The Angel Alejandro

by Alistair Cross

  Nedra grabbed her heavy bowling bag from the backseat and headed toward the porch, pausing only to spit on Olivia’s car. Seeing the glob of saliva run down the obnoxious red car wrap was satisfying. Red, she thought. Of course, it’s red. Red is the color of whores, of blood, of Satan!

  She rapped on the front door and by the time the realtor answered, Nedra’s scowl had been replaced by a firmly set smile. “Olivia,” she said. “I’ve been trying to find you!”

  “Nedra? What are you doing here?”

  “I have something for you.” Nedra pushed her way inside.

  Olivia glanced at the bowling bag. “I don’t really have time for-”

  “Nonsense.” Nedra plunked the bag on the coffee table. “It’ll just take a minute.” She unzipped it, exposing her prized pink bowling ball. “I just feel so bad about what happened with the bowling league. We didn’t mean for you to leave the team permanently, of course, and I-”

  “You had me eighty-sixed from the league!” said Olivia.

  Nedra waved her hand. “Anyway, I know how you always admired my ball, and I thought I’d make it up to you by offering it to you as a gift. I was hoping we could bury the hatchet.”

  Olivia eyed the ball. “That was a long time ago, Nedra. I gave up bowling.”

  “And isn’t that just a shame! You were such a good bowler. I’m hoping this will inspire you to get back on that horse!” She gestured to the ball like a game show model. It glimmered seductively. “And look! I’ve had it engraved for you!” Nedra pointed.

  Olivia squinted.

  “Unfortunately, the inscription is quite small and blends in more than I’d like, but if you look closely, you’ll see it.”

  Olivia bent, looking hard, spinning the ball slowly this way and that.

  “Right there.”

  Olivia brought her face close, and Nedra struck.

  Loosing a primal scream, she slammed the realtor’s face down hard on the gleaming surface. There was a dull smack! as her head bounced off. Teeth crunched and scattered. Olivia shrieked like a rabbit in a snare, hands over her face as her legs buckled.

  “That’s what you get, you home wrecker!” Nedra began kicking her. “You tried to steal my husband, you filth! You didn’t really think I’d give you my ball, too, did you?” She kicked and kicked, glad she’d thought to wear her pointed-toe flats. “Thou shalt not covet my husband, you whore of Babylon!”

  Olivia rolled, covering her bleeding face, whimpering and moaning.

  “Filth!” shrilled Nedra as she kicked. “Filth! Filth! FILTH!”

  One of Olivia’s hands flicked out, quick as a snake, grabbed Nedra’s ankle, and yanked.

  Nedra hit the carpet with a thump!, her other foot still kicking.

  Olivia rose, swaying as tears dragged down her cheeks and blood poured from her ruined mouth. Her eyes were orbs of shock.

  “Try sucking my husband’s cock now!” Nedra hated to use the C word but thought the Lord would overlook it given the circumstances. Surely, having an affair with a married man ranked higher on His holy radar than crude language.

  Olivia lunged for the pink bowling ball, thrust her fingers into the holes, and brought the ball out fast. Lips peeled in a feral scream, she rushed Nedra and swung, going for a full strike.

  There was a flash of white. Pain exploded like a firecracker going off inside Nedra’s skull. She flew back, landing on her side, her false teeth shooting from her mouth and bouncing toward the kitchen doorway. Stupidly, she stared at the dismembered smile.

  Then Olivia was on her, shrieking and howling, her fists in Nedra’s hair. She felt the realtor’s hot blood splattering the back of her head even as her face was grated into the carpet like a giant block of cheese.

  “You kicked me off the bowling league, you miserable cunt!” Her words came out thick and bloody. “I was the best bowler you had!”

  Nedra felt an alarming new pain and heard a rip, rip, rip - like carpet being pulled - as her hair was torn from her head in great clumps. Loose tufts floated in her periphery as she squirmed onto her back under Olivia’s iron-legged embrace, and brought her knee up, striking the realtor hard in the crotch.

  Olivia howled, rolled off, but was quick to her feet.

  Nedra scrambled toward the kitchen. She made it to the tile floor, but didn’t have a chance to stand up before the lunatic realtor came at her. Head down, charging like a bull, Olivia ran and dove, plowing into her and sending them both skidding across the room.

  Nedra hit her head on the drawers and cabinets, giving Olivia the advantage. She caged Nedra, planting a knee on either side of her. She grabbed fistfuls of her hair and began pounding the back of her head against the drawers. “You! Crazy! Jesus-Loving! Bitch!”

  Stars exploded and Nedra heard the clatter of silverware. The pain of each blow was like being hit with a two-by-four. It muddied her thoughts, but her hands instinctively grappled for something, anything, with which to defend herself. She got a hand above her head, curled her fingers around a drawer handle, and pulled. The drawer slid out, sending a shower of utensils onto the floor, over their bodies. Startled, Olivia paused, her face a bloody mask.

  Nedra’s vision blurred as blood oozed into her eyes but her hands were quick. She closed her fist around something - she only hoped it wasn’t a spoon - and thrust the business end of it into Olivia’s ribs.

  Olivia screamed, and Nedra shoved her off, tipping her like a sleeping cow.

  Through a red haze, she saw Olivia writhing as she plucked a serving fork from her side. “You crazy fucking bitch!” She got to her hands and knees, slipping in the blood, her mouth a mess of ripped skin and missing teeth. She looked like a psychotic jack-o’-lantern. “Bitch!” She lunged, and pinned Nedra down by the throat. She stabbed, her fork-arm working like a jackhammer.

  “Get off!” Fresh pain seared through Nedra as her chest, shoulders, and arms were tenderized by the tines. “Get off me!”

  Blood spurted and splattered, spangling Olivia’s hair as she drove the fork down over and over as she squeezed Nedra’s throat.

  But weapons were all around her. Nedra grabbed a butcher knife just as Olivia drove the fork into the hollow of her throat, burying it deep. It stood there jutting out as blood spilled from the wound. Nedra’s breath hitched.

  “Fuck you!” Olivia screamed and dug both her thumbs deep into Nedra’s eye sockets.

  Fire-hot agony seared through her face, her head, her entire body, but the power of raw black hate propelled her. She brought the knife up hard and felt it sink into Olivia’s abdomen.

  The realtor’s body went stiff, rock hard. A clipped sound caught in her throat. She wheezed, then rolled off Nedra, collapsing onto her side.

  Nedra was free at last, but had no strength to stand. The fork still jutted from her throat but she was too weak to remove it. She heard her own breathing - it was hard, wet, bubbling. She managed to flop onto her side. Blind, she lay there a long moment, unable to move, struggling for air. Her body tingled, slowly losing feeling, and her mind seemed to float, as if separating itself from her body. My teeth, she thought. I need to get my teeth. I simply can’t be seen without my teeth. And she was sure someone would be arriving soon. Won’t they? Lord, help me find my teeth!

  She tried to resist the fatigue but her weariness was too strong and sleep too seductive.

  Nedra Gimple never saw her teeth again. Or anything else - not even her enemy’s corpse, which lay right in front of her.

  Face to face, Nedra Gimple and Olivia LeBlatte died in a heap of silverware, their fluids merging on the kitchen floor, each eternally locked in the other’s sightless dead stare.

  * * *

  It wasn’t like her to cry, but alone in the darkness, Madison could think of no good reason not to. She’d been cruel to Alejandro, she knew that; she’d thought that it would be a relief to finally state the facts: he couldn’t stay forever. Like her father, and then her mother, he too would eventually leave her. And now, Dette w
as probably gone from her life as well.

  If I hadn’t been an idiot and patched the roof in the rain, I never would have had the accident. If I’d never had the accident, I would have never met Alejandro and none of this would be happening. It was a mess, and it was no one’s fault but her own.

  She sniffed, rolled onto her side, and closed her eyes, her thoughts returning to Alejandro’s face when she’d told him he didn’t belong here. The pain in his eyes had been more than she could bear, and she wished she could retract her words.

  Her bedroom door clicked open, and she shut her eyes and went still, not wanting to be seen.

  “Madison?” Alejandro’s voice was cautious.

  “What do you need?”

  “May I come in?”

  She sat up, wiped her eyes, and sniffed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Alejandro’s broad silhouette filled her doorway. “I just … I just want to be here. With you.”

  Madison felt her chin quiver. She wanted to be with him, too. “Sure.” Her voice cracked.

  “May I lie here with you?”

  “Yes.” She meant to tell him no, but she couldn’t. She’d already become irrevocably attached to this man. I may as well face it. She lay on her side in the dark then felt his weight on the mattress, listened as he stripped off his shirt and shoes. She wasn’t worried about sex; she knew that wasn’t what was on his mind. He wanted to be close to her, and the truth was, she wanted nothing more than to be close to him.

  Slipping beneath the covers, he gathered her to him.

  She let him do it, resting her cheek on his shoulder, relaxing immediately in the warm vanilla scent of him. Nuzzling close, she stroked a careful circle on his bare chest - and her tears began again, harder now. They were tears of sadness and pent-up emotion. It was as if a dam had broken.

  Her body shook and Alejandro put his hands in her hair, stroking it. “I do not want to leave,” he whispered.

  “I don’t want you to leave. But eventually you’ll have to.”

  “Why?” He nuzzled her hair, inhaling it.

  Her face was in the crook of his neck where the skin was warm and smooth and sweet. “For all I know, you have a family. A wife. Children.”

  “But I do not.”

  Madison raised her head to look at his face in the shadow-clad night. “How do you know?”

  He shrugged. “I just do.”

  In the near dark, the angles of his face were drawn sharp, but she could still see the silvery glint of his eyes and the soft curve of his lips. His breath was sweet: Honey and vanilla. She wanted to kiss him.

  “Why are you crying?”

  She shrugged and sniffed. “Because I feel like we’re running out of time.” The truth felt good, like cool water on a burn.

  “I do not like time.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it only goes one way and I cannot stop it. No one can.” He sighed. “No, I do not like time at all.”

  Madison gave a humorless laugh. “But time heals all wounds.”

  In the dark, his eyes moved to hers. “Do you believe that?”

  Madison thought of her father. The years had passed but the pain never receded. “No. I don’t.” She lay her head back on his shoulder, taking comfort in the strength of his body, the heat of his skin, the very closeness of him.

  After a long moment, Alejandro said, “Goodnight, Madison.”

  “Goodnight.” She closed her eyes and listened to the silence, feeling more at peace than she had in … she couldn’t remember ever feeling such peace.

  “Madison?”

  “What?”

  “Can we be friends forever?”

  She smiled. “I’d like that. Goodnight, Alejandro.” She brushed the side of his neck with her lips, a suggestion of a kiss. His skin was the most wonderful thing she’d ever put to her lips. Inhaling deeply, she brought the scent of him into her, holding it - holding him - as long as she could.

  * * *

  He hadn’t expected to drive so far. Bernadette Watkiss lived in Bourbon Creek, a small community about twenty miles south of Prominence. It was an interesting place with a tiny population and, Nick assumed, cheap rent. It appeared to be as old as Prominence, and Wren’s Nest Hollow, the run-down condominium community where Dette lived, could easily have been the first modern thing built there. In short, it was a dive.

  Dette had wept silently most of the way, sniffing and staring out the window, not saying much. He’d hoped to get her thoughts on Alejandro but she said she didn’t want to talk about that jackass anymore - or ever again. She seemed strangely unconcerned by the frosty breath and minor earthquakes that Madison apparently attributed to Alejandro.

  Alone now, on the way back to Prominence, the black Highlander slashed through low fog, and Nick surfed radio stations, hoping to hear something about quakes, but found nothing. He listened briefly to Coastal Eddie on KNDL-FM - if anyone knew about earthquakes, it would be the deejay. Of course, the conspiracy-loving Eddie would have probably blamed the galloping horses of the Apocalypse or some such shit, but still ...

  Coastal Eddie mentioned nothing about any temblors. Instead, he was waxing poetic and paranoid about what he believed to be a zombie outbreak down in Devilswood. Nick rolled his eyes and shut the radio off. Driving back toward Prominence, the fog thickened; it was the kind of night that would have made Alfred Hitchcock proud. Tall trees stood at either side of the road, thicker here than anywhere in Prominence or Bourbon Creek.

  He looked at the clock, wishing it wasn’t so late - he would have liked to have gone back to Madison’s. Alejandro intrigued him. The Disrobed Daredevil, he thought, smiling. At least the fan-craze had died down; even Eric Cooterman had lost interest. But there was more to Alejandro than anyone knew, that much was clear. How did he make his breath frost? And what about the earthq-

  Nick slammed the brakes and stopped the Highlander, wheels crunching and skidding. Something stirred not twenty-five feet ahead. The fog swirled around the figure as it rose from a crouch, its bare skin glowing white in the moonlight. It hunched its shoulders and shuffled away in long urgent strides, disappearing into the trees so quickly that Nick questioned his senses.

  He sat gripping the steering wheel, listening, but heard nothing, not even the call of a night bird. He flipped on the high beams. They pierced the fog, showing him nothing but rolling white. Glancing at the trees where the figure - surely, it was a man - had disappeared, he pulled the Highlander to the side of the road, grabbed his flashlight, and got out. His other hand rested on the butt of his gun - a longstanding habit. Switching on the flashlight, he waved the beam around in the thickening fog. “Hello?”

  Only silence greeted him.

  Entering the forest, careful not to slip on icy patches, he imagined the bare winter-white creature behind every tree and felt a cold ghostly presence all around him. But he knew it was in his mind. As he made his way deeper into the trees, the fog floated and swirled in ominous patches, and it occurred to him that while it may have looked like the set of a Hitchcock movie, he was acting like an idiot in a slasher flick.

  Ahead, he saw movement - a golden flicker. He shut off his flashlight and quietly crept toward it, his feet barely touching the fog-covered ground. Now came another tiny gleam of light, and another. They seemed to be floating.

  He made out to a clearing edged by rocks. Nick Grayson froze, then ducked behind a tree and watched.

  Tall candles burned, and in the center of the clearing, black-robed figures stood sentinel.

  On the forest floor, long pale legs, feminine, were spread wide and between them, hairy male buttocks thrust with savage intensity. Stunned, barely breathing, Nick realized the woman was Roxie Michaelson - and Eric Cooterman was on top of her. The others dropped their robes, their nude white bodies shrouded in fog. He saw Shawn Barzetti and Bobby Beckstead of Prominence Power and Light, several middle-aged women who hung around Vang’ Bangs, and perhaps strangest of all, Dave F. - there w
as no mistaking those massive ears - from the A.A. meetings.

  They moved in a slow circle around the lovemaking couple, seeming to glide. The women rubbed their breasts. Dave F. stroked his stubby penis. The electricians stared down with the eager gazes and jutting erections of teens who’d found their father’s porno magazines.

  Roxie Michaelson, her mouth a red gash in the fog-filtered night, began to moan as Eric Cooterman pounded her, stabbing her the way a serial killer uses a knife in a horror movie. But Roxie was enjoying it. Nick had been too drunk to remember much of his night with her, but he had a feeling their lovemaking hadn’t been quite so … primal.

  Nick saw the silver glint of a blade as one of the women drew a thin line down the inside of her forearm, crouched, and nursed Roxie on the blood. She suckled, moaning, then threw her head back. Her crimson mouth spread into a wide smile and Nick’s throat went dry as a dirt road when he realized she was looking right at him.

  “Nick.” Her hair and breasts bounced with the violent thrusts. “Join us.”

  All heads faced him now. All eyes gleamed. All lips grinned.

  The slapping sounds of hard fucking were like firecrackers in Nick’s dazed mind. He searched for the appropriate response, but nothing in his police training had prepared him for this. Could he arrest them? Surely this broke a few laws, but it wasn’t as if he had enough handcuffs to haul them all off. “Let’s … uh … let’s take the party inside folks.” His voice cracked.

  “Sure thing, Nick G.” Dave F., who was jerking off with great enthusiasm, breathed hard, his frantic rhythm unbroken by the intrusion.

  Nick grimaced, shuddering as he recalled the handshakes and hugs he’d shared with the masturbating madman. He blinked, turned, and made his way back to the Highlander, nearly tripping several times.

  Inside the vehicle, he sat, stunned. What the blue fuck goes on in this town? Was this a normal evening for the citizens of Prominence, or a freak occurrence borne of small-town boredom?