by David Beers
“We’re looking for him,” Alan said. “We know his name and who he is. We’ll find him before he ever has a chance to get to you, okay?”
The girl’s eyes moved away from the table and to Alan for the first time. “I’m glad you’ll try, but I don’t know if that’s true, detective.”
“I’ll see you later, okay?” Eve said from the front door.
“Sure. Enjoy work.”
“You going to be okay?”
“Yeah.” Kaitlin nodded to the front of the house. “He’s out there.”
“You don’t like him, do you?”
Kaitlin shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Eve stared for a few more seconds before opening the door. “Okay, I’ll be home this evening. Call me if you need anything.”
“I will. Thank you, Eve.”
“Anytime.”
And then Kaitlin was alone in the house. It felt better here than her apartment, but she still didn’t like being alone.
You’re not. The cop’s outside.
And he was. She could see his car from where she sat, right across the street. She wondered why he hadn’t parked in the driveway, but quickly figured that he wouldn’t have as clear a view of both directions.
What about him?
Did she like him being here?
He was different during their conversation today, if only slightly. He seemed to be there more today, as if what she said actually mattered. Before, she could tell he only wanted one thing: the knowledge she had.
He was outside, though. Not leaving. Had been sitting there since they finished talking, so at least two hours. Kaitlin hadn’t slept yet and truthfully didn’t know when she’d be able to again. She wasn’t growing tired. The cop outside looked like he’d been up for a while too, but he was still up—protecting her instead of sleeping.
What choice do I have? She wondered.
None. Not until Detective Merchent gets back.
16
A Portrait of a Young Man
“Cindy’s been telling us a lot about you,” Sophie Grace said.
John put his glass of water down and looked to Cindy. “Oh yeah? What has she said, Mrs. Grace?”
Cindy smiled at him, clearly happy to see that his personality didn’t disappear just because he sat at her parent’s dinner table.
“She said that you have tried to get a bit funny with her,” Daniel Grace, her father, said.
An English phrase, but John knew what it meant—forcing himself on her sexually.
John’s face flooded with embarrassment as he whipped around to the man sitting on his left. Her father's face was stern, looking as if he might take the fork he held in his hand and promptly pop John’s eye with a single stab. John didn’t know what to say, how to respond, though he opened his mouth to try. It hung there like a broken drawbridge for a few seconds.
“Daddy! Stop!” Cindy said from John’s right, giggling as if she might not ever stop.
Mr. Grace’s face morphed immediately at the sound of his daughter’s voice, turning to a smile that resembled Cindy’s—the one John was so used to.
“There you are, my boy,” he said. “Where do you think she got her sense of humor from? Certainly not her mother.” Mr. Grace pointed his head slightly to the left. “She wouldn’t know a joke if she slept next to it.”
“Hush, Daniel. I’m sure young Mr. Hilt doesn’t need you making him laugh while he’s trying to enjoy his dinner.”
“They’re awful, John,” Cindy said. “Pay them no mind.”
“She tells us she calls you The American and that you are repentant for the war you and your people started. Is this true? We’ve been waiting for a representative to show up and apologize for a good two hundred years now,” Mr. Grace said.
“Well, I’m not sure that’s fully accurate.” John was smiling now as he dipped his fork into the food on his plate. “I think she may have fibbed a bit there.”
Dinner went on in the same light-hearted manner. Questions moved from jokes to serious things, back to jokes, and in the end they all sat at the table, full with food.
“I enjoyed this,” John said, placing his napkin on his plate. “Thank you, I haven’t had a home cooked meal since I started school.”
“You’re the first young man Cindy’s invited over,” Mrs. Grace said.
“You’re seventeen, right, John?” Mr. Grace asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Ever had a cigar?”
“Daddy, no,” Cindy said.
“Hey, he’s nearly a legal adult.” Mr. Grace shifted his gaze back to John. “And it’s not as if I’m offering him a glass of brandy to go with it.”
John had never smoked a cigar in his life and certainly hadn't expected starting tonight.
Odd, no, that you’ve killed someone but won’t touch tobacco? He ran from the thought as if it a virus capable of infecting his entire mind.
“Sure,” John said.
“Okay then; I’ll meet you on the back porch in just a few minutes.” Mr. Grace stood up and looked at the two ladies.
Mrs. Grace shook her head. “Come along, Cindy. Help me with the washing up while your father acts as if it were still the 19th Century.”
John hadn’t stopped smiling the entire dinner. He was smiling now. Apart from that one thought, the entire night had been perfect. As he stood, he felt a bit nervous about going outside alone with Cindy’s dad, but at the same time—the man was about as unthreatening as a father could be.
John walked out onto the back porch. The night was chilly but not cold; he found a chair and sat down, the overhead light casting a glow across the entire porch.
Mr. Grace walked out a few minutes later.
“Here you go,” he said, handing a cigar to John. He looked at the cylinder filled with tobacco, a thin cigar, especially when compared to Mr. Grace’s.
“Now, two things: cigars aren’t meant to be inhaled—if you do that you’ll throw up. Also they burn slow. If you’ve ever smoked a cigarette, they burn up pretty fast. Don’t try to puff it to death, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” John said.
“Put it in your mouth.”
Cindy’s father lit a large flame at the end of the cigar. “Puff,” he said.
John did and watched as the flame peaked and valleyed, peaked and valleyed. Finally, Mr. Grace removed the flame.
“There you go. Now just puff slowly when you feel like it. Also, don’t tell the police I gave it to you, as you’re still underage.”
Neither said anything for a few minutes while both smoked their cigars. John watched the smoke come out of his mouth in huge puffs, floating away into the air around him.
“Cindy likes you a lot,” Mr. Grace said.
John was quiet for a second, and then said softly, “I like her a lot too.”
“Be careful with her, John. You seem a good fellow, but you’re both young. Be kind to her, no matter what; she’s my only girl and like any father, I don’t want to see her hurt.”
Cindy didn’t come to John’s mind right then; Harry did. Harry and his constant pushing. Harry and the need that seemed to reside in John as well. The need to destroy.
“I will, Mr. Grace. I’ll be kind to her.”
“Your stop, sir,” Cindy said, mimicking a car service.
The vehicle idled on the road next to John’s dorm.
“Thanks for tonight. It was fun,” he said.
“Daddy didn’t scare you too much during your cigar, did he?”
“Nope, not at all. He was cool. We talked a lot about the differences between England and America.”
“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yup.” John leaned in and kissed her, holding it for just a second before stepping out of the car. He closed the door, turned around, waved, and watched as she drove off.
John stood on the road looking across the street. Another car had sat there a previous night, according to Harry. Another car that John went to, killed the person inside, and
then discarded the body like cheap trash.
Three deaths.
Three murders and he only remembered one.
“I can tell you, John. It’s not about remembering. It’s about being in the moment.”
John didn’t need to turn around to know who spoke. The voice was always there, even in his dreams.
“Harry. Please,” John whispered.
“You feel it this time, don’t you? You’re starting to want it again.”
John said nothing, just stared at the empty spot across the street.
“What’s it feel like? Will you tell me?”
And the scary thing was, John wanted to tell him. He wanted to say it out loud. A part of him hated that fact with a fury that would wreck worlds if unleashed, but another part …
Craved it.
“Go on. Let it come,” Harry said.
John’s eyes narrowed, out of his control, as the thoughts flooded him. “I want to hurt someone.”
“Then why don’t you do it? What’s there to stop you?”
Nothing. Nothing had stopped him yet. Nothing would stop him because he was careful, because Harry was careful.
“That’s exactly right,” Harry said. “You can do whatever you want as long as you’re careful. You can hurt as many people as you want, and why shouldn’t you? The rest of your life is lived like a saint, John. Hurting someone every now and then, it’s not going to matter in the long run. Everyone dies.”
Another truth. Everyone dies. Every day, people leave Earth going to whatever awaited on the other side.
“Giving them a little push isn’t that big of a deal. Let’s go inside and talk about it, huh?”
John turned around, his eyes still slits, and walked past Harry. He heard footsteps fall in next to him and the two brothers went to John’s dorm side by side.
John paced back and forth in his room.
He’d been pacing for two hours, though he didn’t know it.
“Why not tonight?” Harry asked.
John shook his head but said nothing.
“John, you’ll be doing her a favor. Do you remember how bad she hurt when you broke up with her last? Do you want to put her through that again? Because we both know this isn’t going to last forever. You’re going to break up and consequently break her heart. That’s not who you are at all, and we both know that too. You love her. So do this. Keep her from hurting.”
The words Harry spoke made sense. Not fully. John could still understand their perverseness, the twisted nature underlying each syllable. Yet, Harry was right. John couldn’t possibly think this would last forever. Eventually, they’d part, and when they did …
Cindy’s heart would break. Totally. He did it once and could barely keep from killing himself. What if he did it forever? What if she killed herself? Then the pain he caused as well as her death would be on his shoulders.
“You’re seeing the truth now. Nothing lasts forever, John. Everything changes, and sometimes change is for the best. Look here.”
John stopped his pacing for the first time since entering the dorm and looked at Harry, who stood up and went to the desk, opening the bottom drawer. He put his hand down into the darkness of the cavity, felt around for a second, and then brought his hand back out.
He held a gun. A black thing that looked heavy.
“This is how you make sure you don’t hurt her. You don’t have to do this like you did the others—of course not. Neither of us wants to actually hurt Cindy. Not horribly anyway. This will allow you to do what you need to do and at the same time, let her go peacefully.”
“Peacefully? With a bullet?” John said.
“It’s a lot more peaceful than the people in that abandoned building. If you do it correctly, she’ll die almost immediately.”
The energy inside John kept building and building. It started when Harry opened his mouth outside … yet, that might not be right either. It started when he finished in the abandoned building. Harry was gone but what did that mean? Not that the underlying desires were gone, only that he couldn’t see them right then. It started and built until this moment, where John stared at a gun, contemplating murder.
“How did you get it?” John said.
“You look hard enough, you’ll find anything.”
“How will this work? I’m going to use this gun and then how am I not going to get caught, Harry?”
His dead friend smiled. “Guns aren’t legal over here. It’s not registered because it can’t be. It’s completely off the grid. You simply wipe it down and leave it there. No one will ever know.”
John stood looking at the weapon for a second.
“It’s time. You’ve held off long enough. No one could blame you.”
John took the gun from Harry’s hand and felt the weight of it. He turned it around, looking at all sides. It felt …
“Right,” Harry finished.
And it did.
“Go on.”
John moved to his bed, and still standing, picked up the phone with his free hand. He used the gun to dial Cindy’s number. Not a thought passed through his head about the late hour.
“Hello?” Cindy answered.
“Hey, it’s me. Are you awake?”
“Yeah. What’s going on? You’re not asleep? We have school tomorrow.”
“Act normal,” Harry said from behind.
“You’re up, too, so don’t play Mommy. You want to go for a drive? I can’t sleep.”
“A drive?” she asked.
“Yeah, I want to see you again. I thought we might be able to drive around for a little bit.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know. Wherever. We normally walk everywhere, but I thought we could drive a little bit. Maybe out of the city?”
Silence on the other side for just a second. “Sure, why not, American? You ready now?”
He nodded as he spoke, “Yup.”
“Okay, I’ll be over in twenty.”
Harry sat in the back.
John had never ridden in a car with Harry before. He had never felt comfortable with Harry near Cindy before, either.
Two firsts on this car ride.
John spoke as they drove, not knowing a word he said or hearing a word from Cindy. His mind was on autopilot, going through the conversation’s motions as the wind blew in from the open window. That felt good. The cool night air. Harry was quiet in the back of the car, his back and head leaning against the seat, letting the wind blow through his ravaged hair. John could see him in the rearview, and found himself looking to Harry every few minutes. He was always staring back, and his eyes held a glee that mirrored John's own.
Thoughts of stopping this floated through his head like dazed butterflies, quickly being gobbled up by Venus Flytraps every time one had the nerve to try and escape its place of silence. John’s head no longer tolerated anything except forward motion.
“How far do you want to go?” The first question that Cindy asked which had any bearing on John.
John looked up at Harry. He nodded back.
“Just a few more miles. We’re going to have to head back and get in bed soon.”
They drove in silence for a bit, and John heard Cindy say, “I’m glad we did this. It’s been nice.”
“It has,” John said, staring straight ahead at the dark road.
The few miles went and passed with neither of them speaking. Finally, though, John saw what he wanted. A road up ahead, a dirt road with a single street light over it.
“Would you want to get frisky for a minute?” he said with a smile.
“Right now? You have a condom?”
“I brought one just in case you said yes.”
“You’re a dirty, dirty, American. But I’m okay with it. Up here at this road?” Cindy said, smiling too.
“Yeah, that’ll work for me,” John and Harry said in unison.
17
Present Day
John parked the car. He hadn’t understood how Harry had been dri
ving, and also didn’t understand how they switched places again. Maybe Harry was right about a lot of this. Maybe John didn’t need to stress the small stuff; he should let those things fall away.
“We should stop,” John said. “We don’t need to go into her apartment.”
Harry didn’t even bother responding. He just got out of the car and closed the door behind him. John knew he’d said a token statement—not that he didn’t understand he was condemning his soul to hell with each passing moment. It didn’t matter though. Nothing was going to stop. Harry got out of the car without a moment of protestation because he knew it as well. Both of them were all in.
John looked at him walk across the street, heading to Ms. Starbucks’s apartment.
John opened the car door, checking the back of his pants to make sure he still felt the gun.
“Hurry up,” Harry said. “I don’t want to spend all day here. We have a lot of places to go.”
The sun was over the horizon, though still early in its reign. John didn’t notice it or what Harry said either. His eyes were narrowing and his mind focusing on what mattered—the part that came next.
They reached the stairs and John stepped in front of Harry with ease. He took them two at a time, the gun pressing against his t-shirt each time his leg rose. In ten seconds he stood in front of Ms. Starbucks’s door.
“You’re sure this is the one?” John said.
Harry nodded. “One hundred percent.”
John leaned against the door, to the right of the peep hole, so that she couldn’t see him. When she opened it, he’d pulverize her face by kicking the door. He didn’t pull the weapon out; being seen with that wouldn’t help the situation any. He would have plenty of time to use it once inside.
John knocked.
Thirty seconds passed and he knocked again but heard only silence from inside.
“She’s not here,” John said, his voice low, still not moving from his position next to the door.
