by Jon Bassoff
The lips on Baby’s battered face remained hooked in a grin. She opened her mouth and then closed it. Then she opened it again. “Cary sonkeys change into lestaurants.”
Freeman’s translation: “Scary donkeys change into restaurants.”
Scent’s shoulders heaved up and down and her face reddened. No more. No more. With wrath guiding her every move, she grabbed Freeman’s satchel from the ground and opened it up. In an instant, the ice pick shimmered in her hand and the Upjohn bag dropped to the floor. As Freeman watched, struggling to comprehend, Scent slammed the ice pick into her mother’s neck, piercing the carotid artery. Blood sprayed onto Scent’s face and neck and clothes but she didn’t seem fazed. She removed the ice pick and slammed it again through the bloodied flesh. Instinctively, Baby reached toward the wound, pressed her fingers against it, but the blood wouldn’t stop. Soon her own dress was soaked through with black blood and she began flopping like a fish out of water. It seemed to Scent that she would have to watch the awful death procession forever, but eventually she stilled except for her left foot, which continued twitching for ten, twenty seconds. Then it stopped too.
Scent rose to her feet and staggered to the couch and sat down. She rubbed the palm of her hand against her dress and then brought her fingers to her mouth. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply.
“Mama’s dead,” she said. “And I think it could be she’s better off that way.”
Chapter 27
Walter Freeman adjusted his bowler’s hat and cleaned his glasses. Then he pressed his back against the wall and slid down to a sitting position. The blood on his back had dried. He grabbed his cane and set it in his lap. No words, only empty stares.
But Edgar spoke because he was hungry. “Food,” he said. “Pasta and peaches.”
Outside a distant train howled. Inside Freeman leaned against the wall thinking about how sick the world was and how it was only getting sicker. A person could only fight so hard. Thousands of lobotomies he’d performed, but you can’t heal the world.
Scent had dropped the ice pick and now stood in the middle of the room covered in her mother’s blood. She looked directly at Freeman and said, “Now we must do something with the body,” but her voice sounded distant, otherworldly, and her eyes looked dull, as if she were another one of his lobotomy patients.
From Edgar: “Hungry! So hungry!”
Scent began pacing back and forth across the room, eyes becoming more focused. “We’ve got to think calmly,” she said, “that’s the key. What about saws? Are there any saws or knives? I’ll look in the basement. And then we can chop her up, feed her to the pigs. That’s the best way, don’t you think?” She stopped pacing and stomped her foot on the floor. “But I can’t do this myself, you bastards! I need your help. Oh, she was such a fine woman! She didn’t deserve to die this way. She never did me harm, not once! So why’d she have to die?”
“The police,” Freeman muttered. “We need to call them.”
“Are you fucking crazy?” she spat. “Don’t you dare. They see this bloody scene and the three of us will be locked up forever.”
“The three of us?”
“You think I’m gonna take the fall for this, Doc? You really think so? You’re the one who jammed the ice pick in her brain. You’re the one who jammed it in her throat.”
“Why that’s crazy. That’s—”
“You and the idiot wait here. I’m gonna go look in the basement for the right tools. Then we’ll get busy on the cutting and chopping.”
And she stormed out of the living room and toward the stairs that led to the basement.
Lord, Lord, it was as bad as the madhouses he used to work in! Dr. Freeman pulled himself up to his feet and straightened out his rumpled and bloodied jacket. With halfhearted urgency he grabbed Edgar’s arm. “Now’s the time,” he said. “While she’s in the basement. We need to leave this house. We need to call the proper authorities. No time for dawdling, Edgar.”
“Food.”
“Later. Come on, good sir!”
But they had just opened the front door when Scent reappeared, a rusted hacksaw dangling from her hand.
“Where the fuck do you two think you’re going?”
Freeman’s legs were shaking, his lower lip trembling. “Yes. I’m sorry. But we really must be going. The hour is late and—”
Scent’s eyes narrowed to coin slots and she lunged forward like some rabid animal. “You’ll help me with the body, fuckers! Otherwise, I tell ’em it was you that did the killing. How would you like that, Doctor?”
“They’ll never believe that. They—”
“Close the goddamned door!” Scent commanded, and Freeman did.
At that moment Scent must have noticed just how bloody her dress was. With a terrible shriek, she dropped the hacksaw to the ground, then quickly unbuttoned and ripped the dress off her body. “The world’s sins!” she shouted, tossing the dress onto her mother. Other than a pair of ratty underwear, she was naked.
Edgar took notice. He began panting heavily, separated from Freeman, and moved toward Scent, her skin still patched with blood.
“You stay away from me, freak!” she shouted, bending down to grab the hacksaw. “Or I’ll tear you apart, too!”
Edgar stopped in his tracks, stared at his feet. Blood was everywhere, perhaps even the rain outside. Freeman gazed at Edgar and Scent, murderers both. He dropped his head and sighed deeply. “We’ll help you, young lady,” he said. “But leave the hacksaw behind. And please, put on some clean clothes. You’ll give us both heart attacks.”
It wasn’t ten minutes later that Edgar and a newly dressed Scent were carrying the bloated body of Baby from the house—Edgar grasping beneath her arms and moving backward and Scent gripping her legs. Edgar performed this task without affect, jaw slack, while Scent alternated between giggles and tears. “My mother, my mother!” she cried. “Such an awful way to die!”
Outside the rain fell in sheets. Freeman stood watch, the brim of his bowler’s hat darkening, but everybody in the neighborhood was inside, windows clouded, occasionally lighted by the ghostly flickers of television screens. He pulled open the trunk of the Caddy and Scent and Edgar heaved her inside, the terrible visage of death causing Freeman to shiver.
Freeman slammed the door shut and Scent gazed off in the distance, looking beautifully vulnerable in the rain.
“The forest,” she said in a voice barely louder than a whisper. “We’ll take her deep into the forest. The crows and insects and maggots will get to her quickly. Nobody will find her.”
“Oh, they’ll find her,” Freeman said. “That much is certain.”
“You got a better idea?”
A quick shake of the head. “No, my dear. I am all out of ideas. Unless you’re willing to turn yourself in?”
“Fuck you.”
“Indeed. The forest it is.”
They drove through town with the rain blurring the windshield. Freeman drove slowly, every few minutes wiping perspiration from his forehead. Scent sat in the passenger seat chewing her nails, gazing out the window at the red, green, and yellow lights reflecting hazily off the asphalt. Edgar, meanwhile, sat in the back, body rigid, staring at his own murderous hands.
Scent directed Freeman to the edge of town, the lights from the refinery shining in the distance. They drove down a lonely county line road and eventually down a dirt path that led toward the woods surrounding Burnwood. The windows fogging, Freeman squinted his eyes and hunched forward, trying to see between the raindrops.
“Visibility is not great,” he said. “How much farther?”
Scent gnawed on her lower lip. “Not much. I know a place. We’ll give her a decent burial in the darkness.”
Freeman’s eyes darted toward his passenger. “Scent, my dear, it is far too dark and rainy to dig a grave.”
“I didn’t say nothing about digging. But she needs a burial. She was my mother. She was a fine woman, she was.”
A few more minu
tes and Scent hissed at Freeman to pull over. He did so. They were now deep in the forest, surrounded by cottonwoods and oaks, branches swaying menacingly in the wind.
“Ain’t nobody gonna look out here,” Scent said. “Too far from the county line road.” She turned around in her seat. “You ready, mister, to bury my mama?”
“Yes,” Edgar said. “She still dead?”
“I should think so. I got her good.”
Edgar again stared at his hands. “Yes. They all die someday.”
Scent opened the passenger-side door and stepped outside into the rain and wind. Edgar didn’t move an inch until Scent started pounding on his window. Then he slid across the seat, unclasped the door, and followed after Scent. Freeman remained inside the car, the headlights drilling two holes through the darkness. The only sound was the rain and the low moan of the motor.
Scent popped open the trunk, stared at the mutilated corpse, and spat on the ground. Edgar stood behind her.
“Yup, still dead,” he said. “They all die.”
“Help me get her out. We’ll lay her right over there beneath that dying tree. A good hiding place for her wounded soul.”
With some struggle, they pulled her out, leaving the trunk slick with blood. But what was so unusual about that? He was a surgeon. He lived with blood.
Scent and Durango walked slowly through the mud, branches and brambles tearing at their clothes. No moon, no stars, only rain and blackness. At Scent’s direction, they dropped the body beneath the trees. Freeman stepped out of the car, his frail body and bowler’s hat silhouetted in the headlights.
“Hurry, children,” he said. “Get back in the car.”
“Some dirt,” Scent said. “Help us throw some dirt on her. I said I’d give her a proper burial.”
Sighing deeply, Freeman limped toward the death ceremony, his shoes covered in forest mud and filth. Scent got down on her knees and started scooping dirt on the dead woman’s face. Edgar and Freeman followed her lead. Ten or so minutes they worked, but the rain washed it away almost as quickly.
Finally Freeman said, “It’s time to go. Somebody is bound to see.”
But Scent remained on her knees, hair washed straight back, mascara smearing her face. “We gotta say a prayer for her,” she whispered, then looked up at Freeman. “Do you know any prayers, Doctor?”
Freeman flicked the rain from the brim of his hat. “I’m not the religious type. I’m a man of science.”
“Well think of one. It’s my mother and she’s dead.”
Freeman gazed down at this wreck of a girl standing over the corpse of her own mother that she’d just killed. And now she wanted a prayer. Freeman removed his hat. He rolled his eyes back into his head, remembering prayers from long ago mumbled for his aunt, his father, his mother…
“Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen.”
Scent wiped away tears (or perhaps just the rain) from her eyes and whispered an amen. Then the three of them walked slowly back to the car, shoes crunching over dead leaves.
They had just reached the car when Scent grabbed a hold of Freeman’s arm and said, “Wait.”
“What is it?”
“I heard a noise. From back where my mother’s body lies.”
Edgar blinked his eyes a few times, sucked in his breath. Freeman merely shook his head and grinned. “Darling, you must be hearing things. She’s quite dead, I assure you.”
“I know she’s dead. But I heard a noise.”
As Freeman and Edgar remained leaning against the car staring into the darkness, Scent edged slowly back through the woods to where her mother’s corpse lay smeared in forest mud. When she reached the corpse, she got down to her knees and touched her mother’s face. Then she glanced up, gazed deeper into the woods. She rose to her feet and continued walking, swallowed up by the darkness.
“She’s hearing things is all,” Freeman said to Edgar. “That’s what happens with traumas.”
“The woman,” Edgar said. “Is she still dead?”
“Yes. Of course. People don’t just come back to life.”
“What about her husband?”
“Her husband?” And now Freeman realized Edgar was talking about the people he’d killed such a long, long time ago.
“We can’t undo the past, Edgar. But we shouldn’t be haunted by it, either.”
They waited by the Caddy for a long time. Clothes were soaked through and pants were covered in mud and filth. Freeman thought about searching for Scent, but he quickly dismissed the idea. It was too dark and he was bound to get lost. Then he thought about leaving her behind. Driving to the next town…
Soon she appeared from the darkness. She jogged toward the men, rubbing her arms to keep warm. Freeman opened the passenger-side door, and Scent tumbled inside.
As he hit the engine, he turned and looked at Scent, who was shivering badly. “Well, did you find the source of the noise?”
Scent stared straight ahead, not answering.
Freeman turned the car around and skidded onto the same dirt road from which they’d come. The rain had begun to slow. Suddenly afraid of silence, Freeman turned on the radio, but it was only static. He tapped on the steering wheel and listened to the tires crunching the dirt.
They’d just pulled onto the county line road when Scent spoke. Her voice was trembling. “Somebody was watching us.”
A long pause. Freeman gripped the wheel harder. “Watching us? Are you sure?”
“I saw his eyes glowing in the forest. I heard his laughter. But when I chased after him, he’d disappeared.”
The headlights of another car appeared in the distance and the sky filled with lightning.
“It’s your imagination, darling. Sometimes when we face a trauma, our brains play tricks on us. It’s quite normal. It’s quite—”
“I know what I saw. I know what I heard. Somebody saw us ditching that body. I’m scared I know who it is…”
Chapter 28
It was earlier that day that Durango tried raising his father from the dead.
For hours and hours he prayed/lied to God in the sky, prayed/lied to the devil in his midst, but with each prayer, with each desperate lie, his father remained flat on the ground, blood pooled at his feet, lips white, body in full rigor mortis.
Such an agonized expression his father had! As if he were dying over and over again, innards being torn from his body. Durango grasped his hands, stroked his hair, cried on his chest. “Lord, Lord, make this man rise!”
But his father remained dead.
“Don’t be so morose, boy,” said the devil. “It’s not your fault. This is the way it was planned.”
Yes. This is the way it was planned. There would be no miracles. There would be no bodily resurrection. He stared at the metal bowl he’d used to dig with. He didn’t think he could dig anymore. He was too exhausted. Physically. Mentally. Spiritually. But he needed to. His father needed a decent burial.
The devil wouldn’t leave him alone. “You didn’t listen to the message, boy! It’s not your father that you’re to bring back from the dead. It’s the next one! Don’t you remember his words?”
But Durango was tired of the devil. He spoke incessantly. His words were lies. “Shut up, devil,” he said. And for a while the devil did.
Back to work and he sang songs remembered from long ago and used the metal bowl to dig away dirt for the grave. The going was slow, his hands blistering, and he wanted to give up. But he kept going because if he stopped, the devil would start talking again.
His mind drifted and he thought about Scent and the sinful things they had done together. He longed to see her face, to touch her lips. But no. Not anymore. He’d never see her again, that was a near certainty. This world wasn’t his home. Onward, soldier, to the next one.
Early evening and lightning flashed and thunder shook the trees. Then the sky opened up and the rain came. Durango didn’t mind. Sins washed clean fr
om his body. Still, the digging was tedious. After so many hours, the hole was about four feet deep. It was as far as he could go. The animals might get to the old man, maybe. But it was as far as he could go.
Sobs escaping from his mouth, he took to dragging his father’s body across forest floor. The rain was heavy and it was hard to get a good grip. But not too many minutes and he heaved him into the makeshift grave, adjusting legs and arms to make him fit. His father’s body was thicker than he’d figured, and he sure wasn’t buried very deep. But, hell, it didn’t really matter. From dust you are and to dust you will return.
One bowlful at a time he piled dirt on the body and his tears mixed with the rain. “Ah, hell, ah hell. My dad. Now gone.”
Nighttime, his father gone and buried, Durango unable to raise him, and he was lonelier than he’d ever been. He huddled in the tent and ate berries and drank bourbon. In his hands was the rope his father had used to hang himself. Thick nylon stained with blood. He brought the rope to his face and closed his eyes, smelled deeply. What had it felt like when his neck snapped? What was the first vision he saw when death overcame life? He fingered the noose itself. Still plenty tight.
The truth was he’d thought about killing himself before, on those occasions when he’d failed as his role as the Messiah, when his father had regarded him with shame and derision. Death he could stand. But he’d always feared suicide would lead directly to hell and he wasn’t sure if he could stand eternity in the flames.
But now, now he wasn’t sure if he could stand another moment in this world. Would skin and brains burning be any worse than this?
Another long swallow of bourbon and he placed the noose around his neck, tightened it. He could use the same tree as his father. Nobody would find him. Nobody would care.
“You’re being ridiculous, boy. Take the noose off your neck.”
