Free Nightwitch by Ken Douglas Page B

never notices anything I have. She won’t even know it’s gone,” she said as she was walking out her bedroom door. He followed, unable to think of anymore arguments or any other reason to keep her inside.
    She hesitated for a second at the front door, turned to Arty, stuck out her lower lip, blew the hair out of her eyes, and said, “Well, here goes.” She opened the door just in time to see the neighbors from across the street close theirs.
    “ I betcha everybody in the neighborhood opened their doors for just a second, then closed ’em right back up again,” Arty said.
    “ Bet you’re right, but we’re not chickens like them. Are we?” She had that crooked smile and that twinkle in her eyes that Arty would follow anywhere.
    “ No,” he said, puffing up his chest, “we’re not.” He moved past her, walking tall as an eleven-year-old boy can, across the front porch, down the steps and onto the front lawn.
    “ Hey, wait for me.” She laughed and charged after him. “Only a few minutes ago I was scared shitless, and now it all feels like a game.”
    “ Not to me,” he said, again remarking to himself how it was neat that she could swear without even thinking about it. To her, swear words were just words. And there wasn’t anything dirty about words. At least not to her.
    Then he said, “Do you hear anything?” The hair on the back of his neck tingled and cooled, as a northern breeze moved down the block, blowing cold in from the sea not so far away.
    “ No,” she said, but she was standing as still as he was. They stayed quiet for a few seconds, trying to hear through the fog that came in with the breeze. Then the fog was around them and it was dark.
    “ Still think it’s a game?” he whispered.
    “ No, let’s go back inside,” she said, but the fog came in strong, and it came in heavy. They couldn’t see the streetlights at the end of the street. Then they couldn’t see across the street. Then they couldn’t see across the lawn and before they realized it, they couldn’t see the front of the house and then it was hard to see each other.
    “ Come over here and take my hand,” he said. She moved close to him without picking her feet up off the wet grass.
    “ I’m starting to get scared,” she whispered, taking his hand.
    “ Of what? It’s only a little fog. Happens all the time,” he said. This was something he was used to. He’d lived in Palma all his life and to him fog was an old friend, hiding everything it consumed, including him and his overweight, fat, roly poly, porky body.
    “ Which way?” she asked.
    “ This way. Be careful.” He led her to where he thought he remembered the front porch being. She was still walking without lifting her feet. “It’s okay, nothing’s gonna happen. I’ve been in fog millions of times. I like it.”
    “ Ouch!” She stumbled over something and tripped. She fell onto the wet grass, pulling Arty along with her, and once again he found himself lying down with his arms around her. He decided he liked it.
    “ I kicked something,” she said, scrambling out from under Arty. She crawled on her hands and knees, passing his fumbling feet as he was trying to get up. “Got it,” she said.
    “ Got what?” Arty asked, shaking the grass off of himself, the way a cowboy dusts off after he’s been thrown from a horse.
    “ This.”
    “ Jeez Marie, is it loaded?” Even though she looked like a ghost in the fog, Arty had no trouble seeing what was in her hand.
    “ It’s an officer’s model, short barreled, colt forty-five automatic, and yes, I’m sure it’s loaded, because we only heard three shots and this holds eight. My father would never go anywhere with an empty gun.”
    “ Your father?”
    “ How do you think I know what kind of gun this is? I don’t know anything about guns except only one kind of gun, this kind of gun, because my father showed me. He made me learn how to hold it and load it, and shoot it, so many times I can’t