Eden's Eyes

by Sean Costello

  And as Karen described the slain child's room, right down to the paisley pattern on the bed sheets, Jim found himself looking up to be sure she wasn't peeking at his drawings.

  She had been in that room sure enough—whether in body or in spirit he had, yet to determine. At this point, all he had to go on was instinct.

  "And in these. . . dreams, you didn't see the killer?"

  "No," Karen said, twisting the edge of her napkin. "In the dreams I was the killer."

  "Did you pick up on his thoughts?" Jim asked.

  "He doesn't have any," Karen replied.

  She went on to describe the slaying in the alleyway. She knew everything. In detail. And the whole time she spoke, Jim's body itched with pinpoints of sweat.

  Part Three - All the King's Horses

  Chapter 38

  Her name was Melissa Roy, and she arrived just after eight that evening in a beat-up Honda Civic. Shaking the policewoman's hand, Karen thought of how inappropriately delicate her name sounded. Heavyset and easy six feet tall, Melissa Roy moved with the lethal grace of a linebacker. Her round face was freckled and pleasant—but her eyes were like ebony buttons, dark and unreadable. She wore tight, faded jeans and a T-shirt which read i survived the beer strike of 1990.

  "So you're my white knight," Karen said, finding it oddly easy to be light in the big woman's company.

  Melissa smiled, showing strong, healthy teeth. "Call me Mel," she said companionably; her voice like a man's. Then, leaning closer, she whispered: "If he shows his ass around here, honey I'll blow a new hole in it."

  Jim Hall, who'd intended staying on until Mel's arrival, had been called away urgently on another case. He'd left a message that he'd be back to brief the policewoman as soon as possible, later that evening or early the following day.

  In the house, Karen showed Mel to the small workroom next to her bedroom, where they made up a temporary bed. Mel had packed lightly for the job, everything she needed arranged neatly in a nylon shoulder bag. Downstairs, Karen made the introductions with Cass, who had wandered off alone for a while, then the two of them set about orienting Mel further: guiding her through the house, the three outbuildings where Albert stored most of his heavier farm equipment, the grounds in a quarter-mile radius round the house. Afterward, Karen excused herself and went back upstairs to lie down. Exhaustion claimed her before the sheets were warm.

  Any frail hope she'd nurtured that the dreams might have ceased was shattered as sleep overcame her.

  Chapter 39

  May 24

  Jim Hall arrived early the following afternoon. Mel met him as he got out of his car.

  "What did you find out?" she asked impatiently.

  Ignoring her question, the detective climbed the porch steps and squinted into the hallway through the screen door. Sunlight flared off the polished oak floor, blinding him.

  "Where's Karen?"

  "Napping upstairs," Mel said, joining him on the porch. "Poor kid, she had a pretty rough night."

  "I bet." The porch boards creaked beneath Jim's shifting weight. "And her friend?"

  "Cass? She took off for Arnprior about an hour ago, to visit her mother. She's acting kind of antsy. Understandably. Must be hard sitting by while your best friend drops her mind."

  Nodding, Jim sat on the edge of the top step, leaning back a bit to keep his eyes in the shade. Before speaking, he glanced through the screen again. He didn't want Karen to hear any of this.

  "It's bad," he said at last. "Worse than I thought." He took out a copy of the donor's police record, drawn from the Ceepik computer, and handed it over to Mel, who scanned it. "The guy was a class-A loser, a drunk who liked using his fists. And from what I can gather, the mother's a real nutcase, too. Right now she's nowhere to be found, but a Sudbury detective by the name of Shine let himself into her house last night."

  He described the shrine the detective had found, and the wall, papered with eyeless photos of Karen.

  "Not much doubt who we're after then," Mel said.

  "That's just it," Jim interjected. "There's all kinds of doubt. She's a woman in her middle fifties, crippled with arthritis and confined to a wheelchair. No way she'd have the strength to tear a man's heart out."

  Mel nodded, but reluctantly. In the middle of the night Karen had told her about the glaring, blue-eyed woman at the transplant meeting.

  "Her husband took it upon himself to sign the consent for the organ harvesting," Jim went on. "He wound up dead from a fall in the basement staircase less than a month following his son's burial." He regarded the policewoman squarely. "Which brings me to the bad part.

  "Less than a week after that the son's grave was found empty, torn apart—"

  Jim had more he wanted to tell her. Much more.

  But that was all he got out.

  He wanted to tell her that the gravesite had been a shambles, dirt and jagged bits of coffin strewn so widely an observer might have thought that a bomb had gone off inside of it. He wanted to tell her that the surgeon who had taken the donor's kidneys had been found murdered in the hospital parking lot, both of his hands crudely amputated at the wrists; the Sudbury police were holding a man on suspicion, a native Indian whose sister had died tragically under the surgeon's knife only hours prior to the murder—but Jim had his own ideas on that one. He wanted to tell her that he figured the old woman had an accomplice, somebody big and strong who had first dug up the son's body and hidden it, then murdered the child and the wino in order to retrieve the pirated organs. It was his Humpty Dumpty theory, and he wanted to tell her. . .

  But that was all he got out because behind them the sound of a body thudding bonelessly to the floor intruded, that and a scream so frightful it cut through the heart like a chainsaw.

  From the shallows of her midday slumber, Karen had heard the approaching car when it was still more than a mile away. Suddenly alert, she had stood and crossed to the window to see who it was. Despite her exhaustion, her senses remained battlefield keen, her ears alert as a watchdog's, her eyes (his) sharp as an eagle's.

  By the time the car had reached Dolan's corner, she'd known whose it was—the detective's—and had started to get dressed. She wanted to know what, if anything, Hall had found out. She guessed it was something important, otherwise why would he have bothered to drive all this way? Excitement had flared with this deduction, the giddy hope that it was all at last over with, that the dream killer whose slaughterings she had so helplessly witnessed had been caught and securely locked away. . . and that the unseen cable which linked their minds had been finally, irrevocably severed.

  She had reached the first landing, which gave an angled view of the screen door, when she spotted Jim Hall squinting in from the porch steps—

  And something in the hard set of his jaw made her stop.

  She was not meant to hear any of this, she knew that immediately—and if she went out there now, she probably never would.

  She sat on the bottom step and listened. The detective's words struck her ears like a summons from hell.

  "Which brings me to the bad part," he said to the grimly attentive policewoman.

  Then his words seemed to slow and overlap, to run together like animal grunts.

  "Less than a week later the son's graavvvve. . .

  . . . waaasss. . .

  . . . fowwwnnndd. . .”

  The pounding beneath the floor of Karen's mind, the savage thudding which had started in her own living room the day before, resumed in sudden earnest.

  She knew the detective's next word before hearing it.

  (empty)

  With each deafening thud, the truth of it all came rasping together, piece by hideous piece.

  It's him.

  Some deep part of her had known it for days, had understood the source of that dark voyeurism—but she realized it fully only now. With the perfect, untainted clarity of madness.

  It's Eden.

  The walls around her slowly swapped places.

  S
he had his eyes, so she saw. She had watched him move through her dreams, to the child, to that helpless old man. . .

  And now he was coming for her.

  With each new bullet of awareness, the room wheeled faster and faster. Karen stumbled to her feet, wavered there. . .

  And the thing from the pit, untethered again, crawled up through a new hole in the floor of her mind, this one huge, jagged, irreparable.

  It crawled up and caught her by the ankle.

  Drew her down. . .

  Then its fingers, the nails overgrown and blackened with grave dirt, gouged like lightning at her face.

  At her eyes.

  The hallway floor, unyielding hardwood, tilted. . .

  Spun. . .

  Then flipped up cruelly to meet her.

  When she awoke the pounding had ceased. She was in her own room, in her own bed. Someone, Mel and the detective, Karen guessed, had carried her up here after she'd fainted. She had no recollection. Now Cass was in the room with her, slouched in a chair by the window, drowsing in the deepening twilight. Karen thought of calling her over, but could not summon the requisite energy.

  Despite the firm plane of her mattress, she felt balanced on the finest of wires. On one side, madness; on the other, madness again. In the lighter reaches of sleep, just before waking, rationality had done all it could.

  Dead men do not get up, that rational voice told her.

  But this one has, another voice warned.

  Impossible, she knew.

  And yet. . . he had taken up residence in her mind, some unquiet, tormenting fragment of his soul. Somehow he clung to life, or some hellborn semblance of it, and now he tracked his organs the way a lost dog tracks its way home.

  He's not feeling himself just yet, that madwoman had said over the phone. But he will. . .

  And hadn't that been what Karen had seen in the loathing wells of those eyes? The unquenchable fires of madness? And more. . . that smirking, secret knowledge, like the ferryman's grin on the River Styx?

  She knew: She knew he was out there, stalking.

  Oh, it was him, all right. She had seen him. In her dreams, lounging in her tub (he's already, up and around) administering his grotesque revenge.

  Stop this! It can't be!

  The argument spiraled in on itself, creating a sway in the wire which from time to time tipped her precariously one way or the next.

  Until finally, she forbade all thought.

  And clung to the wire.

  In the gathering dark of her bedroom; sleep came on like death.

  As did the dream. . .

  Fields and forest, mile after mile. . .

  Until just before dawn, in the hazy moonlight, she saw the tree. That great shaggy willow in back of the cheese factory.

  Five miles away.

  This time she woke up screaming.

  Chapter 40

  May 25

  Karen was still up in her room. And for once, her curtains weren't drawn, though she'd lain down without taking off her clothes. That cunt Cass was sitting on the porch, looking like she'd had too much to drink, and the new bitch, whoever she was, had just come out to join her. They were talking now; Danny could see their lips moving.

  The sweat rings around his eyes felt cool as he let the binoculars drop to his lap. Since that new whore's arrival two days ago Danny hadn't budged from his room but once, and then only to evacuate his bowels in the toilet next door. He hadn't slept, hadn't eaten, hadn't had a sip of anything to drink. When he had to piss, which was less and less often now, he opened the window and pissed out onto the lawn. His back ached miserably, and the flesh around his eyes was bruised from the steady pressure of the binoculars’ view ports.

  His mother had harangued him almost constantly at first, threatening that if he didn't come out of there right this minute and get on with, his chores she was gonna throw him the fuck out, useless simpleton that he was. He had ignored her at first, knowing her threats were idle. But as the hours droned past and the sweat, hunger, and fatigue began to work on his mind, Danny became increasingly more infuriated with her bothersome rants. He began to think of her as a fat and unclean animal, a huge, slop-eating sow with spaces between her yellow teeth and a stink like dead fish around her. He imagined himself drawing his pigsticker across her great wattled throat, the blood spurting out in twin red jets. And the last time she'd come up those stairs to his room, sometime early this morning, with her complaining voice and her thudding footfalls, Danny had lunged for the door as she pushed it open and slammed it back in its frame, splitting the jamb and raining plaster dust down on them both.

  She hadn't bothered him since.

  The loon had been a sign. . . from what force he had no idea. Maybe it was the force that made things right in the world, the natural order which demanded pain and suffering before letting the good shine through.

  He had suffered, was suffering still.

  Now it was her turn.

  The love he felt, the longing, had turned ugly at a single glance from those alien eyes, a glance he had since been terrified of having turned on him again. He couldn't face her until darkness owned her once more. For her, that was what the forces had intended. . . what God had intended. And before they could be together again, Danny had to make it right.

  He positioned the field glasses and squinted across the quarter mile of hayfield between his place and Karen's.

  All was as it had been. Nothing had changed. She was still asleep in her room. Dreaming, Danny imagined, of all she would do once she was gone from his life.

  He lowered the binoculars and took out his knife. His pigsticker. His fingers felt right around its elmwood hasp. He angled it toward the window, and the blade dripped sunlight from its curve.

  From his breast pocket he removed a worn leather pouch. From the pouch, a whetstone. No bigger than a matchbox, it was the only thing he had left of his father's. . . and its smell, an odd mix of leather and flint, always made him feel angry.

  He let a bead of saliva drop to the stone. With clean, even strokes he ran the blade's true edge across its surface, feeling that faint honing grit as flecks of metal built up in his spit. He worked the steel lovingly, concentrating especially on its tip; that was the part he needed. The loon had taught him that. He worked it till his finger bones ached, and his mouth no longer gave spit.

  Then he returned to the window.

  He would have to make his move soon. Tomorrow, maybe.

  Or tonight.

  And God help anyone who got in his way.

  Chapter 41

  "Cass," Karen said in a voice that was hoarse with exhaustion. "I've got something to tell you."

  They were in Karen's room. Karen had remained there since she'd fainted the previous afternoon, emerging only infrequently to use the bathroom down the hall. Cass had carried up all of her meals, but Karen had only pecked listlessly through them. Now she looked thin, skittish, pale. Early this morning Albert had come up and threatened to call the doctor, but Karen's reaction dad been so violent he had backed down immediately. By coincidence, Dr. Smith, called later in the morning to see why Karen had missed another appointment. Cass, who picked up the call, put Mel on the line and had the policewoman explain the whole rotten mess. Heather's expression of concern was warm and genuine, and she offered to assist in any way possible. Mel told her wisely that once this was over, Karen would almost certainly require the doctor's attentions.

  During most of this snailing two-day period Mel stood restless vigil, chatting with Cass from time to time but otherwise keeping to herself. Jim Hall had not returned since the day Karen had fainted, but Mel had been on the phone with him often.

  There was no news.

  "What is it, hon?" Cass said now. She sat on the bed and took Karen's hand, which was dry and cold.

  "It's. . . him," Karen said, and a lunatic smile cracked her face.

  "It's who? Who's who?"

  "The killer. It's. . ."

  She fixed Cass wi
th terror-glazed eyes. . . or was it something else in those eyes? Something utterly alien?

  "It's Eden."

  "Eden Crowell? The donor?"

  Karen nodded, the movement spasmodic.

  "He's dead!" Cass said firmly, nearly shouting. She placed her free hand on Karen's forehead, checking for fever, fearful of delirium. "It's just some crazy fuck. And when he gets here we're going to kick his ass."

  Satisfied Karen was not feverish, Cass started to get up off the bed. . .

  "No!" Karen shouted, the word exploding from her. She gripped Cass's hand in a vice. "He's dead, yes. . . but it's still him."

  Oh, my God, Cass thought in a surge of panic, she's cracked up she's finally cracked up oh why didn't I do something before now—

  Karen glanced toward the heavily curtained window.

  "He's out there," she said huskily. "Circling."

  Cass tried to free her hand from the vice of Karen's grasp but could not. Scared, she tugged even harder.

  "Let go," she pleaded, overcome by the same sense of alienation she had experienced only mildly before, in the car on the way back home from the Albion Hotel. Suddenly she didn't know this crazy person and she didn't want to. This wasn't Karen. She wanted out of this room now, out and away, into the sane light of day.

  Let. . . go. . . of. . . me."

  "Circling," Karen repeated, and gazed back at Cass. Her eyes were lifeless now. Lifeless and flat. "Just. . . waiting."

  Let—go!"

  Karen relaxed her grip and Cass stumbled back, almost falling on her fanny. She whirled for the door—

  But now there were tears in Karen's eyes, lost, frightened tears. . . and somewhere deep inside of Cass, compassion quelled her fear. This was her best friend, for Chris's sake, and she needed Cass's help.