Neighborhood Watch by Evan Bollinger Page A

while there's a festival downtown, so most of the people aren't even around here. Meanwhile, the storm keeps everywhere in, so people are stuck downtown and can't come back. Remember the radar that Sam showed us...”
    My brother fell dark at the mentioning of his friend.
    “It's like he wanted to do it in poor conditions... so that if something went wrong, there wouldn't be too many people around.”
    My brother plopped another book to the floor. “That still doesn't explain what he was trying to do. ”
    I moved over to the wall behind the couch with all the newspaper clippings. “Virological revival,” I repeated to myself. “Revival...”
    The icy blue eyes of that woman looked back at me from the old newspaper articles. I stepped closer. There were articles right next to each other. One after the other. The first was dated, 7/23/1994 . The woman was shown, younger, more exuberant. It was a photo of her laughing, with her hair not yet grey but a curly black, and her eyes more bright and glacial than ever. She had rosy cheeks, a vitality about her that nothing could deny.
    Montgomery woman makes miraculous recovery from Stage-4 Cancer
    “Marissa Clark...” 
    My eyes scanned the article as the truth poured out word by word. Mr. Clark had been married, some 20 years ago...
    The article to the right of this one carried a different tone: Miraculous cancer survivor found dead . My heart thumped as I again scanned the text. “ Only 2 weeks after making a miraculous recovery, Dansbury native Marissa Clark was found dead of natural causes... An autopsy later revealed the absence of any malignant tumors...”
    The articles around this one were filled with more mysteries, but they were recent. “ Montgomery football standout reported missing ...” I paused as I glossed over the picture of the superstar quarterback. There was another “missing” article just inches away on the wall. “ Young Dansbury boy reported missing ...”
    My heart skipped a beat.
    “It's Miss Lenner's son, the one you talked about...”
    “Huh?” My brother moved closer but his foot caught something and he almost tripped. Looking down, he pulled the partially concealed box from out under the couch. Then he threw off the lid and his eyes became dinner plates.
    He cradled the sawed-off shotgun with a smile from cheek to cheek.
    “Look at all these reported missings...” I continued, ignoring the rare and unexpected  find. “People have been disappearing from the surrounding counties and towns going on two decades. Ever since his wife died...”
    My brother handled the weapon carefully, examining the barrel and magazine. He positioned the shotgun butt against his shoulder and simulated an air-fire. “Maybe Sam was right after all,” he admitted. “You think Mr. Clark was a pedophile?”
    “No,” I said shaking my head. The icy cold was crawling in my heart. The truth was coming out. “No, I don't. It think he was a killer.”
    I thought briefly of a fall afternoon when Mr. Clark had been waiting near a pile of leaves. It was a pile near the front of his yard, though I had never once seen him rake. He was standing there, still as a gargoyle, waiting for me to deliver his newspaper. And like every time before and after, he said nothing.
    Just the subtle head nod and those squinting, yellow eyes.
    Mitch was now at my side with the shotgun in his firm clutches. He exhaled long through his nose, his eyes meanwhile surveying the entire board of newspaper cutouts. “It's crazy, isn't it,” he said, “that this guy could live in Montgomery and Dansbury all these years, and have nobody expect a thing.” My brother rubbed his nose. “Killing neighbors and making zombies, what a fuckin loon.”
    Mitch moved away from the table and toward the other side of the room. He was shaking his head, but nothing seemed to be coming together for him. Whatever he thought he knew, he didn't.
    Again, my mind and heart was searching for more. “That's not