A Short Story by Mark Miner
Golden light spilled out of the cracked-open door. A dark blotch appeared in the ray, and demanded an answer. The slinking form outside the door muttered something, but thunder obscured the reply. Down the street a light bobbed up and down on the sidewalk. A car rounded the bend, it's headlights dimmed by the lashing of the cold rain.
Inside was warmth, and smells of food and home. The worried wife asked what was the trouble, and could she get him anything? The man holding the doorknob tightly told her to hush and stay there. He eyed the bent form outside. There was blood on his trousers. The stain was wet with rain, but looked fresh. Yes, another drop fell as he surveyed it. The huddled figure implored the man for entry. It was not quite killingly cold, but the night was young and the creature was soaked through. He huddled in his shabby overcoat, both arms clutched around his abdomen as though he were protecting an unborn child.
Dinner was getting cold. They had plenty and to spare, that wasn't it. The man in the lighted entry frowned and examined the bottom of his beard. He relaxed his grip on the doorknob and pulled the door open a sliver. He paused, and doused the light in the entryway, then opened the door wider. He gestured quickly to the man to enter, and the ragpile darted in. The door closed, the light was clicked back on, and the bearded man looked down at what he had done.
The creature had slumped to the floor, evidently in pain. The man quietly asked his wife for the gauze and iodine, and some tape, hurry. The children stared through the dining room archway into the hall. The mouth of the littlest one hung open at the edge. Their father told them to hurry finish, and off to bed. Stay quiet, and be good little ones. They melted away noiselessly to their rooms. The man helped the creature into the kitchen and sat him on a chair. Once confident of his guest's stability, he darted back to the entryway with a towel. No blood on the wood, that was good.
Back in the kitchen, the man began to unwrap the ragpile. First the overcoat, then a suit coat, and there was the wound. A bloody perforation on the left side of the man's (it was a man, wasn't it? Yes) abdomen. That had leaked onto his trousers as he hunched over. It did not look like a bullet wound, and the skin below it was scratched badly. The shirt was torn there, too, and there was a nick out of the top of his belt in line with this. The ragpile ruffled through the overcoat and extracted a sheaf of papers, wincing. The iodine arrived, and soon the patient winced in pain as the wound was cleaned and dressed. The man told his wife to fetch dry clothes from his closet, shoes and socks too, and hurry. The ragpile shortly looked very much like the bearded man, and the wet clothes and shoes were jammed with the poker up into a crevice inside the chimney. They would take care of themselves, and no odor should be noticed on a rainy night like this.
The bearded man returned to the kitchen to obtain some answers from his guest, but a rap at the door interrupted him. The man instead found himself telling his guest exactly where to secrete himself upstairs in a closet, now, hurry, and his wife to start clearing the table and say nothing. He opened the door, the same crack as before, and saw a pair of uniforms with men inside. They had some questions. He had no answers. They came inside. His wife smiled blandly and she gathered flatware. They looked around the dining room, hallway, and kitchen. No water anywhere, no, why would there be? Did the officers have a problem? Alas, no, he had not seen a thing tonight, so rainy and dark. Why go outside when it is warm and dry in here? The fire crackled to punctuate him. He thought he glimpsed a shoelace float towards a log, but it was consumed rapidly. The officers thanked him, tipped their hats to his wife, and departed. He helped his wife clean up until he was sure they had gone.
Upstairs, he opened the closet to see his shoes peeking out from behind a stack of towels. He told them to get out, and start talking. There had been a misunderstanding at the embassy. The shoes had an Austrian accent. They had not done anything wrong, but some papers had come into their possession, and they wished to return them. The bearded man asked what the return fee had been. The Austrian accent paused, and said that it had been purely a gratuitous transaction, he wished to assist the chief of station with his affairs, but the chief of station had not been greatly impressed with his offer. The guards had been called. The accent was forced to flee on foot. He had not quite made it as cleanly over the fence as he might have hoped. The briefcase had slowed him down. No, he did not have it now, he had removed the critical items and the case should be in the river. The Austrian accent said he greatly hoped he had not inconvenienced them, and he would be on his way, if they pleased. The bearded man was pleased by that suggestion, and made it known. They proceeded downstairs. The Austrian accent was hungry, and so he ate. The rain had lessened, but clouds still covered the moon, and fog rolled in the streets. It was a good time not to be seen. The Austrian accent stuffed the papers under his borrowed shirt, tucked it back in, and disappeared into the night.
