Free Moonlight Falls by Vincent Zandri

the exact moment, the hammer comes down …
     
    When I woke, I thought I heard the rain.
    But I was mistaken. The shower was running.
    Short, sharp rivulets against the old glass-enclosed shower stall in the bathroom off the master bedroom. I looked at the empty space that once contained Lola. Now just a dented pillow and a rumpled sheet.
    Is there anything lonelier?
    I sunk down further in the bed, closed my eyes, tried like hell to empty my brain. Tried to allow sleep to take over once more.
    The shower, it wasn’t as good as the rain—didn’t quite have that same sedative effect.
    But for now, it would have to do.

18
    IT WAS NEARLY MID-AFTERNOON by the time I woke up.
    I needed my sleep. Doctor’s orders.
    I needed my exercise too. Also doctor’s orders.
    The long distance running and the weight lifting (squats, bench press, dead lifts) would have to wait till that night however. Half the day was already gone.
    I was feeling more awake by the time I stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around my waist, sat down at my writing desk, stared at the blank sheet of paper rolled into my dad’s old, Olympia Wilhelmshaven portable typewriter.
    A few minutes later I was downstairs in the kitchen, washing down a vitamin and an anti-inflammatory with cold orange juice. I mixed my protein shake while sipping on a cup of hot coffee.
    Decaf—per doctor’s orders.
    A few minutes later, after downing my shake, I opened the front door to retrieve what had been the morning paper. Maybe the sky was still terribly overcast, but it was impossible not to see him. The white-skinned man standing at the foot of my driveway. A whiter-than-white-skinned man dressed in tan slacks and a white button down shirt. He wore sunglasses and a hat, as if to protect him from the sun on a rainy, cloudy day. He looked directly at me from across the lawn and smiled.
    There was a Blue Toyota Landcruiser parked behind him, the engine still running.
    I bent over in my towel, feeling the chill in the overcast afternoon air, and picked up the paper. Not knowing what else to do, I smiled back at him.
    Then he did something that took me by surprise.
    He lifted his right hand, made like a knife with extended index finger, ran it across his neck. From where he stood at the foot of the driveway, I could actually hear him laughing.
    I didn’t waste a second. I ran back inside, tossed the paper onto the stone vestibule floor.
    Up in the bedroom I found my loaded Browning High Power 9 mm in the drawer of the nightstand.
    By the time I made it back outside, the Albino man was already in his car speeding down Hope Lane. Hope is shaped like a horseshoe. I knew there was a chance I might intercept the son of a bitch as he exited the opposite east side.
    But I was dressed in a bath towel, no shoes. I had to hold the towel tight around my waist while I ran along the main road, Browning out front, all the time the wet gravel cutting into my heels and soles.
    In the end, I wasn’t even close.
    By the time I’d even made it half way to the other leg of the horse shoe, the Toyota was already making its way east.
    I stopped, sucked in a deep breath and passed out.
     
    When I opened my eyes, the first thing I noticed was that the blue Toyota was pulled up alongside the road. The second thing I noticed was that the Albino man was standing directly over me. Actually, he was in the act of kneeling, maybe to get a closer look at my face. The one thing I remember was trying to raise up the Browning, aim it at him. But my right arm was dead.
    He went down on one knee, this white-skinned man who wore dark, aviator sunglasses even in the rain. A man with whiter than white hair, red lips and tongue. Kneeling there, he coughed up a wad of phlegm, spit it out onto the narrow strip of gravel-covered shoulder.
    When I worked up the strength to talk, I asked him who the hell he was, and why he was standing outside my house.
    But he just raised an extended index finger, pressed it to