The knock on the door was sharp, filled with authority.
Charlie Rosen started at the sound, but kept his attention riveted to the television.
He flicked his gaze to the clock on the DVD player just below the TV. It was 9:13.
He glanced at the couch. Where Cynthia usually nestled on one end with her crossword puzzle book was vacant.
He frowned as he returned his attention to the screen. Who’s out at this time of night?
Well, according to the news a few hours ago, whoever it is must be miserable.
It was 102° at news time. And the humidity was 83%. Probably the temp was still in the mid to high 90s. And probably the humidity was about the same. Probably still 80-something at least.
Good. Whoever it is, it serves them right for disturbing people at this time of night.
He hoped it was one of those religious types.
And even if it wasn’t a religious type, he hoped whoever it was they were clad in a heavy suit.
Religious types always thought they made a better impression when they were dressed in a suit. The heavier the better. The darker the better. Seemed to be their way.
He grinned. They dressed in suits like Men in Black or something. Well, the suits were dark, but they were also drab. Like off the rack at— well, somewhere. Sears? Penney’s? Anyway, suits that were weak shadows of the one the Men in Black wore.
If it was a religious type, he could probably run the guy. He’d just explain he was pinched for time at the moment. Like maybe he was sacrificing a goat in the back yard to the dark lord. Oh, and it was crucial that he cut the heart out at just the right moment.
That’d do it. He grinned again.
The second knock was almost as sharp as the first. Not quite, yet it seemed insistent.
Without looking around, he mumbled, “Okay, okay.”
Probably it was some idiot salesman.
Did they still do that? Go door to door?
It was the worst possible time.
This was the part of the show where the guy on the screen—the host, they called him—explained what the episode was really about. Up to this point it was just a lot of lead-in. Just stuff to keep you watching. Like anything short of a fire in the next room would drive Charlie away.
But there was someone at the door. Although he could only barely believe anyone would knock at this hour.
His attention still on the screen, he uncrossed his sock feet slowly. For a moment, he used the toenail of his right great toe to scratch the outside edge of his left sole.
Maybe people knocking on the door at odd hours caused things like itches. Excuses to delay getting up that extra second or two. Probably there was some scientist somewhere studying that phenomenon. All on a government grant, of course. A sex life of bees kind of thing.
Or if there wasn’t, maybe there should be.
Or maybe a law or something. A statute that said nobody was allowed to knock on people’s doors after a certain hour at night.
Didn’t they used to have one of those? Like the Green River Law or something like that? Back in the day before people got so pushy?
He rubbed the nail of his great toe over the place one more time, the sock rippling slightly ahead of it.
The itch finally abated.
Oh, that’s definitely better.
Well, he’d probably better answer the door.
He leaned forward slightly, then pushed downward with his calves and heels.
The footrest of the recliner rocked forward about halfway.
He stopped. That angle felt better than when it was all the way up. Like he was sitting down and lying down both. He’d have to remember that after he answered the door and reclaimed his chair.
The knock sounded again.
Well, at least it seemed quite a bit less insistent. Maybe whoever it was realized he wasn’t the end-all be-all of everybody else’s life.
Anyway, he ought to answer it.
Who knows? Maybe it wasn’t a religious guy or a salesman. It might be anyone.
He tensed his legs a bit and forced the footrest down.
It clopped into place.
Oh, the carpet felt nice. Even through his socks. Of course, they were thin. He kneaded the carpet with his toes. It always felt pleasant after Cynthia vacuumed. Something about the nap, she said.
She explained it once, and he nodded as if he were listening. Something about the nap. That meant the fibers were standing up or something.
Still looking at the television, he called out, “I’ll get it.”
He said it loudly enough, he hoped, so Cynthia would hear him. She was big on people answering doors and things like that.
But at the moment, she was in the kitchen, “whipping up a special treat.”
He grinned. No need to interrupt that. Maybe it really would be special this time.
She often prepared a special treat, and she always called it by that same vague name.
She never would tell him what it was going to be, and she never would allow him in the kitchen as she worked.
That was fine with him.
He huffed. She didn’t want to give it away in advance, she said. As if it were anything truly special. And a little later she’d come walking into the living room with a couple of cups in her hands. Or a couple of small bowls.
Usually it was some combination of those silly little marshmallows and some kind of instant pudding. Or else some vanilla ice cream with a stupid chocolate chip cookie pushed down in it. Real professional-chef stuff.
Once—one time—she had made vanilla pudding, complete with those little vanilla cookies.
Now that was good. He’d liked that one a lot.
But he made the mistake of telling her so. “This is good,” he said. Something as plain and unloaded with verbiage as that.
Of course, she never made it again.
He mentioned it a few more times over the next few weeks too. But his hints seemed only to strengthen her resolve. Or maybe feed her innate ability to forget.
His gaze was still glued to the screen, as if loathe to tear itself away.
But slowly he moved his hands to the ends of the armrests. Curled his fingers around them. Odd how microfiber was cool at first to the touch. But it warmed up quickly. Leather wouldn’t do that, would it? He’d wanted a leather recliner, but she said they couldn’t afford it.
Like they couldn’t afford vanilla pudding with the little cookies in it.
He began to lean forward.
The knock came again.
Well, whoever it was maybe they were developing some manners. At least it wasn’t so insistent.
Just between himself and the TV, he muttered, “All right, all right. Be right there.”
But not loudly enough for whoever was at the door to hear him. Maybe the guy would go away.
He even timed his remark so it wouldn’t step on the narrator.
The show really was intriguing. Probably the best show on TV nowadays.
It combined his two greatest curiosities.
It was all about serial killers, but with a twist. Kind of a Jeffrey Dahmer meets The Predator sort of thing.
He’d never missed an episode, and he’d seen the first three seasons at least twice in reruns.
But this— This was the first episode of the new season. He’d have to wait until the end of the season to see the rerun. And filling in the blanks that he missed while answering the inane knock of some moron at his door after 9 p.m. on a muggy night almost a year earlier— Well, that would be a rickety way to watch the show at best.
He might or might not even be able to splice the new information with the old.
Besides, with his luck something would interrupt the rerun at the critical moment too. That’s how life went when you were unfortunate enough to be Charlie Rosen.
Maybe he’d catch it during the second rerun. Or the third. And he should be happy with that, Cynthia would say. That’s how she was. Let it roll off your back, she’d say. If it wouldn’t matter a year from now, it doesn’t matter now, she’d say.
Well, it would matter a year from now. He’d be trying to watch the rerun a year from now. If the idiots who ran things didn’t put it on another channel at the same time as the episodes from the new season. That would be his luck.
Anyway, he ought to get the door. Get it over with. If it was a religious type, he’d say the goat thing for sure. If it was a salesman— Well, he’d have to do something different. A salesman probably wouldn’t care that he was sacrificing a goat to the dark lord. Probably a salesman—at least a good one—would have just the right knife for the heart-cutting-out part of the ceremony, and if Charlie would be so kind as to let him demonstrate—
The knock sounded again. Much lighter.
At least the guy was persistent. He had to give him that much.
Still facing the screen, his hands still gripping the armrest, he closed his eyes. It was the beginning of a blink.
Maybe his luck would improve. He couldn’t escape the fact that whoever was at the door wasn’t going away. That was what? Four knocks? Five?
Maybe a commercial would come on. Or better yet, one of those stupid infomercials.
Please let a commercial come on. And not a quick one.
Could he get to the door, deal with whoever was there, and regain his seat in the time it took the commercial to play?
He smirked. Maybe. Especially with the five or ten-minute commercial stretches they took nowadays.
Maybe finally the stupidity of the general audience who actually bought the products in those dumb commercials would play to his advantage. After all, the show was on a major channel.
Back in the day, there were only three channels, and they took only a minute or so commercial break every fifteen minutes, didn’t they?
Yes, they did. Like clockwork.
But nowadays there was way less show and more commercials.
And the commercials were longer. And loud. And pushy. God were they pushy!
Gotta feed the brain-dead public, I guess.
Brain-dead public. That was probably why there were so many zombie shows now. Oh, and werewolves getting it on with vampires in romances. Romances, for God’s sake! And every plotline was driven by hormone-indulgent teenagers. What a crock of crap.
Besides, with only the increasing brain-dead public open to grazing, even if zombies were real, they’d starve wouldn’t they?
And then what happens to a starving zombie? It isn’t like they can die.
It’s all a bunch of foolishness.
Of course, that’s what Cynthia thought of his show too.
She didn’t say as much, but she always settled in with one of her stupid crossword puzzles when it came on. Or ran off to the kitchen to whip up a special treat.
At least his show was intelligent. The narrator relied on known facts. Or at least on theories that were extrapolations of known facts.
Certainly there could be aliens out there. Duh. All those stars probably had planets, and some of the stars were actually galaxies. But setting that aside for a moment, all those stars had planets. They had to, didn’t they? What with gravity and all that?
And even if not all the stars had nine planets— Well, or eight or however many the stupid scientists settle on this month— Out of all those planets there could easily be aliens out there. In fact, there must be. And at least some of those planets had people. They had to.
All of that couldn’t have been created just for humans to look up and ooh and ahh at the pretty lights in the sky, could it? Of course not.
And anyplace where there were lots of people—planets full of people of whatever kind—surely there were some bad eggs among them.
And then among the bad eggs, surely there were a few who were serial killers. It happened here, didn’t it? Even despite all the lip service people give to religion on this planet. It was a matter of sheer fact that a lot of the evil on this planet was marked up to one religion or another. So surely it would happen elsewhere. Even if they didn’t have religions at all.
And yeah, the distances were vast, and yeah the chance of an interstellar ship finding Earth would be minuscule. Whatever. The point was, for the one ship that made it, the chance was 100%. The odds for that ship were one to one.
He stared at the screen.
Sure hope a commercial comes on. A long commercial.
But when he opened his eyes at the end of the blink, the show was still on.
He sighed. Well, damn it.
But that seemed counter-productive. He wasn’t really sorry the show was still on. What he wanted was to be able to watch it without someone banging on the door. But if the station was going to force a bunch of stupid commercials on him, the least they could do is coordinate it with the guy banging on the door.
Of course, it would be better if there were no commercials at all during the hour that the show was on. And nobody banging on the door either.
Well, it wasn’t even an hour, really. It would be better if there were no commercials or door-banging during the what, forty minutes out of the hour if you cut out all the stupid commercial breaks?
That would be a lot better. A whole lot better.
Maybe he ought’a get one of those automatic DVD recording things that recorded the show. That way he could watch the whole thing straight through without “commercial interruption.”
That’s what they called it. Commercial interruption. The same dumbing down.
It was an inert, nice-sounding way to say “We don’t care that you’re patronizing our channel. What’s important is that we get to pummel you with information about junk you don’t need.”
But timing it like that, scheduling it, would bother him. He’d still know the original show aired sometime in the past and he’d missed it. It would be new to him, but it still wouldn’t really be new. It wouldn’t be fresh, maybe, was the right word.
Anyway, probably he should see who was at the door.
Cynthia would say he was being rude. He shouldn’t keep whoever it was waiting.
He flexed his fingers, renewed his grip on the arms of the chair. How about the guy at the door being rude? How about you don’t go around knocking on doors at 9:13 p.m.?
He flashed a glance at the time on the DVD player.
Well, 9:20 now. How about that? And still no commercial. What the hell?
But oh no. Cynthia would never think of inconveniencing a complete stranger.
The knock came again.
But it was quieter. Softer maybe. Definitely not insistent.
Maybe the guy was giving up. Maybe he decided whoever was in here was rude.
From the kitchen, Cynthia called, “Are you gonna get the door, Charlie?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I said I was gonna get it, didn’t I? I’m getting up.”
“Do you want me to get it?”
His attention still glued to the screen, he said, “No. No, it’s all right.”
C’mon, gimme a commercial.
He pulled lightly at the armrests, edged forward in his seat.
Maybe he should let her get it. Maybe it would be a serial killer from the planet Zagron or whatever.
He laughed quietly. Or maybe it would be a body snatcher. Hopefully looking for precisely her kind of body.
Nah. He wouldn’t wish that on her. Cynthia was a lot more important to him than that. She was even more important to him than his favorite show.
Well, except while it was actually on.
But everybody felt like that. Didn’t they?
Wasn’t that the whole purpose behind having favorite shows? Or favorite anythings?
Of course, if she was in trouble or something he’d tear himself away to go help.
Then again, how much trouble could she be in while his show was on? A paper cut from her crossword puzzle book?
Nah, all kidding aside, he’d do anything for her.
And she knew that.
But this wasn’t Cynthia being in trouble. This was some moron stranger knocking on the door at a bad time.
And it wasn’t like Charlie had that many bad times for someone to knock on the stupid door. Was one lousy hour a week too much to ask? And after 9 p.m. to boot? People shouldn’t be out knocking on the door after 9 p.m. anyway, should they?
Back in the day people didn’t do that.
Even relatives would call before they just barged in. At least that way there was some warning.
He probably should go ahead and get the door. Or at least go look and see that the guy had given up and left. Then he could watch the rest of his show in peace.
Where was a stupid commercial when you needed one? Or an infomercial? Damn, didn’t Ronco have some new pan to show off or something?
He quickly glanced toward the door, then back at the TV.
Maybe the guy gave up and left.
If he got out of his chair and went all the way to the door and the guy wasn’t there— Well, that would be rude, even in Cynthia’s backward book of what is and isn’t rude. You don’t just go around knocking on a guy’s door and then run off just when the guy come to answer it. You just don’t.
Cynthia came into the living room. She was beaming. “Charlie—”
Without looking around, he held up one hand.
The gesture meant “Hold on just a moment please.”
She knew that because Charlie had explained it once a year or so ago.
He didn’t like to actually say “Hold on a moment please” because him talking over the narrator would be as bad as her talking over the narrator. As if talking over the narrator were some Earth-shattering event. He watched this stupid show three times a week, on this channel and two others.
One was at 7 p.m., one was at 8, and one was at 9. And frankly, it was difficult to keep them all straight. Besides, they repeated again on Thursday night. It wasn’t like he couldn’t mimic word for word what the narrator was saying. He knew it all by heart.
But she waited, patiently. She wished he would at least glance up at her.
Still, she knew her Charlie. When his show was on, nothing else mattered.
No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t that nothing mattered. He just didn’t notice other things so much. But if he did glance around and see her, he’d remember. He would remember everything and it would be a happy night. Even if he missed what was left of his show, it would be a happy night.
The index finger of her left hand was hooked through the curved handles of two cups. From each cup the small, thin handle of a spoon protruded.
In them was the special vanilla pudding Charlie liked. It was made with real vanilla, and it even had the little vanilla cookies stuck down deep inside it. Six cookies in each cup. Charlie would be in heaven.
In her other hand was another cup with another spoon protruding. But that one truly was special. It was vanilla pudding too, and it had those same little vanilla cookies in it. But it also had little chocolate chips mixed right into the pudding. And then she’d topped it off with some of those little marshmallows.
Charlie didn’t like the little marshmallows, but he wouldn’t mind. It was a special treat for a special night.
She looked around the room. “Charlie, did you—”
The hand came up again.
Of course. She forgot. Anyway, maybe she was in the bathroom or something.
Then, as if on cue, a commercial came on. Speaking was permissible when a commercial came on.
“Charlie, I have a very special surprise.”
Without looking around, he said, “Oh, not just a special treat?”
She didn’t mind. He liked to tease her like that sometimes. But he wasn’t really like that. He worked so hard down at the quarry. His show was really all he had left since their daughter had left home.
“No, Charlie. Silly, it’s still a special treat, but it’s also a special surprise.”
Still looking at the TV, Charlie rolled one hand in front of his chest. “Could you maybe speed up the announcement a bit, Cynthia?”
“Okay, but surely you already know what the surprise—” She stopped and looked around the room again. “Charlie, did you ever get the door?”
“Oh. Nah, I guess the guy left.”
“But Charlie, that was part of the surprise. You were supposed to—”
A loud knock came on the door. It was sharp, filled with authority. A heavy voice followed. “Police.”
Cynthia paled. “Charley, I—”
“I’ll get it. I’ll get it.” Finally, he pulled on the arms of the chair and lifted himself out of it. “What in the world would the police be doing out here at this time of night? Doesn’t matter. We’ll put a quick end to this crap.”
In two quick strides, he was at the door. He turned the door knob and pulled the door open wide. “Yes? May I help you?”
“Yes sir. We’re canvassing the neighborhood. Did you hear anything unusual tonight?”
“No. Is that it?” He started to swing the door shut.
The officer caught it with his hand. “Are you sure? The neighbor across the street said she heard someone screaming. And she said she saw the victim banging on your door.”
Charlie frowned. “What? That’s crazy. I mean, there was a guy banging. Well, you know, knocking.” He grinned and his chest swelled slightly. “But I guess I outlasted him.” He jerked one thumb over his shoulder. “My favorite show was on and—”
“Sir, do you know a Deidre Allen?”
Behind him, Cynthia said, “Oh god!”
“Deidre Allen? Yeah, that’s my daughter. But she don’t go around knocking on doors at—”
The officer looked down and shook his head.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“We answered a call from your neighbor. When we got here, we found a young woman on your sidewalk.”
Cynthia pushed past Charlie. She was still holding the cups of pudding. “Tell me it wasn’t Deidre! Officer? Tell me it wasn’t Deidre?”
The officer hesitated. “I’m awfully sorry. For both of you. The ambulance just left.”
Charlie shook his head. “What? We— I didn’t see no lights or nothin’. I— I had the blinds pulled. My— my favorite show. It was my favorite show.”
“I’m sorry, sir. She was pronounced on-scene.”
Cynthia said, “What?” But she had heard the officer.
As she turned away in a bid to escape the news, she fainted and fell back toward the stoop.
Two cups, hers and Charlie’s, unhooked from her finger and fell from her left hand, spilling their contents on the carpet.
The officer moved to catch her.
Her right arm swung back, and the other cup fell from her right.
It shattered hard across the stoop.
The pudding and wafers and chocolate chips mixed with glistening bits of the cup.
And pretty little pink marshmallows scattered everywhere. They rolled across the stoop, and some fell off into oblivion.
Charlie looked down and frowned.
What?
And he remembered. Pink marshmallows. Sure.
Why wouldn’t there be pink marshmallows?
They were Deidre’s favorite.
It was her birthday, after all.
* * * * * * *