Teeth

by Owen, Kelli

  “Hey, Dad.” Tamara smiled and sped up to give him a hug. “Way to be late.”

  “Oh no, I’m not here for the meeting. Just to talk to Max.”

  Tamara slumped her shoulders and rolled her eyes in an over-exaggeration of defeat, “Whyyyyy? Why don’t you come with us?”

  “This is a you-and-Mom thing. Plus, I can see Max whenever I need. He comes down to the station on a regular basis when we have our sensitivity training or cases or issues that require his help.”

  “Hi, Mr. Murphy.” Madison appeared behind Tamara, both her parents in tow.

  Connor nodded to her parents, remembering them as always polite, but always quiet. “Glad to see you again, little lady.” Connor gave her a broad smile and almost raised his hand up to ruffle her hair, but stopped himself. It had been years since the girls were of an age to appreciate that form of affection. Now it would mess with their hair. He looked at the people coming out behind them and back to Tamara. “What? No Brenna?”

  “Oh my God, no. She’d never come here. Plus, I don’t even know if we’ll ever see her again. She still hasn’t come to school.”

  “I heard she was transferring.” Madison didn’t smile when she said it, but Connor heard it in her voice.

  “Good riddance.” Tamara held a fist up to Madison and the other girl bumped it with her own.

  “Connor?” Jacqueline caught up to the group and questioned him with a concerned look.

  “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just here to talk to Max.”

  “Oh, Max isn’t here.” She shook her head. “He left a few minutes ago. But his apprentice, Vic, is inside if you need something.”

  Connor looked around as if he could see or somehow catch Max before he left but realized he had no idea what the man drove. He chewed his lip and nodded at his wife. “Okay. I’ll wait.”

  “See you at home then?”

  “Yeah, I shouldn’t be long.” Connor kissed her cheek and turned to wink at Tamara. “And if you convince her to stop, tuck a Mint Oreo Blizzard in the freezer for me.”

  She gave him a thumbs-up and walked away with Madison at her side. He nodded again to Madison’s parents and waited for the last few people to exit the building before he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  Closing the heavy oak door behind him, he took a moment to appreciate the ancient wood throughout the foyer and how the gentle light from several well-placed lamps had given the oppressive room a welcoming glow. Seeing no one in the immediate vicinity, he walked toward the parlor he knew was used for the weekly meetings.

  He expected to see the man his wife had mentioned, but instead came face-to-face with a young woman in her early to mid-thirties with shockingly pale blonde hair. She was folding chairs and tucking them into a closet large enough to be another room. At the back, the table where he knew refreshments and pamphlets were usually spread out had been cleaned, organized, and put away for another week.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yes?” She glanced at him, as she flipped another chair seat up and lifted it to bring to the closet.

  “I’m looking for Vic. Well, actually, I’m here for Max but he’s gone so I’ll talk to Vic until he returns if you could point me toward him.”

  “I’m Vic.” She set the chair down and smiled at him. “Victoria. I’m Max’s apprentice. How can I help you?”

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.” His shame manifested by having him immediately start helping the girl put the chairs away. He quickly folded four, setting them against his leg as he did each, then hooked two in each hand to bring to her. “Here. Sorry. It’s nice to see the Council is finally letting women be librarians.”

  “You know about the Council?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry again. Jesus I’m apologetic tonight.” He almost flushed with embarrassment. What’s wrong with me? “Detective Connor Murphy—”

  “Murphy? Tamara’s dad?”

  He nodded.

  “Oh wait, Connor? Connor Murphy? Max’s Connor. Oh I never put those two together. That helps make sense of a couple confusing conversations I’ve had.” She laughed at something without filling him in on the joke. “Yeah, Max is out. Said he needed to go check on something. But he should be back in a bit if you want to wait. If I can help in the meantime, I’ll try.”

  “I wanted to pick his brain about a case.” Connor considered what he could have her help him with. “But if you’re good with the records, I’d also like to do a search for previous crimes.”

  “Yeah sure, I can help with that.” She pointed at the chairs still sitting behind him. “Help me put these away and I’ll make us some coffee.”

  — THIRTY-SEVEN —

  Henry was beyond disappointed with his searches through the Facebook groups. The only human woman he could find who met the criteria was out of town for the week. She didn’t even say where, or for what. His excitement as he was looking over her profile crashed when he saw the post dated the day before, right around the time he’d fallen asleep in the basement. He’d have to wait an entire week if he wanted to grab her.

  A week.

  It was too long.

  The room had been finished by two o’clock Sunday afternoon. He dragged the mattress down two flights of stairs and set it in the enclosed space with a folded sheet and blanket. In the corner next to the floor drain, he put an old metal bait bucket he had found. He pried the spring-loaded lid off and left it open and exposed for his guest to use as a toilet seat. He attached the strong but lightweight chain, found in the grocery store’s meager pet department, to the sewer pipe on the wall and adjusted the length.

  When he finished, he closed the door and sat down, exhausted, on the mattress. He leaned against the wall and imagined how it would be for her, once he secured his guest. He woke up just after eight-thirty—surprised he’d fallen asleep and a little ashamed to find he was holding himself through his jeans. He wandered upstairs and picked at a microwavable Salisbury steak dinner, glad for the frozen flavorless meal and still shuddering over the previous day’s experiments.

  The beef liver on Saturday had tasted horrible, even with a thick layer of ketchup on it. He’d only tried it after finishing his pizza because he hated the idea of waste. He quickly wished he hadn’t wasted his time cooking it and thrown it away in the first place.

  The blood in the container, the reason he’d even purchased the liver in the first place, had been a mistake as well.

  For starters, the blood was nothing more than blood-tinted juices and preservatives. Not only did it do nothing for Henry physically, it didn’t even clot to appease him mentally.

  He couldn’t wait a week.

  Henry somehow dragged himself through the workday, went home long enough to shower and change, and then drove through the McDonald’s for a Double Quarter Pounder meal with a Sprite.

  He brought the super-scrubbed and scent-free pickle jar and his ice pick with him out of habit, but they were on the floor on the passenger’s side. Not on the seat, ready to use. He wasn’t out for blood. He wasn’t going to hunt to kill, but rather hunt to catch. The cops were looking for him. The public was on heightened alert. It was too dangerous. He needed to nab someone quickly and get her into the car, and then into the basement. He wished he had chloroform, but he knew from searching the Internet, he could catch a girl from behind and chokehold her until she passed out. It wouldn’t hurt her. It wouldn’t hurt the blood.

  He parked outside the Lamplight Foundation’s weekly meeting, down the street far enough to be out of visual range. Henry watched the building while he ate his heat-lamp meal. He didn’t want to grab any of them. They were lamian. He needed a human. But he longed to sit in their meetings and learn their secrets. Unfortunately he couldn’t do that. He knew they could read his mind if he got too close. He knew th
ey would know his secrets, not just his desires. As the sun went down and it became harder to see anything from that distance, he grew bored and started to drive away.

  As he turned at the end of the street and the park came into view, he remembered seeing several of the women online talk about using the park to walk, jog, and otherwise exercise after dinner.

  A woman on her own, plugged into her headphones?

  It sounded perfect. It reminded Henry of the first one, and the sweet taste of learning what he was missing.

  I can’t wait a week.

  He drove around the park to the other side, where there were several closed businesses and empty parking with no late-day employees wandering about to see him. He pulled into the parking spot in front of a legal office and turned the car off. He took several deep breaths and got out, leaving it unlocked for a easy re-entry once he had someone. Quickly crossing the street, he entered the park through the trees, rather than the pathway.

  Crunching through the autumn foliage and rotting underbrush, he made his way to the fountain and benches at the center of the park. He looked around, squinting to study each of the paths meeting in the meager light of the central lampposts.

  No one.

  “Damn it.” He huffed under his breath in the dark and slumped against the tree next to him. Before he could even decide to rethink his location, he heard the rhythmic pattern of a jogger. He smiled and stood up, eager for a view.

  The figure came into the light near the fountain, and Henry felt defeated once again. A man. A rather large one at that.

  Even with my ice pick, I couldn’t take that guy down.

  He stepped back deeper into the shadows and realized he may have to be patient.

  In less than ten minutes, another set of exercising feet echoed in the distance. This one sounded funny and it took him a minute to realize it was a pair. Exercise buddies whose steps were not quite in sync and therefore made a strange thump-thump-boom rhythm as they jogged past him. He hadn’t even leaned back against the tree when the unexpected soft padding of a walker came from the path behind him. He turned, gripping hope in his tightened stomach muscles.

  It’s a girl. Alone.

  Henry smiled and watched her approach. As she passed him, he could hear the muffled sounds of the music blaring in her ear buds. God bless the unaware, he thought, as he stepped from the shadows of the trees.

  Several quick steps and he was on her. She was short, which made it easier, and he reached forward with a wide arc and wrapped a hand around her neck, grabbing his wrist with the other hand and forming the hold that would choke her to unconsciousness.

  She squawked, his grip on her neck preventing a full scream, and twisted in his arms. She was tough and fought him, but he was bigger, stronger, and had a firm hold on her.

  She clawed backward, trying to find his eyes, then suddenly stopped. She began to wiggle and he realized she might be reaching for a weapon. He braced himself to dodge and whispered, “I won’t hurt you. Just stop. Sleep.”

  The mist from the tiny can in her hand shot an arc over her head, as she pointed it backward and swept from one side to the other.

  Henry flinched but didn’t dodge well enough, and let out a howl as the contents went directly into the corner of his eye. The burning was immediate, as if his face were on fire, and he pushed her away from him. In the grip of pain, in the anguish of a possible defeat, he pushed her away hard, straight out in front of him. He didn’t see her fall. He couldn’t see anything with the eye refusing to open, and the other reflexively shut to protect itself.

  But he heard the telltale crack as she landed against the edge of the fountain.

  “Fucking bitch! What the fuck?” He rushed forward, almost tripping over her body, to get to the water in the fountain. He splashed it into his eye and rinsed it the best he could. After several minutes, he raised his head and looked around.

  She hadn’t run for help. She hadn’t gotten up. She lay there where she fell. Blood ran down the side of the short fountain wall and pooled onto the cement below. The injury to her head started right above her eye and wrapped around toward her temple. Her head was split open, but looked like it had been crushed.

  It looked almost like the boy’s had when Henry hit him with the pipe.

  “No.” He looked around and felt his pockets. “NO!”

  He didn’t have a jar to collect the blood spilling from her head. He didn’t have his pick to puncture her neck. And he didn’t have a living girl to take home and slowly bleed at his leisure.

  The blood glistened in the lamplight. The smell rose to meet him.

  I’ll try again tomorrow. For now—

  He bent down and began lapping at the head wound on the fallen girl. He drew his tongue up her cheek, collecting the precious liquid as gravity tried to send it to the cement. He cleaned up the matted hair at her temple like an animal licking her newborn free of placenta. He put his mouth to the crack in her skull. His tongue felt the ridge the fountain wall had created, and he made a slurping sound as he sucked at it.

  His heart stopped when she moaned and he pulled back in fear, and confusion.

  Alive?

  He hadn’t checked. He had assumed. Henry looked at the blood on the pavement and realized it wasn’t that much. The water from the fountain thinning it could make it look like much more than it was.

  I can still get her home.

  The thought hit him the same time he heard something scrape against cement from somewhere nearby and realized he wasn’t alone.

  “Fuck.” He hissed through his teeth and stood, looking around. His face was smeared with the blood of the girl, from his nose down beyond his chin. He looked like something from a horror movie, something from a nightmare. He licked at his lips and squinted into the darkness around him, trying to locate the sound.

  He had his victim. His guest.

  His blood supply.

  But someone was there. Someone too close, someone who would see him if he tried to carry her, if he was slowed down with her weight.

  He growled at the universe, at the unfairness of it all, and ran, leaving her to either bleed to death or be found. Such a waste.

  He jogged down the path toward his car, going far enough to be out of the light of the fountain before he slowed to a nervous walk. He didn’t want to look guilty if someone passed him. He kept his head down, his bloodied mouth hidden, and followed the twisting path. He listened to the darkness around him. He couldn’t hear anything.

  But he could feel someone close by.

  Henry’s skin tingled and the little hairs on his neck rose. Whoever it was, Henry could feel them getting closer. Coming toward him. He looked around, but couldn’t tell which direction to go. He couldn’t tell if what he felt was on the path or in the woods, and he froze for a moment, eyes wide enough to feel the cool night air blow across them. It wasn’t a squirrel or some other small animals creeping around its nocturnal habitat. This was something else.

  This was something that scared him.

  — THIRTY-EIGHT —

  Dillon had slipped out the kitchen door after dinner, escaping the manor to avoid the newbies and curious who would soon be filing in the front for the weekly group session. Even though Madison and Tamara would be there, he still didn’t want to be part of the group. Too many people, lamian, with powers. His abilities were as fickle as his teen hormones, and nearly impossible to control. He heard things when he didn’t want to, he couldn’t hear things when he concentrated, and it frustrated him to learn it could take years to control it.

  He nodded at the young black couple getting out of their car and sped up his pace before the eager pair tried to talk to him based on his proximity to the property. He crossed the street and headed for the park.

  Lying on top of the fountain’s umbrellas statue, he star
ed at the stars and appreciated the quiet. Most people who bothered to come through after dark were wearing headphones and minding their own business. They never even looked up to notice him hidden in the shadows of the only place in the park’s center not under the light of lampposts.

  Dillon realized he heard the runner’s thoughts more easily when they ran past if they were agitated about something—jogging off a fight with their spouse, or listening to their angry exercise music and wishing they had a different job. Other times he heard nothing but the rhythm of their feet on the pavement and maybe muffled music if it was loud enough.

  A noise in the brushes behind a bench was loud enough for him to turn his head. He figured it was a squirrel, possibly a night bird, as there wasn’t really anything else in the center of town. There had been some excitement a few years back when a bear cub had gotten lost by the river and wandered into town to climb a tree over by the school. But for the most part, nature stuck to the outskirts of town where the road kill was as much a city limits marker as the dinged WELCOME TO RIVERSIDE sign.

  A pair of women went by with headphones blaring. Weird, he thought. Exercise partners who don’t speak the whole time they’re together? Just there to egg the other on? A few moments later, as he figured the squirrel had scurried off, he watched as a young woman with a brisk stride came from the far path, and the sound in the bushes broke free. The silhouette of a man appeared and walked up behind her, grabbing her roughly around the neck.

  Dillon rolled over and went flat on the top of the statue, trying to stay hidden.

  What the fuck?

  There was a brief struggle as the man tried to choke the woman.

  Does he know her? Ex-wife or something?

  And then the woman pulled something from her pocket in a tight fist and held it above her head. Dillon heard the sound of something spraying and then the man screamed. The man pushed the woman away from him as he grabbed his face. The woman toppled straight forward—her footing already precarious from the struggle, the shove proved to be more than she could recover from. Momentum and gravity carried her toward the ground and she hit her head hard on the fountain below Dillon. The loud crack sound was enough to make him gasp.