sweet.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I’m God, after all. I gotta watch out for my disciples.”

“Well…” she said, tracing a finger up and down my shoulder. This made my face heat up with burning, chemically unstable blood. “I’m okay, so don’t worry about it. They won’t come here.”

“I don’t know if I want to go back,” I admitted.

The phone rang rudely, interrupting us.

Erika picked it up from its receiver and immediately pressed it back down, hanging up abruptly. “We don’t need that right now. But c’mon, it isn’t so bad. Be tough. He’s gone. If he wanted to come for you, he’d be here, right? I say stand your ground. Tough this one out.”

My shoulders slumped. It seemed unfair, but I stopped arguing because I knew it was only making me look more afraid than I already was. I was so focused on my confrontation with Escher that I didn’t even notice when Erika started tenderly rubbing my earlobe. I brushed her hand away reflexively. Nothing sexy about my impending doom.

*

I woke up the next morning still groggy from my fitful sleep.

I got up in time for work out of habit, even though I still wasn’t set on going. Stepping foot back in that office bothered me in some profound way; it didn’t feel like the same place anymore.

“Fine then,” Erika said suddenly as I sipped the coffee she always had brewing in the kitchen. “We’ll both go, if you aren’t going to get dressed.”

“I don’t want to go,” I told her. “Escher could come back for me.”

“God is a lot of things,” she said, “but I don’t think God’s supposed to be, y’know, such a pussy.”

“Is that what you think of me?”

“Sometimes,” she said.

“I don’t think you get it. It’s the goddamn Serengeti out there, and I know I’m a leaf eater. So how do the herbivores stay alive? They stay alert, they run, and they don’t take risks. They see that danger coming a mile away. You don’t call a gazelle a pussy because he doesn’t fight back when the lions come.”