Darlings of Decay

by Chrissy Peebles

  Mitch turned off the headlights and took a left on Pike Rd. He passed the widow Hinkle’s place and pulled over. “There,” he pointed at a small, blue ranch house a few doors down. “That’s where we’re headed.” He slipped the tiny, red collar from around the puppy’s neck. “The girl comes out every morning at six to bring coffee to a pair of Strandville medics.”

  Max took a deep breath, dreading the answer but having to ask the question. “Are we going to kill her?”

  Mitch let a moment pass before answering. “No, Max, we’re not going to kill her. It hurts me that you think that’s what I do. We’re going to drop her off at an agreed upon location, leave, and never breathe a word about it.”

  “Until the next time.” With something like this there was always a next time.

  “As soon as the coast is clear, I’m going to let J.D. loose. I’ll try to lure the girl, but if she runs, you catch her and if we go into the house, you follow. You hear me?”

  Max nodded, knowing Mitch was capable of things he didn’t want to be part of.

  A white ambulance with the words Strandville EMS emblazoned in deep red pulled up on-schedule.

  Mitch hooked the red collar to a leash and scooted down in his seat.

  Max, realizing that Mitch was hiding, tried to do the same, but even hunched to the side, his broad shoulders stuck out above the dashboard. He moved as low as he could and J.D lapped at his face.

  “She’s coming out,” Mitch said.

  Max repositioned himself so that his legs were as far under the dash as possible. His back ached as he shifted from bent over to straight. He let out an unintentional grunt that excited the dog and made him start barking.

  Mitch bribed J.D. to be quiet with a handful of training treats.

  The early-thirties woman emerged from the small house. Her light brown hair hung in tangles over her shoulders. Her well-worn pink bathrobe collected leaves from the sidewalk. She handed two disposable coffee cups through the ambulance’s passenger’s side window and engaged in brief conversation.

  The medics waved thanks, bid their farewells, and drove out of sight. The woman turned to open her mailbox and Mitch waved for Max to get out of the van. He held a finger to his lips, telling him to be quiet, and set J.D. out on the sidewalk. As soon as the puppy’s paws hit the pavement, he ran off toward the hedgerow that partially obscured the van. Mitch waited until J.D. was far enough away and began calling him. The empty leash dangled from his hand for effect.

  Max hid behind the van and watched for his opening.

  “Excuse me. Have you seen a little black and brown pup?” Mitch asked the woman. “He slipped out of his collar and my daughter’s going to be crushed if I don’t bring him home.”

  Max shook his head, disbelieving of how benign Mitch could look when he wanted to. The woman helped Mitch search for J.D. who was gnawing a dead branch on the other side of her property line. Mitch let her be the one to find him and after thanking her profusely, convinced her to let him inside to use her phone.

  Max followed them inside the woman’s house, uncertain what came next.

  By the time he walked through the living room into the kitchen, a struggle had already started. Mitch had the woman face-down on the floor and was trying to uncap a syringe with his teeth. The woman bucked and kick, bit and screamed, and broke free twice before Max stepped in to grab her. She’d fought him, too, at first and clawed his face before he finally got a good hold of her. He held her still while Mitch plunged the needle into her arm and within seconds, her body went limp.

  * * * * *

  Jacob wailed, screaming at the top of his lungs in the bassinette. Jess’ heart pounded and her full breasts ached. The strung-out, scruffy man with the knife over her son’s small body didn’t care that the infant was hungry. He wanted answers and was growing impatient.

  “I’m going to ask you one last time, where’s Reid?”

  The larger, fat man who smelled of stale beer and onions held her wrists together behind her back in a way that made it impossible to move painlessly. His breath was hot on her neck and his sweaty hands repulsed her.

  “I told you, he’s at the garage.” She sniffed the thread of watery snot about to run on to her lip. The two men had been holding her long enough that the tears had dried on her cheeks.

  The man lowered the knife further, resting its pointed tip against Jacob’s bunny blanket. Jess strained to see that he wasn’t hurting him even though it sent a searing pain into both of her shoulders. “Please, don’t hurt him.” Her voice cracked. “I swear, I told you where he is. He went to work early.”

  The man behind her snickered and pressed his hips against hers. She shivered and swallowed the vomit rising up the back of her throat.

  “Do you think we’re stupid or something?” the large man asked. “His boss shitcanned him a week ago. Now either you tell us the truth or cough up the twenty-seven grand he owes. Our boss doesn’t cover bad bets.”

  Twenty-seven thousand dollars. Max had lied to her for the last time. The guilt of the secret she’d been carrying dissolved and all she cared about was getting these thugs away from Jacob. “What if I call him home? Give me two hours. I can get him here.” Her voice went hoarse from shouting over her crying son.

  The men looked at one another.

  “I can’t take much more of this shit.” The thin man standing over Jacob wagged the blade over his chest as he spoke.

  Jess was thankful just to have the knife off of her son. “Please,” she said, “Where am I going to go with a newborn baby? Two hours.”

  The man holding her loosened his grip and eventually let go. Her shoulders ached and her hands were numb and cold. She ran to Jacob and held him to her chest. He turned his tiny face into her and rooted furiously for food.

  “Two hours,” said the scrawny man. “And if Reid’s not here when we come back, that crying will stop being a problem, you understand me?”

  Breast milk leaked through her nursing pads and bra and soaked the front of her shirt. “I understand,” she said and prayed she had enough time to run.

  * * * * *

  The morning sun glared off the windshield and Max lowered the visor. He flipped open the vanity mirror and examined the scratches extending from the corner of his eye to his jaw. “What am I going to tell Jess?”

  Mitch shrugged.

  Max looked back at the woman, unconscious in the back of the van. “Where are we taking her?”

  Mitch turned the corner, and the woman’s body rolled from one side of the van to the other. “We’re not taking her anywhere. You’re going home.”

  He pulled up to Max’s apartment and gestured for him to get out.

  Max looked, again, at the angry red scratches that looked clearly like four fingernails. He changed back into his garage shirt and waited for Mitch to say something. “What now?” he finally asked after a long, awkward silence. He stood half-in and half-out of the open passenger’s side door.

  “Clean yourself up,” Mitch said. “I’ll be in touch after I collect our payment.”

  Max shut the door and walked slowly down the crumbling sidewalk.

  Mitch lingered longer than Max would have liked before pulling away.

  “Here goes nothing.”

  The front doorknob wiggled and nearly broke off in Max’s hand. He bent down to see the splintered jamb and the indentation in the wood that looked like the end of a crow bar. The door swung open and he rushed inside.

  “Jess, are you here?” A large knife sat on the counter and he looked for blood. “Jess!” He swallowed hard and tried not to panic. “Jessica.” Jacob’s bassinette was empty in the middle of the kitchen. His blue, bunny blanket lay on the floor next to it. “Jess, answer me.” Max frantically searched, listening for muffled sounds or crying. The silence scared him the most. He rushed into the back bedroom and found the bifold closet doors open. The right one he promised to fix was off its track. Jess’s side of the closet had been emptied. Jacob’s dres
ser, too. Max didn’t know whether to smile or cry. Jess had left him, but at least she was alive. At least his son was alive.

  He sat on the edge of the unmade bed and held Jess’s pillow to his face. He breathed in the smell of the strawberry shampoo he’d fallen asleep to every night for two years and refused to cry. He set the pillow down and opened the blinds. He was soaked through with sweat and the air felt stale and stagnant. Preoccupied as he was, he disregarded the car parked across the street and focused instead on the square of folded paper sitting on the nightstand. The edges were worn, the folds nearly torn from excessive handling. Max carefully opened it and read the page three times before comprehending what it said. He hadn’t been the only one keeping secrets. The results of a paternity test confirmed that Jacob wasn’t his son. He was Mitch’s.

  A flurry of knocks came at the door.

  “Open up, Reid.”

  It was two of his bookie’s men, come to collect.

  He had bigger problems to deal with and pocketed the results before making his way out the back bedroom window.

  * * * * *

  Mitch backed into the receiving entrance at the rear of the Nixon Healing and Research Center. Jim Lockard, the center’s maintenance man, met him at the roll up door with a gurney and a Hispanic orderly named Miguel. Mitch’s phone rang for the fifth time since dropping Max off. After sending the call to voicemail, he shut it off.

  J.D. barked relentlessly inside of the van. He needed to go to the bathroom and Mitch hoped for a quick drop-off. When Jim approached, he knew he wasn’t going to get it.

  Mitch rolled down the driver’s side window. “Where’s Dr. Nixon?” He closed his hand gently around J.D.’s muzzle so he could hear what Jim was saying.

  “He’s not coming.” Jim passed two yellow envelopes through the half-open glass, one for him and one for Max.

  Miguel opened the rear doors and grabbed the woman’s ankles, dragging her over the van’s bare metal floor. He turned her so that he could get his arms under her and transferred her to the gurney. She moaned, and after situating her restraints, he hit her with another dose of sedative. He banged on the side of the van and waved for Mitch to come help him.

  “Now what?” Mitch pocketed the envelopes and stepped out.

  Miguel babbled something in Spanish and pointed toward the lobby.

  Jim shook his head. “Nixon wants you to take her downstairs. There was a problem earlier and this guy’s too shaken up to go down there. I had hoped you were bringing back-up.”

  “I don’t want Max here. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “Then you’re on your own.”

  Mitch slipped the collar over J.D.’s head and tightened it one notch. He lifted him out of the box and handed him to Jim.

  “Fine,” he said. “But I need your elevator key and you’re walking my dog.”

  * * * * *

  Sun reflected off clear glass panels in the main lobby atrium that was the centerpiece of the Nixon Center. Staff shuffled in and out of the Ambulatory Surgical Center and none of them acknowledged Mitch as he moved past with the sheet-covered gurney. From the outside, the woman appeared as a corpse headed for the morgue. He approached the elevator, the only way down, and pushed the call button. A pair of elderly women turned away from him. A little girl with thin, blonde hair that reminded him of Amy’s, stopped and smiled at him. Her mother rushed her away when she realized what she was looking at. The elevator opened and Mitch steered the gurney inside. He used Jim’s key and the car descended.

  The seconds from the lobby to the basement felt like minutes; the minutes walking down the hall where the test subjects were held, like hours. The air was thick with the unequalled stench of decomposition which burned his nose and made his eyes water. A year before, five patients with an unexplainable illness were air lifted to the center from a remote area of Haiti. Three of them were family--a father, mother, and their son. Two were male researchers sent to investigate the young boy that died and spontaneously resurrected in front of half of his village. Nixon intended to cure them, but when he couldn’t, his experiment changed. Rumors circulated, but Mitch knew better than to ask for details. He kidnapped the women, took the envelopes, and whatever happened next, at least it didn’t happen to him.

  * * * * *

  Max waited for Mitch’s shift to start and parked on the edge of the Nixon Center parking lot. His muscles tensed and he rushed with adrenaline as if he’d just run a marathon. He pulled up his sweatshirt hood and walked through the row of parked cars, careful to avoid being seen by the cameras as he made his way to the locked, first floor security office and knocked.

  “Mitch, open up.” His instinct was to pound the door flat, to kick it in and drag Mitch into the hallway, but he knew better than to draw that kind of attention. He knocked again. “Mitch, you piece of shit, I know you’re in there.” He spoke through clenched teeth, becoming angrier by the second. Each knock was progressively louder. “Dammit!” He kicked the door with the toe of his boot and let out a frustrated growl.

  “Can I help you?” A small, thin guard wearing Nixon Center blues and a pair of black-rimmed glasses stood with his hand on his Taser. His nametag said his name was Brian Foster.

  “I need to see Mitch.”

  Brian shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

  Max checked to see that no one was watching and flashed Brian the pistol holstered at his side. “I’m not leaving without talking to him.”

  Brian went for his radio and Max grabbed his wrist. He spun him around easily and shoved him into the door hard enough to twist the glasses on his face. “Open it.”

  “I don’t…”

  “Before you tell me you don’t have keys, realize that I know more about this place than you think.”

  “Is that so, Mr. Reid?” Dr. Howard Nixon walked up behind them wearing surgical scrubs and disposable booties over his shoes. Dried bloodstains spattered the sleeve of the white lab coat that appeared to be thrown on as an afterthought. He slipped the blue cap off of his head and smoothed the tufts of unruly gray hair.

  Max took a deep breath and stood his ground. “I need to see Mitch.” He tightened his grip on the guard.

  “I wouldn’t do anything rash if I were you.” Nixon pointed at the mirror mounted in the corner. Max felt stupid for missing the nearest camera. “If you’ll do me the courtesy of letting Brian go,” Nixon said, “maybe we can help each other.”

  Max did as he was told and in the hour that followed, accepted a permanent position at the center, and his next off-site assignment.

  * * * * *

  Seventy miles wasn’t far enough away to feel safe. Jess’s phone rang; the tenth call since Max realized she was gone. His messages ranged from concerned, to apologetic, to angry. He told her he loved her. He called her a whore. He made obscure threats toward Mitch, who didn’t know he was Jacob’s father or that Jess had dumped that news on Max in anger. She called several times to warn him, but those calls went unanswered.

  One night with Mitch, a fling she only had out of spite when Max spent their last hundred bucks on a bet, had changed everything. She never meant for anyone to know and wrestled with the decision to have the paternity test done for the first two months of Jacob’s life.

  The secret was bigger than any Max had kept and she wished now, facing motherhood alone and on-the-run, that she’d handled the situation differently.

  * * * * *

  It was almost midnight and Max was running on a dangerous combination of adrenaline, paranoia, and anger, having looked over his shoulder every minute since he left his apartment. He turned off his headlights and pulled into the woods using an old access road that was overgrown with saplings and ferns. The thin branches scraped along the sides of his truck and the shrill sound pierced the late night silence. He parked out of sight of the ramshackle cabin a few hundred feet on the other side of the tree line and looked for a clear footpath. An old pick-up truck idled in the driveway and
the smell of exhaust choked him as he made his way through the trees. He covered his mouth to stifle the cough and took slow, calculated steps, careful to avoid the snapping and breaking of branches.

  A young, pimple-faced boy in a gas station attendant’s uniform slammed the front door and took a drag off the cigarette pinched between his thin lips. He climbed into the driver’s seat and tore out onto the highway with the hurriedness of someone who was late. Sparks trailed as the dangling exhaust connected with the pavement. The truck rounded the bend and one by one, the lights in the house, now only feet away, turned off.

  Max took the syringe of sedative out of his pocket. Nixon insisted there be no signs of struggle and was upset to know how things had gone with the girl they’d kidnapped earlier that morning. His obvious disappointment with Mitch made it that much easier to negotiate terms for himself. Max had yet to make the connection between the infected men and the kidnapped woman, but whatever research Nixon performed in the sterile, basement labs was not something anyone would want for their sister, wife, or girlfriend.

  He made his way to the side of the house, keeping to the shadows in spite of the fact that the cabin sat in the middle of acres of woods and grass. He crouched beneath a half-open window and watched. Amy Porter tied back her stringy hair and dabbed some kind of cream on her spotty, red complexion. She brushed her teeth and adjusted the button-down nightshirt riding up the back of her underwear before heading toward the back bedroom.

  Max pried the screen from the window. The blue latex gloves made it hard to maneuver the pins and the whole thing crashed at his feet. He held his breath for the seconds that followed. When Amy didn’t appear, he pulled himself up through the ground-level opening with the syringe between his teeth. The wooden frame bit into his shoulders as he twisted to pass through.

  The uneven floors creaked under Max’s steps. He moved carefully and replayed every conversation he’d ever had with Mitch about Amy. Part of him believed that Mitch thought he was protecting her, belittling how much she meant to him. Part of him knew it was embarrassment. Max had known Mitch since he was six-years-old and some things didn’t need to be said between friends. Against his will, he imagined Mitch with Jess, in his house and in his bed and able to face him afterward like nothing had happened. But something had. Something more betraying and terrible and cruel than even his mind could conjure.