Blown Red

Chapter 1 - The Night Before

In the United States, when a train disobeys a stop signal, it is sometimes called a "blown red."

Elena gaped at the body, the percussive pop of displaced cervical vertebrae echoing in her ears. The man, who moments before had held her at gunpoint, lay in a heap, a marionette with its strings cut. His head, twisted at an unnatural angle, rested on its right cheek, his familiar blue eyes already clouding over.

     With a flatulent eruption the corpse released the contents of its bowel and bladder. Gasping, Elena shot to her feet, the effluvial stench like a vial of ammonia under her nose.

     She gave her head a rough shake, and as her brain re-booted, she became aware of the incongruent sound of rat-a-tat chatter. Swivelling her head in the direction of the voice, she shrank back when she saw the killer lounging on her battered leather couch, one leg crossed over the other, looking more like a genial grandfather than a seventy year old who had just snapped a man's neck. He was speaking into a cell phone in what she now recognized as rapid fire Cantonese.

Registering Elena's shocked gaze, the killer concluded his conversation then slipped the cell phone back into his pocket. With one eye on her, he plucked the dead man’s trench coat from the floor and laid it over the still form like a tweed shroud. He stepped toward her.

She skittered backward.

The killer held his hands out, palms up, murmuring soft words. “Everything will be okay, honey. You’re safe now. Everything is fine. Try to take some deep breaths.”

Elena stared at him, uncomprehending, even though he had switched back to English.

The killer inhaled a lungful of air in an exaggerated fashion, his cheeks puffed out like a blow fish. When he blew out, Elena remembered her father pressing a sea shell to her ear, the sound of the ocean roaring in her head.

     “What?” Elena tested out her voice. Her lips felt rubbery as though she'd just endured a root canal.

     “Don't try to talk. Just breathe.” The killer repeated his comical chest expansions and Elena felt a giggle form deep in the pit of her stomach. The ripple grew, becoming a rumble, then a shaking, then a visceral earthquake. She slapped a hand over her face but it was no match for the volcanic laughter that erupted from her mouth.

Turning her back on the killer she bent at the waist, allowing the howls to sweep through her body until her eyes streamed with tears and her rib muscles threatened to tear. When at last the mirthless laughter ceased she allowed the killer to take her by the hand and guide her to the couch.

     Sinking into the soft leather, she clasped her knees to her chest, folding her body into a protective ball. With the grotesque figure stiffening a few feet away she focussed her attention on the killer as he stepped into the kitchen.

Realizing that he was clad only in a set of cotton pajamas, she felt tears prick behind her eyes, and as she watched him stand on tiptoe, searching her shelves for the special tea he knew she loved, she felt her heart flip inside her chest. 

The piercing whistle of the tea kettle announced the entrance of the man’s wife. Without bothering to glance at the dead man on the floor, Mrs. Zhang hurried across the room, the soles of her leather slippers sliding across the linoleum like skates over ice, her blue silk robe swirling around her ankles. Strands of thinning black hair, streaked with grey and stiff with sleep, clung to the side of her cheek. Not usually given to displays of emotion, Mrs. Zhang wrapped her bony arms around Elena in a fierce embrace.

Elena pressed her face into the woman’s narrow chest.

     “You okay now?” the woman asked, a few minutes later, as she gently patted Elena’s cheek with bony fingers.

     Elena forced a weak smile and another when her husband placed a mug of sweet tea into her shaking hands.

“What happened?” said the woman, her eyes darting over to the body.

Elena glanced at the broken remains of the framed photograph the intruder had been examining just before he died. Staring at the smiling faces of her mother and father, frozen in time behind the fractured glass, she shook her head. She had no answer.