The Queen and I

by Russell Andresen

  Louis looked to his right and could see one of the bunnies staring through the windshield, urging him to go faster. There was a look of pure evil and maliciousness on the small creature’s face, and it looked to be actually enjoying the rush, knowing that its wants and desires were coming to fruition through Louis. They were a symbiotic force now, and what Louis did, the animals did; when he hurt, they hurt; and when he succeeded, they succeeded.

  The time had come, and Louis knew he would be triumphant. This was what his life was all about. This was why he had been put on this earth and why his mother had taught him the special skill set that made him the man he was today.

  He could taste the fear and helplessness Rothstein and Schultz were about to feel. He knew that their last moments in this world would be the most horrifying of their lives. When he was done, they would be enlightened through death, and with that enlightenment, he would grow stronger than ever before.

  He saw the turn for Jeffrey’s house and prepared for his greatest victory.

  * * *

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Heinrich Schultz yelled at Jacob Stone when he spotted the man in the living room of Jeffrey’s cabin.

  “We could ask the same thing,” answered Jeffrey.

  Jacob had just arrived back at the cabin with Melissa only moments before the large man had shown up, pounding on the door hard to get their attention.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks!” Schultz ignored Jeffrey and directed his fury at Stone.

  “I didn’t want to talk to you or that sick little weirdo you hang out with,” Jacob fired back.

  Jeffrey stepped between the two men and continued, “You didn’t answer my question; what the hell are you doing here?”

  Schultz regarded Jeffrey for a moment and answered, “I’m here to save your life.”

  “Right,” Jacob snapped. “Sell that bullshit somewhere else. You wanted to kill this guy only a couple of weeks ago.”

  Jeffrey gave Schultz an accusing stare and added, “Where’s your little friend, out back waiting to put a bullet in my head?”

  Heinrich lowered his eyes and quietly answered, “Mendel is dead, and so will the rest of us if you don’t listen to me.”

  Jeffrey and Jacob exchanged quizzical glances. Melissa stood silently clutching her walkie-talkie in case there was any news, and Jeffrey continued, “Why should we believe anything that you say after what you’ve done?”

  Schultz raised his hands to show he was innocent, or maybe that he was not holding a weapon, and replied, “You have no reason to believe me, but if you have any interest in preserving your lives, or even this young girl’s, you’ll do exactly as I say and quickly.”

  There was something in the large man’s demeanor and the way that he was speaking that began to make Jeffrey second-guess his original impression that Schultz was there to do him harm. The man actually looked spooked, and that in itself was not something Jeffrey expected, but there was an honesty to what the man was saying that caused Jeffrey to consider giving him the benefit of the doubt.

  Jeffrey turned toward Melissa and said, “Call Saul on that thing and see what’s happening in town.”

  Melissa did as she was told, speaking in fluent Yiddish. Jeffrey smiled, in spite of himself and the situation and the absurdity of what he was watching, and waited to hear an answer from the other side.

  The answer came just a second later, and it was obviously Saul’s voice who responded in Yiddish. Melissa listened intently, then her facial expression suddenly changed to that of confusion, and she replied, “Tsi bistu meshugeh?”

  The three men exchanged confused glances, but Jeffrey recognized the last word. “What’s crazy?” he asked.

  Melissa ignored him and continued her conversation with Saul until Jeffrey asked again with more force, “What’s crazy?”

  Melissa told Saul to hold on in Yiddish and said to Jeffrey, “Saul said that the sheriff was murdered and that some little Asian man and a limo driver are also dead.”

  Jeffrey’s eyes went wide at the news of fatalities and asked, “Did he say who did it? It wasn’t one of our people, was it?”

  She spoke in Yiddish into the walkie-talkie again and answered, “Some crazy man went wild at the hotel,” she answered. “Saul says they had cornered him in the parking lot, but he escaped somehow.”

  Saul’s voice yelled into the handheld device, and she answered, “Nu?” She turned to Jeffrey and said, “Saul says the man got away and is on his way to the cabin.”

  “Now do you believe me?” Schultz asked.

  Jacob turned to the large man and said to Jeffrey, “The man he’s talking about works for him. He hired the guy to find you and deliver you.”

  Jeffrey shot an angry glare at Schultz, who answered, “I hired him, but he has gone rogue. He doesn’t listen to me anymore. He’s the one who killed Mendel and my driver, and if we don’t get out of here, he’s going to kill all of us too.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Jeffrey,” Jacob pleaded. “The man can’t be trusted.”

  Melissa suddenly screamed an ear-piercing shriek and yelled, “At the window. Look at the window!”

  The three men turned and saw staring in at them the pockmarked face of Louis Grecko. His eyes were wild with hatred, and he had a wicked smile on his face. He showed his rotten teeth and waved coyly at them and mouthed the words, “Time to die.”

  * * *

  “Melissa?” Saul asked into the walkie-talkie. “Melissa!” He turned to Abby Tisch, who was with him at the command post just out front of her bookstore, and said to her, “Something’s wrong. We have to get back to the cabin.”

  Abby gave Saul an intense nod of agreement and said, “Let me get my gun.”

  She turned and ran into her store to retrieve it, and Saul remarked at how much she reminded him of a fireball of a Jewish actress he had known in the twenties before she had died tragically from food poisoning from a bad batch of gefilte fish. Watching Abby reminded him so much of Lydia Greenblatt that he suddenly thought perhaps there was such a thing as reincarnation.

  Abby emerged from the store and ordered Saul to follow as they hurried to the cabin before this madman who was hunting Jeffrey had the chance to finish the job he had started.

  * * *

  Jeffrey ordered everyone to follow him as they made their way to the root cellar that Saul had told him about. Jeffrey had not thought ahead enough to purchase a gun, and was certain that the large man who was now trying to break the door down was definitely armed. They heard the thunderous boom of each blow Louis gave to the door, and the creak of the door submitting to the pressure.

  They ran through the kitchen and into the back pantry where the entrance to the cellar was located. He moved a case of jarred preserves out of the way and opened the door leading down.

  Schultz barreled ahead of everyone and made his way down the steps into the darkness, tripping on his way down, where he tumbled hard to the cold floor beneath.

  Poetic justice, Jeffrey thought.

  The next person down was Melissa, who had the foresight to turn on the light before attempting to navigate the ladder, and she was followed by Jacob and then Jeffrey, who closed the door and latched it behind him. The man who was above, who he now knew was named Louis Grecko, would have to spend hours trying to pry this door open, and success was still not guaranteed.

  The four of them stood in the silence of the cellar, which now served as their shelter, and listened to the sounds from above as Louis continued to slam against the door. Finally, a loud crash echoed through the house, and footfalls could be heard. It was obvious Louis was now in the house, and he was moving around, trying to find where they were.

  What amazed Jeffrey was that there seemed to be no rush to the man’s steps, almost as if he knew he was going to find them and that they were helpless to escape. They were his prey, and he knew it was only a matter of time before he had them.

  Melissa tried the walkie-talkie again and
found there was no longer a signal. The thick rock walls and the cover of the pantry floor made it impossible for any transmission to get through. She began to sob softly, and Jacob was quick to put his arm around her and comfort her. Schultz and Jeffrey exchanged looks, and the large man finally said, “I am so sorry that this has gone as far as it has.”

  Jeffrey shook his head and answered, “With all due respect, your apologies hold very little weight with me. What you did, or tried to do, was completely unnecessary, and now all of us are going to pay the price for your shortsightedness and vindictiveness.”

  Schultz stood in silence, absorbing the words Jeffrey had just spoken. He knew he was right; all of this was his fault, and all of his money and power were of very little use to him now, because he was being hunted by a creation of his own design, and the monster had no interest in physical possessions. He only sought to complete the task that was set before him no matter how great or small that task was. That was why Heinrich had always called on him for jobs in the past, and it was also the reason why he had not on occasion.

  Louis was a man dedicated to his work and did not allow anyone or anything to interfere with the job at hand. He was given his orders, and he followed them until they came to fruition. The simple fact that Louis had killed Mendel told Heinrich that the man had clearly gone insane and was no longer listening to anyone. He suddenly thought of Cloris, and came to the realization that Louis’s mother must be dead. If she were alive, she would have controlled him, and she would have made him focus on the task he had been hired to do. Since Louis was acting so erratically, the only explanation was that the woman was dead.

  This brought a new wave of fear to Heinrich as he remembered words Cloris had spoken to him years earlier when they had discussed Louis’s devotion to her. She had explained that the way she had trained him left Louis hopelessly tied to his mother, and he could not function, in even the simplest of tasks, without her there to guide him.

  “If anything ever happens to me, Heinrich,” she had said, “make sure you kill him immediately. He will be worse than any wild demon from your worst nightmares. If I’m dead, kill him as fast as you can.”

  The reminiscence came too late for Schultz, and he knew it. He was not positive Cloris was dead, but Louis’s behavior dictated she was gone. Louis had never been the most stable of people in the world, but this was extreme behavior, even for him.

  They heard footsteps directly above and held their breaths. They hoped Louis would not think to look down here, but they knew that hoping that was an exercise in futility.

  The door in the ceiling began to vibrate as Louis began to pound hard against the floor.

  * * *

  “There is something very wrong, Abby,” Saul said solemnly. He pointed to the busted front door, and the ghost and onetime ghost hunter exchanged concerned looks. She checked her gun to see it was loaded and nodded her head to let him know she was ready. “Head around back, I’ll go through the house; it’s safer for me.”

  Abby reached to grab his arm, remembered that it was useless to do so, and asked, “Are you sure that there’s nothing he can do to hurt you?”

  Saul smiled and replied, “Only if he criticizes my portrayal of Harriet Beecher Stowe.”

  She laughed in spite of herself, and said, “Well, be careful anyway.”

  “You just don’t try anything heroic. Wait until I call for you.” He looked at the house and added, “If he comes out the back way, shoot him.”

  Abby winked at the ghost and said, “I’ll be like Annie Oakley.”

  Saul smiled at the reference and said, “Let’s go get him.”

  * * *

  Melissa screamed as the door to the root cellar was torn from its hinges and the light shone down, obscuring Louis Grecko’s features to the people below. The strength required to pull this off was remarkable. Even without being able to make out his features, his size was unmistakable. Nearly seven feet tall and all muscle, Louis was even more intimidating thanks to his position at an elevated level over his soon-to-be victims below.

  Schultz cowered at the sight of the man and offered, “Louis! We did it! He’s here; he’s all yours.” He tried to grab Jeffrey by the arms, but Jacob threw a hard punch that connected with his jaw. Heinrich stumbled backwards, and an avalanche of carrots and potatoes fell on him.

  Melissa screamed in horror as Louis began to make the descent to the cellar, and Jeffrey was quick to pull her behind him as the attacker centered himself in the small room and surveyed the surroundings and his prey. He was measuring all of them for weakness and strength, deciding who it was he would take first. Jeffrey was finally able to make out the features of his face again and noticed that Louis appeared to be speaking to someone, although no words were coming from his mouth. It was obvious that the man was suffering from some kind of a delusional episode, and Jeffrey hoped he could use it to his advantage.

  Schultz screamed at Grecko, “Louis! It’s me, Heinrich! You don’t want to hurt me; it’s them that you want. It’s Rothstein who has to die.” He paused for a moment to assure himself that Louis was listening and continued, “Remember that you promised to sing for me when this was all over? The two of us were going to go to a concert together?”

  Heinrich watched hopefully as Louis’s eyes seemed to drift to a far-offplace. Louis was on stage. There was an audience filled to capacity to hear him sing all of his favorite arias in that perfect soprano. He smiled at the thought and turned his attention to Heinrich; there was recognition in his eyes.

  “Mother is dead,” he said calmly.

  Schultz blinked in surprise to hear this revelation, but was not entirely surprised, based on Louis’s behavior.

  “The Way took her,” Louis continued. “It told me that you and Rothstein wanted her gone.”

  “That’s not true, Louis,” Heinrich said defensively. “I liked your mother very much; I like you, too. Why would I want to hurt your mother?”

  Louis once again stared off into that distant place and said, “The bunnies say you must join her.”

  Jeffrey and Jacob exchanged puzzled glances as they watched the two men converse, and the mention of bunnies only confused them more.

  “The bunnies said that you are evil, and you will never understand the Way.”

  “That’s not true, Louis,” Schultz pleaded. “I understand the Way, I’m just a little fuzzy, but … but if you teach it to me, then we can follow the Way together.” Schultz looked at Grecko with hopeful eyes and was convinced he was getting through to the monster he had created and unleashed.

  Louis turned back to Schultz and smiled, “You will never understand the Way.” He shook his head, “It’s time for you to leave now, Heinrich.”

  Schultz cowered where he stood, and Jeffrey could feel Melissa’s body tense up behind him as Louis withdrew a butterfly knife from his pocket, a keepsake from the late Mendel Fujikawa. Heinrich recognized the blade immediately and screamed in unabashed fear as Jeffrey and Jacob made a move to try to help.

  At once, in a blur of movement and phosphorescent green, cold air blew down into the cellar, and two hands reached down, seizing Louis by the collar, pulling him like a rag doll from the cellar below to the pantry above.

  Jeffrey, Jacob, Melissa, and Schultz watched and listened as furniture was overturned, items were thrown, and cursing and garbled speech was heard from above. Jeffrey exchanged concerned glances with the others since they could not understand how Louis could possibly be putting up a fight with Saul.

  The ghost was not of this world, and unless this Grecko fellow had a few demon friends in his back pocket, he was pretty sure Saul could handle himself. But this was taking too long, and it was becoming too quiet.

  After a long moment of no sounds to be heard, Jeffrey motioned for everyone to stay where they were as he climbed the ladder of the cellar to investigate what had happened. What he saw when he got up there was a total mess of flung debris of the kitchen sort, pots, pans, spoons, cans of food, an
d a few overturned chairs. He found Louis lying in a crumpled heap of limbs and blood, and he realized his head had been twisted almost completely around. He looked around the room for Saul and could not find him. Jeffrey walked back to the cellar entrance and motioned for everyone to join him, and they huddled in the kitchen together, looking down at the dead Louis Grecko.

  Saul was nowhere to be found, and this made Jeffrey very nervous and a little afraid. He had not realized how much the ghost had come to mean to him until this very moment when it appeared that Saul had made some kind of extreme sacrifice to protect his friend.

  They all spun around, and Melissa screamed in surprise as Abby Tisch came in through the back door, her gun held shoulder high. She had the look of a crime detective on the hunt for the killer in a climactic conclusion to the novel. Her eyes went wider still when she spotted the destroyed form of Louis Grecko in the middle of the kitchen and immediately asked, “Where’s Saul?”

  Jeffrey shook his head, and he could feel tears building up in his eyes. He was becoming scared and wanted to find his friend and help him now, but he had no idea where he was.

  “Maybe he sacrificed himself to stop Louis,” Jacob offered.

  “Maybe taking Louis’s life meant Saul had to sacrifice his own,” Melissa added. “Maybe those were the rules, and Saul broke them.”

  Jeffrey’s heart sank at her words because they made too much sense. For whatever reason, Saul had been stuck here in this cabin for all of these years; it obviously had to do with the fact that the afterlife was governed by its own set of rules. It could quite possibly be that Saul had broken those rules when he killed Louis Grecko, and his punishment would be to never exist again, or even worse, exist in a place where no one deserved to go.

  Melissa began to cry, and Abby was quick to comfort the girl, when the sound of Neil Diamond’s Holly Holy began to play over the speaker system. They all exchanged confused looks, and Jeffrey quickly ran through the kitchen door to the living room beyond and found Saul lying on his side; his hand was clinging to the edge of the cabinet stand where the sound system sat.