Fiction.

I had seen the guy who was currently trespassing on my property several times on my way home from work. Even if I hadn’t just seen him hold a saw to Lauren’s throat, I’d be able to tell you just from looking at his eyes that he wasn’t quite right in the head.

He stood in the doorway, one hand on the doorframe and the other in the pocket of his filthy coat. He let out a low growl, and suddenly I felt the energy drain from my limbs just as it had an hour earlier in the park. Yeah, I was tired, but I was also tired of wondering what was going on, tired of James’s incessant insults, and definitely, without a doubt, tired of bums. I saw the others around me nodding off or drooping even as they stood, but I fought it.

“Get…out…of…my…HOUSE!!” I picked up my leaden arms and planted them right in his chest. He was surprisingly little under all those layers as I pushed him backwards into the hall.

He laughed and grabbed my wrists, but it seemed I had distracted him enough to cause whatever effect he had on us to wear off a little, because a fist came out of nowhere over my left shoulder and before I knew it, Kaiser had tackled the bum to the ground, face down, and was straddling him, holding his hands behind his back.

I watched, stupefied, and Lauren knelt motionless on the floor, clutching the place where the saw had bit into her flesh earlier. “James,” rasped Kaiser, placing a knee on the back of the bum’s head. “Get the cops.”

“James, get the cops, James.” We could barely hear the bum through his matted dreads. “Get ‘em. Hang a donut outside the window and see how fast they come.” His voice was gravelly.

I looked over at James. His fists were clenched and he was biting his lip. Then, in a flash, he was on the floor in the hallway, pulling up the bum’s head by his dreadlocks. “What was that, motherfucker? What did you just say to me?”

The bum coughed, and Kaiser looked uneasy. “Dude, just get the cops. This guy is dangerous, seriously.”

“And how do you know that, Kaiser? Looking into my past a little, are you?” He laughed and then coughed so violently I thought for sure he was going to throw up.

“Yeah, asshole, I AM looking into your past,” Kaiser said, twisting his arm further. “And what I’m seeing there isn’t pretty.” So THAT’s how he knew about Ben. I saw him glance at me, apologetically, before he went on. “Seems like you’ve seen some shit in, what is that, the Gulf War? How old is that kid that I’m seeing you kill? Ten?”

The bum’s rocky voice was getting louder now. “Oh, you’re seeing images now too? Can you see where I was last night? Can you see the look on that little bitch’s face she saw I was making a noose for her?” James yanked his head back with renewed energy but he kept talking. “What about how hard it was to stuff that girl in the closet?”

Lauren let out an animalian scream from behind me, and that’s when the pennies that had been scattered on the floor earlier started to rattle. As we watched, each one changed from a flat copper disk to a shiny silver ball. She jumped up and ran past the bum into the kitchen and returned with a frying pan.

“You freak monster!” she yelled and held the pan in the air. It thickened from cheap tin into cast iron, until I could tell she was struggling to hold it up.

“Lauren, wait!” I said and knelt down among the pennies that were starting to fall by the bum’s head. “What are you doing here?” I asked him, and he sneered even as James pulled back on his hair in a way that could not have been comfortable. “What do you want from us?”

“I think you know,” he sneered. I felt myself getting tired again, this time so tired I could barely move, and I could see that Kaiser had relaxed his grip on the bum’s wrists. Lauren slumped against the wall, and the pan dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. Helpless, we watched him easily brush off Kaiser and James and stand up. I used every bit of energy I had left to push myself up, grabbing the knob of the open front door to steady myself.

The bum stepped close to me. His smell was overpowering, but I couldn’t move away. “They’ll all be next,” he whispered. “You’ll see. Everyone will see.”

He stepped back and looked around at our paralyzed forms. “You kids are pathetic. Privileged, pathetic, and soft. You make it too easy,” he spat. He curled his lips back so we could see the horror that was his set of teeth.

At that moment, a wavering voice called from the top of the stairs. “Amelia?”

The bum whipped his head around at me, with a look of fear in his eyes. I couldn’t speak. “Do not come down here, Dad,” I thought with all my strength. But without another word, the bum ran from the house.

“Amelia, honey?” called the voice, louder.

In the bum’s absence, we awoke from our half-sleeps, and everyone was beginning to shake themselves out of their respective stupors.

“Yeah, Dad, what do you need?” I yelled back, motioning to Kaiser to help out Lauren, who had run outside, wild with emotion. James looked at me, leaned back against the wall, and crossed his arms.

“Amelia, all the lights are on in the house. I can’t get any of them to shut off. Can you check the fuses?”

I hadn’t even noticed. “OK, Dad, I’ll take care of it!” I shouted. James shook his head in disgust, and walked out onto the front stoop, where Kaiser had his arm around a shaking Lauren. All three looked over as I came out and closed the door behind me.

“Why did you stop me? Didn’t you hear him? He killed Lily! He killed all of them!” Lauren shot her words at me.

“And that’s not even the half of it,” Kaiser shuddered. “I wish I could wipe what I saw from my mind.”

“I wonder why he took off like that,” I said. “I mean if he’s after us, why run away? Why not just stab us or saw us or whatever… right then and there?”

“Who cares!” Lauren cried and started walking down the steps. “I’m going to find him with or without you guys.”

We watched the iron railings turn to gold behind her.