The Dark Game

by Jonathan Janz

  One night Zendie punched me in the gut.

  He apologized afterward and told me it had been an accident. My breasts and my stomach had always been his favorite targets and I thought when he punched me in the gut it was just Zendie forgetting.

  Okay, just returned from the bar again. I should probably just carry the goddamned bottle up here (we’re drinking vodka tonight, Diary) but I’d like to believe I can escape when I want. These words judge me. They condemn me. And when I look at them, it all comes back, and I’m coming to the worst parts so I’ll just let them out.

  Zendie knows this doctor, a childhood friend named Terry Dove (like the bird or the soap, though nothing about Terry is peaceful or clean, least of all his conscience) who’s a general practitioner but is willing to do jobs on the side. Terry Dove had performed three abortions on me and I hate myself for allowing Zendie to bully me into them but in my fucked-up twisted mind I thought it was my fault I got pregnant those times and I didn’t deserve a baby yet. Zendie would always hold me afterward and tell me we could have a baby when we planned it and that somehow made it better.

  I’m back. Didn’t even know I was gone did you? More vodka.

  Four months went by. Every time Zendie looked at me he was really looking at the baby. I avoided him when I could. Even put my hands over my belly in a protective gesture and if he noticed he didn’t say anything, only stared at the growing bulge like it was an insect that needed killing.

  The last time Zendie hit me I knew it was no accident because he did it again and again, and I staggered into the bathroom and tumbled into the tub and he was grasping the shower rod and stomping on my belly and I knew he was killing baby Vivien and as stupid as it sounds I kept repeating, You said I could keep it if it was planned! You said I could keep it if it was planned!

  He didn’t let me keep it. Terry Dove confirmed it that night in his office. Helped me deliver my dead baby and on the way home I told Zendie I was going to kill him. He was calm and said, yawning, that he was divorcing me. I said, I’ll get half of your possessions and still have all of my mom’s money and he said, You won’t have shit. Said if I told anyone what he’d done he’d kill me. Said he’d give me a small amount to get me started and that my mom’s money was gone, the investments had gone belly-up.

  Do you know yet, Diary? Have you figured it out?

  Most writers want a few things. Money (it always comes down to money). Fame (it often comes down to fame). Self-respect (not everyone gives a shit about self-respect, particularly if money and fame can offset their lack of it).

  I don’t want any of those.

  Okay, maybe I want all of those, but I want something else.

  Mom died a few months after learning what Zendie had done to her. Like he had with me, he threatened to have her killed if she said anything, and like me she shut up like a whipped dog. Mom died, and I was broken, but now I’ve got a decent business, a loving partner, and my writing.

  I want more.

  Zendie told me I was too chickenshit to kill him and in a way he was right. I don’t want to go to jail. I don’t want to lose the years ahead of me. I refuse to waste any more time on account of David Goddamned Zendejas. So I won’t kill him.

  Myself.

  The most surprising part of hiring someone to murder your ex-husband is how expensive it is. In movies you can find someone to do the job for ten thousand bucks, but if anyone will do it for that sum I’d like to meet him. I must be frequenting the wrong hired-killer websites or something.

  Alicia, she knows a woman who went through something similar. A woman who had her husband killed. Alicia asked the woman how much it cost and the woman told her a hundred grand.

  I don’t have a hundred grand but if I win this competition I will, and the first thing I’m going to do is pay the man I already hired to murder Zendie. I told him I’d pay him double if he’d videotape the killing and read a short script I prepared.

  I don’t want to go to jail, but I do want David Zendejas to die an ugly, nasty death. I want his secrets to come out so that the congregations he has led will see he’s a monster. A dead monster who got castrated and tortured and raped with a machete.

  Is it happening right now? Has it already happened? That was the deal: Five thousand bucks up front, the rest of the money after Zendie is dead.

  The best part?

  I have an alibi. I will have a publishing contract. I’ll have what money I need.

  Zendie, my man is coming for you.

  You fucked with the wrong woman.

  Chapter Three

  His body aching from his flight through the forest, Will lay in bed and remembered the summer of his tenth year.

  Their house backed up to a dense forest, a place his brother avoided because it was infested with poison ivy. But a little poison ivy, Will reasoned, was better than being bullied by BJ. His parents would’ve killed him had they known where he was, but his parents weren’t here, were they? And BJ was probably with his friends staring at Playboys and talking about which girls in their class had the biggest tits.

  Will spotted a trail, a thin swath of weedless ground, full of crisscrossing roots and dried silt. He followed it for ten minutes. As he walked, the savage July heat descended on the forest. He was considering turning back when he noticed something that froze him where he stood.

  An abandoned house.

  Holy crap, he thought. He’d never spotted this derelict structure before, and he doubted any of his friends had either.

  Which meant the discovery was entirely his.

  Heart slamming, Will headed for the ruin.

  One of the walls was missing, the others intact except for broken windows, which gaped at him like hollowed-out eye sockets. He eyed the dimpled roof warily. The door was gone, and it was this opening that afforded him a view of the missing floor and basement beneath.

  He lingered outside the house, knowing he should turn back. That was the intelligent thing to do. The mature thing.

  He climbed the steps and peered inside. His eyes swept the underside of the roof, which looked as if it had been riddled with shotgun blasts.

  A strident caw made him cry out. He peered up, spotted the blackbird sheltering in a rafter and covered his thundering heart.

  He didn’t notice the man staring at him from below until a voice said, “Hey, champ.”

  Hissing, Will sprawled at the base of the porch and scrambled to his feet. He’d sprinted a goodly distance before the words the man was shouting registered.

  “Don’t leave, champ! Aw, please don’t leave!”

  Will cast a frightened glance backward, and the first seed of curiosity brought his mad dash to a halt. What kind of man, he wondered, lived in the foundation of an abandoned house?

  A lunatic, that’s who, a voice declared.

  Will considered. The chances of encountering a lunatic in this sleepy town were remote. More likely it was a homeless person. Will licked his lips, keenly aware of his thirst. And if I’m thirsty, he thought, how parched must the man in the house be?

  It’s not just a man, the voice contended, it’s a bum. Homeless people can be dangerous. Unstable even.

  He still needs water, Will thought.

  He mulled it over, rummaged for the word his father sometimes used.

  Indigent.

  The man was an indigent, and were Will’s father here, he would have had the man arrested. Therefore, Will went home, packed a cooler, and returned to the shack.

  Despite the basement shadows, he could clearly make out the man’s figure. He lay in the ruins like a discarded mannequin, his clothes dusty and pale blue. The guy was older, fifty at least, and had a sunken face.

  The man gazed up at him with woeful eyes and reclined awkwardly on a pile of boards. The pant leg covering the guy’s calf glistened a dark red.

  The man gave him
a wan smile. “Doesn’t look too good, does it, champ?”

  Will slowly shook his head.

  “I was trying to lower down here when a board gave way.” The man glanced at his leg and winced. “Must’ve busted it when I fell. It hurts like a sonofabitch, apologies for my language.”

  Will relaxed a little. Something about the word sonofabitch made the man seem less like a fairy-tale troll trying to lure him under a bridge.

  Shielding his eyes against a shaft of sunlight, the man said, “I was scared you wouldn’t come back.”

  “My parents will wonder—”

  “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

  When Will didn’t answer, the man chuckled. “I guess that’s what bad people always say, isn’t it?” The man closed one eye and spoke in a crone’s falsetto. “‘Don’t be afraid of me, sonny. I ain’t gonna hurt ya!’”

  Will grinned despite himself. The man made a decent witch.

  Will gestured behind him. “I brought you some stuff.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve got some water with you. I’d just about kill for a drink of water.” He grimaced. “Great choice of words, huh?”

  Will got hold of the cooler. “How do I get it to you?”

  “Looks like hard plastic. Should be okay if you drop it down.”

  Will nodded, was about to heave the cooler, when he paused. “You promise you’ll give it back? My mom would kill me if she knew I was doing this.”

  “It’d probably be better if your mom didn’t know about me.”

  Will took a step back and saw the man’s eyes spring wide in fear.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” the man said hoarsely. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just…shit.” He shook his head. “Everything I say sets off alarms in my head. I can’t imagine how it sounds to you. I just— please don’t leave, champ. I swear I’m not dangerous. I don’t know how else to say it.”

  “Why don’t you want me to tell my parents?”

  “You know how people are. They hear of a homeless person around, they get worried. They get worried, they call the police.”

  “Is that what you are? Homeless?”

  “Champ, I’m real thirsty. Could I have a drink? Then I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Will heaved the cooler into the open foundation. It thumped down inches from the man, and without speaking, the man manipulated the cooler lid, came out with a bottle. With palsied hands, he tilted the bottle and chugged it in a few gulps. As he wolfed a ham sandwich, he hummed a tune Will recognized because his mother listened to the same kind of music: Glenn Miller’s ‘Moonlight Serenade’.

  Soon the man was arranging the empty cooler on the tip of a board and raising it to where Will waited. He was about to leave when a thought hit him so hard that his fear returned in a black gush.

  “A doctor,” Will said.

  The man stared at Will confusedly. “What’s that, champ?”

  “You didn’t ask me to get a doctor.”

  The man shook his head, not getting it.

  “You have a broken leg. You’re bleeding. But you didn’t ask me to get you a doctor. Why?”

  The man’s mouth worked a moment, then he made a vague gesture. “I can’t afford one.”

  “That doesn’t matter. He’d have to help you. He took the.…” He flailed for the word, couldn’t find it. “He took an oath.”

  The man gazed at him for a long moment. Then, perhaps realizing he wasn’t going to fool Will so easily, he blew out a disgusted breath. “All right, champ. You want the story, I’ll give it to you. But I warn you, it’s a long one.”

  So the man told him how he got laid off, and his wife left him because he couldn’t pay the bills. He lost his house, got sick, and because he didn’t have health insurance, he nearly died. He’d thought this old shack might make a good shelter until winter.

  The man rubbed his kneecap. “I could really use some Tylenol. You got any at your house?”

  “You can’t come there,” Will said quickly.

  The man held up a hand. “I didn’t mean that. I was just hoping you’d fetch some painkillers.”

  So Will returned that day and twice the following day. He learned the man’s name was Peter.

  He brought Peter whatever he could scrounge from their medicine cabinet. He knew his mom would get wise to him eventually, but what was he supposed to do? Peter was badly injured. Will didn’t need an oath to know you helped someone in need. Especially if he was poor.

  In idle moments, Will found himself humming ‘Moonlight Serenade’.

  The third day he spent the better part of the afternoon hearing about Peter’s two daughters. Peter teared up as he spoke about them and would rant about his wife. He called her The Bitch, and when the shock at hearing her referred to that way wore off, it made Will laugh because of how Peter would clap a hand to his mouth every time he said it, like it was always an accident. The Bitch, Will decided, deserved the things he said about her. Peter wasn’t perfect – What man is perfect, champ? – but he tried to be a good dad, and for Will, whose father was about as involved as the guy who brought salt for their water softener every couple months, this was a highly admirable trait.

  When his family went to town on Friday night, Will stole over to the drugstore and used the money he’d secreted to purchase more pain relievers.

  He’d begun to worry about Peter. The man’s complexion had grown sallow, and the dark circles under his eyes looked like more than the product of poor sleep.

  Peter cried a great deal that evening and thanked Will over and over for his goodness. Not his kindness or his generosity, but his goodness. That word really stuck in Will’s mind because it was so different to the way his family spoke about him.

  Will does love his comic books, his mom would say.

  He needs to screw his head on straight, his dad would answer, unoriginal even when he was demeaning.

  BJ’s verdict? Will’s a scared little pussy.

  They all regarded Will with a toxic mixture of bemusement and contempt.

  But not Peter. With Peter it was always Will’s goodness, his willingness to do the right thing.

  They’d talk about other stuff too. Peter would say:

  I love horror movies, champ. Which one’s your favorite?

  Or: There’s nothing wrong with using your imagination. It could take you places.

  Then: I used to be afraid of the dark too. Don’t you sweat it.

  So it didn’t feel strange at all one evening to lower himself into the foundation to console Peter when he got emotional about his daughters. It didn’t feel weird or wrong to hug Peter and let the man sob into his shoulder.

  Those feelings would come later.

  On the morning of the fifth day – it was Sunday, so his dad was home for breakfast – he heard his father saying something about a manhunt. Will looked up from his waffles and noticed how his mom shivered despite the equatorial heat in their cramped little kitchen.

  “They think he headed to Indy,” his dad was saying. “Figured he could blend in down there.”

  “Maybe he’s nearby,” his mom said.

  “Sharon,” his dad answered as though his mom had an IQ commensurate with the syrup bottle, “what would he want with Shadeland? He’d stick out like a sore thumb here.”

  Chastened, his mom returned to her toast and coffee. Will waited for someone to take up the conversation, but his mom had opted out and BJ was looking at a sports magazine.

  “What did the man do?” Will asked.

  His dad looked at him blankly.

  Will felt his cheeks burn. “The man they’re after. Why’d he go to jail?”

  His mom tensed. “That’s not something to discuss while we’re eating, honey.”

  “Dad brought it up.”

  “He butchered his family,” his d
ad said flatly. “That answer your question?”

  Will’s stomach dropped. “What’s his name?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  Will looked at his dad’s hostile face and thought, Why can’t you be more like Peter?

  Which was why it came as such a gut punch when his dad answered, “Peter Bates. The Morton Mangler.”

  That brought BJ out of his Sports Illustrated. “I thought you said he was from Peoria.”

  “Morton’s just outside Peoria,” his dad said.

  “How did he kill them?” Will asked. He felt like he might puke up his waffles, but he had to know.

  His dad set down his fork and folded his hands on the table. “I’ve kept quiet about your twisted fascination with blood and guts.” When Will’s mom started to intervene, he said, “And just because your mom is too gutless to put her foot down doesn’t mean I have to let my son become a freak.”

  Will forced himself to meet his father’s gaze. “How did he kill them?”

  His dad’s eyes widened, an ugly grin contorting his normally expressionless face. “You want to know how he killed them? I’ll tell you how he killed them.”

  “Richard,” his mom pleaded.

  His dad ticked off facts on his fingers. “First Bates tied them up. His wife and his little girls. He raped his wife. He used tree loppers to cut off her hands at the wrists.”

  His dad counted off another finger. “He tied tourniquets around his wife’s bleeding stumps so he could torture her longer. They speculate she was in and out of consciousness while Bates raped and lopped the hands off his little girls—”

  “Please, Richard,” his mom said.

  “—and then staunched the blood from their stumps so they could witness their mother’s decapitation.”

  “Stop it!” his mom yelled.

  “Then he cut off their heads. Does that satisfy your morbid curiosity, Will?”