by Jack Castle
Hank’s mind was spinning; he knew he had to keep Jeb talking. As long as he was talking, he wasn’t shooting. Keeping his palms open and in front of him, Hank risked a few steps closer. “Jeb, what did Simon say to you?”
“Hank!” Jeb roared and leveled him with a warning glare, “You take one more step and I swear I will blow her head clean off!”
“All right, Jeb, all right. I’m staying right here. What did Simon say to you?”
Jeb sighed heavily, in a manner that suggested he knew he wouldn’t be believed. He answered anyway, “He told me that none of this is real. It’s not real. And I’m just trying to sort out the real ones, like you and me, from the fake ones, like Bob on the floor over there.”
Hank’s gaze flashed to the bloody mess that was Bob the fry cook and back to Jeb. “I don’t know, Jeb. Bob’s corpse looks pretty real to me.”
“Don’t you think I don’t know that?” Jeb yelled. Then in a softer tone and eyeing Hank with a strange look of pity he added, “That’s what they want you to think. Don’t you see?”
Hank could only shake his head.
Is insanity infectious? If so, it got to Jeb too. If he ever got out of this, Hank promised himself that he would test the water supply, the lead in the paint, anything that might make the townsfolk go nuts.
Risking a quick glance at him and seeing Hank’s disappointment, Jeb explained further, “Simon helped me remember, Hank. I remember everything now. He can help you remember too.”
“I’d like that, Jeb. I really wish someone would explain to me what the hell is going on around here but look at Ophy, you’re scaring her. Put down the gun and we’ll talk about it all you want.”
“You still don’t get it, do you, son. All of this, it ain’t real.”
“Jeb, what are you talking about?”
“Hold on, and I’ll show ya,” Before Hank could act, or think of anything to say, Jeb focused his aim on Ophy’s face once more. “Ophy, how long have you lived here?”
“My whole life Jeb, you know that,” she answered, her body trembling.
A grief-stricken expression came over Jeb’s face. For a moment he sagged as though his strings had been cut.
Hank saw the gun go limp in his hands. He took another step towards him, but before he could get any closer Jeb grimaced and said firmly, “Sorry, Ophy, wrong answer.” Jeb raised the Remington 870 and … BOOM!
The projectile was a slug capable of punching a hole through a semi’s engine block. At such close range it had nearly vaporized Ophy’s head into a pink mist.
Emma screamed.
Hank surged forward, but drew up short when Jeb switched his aim towards him and racked another round. “You see, that’s how you know the real ones. Don’t chya git it?”
“I don’t understand, Jeb!” Hank said, his hands out in front of him, heart thudding in his chest. “You’re killing people. God, Look what you did to poor Ophy.”
Jeb didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, he moved over to the only other two people still alive in the room. “You!” he shouted to Emma, crouching by the overturned table. “How long have you lived here?”
“What?” Emma stammered.
Hank tried to take another step, but Jeb sighted down his shotgun at him, and he froze.
Jeb sighed with deliberate frustration. “How-long-have-you-lived-here?”
She stared at him blankly. “I-I dunno, a couple of months, maybe.”
Jeb took a step closer to her. Then put the barrel right up to her head. Hank contemplated just how fast he could recover his weapon on the counter, aim and fire on his best day. Jeb must’ve read his mind for he said, without looking at him, “Hank, you reach for that pistol back there and I’ll kill her for sure. Trust me. This is all for your own good.”
“Wait a minute, Jeb. Just try and help me understand. How do we tell ‘them’ from the real people?”
Jeb sighed. “I already told you, Hank. Real people aint never from here. Long time maybe, but never from here.”
Thinking fast Hank said, “Okay, how do I explain to someone that real people aren’t real?”
Jeb ignored the question and poked Emma in the head with the barrel of the shotgun. “And Emma, take your time here. It’s very important you answer the next question very carefully. Are you ready?”
Emma could only nod her head and whimper.
“Geez, Jeb. You’re scaring her.”
“Shut up, Hank!” Jeb roared. “This is for the good of everyone in town, including hers. I’m trying to save you people.”
“How? By killing everyone?”
Jeb finally lifted his eyes from Emma.
That’s good, keep his focus off the girl.
“Gosh Hank, is that what you think? You think I’m a murderer?”
Hank raised his eyebrows and held out his hands at the carnage.
Jeb switched back to Emma, his voice becoming more firm. “Okay, Emma. One question and then we’re done. How did you get to HavenPort?”
Emma’s voice trembled. “Please… please don’t kill me.”
Emma’s plea resonated with Hank as though from some long forgotten nightmare. But the voice in the memory had been a man’s voice, not some young girl’s, of that he was certain.
“I’m not going to kill you, Emma, not if you answer the damn question. How did you get here?”
“I… I came in on the ferry.”
“You see, that’s all I wanted to know.”
Jeb removed the barrel of the shotgun from Emma’s temple, and pressed it against Odessa’s. “What about you?”
Odessa didn’t glance up. She just kept crying into her forearms.
“Hey, you,” Jeb said again, this time Hank detected a slight slur in his speech. “Ugly waitress, how long you been in town?”
At the name calling Odessa picked her head up and spat, “Couple a months, same as Cinder-Soot over here!”
Another few feet and I think I can take him.
Hank swore he would die before he let Jeb kill another person.
“Pretty boy, how about you, how long you lived here?”
Hank was surprised to learn that the boyfriend, Horatio, was cowering behind the overturned table. The kid had been making himself so small, Hank hadn’t even see him. What he should have been doing is shielding Emma’s body with his own.
“Look I can explain everything,” Horatio said, rising his hands in supplication.
“How long?” Jeb screamed at him.
“My family grew up here,” he answered solemnly.
“Your family grew up here,” Jeb repeated mockingly.
Hank could see in Jeb’s eyes what he’d seen only moments before he had shot Ophy.
Emma must have seen it too for she quickly offered, “No, that’s not true, he came in on the ferry with me.”
“Well, which is it?” Jeb asked, his body swaying in place. Hank realized Jeb was drunker than he thought, but not drunk enough to effect his aim.
At that moment, the bell above the front door rang.
Damnit Doc, I told you to wait outside… It wasn’t Doc, or at least, he wasn’t alone.
Simon Privet entered the diner. He was wearing a blood stained Trooper uniform two sizes too big for him and he was dragging the doc roughly along behind him. The doc’s left eye was swollen shut and Simon kept a pistol firmly to his head.
Simon was wearing that same silly grin he always wore, and after gazing around the room at everyone, he finally settled on Hank.
“Hi Hank, remember me?”
Chapter 25
Simon Says
Emma wasn’t sure how much more she could take.
On her first day of arrival to Havenport she had horrific nightmares about the scarecrow man and salmon sharks in the basement of Ophy’s hotel. Then just three days ago s
he had nearly gotten eaten by a monstrous bear and nearly hacked to pieces by an equally real psychopath. And now today, Jeb had come close to blowing her brains out along with murdering her closest friends.
“Hi Emma, I brought you a present.”
The man known as Simon pulled a rolled up brown piece of fabric from his pocket. He unfurled it and plopped it on his head. Emma’s blood froze. She recognized the scarecrow man’s hat immediately.
“Ta-Da!” Simon said aloud. He removed the hat from his head and with a sense of showmanship flung it spinning through the air where it landed at her feet.
How could he have something that was only in my dream? Am I dreaming now?
“You’re the scarecrow man?” Emma asked, both frightened and angry at the same time.
“No my dear, not me,” he said, eyeing her with a strange look of sadness, “but rest assured, He won’t be bothering you anymore.”
Horatio took a step towards him. “Simon, listen to me. You don’t have to do this.”
What shocked Emma most was Horatio didn’t sound like a kid anymore. It was as though he had been playing a part in a community theater show but now he was dropping the facade because he was tired of acting. He spoke to Simon the way a schoolteacher might speak to a toddler with a loaded gun: Authoritative, but frightened.
Simon rolled his head towards the young man, and said, “Ah, alas poor Horatio, I knew him well.”
Addressing everyone, Horatio said, “Look everybody, this is all just a big misunderstanding.”
Sheriff McCarthy asked, “Horatio, what the hell are you talking about?”
Horatio sighed heavily. He seemed to be thinking things over before answering. To no one in particular he said aloud, “I’m not putting up with this crap anymore. This is way above my pay grade.”
“Pay grade,” Simon snickered. “That’s funny.”
Emma stood up and put a hand on Horatio’s arm. Clearly he was upset, but equally as clear he knew something he wasn’t telling, “Horatio, what is it that you know?”
He spun on her, “Didn’t you hear me, I am done talking with you people. I want out.” He lifted his head, stretched out his hands and spoke to the heavens, “Do you hear me, I said I’m finished.”
The sheriff stepped forward and held up a hand, “Maybe you should take it easy, son.”
He snorted. “Geez. You guys really don’t have a clue where you are. Do you? Well, since they’re not going to get me out of here, I might as well tell you.”
Emma noted that everyone leaned forward, straining to listen, Hank’s hand dropping in surprise, Jeb still strangling the shotgun: everyone but one.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Simon said, interrupting Horatio, waggling his finger at him. That’s quite enough out of you today, Mister… Horatio. We mustn’t share secrets. You’ll spoil the ending.”
Horatio doubled over in pain. And not everyone saw precisely what happened next but Emma sure did. Horatio’s mouth vanished. He didn’t just shut up, his nose and mouth were completely gone from his face.
Odessa must’ve seen it too because she screamed, “Je-sus help us … his face! That boy ain’t got no mouth!” She lunged away from him as though face removal was contagious.
Sheer terror in his eyes, Horatio struggled to breathe, one hand clawing at his face. He tried to speak but it came out mumbled beneath his sealed face. He stumbled backwards, crashing into chairs and tables. Then, before he could run out of air completely, he turned and ran across the diner and crashed out the rear windows that overlooked the docks two stories below.
“Oh my Gosh, he done kilt hiself,” Odessa cried into the back of her hand. “Horatio done kilt hiself, he kilt his-self.”
Emma blinked in shock. Did I imagine the part about him not having a mouth?
While everyone was distracted, Emma saw the sheriff yank the shotgun out of Jeb’s hands.
“Hey!” When Jeb tried to grab it back, the sheriff struck Jeb in the nose with the butt of the gun. Jeb collapsed in a heap to the floor and lay still. Hank then shot a round that hit the wall near Simon and blew away several bottles on the counter near the door.
Simon stared at the bullet holes and the contents of the bottles leaking out across the counter.
“I missed on purpose,” Hank snarled. “This next round is a reserved for your face.”
Simon smiled, “I believe you, Hank. That’s what I like about you. Always so honest.”
Doc, not needing any coaching from Sheriff McCarthy, chose that moment to snatch the pistol out of Simon’s hand.
Sheriff McCarthy racked the shotgun’s slide several times emptying shells high into the air. Disgusted he threw the empty weapon into the nearest booth.
He then took the pistol from Doc Clemens and in a rage threw Simon up against the wall. Pinning him there the sheriff put the pistol’s muzzle under his chin, “Doc, you might want to take a step back; the bullet might ricochet off of the back of his skull and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Awww,” Simon cooed. “Even now, still thinking of others. Hank, you’re such an honorable guy.”
Hank thumb cocked the hammer.
Unfazed Simon narrowed his eyes and taunted, “Hank, you don’t know how to kill me.”
“I’m going to start by blowing your head off. You think that might work?”
Simon’s eyes widened, and his mouth erupted into a smile. “You really should kill me, Hank. I’ll just kill again, but then, considering where we are, that’d be a little redundant,” he said, singing the last word. Turning his gaze toward Doc Clemens he asked genuinely, “Don’t ya think, Doc?”
Doc stepped up beside the sheriff. “Now Hank, you didn’t kill him before in the hotel, you don’t have to do it now.”
“How can you say that, Doc?” Hank began through clenched teeth, “If I had stopped this murdering psychopath three days ago Ophy wouldn’t be dead.” Hank pressed the barrel more firmly beneath Simon’s throat. “No, he has to die.”
Simon sighed dramatically. “Okay, fine.” Still pinned to the wall by Hank’s elbow he turned his eyes to Doc Clemens, “Hey Doc, could you help me out here? I seem to have forgotten my lines again, oh wait, I remember now,” he turned back towards Hank, dropping his silly grin, and speaking in a phony faltering voice he said, “Please … please don’t kill me.”
Hank blinked several times in rapid succession. A look of confusion contorted his face. “Wait a minute, what’d you say?”
Simon sighed again. Like an actor reciting a crummy line he said, “I said, ‘Please … please don’t kill me.’”
The sheriff stumbled backwards as though struck by a physical blow. He then held both sides of his head as though they were throbbing in pain.
Emma walked over to him, “Sheriff?” she began, then to Simon, “What did you do to him?” As the sheriff wavered as though he might fall, she helped him to sit down over at one of the booths.
Simon stared back at her, “Me? Oh nothing. I just helped him remember is all.”
“Sheriff McCarthy… Hank, are you okay?”
He didn’t seem to hear her; instead he turned towards Simon, his voice less full of hatred. “That wasn’t the way they died, was it?”
Simon shook his head in answer. His demeanor had changed from playful imp to one of sadness. If she didn’t know any better it almost seemed as though he genuinely pitied Hank.
Emma grabbed Hank’s forearm, “Hank, what’s wrong?”
He turned toward her with a strange expression and said softly, “I remember now.”
Chapter 26
The Broken Man
Nowhere, Wyoming
The Russian Wager Saloon
“You’re dead … we … we killed you!”
Pint-sized Deputy Parnes was only half right, but one could hardly blame the guy for his error. The tall, bro
ken man who staggered through the saloon-style doors was in fact more akin to the walking dead than the usual local living variety.
SCRAPE… SCRAPE… these were the sounds the broken man’s work boot made on the floor as he dragged a useless, ruined leg behind him. The pant leg soaked with blood left a crimson trail on the wooden floors behind him. The man’s thick flannel shirt was also stained with dark patches of red. He’d have been considered handsome if his left eye weren’t swollen shut and his right one filled with blood. How he saw anything at all was anybody’s guess. His dark hair was slick with sweat, and blood steadily streamed down the side of a face twisted in anguish. The man’s left arm hung loosely at his side like a broken doll’s.
The Russian Wager Saloon, formerly called the Buck Shot Saloon until the Russian mob moved into town and claimed it, resembled the saloons of the old west. The bar did have a few modern conveniences such as a brightly-colored jukebox, digital cash register, and a fancy new mechanical bull in the back room. When the broken man first stumbled through the doors he met the usual cacophony of nightclub sounds: music, laughter and a loud din of conversation. Deputy Aleksandr Parnes, hardly a good-looking fellow, had been flirting with a black-haired beauty, swaying drunkenly to the tune of Laura Bell Bundy’s sultry “Drop on By”. Considering Deputy Parnes was most responsible for the broken man’s condition, he was understandably the most surprised to see him walk into the bar.
The broken man knew he wasn’t long for this world. Only vengeance drove him onwards, if for only a little while longer.
When he spoke, he sounded harsh, his words barely above a whisper. “Deputy Parnes, the next time you murder someone… (cough),” the broken man inhaled and wheezed like a man whose lung had been punctured and was filling with blood, “You might want to make sure he’s dead.”
At these words Deputy Parnes un-chivalrously shoved jukebox girl aside and reached for his service revolver.
BOOM!
Broken man’s gun roared. Normally he kept the .44 Magnum locked in the glove compartment of his wife’s SUV. The heavy duty weapon was strictly for camping in the deep woods, so it was loaded with .270 grain bullets. The locals called the heavy duty rounds ‘bear killers’. When the small cannon ball roared from the barrel of his gun, the bullet didn’t take Parnes’ head off, but it came just shy of it. The deputy’s left eye was crammed in on itself; the near-headless body thudded to the floor.
