Coldwater

by Samuel Parker

  “You scared, Frank?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Uh-huh,” Earl said. “You think he’s close by?”

  “No. And if he was, he’d hear you coming a mile away.”

  Earl was making a point to step on every twig and leaf he could find as the two came up to the bank of the river.

  “Last thing I want to do is sneak up on him,” Earl said.

  “I hear you.”

  “You okay, Murph?” Haywood asked.

  “Yeah, just old,” Murphy said, the sweat already pouring down his withered dome.

  “You think Clyde is picking up anything?”

  “Hard to tell. I’m not sure if he can much smell anything anymore.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s still better than us, I’m sure.”

  The mutt looked up at its owner with the sad eyes of a dog yearning to go back home to its couch where it could sleep the rest of the day.

  “Even if he picks up a trail, I’m not sure what happens next,” Murphy said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what are you going to do when you find him? When you find Michael?”

  “Just worry about the dog, Murph,” Haywood said.

  “Alright.”

  eight

  MICHAEL WAS TEN YEARS OLD when he realized that the world wanted him dead and gone. He had not yet grown enough to fit in the courthouse chair that he was forced to sit in during his trial, and he had not grown enough to fit the judgment that was passed down on him, but it was voiced by both the judge and the newspapers that he would never grow out of being the monster they thought he was. At ten years of age, the world had already measured his full potential and concluded that there was absolutely no hope that the boy from Coldwater would ever contribute to a just and civil society.

  He was led out of the courthouse, loaded in a van, and taken downstate to one of the supermax penitentiaries. When Michael arrived, the warden had no idea what to do with him. The man was used to dealing with the worst psychopaths in the state who were dropped off at his door, but looking down on a young boy who was scared out of his mind left him baffled.

  How was he going to keep this kid safe from a zoo of predators and killers, a kid who himself was, as the reporters described him, a killer?

  Michael was led by a large guard down the detention block to a door near the guard station. The thin window over the lock was too high for Michael to peer through, but soon the door was opened and Michael saw into the cell. There was a bed, a metal toilet, and a desk. The guard ushered him in, and Michael walked in and sat on the bed.

  “This is your place. Guards are just over there. Anybody mess with you, just start yelling.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay,” the guard said, as he reluctantly turned and walked toward the cell door, seemingly unsure if he was doing the right thing by leaving a kid in here. The guard had kids at home Michael’s age, and he couldn’t help imagining their own little selves locked in this cell. But he did his duty, stepped out, and locked the door.

  The catcalls started almost immediately. The sycophants and lunatics, the pedophiles and terminally incarcerated, yelling obscenities, threats, and promises at the child behind cell door number 20. Their voices bled through the walls, calling for Michael, offering friendship of a kind that was anything but.

  He pulled his feet up onto the bed and curled up in the corner like a baby snuggling against its mother. He put the pillow over his head and began to cry silently, afraid that if he wailed, the voices would hear him and come in even larger numbers.

  And he wondered if the world was right in wanting him gone.

  All he ever wanted was to be noticed. To be valued. And in this cell he realized that he had gotten what he wanted in the worst twisted and vile way. He was now the center of attention to an army of the deranged.

  nine

  JACKSON’S PARTY STORE was located on Townline Road, just south of the river, surrounded by forest and not much else. Outsiders would think it an unusual spot for a business. But to the locals, it was a vital resource for their beer and lottery tickets. Michael had followed the river northeast for several hours until he started to recognize the surroundings and knew he was close to the store. Despite running for his life, he felt his stomach growl with hunger pains that soon started to consume him more than the discomfort of the bruises on his face and body. Plus, he knew he needed some provisions if he was going to have any luck at outlasting his pursuers.

  Jackson’s was run by Old Man Jackson, and from what all the people in Coldwater knew, Old Man Jackson had always been old. He had been sitting behind the counter of the dilapidated store, ringing up people’s purchases since the beginning of time. His eyesight had grown bad, his change-making skills had slowed, and his memory had deteriorated. All of these things Michael saw as to his advantage. He did not want to risk being seen, but he also knew he could not risk running for days without food. Even the nasty food offered at Jackson’s.

  Michael made his way through the woods, leaving the river behind him. He felt nervous, as if he was leaving his safety blanket behind, but he ventured out regardless.

  He came up to Townline Road and crouched in the ditch across from the store. He could see one car in the parking lot. He waited.

  He pulled off his right boot and felt under the insole. It was still there. A ten-dollar bill, stained and drowned in river water and sweat. His hiding spot for valuable things. A lesson learned in prison was now the only thing that could offer aid to the hunger pains in his belly.

  Soon, a woman and a small child came out, got into the vehicle, and left the parking lot, heading south toward town. The road was empty. Michael gathered himself, crossed the stretch of asphalt, and ducked into the store.

  The chime on the door jingled in the still air like a coffin bell in an abandoned cemetery. Its tingling subsided and was replaced by the low volume of a radio set to a news station. From his peripheral vision, Michael could see Old Man Jackson leaning over a newspaper by the register.

  Michael turned right and hurried toward the coolers lined up against the back wall. He grabbed a couple liters of water, his dry mouth begging him for a sip. He grabbed some random packages of nuts and granola from the adjoining aisle. The barest of resources, but they would keep him going.

  He caught his reflection in a Bud Light mirror hanging on the wall and stared at a stranger’s features from behind a mask. He looked awful. The bruising on his face was much worse than he anticipated. His long hair was clumped and sweaty, his skin a Monet of color. He had the appearance of a crazed man looking through the axe-busted shards of a bathroom door. Michael turned from his image and walked to the counter.

  Old Man Jackson was no longer there.

  He stepped past the counter and inched toward the doorway to the back room. He could hear Jackson talking nervously.

  He was on the phone.

  “I tell you, he’s here.”

  Michael could not make out the muffled voice responding on the phone’s earpiece.

  “He just walked in. I know it’s him. Unless there’s another person you all tried to beat up last night.”

  More inaudible chatter.

  “How am I supposed to keep him here? I’m not part of this,” Old Man Jackson said with whispered urgency. “Okay, okay. Just get here already. Hurry.”

  He hung up the phone.

  Michael darted away from the door and hid next to the closest cooler near the register. He could hear Jackson fumbling around the back room, the sound of several small yet weighted items fall onto the tile floor, a distinct pump of a shotgun.

  Old Man Jackson emerged from the back room, weapon in hand. He felt even older all of a sudden, if that were possible, and he moved like a man aware of his own frailty. The gun was old, one that had not been used since he had gone by the name of Little Boy Jackson. The shotgun felt unusually heavy for his withered arms.

  “Michael? Is that you? Michael?”

&nbs
p; No answer. Jackson took another step. “Michael?”

  He tried to stop the tremolo in his voice . . . fear mixed with old age. “Now, Michael, don’t do anything foolish. Haywood will be here in a couple minutes and he will get this whole thing sorted out. Until then . . . just—”

  There was a flash of movement from his left. Michael appeared like an apparition and grabbed the shotgun, while an invisible hand pushed Jackson up against the wall.

  Jackson grabbed for his chest. The shock poured over him like water, and he gasped for air. Most days the pace of the store was too much for his frail condition. A gunfight was enough to put him in his grave. The pain in his chest spread, down his arm, into his throat. He gaped at Michael, tried desperately to speak.

  “Mich . . . Mi . . .”

  Michael stared at him as if he were a specimen under glass. Transfixed.

  Jackson slumped to the floor, his legs splayed before him. “Michael . . . ple . . . please . . . help me,” he begged. His eyes wincing with the crashing waves of pain. He was dying while Michael just watched.

  Michael stepped back, the shotgun in his hand. Jackson watched him grab supplies off the counter and stuff them into various pockets. He looked back at the old man.

  “Haywood’s coming . . . ,” Michael said as he turned toward the door, “he’ll get this sorted out.”

  ten

  HE HAD BEEN IN PRISON for only a couple weeks when he started to understand the scales of cosmic justice on which he had been placed. The guards did their best at keeping him secure and separate from all the other inmates, but the system was not designed for such arrangements. The warden had even considered locking him in solitary, but the thought of that singed his conscience as utterly inhumane. Eventually something would happen. The warden knew it. The guards knew it. The inmates, licking their chops at their cell windows, knew it.

  A pool had gone up, betting on who would get to the kid first.

  As it happened, one of the inmates found the opportunity.

  One day Michael was sitting at a table eating his lunch, food slopped on a plastic tray with extreme prejudice. He was alone in the room but for the two guards leaning on the far wall, talking to each other. As usual, he ate alone, after the other inmates had dined and been ushered back to their cells. When he was done, he stood and walked over to dump his tray into the trash can that was by the door to the kitchen. On this day, it wasn’t there. He peered through the door and saw that it was inside the room next to the sink, so he walked in as naively as the child he was.

  As soon as he scraped his tray and set it in the sink, he turned to leave. The door swung shut in front of him and he saw the devil incarnate standing before him. The man was the convict from directly across the cell block. Michael did not know his name, only his face with its long unkempt beard and balding forehead that he always had pressed up against the glass. The man’s orange jumpsuit was the same as Michael’s, only infinitely larger to cover his massive body.

  “Hey, boy . . . looks like it’s just you and me.”

  Michael could hear the guards from outside running up to the door, their fists banging on the metal.

  “Michael! Michael!” they shouted as they tried to bring the door down, but the convict had barred it.

  The man started unzipping his jumpsuit and walking toward the child. “I don’t think they are going to get here in time, do you? And time, boy, is all I have. You should know that. I ain’t ever getting out of here. Never. So there ain’t no reason to suspect that I . . . I ain’t going to do what I want to do.”

  Michael looked around the room for anything to protect himself, but there was nothing. It was prison, there would not be anything at hand. And if there had been, the convicts would have already swiped them up and carried them off to their cells to fashion whatever weapons they could. He grabbed the trash can and pulled it in front of him in an effort at defense, but the inmate pushed it aside and it spilled to the floor.

  The guards pounded on the door and Michael could see it start to flex on its hinges.

  It was then that Michael first felt it.

  A sense of heaviness began in his gut, wrapping up around his spine, into his neck, as if he was embraced by a many-armed shadow squeezing him tighter and tighter. Time slowed down, and as the pressure increased, a wave of nausea built up inside him. But what he started to feel more and more was a sense of rage, not from his own mind, but rage flowing from another place, another thing. Something foreign. It was as if he were standing behind a raging beast ready to gore whatever was in front of it.

  The convict took another step and Michael felt the rage pour out of him instantly of its own accord. Hit by an unseen force, the convict stopped and a look of absolute panic washed over him. His eyes shifted past Michael as if he was peering into the abyss, over the event horizon of all things dark. The man clasped his chest and fell to the floor, clawing at Michael, who wilted in the corner at the sight in front of him.

  With the guards pounding on the door, the inmate rolled on the ground, clutching at his heart as blood started spurting from his mouth. His eyes rolled back and a scream echoed through the deep chasm of his chest. Finally the door gave way and the guards rushed in to find the inmate dead on the floor and Michael huddled in the corner, his head buried in his arms.

  One guard grabbed the boy and pulled him out of the room and got him back to his cell.

  “What happened?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” Michael said.

  “You don’t know?”

  “He was trying to hurt me.”

  “Did he?”

  “No . . . he wanted to.”

  “You stop him?” the guard pressed.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “It wasn’t me. I don’t know what happened.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The guard closed the cell door and went back to assist his partner.

  It didn’t take long for word to spread through the cell block about what had happened. The story began to take on ridiculous dimensions, as all stories will when no one has a clue what actually occurred. But as the tale began to grow, the betting pool slowly dissolved as inmates took their names off the list. The allure of the boy gradually morphed into fear. What had happened in that room? Only the homicidal could wager a clue, and none of them wanted to find out for themselves.

  eleven

  HAYWOOD ARRIVED FROM SPRINGER’S GROVE with the other men in tow. They pulled into Old Man Jackson’s store far away from the front door, not knowing for certain what lay on the other side.

  “Alright, boys,” he said, adjusting his belt as he stood down from his truck. The men from the other vehicle nodded at him and stood ready to listen. “I’m not sure what we are going to find. I haven’t been able to get Jackson back on the phone. Let’s not all bunch up at the door. Alright? But let’s not take our time either. You all with me?”

  The men nodded again like a row of bobbleheads.

  “Okay.”

  The group headed for the entrance. With a flick of his eyes, Haywood got Clinton to open the door and the big man disappeared inside. Haywood followed, as did the others. They spread out quickly down the aisles, ducking and scooting haphazardly, several of them imitating what they had seen military teams do on TV. They moved awkwardly, but were soon placed all around the store.

  It was quiet, save for the whirring of an oscillating fan in the back room.

  Davis was the first to spot the store owner’s feet from behind the counter. He motioned to Haywood and pointed. Haywood followed Davis’s silent commands and saw the boots protruding around the half wall.

  “Jackson!” he forced in a whisper. “Jackson!”

  There was no response.

  With his eyes and a quick nod of his head, Haywood silently commanded Davis to check on the old man. He did so quickly and quietly. Davis felt for a pulse, removed his hand, and shook his head at Haywood.

  “Is he shot?”

  “No
, not that I can tell.”

  “Anybody in the back room?”

  Davis moved around on his squatted legs and peered into the back. It seemed to take him forever, and the others were busting at the seams, expecting someone to jump out and attack. But it never happened. Davis looked back and motioned that the back room was empty.

  The men in the store started to relax. It was apparent that Michael was gone. But the sight of a dead man in the corner unnerved them. Almost in unison, they realized how unarmed they were, and though they slowly came out of their crouches and fighting stances, subconsciously they positioned themselves behind one another, not wanting to be the one to receive a bullet to the chest by a well-concealed gunman.

  Haywood pulled out his cell phone and called for an ambulance.

  “Awful way to go,” Earl whispered.

  “Sure is,” Frank said.

  Haywood completed the call and put the phone back in his pocket. He rose from his position and walked over to Davis. The others came up behind him and each caught a glimpse of Old Man Jackson.

  For most of them, this was the first time they had ever seen a dead body. The stillness of it all was the most unsettling. No tremors, no rising or falling rib cage, the animating force of life departed with all remnants of its existence.

  “We got some serious trouble, boys,” Haywood said, more to himself than to the men standing around him. “Better go home and get your guns.”

  They all nodded and headed out of the store. Haywood was set on waiting alone for the ambulance to arrive. He knelt down in front of Old Man Jackson, took off his hat, and wiped his brow.

  “Sorry, old-timer,” he said in an exhaled eulogy. “I’ll make sure Michael pays for this.”