Preta's Realm

by J. Thorn

  “One of the orderlies came in on a muggy, summer morning to tell me she was gone. Can you believe I couldn’t even get a wet eye? Over sixty years of marriage and all I felt was relief. Like I said, she wasn’t nothing but a shell by then. Guess I did my grieving long before that morning.”

  Drew shook and his heartbeat quickened. His eyeballs popped back and forth, trying to fight their way through the night.

  “We only got a short time left. I’m guessing by now you know where this is going, which is why your body is trying to wake you up. Self-preservation kicking in. I got so good at smelling that during the war that I could shoot a gook dead ‘fore my crosshairs ever found his slant-eyed face.

  “Don’t know how it all works. Shit. I don’t know how none of it works. What I do know is that I came out of that jungle afflicted by something I didn’t have going in. Some soldiers left an arm, a leg, or their life in the sweltering jungles of the Pacific. I left my future. I got tagged by fucking Gaki and that bastard bided his time. He let me get back to the real world, make some money, get a slice of the American Dream. And then he called in the chips. Thing of it is, I don’t think I fulfilled my duty. Some of them Japs called it dharma. Heard ’em talking about it at one of the POW camps we set up on Okinawa. Don’t remember exactly what it means, but I know it came from the Hindus or the Buddhists or one of them dark-skinned monkeys. Means something like duty, or obligation. I used to call greed my dharma, like it was some special condition that I had. I imagined going on the talk shows with my dharma.

  “Gaki never came back, but his mark never left me. The greed manifests itself according to the individual. Gaki is the avatar, the representation of it. I think I saw him the way the Japs did, eating shit, never satiated. I saw him as that pathetic creature doomed to consume without hope of being content. I’m guessing that’s how you’re gonna see him, too.”

  Drew shook. A moan slipped from the corner of his mouth.

  “I know you felt him. Those nights, listening to the wind rattle the windows or the temperature tweaking the floorboards. That was Gaki. I know it. You know it. He’s coming for you and you know what he wants. My greed ate me alive, but I think your vice is deeper, a red gash deep in the flesh that won’t stop bleeding no matter what you do.

  “Now that I’m gone, I have a feeling that whatever being rules this plane will put me somewhere, with an emaciated body, tiny mouth, and the inability to satiate my lusts. I’m the new Gaki, but not your Gaki. You get your own, son. You get yer own.

  “You’re about out of time with me. I did what I could, what I had to. You should know that I did like ya. Those times I took you golfing when you were a kid, we enjoyed ourselves. Getting a burger at the clubhouse and sneaking you a sip of my beer, that was good times. But it’s all about business now. Shit, you’ve known you’ve been infected for a while. All I’m doing is making it all official. A receding widow’s peak ain’t all you’re inheriting from me, Drew.

  “Gaki got his eye on you. You’re the new ‘eater of shit.’ Do what you can to save your family ‘cause there sure as hell ain’t no hope for your soul.”

  ***

  Drew hit the sleep button on his alarm clock three times before Molly shook him by the shoulder. Her fingers felt like roach clips connected to a car battery. He cursed under his breath and pulled the comforter over his head.

  “Hon, you’re going to be late.”

  “Not going in today.”

  Molly sat up and rubbed her eyes. “You never miss work.”

  “Leave me the fuck alone.”

  Molly stood and wrapped her robe around her waist. She paused, and then thought better of speaking. She shut the bedroom door behind her and went downstairs to halt the marshmallow and peanut butter breakfast the kids had made.

  Drew rolled onto his back. Every muscle in his body hurt. His eyelids closed over balls of fire and his throat closed, struggling to swallow what little saliva remained. He looked at the alarm clock and then at the phone. With trembling fingers, Drew snagged the phone from the cradle. He lifted it to his ear until the buzz of the dial tone threatened to split his skull in two.

  “Fuck it,” he said, sliding his legs out of bed. The pain in his head came a half-second later and almost knocked him to the floor. “Just be stuck with the cold bitch all day if I lay here.”

  The realization motivated Drew. He got dressed and drove on autopilot to the office, determined to suffer through the day. Cars honked and pedestrians stuffed in winter coats like emperor penguins sauntered through crosswalks. Drew considered plowing through a throng of them a block from the office, but decided not to after considering the amount of paperwork it would cause.

  “Drivers got no rights,” he said aloud. “Idiots think they can walk out in front of a four-ton beast and not get hit. If I can find one texting, I might be able to argue it was his fault for not paying attention.”

  Drew saw a vision of a hipster in tight jeans and Italian loafers floating over the hood. He saw the man’s phone smashing off the windshield before the impact knocked the beret from his head. He smiled. The light turned green, keeping the throngs out of the grid and on the curb until the symbol changed again to a white hand flashing.

  Drew made it to the front door of the office. He gave the receptionist the usual smile and imagined what it would be like to fuck her from behind, his fist balled with a handful of her blonde hair, yanking her back into position at the end of each thrust.

  The coffee machine light blinked “brewing.” Drew slammed his mug on the counter and cursed. “Which of these motherfuckers had the balls to empty the pot? Rude pricks.”

  The women in the cubicles closest to the break room looked up, more from the tone of his words as they could not quite make out what he was saying.

  He abandoned the idea of another cup of coffee and walked towards his desk. Drew looked to the right and noticed that Brian’s monitor was dark, like the entrance to a deep cave. Drew sat down and hit the icon to bring up his email client. He scanned through ten or fifteen subject lines, skipping them all until his eyes fixed on one towards the bottom that read “Out.” He clicked on the subject line and brought up the message in a full window.

  Dude,

  Feeling like total shit today. Gonna stay home and watch porn. Tried calling Johnson but got his vm. Please tell me that fucker ain’t out again today. Hoping to be in tomorrow. Need a solid from ya. Can you please fax Bill at Diversicorp? Yeah, I know he’s my client but I need your help. I left a contract on my desk that I had planned on sending this morning. It expires at 5:00 p.m. All you have to do is send it to the number on the cover page.

  Rock,

  Brian

  Drew leaned back in his chair and looked at Brian’s desk. He saw the document Brian mentioned in the email. He looked back at his screen to the time column.

  8:37 p.m.

  He scratched his head.

  He wrote the sick email last night?

  Drew picked up the documents and walked to the fax machine next to the receptionist’s desk. He managed to slide in another sexual fantasy about her while waiting for the fax machine confirmation page to print.

  He waded through a handful of other emails and looked at the clock. It wasn’t even past ten and he felt as though he had been in the office for the past seven years. The clacking of keyboards rattled his skull and the phony, syrupy greetings of cold calls made him want to vomit. Drew put a set of ear buds into his ears. He pulled up the media player app on his computer and scrolled through the selections until he found “Kill ’Em All,” the loudest, meanest, most intense Metallica album recorded. Even the rapid-fire guitar work and caterwauling of James Hetfield could not keep the office noise from penetrating his ears. Drew threw the ear buds down on the desk and snarled. Someone had left the coffee machine burner running and the bitter, harsh aroma of burnt coffee flooded his nostrils. He broke out in a cold sweat and his hands shook as if being flooded with electricity.

  “Are y
ou okay?”

  Drew turned, leveling the full fury of his thoughts on the college intern that stood behind the mail cart, retracting a hand that seconds before had been extended towards him with three envelopes.

  “I’m fine,” he replied, taking a deep breath in an attempt to stave off the sensory overload of the office.

  “You’re all pasty and sweating.”

  Drew straightened his sleeves and tucked a lock of hair behind each ear. He smiled and shook his head like a master amused by the foolish questions of his apprentice. “Deadlines. You’ll have ’em too if they hire you on. Careful what you wish for.”

  The woman frowned and Drew did everything he could to keep from punching her in the face. He balled his fists and used his right foot to fasten his left to the floor.

  “I’m not afraid of deadlines. My professor for the night class said—”

  Drew sat down and began opening his interoffice mail while the intern rambled on. He swiveled his chair and imagined crushing her beneath his heels, grinding her face into a pulpy mess that would need to be shampooed out of the industrially gray carpet.

  When she realized he was not listening, she pushed the cart down the aisle, shaking her head. Drew watched her go and dreamt of stabbing her in the back. Nobody would miss that sorry bitch and her fucking man-calves, he thought.

  When he looked up, Drew swore the entire office was staring at him. The men and women in the cubicles dropped papers. One man put his arm around the intern, trying to comfort her sobs. Drew realized he had spoken the words out loud. He looked at Johnson’s office and noticed the door was dark again.

  “Looks like I need to call it a day,” he said, his voice wavering on an upward swing of thin optimism. No one in the office moved and nobody came to his desk. I can smell their fear. They think I’m a loose cannon.

  He folded his coat over one arm and hit the power button on the computer. Drew scribbled a few lines on a Post-it note and stuck the yellow sheet to his monitor.

  “Gone home. Sick. Will check email tonight.”

  That’s more information than they deserve, he thought.

  He tossed the cold coffee from his mug into the sink of the break room and left it sitting on the counter. It would no doubt earn Drew a written chastising from the night crew about leaving messes for them to clean. He did not care.

  Let ’em earn their keep like everyone else in this fucking prison.

  He passed through the office and gave an obligatory wave to the few that he did not despise. Drew winked at the receptionist on the way out. Although she wore a hands-free headset on the opposite ear, he knew she was involved in a conversation.

  “Got yer back, sweetheart,” he said.

  Trapped by the conversation, she could do nothing but wrinkle her nose and shake her head at the obtuse, and yet slightly cryptic, comment.

  Drew drove his car as fast as he could. He ignored most traffic lights and stopped once long enough to fish through the backseat for a CD wallet embedded underneath the passenger seat. It came up with an audible pop, covered in the remains of sticky lollipops and dried soda. He unzipped the wallet and flipped through the variety of heavy metal recordings, smirking at them and reminiscing like they were long-lost friends. He found another Metallica CD and pushed it towards the slit in the dash. The motor came to life, grabbed the CD, and pulled it inside. Drew cranked the volume knob as high as it would go while putting the car in drive and punching the gas pedal to the floor. He crested the hill overlooking his housing plan and turned right towards his street. The road was empty except for a random garbage can lolling along the curb where the garbage man left it to the mercy of the wind. Children were at school and parents were at work. The neighborhood felt ancient, old, and as though it was hiding something from the universe. Drew slowed the car and looked at each living room window as he drove past. He saw no signs of life, no movement.

  He pulled into his driveway behind Molly’s car. A green Jeep Wrangler with a beige soft top sat alone across the street, parked with its wheels turned towards the curb. He put the car in park and waited until the verse of “Harvester of Sorrow” ended before turning the ignition off. Drew listened to the pings of the engine underneath the hood, the only sound made in the dead of the midmorning neighborhood.

  ***

  Drew walked to the back door and slid his key into the lock. It clicked open after shedding a thin layer of ice deposited on the tumbler. He looked at the keypad to the right of the garage door. It sat there, dark smudges where hands lifted the lid countless times to punch in the security code.

  Nope. Not going to give her a heads up on this. Gonna find out what the fuck she does all day long when I’m serving time in my cubicle and the kids are at school.

  He pushed the door far enough to crack the seal, feeling the dry warmth of the kitchen wash over his face. Drew slid through the door sideways and slipped his shoes off. They tumbled to the tile floor, the sound muffled by an entrance rug near the kitchen table. Drew paused, listening to the cranky motor of the refrigerator. The rest of the house remained silent.

  Drew shed his coat and left it on the floor next to his shoes. He heard a squeak. The muffled sound was a familiar one. He heard it every night when Molly went upstairs to bed as he remained on the couch reading or watching television. They bought the mattress with wedding money, its springs holding out through two conceptions and thirteen years. The metal frame of the king-sized bed sat on oak hardwood floors. Any movement on the bed resulted in noises like a gerbil caught in its exercise wheel. Drew looked at the time on the microwave. He looked outside and back to the LED numbers. 12:37.

  What the hell is she doing in bed?

  He walked into the living room and sat on the love seat. The bed squealed in random bursts, like Molly was having a nightmare, wrestling with the comforter.

  Drew’s heart thundered in his chest until he could feel it in his ears. The bed upstairs squeaked again. The heater kicked on and the blower now competed with the refrigerator motor for the noisiest device in the house. Drew sat back and rubbed his forehead with one hand. He stood with his feet glued to the hardwood.

  “Nothing good will come of it. Leave. Go back to the office and then talk about it once you’ve calmed down or doused yourself with Jack Daniels. Don’t do it, man.”

  He wiped a tear from one eye and shook his head. Drew wanted to scream, to rip a whole in reality and crawl through, to be embraced by an eternal, suffocating darkness. Disobeying a direct order from his brain and not heeding his own mental warning, Drew placed his right foot on the steps, beginning the ascent to the master bedroom and everything that might come after.

  Chapter 9

  Ravna knocked the glass back until the last ice cube slammed into his teeth. The Johnny Walker Red dulled the pain but left a vague stinging that seemed to penetrate to the root of his front tooth. He winced and wiped at his watering eyes. The remote sat on the end table, beckoning for his touch. Ravna looked at his laptop open on the coffee table, the article deadline on his calendar app staring back in menacing, bold, Times New Roman, red font. He reached over with his foot and pulled the clamshell screen down with one toe poking through a hole in his sock. He picked up the remote and waited for the electronic impulses to dash through the air and bring the beast alive.

  “Thank you, and welcome to Channel 7 News. I’m your anchor, Melanie Sampson, and this is our top story. Authorities have discovered another mutilated body in the Crooked Tail River. What was a gruesome but isolated murder yesterday looks now to be the work of a serial killer. Let’s go back out to Nan Roles, who has been covering the story for us.”

  “Melanie, authorities are hesitant to call these crimes the work of a serial killer, but the evidence is pointing in that direction.”

  “How so?”

  “Just over my shoulder you can see the yellow tape surrounding the remains of the latest murder at the Crooked Tail River. Like Vivian Cabmel last week, this victim appears to have been batte
red and mutilated before being dumped on the riverbank.”

  “Another woman, Nan?”

  “No, Melanie. This victim is a man and it’s not clear at the moment whether or not the two deaths are related. Several kids playing in the woods noticed a messenger bag strewn in the snow bank and called the police. The man has not been identified, but investigators have told me that he appears to be white, middle aged, and unmarried.”

  “Did the victim have a wallet or any identification on him?”

  “Like the last crime scene on the banks of this river, the authorities are not releasing much to the media. If he did have identification, they are not divulging this, probably out of respect for the family of the victim.”

  “Thanks, Nan. Has anyone on the scene given you any indication that the two deaths are related?”

  “No, that hasn’t happened, Melanie. Police are going through their normal investigative procedures and do not want to jump to conclusions at this time. An officer told me that they do not want to unnecessarily alarm the citizens should this turn out to be an accident.”

  “That sounds like quite a coincidence, Nan.”

  “That’s the general feeling here as well. We’ll be on the scene through the night and be sure to keep you updated on the investigation.”

  “Thanks, Nan. And now we take you to an interview with Dr. Sharon Slider, author of The Mind of the Serial Killer. She’s here to help us develop a profile of the suspect. . . . ”

  Ravna hit the remote again, ending the interview with Dr. Slider, knowing exactly where that conversation was headed. He decided it was time and stood. The whiskey had rubberized his knees and he collapsed back into the recliner. He glanced at the car keys hanging on the rack next to his coat.