“Who are you,” it said with a hiss, twisting around to face me in the dark. “Why are you following us?”

“I want to learn,” I said, watching it closely.

“Learn what?”

“I want to learn how you work. Learn what you do. Learn who you are.”

“We are many,” it said, moving toward me like a vapor or a cloud on the dark path as its form began to change. Legs stretched out below it, followed by arms and a head. Different wisps of dark swirls seemed to come together to form the creature before me. Within seconds, it had taken the shape of a man in a suit instead of the shapeless creature I’d been following at first.

“You think we would come as a snake? A reptile that frightens? A dark being seen in too many movies?” A briefcase formed in his hand and he gave me the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen in my life. A sudden twinkle appeared in his eye and he winked. “No, that isn’t the way we work, if you’re here for truth.” Reaching inside his jacket, he removed a card. Taking my hand I hadn’t even realized I’d extended, he shook it vigorously and grinned. “And if you’re here for the truth, well, then this is your lucky day, boy! I just so happened to have an opening in our class tonight.”

He let go of my hand, leaving the card in its place. As he turned and continued walking down the path, urging me to follow with a wave, I glanced down at the card. It simply read: NoReturn Inc. Open 24 hours. No appointment necessary.

Slipping the card into my pocket, I quickly took off after him.

~*~*~

I never noticed the car until we were already rolling down the road in silence. The white lines of main street passed by effortlessly, reflecting off the window to my right. The security lights of the businesses, dark and closed for the night and locked up safely, shined in a flash across the hood of the police cruiser.

“Seems wrong, doesn’t it?”

Glancing over, he formed himself into a police officer, the dark vapors once again rising to take the shape of arms until they were holding the steering wheel. He stared straight ahead with a slight grin, and determination in his eyes.

“What seems wrong?” I asked.

With a slow turn, he pinned his gaze to mine. “White cop?” Reaching down to his side, he pulled out his gun and twirled it around a few times like a western cowboy before slapping it back into the holster. “Black town?” He nodded toward the window. “Black men everywhere, walking the streets, and me with a gun and the power to shoot them all?”

A sick feeling began to rise in me when I looked back out the window, as if something bad was about to happen. They were everywhere. Black men by the hundreds were walking and standing around on the dark streets. Some of them were sitting on benches, others leaning against the walls. Some remained in the shadows and others stood under the street lights, and all of them were staring straight at us as we drove by in a blur. Some had fear in their eyes, others showed anger. Hate. Mistrust.

“Where do you feel safe, boy?” His grin softened in an effort to gain trust. “Am I one of the good cops who care about protecting and serving the public, or am I after revenge for my fallen comrades?” He tightened his grip, turning his knuckles white and anxiety filled the car. “Or am I nervous, thinking about my family and wondering what in the world was I thinking when I decided I wanted to be a cop? If I pull over this guy up here who just turned out in front of me, and I going to get a good citizen, or a bad one? Can I trust him, or not?”

Before I could answer, he did it for me, leaning close enough to me to whisper in my ear. “You simply can’t tell by looking, can you? Maybe you don’t have enough information to tell? Well, too late for that.” He placed his finger against my temple. “Bam! You’re already dead because you couldn’t tell, and you hesitated! That’s how quick it happens once the stop is made!”

With a low, chilling laugh, he began to change again. The computer and video screens in the police car vanished, replaced by a cracked dash with a plastic Dallas Cowboy bobble-head figure attached to it. The spring was worn out on it, causing the head to sway in an eerie circle instead of bobbing back and forth.

“How comfortable are you now, boy?” The uniform changed to regular street clothes and a black man now stared back at me, his hand hanging over the top of the steering wheel in a loose grip. “Who am I? Are you comfortable now? Is this better?” He sneered, his brow lowering in anger as he turned his attention back to the road. “And, what’s going on? They’re everywhere tonight. Is there some kind of police convention in town tonight or something?”

I looked back out the window. The white stripes on main street were still sliding by effortlessly, reflecting off the hood. But instead of hundreds of black men walking the sidewalks, it was empty. Now, there was a police cruiser sitting just inside the shadows of every dark alley we passed by. Other’s sat in parking lots. Convenient stores. Everywhere I looked, I saw another cruiser, and could feel the eyes of the cops on us as we drove by. Staring. Judging. Wondering.

“What am I,” he asked, keeping his eyes forward. “Am I the bad guy now? Are you wishing you knew if I had drugs under the seats? In the glove compartment?” He gave the rear-view mirror a nervous glance. “Are you wishing you knew what my friends in the backseat had in their pockets?”

Blue and red lights came from nowhere, suddenly flashing behind us.

“Uh-oh. What now, boy? What are you going to do? What am I going to do? Am I going to punch the gas and make a getaway, or am I going to pull over to risk being shot? Am I worried about my family at home and hoping I don’t make any mistakes, or am I worried about a loaded gun under the seat? Did I just now run out to make a drug deal, or did I just run out to the store this late at night because my baby was out of milk? Or because I needed bread for lunches in the morning?”

He glanced over his shoulder, the lights shining brightly in his eyes. “Do I have a record? Am I a criminal? Are you going to jail tonight because you’re in the car with me? Are you going to be shot because you’re with me?” Slamming his fist on the dash, he hit the figurine so hard it snapped off the head, causing it to fly across the car, bouncing off the windows before disappearing into the backseat. “Answer me! Answer me now! Are we going to be let go, or are we about to get shot because we accidentally sneezed while their knees were pressing our faces to the concrete?”

He placed a finger to my temple again. “Bam.” The anger vanished from his eyes and he returned his gaze to the dark street, the lights behind us gone. “Too late. You didn’t have time to think about it.” He smiled again, shaking his head. “I love my job. It’s so easy to use fear against people! The media helps a lot with this, and so does gossip. If we want them to believe it, all we must do is feed their beliefs, and thus grows their fears. Little whispers in the ears. That’s all it takes.”

“Why are you showing me both sides of the story, then?” I asked, glancing at the mirror, thankful the lights were gone. “If both sides know how it works, wouldn’t that take away some of the power in your manipulations?

“Because I’ve already won,” he said. “They’ve already been manipulated to the point where nothing you or anyone else says matters. We win, they lose. That’s all that matters. No one is going to listen to you, no matter how much truth you bring to the table.”

Everything vanished as quickly as it had appeared and I came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the alley where I’d first started following him. He was now wearing his suit again, standing there looking back at me. “And just think, boy. We haven’t even left the alley yet.” He tilted his head to the side. “You sure you want to do this? Find out how easily fear is used against them? Find out how easy it is to mislead? Misinform? Use emotions and media and their own raising's against them?”

“I’m positive,” I lied.

He held my gaze for a few moments before nodding. “Alright, then. Let’s see what we can find today. There’s much to do, and only a short time to do it. We need to get moving.”

With another nervous breath, I quickly began following him again, this time coming up to a common house in the middle of town. The yard was perfect, and the sprinklers were going at the exact time as the city requested them to be used. “Where are we?”

“You’re about to find out,” he said, giving me another perfect smile.

With a sudden feeling of trust, I nodded and followed without another thought.

~*~*~

“It’s not always that dramatic, you know.”

We were now standing in the middle of the living room of that house. The sun was shining brightly through the windows and a teenage girl with a blank stare on her face was sitting on the couch looking toward the television. There were dark circles around her eyes.

“Most of what we do are follow-ups,” he said, taking a seat beside her. “Making sure we keep them in a state where we want them.” He smiled and nodded at the girl. “This one was easy to manipulate. A few months ago, she was sick of being the perfect daughter. So, I helped a little with that, using her parent’s overbearing nature to influence her. It wasn’t hard, either. I just told her friends what to say, and they said it. I told her how to feel, and she felt it. I let her know it wasn’t fair she couldn’t live her life the way she wanted, or be with who she wanted to be with. Oh, it was classic.” He nodded toward the hall and said, “She just took a pregnancy test and it was positive. Isn’t that wonderful?” He leaned toward her and took a deep breath, inhaling her scent. “Ah. The smell of negative energy. I love it.”

“Now, watch this,” he said, getting to his feet. “Her mom just went to the bathroom.”

He motioned for me to follow him down the hall and I did, wondering what he was about to do. We stopped in front of a closed door and he simply walked through it as if it wasn’t there. A second later, he stuck his head back through the door and looked at me. “Coming?”

“How?”

“Just walk through. You’re with me now.” His head disappeared back through the door.

I realized this was getting stranger by the second, but what did I have to lose? Reaching forward, I watched in amazement as my hand disappeared through the door. I pulled it back and looked at it. It tingled, but other than that, it seemed normal. Was I some kind of ghost or something?

“Hurry up!” he yelled.

I reached forward again,pushing my hand and arm though the door. Following it, I slipped through and found myself inside the bathroom. As my senses came back to me, I saw him standing on the other side of a woman washing her hands.

“Watch this,” he said as she reached for a towel. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Hey. What’s that down there by the trashcan?”

Immediately, I saw her look down at the trashcan. As if somehow illuminated, I noticed it as well. Something on the floor with a picture on it.

The woman reached down and picked it up, staring at it in disbelief. I turned to see the picture, and noticed it had been torn from a box of some kind. There was a picture of a plus and minus symbol on it.

The man looked shocked and whispered, “Pregnancy test, maybe?” Laughing, he rushed out of the bathroom, waving for me to follow as the woman’s eyes widened. “Come on!”

We hurried back down the hall to where the girl was sitting on the couch, and I could tell he was ecstatic. “Watch this,” he said again, grinning widely. “This is going to be awesome!”

About that time, the bathroom door flung open with a bang, and a very mad mother came storming down the hallway. “What the hell is this, Janet!”

The girl on the couch turned around, startled, her eyes wide with fear. The mother stopped in front of her and showed her the piece of the box she’d found.

Janet stared at it in disbelief, and the demon jumped up and down in delight. “See, she had thrown the test and the box away already, knowing she had to keep it a secret. But in her nervousness to take the test, she’d dropped a piece of it on the floor. The rest of it all was wrapped up and tossed away in the neighbor’s trashcan.” A laughed and clapped. “She thought she was being so brilliant!”

“I’m so stupid,” he whispered in the girl’s ear.

“Was it negative or positive?” the mother asked, shaking the ripped piece of the box in front of her daughter’s face. “Tell me!”

The girl began to cry. “It was positive.”

“Oh my god.” The mother began to pace, and the demon began to laugh.

“Isn’t this great?” he yelled in excitement. “Do you see how easy it is?” He slapped his hands together, and then mocked the mother, stepping into stride with her as she paced back and forth. “What did I do wrong?” he said. “Where did I go wrong?” “What are we going to do?” “How did this happen?”

Then suddenly, he stopped and looked at me as the mother continued to pace around the room and the girl continued to cry. “And now,” he said, his grin becoming even darker, “is where the true manipulation begins! Do you know why? Because the mother is a true liberal, believing in abortion, and her husband is a true conservative, not believing in abortion!” His laugh echoed through the house, sending shivers down my spine. “You couldn’t have asked for a better set up! Can you imagine the fights that are about to start happening once the father finds out? Once the members of their church find out?” He placed a finger against his chin and laughed again. “And, oh, believe me. They will find out. One way or another. I’ll make sure of it. This family is about to be ripped to shreds.”

Snapping his finger, he said, “Come on, boy! Nothing else to do here. There’s much more I need to show you! Times a wasting!”

And out the door we went, like two thieves in the night. Except it wasn’t jewelry or money we were stealing. It was lives.

James Mayes

7/11/19

He was more nervous than he thought he would be, standing in the bushes outside her home. He’d done it many times before, but tonight was different.

He felt sorry for her, living on her own, scarcely scraping by since that trash of a man left her last year. Barely keeping up with her car payments. A month behind on her electric. Past due on her credit cards. Eating peanut butter and jelly tonight because her measly $77 a month in food stamps was still four days away from renewing.

He knew all of this for a fact. He’d seen her bills last week and the week before that when he was walking around in her home while she was at one of the two jobs she had been forced to take after her man left and took his high paying job and money with him.

Scooting a little to the side when she stood up after finishing her sandwich, he made sure his reflection didn’t shine up from the dim lamp in the corner. He was at the right angle to watch her walk to the kitchen, smiling at the way the short nightgown swayed back and forth, barely long enough to reach the back of her thighs.

Clockwork. Same time every Tuesday night. Same routine. She came home at eight from job number two, took a shower and got dressed for bed. She would then sit on the couch and watch television until ten. When whatever show she was watching went off (he couldn’t see her television from this angle) she would go to the kitchen, make something to eat, and come back to sit and eat while watching the news until 10:20.

He glanced at his watch, pressing the little button to make sure he was correct on the time, although he already knew. She didn’t like sports, so she always quit watching after the weather. Then she would spend ten minutes in there washing the few dishes in the sink and making coffee for in the morning.

Her footsteps vibrated on the kitchen floor, and he ducked down, listening to the trailer house squeak as she passed by the window on the way to her bedroom. Listening carefully, he held his breath, hoping she didn’t notice he’d unlocked her backdoor yesterday.

There was no pause in the pantry, and no click. He listened until he heard the sound of the door shut to her bedroom before letting out a sigh of relief. 10:30 on the dot, and everything was going perfectly as planned.

He smiled, admiring his own keep perception of time. It was a gift, really. A gift that was going to help him become the best the world had ever seen. Patience and a perfect sense of time. He’d always been good at times and remembering others routines. He knew the response times of police and ambulances. He knew when the tornado sirens were going to go off one minute before they did every Friday a noon. He knew the timeframe for the mail to come by each day, although they never came by at the exact same time, and that drove him nuts.

A gift.

A gift he’d known he had all his life, but simply never understood the purpose of it until just a few weeks ago. A gift he could finally use.

Now, all he had to do was wait until 11:45, and he could put his gift to the test. She was always asleep by 11:30, (It was sometimes hard to go to sleep with a broken heart and a miserable life) but he wanted to give her 15 extra minutes to make sure. And then tonight, at midnight on the dot, she would become his first.

With a smile, he pulled his knife out of its sheath and twirled it around between his fingers. All he had to do was wait, and he had the patience to do so. It was a gift.

James Mayes

7/12/16