by J. Thorn
***
The sun shone through a crack in the blinds like a dagger in Drew’s eye. He pulled a pillow over his face and turned to throw an arm over Molly. It landed in a crumpled sheet vacated by her hours earlier. He listened to a few songbirds, the first ones back to the party after the long winter. The heater came on, reminding Drew that the Earth had a ways to go in its revolution before the sunlight would warm the surface back into spring.
He rolled onto his stomach and looked at the digital clock on the bedside table. It read 10:34 a.m. Other than the dry, warm air pulsing through the house’s ventilation, there were no other sounds.
Molly had responded well to the temporary suspension of the office. She volunteered to ready the kids and take them to school, allowing Drew time to himself to pull his thoughts together. He relished the freedom, but realized her sympathy had limits and that he would eventually need to pull up the bootstraps. He thought back to the time his father had lost his job and the way his mother had picked up the slack. Dad worked in that factory for over thirty years, and they tossed him out like a bag of garbage. The multinational that purchased the company dismantled the machinery as quickly as they dismantled the lives of the workers.
“They don’t give a fuck about nobody,” he remembered his dad saying. The memory stuck, one of the few times Drew recalled his father’s use of a four-letter word.
Molly had left the coffee pot on, and Drew filled his cup while standing in the kitchen in his robe, water dripping from his hair. He was not used to having so much privacy and considered going back to bed, but then the phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and recognized Molly’s cell.
“Hey, you up?” she asked.
“Uh-huh. Thanks for the coffee,” he replied.
“Any word from corporate?”
“No. Haven’t checked yet. Any issues with getting the kids to school today?”
Molly hesitated, deciphering “issues” in her head. “Normal. Sara pushed Billy on the way in, and then they argued about who was going to hold the door.”
Drew smiled. “Thinking of you,” he said.
Molly giggled. “Got some errands. I’ll swing by before I have to pick them up.”
“I’ll be here,” Drew replied.
She purred and hung up. Drew smiled and walked to his laptop. He brought the machine out of hibernation and launched his e-mail application. He looked at his in-box and lost all interest in playing with Molly.
The “fwd” at the head of the subject line indicated that this had been resent to him. Drew was not sure if the label was accurate, as anyone could type “fwd” at the beginning of a subject line. He scanned the “from” column and saw it was blank. The e-mail contained a link to a news story that had been posted three hours earlier on Channel 7’s official website.
“Authorities are now close to apprehending a person of interest in the slayings of Vivian Cabmel and William Johnson, both employees of Rede Design, both bodies found in the Crooked Tail River last week. While police are not revealing the identity of the person of interest, detectives told us that they have strong suspicions that this person was the last to see the victims prior to their murders. They would only say that the person of interest was most likely an employee at Rede Design.”
Drew ran to the living room and turned on the television. He grabbed the remote and changed from the Cartoon Crazy channel to a local station. He immediately recognized the front of his office building through the bubbling mass of reporters looking to eat from the carcass of the story. Tall antennas spiraled out of trucks designed to send remote feeds while young, blonde women in slutty business attire held microphones. Even with the volume muted, Drew knew there had been a break in the story and that the on-site broadcasting was not happenstance.
A knock at the door shook him from the television. He glanced at the bay window of the living room and saw a police car alongside the curb. Another knock rattled the door, followed by the doorbell. Drew dashed for the back door while tying his robe around his waist. He slipped into his work boots and burst through the screen door as the first officer walking down the driveway rounded the corner into the backyard. Drew heard shouting as he placed both hands on the chain-link fence and vaulted over it. His robe caught a rusted peak. The fence held tight until Drew released the tie and ran naked through his neighbor’s yard. He spotted an open garage door and ran for it. Drew yanked the emergency rip cord and slid the door shut before the pursuing officers saw him. He slid to the cold, damp floor amidst the smell of gasoline and lawn fertilizer, listening to them run past.
He closed his eyes and let his head drift back to rest on the wood-paneled garage door. Drew’s eyes adjusted to the dark room. He saw a door leading from the attached garage into the house and wondered how much time he had before someone came down to investigate the noise in the garage. Drew’s mind shuffled images of his neighbors, but he could not recall who lived in this house. His backyard butted up against the backyard of the people living on the next street over, neighbors beyond the usual sphere of contact. Before he could decide on a course of action, he heard a hand on the doorknob and watched the door from the house swing open.
***
“Molly?”
“Hey.”
“Yeah. It’s me.”
“What’s up?”
“Have you talked to Drew today?”
Molly shifted the weight of the brown bag of groceries to her hip as she hit the button on her car remote. The hatch lifted with a stifled hiss. She pinched the slim phone between her ear and shoulder.
“He was sleeping when I left.”
She heard Brian take a deep breath.
“Have you seen the news?”
“Brian, what’s this about?”
“Can you call Drew?”
Molly slammed the hatch down and swung her purse over a shoulder. She slid into the driver’s seat, staring at the rain crawling down the windshield like tears. Molly replaced a lock of hair blown by the heavy winds and dabbed a smidge of lipstick from the corner of her mouth.
“Yeah. Can’t you?”
“Molly, I’ve tried. He’s either not picking up his phone, or . . .”
“Or what?”
She heard the rustling, as if Brian were flipping through a newspaper while they spoke.
“Can we talk in person?”
“Brian, I’ve got to pick up the kids from school later and before I do that I have to swing by the dry cleaners and then—”
“Molly, please,” Brian interrupted.
She stuck out her lower lip and blew at the bangs sliding from her forehead. Molly looked at the mirror again, examining her eye shadow and the placement of her cleavage.
“We shouldn’t be seen together,” she replied.
“There’s a Turkish restaurant at exit seventeen off the interstate. I know they’re open, and they have high booths. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes.”
Molly snapped her phone shut and tossed it onto the passenger seat. She started the engine and jumped at the radio as it came alive at the previous volume. She put the car in drive and pulled out of the parking lot, heading east toward the interstate.
Brian arrived first. Molly parked next to the green Jeep Wrangler and ran through the rain to the front door of the restaurant. She pulled the brass handle and released the aroma of basil and butter, an arresting combination. She had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. Heavy, velvet drapes covered the windows except for a tall, thin V of space that allowed the dingy gray of early spring inside. A rectangular bar sat in the middle with an arc of tables beyond it and booths lining the walls. A middle-aged man with dark skin and dark hair stood behind the bar with a wine glass. He twisted a towel inside before holding it up to the light of the bar and placing it on a shelf next to the alcohol.
“May I help you?”
Molly jumped. A petite woman with long, flowing, black hair looked up at her through olive eyes. Her squat nose sat on a round face.
<
br /> “I didn’t see you,” she replied.
The woman smiled as her hand lifted a menu from the container hung on the wall inside the door. “Is okay. One?”
Molly’s face turned red.
“No. I’m meeting someone.”
The woman nodded and smiled as if she had gone through this same conversation many, many times. A white arm shot from behind the booth in the far corner of the restaurant.
“Yes. Your husband.”
Before Molly could correct the hostess, she began walking toward the corner. Molly followed her through the maze of empty chairs. The woman placed a menu on the table opposite Brian, who sat with a glass of water with lime.
“Drink?” the woman asked.
“Seltzer water, no ice,” Molly replied.
Brian smiled at Molly and retracted it when the hostess looked at him.
“Order?”
“We’ll need a few minutes, thanks,” replied Brian.
Molly set her purse on the booth but did not remove her coat. “This is not a good idea.”
“Drew’s in trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think the police are coming for him.”
Molly laughed, her eye twitching as she grasped the front of her coat with white knuckles. “Why?”
“I think they want to question him about the Crooked Tail River murders.”
“Oh my God.”
Brian reached over and placed his hand on top of Molly’s. She withdrew it, almost knocking his water from the table.
“Please don’t,” she said.
His hand hovered in midair for a moment before he pulled it back and placed it on his lap, under the table.
“How do you know?”
“It’s all over the news.”
“Drew?”
“They didn’t name him, but who else could it be? It wouldn’t take long to figure out he’s got a history with Vivian, and Johnson was his boss.”
Molly fell back against the high cushion of the booth and looked up. Her eyes followed the ornate, metal ceiling. She grabbed her purse and rummaged through it for a tissue.
“He didn’t do anything,” she said.
“I know. We both know that, but the police don’t. I’m worried in his current state that he might be, you know, a bit unstable.”
“What do you know about his current state?” she asked with an edge in her voice that crept through like smoke seeping under a door.
Brian sat back and held both hands in the air. He drank from his glass and looked back at the menu. The exotic hostess reappeared, smiling as if she had been let in on a secret, one that was difficult to keep.
“We’re going to need more time,” he said.
The hostess smiled and bowed before turning back for the kitchen.
“Don’t pretend you understand,” she said, dropping her voice low.
“Listen. Drew is my best friend. I’m trying to look out for him. And for you.”
“We can take care of ourselves, Brian.”
He sat back and watched Molly twirl the wedding band on her finger.
***
Drew crawled into the corner between a tall, plastic shelving unit and the cinder-block wall of the garage. He heard the door leading from the house to the garage open, followed by a cacophony of cascading metal being dumped into a recycle bin. The odor of stale beer and soured milk filled the garage. The woman—clearly a woman by the sound of her whistling—shook the bin until Drew could hear the last of the cans tumble from it. She coughed and then walked around the pile of boxes on the floor, coming into his view.
She stood almost six feet tall with the build of a long-distance runner. Drew stared at her calves, following the long legs up to a pair of boxer shorts with “lady” written on the rump. She had turned the elastic waistband down over the outside, revealing the small of her back up to the muscle shirt she wore without a bra. A fire-breathing-dragon tattoo curled up from underneath the boxers and climbed around her side and over a hip. The woman wore long, blonde hair in a high ponytail that swayed when she moved. Drew sat transfixed by her, the perfume she wore slowly overtaking the smell of the recycle bin.
“Turn around,” he whispered.
As if on cue, the woman turned toward Drew, staring at a shelf littered with blue, plastic bags. He watched her reach up to grab a new recycle bag. She stood on her toes, forcing her breasts up.
His hand dropped and reached around a growing erection, pulling and nudging it into an upright position. As the woman pushed the box of blue bags back on the shelf, she heard the door to the house close.
“Oh shit,” she said.
Drew saw the woman pulling on the doorknob. After two or three unsuccessful tugs, she walked to the garage door. The damp chill brought her nipples stiff against the light fabric of the shirt. She hit the garage-door button, but nothing happened.
“Damn it. What the fuck is up with this door?”
She punched the button again. The door did not move.
Drew watched her pat down the front of her jockey shorts and come up empty. Her phone was sitting on the kitchen counter. The woman sat on the steps and put her head in her hands. He could see the inside of her thighs. Drew’s pulse quickened and he cared less about being discovered the longer he sat there.
A low, grumbling sound came from the opposite end of the garage. At first Drew thought it might be noise made by the pipes or the furnace, but it increased in intensity. The woman sat up.
“Who’s there?” she asked. She stood and crossed her arms over her chest and backed into the door that locked her out of the house.
Drew felt the panic in her voice, and then the creature stepped from the shadows of the garage. The same fear crept into his blood, dropping his erection to a harmless, flaccid appendage. He felt breath escape from his lungs, and dark circles crept into his field of vision until the darkness pulled him under.
***
He woke to the sound of dripping water. His head ached and his muscles were cramped in the tight corner of the garage. The space had taken on a musty, damp smell unlike the petroleum-based odors from before. Drew opened his eyes and the filtering light from the garage-door windows seared his face. He put a hand to his forehead and tried to stand. More cramps seized his calf muscles, dropping his naked form back to the cement floor. He lay there breathing and kneading the meaty flesh on his legs.
“Cannot stop it.”
Drew stood hunched over, looking to the corner and the source of the voice. He knew the voice.
“I’m dreaming. I’m asleep in the corner of the garage.”
The creature laughed, chortling through wet lungs and tight lips.
“Not anymore. Come. See your work.”
Drew shook his head.
“There, in the other corner.”
Drew turned his head as his eyes adjusted to the low light of the garage. He saw the drain and a dark swath of liquid oozing into the broken holes of the clay cover. Farther back in the shadows he saw strands of hair, clumped together and now sticking to the floor.
“You withdrew the pain, feeding on it.”
A lump caught in his throat. The stark, white flesh of the woman contrasted with the dark floor. He saw trails of blood on a thigh, leading inward.
“I passed out.”
Gaki laughed again.
“I didn’t touch her,” Brian yelled.
“Look down,” Gaki replied, spitting the words like venom.
Drew looked at his hands. He turned them around and saw the dried blood caked under each fingernail, felt the sticky, cloying pinch of dried blood in his pubic hair.
“You did this,” Drew cried. He felt the tears burning his cheeks. “Why are you trying to ruin me?”
“Release you. I’m releasing you.”
Drew walked toward the drain and the sprawled body of the woman. She laid facedown, spread eagle on the floor. Her wrists and ankles gripped the rag shackles tied to shelving units on the walls. A
flimsy, blood-soaked tank top and boxer shorts sat in a pile on top of a red gas can. The woman’s ponytail had come undone, her long hair now reaching down to the middle of her back. Drew felt a flutter in his chest and his sore penis pulsed and bobbed with excitement.
“You want her again.”
Drew shook and threw himself into the wall. He tasted the coppery blood in his mouth.
“You will take her again, through your own self-inflicted misery.”
Drew shook his head back and forth.
“Look,” Gaki said.
A hazy film covered Drew’s vision as if he had put on a pair of dark sunglasses. He saw the woman, alive and gasping through a gag. He noticed the soles of her feet were black from the garage floor, and he caught a tantalizing glimpse of her most private areas, even in the darkness. Drew felt his body pulled to the floor and on top of the woman, mounting her from behind amidst her cries. He saw his hands grip her shoulders as he thrust. Drew felt his release deep inside and knew he had to have more. He tasted her flesh, running his tongue on her back and around to her breasts. Drew yanked her body to the side and bit into the soft flesh of her breast. A force yanked his head backwards and he rose over her body as if pulled by an invisible harness. A violent thrust knocked his head down between her legs, splitting his chin open on the cold floor. Drew smelled her. A pressure on the back of his head pushed his face into her, his tongue lashing at each orifice.
A force slapped his face and Drew blinked. The hazy covering disappeared and he sat again, staring at the defiled corpse of a young woman he had known as a neighbor hours before.
“You,” said Gaki.
Drew shook his head, tears streaming down his face.
Chapter 12
Ravna sat at his usual table, papers spread and cascading to the floor. He took a sip from his cup and flinched when the hot liquid hit his tongue. He typed “Gaki” into the search engine, bypassing the first few results that he had already read. His eyes stopped midway down the page, where the search string returned an entry along with the word “exorcism.”
