by David Beers
“Why not?”
“Because it means we work too late too often.”
Both walked through the diner, waving at the cook and waitress as they left. They went outside and Alan stopped as the door closed.
“One second,” he said.
“No … are you serious?”
“What’s the big deal?” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, opened them, and took one out.
“The big deal is you’re killing yourself. Plus, what’s Marie think about it?”
“She doesn’t know,” he said through closed teeth as he lit the cigarette.
“You mean you’re lying to your wife?”
“I wouldn’t call it lying. I quit. Then I started back again. I just never told her I started back again.”
“Jesus, you’re awful. You know that?” Teresa said.
“Stress, my dear. Stress is what makes me do it.”
“Stress and addiction. You going to smoke the whole thing here?”
“We can walk.”
Teresa led the way, looking out at the empty street. “What time is it?”
“Two.”
“Why do they put up with us?” Teresa said.
“I told you that you feel guilty about all of this. They put up with it because they love us, and that means they love the part that works insane hours, too.”
The parking lot was about a block down and to the left. The diner didn’t have parking right next to it, but it had been there far too long for that to matter. Teresa walked a foot or two in front of Alan, letting go of the fact that he was smoking again. Her mind went to what would happen tomorrow—because regardless whether or not the rich neighborhood panned out, they had something tangible.
Teresa turned into the parking lot, excited and hopeful: the last two emotions she felt before dying.
* * *
“Here they come.”
John heard Harry but his friend’s voice was fading away as it always did when the hunger came over John.
They stood in the parking lot, against the building lining it. Black shadows hung over them, and given their clothes, no one would see them. Or rather, no one would see John—Harry was always okay on that front.
John had watched the two of them get up to leave the diner, and then moved his car to the parking lot. He hopped out and walked to the edge of the building where he now stood. Confidence and calm exuded from him, a master at work. Briefly, an errant thought ran through his otherwise focused mind—Is this how Michelangelo felt? And then it disappeared, coming back to the duty at hand.
Harry said nothing else, only stood behind, watching, feeding off John’s energy.
John saw the shadows show first, allowing him to tell who led. The woman. The one who showed up at his door asking questions.
His pupils formed small dots, even in the darkness.
The woman crossed John’s line of sight but he didn’t move. He waited, his muscles full of loose tension, ready to move at the slightest command.
And then the man stepped into view.
John acted.
He stepped from the shadows like a shade—not a single sound escaping his precise movements. He brought the gun up and slammed it home on the man’s head.
A single oomph escaped his lips as he collapsed to the ground, a cigarette burning on the pavement next to him.
The woman turned and John wasted no time. He fired a single shot, directly into the woman’s gut. She dropped to the asphalt and John was on her, his black mask repelling any possibility of recognition.
“Where is it?” he whispered.
Blood spit up from the woman’s mouth, covering her teeth and chin with a gruesome, dark red.
“Where’s the key fob?”
Her eyes flashed to her purse, but only for a moment, and John realized that was her mistake—she only looked because he said something, and immediately turned her eyes back to him. Her hand slowly raised to his face, trying to pull the mask off. John pushed her weak attempt aside and grabbed for the purse. He dumped it out on the ground and saw the plastic bag holding the small fob. He grabbed the bag and stood up.
“Kill the other one,” Harry said. “Quickly now.”
The hunger was strong, the need to obliterate life, but John looked at his car and made the decision. He rushed forward, his feet silent despite the weight he threw down with each pumping step. He was in the car and pulling out of the parking lot before Harry even had a chance to move.
He waited for Harry to show up, but after a minute on the road, he realized Harry already had his say.
21
Present Day
One chance and it’s slipping away. The whole thing is slipping away.
Alan had to ignore the thoughts plaguing his mind.
Focus.
One chance and it’s almost gone. What’s it matter if you get him after he kills another fifteen people tonight? What good will you have been at all?
“Shut the fuck up!” he shouted into his car.
He grabbed his cellphone and called Hilt’s sister.
“Hello?”
“It’s Tremock. Are the cops there?”
“Cops?” she said. “What are you talking about?”
Alan looked at the clock on his dashboard. Thirty minutes had passed and no one was there yet?
“Don’t move from the house. Are the doors locked? All of them?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Listen to me, Mrs. Mollens,” Alan said, trying to keep his voice low. “We both have very little time. Who is in the house with you?”
“Just Diane and me. Her kids are at a neighbors.”
Alan heard the rising stress but also the strength underlying the words. She was trying to hold it together the same as him.
“Okay. As soon as you get off this phone you call those neighbors and you tell them and the kids to leave. I don’t care where they go, but tell them they cannot tell you where they’re going. Tell them not to tell anyone until three police officers call them one after another, okay? That’s extremely important. They can’t tell anyone until three cops call them in a row. You got all that?”
“I got it,” she said, worry masking the strength now.
“You and Diane lock the entire house up. Everything. Windows, doors, whatever. There’s only one street that connects to the house, right?”
“Yes.”
“You sit in the living room where you can see the street. You don’t open the door until a police officer shows you his badge. There will be more than one. If just one shows up, don’t open it. Only for two or more. Do you have a weapon?”
“Jesus Christ, no. Why?”
“Okay,” Alan said. “Do everything I said. I’ll be there soon but a few other cops will probably beat me to it.”
“You tell me what is going on right fucking now.”
Alan said nothing into the phone, his mind running through options. Would he tell her that Hilt murdered their father over the goddamn phone? Would he tell her that Hilt was on his way back and most likely already kidnapped someone?
“Mrs. Mollens, I’ll be there shortly. I’ll explain it all then.”
“You’ll explain it all right now or I’m not getting off this phone, you understand that?”
Alan switched lanes, barely dodging a semi-trailer’s rear end.
“Look, it’s something that I need to talk about in—”
“No. Now.”
He paused for a second, considering.
Fuck it, he thought.
“Your father’s dead. Your brother did it. He’s returning to the States, and I think he’s already back. We were looking after someone, someone involved with the case that could identify your brother, and that person disappeared a few hours ago. I think he might be coming for you two next.” The words exited like bullets, no emotion and holding one purpose: convey the situation's severity.
The pause on the other end of the phone stretched. Alan downshifted and pa
ssed three cars in the far left lane before sliding back over.
“Mrs. Mollens, are you there?”
“How do you know he did it?”
“Because your brother has been killing people his whole life. You don’t know about it, but I do, and everywhere he goes, people show up dead. Your father went down to find him and he didn’t come home. There’s no other explanation. Now I need you to get off the phone and do what I told you, okay?”
He heard the click on the other side as she ended the conversation. Alan didn’t know if she’d listen, but at least she wasn’t wasting time with him anymore. He gripped the steering wheel harder and pushed down on the gas pedal.
* * *
Kaitlin opened her eyes but for some reason couldn’t see anything. She blinked a few times trying to remove whatever was in her eyes and keeping blackness draped over her vision.
The darkness didn’t dissipate, though.
Kaitlin reached up to her eyes …
Except her arms didn’t move.
She tried opening her mouth, wanting to say what the fuck? but it wouldn’t move either, and only muffled noises bloomed and died inside her mouth.
What was happening? Where was she? And why the hell was her body bumping up and down so much?
Kaitlin tried to move her arms again, and as she did, the truth of her situation dawned on her. Something bound her wrists, something tight that cut into her skin. Her ankles too. She didn’t have shoes on, but still couldn’t slip her feet through whatever wrapped around them. And her mouth? She could feel the sticky glue of tape, and when she moved her head, she felt it pull against her hair as well—it was wrapped completely around her head.
The bumps? The blackness all around her? The sweat dripping down her forehead and underneath her arms?
No, she thought. No. No. No. It can’t be.
Kaitlin was inside a trunk, tied and gagged.
What did she remember? Starbucks … she’d been at work and suddenly felt—
You’re going to die
—More frightened than she could ever remember being. She asked … who … Terry! She asked Terry if she could step out, then went to the alley and …
F … u … c … k …
She remembered drowning, her lungs filling up with blood—that was it. Nothing after. No idea how she went from that feeling to being in someone’s trunk. But that didn’t matter, did it? Because she was here anyway, bouncing along on some road without a fucking hope of getting out.
She tried to feel for her cell-phone; she always kept it in her back pocket and if it was there, it should have been pressing against her ass. It wasn’t. Whoever put her in here took the phone.
Which makes goddamn sense, she thought, oddly calm and slightly angry at someone stealing her cell. She would have laughed if she could, being tied up in the back of a car but actually angry that the motherfucker stole her phone.
You’re going to die. The same cheerless thought, apparently intent on reminding her every chance it saw. And more, it now appeared to be accurate.
Tremock. He knows where you’re supposed to be. He’ll be looking for you. Merchent, too.
Maybe. But how would they find her? They couldn’t call. They had no clue where she was heading, so how in the hell would they find her?
You’re in a bad spot, she thought, and if you start panicking, it’s going to get a lot worse. Stay alert and listen to everything you can. Try to remember the turns. Try to keep up with how long you’re in this thing.
All of that sounded great from the calm confines of her mind, but she couldn’t see a damned thing and every time she opened her eyes, sweat dripped in them—burning and making her shut them just as quickly as she opened them.
Stay alive then. Don’t think about any other bullshit. Just stay alive as long as you can.
Kaitlin closed her eyes and let herself follow along with the bumps beneath, knowing she would die soon without any voice having to tell her.
* * *
“Where are we going?” John said.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Harry answered.
John kept his eyes on the road but felt his disgust for Harry growing even though he hadn’t thought that possible a few minutes ago.
“And have you come up with anything?”
“Well, first, we need to get this car off the road. We’re about two hours outside Dallas so I think we beat any roadblocks that might be going up; it’ll take them time to spread this far out in all directions. We need to find a podunk hotel and get the broad out of the trunk and into the room. Then we figure out the rest from there.”
“Really glad to hear your thoughts on the matter, Harry. Thanks so much. Not sure if you realized this, but I could have thought all that shit by myself, so really, I’m not sure what you’re bringing to the table anymore. What I mean is, what the fuck do we do once we’re off the road?”
Harry looked over to him, and John met his eyes. He saw a fire inside Harry that he hadn’t seen before. Not a metaphorical fire, but actual flames flickered where his eyeballs should have been. Harry was burning, and when you combined that with the smile across his face, he looked wholly insane. Something not of this world, something which couldn’t have been born on Earth, let alone reborn inside John’s head.
When Harry opened his mouth to speak, John saw the flames licking up his throat. His tongue had always been a black insect lying dead in his mouth, but the flames rolled across his flesh as easily as his words, and now his tongue took on the caked black look of a hotdog left in the fire too long.
“Well, John, if you want my opinion, I think it’s time we call the rest of the family over. Get Alicia, Diane, and maybe even the boys to the hotel.”
John stared at his burning friend, hearing his words, but unable to develop a substantive response. “Harry … you’re on fire,” he said.
“I thought I felt a little hot, to be honest. I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing, though. Don’t you feel a little hot?”
Goddamn right John did. The whole car was hot as hell despite the air conditioning blowing full blast.
“Yeah, I think we need to get them to come over,” Harry said. “You’ve hidden this from them long enough, you know? They can either accept you for who you are or they can leave like your pops did. He wasn’t willing to accept you, maybe they will be. Either way, the choice will be up to them. That seems fair to me.”
John turned his head back to the road. Open plains lay to his left and right, but he’d find a small hotel that took cash and didn’t ask for I.D. sooner or later. You always could in Texas.
He thought about what Harry said as the car rolled on. His father hadn’t accepted him. John believed that. Not like his mother. Mom was always there for him, always did everything necessary to keep him safe. What had his dad done? Showed up in Mexico when things were already at an impasse? Had he been there when John was in England? When he got back? Any goddamn time during his whole life?
No. His father had been the happy-go-lucky one that thought everything was okay, even while John burnt alive from the inside out … just as Harry was now. John’s burning took a little longer, true, but was there any difference?
He looked over to Harry again, who still stared at him with that wicked smile, flames sneaking peeks out from behind his teeth.
Maybe Harry was right. Maybe it was time to let everyone know. Then they could decide if they wanted to help or hurt him.
22
A Portrait of a Young Man
The plane landed and John realized he would never make that flight again, from England to America. He was done with England forever and believed it was done with him, too.
His senior year finished, diploma achieved and making its own flight across the ocean in the next few weeks. Probably something his parents would keep and look at, proud that their son had done something so rare for someone his age—so rare for someone from his country as well.
At least his father might feel that.<
br />
John wondered what his mother thought. Whether she would look at that diploma with the same pride as his dad. Or if she might have other feelings, mixed ones that laced the pride with a deadly poison.
John stood up, tightening and stretching his muscles. He sat in the back of the plane, so he waited for those in front to grab their overhead bags and exit. Then he took his from above the seat and walked down the aisle, looking at his feet as he did.
Done with England.
Are you done with Cindy? Is that possible, John?
He rejected the thought as a credit card reader rejected a Visa. Sorry, not enough funds, can’t play here. Please come again.
He went through customs, head down. John was happy to be back, for sure, but he didn’t feel the enthusiasm that he should. A depression hung over him that he couldn’t put into words, one of innocence lost and self pity.
The smiles on his family’s faces lifted that, though—even if only for a moment.
He saw them as soon as he finished with customs: his mother, father, and sister all waiting with their own emotions hanging over them. Pure happiness.
His mother rushed forward, unable to hold back any longer, and wrapped her arms around him tighter than ever before.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re back for good!” she nearly shouted.
His father came behind her and John saw tears in his eyes as well. He placed his hand on John’s shoulder, his mom still not releasing him from her embrace.
“How was the flight?” Scott said.
“Not bad … Mom, loosen up a bit?” he said with his own smile.
“Hush. I’m going to hug you for just another second.” And that she did.
When she finally let go, he hugged the rest of the crew, kissing his sister’s cheek for the first time when he came to her. “I missed you,” he said.
“Glad you got rid of that blonde,” she said back into his ear.
Cindy. Her name was Cindy.
