It's Now Safe
Savannah Grimes slid her mouse over her Van Gogh's Starry Night mouse pad to guide the pointer to the lower left corner of the monitor's screen. Then she clicked on the START menu icon of the old Dell Dimension desktop computer, selected SHUT DOWN from the list of available options and waited patiently until the Windows 95 system told her it was safe to turn off her computer. Once the message was displayed across the screen in oversized orange letters, she pressed the POWER button on the tower, pushed back from the desk and wheeled herself into the kitchen.
The lakeside cabin was eerily quiet. This late in the year there were not many people at the lake, so there were no shouting children, barking dogs or blaring rock 'n' roll music from weekend drinking parties. Nor were there any motor boats, ATVs, lawnmowers or weed-whackers to contend with. Savannah was one of only a handful of people who lived on Serenity Lake year-round, and during the late autumn and winter months, the place was as silent as the proverbial tomb.
Savannah did not mind either the quiet or the isolation of the small lake community. Truth be told, she preferred the peace of Sheffield Hills to the hustle and bustle of Boston. What she did miss about the capital city, however, was the life she once shared with Toby.
He's been dead almost ten years, she thought sadly.
Sometimes it seemed like only yesterday when she had last heard his infectious laughter, seen those blue eyes twinkling with humor or watched the ends of his mouth curl up in a mischievous grin. On the other hand, it more frequently felt like a lifetime since she had enjoyed the security of being in his arms or tasted his kisses on her lips.
Savannah rolled over to the refrigerator and got out a bag of mixed salad greens, a carton of grape tomatoes, a cucumber and a bottle of Ken's honey mustard salad dressing. As she added croutons to her lonely dinner for one, she remembered all the wonderful meals she had prepared for Toby. She always enjoyed being a wife and homemaker and would have loved being a mother, but fate had not blessed her with children. Instead, it not only took from her the use of her legs, but it also deprived her of the love of her husband.
"I know you're not lost to me forever," a misty-eyed Savannah said, her eyes turning upward to heaven. "I know we'll be together in the end, but I miss you so much."
Not wanting to descend into the pit of self-pity, she wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and picked up her fork.
"I've got to stop feeling sorry for myself. I have to concentrate on what I have now rather than on what I've lost."
For one thing, Savannah had her financial independence, thanks to her husband's life insurance policy and the substantial settlement paid by the auto insurance carrier of the drunken man whose careless driving took both her husband's life and her ability to walk. For another, she had her house on the lake. It was something she and Toby once dreamt of owning: a modern log cabin that would serve as a weekend home until they could retire and permanently move from Boston to Sheffield Hills.
And then there were her friends, the ones she made over the past nine years. Although she never spoke to them except online, they were good friends nonetheless, people who did not see the wheelchair or know about the car accident that killed her young husband. With anonymous cyber friends, there was no pity, just impersonal messages on a computer screen, words without inflection and statements without sympathetic looks or gestures. When she was online with her friends, Savannah chatted about books, movies, current events and music. There were also jokes, games and cartoons that went back and forth through the email.
From time to time, the topic of conversation turned to computers themselves. Savannah's online friends were always trying to improve the computers they were currently using. They were, after all, part of a generation that was addicted to hi-tech toys. Over the past decade, these people graduated from using floppy disks to CDs and DVDs, then from flash drives to storing their files in a cloud. They were forever in search of more memory, faster processors and newer—and hopefully more efficient—operating systems.
Invariably, someone would question Savannah about her computer.
"Oh, it's a Dell," she would simply reply and only add when pressed for details that it had a Pentium processor.
"A Pentium 4?"
"No, just a Pentium processor."
Her computer was nearly twenty years old and, as such, was manufactured at a time when Intel did not add numbers after its processors.
"You don't mean to tell me you're still running Windows 98!"
"No," she admitted truthfully. "It has Windows 95."
Savannah knew what her friends must think: that she lacked the funds to buy a newer computer. It was not a question of money, however. She just did not want to change. She liked the computer she had. It was easy to use and reliable. It allowed her to send and receive emails and surf the Internet without too much fear of getting one of the many viruses that were being written to exploit weaknesses in the newer Windows systems.
After finishing her salad, buttered roll and fruit cup, Savannah rolled her chair to the sink and began washing her dishes. Afterward, she went into the living room, turned on the television and slipped The Return of the King into her DVD player. As she watched the movie based on the third book of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy, she thought how much Viggo Mortensen reminded her of Toby. Was it the beard or was it something about his eyes?
Had Savannah been less intent on comparing Aragorn to her late husband, she might have heard the window breaking in the basement or the footsteps on the cellar stairs. But she didn't.
Suddenly, the basement door flew open, and Savannah was torn from the fantasy world of hobbits, elves and wizards and thrust back into reality. There were no Orcs there, only men, but some men represented great danger.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" she asked in a strained, frightened voice.
"Jewelry. Money. Credit cards. Whatever else you got that's valuable."
"Okay. Just don't hurt me."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
The man smiled, but it did not calm Savannah's fears.
"I'll go get my purse," she said, heading toward the hall.
Once she was safely past the intruder, she wheeled herself into the combination den and computer room and locked the door behind her. The intruder ran to the door and tried to force it open. Meanwhile, Savannah rolled to her desk and turned her computer on. It seemed like an eternity for the desktop to appear.
"Open this door or you'll be sorry, lady. I promise you that."
Savannah opened Outlook Express and clicked on CREATE MAIL.
The intruder changed tactics.
"Look, I only want your money and valuables. I promise not to hurt you if you just open the door."
Savannah's fingers rapidly danced across the keyboard.
"Someone has broken into my house," she wrote. "Hurry. Call 911. I'm in danger."
She then typed in her home address and sent the email message to everyone in her address book, praying someone would see it and act quickly.
"All right! You asked for it! When I get my hands on you, you're dead!"
With several vicious kicks, the intruder broke down the door. Savannah rolled backward but soon found herself against the wall. Her eyes frantically sought a weapon, but this was a den. There were no knives, fireplace pokers or hammers, just an assortment of novels, computer manuals, printer paper and miscellaneous office supplies.
The intruder took three menacing steps toward the terrified woman.
"Say your prayers, sweetheart!"
The would-be burglar lunged forward, and Savannah's wheelchair tipped over. She fell to the floor and tried to drag herself along the carpet with her arms. The intruder stood up, reached into his pocket and took out a switchblade. But as he raised his arm to strike the mortal blow to the helpless woman, he became entangled in the Dell's power cord and tripped. Instinctively, his hands went out to break his fall, but he fell onto the computer with a resounding crash.
Smoke and sparks erupted from the rear of the tower, and the subsequent smell of burning flesh made Savannah gag. She screamed as she saw the intruder writhe in the agony of electrocution. After several moments, however, he fell to the ground dead. Savannah put her head on her arm and cried tears of horror and relief.
* * *
"Are you sure you don't want us to call an ambulance to take you to the hospital, Mrs. Grimes?" the responding police officer asked after the coroner had removed the intruder's body. "You've been through quite an ordeal this evening. It might be best to have a doctor check you out."
"I'll be all right," Savannah assured him. "Thank you, anyway."
Once the police departed, she went back to the den to survey the damage.
"Well, I guess I have no choice but to get a new computer now."
Although she had expected to see only a charred wreckage of fried electronic components, Savannah discovered to her great joy and surprise that the computer was still in good working condition. She saw the familiar words IT'S NOW SAFE TO TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER spelled out on the screen in oversized orange letters.
Savannah rolled over to her workspace, reached down beneath the desk and pressed the POWER button. Then she froze when she saw the Dell's power cord lying on the floor with the plug more than a foot from the wall outlet. If the computer had not been plugged in, how had the intruder been electrocuted? She stared at the monitor with amazement, reached out her hand and gingerly touched the keyboard.
"I owe you my life, don't I, old friend?"
As if in reply, the tiny green power indicator light on the Dell's keyboard momentarily blinked on and then went off again.
No, Salem. That computer is not going to protect you from the dog next door.
