Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala (30 page)

What the
hell
is happening here?

How could he be hallucinating like this, but only when he looked through the window?

If he wasn’t dreaming, this simply didn’t make sense.

As he waited for Lisa to return, a few more cars passed by, but he resisted the impulse to look at the drivers and passengers through the window. Growing impatient, he looked at his wristwatch and saw that his wife had been gone more than ten minutes.

What’s taking her so long?

If she had run all the way to the house and gotten right into the car, she should have been back long before now. Maybe she went inside the house for something—maybe a quick drink of water. She should be back any minute now.

A distant outburst of laughter drew his attention, and when he turned and looked down the street, he saw three kids—all of them maybe ten or twelve years old—coming up the street toward him on bicycles. Baseball gloves dangled from their handlebars, and one kid—the one leading the group—had a baseball bat slung over his shoulder as he rode one-handed.

Jeremy’s first thought was that he had to protect the window. He doubted these kids would try to smash the glass with him standing right there with it, but he didn’t want to risk it, either. He stood up so they could see him, but as soon as he did, he thought to take a quick look at them through the magic glass.

Just to know what I’m really dealing with here
, he told himself, surprised that he accepted what was happening so easily.

He angled the window so he could see the kids pedaling up the street. Then he knelt down. Even though he thought he was ready for what he would see, he couldn’t help but feel a panicked tightening in his gut when he saw—not three kids on bikes, but … well, the kid leading the group was a lion cub. His tawny body glowed with a rich amber color in the slanting sunlight. His eyes flashed like gold coins. Behind him, miraculously balancing on their bikes was a rounded, mud-splattered pig with narrow, red-rimmed eyes and floppy pink ears. The third kid was … something else. At first Jeremy couldn’t make out
what
it was. The shape didn’t register. But after a moment or two, he realized the youngest and smallest of the group was a dark brown bat. It gripped the handlebars with clawed hands. Black, leathery wings draped down its back, flapping in the breeze with every stroke of the bicycle pedals.

Jeremy watched, absolutely fascinated, as the kids came closer. When they passed by, the lion turned and said something to his friends over his shoulders. Both the pig and the bat laughed, but then the bat glanced at Jeremy, and he saw a flicker of—something … anger or hunger … in the creature’s beady black eyes. The pig beside him had a dull, dumb look that, while harmless enough, struck Jeremy as also possibly dangerous simply because it might do something without thinking it through first.

Jeremy’s knees popped when he stood up to make it obvious he had claimed the window. If they had any thoughts of smashing it, he’d make sure they didn’t. He watched as the kids rode past, looking and sounding like kids, now that he wasn’t viewing them through the glass. Obviously, Jeremy thought, they were disappointed. Coming home from or going to Little League practice, they probably had hoped to do exactly what Jeremy knew he would have done if he had noticed this window when he was a kid.

A sudden toot of a horn drew his attention, and he turned to see Lisa pulling up to the curb. She parked the Subaru by the curb and got out. Without a word, she walked to the back of the car and snapped open the back hatch. Jeremy wished he could manage to look at her through the glass again, just to make sure she was still a cat. What if she had turned into something else? Maybe the “animal essence” he saw in people changed with their emotions and moods. That would be something he’d have to test once he got the window back home.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Lisa said as she looked at the house they were in front of and then scanned the road up and down. “What if someone—the owner—sees us?”

“We’re not stealing anything. He put it out here.” Jeremy was struggling to keep his voice even when he said, “We’re just not letting something good go to waste, is all. It’s recycling.”

“Hurry up, then. I don’t want the neighbors to see us doing this.”

Jeremy grabbed the bottom of the window frame, and Lisa took the top. It was heavier than it looked, but they angled the frame around and somehow managed to get it into the back of the car. They couldn’t close the hatch, but Jeremy secured it with a few Bungee cords he kept in the back.

“You got, like, a pillow or blanket or something we can cushion it with?”

Lisa scowled, and even without looking at her through the glass, Jeremy caught a glimpse of feline irritation in her expression.

“It’s not even a mile back to the house,” Lisa said.

“I know, but—” Before he finished, Jeremy peeled off his sweatshirt, even though the late afternoon was getting chilly, and wedged it between the window frame and the top of the hatch. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. He’d make sure Lisa drove nice and slow, which she did.

Once they were back home, though, and getting the window frame out of the trunk, Jeremy’s hand slipped. The frame dropped and hit the rear bumper hard enough to knock Lisa’s grip loose. She let out a squeal that, Jeremy noticed, sounded quite cat-like, and jumped away from the car. The frame dropped to the pavement accompanied by the loud sound of splintering wood and breaking glass.

“
Jesus! … Fuck! .... Damn!
” Jeremy shouted as he stared in frustration at the broken glass that was scattered across the driveway. “Why the hell did you—?”

But then he stopped himself, knowing that he couldn’t blame his wife. She looked at him with genuine fear in her eyes. He had a quick mental image of a cat, cowering from an angry human being, and stopped himself before he said anything he’d later regret.

“I know. I know … It wasn’t your fault,” he said mildly. “I dropped my end first.”

Lisa looked at him with such a wounded, helpless expression that it nearly broke his heart. He told himself this was probably the best thing that could have happened to him. Maybe the previous owner was throwing the window away because he had been so frightened by what he had seen through it.

“So what are you gonna do?” Lisa asked, her voice high and fragile.

“Throw it out with the trash, I guess.”

Jeremy ran his fingers through his hair as he glanced up and down the street. The sun had already set, and shades of twilight washed the street with a purple glow.

“I’d feel foolish taking it back,” he finally said.

“Great. It will sit there for weeks on end until the clowns from the town finally get around to picking it up.”

Lisa shook her head, and Jeremy was half-convinced he heard a faint hiss when she turned and strode into the house.

“I guess finishing our walk is out of the question now, huh?” she said over her shoulder.

Jeremy started to protest but then fell silent. She was pissed, and she had every right to be. This would teach him to go dump-picking. He watched in frustrated silence as she went into the house by the side door, slamming the door shut behind her. A light came on in the living room, and seconds later, the flicker of the TV lit up the window.

Feeling like a fool, he walked around to the storage shed he’d been planning to refurbish this summer and grabbed an empty box and large work broom and dustpan. After ducking into the house to turn on the outside lights, he started sweeping up the mess. It would be just his luck, he thought, to run over some broken glass and get a flat tire.

He picked up the largest chunks of glass first and then swept and scooped up the remaining fragments. Once all the broken glass he could find was in the cardboard box, he carried it down to the curb and then came back for the frame. He was heading out back to return the broom and dustpan to the shed when an idea hit him.

There were some large pieces of glass remaining.

Maybe he could do something with them …

“Like make a pair of glasses.”

He was surprised he said the words out loud, but it was a good idea. He had piles of junk in his basement workshop. Maybe he could cut the glass and fit it to a pair of old eyeglass frames he had.

With glasses like that, he could look at people and see them for what they really were.

The idea was totally crazy, but the truth was—he was intrigued by it.

He didn’t know how or why he could see what he saw through the glass, and he had no idea if it would work now that the window was broken, but it was worth a shot.

After putting the broom and dustpan back, he went back down to the curb and fished through the box, retrieving five of the largest pieces of glass. A car went by, and he cringed, knowing the driver would think he was scavenging someone else’s junk after dark. He looked up and tracked the car as it disappeared down the street, and then—glass in hand—went back into the house.

“You get that all cleaned up?” Lisa called from the living room as he entered the kitchen. She was in her usual chair, knitting and watching the evening news on TV.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I got it all. I’ll check again in the morning when I can see.”

“I hope you got it all. I go outside barefoot in the morning to get the paper. The last thing I need is to—”

“I know … I know.”

Jeremy, still in the kitchen, raised one of the pieces of the glass and looked through it. There was no noticeable change in the way the kitchen looked, but then, moving quietly, he stepped around the corner and took a quick glance at Lisa.

Sure enough, looking through the glass, he saw the large, gray cat seated on Lisa’s chair. Lisa had been knitting, but now she was just a huge cat, playing with a tangled ball of yarn.

“Jesus,” Jeremy whispered.

Lisa looked up at him, and he quickly lowered the glass.

“What are you doing?” she asked, but he shook his head and walked back into the kitchen. Picking up the stack of glass shards from the counter, he flipped on the light at the top of the cellar stairs and headed down to his workshop.

“I’ll be downstairs for a bit. I won’t be long,” he called out. He felt a twinge of guilt for avoiding Lisa like this, but he knew she was content in the living room, with or without him. She was, after all, a cat.

Once in his workshop, Jeremy set to work. It took a while to find the old eyeglass frame, but once he did, he traced the shape of the opening on one of the pieces of glass. He was about to start cutting out the first piece when the doorbell rang.

“I’ve got it,” Lisa shouted, and Jeremy had a mental image of a huge, gray cat stretching as she got up from her chair and sauntered to the front door. He paused in mid-motion, listening to the activity upstairs.

“Oh, hi-yah, Bob,” Lisa said. Her voice, coming from upstairs, was muffled, and he couldn’t make out what Bob said.

“Yeah,” Lisa said. “He’s downstairs in the shop.”

“Yo! What’s up, bud?” Bob called out from the top of the stairs. His feet clumped heavily on the steps as he came down.

“Just tinkering around a bit,” Jeremy said, shielding the glass on his workbench as best he could before he turned to face his next-door neighbor.

“Saw you out there sweeping the driveway in the dark and thought maybe you could use a cold one.” Bob raised his right hand, which held two bottles of Sam Adams beer. The brown glass was beaded with moisture.

“Sure could,” Jeremy replied, but the truth was, having a beer with Bob was the furthest thing from his mind. He wished Bob hadn’t shown up and was anxious to get him out of here as fast as he could.

“Here yah go,” Bob said as he popped the top off the bottle and then handed it to Jeremy. Then he cracked his own.

“Thanks,” Jeremy said before toasting and then tipping his head back to take a pull. He was surprised by how refreshing the beer tasted as it bubbled down his throat.

“So … what’s your latest project?” Bob asked as he stepped to one side and tried to look past Jeremy at what was on the workbench.

“Nothing much. Just messing around with some … glass.”

“Whatever for?”

“Just cutting it into shapes to … I dunno. See what I can come up with. Maybe a mobile or something.”

“You’d want colored glass for that,” Bob offered. “Maybe wind chimes?””

“Yeah … Maybe.”

Realizing there was no way to stop Bob from seeing what he was doing, he picked up the top piece of glass and held it carefully between thumb and forefinger. Bob looked a little confused, but the expression quickly passed as he took a sip of his beer.

Jeremy, meanwhile, watched him carefully, fighting the temptation to look at him through the glass to see what kind of animal he really was. He told himself not to feel guilty about it. Wasn’t that why he was making these glasses in the first place? So he could see what people really were?

“Just something to keep me busy,” he said as he casually raised the piece of glass to his left eye and glanced at Bob.

As soon as the glass was between him and his friend, he saw something that sent a wave of nausea through him. He let out a soft gasp as he sagged back against the workbench.