The Night is Long and Cold and Deep

by Terry M. West

  “I did. But my notion of an all-merciful God died with my parents.”

  “We aren’t ruled by any God,” Clea said, gazing up at the night sky. “We’re ruled by pain and fear and death. God supposedly creates and destroys. We’ve mastered that, so who’s to say we aren’t Gods, creating and destroying our own little worlds.”

  Johnny felt his anxiety finally melt away. She understood.

  “We are all hair and blood machines,” Clea repeated. “We deny our primal side and that’s really the worst sin of all, Johnny. The worst sin of all.”

  They sat in silence until the carnival lights began to die down. Clea reached over, cupped Johnny’s face in her hands, and gave him a long, passionate kiss. She tasted sweet in his mouth. His hands found her back and curled up into her hair. Clea broke away.

  “I should go now,” she said, standing. “Come and see me tomorrow.”

  Before Johnny could say a word, Clea sharply turned and walked away.

  Johnny sat back down on the earth; Clea’s touch and taste still lingering on him.

  ****

  “Rise and shine, Johnny-boy,” the harsh voice said.

  Johnny snapped awake as a boot impacted his ribcage. He sucked in air and flipped over, burying his face in the moist field he had fallen asleep in.

  “What’s the matter, psycho?” It was Rod McCune’s voice. “Not so tough when the sheriff isn’t around, are you?”

  Johnny screamed as Rod stomped on his back. He thought his spine would snap.

  “Christ, man!” It was Sabino’s voice. “That’s enough, Rod! You’re gonna kill him!”

  “Back the fuck off!” Rod shouted. Johnny heard a scuffle and then a body thudded to the ground. “Stay out of my business, Sabino. This is between me and Johnny-boy.”

  His entire body wracked with pain, Johnny tried to crawl away. Rod snatched him by the hair and hauled his head up painfully into the moonlight. Through cloudy eyes, Johnny could see that there was no one around, save for Sabino staring fearfully from his position on the ground. Rod pulled a stiletto from his boot.

  “Don’t worry, man,” Rod said, gleefully. “You’re in for a fucking family reunion.”

  He’s going to kill me, Johnny thought, as Rod’s drunken face glowered in the darkness.

  “Give mom and dad my best,” Rod taunted, tickling Johnny’s chin with the blade.

  “Rod…” Johnny panted. “… please… I never… please…”

  “Begging? Why not tell me to fuck off, huh? I thought you were a big, brave psycho. Begging won’t help, man. I am going to cut you into little pieces and feed them to Foyt Reed’s pigs.” Rod grinned wider. “Who’ll miss you, Johnny-boy? Who’ll miss you?”

  Clea, Johnny thought. And then, he passed out.

  3.

  Johnny opened his eyes to total darkness, amazed that he could open his eyes at all. He sucked in hot air and tried to sit up. His head smacked into something hard and pain rallied in his body. He put his hands in front of his face and ran them down a cold, hard surface. He fumbled for the lighter in his pants pocket. He retrieved the lighter and lit it. He was in a casket, and his parents’ corpses rested on either of his shoulders. Their bug-infested faces gazed at him with empty eye sockets…

  Johnny woke, for real this time, with a jolt. He choked the scream back down his throat. His back and ribs throbbed in pain. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs. He took in his surroundings, a dingy dark room cluttered with fast food containers and carnival merchandise, from stuffed animals to freak show banners.

  “Hello?” he called out passively.

  Clea appeared in the faint hallway light.

  “Johnny, are you okay?” she asked. She wore a white robe and approached him with a wet towel in her hands. She pushed him back down on the cot and wrapped the soothing towel around his forehead.

  She looked concerned… the first emotion besides annoyance he had seen on her face. It was nice to see something besides indifference on her.

  “I think I’m okay,” Johnny said, settling back down. “What happened?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. I went back out for a walk. I found you in the cornfield, all banged up. I brought you back here,” Clea informed him, perching on the edge of the cot.

  “Two bullies jumped me. I thought one of them was going to kill me,” he explained through the pain. “If I hadn’t have met you, I wouldn’t have cared if he did.”

  Clea stared at him for awhile, and then she stood up and dropped her robe. Johnny studied her nude body, praying that he wouldn’t wake up at home. Clea, looking as detached and spacey as ever, tugged down his jeans and shorts. She climbed on top of him. She glanced down, studying his ecstasy-filled face. It was mingled with pain, but well worth it Johnny was convinced.

  Johnny came too fast, whimpering an apology as she slowly dismounted him. She pressed a finger to his lips.

  “It’s okay, Johnny,” she whispered. “I never get anything out of sex. Your pleasure is mine.”

  Clea shrugged the robe back on. She knelt back down and mopped his forehead with the towel once more. “Can you stand up?”

  Johnny nodded.

  “Good. I have something to show you.”

  She helped him off of the cot. Johnny was astonished by how strong she was. He leaned against her body as she steered him to a closet doorway.

  “This is for you, Johnny. I did this for you,” she said, opening the thin closet door.

  Manny’s body was unceremoniously shoved inside the closet of Clea’s trailer. His throat had been sliced from ear to ear. His eyes were open and focused upward. Hardened blood covered him from head to toe.

  Johnny’s eyes grew big with disbelief.

  “He would never let us be together,” Clea explained. “He would have killed you, Johnny. I beat him to the punch. I cut away the anger and fear. I turned off the machine.”

  “Clea…” Johnny stammered. “How could… what are we…”

  “Be strong, Johnny,” she urged. “You know, deep down, it’s for the best. Now we can be together. It’s as cut and dry as that.”

  Johnny didn’t know what to say or do. He fumbled for the closet door and shut it.

  “He was abusive to me,” Clea insisted. “It was the only way we could be together.”

  Clea took Johnny’s hand and pressed it to her breast. Johnny could feel her heart beat. “Do you want me, Johnny?”

  “More than life itself,” Johnny said immediately with no doubt.

  “He was nothing,” Clea said, wrapping her arms around Johnny’s neck. “He was pain and fear that my darkness demanded I deal with. He was a ritual… the ending that was necessary for our beginning. He was a waste of space. I wanted you, so I had to deal with him. If you want me, you have to set your darkness free and bury your pain.”

  “What do you mean?” Johnny said, using the wall for support. Between the shock and physical pain, he was astounded he could even stand.

  Clea grasped Johnny on both sides of his face. “Would you die for me?”

  “Yes,” Johnny admitted. “I would. A thousand times.”

  “Would you kill for me?”

  Johnny searched her eyes. They pleaded with him for understanding, for acceptance. He still didn’t fully comprehend what was happening. It was like a surreal dream and he couldn’t decide if it was good or bad. He suddenly realized his response. He had a feeling she knew it, too.

  “Yes,” he said, his mind going numb. “Yes, I would kill for you, Clea.”

  “Come with me,” Clea said, leading him down the short hallway into the kitchenette.

  On the floor lay Sabino, pale blue with death. Rod was gagged and bound to a table chair. His panic-stricken eyes met Johnny’s. Rod began to jerk in the chair, his head thrashing back and forth.

  For some reason, Johnny kept his composure at the sight. His mind was on co-pilot. Reasoning with Clea was out of the question. He suddenly felt calm. It was as if the whole scene had been preordained.
He would follow Clea’s lead, like a mindless machine… like a hair and blood machine. He wouldn’t be responsible for any of the carnage he had witnessed that night. He would bend to her will and watch whatever atrocity she had in store for Rod.

  That’s when Clea put Rod’s stiletto in Johnny’s hand.

  “It was like I was telling you before,” she explained. “I came back to the field after I killed Manny. I saw this guy beating you up and ran back here and got my tranquilizer gun.”

  “Tranquilizer gun?” Johnny asked, checking the ropes that held Rod in place, making sure they were tight. “You have a tranquilizer gun?”

  “I dated a lion tamer once. I kept the gun when we broke up. So, anyway, I fired a shot into Blondie’s leg. The other one…” she said, her eyes trailing down to Sabino’s body.

  Johnny knelt down to Sabino. A dart was lodged in his left eye. “Nice shot,” Johnny said, standing back up and smirking.

  He had lost complete control of this. He was knee deep in it now. Better to ride it out and walk away from this mess with Clea than deny it and send her to jail.

  “You know what you have to do,” Clea said.

  “Of course,” Johnny said, a queer snicker escaping his throat. “I have to kill Rod. He’s the only witness.”

  “I know it’s hard for you…”

  “No,” Johnny corrected her. He glared down at Rod. Johnny’s darkness began to bloom. The madness ran through his veins. It spread like a wildfire and consumed everything inside. Any and every injustice in his life began to replay in his mind and he realized release would only come through Rod’s death. Johnny could feel jungle drums beat in his blood. He could hear the primal music.

  “This bonds us, Johnny,” Clea said softly, admiring the dark magic in Johnny’s eyes. “Bonds us closer than any words we could say.”

  This time, Johnny was indifferent. He continued to stare at Rod, who bucked wildly in the chair. “Just a machine, Clea,” Johnny said, his eyes suddenly opened to her gospel.

  “How does it feel?” Clea asked.

  “I feel like God,” Johnny replied, leaning closer to Rod. “Who’s going to miss you, Rod?” Johnny taunted with a cruel grin on his lips. “Who’s going to miss you?”

  Johnny lashed out at Rod’s throat with the knife. Blood went everywhere, drenching Johnny’s face and shirt. Johnny suddenly saw everything and nothing… and all of it was red.

  “I love you, Clea,” Johnny proclaimed, wiping Rod’s blood out of his eyes.

  Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced him between the shoulders. Johnny looked back in time to see Clea withdraw the butcher knife from his back. He slumped to the trailer floor. She had punctured his heart. Death would come swiftly. His last sight in the world was of her face. For the first time since he had met her, she was smiling.

  “I love you, too,” Clea said, as Johnny died. “I guess I’m just not ready for another relationship.”

  Clea looked for her clothes and the keys to her flatbed. There were four bodies to be deposited in the cornfield, and dawn was coming.

  4.

  Clea hauled her trailer down the 114. It was late. She drove the black stretch with her high beams on. She had just left Pleasant Storm and four corpses behind.

  She had buried them well, so hopefully it would be quite awhile before they were found. By that time, she would probably be out of the business. The whole thing was starting to grate on her, anyway. She could slip away pretty cleanly. No one on the circuit knew her real name. They all called her Clea. She had used so many aliases since she was a teenager that she really had to concentrate to recall her true name.

  Clea wore glasses over her brown eyes; her blue contacts were stashed away. She also was not wearing her blonde wig. Her short, mousy black hair was stuffed under a baseball cap that had belonged to Manny. She did not look very sexy or exotic, and that was the way she wanted it. No one would have recognized her as the Gorilla Girl. She never let the other carnies see this true face of hers. If push came to shove, she wanted the Gorilla Girl’s face on a wanted poster. Not hers. Clea took a sip from a bottle of water and fiddled with the radio, finding only country music and sermons. She dug a soft rock CD out of the glove compartment and popped it into the player.

  She had told everyone that Manny had taken off and most of them had bought it; Manny had been an immature hothead who had a habit of storming out on her. He had left her before for weeks sometimes, always managing to catch up to her on the circuit and weasel his way back into her life. But this time, only Clea knew the finality of his departure. A few of the carnies might have suspected, but fuck them if they couldn’t take a joke. There was no proof. She had been careful and spotless. Like always.

  Clea was now in the market for a front man. She had temporarily hired a roustabout who wanted to do more than intimidate people at the gate. She suspected he had a crush on her. And he was cute, too. Maybe she could train this one better and make him a permanent addition.

  She suddenly thought of Johnny and frowned sadly. Johnny would have never recovered from the death of his parents. Not like Clea had gotten over her parents, and she was the one that had killed them by starting the fire.

  Johnny would have been a problem. He would have developed a dark appetite for killing. He had already been warming up on animals, which disgusted Clea to no end. Killing assholes was one thing. Torturing innocent animals, though? She shook her head.

  Clea saw the spark in Johnny when he killed Rod. That’s why she had to put him down before he got too dangerous and careless or she got too attached. At least Johnny had been able to express himself and extract his pound of flesh before she sent him on his way. She felt good about that.

  She would miss Johnny. Her talk of finding a kindred spirit had been honest. And she never gave it up on a first date.

  Manny, on the other hand, she would not miss. Not one iota. He had long suspected what Clea was capable of. Accidents had befallen a few carnies who had stumbled into Clea’s cross hairs. Manny had supposedly found proof of her involvement. He had been holding it over her for a couple of years, so it was a relief to finally be done with him.

  Her back hurt from the previous night’s labor. She dug for painkillers in her purse, popped them into her mouth and washed them down with the water. Clea wondered how much longer she would stay on the circuit and what she would do when she finally moved on. She decided to give it one more year. It was plenty of time to come up with a new grift and partner.

  She drove alone and the country freeway had very little traffic. Most of the carnival had headed to Laredo hours ago. She had decided to catch some extra sleep and make up time on the road.

  Clea tapped the steering wheel to the music coming out of the dashboard speakers. There was a blur of movement on the shoulder under a street light a little further up the road. Clea pulled over, turned on her hazards and left the truck. A small raccoon lay on the road. The right side of the animal’s head was bashed in and its eye was gone. It twitched and convulsed. Someone had bounced it off of their hubcap and left it to suffer.

  Clea studied the animal as a spasm of pain shook it. “Poor baby,” she whispered, looking around. There was a big rock a few feet away. She walked over to it, picked the rock up and stepped back to the raccoon. It was practically doing back flips now in its torture.

  She brought the rock down on the animal’s head, stilling it in one blow. She tossed the stained rock aside and brushed off her hands. It didn’t do her back any favors, but she couldn’t let anything suffer in pain like that.

  She got into the truck and steered back onto the road. Clea ran the raccoon under her front tire as she came over just to make sure the job was done. She rolled down her window and let in the cool night air. She turned up the music and turned her thoughts off.

  Laredo waited.

  MIDNIGHT SNACK

  The silly bastard was barely going forty in the fast lane of the highway. Calvin Winslow noticed the I BRAKE FOR ENTIRELY NO REASON bumpe
r sticker on the flank of the car that was creeping along in front of him.

  "Oh, for fuck sake, use the slow lane,” Calvin muttered, deciding to break protocol and use the middle lane to get out from behind and in front of the idiot. Calvin could have flashed his high beams at the moron to try and nudge him over, but he had almost gotten his ass kicked once with that tactic. The guy he had flashed followed him for miles, alternately flipping Calvin off and demanding that he pull over. There were too many angry people out there and Calvin was generally one of them. Still, it was foolish to endanger his life like that.

  Calvin thundered around his tormentor as soon as the neighboring diesel truck allowed him access to the middle lane. He wished for a cloud of dust to bury the inconsiderate dick as he flew around the car, a PT Cruiser; a vehicle you seldom saw in the left lane. Calvin took the lead back, and was determined to see the PT Cruiser shrink in his rearview. He hadn’t even glanced over to see what a kind of moron was perched behind its steering wheel when he passed. It was too dark for that and he didn’t want to challenge anybody; he just wanted to get his ass home. It was too late at night for this bullshit.

  After a mile of glowing in his triumph, the rising distance of Interstate 290 bore an ocean of taillights; the steady red glow indicated to Calvin that there was an accident. Sure enough, even in the dark, he could make out emergency vehicles gathered around an eighteen wheeler on its side. He was too far away to see the specifics of the accident, but it was evident to Calvin that another one of those doped-up truckers had taken a nasty spill. Combine uppers with a pressure cooker job and you ended up with a lot of two-legged road kill, he concluded.