by Paul Cleave
My short ragged breaths tasted of vomit. I had to keep wiping my sleeve across my forehead as sweat itched my skin and tickled my eyes. I slammed the car through the gears. The sky kept on lightening, the purple light filling the killing hour and, as night fell away, life was being injected into the new day around me. The trees and the plants and the lampposts-they all looked purple, and where there was light there was life, but where I had been there was only death. Somewhere on the other side of the world people were arriving to Sunday night and the early hours of Monday. Light and dark. Good and evil. The purple hour had brought me into Hell. Everything around me looked like it belonged on some foreign planet, a planet where Evil still lurked and He is a god there, and the world is full of only dark because Evil: He is dark. Then I realized I already was on that planet.
It took just under ten minutes to get to Kathy’s. There was a dark sedan parked there that hadn’t been there before. I ran up the driveway glancing around the garden. Trees and bushes and if there was a hiding Cyris I didn’t see him.
All the lights were off. I thought about yelling out, but that would only make Cyris hurry. I started with the ground floor, succeeding only in turning it into an obstacle course that chewed up more time. I reached the second floor just as the car outside started and revved loudly. I got back to the front door in time to see Cyris pulling away from the house.
I found her in the master bedroom. I found her and my fingers unrolled and the flashlight thumped onto the carpet. I didn’t bother walking inside because I could see what I needed to from the doorway. I stepped back, crying as I stumbled down the stairs. I fell twice, each time catching hold of the banister. I tripped on the driveway and skinned my knees and hands, but I felt no pain. I paused at the car, my mind empty. It was as if all thought and all fear had fallen through a trapdoor into my heart. In the passenger seat were my shorts. They were covered in blood. Cyris had put them there.
If we’d gone to the police. .
But we hadn’t. And it’s a mistake I’m correcting now. Albeit way too late.
The cellphone rings and I’m back in the present. I’d forgotten I had it. I have to pat at my pockets to figure out where it is. When I look at the display I see the number is blocked. I know who it’s going to be.
“Where is she?” I ask, opening the phone.
“She’s with me,” he says.
“I’m going to the police.”
“And I’m going to kill her,” he says. “I want my money.”
“You’ll kill us anyway.”
“I probably will. But right now she’s alive. And in five minutes she won’t be. If I see one cop I’m going to gut your wife like a fish. You’ve got five minutes to get here.”
“Get where?”
“Where it all began,” he says, and he hangs up.
I look at my phone. Not calling the police in the past hasn’t worked. Being arrested by Landry didn’t work either. Maybe now is the time to give them a chance.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Jo thinks her arm is broken. It happened on the beach. One moment she was looking for the keys, eyes down studying the sand, knowing it was pointless. Then Cyris was with her again. He was angry. Before when he hit her, when he manhandled her, that seemed tame in comparison to the beach. He struck her in the face with a closed fist. She tasted blood. He twisted her arm and she felt and heard something snap, and before she could scream he pushed her face-first into the sand.
That was the moment she was sure she was going to die. She was going to suffocate. Or he was going to drag her into the water. Where the hell was Charlie?
He hit her again. Hard. Right in the side of the head. Things got dark then, and she could feel herself being dragged by her broken arm, but the pain wasn’t there, and she wasn’t really there either, she had gone somewhere else, her mind leaving her body.
She came to again in the car. She was lying in the trunk. At least that’s what she thought. It smelled like a car, and she could hear the engine and the space she was confined in was bouncing around, and every now and then it would light up red as he put on the brake lights. When she went to scream, she couldn’t. Her mouth was taped closed. Her hands were still cuffed in front of her, but tape had been run up the length of her forearms, keeping them pinned together.
The car pulls over and goes dark. The door opens and closes, then the trunk is popped open. Cyris stands there looking down over her. He looks bad. Disfigured, almost. Burned. What the hell happened? He has a coil of rope over his shoulder. He has a black satchel in his hand. He reaches in and grabs her by the hair and pulls her out. It hurts more than her broken arm.
“Let’s go,” he says, and drags her until she can find her feet.
She’s at the pasture Charlie pointed out to her. In the distance are what he was calling Dalí’s trees. She doesn’t see why. There’s a wire fence and Cyris climbs over it then pulls her over.
“Don’t worry,” he tells her. “Your husband is on his way.”
They walk through the pasture-well, Cyris doing the walking and Jo is the one being pulled. She imagines this is what the girls went through the other night. She is petrified. So scared there’s every chance her heart will stop before they reach the trees. Last time Charlie came here he was trying to save a stranger, and he failed. Last time he had a tire iron and no shotgun. This time it’s all opposites. The only thing that hasn’t changed is Charlie-he’s the wrong person to be coming for her.
They reach the trees. Cyris switches on a flashlight. The trees look like they’ve been dragged from the set of some B-grade sci-fi movie, perhaps the same one she seems to be caught in. Everything is eerily silent, as if the sound guy came along earlier and packed the bugs and insects into containers and took them away.
There’s a clearing up ahead. He pushes her hard into a tree. “Move and I’ll cut your arms off,” he tells her. She believes him. She doesn’t move.
He wraps a piece of wire so it goes around her neck and around the tree. It’s tight. Any tighter and it’d cut off her air supply. Then he stands in front of her. He stares at her. He looks her up and down and she thinks he’s determining her worth. He hates her. He’s going to kill her. The best she can hope for is that he does it quick.
He steps forward, tugging at a roll of duct tape. He wraps pieces around her waist and arms, so she can’t move her hands anywhere. Then he disappears. He moves past the edge of the clearing. He moves into the darkness. He’s gone for five minutes. And then he comes back.
“Your husband is here,” he says.
She tries to beg him to leave them alone, but her words are muffled against the tape.
He steps behind the tree. The wire around her throat suddenly gets tighter. She can feel her eyes bulging out. She can’t breathe.
There is movement ahead. Charlie is sneaking through the trees. Suddenly he appears at the edge of the clearing. He sees her, and she knows that he knows it’s a trap, just as he knows if he doesn’t run forward to loosen the wire around her throat she’s going to die. He freezes. She doesn’t know what she would do in his situation, but she knows she wants him to help her.
“Hold on,” he says, and he runs forward, pointing the shotgun all around him as he does. There’s nothing to shoot at. He reaches her and tries pulling on the wire, but there’s no slack, and it only gets tighter when he pulls it outward. “Fuck,” he says, and he moves behind the tree. “Fuck,” he repeats, and she hears him putting down the shotgun to try and loosen the wire.
She knows how it’s going to go from here.
She suspects Charlie knows too.
The wire slackens off. She pulls in a deep breath. Then there’s a thud, followed by a bigger thud. She’s heard enough people getting hit in the head and falling over this week to know what’s just happened. She begins to cry.
Cyris drags Charlie out in front of her. He tosses the black satchel onto the ground. The material has taken on a plastic look and the zip has been gummed open. It’s bee
n burned. He uses the rope he brought to secure Charlie’s ankles. Then he claps a set of handcuffs onto Charlie’s wrists. He throws the rope over one of the branches. He grabs it and pulls down. He goes about his work methodically and without delay.
Charlie’s feet are dragged into the air. Cyris keeps pulling on the rope. Charlie’s jacket falls over his head and hangs from his arms. The handcuffs stop it from coming off. His T-shirt bunches up around his chest.
Cyris moves to his satchel and a moment later a can of lighter fluid comes into view.
Oh, Jesus.
Jo struggles against the duct tape, against the wire, but it’s no good.
Cyris pops open the can and starts spraying it over Charlie.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Yeah, he likes it out here, yeah, he likes it out here a lot. That’s why he’s come back, to the home of his failure, the home of his nightmare. He’s come to right the wrongs and, this time, this time, there will be no wrongs. He likes it out here, yet he hates it too, because it represents all that’s bad in his life: the wound to his stomach, the money that he lost. His mind isn’t operating the way it ought to be; his thoughts aren’t balanced-or are they? Hate and like balance each other out, don’t they? He isn’t sure, and this ought to really scare him, but the night is warm, the wind has died down, the pasture is silent, and revenge is at hand. Life is good.
Life is bad. Because the headache is back and it’s raging out of control and it’s all Charlie Feldman’s fault. Charlie is really going to pay-big time. He’s going to wish he was dead and he’s going to keep on wishing that. Death lasts a long time, yeah, a real long time, but for Charlie the dying itself will last forever.
His body is fucked up and once he gets home tonight, he’ll call his brother-in-law. He’ll get help. He can’t go on like this any longer. The tin of lighter fluid is half-empty and he wishes he had brought along more. He wishes he had several liters so he could make Charlie cook for hours, but all he had access to was the last tin in the car. Maybe he ought to just burn a limb at a time. Or maybe he ought to burn the bitch first and make him watch. Setting them alight at the same time would be a waste, and anyway, he doesn’t have enough fluid for both. His hands shake at the prospect of having so many things he can do, and he has plenty of time to decide. He’s experiencing something he hasn’t felt in a long time-excitement.
His mind is throbbing and he raises a hand to the side of his head. When all this is over he will go home and take more painkillers. He doesn’t know where he’ll get them, but he’ll find a way. Maybe he should call his brother-in-law. Shit-didn’t he just think that?
His mind is wandering. He looks at Charlie. Charlie is starting to come to. Then he looks down at the lighter fluid in his hand. It would be a waste of money if he didn’t use the entire tin.
So many options. Life is good.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
My world is upside down.
I remember seeing those contraptions on TV where you can hang upside down from a bar, clipped on with special shoes. It’s supposed to be relaxing, to do something positive for your body-maybe realign your spine or soul or consolidate your positive energy. It’s pretty obvious the person who invented it wasn’t soaked in lighter fluid at the time.
Cyris has his eyes fixed on me, but he’s not really seeing me. I think he’s gone somewhere, he’s gone to whatever place his mind sometimes takes him. Could be a happy place, but I hate to think what a happy place for a guy like this could be. He has my KA-BAR knife tucked into the waistband of his pants.
The fluid smells like eroding batteries. It comes at me in sharp little streams, splashing onto my face. My nose begins to burn. It leaks into my sinuses as I cough. The back of my mouth feels like it’s been ripped to shreds. My eyes are burning a hole through to the back of my skull.
The pain spreads like ripples in a pool of gasoline. I cry out and clutch my hands to my nose. I start shaking my head, hard enough to become disorientated. I’m desperate to suck in more air, but I can’t. Cyris keeps spraying more fluid at me. I wriggle around on the rope like a worm on a hook, knowing the more I scream, the more fluid he’ll get into my mouth. Then suddenly he stops. He’s either got tired or he’s thought of something else to do. He takes a few steps back and holds a hand against the side of his head. Does he have the same headache I have? My breath tastes of fire and feels ragged, as if I’m swallowing a well-used chisel.
I start to choke. He starts to laugh. I wonder how far away the police are. I phoned them just before I got here. I fought with the decision the whole drive. They’ll come here, won’t they? All I have to do is keep Cyris talking.
“It’ll hurt more once I’ve lit it. You do know that, right?”
“Listen, Cyris-”
“They say the true torture is in the anticipation. I’m interested in your opinion.”
I look over to Jo. I blink away the tears, but more keep coming. A sharp pain continues to race back and forth from behind my nose to my brain.
I grit my teeth, then spit out a sentence. “I know why you killed them.”
He shrugs. “What are you talking about?”
“Frank McClory paid you to kill his wife.” My head is throbbing. Just how long can a person live hanging upside down? Before being set on fire? “Frank knew he’d be the prime suspect so he wanted you to kill Kathy in a unique way. Killing Luciana diverted focus away from Frank because it made the women look like they’d caught the attention of a complete psychopath. He didn’t want them killed at home because he didn’t want to be the first one on the scene. He wanted them found together, but I ruined your plans.”
“The plans,” he says, his burnt face contorting so he can fit the words out in one large clump. “You-ruined-more-than-just-my-plan, you-ruined-my-fucking-life.” Then, relaxed all of a sudden, he’s waving his hands like a conductor, as if his small outburst never happened. “Go on.”
“This sadistic lunatic thing is just a facade to hide what you really are.”
“And what would that be?”
“A cold-blooded killer. A paid hit man.”
He starts clapping. A slow, patronizing round of applause that would make stage actors sick to their stomachs. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “the one and only Charlie Feldman.”
“I just hope my handwriting wasn’t too messy on that hundred-dollar note.”
The clapping stops as if some invisible force has just grabbed his arms and frozen them in the air. His lips become a thin scar. They stay that way for a few more seconds before forming into a grin. It becomes the sort of smile I’d expect to see on a demon.
“You took my money?”
I nod and my body begins to swing around in a small arc.
“You took the money.” He starts to laugh, but I doubt he finds it that funny.
“You killed Frank for nothing,” I point out.
He seems to think about this. “His bad luck, I suppose.”
I suppose it was. Just like it was Kathy and Luciana’s bad luck. Just like it’s Jo’s bad luck, and mine. What can you do against it? Carry a four-leaf clover? A gun?
“Do you know what I had to go through to earn that?” he asks.
“I know.”
“You think it was easy?”
“I think you enjoyed it.”
He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I don’t enjoy any of this. It’s just a job.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette lighter. He runs his thumb over the metal wheel; it strikes the flint, a few sparks appear, then a flame. He seems pleased with himself. The look on his damaged face suggests he’s taking all the credit for inventing fire. He walks over to Jo. Her eyes widen and she tries to push herself further into the tree. The miracle of camouflage is no kinder to Jo than it was to Kathy.
“Leave her alone.”
He doesn’t answer.
Instead he picks up the lighter fluid and sprays more of it into my face.
My hea
d starts to pound, and seconds later vomit erupts from my mouth, spraying over my nose and eyes, onto my forehead and into my hair. My nose becomes full of it and the taste consumes my mouth, ridding it, at least, from the taste of lighter fluid. I choke as lumps of digested pasta and coffee flow from me, but pieces get lodged in my mouth and throat and stick beneath my tongue. I wipe my hands at my face and spit out what I can. Cyris pulls himself away and stumbles onto his butt to avoid the mess. He sits there, one hand across his wounded stomach, the other wiping at his face.
I swing in a bigger arc and my limbs come close to breaking. Even though I’m upside down, my hanging jacket isn’t, and vomit starts to pool into the creases and drip into pockets. I can see it pooling in the inside pocket, on top of the Swiss Army knife I bought from Floyd. I think of the game-show host. He tells me if I’m good enough I can still get hold of one of the few remaining prizes up for grabs. He asks me if I’m man enough to do any grabbing.
I pull the jacket closer and reach into the pocket.
“Hey,” Cyris says, and I look over at him. He’s gotten up and walked over to Jo.
He has the KA-BAR knife in his hand. Where in the hell are the police?
“Don’t,” I tell him.
But he does.
He drives the blade deep into her.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
He wants to open Charlie up from sternum to eyeball with the knife, and he’ll do it too, he’ll do it soon, but he’ll open up the bitch first. He can already see how she’ll look with her limbs severed and her face all torn open. The thought does nothing to excite him, nothing at all. The entire process of killing her will be mechanical, but at least it’ll be over.
She’s looking at him, staring at him, her eyes bugging out of her head, and even though she must have known where tonight was going to lead, she looks surprised. He twists the handle in her stomach and he can feel her through it. He can feel her pain as her body moves beneath it. He can feel the blood running down the handle. He can hear Charlie yelling at him and thrashing about on the rope.
