The Man from Primrose Lane: A Novel

by James Renner

  The man screamed again when Trimble touched the back of his head to untie the blindfold.

  “Shuddup,” said Trimble. “I ain’t gonna hurt you.” He let the blindfold fall but the gag stayed in.

  The bushy-haired man, already in shock, seemed to go insane when he saw Katy. Galt’s eyes were as big as a horse’s, like the eyes of a horse stuck in a pen watching the fire that will engulf the barn begin in a corner. He looked at me and recognized me, too. He started shaking his head. He said something against the gag.

  “What’s that?” asked Trimble.

  “He said, ‘You’re dead. I watched you die,’” I explained.

  “Huh. Far out.”

  “That’s him,” said Katy, sullenly, to David. “That’s the man who came up to me outside Big Fun.”

  “She knows who you are, man!” said Trimble, jumping around the man’s chair. “I told you! I told you she’d figure it out. God, this is fun! I told you I’d catch him for you, David. I told you I’d do it. We should have worked together!”

  “Why would I work with you, Trimble?” asked David, and I had begun to wish he would just stop talking until I figured out a way to get us out of there. I knew well the disdain I’d always had for authority, though. “You’re the same as this man. You’re the same.”

  “No,” he said. “You’re wrong. There’s a very big difference. This man kills for himself. I only ever killed for Beezle.”

  “A fucking cat?” screamed David.

  I had already begun to doubt that Beezle was only a cat.

  “Well, he’s a cat right now,” said Trimble, as if David had offended it and he was trying to make amends. “But he was a dog for a while, right, when he used to live in New York? And a donkey once, long ago. A pig, too. He could be a man if he wanted. I bet he could. I think he’s a cat because I wanted him to be a cat.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked David.

  “He came to me, when I was five. I was stuck outside all day, and the only thing I had to play with was a sandbox. I prayed and prayed and prayed to God that I could have a friend to play with. What I really wanted was a cat. A little cat to rub and make purr and chase around the house. And something heard me.”

  Trimble looked over to Beezle, as a lover might regard his partner when remembering their kismet introduction. “He came to me and stood in the sandbox in front of me. He told me his name was many things but also Beezle. He told me that if I would be loyal to him, if I obeyed him and did all that he asked of me, he would be my friend whenever I needed a friend. I told him yes, yes, I would do all that. But he told me to prove it. A contract. It was a contract, I realize that now.”

  I didn’t want to know.

  “He asked me to get rid of the neighbor’s dog. You see, the dog knew what Beezle really was. The dog could smell it. And Beezle didn’t like that. So I did what Beezle told me to do. I tied the dog to a tree in the woods behind my house and cut out its stomach with my pocketknife. The police thought some other kid did it—that blond kid from down the street. They carted him off in a white van.

  “Beezle is my friend now. He helps me when I need helping. He came to me at the hospital and told me to stop taking the pills. He unlocked my door and showed me the way out through the boiler room window. That’s what friends are for. Course, a couple orderlies happened to be taking a smoke break outside, but we took care of them, too, didn’t we?”

  Beezle mewed.

  “I didn’t need to kill those girls to get what I wanted. But Beezle was pretty insistent. He said I had to. He said those particular girls had to die.”

  “Why?” asked David.

  “The universe is out of balance, David. Don’t you feel it in your bones? This isn’t the way things are supposed to be. Nature is balance. For every thing there is a reason, right? Or something like that. But you fiddled with it. Beezle told me that you’re the reason our lives are damned. And he caught you! We caught you!” Trimble hopped to his feet and danced a short jig in front of us.

  David moved before any of us saw it. He had retained a little length in the handcuff behind the radiator when Katy had secured it to his wrist. He had a little more room to play with than any of us realized. And he was able to push himself forward very close to Trimble. He kicked his foot into Trimble’s crotch, followed him down, and stomped on his balls with the heel of his shoe.

  Trimble yelled and fell back. The gun tumbled to the floor, spinning toward David’s outstretched hand. It was going to be close, but it looked like David would reach it.

  But then my head was filled with white-hot pain. It took me a couple seconds to realize it was pain from a sound. Pain like standing next to an amp during a guitar solo at a metal show. Blistering, dull, numbing pain. David forgot the gun and clapped his hands to his ears. Katy tried to do the same, but could only get one, due to the lack of give between her left hand and the register. She screamed. Where was it coming from? I looked around the room and recoiled when I saw it.

  It was Beezle. The cat’s hackles were raised and its mouth was wide open. It was making the sound in its body. Its fur rippled in thin waves along its sides. Then its mouth shut and the cacophony ended.

  Trimble recovered first, picked up the gun, turned it around, and shot David in the belly. Blood poured from the wound, through David’s fingers, and onto the hardwood floor.

  “David!” shouted Katy.

  David squinted his eyes up at Trimble.

  “You should thank me,” said Trimble. His voice sounded regretful, though. Like he’d had to put down his rabid dog. “You would have obsessed over this man like you obsessed over me. And what sort of life is that?” he said, motioning to Dean Galt. “Questions. Questions. Questions. You feed on the answers. It’s the only thing that fills you up. You would have spent the rest of your life trying to get this man to tell you what he told me in one hour. Get this, David—he found Elizabeth again after reading your book. You put all kinds of personal information about her in there. He became obsessed with her again. He stalked her. And she led him right to the Man from Primrose Lane. Can you imagine his surprise when he saw them together? He was furious. He was the one who called your wife that day in the hospital, pretending to be the Man from Primrose Lane. He waited out back of the house until she arrived. He followed her in.

  “He told me everything, David. What happened when he got inside. Why he set up your wife’s murder to look like a suicide. Why he believes he kills. What he did with Elaine’s body. But he would never have told you, David. He’d have never told you, because you wouldn’t have put a knife to his testicles like I did.”

  Trimble knelt in front of David, beside Galt’s feet. “And you know what the worst part of it is? The worst part is, in the end, the answers never really change anything. You don’t try to finish a crossword puzzle because you like to see all the squares filled in. You try to finish it to see if you can. And when you do, there’s another one tomorrow. The solution is not the point. Get it?”

  David didn’t answer.

  “Here, I’ll prove it,” he said. Another shot rang out. Galt’s head exploded like a balloon, hitting us with hot shards of his brain and skull. “Goddamn it!” shouted Trimble, wiping a chunk of gray matter off his shoulder. “This was my favorite shirt!”

  I didn’t hear the next gunshot. It’s possible my brain didn’t register it because it came so close to the one that ended Galt’s life. All I noticed was a bright red stain appearing in the center of Trimble’s shirt. He tried to wipe it away, but the redness only grew. Beezle hissed loudly and jumped down from the table. Then Trimble looked up at the doorway.

  Sackett stood there, leaning against the frame. He fired two more into Trimble’s chest. And still the man did not fall. He seemed mostly annoyed. So Sackett shot him in the face and then it was over.

  “The keys!” cried Katy. “Get the keys. And call an ambulance. Please! Call an ambulance!”

  Sackett fished through Trimble’s pockets and came u
p with the cuff keys, which he tossed to me. My hands trembled. It took me several attempts to unlock the cuffs.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  “Kate,” breathed David, lying on his back. “Where’s the cat?”

  I looked around. It was perched on the windowsill behind the overturned desk, leering at us with quiet fury. I reached down and pulled the gun from Trimble’s grip. I swung it up and fired as the beast leapt through the thin screen. I honestly don’t know if I shot it or not. If I did, it surely wouldn’t have made it far before lying down to die. But I’d say the odds that my aim was true are something like fifty-fifty.

  “What the hell was that sound it made?” I asked. Katy didn’t react and I could tell she was already convincing herself that part had never happened. David motioned for me to come closer.

  “Not a cat,” he said. “I saw it. When Trimble shot me. For a second.”

  “What was it?”

  A tear escaped his eye and rolled off his cheek. “Formless. Darkness.”

  “Shhh,” I said. David’s skin was taking on a sickly glow, his breath coming in short rasps.

  “Is that … what … we get?” he asked. “All … the murderers we caught. Do you think … could that defeated darkness come for us? It called to me. I could feel myself going there.”

  “Just focus on not dying. Be still.”

  He shook his head. He gripped my arm with what strength remained. “Watch after him.”

  His eyes stopped moving.

  * * *

  All I can say, Tanner, is that I tried to do just that.

  Of course, if you’re reading this, something bad has happened again.

  I suppose you have to ask yourself, how much of your father is in you?

  How far will you go?

  It’s up to you. It’s a terrible choice. No matter what you decide, know he loved you. That I loved you.

  INTERLUDE

  THE BALLAD OF THE LOVELAND FROG

  2012 This time, Everett Bleakney was ready.

  He kept a packed bag next to the door of his double-wide. Inside was his father’s gun, a can of Mace, a cattle prod, two pairs of handcuffs, duct tape, earplugs, tinfoil, and rope.

  They had locked him up. Called him crazy. Hannah had left him for another man while he had recuperated inside the psych ward of Cinci General after his last encounter with the Loveland Frog, in 1996. They wouldn’t let him into the academy because of his psych evaluations. The monster had murdered his father and ruined his life. If it ever came again, he would be ready. And this time, he wouldn’t run. Even if he felt its telepathic tentacles coil around his mind.

  He waited. For years he waited, listening for sounds emanating from the direction of Twightwee Road. Every time an old truck backfired out by the ruins of Camp Ritchie, he grabbed the bag and jumped into his car, zooming down the back roads of Loveland at a speed that was nearly physically impossible. He didn’t care if it was a false alarm. He viewed these distractions as training runs.

  Bring your spark-wand, motherfucker, he thought. Let’s see how well it works against a nine-millimeter.

  So when that low, percussive, probing DOOOOOOOOOFFFF! sound shook the ground beneath his trailer on October 3, 2012, he was ready.

  “This is it!” he shouted. He was getting ready for his shift at Capri Pizza when he heard it, felt it through the faux-wood walls. If he went now, he’d never make it to work in time. And that meant he’d be fired. Again. Did he care?

  Everett grabbed the bag and bounded out the door like a paratrooper. A minute later, he was in his battered Volkswagen Rabbit, spitting up dust on Twightwee at roughly fifty miles an hour.

  * * *

  Just beyond the bridge over the Little Miami, Everett slammed on the brakes, sending the Rabbit skidding to a stop along the berm. He jumped out with the backpack, withdrawing the sidearm and the can of Mace as he walked into the woods. He checked the weapons. Undid the safeties. He held the heavy gun in his right hand, the Mace at the ready in his left.

  DOOOOOOOOOOOOOFFFF!

  No mistaking it. This was no backfire. This was the real deal. The Loveland Frog was returning. Somewhere among these pine trees, he knew, he would find the black egg.

  “Where are you, goddamn it?” he shouted. “Where are you?”

  As if in reply, the air in front of him shimmered like ripples on a pond. DOOOOOOOOOFFF! The shock wave sent him backward, onto his ass upon the cypress needles. He pushed himself up and looked. Ten feet away was the black egg.

  Everett aimed the gun at the top of the egg.

  It was a full five minutes before anything happened. In 1996, he had watched the Loveland Frog cut itself out of its spaceship with that spark-wand. But he noticed right away that this time something was different. There was no crack that started in one spot and moved around its circumference. One moment there was no crack, the next there was a straight line completely encircling the object. It hissed loudly as air escaped into the world. Then the top popped off and swung back on deep-set hinges.

  His heart stuttered in his chest and his head grew lighter. This is it, he thought. This is it. They’ll have to believe me now. When I drag this thing into Paxton’s they’ll believe me.

  A single black gooey hand slapped upon the lip of the lid. Then another. Slowly, the beast rose from the egg, high enough for its bulbous eyes to look upon Everett’s soul in surprise.

  “You killed my father,” said Everett, clicking back the hammer.

  The monster spat a mass of blackness onto the ground at Everett’s feet. “Wait!” it said in a voice that was remarkably human.

  Everett hesitated.

  “Don’t shoot!” pleaded the Loveland Frog.

  “What the fuck are you?” Everett asked. He was steeling himself to squeeze the trigger and end this conversation. The alien was trying to trick him by using his native language, he realized. Very clever!

  “My name is Tanner Neff,” it said. “Don’t shoot!”

  Everett watched as the creature ripped away its black, oozing face. Underneath was something that appeared to be a man.

  “What day is it?” it asked.

  “What?”

  “The day. What day is it?”

  “October third?” said Everett.

  “What year?”

  “2012.”

  The humanoid smiled. “If you put the gun down and help me out of here, Everett, I promise I’ll save your father after I save my own.”

  EPILOGUE

  He watched them come out of the Mansfield Memorial Museum from inside his parked car. They looked like half a happy family, the boy tugging on his father’s hand, leaning into gravity, as they walked back to the yellow Beetle. He remembered this moment. It was the last really good memory he had of his father, their last fun day. Tanner remembered the excitement he had felt listening to the old curator’s story, relayed through an aged electrolarynx voice box, like a robot himself. This was the night things began to change for the worse, forever.

  “Ready?” asked Everett, sitting behind the wheel of his VW Rabbit.

  “Yeah,” said Tanner.

  “Want me to come?”

  “No. I should do this alone. I won’t be long.” Tanner took the cardboard box from the back seat and stepped outside.

  By the time he was halfway to his father, David was aware of his presence. Though he hadn’t been conscious of this when he was a boy, Tanner now realized that his father had always been cautious with him, alert for any dangers that might arise in the world. He saw the question in David’s eyes as he turned to him: Are you a threat to my child?

  Four-year-old Tanner had finished snapping himself into his car seat by the time forty-year-old Tanner was close enough for David to address him.

  “Hello?” David said.

  “Hello, David,” said Tanner.

  “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

  “I’m not here to scare you, but I need you to listen to what I’m about to say. In a few m
inutes you were going to call your publisher to tell him you’re going to write that last chapter for your new book. I want to ask you to not do that. Not yet.”

  David stood, stunned. A smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Who are you?” he asked teasingly. “What is this?”

  Tanner handed his father the cardboard box.

  “What’s this?” asked David.

  “It’s an unfinished book. Or at least one without an appropriate epilogue.”

  David opened the box. “Look, I’m not supposed to read unsolicited manuscripts,” he began, but then he stopped talking when he saw the title page. The Man from Primrose Lane, it read. “Did you write this?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Who did?”

  “Give it a read,” said Tanner. “It explains things better than I could. I’ll be back in a month and we can talk some more. For now just give it a read. And do me a favor. Don’t call your publisher tonight.”

  The four-year-old tapped on the window. He waved up at the stranger. “Hi, man!” he said.

  “Hey, kiddo,” said Tanner. He smiled at himself. This was a memory he did not have. This was something new. And wasn’t that a sort of promise?

  Before David could think of how to respond, Tanner walked away.

  * * *

  On October 8, 2012, Riley Trimble returned to his solitary room at the end of a hallway inside St. Sebastian’s Home for the Criminally Insane and waited for the orderly to arrive with his cocktail of pills.

  Beezle had instructed him to wait here, in this sanitary hell. Wait for him to return. It had been four years. He might as well have gone to prison. How long did he have to wait here for David to return?

  “Good evening,” said a man in a white uniform as he stepped inside Trimble’s room and shut the door.