After Image (Tony Downs Book 2) Read online

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  After Image

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  Rain fell in the cold December night. Through the mist, he saw himself diving beneath a car as a rifle came to bear on him. The rifle bucked against a shoulder and a gout of flame chased away the roof's shadows. The bolt retracted and a shell casing struck the roof with a tinny jingle.

  The rifle came to bear again and then suddenly the body went stiff. A huge galvanic push between the temples, a crimson tidal wave of pain flashed in the brain. An interior scream, and then he was suddenly falling over the dingy edge of the roof. The world spun for a moment and then the concrete filled his vision.

  Tony awoke with a start. He kept his eyes closed for a moment and tried to shake off the dream. The man falling off the roof followed by the wet squelch as the body hit the concrete. Its broken face staring up at him with lifeless eyes amidst the growing pool of blood…

  The falling man was the most common dream. It usually came to him in the small hours like a lover. But its embrace always left him cold, shaking, and sure he would go mad.

  But it wasn't as bad as the shambling homeless men. Although they had just been normal human beings when they died, they became rotting, flesh dripping animated corpses in his dreams. Their arms were always reaching for him, their teeth gnashing as they crept closer. In these nightmares, he was never fast enough, never clever enough, and they always fell upon him, their fingers tearing at his eyes, a metal pipe smashing his brains out for their evening meal.

  When Jennifer came to visit, he always woke up screaming. His sister had been beautiful, until that night when he turned her into a demonic vision to punish her rapist. Now when she visited him in his dreams, she bore huge saliva dripping fangs and a face split in an impossibly wide grin. "Your turn," she always whispered as she reached her menacing taloned fingers toward him.

  Tony shuddered. Over a year and still the nightmares haunted him. He wasn't sure they'd ever go away.

  The smell of woodsmoke and frying bacon filled the room and he felt the dream begin to fade away. He cautiously opened his eyes. The hunting lodge was dark, only a thin sliver of light made its way through the mostly closed door.

  Tony lay still for a moment, listening to the sounds of pans moving across gas burners and the sizzle of frying food. Dad had started a fire. Dad was cooking. The sudden acrid tang of cigarette smoke managed its way through the other smells, reminding him he had to get the old man to quit soon. Tony sighed and sat up in bed. The old man was supposed to sleep-in this morning and let Tony make breakfast. Tony looked down at his watch. The tritium hands told him it was 0430.

  Shit, Tony thought.

  He swung his legs out of bed and placed his bare feet on the floor. The wood panel floor was freezing and his body broke out in goosebumps as he pulled off the sheet.

  Fucking cold, he thought.

  He always slept naked. He reminded himself again that next year, he was bringing flannel pajamas to sleep in. He always reminded himself of that. Ever since he was 12.

  Tony raised himself and made his way to the water-warped chest of drawers in the dark. He pulled on the bottom drawer, fighting with the squealing, warped wood. He shook it side to side, wincing with each squeak.

  Goddamned thing's going to fall apart on me one of these days.

  He managed to get it open far enough to pull out his long johns, felt for the tag in the back and quickly slid into them. Next, thick woolen socks. He pushed the bottom drawer shut with his foot, sighed, and then pulled on the upper drawer. It opened easily. He pulled out a thermal undershirt and a thick flannel over-shirt and dressed.

  Now for the fucking jeans.

  He stumbled forward toward the mostly closed bedroom door trying hard not to slip on the panel floor, and pulled a pair of jeans off the doorknob. Dressed, except for his coat and boots, he walked into what passed for the living room.

  The fire had at least managed to fight off the chill and he already felt warmer. The old Franklin stove crackled as the wood inside burned. Tony took a deep breath. He'd always loved that smell. Campfires. The hunting lodge. Greg's house in Austin during the winter. It somehow always made him feel he was at home.

  He glanced into the well-lit kitchen and smiled. The old man was standing in front of the stove cooking eggs and bacon with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

  "Haven't I told you I don't like ashes in my eggs?" Tony said over the din of frying grease.

  His father grunted. "Yeah, but if you don't get your lazy ass out of bed," he said in a drawl, "you don't get to cook breakfast." He turned his weathered and lined face toward Tony. The deep scar running from the base of his chin to his ear seemed to glow in the light. "And then you get whatever you get." He winked at Tony, ashed the cigarette with his free hand, and continued to turn the bacon.

  Tony sighed and padded past his father. His dad was dressed in an old pair of jeans, hunting boots, and a checkered wool jacket. Tony smirked as he walked by. The old man had worn the same outfit for hunting as long as Tony could remember. Whenever the jeans became too frayed, the old man would go buy a new pair and have them looking fatigued by the end of the same season. And the coat? Shit. He'd worn that ratty thing for a decade.

  Tony pulled on the old ice box door, reached in and grabbed the orange juice. He reached into the plastic dry board and grabbed a clean coffee cup. He poured the last of the bottle into the cup and grunted. "You want the last of the--"

  "Fuck it. Take it," his father said without turning. "There's coffee on the stove too," the old man said, pointing at the steel pot.

  Tony shrugged and downed the cup. "You're, um, up a little early."

  The old man didn't turn around and kept turning the bacon. "Heard you. Woke me up."

  Tony blinked. "Heard me?"

  "Yeah," his father said. "Talking in your sleep. Something about a guy named Mikey." Tony said nothing. "Mentioned Jennifer a few times, too." The old man turned and looked at Tony, his eyes had that faraway look in them. "Should have taken her hunting, dontcha think?"

  Tony shook his head and smiled. "She wouldn't have come, Dad."

  "Oh," the old man said and turned back to the stove. "Yeah, forgot she was one of those damned greenie people."

  Looking over the old man's shoulder, Tony stared into the pan. "Um, you going to cook those until they're black?"

  The old man shrugged. "I know you like it crispy."

  "Yeah, but not burned!" Tony laughed.

  The old man grunted again and shook his head. He took the frying pan off the stove and placed it on a dead burner. "Not a fucking gourmet," the old man mumbled.

  Tony giggled.

  His father turned toward him, winked again, and filled a plate with eggs and bacon. He handed it to Tony. "Here," he said. "Eat up." Tony stared at the plate and looked back at his father. Dad smiled. "Yeah, I already ate. Go crazy."

  Tony walked over to the card table and sat to eat. "Coffee?" the old man asked. Tony nodded. "Good." As Tony dug into his breakfast, his father sat next to him and lay the coffee pot on a trivet between them. For a moment, there was silence. "Bad dreams?"

  The forkful of eggs stopped midway to Tony's mouth. He paused and then continued eating. "Bad enough."

  "You've been having a lot of those the last year," his father said.

  Tony nodded. "Yeah. I think it runs in the family." His father grunted. "You going to quit smoking again?" Tony said, gesturing toward the cigarette with his fork.

  The old man sighed out a cloud of smoke. "You ready to go huntin' this morning?" his father asked as he ashed the cigarette. Tony nodded. "I want to get an earl
y start today," his father said. "Get that damned white-tail."

  "Still chasing that sixteen pointer?"

  His father grinned. "Yeah. Going to get that big bastard today, dammit. If I see him, he's getting a 7 millimeter round. One shot," his father promised with a raised index finger.

  Tony laughed. "You know, I'm glad I came out here again this year. Glad you did too."

  His father nodded and swept back his mostly gray hair. It was thinner and thinner each year, but it was still there. "So am I. Thomas and Reggie ought to be here tonight. They called me last night. Bitched they were still working men, unlike us."

  "Yeah, I'll bet." Another moment of silence filled the room. "Hey, um, Dad. What are you dreaming these days?"

  "You need more coffee," his father said and refilled Tony's coffee.

  "And you're dodging the question."

  His father pulled another Marlboro from his shirt pocket and lit it from the other. He stubbed out the spent butt in the ashtray. "I keep seeing something."

  "Yeah? Like what?"

  "Someone falling off a roof," his father said matter-of-factly. Tony shuddered. "It's raining or something. Balls cold. And this fucker just falls off the roof, like a ragdoll. Hits the concrete."

  Tony's stomach turned over and suddenly he wasn't hungry anymore. He forced another over-cooked slice of bacon in his mouth and cracked it between his teeth. "Um, when did you start having those?"

  "Hmm," his father said. "Guess last December or so."

  "You didn't tell me that."

  "You," his father said and inhaled deeply from the cigarette, "never asked. Now finish your damned coffee and let's get on the trail."

  Tony nodded to himself, swallowed the rest of the piece of bacon and finished the coffee. His father stood and went back over to the stove. He filled two thermoses with what was left of the coffee and began wiping down the frying pan. Tony took the plate to the sink, cleaned it out and put it on the dirty side of the stove.

  "Get busy, boy," his father said.

  With a sigh, Tony turned and headed back to his room. In the semi-darkness, he located his pack and brought it out in the hall. He reached down, checked his ammo was still in the side pocket. This was a long-born habit his father had instilled in him. Going out into the freezing weather only to find you had no ammo was possibly the shittiest hunting story ever told. He checked to make sure the hand warmers were in there as well as the camo blanket.

  Everything right where it belongs, Tony thought. Except—

  “Here," his father said from behind.

  Tony shuddered with a start and turned around. "Dammit, Dad." His father held out a steel thermos. As Tony took it, he said "I'm 23 fucking years old now. Aren't you going to stop doing that at some point?"

  His father grinned. It was the old grin. The one he'd had before Jennifer's murder. The grin he always had when Tony and Jennifer came to visit. The last time that had happened was nearly a year and a half ago. With both of them in college, they only got to see him in El Paso during winter and summer breaks.

  "Sorry, son. Kind of forgot you're jumpy."

  With a sigh, Tony placed the thermos in the pack. "Uh-huh." He zipped the pack closed, stared down for a moment, and then looked up at his father. "We haven't spoken of her until a few minutes ago." His father's grin faded. "Not last night. And not in the past several months."

  "I've buried enough dead, Tony. I told you that last summer."

  Tony flinched. He felt all the blood drain from his face. "But, Dad--"

  His father turned and walked toward the coat rack. Two rifles stood beside it. His father grabbed the heavy hunting jacket and shuffled into it, barely managing to fit it over the woolen coat. "What else you need, boy? You ready?" he said and turned to face Tony.

  Tony said nothing. He lifted the pack to his shoulder and made his way to the coat rack. His father had once again closed the subject. Jennifer's broken, cut face flashed into his mind; her muted, weak cries filling his ears. Tony reached up his free hand and wiped away a single tear. He looked up at his father. "How do you get past it?" Tony rasped.

  His father blinked. A soft smile lit his face and he placed a gnarled, scarred hand on the Tony’s shoulder. "You've been asking that question as long as I can remember, boy. Ever since your momma died." He bent down and kissed Tony on the head. "You'll learn, son." With that, his father turned and opened the heavy oak door and headed into the cold.

  Tony stood there for a moment. They'd never been close in the way people normally think of the word. Instead, they seemed more like acquaintances; but they shared something even his father hadn't realized. Tony reached for his own coat, grabbed his rifle, and made his way out the door.

  It was fucking cold. This was the coldest December he could remember, period, end of story, hallelujah without end.

  The deer blind was a box of welded steel with an aluminum roof sitting fifteen feet off the ground. The slits were just large enough for the wind to come whipping through it in the pre-dawn darkness. He shivered as he rested the rifle on his knees.

  Dad's gotta be fucking crazy to think any damned deer are going to get up in this shit, he thought.

  The feeder out in the field began spreading its mix of corn and meal with the sound of gravel pouring from a bag. Tony stifled a yawn and grabbed the thermos. Dad was out there somewhere behind him, facing north, and probably camped in some brush. The old man hated the blinds. He hunted.

  The way man's s'posed to, he'd say.

  Tony usually did, too. But not today. Too damned cold.

  Tony stared at the horizon. An almost imperceptible shade of pink struggled with the darkness. It would be light soon and then the wind would hopefully stop. Tony stifled another yawn. The coffee was turning bitter in his stomach. He drank it anyway. Anything warm. If Mom was there, she would have brought something to bake. Hot chocolate for when they returned, coffee cake. Tony sighed.

  Mom died when he was seven. Cancer. She used to read to him as he sat in her lap. She used to tell him stories. Stories of how she and Dad met, their first child together, the one that hadn't lived, of how his father had sacrificed everything for his country, for his beliefs, and for his children. His father never heard her say these things. Never knew what she had told his little boy. And now there were only memories of her.

  And now Jennifer. Dead at the ripe old age of 19. Tony shivered again. The pink was growing in the sky. Jennifer's unmarred face floated before him, no longer cut and strained, but peaceful. Tony smiled. Beautiful Jennifer. She had had part of the gift. Just a part. Just enough to let him know she was dying. Tony let out a shuddering breath.

  "I miss you," he said softly.

  Tony glanced over his shoulder at the jeep trail and smiled to himself. He and his father had walked in silence from the lodge. They both knew the old trails by heart. Even his father had been here as a boy when his own father had owned the land. They had split off half a mile from the lodge and headed in different directions without a word. While Tony tried to move without making a sound, his father moved like a wraith. Five or six steps later and all Tony could hear was his own feet on the dirt and brush.

  If his father wanted to be heard, which he seldom did, he slipped into the normal walk of a man. But for as long as Tony had been alive, that creepy slick step had been his father's normal way of locomotion. His legs moved in a silky, fluid motion that normal people found strange. For the longest time, Tony had thought the awkward gait of others looked strange and he had always been somewhat embarrassed as a child when he couldn't mimic his father's grace.

  Mom had called it the snipe-step. Dad hadn't ever called it anything. Dad always gave her a warning look when she talked about anything having to do with that time in the late 60s. Always. So Tony had never asked, even after Mom died.

  His father was stoic, his mother bright and bubbly. They didn't seem like people that belonged together, but somehow it worked. They were a family. He, Jennifer, Mom and Dad. They fou
ght. They hugged. They laughed. They played cards.

  For a moment, he remembered the four of them sitting at the dining table. Must have been a year or so before Mom died. They were playing UNO, his father laughing as he dropped another "Wild Draw Four" atop the one Jennifer had already placed in the pile. Tony had been furious. It wasn't fair, them all ganging up on him. And he stared at his father, watching his body shaking up and down. And it had happened. The thoughts. The words. The laughter. As Tony glared at his father's eyes, the sounds of the world through his ears stopped, and then he began to hear his father's thoughts.

  The external laughter disappeared, leaving an echoey chuckle and words strung together so fast, Tony barely understood them.

  Goddammit never going to fucking win this fucking game Jesus that's sad what do I have to do to get him a shot at winning?

  All Tony cared about was that his father wasn't laughing at him. Instead, his father was laughing at the situation. Dad had wanted Tony to win the game. But no matter what he did, those cards kept bouncing into his hands.

  Just like they do in poker, the old man had thought.

  At first, Tony didn't understand what had happened. The mental sounds faded, replaced with the sound from his ears. Tony had said nothing, sighed, and removed eight cards from the top of the pile and placed them in his hand. The chuckling slowed down and the game continued as if nothing had happened.

  Years later, Tony had brought home Larry Heineman's Paco's Story from class. His father had found the book. His father had taken the book. His father had read it even before Tony could start on it. And that was the first night Tony discovered any of his father's past.

  Movement. Tony's daydream cut off and suddenly he was alert. Something was moving at the tree line. Tony blew out each breath in a tilted down stream to hide the fog of air and then silently sipped inward. Without making a sound, he lifted the rifle from his knees and kept his eyes fixed on the trees. A bush shivered slightly as if with the cold. Tony grinned.

  Something moved upward from just above a tree’s grey, brown branches. Tony frowned. It was small, whatever it was. A bird maybe? Tony focused on it again. Something tickled at his mind and he paused for a moment. Something was wrong. Another bush at the edge shivered slightly. Then another. And another.