At the End of the Road

by Grant Jerkins

  He placed the pistol in his lap and maneuvered his chair over to the long utility shelf. The shelf was too tall for him to see the surface from his seated position, so he felt along the top until his fingers came to a small rectangular box. He pulled it toward him too fast, and the box of ammunition tumbled onto the floor. The .22 caliber cartridges spilled across the concrete surface. It took him several minutes of reaching and grunting to retrieve the two replacement rounds he needed.

  The cartridges were hard to feed into the chamber. His hands were shaking. He needed his shot.

  He needed the boy. Needed him now. He had used the boy to clean up the pets in his yard. There had been no other choice. The remains had to be disposed of, and the car hidden forever. There was no other choice. The boy was the only tool he had at his disposal. But when dawn came, it would mark the seventh day that the boy had not come to him. A solid week.

  Ever since he had showed the girl what Wonder Woman was all about. Maybe he had gone too far.

  And now he needed the boy again. He had to clean up the new mess.

  Kenny closed his eyes and focused his mind.

  He put the universe in motion and set about drawing the boy to him.

  THE BUS HAD DROPPED HIM OFF TWO

  miles from Eden Road. In fact, not far from Melodie Godwin’s home. Kyle knew where he was, and he knew how to get where he wanted to be. He walked the night. And found his way home.

  Eden Road was dark and quiet, and Kyle kept to the side as he made his way down the dirt road.

  He heard an owl high in a pin oak, and stopped to listen.

  In the ditch at his feet, Kyle saw a faint dark movement and he could hear the rustle of a possum burrowing under the limbs and leaves, scavenging for food.

  Kyle kept walking.

  HEADING TO DOUGLAS COUNTY, DANA

  Turpin hit the blue lights on her cruiser as she merged onto I-285, the beltway around Atlanta.

  When she hit I-20, she added the siren as well.

  THE BOY HAD BEEN WRONG. IT WASN’T A

  man. It was a monster. And she was the reticulated woman.

  Her mind had again dissolved into the webwork of light and dark. But it was different this time. This time there was emotion. The webbing hummed with it. The web shook with one overriding emotion: hatred. And under the hatred, pushing it up, was the most basic of human instincts, self-preservation. The hatred would propel her to do what was necessary to save herself. The time for running had passed. Survival depended on one thing: killing the monster. She would never be free until the monster was dead.

  She thought she could hear light footsteps on the road, but as she focused her hearing to listen carefully, a seizure convulsed her body. A person standing near that ditch on Eden Road would have seen nothing more than a vague shuddering movement under a dark mound of branches and leaves, as though a possum were burrowing underneath.

  Five minutes later, a hand poked up through the leaves. Then another. The hands pushed away the branches, leaves, and debris. The reticulated woman sat up.

  DANA KILLED THE SIREN AS SHE EXITED

  off the highway onto Lee Road. She kept her speed up. As she approached Eden Road, Dana flicked off the blue lights. She did not want to announce her arrival.

  Eden Road was dark and deserted. There were no streetlights on this country road, and the scattered houses were mostly dark.

  She crept forward, vigilant.

  NEARLY BLIND, GUNSHOT, HER MIND SHAT-

  tered, the reticulated woman stumbled down the middle of Eden Road. She did not know if she was moving toward the monster’s house or away from it, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was moving. She was moving. She was going to make something happen. Her mind called out a single message. Over and over like a homing beacon, a single thought compelled her onward: Kill the Monster. Her mind was not capable of forming a thought beyond, or even in support of this one basic drive.

  She stumbled forward through the darkness, and sadly, as though fate wanted one last laugh at the expense of Melodie Godwin, she was moving away from the house of Kenny Ahearn. Her current path would lead her to a tangle of discarded, rusty barbed wire that Daddy-Bob had been meaning to clear out of that ditch for years now, but never quite got around to. If Melodie had completed those last ten steps, she likely would never have gotten back up. But before she did, Melodie paused, realizing that the darkness of her world was no longer total, and she stood still, now able to make out shadows and gradations of darkness.

  There was light. Coming toward her, seeking her out.

  A new thought entered her mind. Hide.

  Melodie reversed direction and felt her way back to her burrow of leaves and limbs. And when Dana Turpin’s patrol car crept around the curve, Melodie was hidden. The light felt warm as it swept over her hiding spot. When it was past, she lifted her head and could just make out the twin red dots of taillights glowing weakly like dying embers.

  The thing that was just barely Melodie Godwin crawled back into the road, and another thought filled its mind: Follow.

  KYLE SLIPPED QUIETLY INTO THE PARA-

  lyzed man’s house. It was empty.

  He had seen the light creeping through the cracks of the storage shed, but he had to be sure. Kyle searched from room to room, but there was no sign of the man’s presence. In the living room, he saw evidence of trouble: a shattered picture, the broken doorjamb. Satisfied that he was safe for the moment, Kyle snuck upstairs. The attic too was empty. It still smelled of Melodie’s captivity, like the cage of a neglected and abused animal.

  Kyle saw the blade on the attic floor, bent and streaked with blood in places. He picked up the severed chain and noted where the unoxidized metal gleamed at the cut ends. He smiled.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Kyle opened the refrigerator and saw that the dish towel that was laid out inside to hold the prepared syringes of insulin was empty. Maybe the paralyzed man was dead. He was capable of preparing the syringes by himself, but only with a good bit of effort. If he had needed the insulin in a hurry . . .

  Kyle dug through the kitchen cabinet and pulled out the things he would need. He sat down at the kitchen table and prepared the syringes.

  “IT’S ABOUT TIME YOU GOT HERE, BOY.”

  Kyle watched the paralyzed man roll into the kitchen. “We got work to do, but first reach in the Frigidaire and get me my shot.”

  “I’m done doing for you. It’s finished.”

  “No, son, it ain’t finished. Not by a long haul. You get my shot.”

  “You can’t make me do anything for you. Not no more. I’ve seen through you. You’re the devil. You can’t control me.”

  “Maybe you’re right. But maybe you’re wrong. The time for quittin’ has come and gone. You’re in this as deep as me. Maybe deeper.”

  Kyle stood up. “I told you I don’t care no more. I’m gonna tell it. I’m gonna tell it all. I don’t care what happens to me just as long as you can’t hurt no more people.”

  Kenny picked up the pistol from his lap and pointed it at Kyle. “Sit back down, boy. You’re gonna do just like I tell you.” The gun shook and jittered in Kenny Ahearn’s hand, and a sheen of oily sweat sprang out on his forehead. “You fix me my goddamn shot.”

  Kyle reached into the refrigerator and pulled out one of the syringes. Then he changed his mind and tossed it back inside, slamming the refrigerator door shut.

  “Get it your own damn self.”

  With only one good hand, Kenny would have to put the gun down in order to open the refrigerator and administer his own injection. He locked eyes with Kyle. “You do it.”

  “No.”

  “Do it, boy. I’ll put a bullet straight dead in your brain.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll find your sister. I’ll find your mother. I’ll call them to me. I can do it. You know I can do it. Maybe you really have seen through me. Maybe you don’t serve me no more, but you know I’ve got the power to control. Maybe yo
u’ve got it too. Maybe we ain’t so different.”

  Kyle opened the refrigerator and picked up the hypo.

  “Maybe we’re not.”

  He stabbed the short needle into the meaty thigh of the paralyzed man’s dead right leg.

  DANA KILLED THE ENGINE AND LIGHTS

  and let the cruiser roll to a stop about fifty yards above Kenny Ahearn’s house. She approached the house with care, wary of making her presence known. A rectangle of greenish light fell through the kitchen window onto the side yard. Dana stepped around it and made a circuit around the house, securing the perimeter. She checked the door to the storage shed and found it unlocked. Using a penlight from her utility belt, she scanned the interior. She noted nothing out of the ordinary, but as she turned to exit the building, something small and hard like a pebble rolled under her shoe. She shined the light down and saw .22 caliber rounds scattered across the concrete floor. She unsnapped the safety strap on the holster that held her service revolver.

  Outside, Dana approached the lighted kitchen window from the side. From a crouched position, she edged into the elongated rectangle of light and peered through the window. From outside, she would be backlit and plainly visible, but she knew that she could not be seen from the inside due to the reflective qualities of glass.

  Dana saw Kenny Ahearn and Kyle Edwards sitting at the kitchen table. The scene was almost homey, like a boy and his grandfather having a heart-to-heart. All that was missing was slices of pecan pie and glasses of milk. But then Kyle stood up, pointing his finger, and said something to the old man. The look on Kyle’s face was one of defiance. Dana was so enthralled to witness the interaction between the man and the boy that she did not hear the sound of the snapping twig some distance behind her. Ahearn looked sick. His skin was pale and oily sweat glossed his forehead. He retrieved something from his lap. It was a gun. He pointed it at Kyle.

  Dana stood and instinctively drew her weapon. She was going to fire. She paused only long enough to consider whether the glass pane would alter the bullet’s trajectory. She couldn’t put Kyle in jeopardy. She cursed herself for not having called in backup. She had to act. The sound of the snapping twigs was closer to her now, and the noise finally did penetrate to her brain. She turned to see what was rushing toward her.

  Melodie Godwin, able to distinguish the outline of a form against the light, began to run toward it. The one thought now in her reticulated brain was to kill. To kill the monster. She leapt, her mouth open in a silent battle cry.

  In a single fluid movement, Dana pivoted her hips, swung her arms around, and turned to face her attacker. She raised the revolver at the wraith that was coming down on her like a disease-maddened bird of prey. She fired.

  “I’M STILL DIZZY. MY SUGAR’S NOT COM-

  ing down. Give me another one.”

  Kyle opened the refrigerator and pulled out another syringe.

  “Do the other leg this time.” Kyle complied, uncapping the needle and pulling at the top of the paralyzed man’s loose fitting pants to get at the upper thigh. As he always did, Kenny averted his eyes. For while he took a certain delight in the piercing, he did not care to see the needle violate his flesh. Kyle plunged the needle in with almost tender care and depressed the plunger.

  The paralyzed man cried out, “It burns! It burns!”

  A gunshot exploded in the night, and the full of Kenny’s attention was divided between the excruciating burning in his leg and the meaning of the gunfire just outside his window.

  Kyle grabbed another syringe and stabbed it into the hand holding the pistol. The pistol fell to the floor.

  Kenny pulled down the top of his pants to look at the sight of the first needlestick in his dead right leg. It had gone black. The flesh was giving off a putrid odor. Kenny prodded it with his index finger, and it sank into the liquefied flesh up to the knuckle.

  Kyle scooped up a handful of the Drano-filled syringes and uncapped the needles.

  DANA FIRED THE SHOT OVER THE WRAITH’S

  head, but that didn’t stop it. As it flew through the air, the thing had its mouth open, as if in a scream, but only an airy squeak came out. It landed on top of Dana. She was able to subdue the woman easily. For it was a woman. And she had no strength, no fight left in her. Dana stroked the woman’s stringy hair and soothed her, quieted her. She was Melodie Godwin. She was alive.

  Dana raised her head and looked through the window. Kyle’s back was to her, blocking the paralyzed man. Kyle held needles in his left hand. The syringes were interlaced between his fingers and the needles stuck out like vicious metal claws.

  LATER THAT YEAR, THE COUNTRY-ROCK

  group Eagles would release the album Hotel California. From the end of 1976 and on into 1977, the eponymous single seemed to receive near constant airplay—unusual for a song of desolation and lost hope. It seemed to define whatever it was that America was feeling as it turned two hundred and then looked forward. And every time Kyle Edwards heard that song, he would think back to this night. He would listen to it, waiting for the lyrics to catch up with the tight knot he felt in the center of his stomach. Waiting for the part where the doomed guests brought out their steely knives to stab it. And knowing that they could never kill the beast.

  Kyle didn’t kill the beast. The paralyzed man didn’t die that night. But if he ever moved again, it was upon his belly he would squirm, eating dust.

  BY THE TIME DEPUTY TURPIN TOOK THE

  last of the needles from him, Kyle was finished anyway. He’d prepared half a box of syringes filled to the brim with America’s favorite caustic drain cleaner, and he used most all of them, injecting the Drano multiple times into Kenny Ahearn’s legs and arms; and when Kyle read about it later in the papers, it said that they had to amputate all the paralyzed man’s limbs. Kyle wasn’t as practiced as Kenny Ahearn though, so the injection meant to burn out the man’s voice box had not been clean and precise, but messy and amateurish. The acid took out the vocal cords all right, but it also destroyed the man’s GI passage so that in order to keep him alive, Kenny Ahearn had to have an emergency tracheotomy so that he could breathe and, later, a feeding tube was implanted surgically to deliver nourishment.

  IN THE FEW MINUTES THEY HAD BEFORE

  the ambulances and the sheriff’s department got there, turning Eden Road into a dance floor of swirling lights, Dana Turpin told Kyle to walk to his father’s house. She told him to sneak in it the same way he snuck out those other nights. And when he woke up in the morning, he was to say that he’d run away because he missed his daddy. That was it. No more. He would have no part in any of this. Deputy Turpin would not speak his name to anybody. In fact, Kyle would never again see Deputy Officer Dana Turpin, but thirty years later, she would call him. And when she did, she wouldn’t acknowledge what had happened here this night.

  Even after she recovered, Melodie Godwin also never communicated to the authorities about Kyle’s role in this horror that rocked the South and reverberated across the nation. And Melodie Godwin did recover—to a degree. She did survive. Kyle read about it in the newspaper. “Lone Survivor of Eden Road Horror House Emerges.” Kyle read the newspaper almost every day the rest of that year. They found more cars dumped in the reservoir. More bodies.

  And with each revelation, each new obscenity revealed, the newspaper articles always included a small black-and-white photograph of Deputy Officer Dana Turpin—the source for everything that followed. It was an event that would propel her career ever forward.

  Deputy Turpin reported that she was patrolling Eden Road at the end of her shift. Just watching, observing. It was a habit she’d gotten into when she first started the case, following her hunch that Ms. Godwin went missing from this lonely road. She reported that she heard a disturbance at the Ahearn residence—gunfire. She found Melodie Godwin just outside the house; and through the window, she observed Mr. Ahearn stabbing himself repeatedly with hypodermic needles.

  Given the right-side paralysis of his body, ther
e was some question as to how Ahearn could have repeatedly injected a corrosive drain cleaner into all four of his limbs (not to mention his throat). When the investigators went to pull fingerprints from the Drano bottle and the used syringes, those items had somehow disappeared from evidence. The unspoken consensus was that Melodie Godwin had in fact inflicted her own revenge on the monster, and Deputy Turpin was covering for her. The matter was not investigated any further. And if it was spoken of, it was only with a sense of regret that Melodie had been too weak and injured to finish the job.

  Given the nature of his crimes, it was agreed that Kenny Ahearn was quite insane and had somehow found a way to inflict this harm upon himself.

  The paralyzed man would never say any different. He couldn’t.

  At his trial, they carted him in on a little wheeled platform. His body was wrapped in gauze and he looked like a legless reptile. Everybody in the courtroom could hear the whistle of his breathing through the tracheotomy tube. His eyes were slitted and his tongue darted out every few seconds to wet his scaly lips.

  Opal Phillips—she of the constant casseroles and longing looks—was the only witness for the defense. A character witness. For mercy. She got up on the stand and talked about what a good, kind, Christian man Kenny Ahearn was. How he was a deacon at the Lithia Springs First Baptist Church of God. She cried a great deal and slobbered on herself in a manner not unlike the fervent Preacher Seevers. Opal said that both she and God knew Kenny Ahearn was innocent of these crimes. That she would stand by him. That if they let her, she would be by his side every day for the rest of his life, ministering to him.