Chapter 2 - Leaving the Nest

Zoe, recovered from the physical violence of her ordeal, tries to rejoin the world on her own terms.

Leaving the Nest

"-- you would just take a moment to meet with us, Miss Jansen, you'd see our offer is very generous. Millions of people want to hear your stor-" Her voice mail cut off abruptly as Zoe hit the "Delete" key.

She wasn't sure how they had gotten her name. The police had kept it out of the papers, and there had been no trial. Officially, she'd simply been "the final victim." Someone must have paid off a cop or a clerk. Maybe even the public defender she'd asked for when the inevitable rounds of police interviews had come. However they had gotten her name, the vultures had begun circling, smelling profit in the corpse of her ordeal.

This last one, James Randolph, was persistent. It had been six months, now. Six months of endless denials had been enough for the other agents and networks. Only Randolph remained, determined to "help her."

She sighed, and began her morning rounds. Coffee in hand, she walked to the front door of the apartment, and checked its three deadbolts. Two were shiny, new Kryptonite locks that she and Cheryl had added after Zoe came home from the hospital. Every morning after Cheryl left for class, Zoe checked and rechecked the locks. Cheryl never left them undone when she left Zoe alone in the apartment, but Zoe checked just the same. Every window was shut and locked; the AC was on to cool down the apartment despite the mild spring weather.

Zoe settled herself on the couch, feet tucked under her, oversize t-shirt stretched over her knees, and looked out the window at morning shoppers and commuters passing by. After one sip of coffee, she set it down on the side table, and reluctantly took her phone from the pocket of the shapeless cotton pants she was wearing. Her calendar had chirped an alert at her half an hour ago. It's LED blinked at her like an unforgiving red eye.

Zoe tapped the icon, bringing up the appointment she'd put in the calendar herself, a week ago. "Go somewhere alone," it said. In the body there was even a helpful list of nearby places she could go.

Zoe had not left the apartment by herself since she came home from the hospital. Her family had come when she'd told them what happened. Mom, Dad, and even Scott had rushed to her in the hospital, and stayed with her day and night during those first agonizing days. Scott had gone home first, while she was still being treated. Her brother couldn't be away from his job and his own family for long.

Mom and Dad had both stayed until she was done at the hospital, and pronounced fit to go home. They'd driven her home, and gotten her settled into the long process of healing. Dad hadn't been able to stay much longer. To the rest of the world, the crisis was over, and life was a constant string of demands.

Even Mom hadn't been able to sit idle with her forever. After Thanksgiving dinner, Zoe had been driven back to St. Paul from their cozy suburb, and they had waved goodbye, and driven home.

She'd woken screaming six times that night. Cheryl had done her best, but Zoe was trapped between terrors. If Cheryl were there when Zoe woke, what went through Zoe's mind wasn't her best friend and roommate, but the man in surgeon's scrubs. If Zoe woke alone, there was nothing to stop him from taking her again.

Since then, she'd had company any time she had to go out. Cheryl had gone with her for the grocery shopping. Peter, Franklin, Mary and Kate had all taken their turns, holding her hand for follow up doctor appointments, haircuts, trips to the bank, and other necessities.

Rather than continue to burden her friends, Zoe found herself simply staying home. Groceries could be delivered. Cheryl could keep her mop of hair under control. Classes had been a disaster from the very first attempt.

Zoe had ended up withdrawing from her classes at the U of M. There were too many people, too much open space to cross, too many unknown faces. It was simply too much. She'd tried to go back, once the pain in her legs subsided enough to make the walk between classes bearable. She'd ended up hovering in the doorway of HIGH LEVEL HISTORY CLASS for several long minutes, before an impatient classmate had tapped her shoulder to ask her to move. She shrieked in the poor man's face, dropping her notebooks and text and fled the building. She'd called the apartment to ask her mother to pick her up, and hadn't gone back.

She tore her eyes away from the phone in her hand, and tried to focus on the present. "Besides," she muttered, "even if I'd finished this year, I'd probably be sitting here jobless anyway. History degrees aren't exactly a hot ticket item."

Zoe turned on their small television. She'd put the decision of where to go off for a little while. If you're even going, whispered a traitorous part of her mind.

"--approaching six months since the death of Gerald Winters, the serial killer known as The Banker. The killer, who murdered 6 people in the space of two weeks, had completely eluded the police," said the chirpy news host, "and was only apprehended after an anonymous tip."

"That's right, Jean," said her co-anchor. "The tip, which police assume to have come from the vigilante who killed Winters, specified the killer's precise location. The question now is, why didn't the police know anything? Was every avenue explored during the rash of killings? Should Chief of Police Harold Washington be held accountable for the failure? And as always, what happened to Winters' final victim?"

The killer's face hovered behind the perfect hair and sparkling smile of Jean's handsome co-anchor. It was a normal face, caught in a relaxed smile from some family photo or friend's snapshot. Gerald Winters, 56, Edina native and successful bank manager. He looked like someone's grandfather, not a cackling madman.

Strangely enough, seeing his face didn't seem to trigger her desire to flee. She hadn't seen his face during the ordeal, not once. By contrast, when she had caught sight of a masked and gowned doctor in the hospital, she'd lost control of her bladder, and ripped her IV out trying to go the other way. The memory still burned her, and made her feel helpless.

"The killing spree, which officials say appeared to be part of some sort of occult ritual, makes Winters one of the most violent serial killers in Minnesota history. Join us as we explore the man behind 'the Banker,' and remember his victims. That's coming up later this hour. But first, let's go to Chet with the weather!"

With a snarl of rage, Zoe punched the power button on the remote. "He's dead! Let him die!" she screamed, and threw the remote against the wall, hard enough that the plastic outer shell flew in pieces around the television stand. "He's dead! I'm alive! I can't live in that f*****g basement until I'm an old woman!"

Zoe stomped across the apartment to the front door. The deadbolts slid back smoothly, and in moments she was striding down the hall to the elevator, door slamming shut behind her.

The elevator slid open for her immediately, and she entered almost without slowing. She reached for the bank of buttons, and experienced her first tremor of uncertainty. Her hand hovered over the cracked plastic circles, back and forth between the ground floor, and the underground parking garage where her car was waiting.

She finally picked the ground floor, unwilling to face the parking garage just yet. She hadn't been down there since the night she was taken. When her friends had taken her anywhere, they'd come around to the front of the building to pick her up. The elevator opened onto the building lobby. There were a few people in line at the espresso cart, but otherwise the room was empty. She took a deep breath, and strode out onto the marble tiles, alone.

The weather was cool, particularly in the shadowed spaces between the tall buildings in downtown St. Paul. Luckily, the long-sleeved hoodie Zoe had taken to wearing to hide the marks on her arms was more than warm enough for April. She didn't know what she was going to do when summer drove the temperature into the 80s and 90s.

The morning sun warmed the right side of her face as she turned and headed north. Once out of the stillness of her apartment, Zoe felt as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Maybe Cheryl had been right. Maybe the apartment had stopped being a haven and had become a cage.

The morning was advanced enough that the bulk of commuters were already safely ensconced in their offices, working away. It was still early enough that the streets possessed a certain stillness around her building. Zoe had no trouble avoiding accidental contact with her fellow pedestrians as she made her way the few blocks to Mickey's Diner for her first breakfast in close to a month that had not come in a box.

The diner was the same as always. A cheerful looking, old fashioned building, painted yellow and red over the rounded curves of its dining-car style architecture. As usual, the sunlight stole a little of its glamor. Dings and nicks in the paint were visible here and there. Dust, droppings and other insults of day to day life were hidden in the gloom of night, and the welcoming light from the windows and green neon "Mickey's Dining Car" became the eatery's face.

Someone had made the decision to add a gargoyle over the entryway, facing the street. The gray stone beast looked completely out of place, snarling over the diners with one claw raised. It was extremely lifelike, however. The diner had certainly gotten their money's worth out of the unusual decoration.

Zoe walked into the diner, mind already on the omelet she was going to order. As soon as she was inside the diner, the gargoyle lowered its claw and closed its mouth. It worked its beaked jaw for a moment, as though easing a cramping muscle, then scampered to the top of the diner and up the side of the nearby Travelers building.

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

It seems you've got a good handle on story-line as it romps right along. Your writing is excellent, but there's still the passive language that I mentioned before. Perhaps the edit you're planning will address that.

[Eric H.]

I'm trying to watch for it as I go along, but it's also one of the things I plan to address specifically with the first edit.