He lived on a street with no sidewalk. Most of the streets in his neighborhood had no sidewalks. Craig Stevens had grown up in a rundown neighborhood in Brooklyn. However rundown the neighborhood got, he was always comforted that each street had a sidewalk, and the sidewalks were always filled with people. While he did not always want to meet some of those people in a dark alley, he did like the feeling of people around him.

In his neighborhood, people did not even walk their dogs outside. Each house had large lawns, and he could see sad looking dogs peeking over the low fences. They didn’t bark, they seemed resolved to live their life behind the gate, never venturing forth except for weekly trips to the dog park. Craig did not talk to his neighbors. Like him, they were successful, either in life or in birth. He sometimes envied those who lucked out into success. It would be freeing for him to know that no matter what choices he made in life, he would still have been successful because of his family. His family looked to him for their success. He did not mind. It was the most charitable thing he did. But even so, he sometimes wished he didn’t have as many mouths to feed or hands to fill with crumbs.

He walked along the dark curve. Except for the lights coming from the houses, the street was dark. At this time of night, no cars drove by, even after he walked out of his cul de sac. He walked up the hill leading to the back end of the development. The houses became progressively larger as he approached the man-made lake. He veered away from the lake and kept walking toward the boundary that led to the small forested area. The area had been set aside by the developer to provide a natural boundary to the property. He hadn’t known about it when he moved into his house, but on sleepless nights—of which he had many—he would find himself walking toward that forested area.

Walking alone at night without the hub bub of his public life let him see things differently. He had grown up with the goal of being famous. Now that he was the host of his own show, with opportunities aplenty for him to grow beyond that show, he sometimes wondered what it would have been like if he wasn’t famous. If he had made the choice to go to medical school like his mother wanted, or becomes just another working stiff like his brothers.

The woods made wonderful noises in the evening. There was a low rumble of the crickets and the running in the bushes of the night animals. The last time he had come out, he watched a family of raccoons make their way through the forest toward the waiting garbage cans on garbage day. Today the trees were quiet. Half a moon lit up the sky and gave a soft silver glow to the trees. He carried a small flashlight in his hand but kept the beam off. He did liked the idea of seeing in the night, and liked the mysteries that lay just feet away.

“You make this almost too easy,” a voice said from behind him.

Craig jumped and spun around. He fumbled with his flashlight. The light fell on a man wearing a long overcoat with the collar turned up against the cold autumn wind. He spoke with a lit cigarette between his lips. His hands were in the overcoat’s pockets. He stood only a few feet away from Craig. There was something ominous about him. The surprise was still in Craig but all he could think of was that in the movies, the guy is always wearing a hat. Where was his hat?

The man took the cigarette out of his mouth with a gloved hand. “How is Frankie Names doing these days?”

“Who are you?” Craig asked. He was not going to be intimidated in his own backyard. He looked around and remembered where he was. There were definite advantages to being in the middle of nowhere. He now saw that there were disadvantages as well. “If you’re with the media, you should go through my agent. I don’t take interviews.”

“Your agent told me everything about you,” the man said, pausing to take a long drag from the cigarette. Everything began to feel very ridiculous to Craig. Here was a man smoking a cigarette in a trench coat in a threatening matter. “He was very enlightening.”

“What are you talking about? My agent would never tell you anything. You still haven’t answered my question. Who are you?”

“Me? I’m a concerned citizen, Mr. Stevens. So is my partner, Agent Gonzalez.” The man pointed over Craig’s shoulder, and he turned and saw another trench coat-wearing man standing. He was not smoking a cigarette, and was also missing a hat.

“So you’re with the government?”

“He thinks we’re with the government,” the man said with a small laugh to Mr. Gonzalez.

“We’d be wearing hats if we were with the government,” Mr. Gonzalez said. Craig had the strangest feeling that he had read his mind. The two men stood on opposite sides of Craig, so he had to turn around completely to see each of them. Craig took a step away from them so he could watch them from his peripheral vision.

“So if you’re not with the government, who are you with?” Craig asked. He felt a tree behind him. He put his hand around the trunk. He figured if he had to run away, he could use it to propel himself around the tree and off into the distance. He began picturing where he was compared to the houses. It was all downhill, but he could not be sure that they didn’t have a car waiting for him outside the forest. He had a good feel for the trees, having spent so much of his evening over the past year wandering around these woods in the dark. The woods let out in another complex less than a mile away. He wondered if it would be best to make a run for that complex instead of risking running into friends of these two men.

“So what did Frankie Names tell you?” Mr. Gonzalez asked.

“That’s the big question, eh? So you guys are from the media. As I told you, you need to speak with my agent.” Craig did not feel as comfortable as he felt. It was times like this he was glad to have an actor’s temperament. He reached his arm further around the trunk, pulling it back on his shoulder. He pictured the route he would take. He was wearing his running shoes, and with any luck, he would lose them in the first few steps before they could get a fix on where he was going. He thought about heading toward the road first before circling around. He didn’t want to overcomplicate his escape, though.

“You don’t seem to understand,” the man said. “We’re not looking for a scoop. We’re trying to figure out where Frankie Names is, and whether what he told you mean that we have to kill you or not.”

The way the man said ‘kill’ so casually made up Craig’s mind for him. He pulled on the tree and he slingshot away from the tree heading in the direction of the street. He ran through a few more trees listening for pursuit. When he saw the path leading to the street he cut a perpendicular path away from the street and toward the far fence line. He tried to listen to the pursuit, but all he could hear was his own heavy breathing and the racket he was making as he ran through the wet leaves. He pushed over and pulled himself between the trees, trying to avoid the small bushes that seemed to be everywhere. He could not see the bushes very well as the trees hid the moonlight from the ground.

He felt like he was heading in the right direction, but he couldn’t be sure. Once he was away from the street, all he could do was hope he would end up at the fence. A quick hop and he would be home free—that is, assuming he could find someone in the neighborhood to call the police for him.

As he continued to run he breathed harder until he found it difficult to get enough oxygen. There was a pain in his side that he tried to ignore. It became worse. He thought he was close to the fence and began looking through the trees. He only saw more trees and probably more bushes. His legs were cut up from the branches and the dull stinging pain combined with the pain in his side. His fear began to decrease. Perhaps he had misheard the man with the cigarette. Perhaps he had overreacted. He figured he could reconsider the what ifs once he was safely away. For now he continued running through the forest.

He realized his mistake when he came up on the lake. He didn’t see it until the last bunch of trees. He stopped when he reached the beach that led into the lake. Off to his right was the path that led around the lake to the expensive houses in his residential area. He knew the lake went a bit a ways around the other way before heading back into the forest. He also knew that he had run too far east and that was how he had ended up here.

He heard running in the woods and turned and saw the two men appear from different locations in the forest. Mr. Gonzalez stood on the path leading into the community. The cigarette man stood in the forest where Craig had come from.

Craig was still breathing hard but he kept himself upright, not wanting to lose any advantage. He knew he had no chance if they caught him. There were two of them, and while Craig was not a small man, he was not a fighter. He had never even been in a real fight, outside of childhood scuffles with his brother.

“Okay, rabbit,” the man said. He was not breathing hard, but the right side of his overcoat was coat around the back of his leg. He had lost his cigarette during the run. “We were not yet done with you. Let’s have a better conversation this time. We don’t want to have to chase you through those trees again. Think what your audience would say about a skeptic running away from two men who were just trying to find the truth.”

“You threatened me. What did you expect me to do?” Craig asked. His voice wavered and it was only partly because he was out of breath and he couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen necessary to speak. He was genuinely afraid. The adrenaline had long since passed through his body and his legs felt weak and wobbly. He now understood what rubber legs felt like.

“Let’s get this over with,” Mr. Gonzalez said. He wore leather gloves like the other man. “I asked you a question before you lead us on this merry chase. Let’s get it answered so we can all go home to our warm beds. What did Frankie Names tell you at the studio?”

“He was just babbling about his immortality,” Craig said. His brain was not working as it usually did. He tried to come up with a convincing lie, but his brain wouldn’t cooperate. The only thoughts that were going through his head were the truth. He worried that the truth would get him in more trouble, but he knew that saying nothing would be worse.

“That’s not babbling, Mr. Stevens. Frankie Names really is immortal,” Mr. Gonzalez said. Both men stared at Craig. When Craig didn’t say anything they nodded knowingly. Craig realized his mistake before they said anything.

“But you know that already,” the man said, finishing the thought. “That’s all we wanted to know.”

Daily word count: 2,029.

Words remaining: 26,135 (23,865).