Eyes that do not Open

by Claudio Hernández

  When Landon saw that, he grabbed his service weapon like a western outlaw. He was pointing his gun at Andrew without hesitation. Kevin was in awe behind him and his mouth and eyes were wide open even with the sun in front of him. The other agents were in shock at the scene, but they remained still, almost stunned, without reaction.

  “Andrew, what are you doing?” You could hear his voice from afar, echoing between the lake and the high grass by the shoreline.

  “It's her! She’s the killer! I told you that over the phone!”

  Clarice's dress was on wrong and her legs were totally covered in blood and she was barefoot. Her face was divine yet she looked crazy.

  “She’s all bloody! Andrew what did you do to her?”

  “Nothing yet!”

  “And what about that blood?”

  Landon was still pointing his gun at Andrew’s chest while Andrew was pointing his gun at Clarice’s head. She began to laugh.

  “Don't ask me, Landon” Andrew said, “not now.” His voice was toned down a notch and he got closer to Landon dragging Clarice by the arm. She was looking around and showed everyone her evil lady look.

  “Sir, this young woman is a victim. She made a statement about the alleged killer...”

  “Shut up!” Landon interrupted Kevin showing his teeth like a rabid dog.

  “It was her. She confessed. She's been laughing at me all this time.” Andrew explained a foot away from Landon who still had his gun in his hand. “She Acted when we got distracted, or at least when I got distracted.”

  “What about that blood? You know we can't do anything unless its self-defense. We could get in trouble for this.

  “She tried to cut off her dick.”

  “What?”

  They were all in shock.

  “She is not a woman yet. She still has a dick and she tried to cut it off in my house.”

  “Fuck! Is that true Young lady?” Landon didn't remember her name. At least not at the moment.

  “I am in the final stages of becoming the most beautiful woman in the city,” Clarice said. Her eyes looking at everyone with a crazed look.

  Landon was less tense and his heart was beating slower. He began to drop his gun.

  “This woman, well I mean, this transsexual man or however you want to call it, acted out of jealousy. Whatsmore, I think he has mental problems along with a personality disorder. He dyes their hair in blue, he said it's because they become part of Mother Nature’s beauty. The other leads were bogus. I’m referring to the cars and Parker’s clothes that four years ago contained the women’s DNA. He must have fucked him one of those crazy nights before he did this.” When he finished, even Andrew couldn't believe what he was saying.

  “Ok, I believe you. Now everything makes sense, where is the seventh woman?”

  Clarice started to laugh out loud.

  “Where her green eyes are. We all have green eyes. didn't you notice?” Clarice’s voice was torn and hoarse.

  Andrew pressed the gun on her temple and his index trembled against the trigger.

  “No, Andrew! Don't shoot!”

  “Well, I want to do it,” Andrew confessed. Landon could tell he was out of his mind and crazy. Just like her, he thought.

  “The important thing, here, is that we find the last woman.” Landon looked for her eyes. “Where did you hide her?”

  Clarice made a gesture with her head.

  “You enter by the end of the road and the cave is right under old Tom.” She started smiling again while the blood didn’t coagulate and created a puddle on the sand. It was as if she were having her period.

  Tom was right next to Kilye’s body and looked for her with his eyes. He was chewing tobacco before spitting it into the water. His spittle was so big that the shore was now full of silent circular waves.

  “And I wasn’t even aware,” he complained

  “It’s not your fault Tom,” Landon said moving his head for an instant to catch a glimpse of his hunched silhouette.

  “Well, Clarice, or whatever you call yourself, why don’t you take me and Landon to the place where this last woman is?” Andrew arched his right eyebrow and his forehead looked like watery dunes.

  “Stop hurting me with that damn gun and I’ll take you where she is,” Clarice said with a paused tone. Yet, her eyes were shining like a maniac. They were still shining.

  “Go on, young lady with balls.” Andrew whispered and stopped pushing her with his gun.

  Clarice took a deep breath and started walking towards the path and passed by Kilye who had already been given to the beautiful nature as a present, clearly, with her eyes down her throat.

  Those hundred and sixty feet seemed eternal and they finally saw an entrance to the cave, surrounded by long Green grass and several flowers that impregnated the air with different scents.

  “You guys, keep doing your job!” Landon said before starting the journey down the cave.

  Clarice went first through a hole that looked like a dragon. She didn't bend but Landon had to, so as not to hit with his head the ceiling at the entrance. Andrew also had to bend. The tunnel was downhill and the air was becoming stickier and hotter with every inch they walked. There was mold on the walls and tiny water drops slipped to the ground in a constant splash.

  “Fuck, I didn’t know this ever existed,” Andrew said really surprised. “A cave under the lake.”

  “My home.” Clarice corrected him with a sweet voice. It was as if the two weapons had been forgotten, but they were still there, pointing at her.

  After an endless wait, they got to the rusty iron door. Andrew and Landon looked at each other while Clarice smiled again.

  “This is my home,” she said. “If you hurry, you might find her still alive.”

  Landon grabbed the rusty iron bar that served as a latch and slid it to a side making an infernal squeak that left them almost deaf. He pushed the door with his boot and it creaked even more as it opened. As soon as they did, soft music could be heard from the depths of the cave.

  It was that damn song ‘Life in Mono’. It never stopped playing for the last three days when it all began. They didn’t recognize the song but Clarice started moving her narrow shoulders while a chest came out of her dress.

  They moved forward and got into a room illuminated in red.

  “What the fuck is this?” Landon was looking everywhere and the red light avoided all the elements living in that room: wigs, hair brushes, mirrors, dresses...

  “This is where I live,” Clarice explained with the gun’s cannon half an inch from her head. It was Andrew who was starting to get nervous again. He had seen Audrey’s face with her eyes closed and he didn’t like that at all.

  “What?” Landon didn’t quite understand.

  “Leave her, she’s crazy,” Andrew replied.

  They went into the room and the music was hosting the party as soon as they got in. The speakers were yelling and the sound jumped from window to window.

  “Is there any electricity here?” Landon had to ask in order to be heard.

  “Turn that off, for fuck’s sake!” Andrew yelled madly.

  Clarice walked towards the MP3 player and pushed the ‘Stop’ button. It was the first time in three days she had done it. Her face told she was empty and sad, unmotivated. Her shoulders stopped moving along with the music that drove all those women to despair from day one.

  “Where is she?” Landon asked fidgetily.

  She pointed to a rustier door with her chin. This door was just behind the speakers. The other rooms didn’t have any doors, except for the one at the end, the one with the vacuum chamber.

  Landon got closer to the door and did the same as he did the previous time. Andrew covered his ears and clenched his teeth. Landon made a grimace with his lips. The door slowly opened with a squeaky sound that deafened them. The dampness was tangible and silence made an effort to get out of that room where they could already distinguish several beds.

  Clarice pointed at
one of them.

  She was hidden.

  Landon moved a step forward and saw her. His face said it all.

  Andrew got nervous and his finger started shaking on the trigger.

  “Let her rest.” She said smiling and dripping blood between her legs. She was getting dizzy after losing so much blood. Yet, Andrew didn’t give a shit about that. He had moved past Landon now. His eyes went blurry and he saw here motionless with her arms extended, and her mouth and eyes shut. She was face up as if looking up to the ceiling with inexistent eyes, as if waiting for something.

  All of a sudden, Andrew’s heart hammered his temple and the cannon that had stopped pointing at Clarice’s head went back up and then he put the gun down.

  “What’s that over there?” Andrew pointed at a red box with a white bow. It was the box he had seen in his vision, he just thought that the bow was pink.

  “Open it and you’ll find out,” Clarice said almost passing out. She had already lost too much blood.

  Landon held her by the arm when he saw her staggering like a spinning top.

  “That could be a bomb,” Andrew said as if he had barked instead of saying the words calmly. “I don’t trust you. Not anymore. I had faith in you, and yet, you betrayed me. You’ve laughed in my face.”

  Clarice’s eyes were starting to half-close but she was still on her feet.

  “It’s not a damn bomb. I don’t know how to do that kind of stuff.” She explained with an almost incomprehensible voice.

  A rat crossed the room dragging its long and ugly tail through the floor. Landon made a grimace. Andrew got closer to her, to Audrey Hanson and, of course, to the box. His gun was pointing at the floor. His steps were like water drops falling from the wet ceiling.

  When he got to the table where the box was, he looked at Audrey’s face from the corner of his eye and then he checked the box. He extended his right hand, since he had left the gun in a hole on Audrey’s bed, and caught the tiny box. His heart was beating like a croaking frog. With his other hand, he grabbed the bow’s lace and pulled. The knot was easily undone and it rapidly freed the lid. His heart was pounding as he decided to cautiously open the box. He was way too cautious. When he removed the lid, he saw them inside.

  “What’s wrong, Andrew?” Landon asked from the door while holding Clarice’s body, about to faint.

  “Her eyes! Her eyes are in there!” Andrew yelled turning to Clarice. He first grabbed the gun and then he leaped on her.

  Landon rose a hand with his fingers wide open and yelled:

  “Don’t do it, Andrew! Don’t do it!”

  But the sound was deafening. Thousands of blood drops scattered like projectiles along with tiny pieces of shattered bones and encephalitic mass. The hole in Clarice’s head allowed them to see all her madness in a shattered brain. Landon’s face was splashed with blood and Clarice’s body, with white eyes that were progressively losing their green sparkle, collapsed on the floor with a dull thud.

  He had shot her at her head.

  Landon searched for Andrew’s eyes that, by then, were dark as a cold winter night.

  “What have you done, Andrew?”

  “What I should have done a long time ago,” Andrew replied. “Do you know where I’m going now?”

  “No.”

  “To my shrink’s office. I need to talk to Grayson and I’ll have a beer and, why not, I’ll smoke one cigarette after the other until my lungs explode.”

  “Do you know why she dyed their hair blue?”

  “To resemble the color of the sky.”

  “What have you done, Andrew?” Landon asked again with his face full of blood and his eyes wide open.

  The detective didn’t answer and he slowly walked out of the room, leaving behind all that sicko’s madness: a sicko who should have died the day he was born. Right then, he saw something else.

  It was a priest celebrating Mass in her name.

  The detective got so upset that he snorted. He was determined, yet, his fury was implacable.

  It was the first time in his life that he had lost.

  THE END

  Author’s biography

  As I grew up, I started writing under the influence of the master of drama and terror, Stephen King. I wrote his biography based on his beginnings as a writer. Moreover, I’ve written an anthology based on the box he found which belonged to his father, also a writer. I now write anthologies and terror, suspense and thriller novels. These are some of the novels I’ve published: "Los inicios de Stephen King", "La caja de Stephen King", "La historia de Tom" la saga de zombis "Infectados", "Miedo en la medianoche", "Toda la vida a tu lado", "Arnie", "Cementerio de Camiones", "Siete libros, Siete pecados", "La casa de Bonmati", "El vigilante del Castillo", "El Sanatorio de Murcia", "La maldita calle de Anglés", "El frío invierno", "Otoño lluvioso", "La primavera de Ann", "El maldito callejón de Anglés" and "Tú morirás". These, however, are some of the few that have been published. There’s more, so much more.

  Your Review and Word-of-Mouth Recommendations Will Make a Difference

  Reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations are crucial for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review, even if it is only a line or two, and tell your friends about it. It will help the author bring you new books and allow others to also enjoy the book.

  Your support is greatly appreciated!

  Are You Looking For Other Great Reads?

  Your Books, Your Language

  Babelcube Books helps readers find great reads. It plays matchmaker, bringing you and your next book together.

  Our collection is powered by books produced at Babelcube, a marketplace that brings independent book authors and translators together and distributes their books in multiple languages globally. The books you will find have been translated so that you can discover terrific reads in your language.

  We are proud to bring you the world’s books.

  If you want to learn more about our books, browse our catalog and join our newsletter to learn about our latest releases, visit us at our website:

  www.babelcubebooks.com

  Your Review and Word-of-Mouth Recommendations Will Make a Difference

  Reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations are crucial for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review, even if it is only a line or two, and tell your friends about it. It will help the author bring you new books and allow others to also enjoy the book.

  Your support is greatly appreciated!

  Are You Looking For Other Great Reads?

  Your Books, Your Language

  Babelcube Books helps readers find great reads. It plays matchmaker, bringing you and your next book together.

  Our collection is powered by books produced at Babelcube, a marketplace that brings independent book authors and translators together and distributes their books in multiple languages globally. The books you will find have been translated so that you can discover terrific reads in your language.

  We are proud to bring you the world’s books.

  If you want to learn more about our books, browse our catalog and join our newsletter to learn about our latest releases, visit us at our website:

  www.babelcubebooks.com