by Dave Dykema
Suddenly, he gripped her buttocks and pushed her back against the cistern, where he entered her roughly. She made a sharp gasp as he tore into her. He grunted and bucked like an animal. As they copulated, he dipped a finger in Janet’s cooling blood and brought it to Kim’s mouth. She sucked eagerly.
The whole time Stone had his eyes open, looking over Kim’s shoulder, ignoring her beauty and the sensual curve of her back. Instead, he gazed at Janet’s corpse, meeting her drying eyes with his own. Even as they shuddered in orgasm and Kim fell against him, he refused to break his lock with Janet, wondering what it was she now saw.
Aftermath
*1*
Dan pounded frantically on Melissa’s door. It was a little after midnight.
“Melissa! You’ve got to let me in!” he shouted through the wood between pummels.
Inside, he heard faint sounds of somebody ruffling around. He imagined her tying a bathrobe around her waist, blinking sleep out of her eyes as she stumbled foggily to the door. He continued beating, willing her forward, until he saw a beam of light click on through the space under her door and heard the chain being pulled back.
“What do you want?” Melissa asked groggily, pulling open the door.
He didn’t answer. He only rushed in, swung the door shut, reattached the chain and bolted every last one of its locks. Then he ran over to the light switch and clicked it off, bathing the room in darkness.
His actions woke Mel in a hurry. She didn’t know what he was doing, but there was an obvious agenda to his roaming, and it frightened her.
He came back to her, placing an arm around her waist. He nudged her toward the couch.
“Get down,” he whispered succinctly.
What in God’s name is going on? she thought as they fell on the cushions.
*2*
Dan stayed the night. Neither of them got much sleep. They never left the living room. Occasionally one of them would nod off, but it wouldn’t last long as nightmares invaded their dreams and snapped them awake, swiping at shadows.
After Dan filled her in, Melissa couldn’t believe the amount of time she had spent in the same room as Stone. She had talked to him, touched him, but she never imagined anything like this. To hear Dan tell it, Stone was deeply involved in some kind of blood rite. She remembered the punch, and the vaguely familiar taste hiding under the fruit. Melissa shivered thinking about it.
For now, they decided it was best to do nothing, to make sure whatever Dan heard through the crack in the door was not misinterpreted by an overactive imagination. After all, he had no proof—he didn’t see anything. The egg on their faces was sure to be runny if Janet turned up alive and well.
They drove to work in separate cars. Several times on the way Melissa glanced nervously into her rearview mirror, exchanging worried looks with Dan, following close behind. Being apart made them both feel uneasy and afraid. Arriving at WKBC seemed like a major accomplishment. They agreed that they’d be safe in the company of others, and once there, they did their best to act as if nothing happened. But it wasn’t easy.
*3*
They were in an editing bay when word came in over the scanner that another body had been found. Laura sent Lynnette Connor on it. Melissa and Dan spent the next hour and a half under the pretense of working on their series, but they were really waiting for Lynnette to get back.
Dan couldn’t find a soundbite that eluded him. Frustrated, he hit the console.
“Damn it!” he shouted, rubbing his fist where he hit the editor. It throbbed numbly.
Melissa put an arm around him, fearing he might shrug it off. She hated it when men started acting this way, lashing out and hitting things, smoldering inside instead of sharing. Dan surprised her when he took her hand and held it tight before looking out the window into the newsroom for the umpteenth time.
“When are they going to get back?” he whispered almost desperately.
“I don’t know, but looking every two minutes isn’t going to speed them up.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he sighed, turning back to their project.
They worked for five minutes in silence, actually making some progress. Dan found the quote he was looking for and dropped it in cleanly. Despite the cloud Reverend Stone draped over it, Melissa wanted to maintain the tone she started out with: that of chronicling the New Religions available to people out there. It would be unfair to the other legitimate beliefs she encountered to lump them all together with Stone. She was saving him for the end, when she hoped they’d have enough information to blow the lid off of him. If they were lucky, he’d be in jail by then, after Dan went to the police, and she’d have exclusive tape of her interview with him.
She felt for Dan. Obviously he had some warm feelings for Janet. He tried to call her several times last night, but only got her machine. Looking at him now, she wondered if they did the right thing by doing nothing. Saving face seemed like a selfish thing when Janet’s life might be at stake, but to hear Dan describe it, she was surely dead. At the time he feared they might be following him. Now that seemed a little unlikely. Still, they had made their decision, and there was nothing to do now but wait. She couldn’t help but see the anguish he was going through.
Dan stopped his work and took another glance out the window. He saw Lynnette Connor enter the newsroom, surrounded quickly by the curious. Dan decided to avoid that scene, and instead left his edit bay and sought out Lynnette’s photographer, Joe. Melissa followed behind.
Dan knocked on Joe’s edit bay door. Joe opened the door a crack. He normally liked to work in privacy.
“Can we come in?” Dan asked.
“What do you want?”
“We want to ask you some questions about your story,” Melissa said. “Believe us, it relates to something we’re working on.”
Joe frowned. “Okay. Come in, but shut the door behind you. I don’t want the whole frickin’ newsroom jamming in here.”
They did as they were told. Neither Dan nor Melissa wanted a crowd gathering either. If they had their choice, they would have taken the field tape and looked at it themselves after Joe was done with it, but this was too important to wait.
“What did the victim look like?” Dan asked. “Was it another girl?”
“Jeez, you’re a ghoul today,” Joe commented.
“This is serious, Joe. Please.”
Joe shrugged, and hit the fast forward button on his editing deck. “I don’t have to describe her. I’ve got her on tape, being loaded into the coroner’s van.”
Shots of police cars with their lights still whirling flew by at breakneck speed, the camera panning rapidly about, often at canted angles as Joe set up his next shot. People walked jerkily by like extras in a Charlie Chaplin movie. For a one minute and forty-five second story, roughly twenty minutes’ worth of tape was shot, and it was Joe’s style to edge more toward thirty minutes to always keep recording in case something interesting happened. All this slop would later be edited out.
“Oops, went past it,” Joe said, rewinding the tape, offering a thin smile of apology.
He found the footage he sought. He ran it for them.
On the screen two men wheeled a body on a stretcher toward the back of the van, its doors open and waiting. The body was covered with a sheet, a strong wind ruffling it, causing it to billow up and down. One wheel of the stretcher hit a pothole and it bounced roughly. A pale arm lolled out from underneath the blanket. It was ghastly white, as though it hadn’t seen the sun all summer. When one of the attendants bent down to tuck the arm back beneath the sheet, another gust of wind came along and blew the covering off the face of the body. Joe quickly zoomed in, adjusting his focus. The blurred image crystallized sharply. The woman on the stretcher had dark hair, matted with blood. Her throat was slit down through the trachea. Her color obviously left her through that savage cut. Joe froze the tape.
Dan turned away, an arm over his eyes.
“Pretty strong stuff, isn’t it?”
>
Dan couldn’t speak, but nodded. He felt Melissa’s arm come around behind him and give him a squeeze.
“Thanks,” Melissa said quietly. “We’d better let you get back to work now.”
She opened the door and they stepped out, into the newsroom, away from the still-framed image of Janet’s corpse staring blankly out.
*4*
Minutes later, when they were alone again in their own edit bay, Dan and Melissa spoke in hushed tones.
“I think I’m okay now. Thanks for getting me out of there.”
Despite the circumstances, Melissa offered her best smile. “You looked like you could’ve used a hand.”
“You recognized her, didn’t you? I’m not dreaming—that was Janet.” He said it affirmatively, but his eyes were like a lost pup, looking to Melissa for guidance and reassurance that he was sane.
Melissa nodded. “Yes. It was. I’m sorry.”
“What are we going to do?”
“You’ve got to go to the police with what you heard last night.”
Dan ran a shaky hand through his hair. “I know you’re right, but shit, it’s not something I look forward to.”
“Do you think we should tell Laura and the others?”
“No, at least not until after I get back from the police. No one here besides Jerry ever met Janet that I can remember, although someone will recognize the name eventually and they’ll all come offering sympathy. I’d like to hold that off as long as possible. I just don’t think I can handle it now.”
Melissa looked at him closely and wondered when he could. He seemed to be crumbling before her eyes. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and he trembled slightly. She resisted a strong urge to mother him, knowing this was something he’d have to work through himself. Pretending to understand his feelings would be a thin veil, one that he would see through and probably resent later.
Dan slapped his hands on his thighs decisively and stood, albeit on wobbly legs. “I’d better get going,” he announced.
“Good luck, honey,” she said, scratching his back as he left.
“I’ll need it,” he replied, and then walked off, leaving her alone in the bay, hoping they were doing the right thing.
*5*
“What makes you think that?” Cameron asked.
Cameron saw Dan based solely on the fact that he had been questioned briefly once before about being at The Norseman’s Bar the night Jennifer Cook was killed. At first the sergeant nodded politely as he took down Dan’s story, but Dan could tell he wasn’t giving him much credence. It wasn’t until he mentioned Janet’s slit throat that Cameron sat up and took notice.
They had now been talking nearly an hour, and Dan had to fight the urge to look out the blinds again to the parking lot bristling with activity. He had done it enough times already, and didn’t want to give Cameron the impression he was avoiding him or that he was skittish. Not to worry, for Cameron was beginning to form other opinions about him.
“I don’t know. It’s just a gut feeling,” Dan replied, barely conscious of the question after so many others. He wanted out. “Janet just wouldn’t do something like that.”
Cameron nodded, pursing his lips. “At least not the Janet you knew.”
“Look,” Dan said, growing irritated, “when I saw Janet yesterday she was confused. It was obvious she was being pulled in two different directions. She was anguished, crying. I know Stone killed her because he felt she was a traitor.”
“Your story is filled with huge leaps in logic. To be honest, I must add that a rather large suspension of disbelief is required to swallow what you’re saying.”
Dan started to speak up in protest. Cameron stopped him with a wave of his hand.
“We’ll look into Reverend Stone and his church, but I must tell you, we’ve been aware of him for some time now. I especially don’t like religious charlatans coming in and conning pensions away from widows who should know better, but aside from that, we have no reason to believe he’s involved in any kind of illegal activity.”
“You have reason now, damn it!” Dan said, rising.
“And as I said, we’ll look into it,” Cameron said, remaining calm. He extended his hand. “Thanks for coming, Mr. Freeman. I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”
Dan was dumbfounded as Cameron opened the door, showing him out. He ignored the officer’s hand, only staring blankly at it as he walked around him. Stone wasn’t some snake oil salesman setting up shop for a few weeks before moving on—he was a high-stakes player, more interested in souls than money. Dan felt he couldn’t communicate that to the sergeant. He felt he had failed Janet’s memory.
*6*
After Dan left McKay came into Cameron’s office.
“That guy looked pretty dazed when he left,” he said. “What did he say?”
Cameron folded his hands in front of his face, extending both index fingers until they formed a steeple. He methodically tapped them against his pursed lips, staring off.
“I wonder that myself. Some of the things he said just don’t make any sense.”
Cameron quickly filled him in. All McKay could say was, “I can see why he would think it was the Dumpster Killer.”
“But this wasn’t done by the Killer,” Cameron said. “The throat was slit. That was all. All the other victims were mutilated, cut over and over. Also, they had weird pockmarks all over their bodies. The press doesn’t know about that. We withheld that fact.”
“You think Freeman staged this, and is trying to blame the Dumpster Killer?”
“I don’t know. Could be. Did he come here to accuse the cult of being the Dumpster Killer because he’s angry with them for, in effect, stealing his girlfriend from him? Does he hate them that much? Or did the cult kill her like he says and is trying to make it look like another Dumpster Killing?” Cameron shook his head, swimming with new questions. “One thing I do know,” he said. “That boy warrants further investigation.”
Dan Takes a Walk
*1*
Dan took a walk to clear his head after their argument.
Over the last two days, to keep themselves sane, they holed up in an edit bay and concentrated on finishing Melissa’s piece when not out doing fresh material for the nightly newscast. It wasn’t an easy task, especially with Stone’s face staring out at them every few moments. However, its airdate was days away and people in the promotion department were screaming for video so they could hype the piece.
Shortly after two in the afternoon, Dan set an in- and out-point on the tape and made his last edit. After checking to make sure it took, he crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back, breathing out a long sigh.
“What? What’s wrong?” Melissa asked, snapping out of the fog she had drifted into. “Do you need the next cutaway?”
Dan smiled at her mischievously, like the Cheshire Cat.
Then Mel’s eyes widened like a child on Christmas morning.
Excitedly, she said, “We’re done!” Then, a beat later: “Aren’t we?”
Dan refused to answer, choosing instead to play the fool.
She punched him lightly in the stomach. “Quit staring at me, you prick! Are we done or not?”
Dan calmly said, “That was the last edit.”
“What a relief! Let’s celebrate!”
He pulled her close until her nose rested against his. “Sounds good to me.”
“What do you want to do?”
“You did most of the work. How about letting me cook dinner for you tonight?”
“You’re on!” she said, kissing him.
*2*
But that was a while ago.
Dan shivered against the cold. He wished he had pulled on a sweater before leaving his apartment in a huff. He wasn’t thinking then—only craving open space. Despite the chill, it felt good to be out.
He stuck his hands in his pockets, slouched over, shoulders slumping, and stared as the cracks in the sidewalk zipped by his feet one by one. He had no destina
tion in mind. Stalking was the last thing he wanted to do, and he knew that if he stayed in his neighborhood he was less likely to slip into the guise.
For a second he stopped walking and cocked his head, listening. He thought he heard something moving by the houses to his right. He couldn’t see anything, and dismissed it as payback for all the times he lurked in the darkness, following others. He continued walking.
The distraction only sidetracked him for a moment. As soon as he resumed his pace, dinner with Melissa returned to his mind, especially the eerie resemblance to his last dinner with Janet…
*3*
They didn’t speak much during dinner. Dan puzzled whether it was relief and just utter exhaustion that kept Mel so silent, hunger, or something else.
“Anything wrong?” he finally asked.
“No, not at all,” she said, smiling almost too quickly.
Before he could reply she collected her dishes and brought them to the sink where she began to rinse them with the nozzle.
“Don’t worry about those. I’ll get them later.” He got up and switched off the water. “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong.”
“There’s…nothing wrong.”
Her brief pause confirmed to him that there was.
“Mel I know you better than that. Come sit with me on the sofa and let me in on what’s bugging you.” He led her by the hand to the couch. “Is it Stone?”
She sat close to him, leaning her head on his shoulder. He took in the fresh fragrance of her hair, stroking it. She didn’t answer, only breathed deeply. Dan felt her rise and fall against his chest.
“I’m not afraid to tell you that I’m scared shitless by him,” Dan continued. “The police don’t seem to be doing anything. And we can’t very well go bringing it up with Laura until the cops do something about it. In the meantime, what are we supposed to do? I can see why you’d be nervous.”
