Rainy Fall

by Claudio Hernández

  "I have already told you. Wait by her side. We'll be there in then minutes, maybe five. And don't call anyone. Do you understand it? Don't call anybody."

  "Yes, I do." Andrew said, with his cords totally wet. His feet were freezing inside his shoes, which were full of water.

  "That's it. Don't call anybody. See you in a while."

  73

  Andrew had called at 15:45 and it was 15:57 when two cop cars with their blue, red and yellow lights on arrived. They left all kind of grooves on the wet lawn until they reached Audrey's body. When they went down the cars, Burt and his officers saw two cars coming. The heavy rain and the blinding lights didn't allow them to see who was coming. After a few seconds watching the vehicles accelerating and humming, they slowed down and stopped. Andrew apologized then.

  "I'm sorry, Burt. I didn't listen to you. I called them." Andrew lowered his head under the umbrella.

  Then Burt saw this blowhard Ethan approaching with the mute Charlotte by his side. Michael and Julia were behind them. The two cars were the Ford of the FBI couple and Channel Four's van.

  "What's the matter, Burt? Are you surprised?" Ethan suggested opening his hands. "Here you are; this is the proof of your incompetence. Another murder has occurred, and you probably don't know what to do. Oh, no, I forgot. You have a friend who gets into your mind and digs through your dirty thoughts." Ethan was looking at the camera. This time they were on the air, because the van had an emitter that connected with the cell tower. Thus, everybody in Boad Hill was watching the terrible scene and how comical Ethan was.

  "Michael, are we on the air?" Burt asked, pointing at him.

  "Yes, Mr. Sheriff." Michael answered directing the camera towards him.

  "Turn it off! I want you to be off the air right now!"

  The palm of his hand could be seen in the foreground, his fingers dark and open.

  "What are you afraid of, Burt?" Ethan asked "Are you afraid of looking like shit in front of the fifth victim? Because this is the fifth one, Mr. Sheriff" Ethan showed five fingers to the camera.

  "You are wrong. They are six." Burt said furiously. "Don't you remember your first victim on the other side of the county? Have you reached any conclusion about it? Impertinent trash"

  "I will sue you, Burt."

  But the camera was filming and Julia started talking.

  74

  John was watching the live pictures of New Academy campus with Peter sitting next to him.

  “This is shameless. I knew that something was bound to happen” John said putting his hand on his underbelly.

  Although Peter was engrossed in the TV program, he could see him doing so with the corner of his eye.

  “Everyone is jumping the gun. He acts faster and faster as days go by. The murderer is dying, and he wants to finish the job. And Burt is being cornered by those suited assholes. And I’m angry with myself because I just can’t make any progress. Everything still remains a complete mystery. I can see his mask, but I can’t see where he is or who he is. Albeit it is true that my shine has improved a lot” Peter moved his hand to hold his father’s, after this long speech.

  “Son, what are you doing?”

  “I want an end to all this” Peter said adjusting his glasses with the other hand, without taking his eyes off the TV.

  “Then, why are you holding my hand?” John asked him, puzzled.

  “You suffered a lot yesterday, but you sent it away. Now you don’t feel any pain. The stone is out of your body, but you are worried that he might come back. Don’t worry, the pain is gone.”

  John did not know what to say. He had no words.

  Then Peter looked at his father and he kissed him on his forehead softly and warmly.

  John held his other hand.

  “Son...”

  “I love you dad” Peter said, and then he added. “I have to go and do my work.”

  “You must definitely try, son.”

  It was 16:12 p.m.

  75

  News Academy High School was fifteen minutes away from Peter’s house, and he decided to button his raincoat while he was walking under the dense fall rain. His hair and his glasses were soaking wet, and there was rage and seriousness on his face. This time it would be definitive, he thought. He would make every effort. He would enter in her mind and he would make her levitate if it was necessary, although that was an absurd idea. Peter broke into the murder scene like a great crow with outspread wings when their watches were striking 16:27. The camera was pointing at him now, while Julia could be heard speaking in a way which well could be an advert, and not a news headline.

  ... Peter is here, the psychic who can see things and who does magic. We want to talk to him so as to listen to his position about all the events happening in this quiet town. What will he tell us? Will he shake us up? ...

  Peter raised one hand and he pulled the microphone away from his face. He had a sort of insane look in his eyes right then. Julia twisted her lips and then they tightened for a moment. The camera was pointing at her then.

  Ethan had come close to Audrey’s corpse without scruples, like a cheap circus ringmaster, and he was pointing at her, moving with a non-stop blabbering. He whistled for Michael, who was holding the camera, because he wanted him to focus on them. Burt, who was furious before the presence of the man with the suit, was about to burst, but when he saw Peter he seemed calmer.

  “Peter, what are you doing here? I did not call you. Have you seen it on TV?” Burt had a nervous tick, touching his felt hat all the time.

  “I want an end to all this” Peter answered, his voice breaking.

  Then, Officers Lloyd, Jack, Richard, and Martin, stepped aside to make a path for him to get closer to the poor girl. The camera captured the picture of the dead girl right then. There was no trace of blood.

  76

  Ann was biting her nails while watching with wide eyes what was happening in the campus. He saw Peter, and then she felt, just for an instant, something similar to a thrilling emotion. Deep down, Ann always had Peter in mind, although she had never shown it. Now she was realizing it. Her heart yearned for him, and she felt really sad when she saw Ethan laughing out loud in front of him.

  All this was being broadcasted live, and Denny was next to him on the couch.

  Now Ann watched Peter kneeling down next to the corpse, which was on its back, and then he opened his arms as if he was praying to heaven for strength. Afterwards his long fingers went down and he held the poor girl’s hand.

  It was 16:45.

  77

  He needed a miracle.

  The shine, as his father called it, came immediately. He felt a light tingling on his face, and then the dark; the void. It all happened in the time that takes to snap your fingers. He lost his vision, and he started watching the images that the victim had kept in her retina.

  At first, he had started entering into living people’s minds, but later on he discovered he could see through dead people’s eyes. Afterwards, he just needed to touch an object to know what had happened, whether victim or murderer.

  Jack Feather Feet was now Jack Air Feet, and he was seeing him right now.

  “He is wearing a white mask” Peter said suddenly, and everybody fell silent at the same time. Michael shifted the camera lens towards his face. He looked as if he was sleeping and trying to wake up from a nightmare. “He is wearing a black raincoat. He is tall and heavyset, and he is showing her the cross.” Then he twisted his lips and frowned.

  “Have you heard him?” Ethan inquired. “He always says the same thing. This is just a hoax. He is always repeating that he has covered his face; that the murder weapon is a cross; that the white mask... It is all a lie!”

  “What do you even know about it?” Burt asked him while adjusting his felt hat on his head. Michael was still shooting and he was focusing on the two faces separately, one plane and then the other.

  “Fuck! Damn it!” Peter yelled suddenly, hitting the wet lawn with his fist. The
water came off and it splashed Ethan’s trousers. Burt was surprised by Peter’s reaction.

  “What’s wrong, Peter?” Burt asked, trying to understand.

  Peter opened his eyes and turned his head towards Burt with a look of desperation.

  “I always see the same thing, Burt, I don’t know if this is really useful or my mind is just freezing time and it has got into a loop, repeating the same images all the time.” Burt was really puzzled by his words.

  Ethan pointed towards him and shouted:

  “Did you hear that? He has doubts about himself! This is all a masquerade! How can we trust in such an ignorant person?”

  “Shut up!” Burt ranted, interrupting him harshly. His eyes were bloodshot, and his wet face resembled a slobbering buffalo before an onslaught.

  Ethan was silent, at least for the moment. It was as if Charlotte was not there at all. She had done nothing since she had arrived at Boad Hill; at least, Ethan was always breaking balls.

  “I am tired.” Peter said shaking his head under the heavy rain. The pitter-patter sound of the raindrops on the raincoats was constant. Andrew was standing behind the ambulance couple. They were not working. The girl was already dead and there was nothing they could do. And Burt did not think about William.

  It was 18:00 and the rain didn’t seem to let up.

  When Peter was going to stand up, the miracle happened. Something sparkled suddenly under Audrey’s hand at the same time as the lightening crossed the sky like a rocket that had just gone off. Peter stared at it. He extended his hand and his fingers touched what it seemed to be a ...

  “Burt, I found a button!” Peter exclaimed, showing it to him.

  “Whose it is?”

  It was a steel golden button, a bad imitation of gold. Raincoats did not usually have that kind of buttons, so it could belong to Audrey. Peter stood up and Michael pointed the camera towards his hand. Ethan started laughing again.

  “Now he will go into a trance, allegedly, and he will start throwing out all that babble.” He said.

  This time Charlotte burst out laughing. That was better than nothing.

  Then, Peter closed his fist and made the button disappear between his fingers. As soon as he squeezed it he got connected immediately.

  “I can see a small mattress. The cross is under it. The murderer has just grabbed it. He turns towards the mirror and I can see that damned white mask. He is wearing the raincoat. I can hear a bell tolling just once. There is a window with pieces of colored glass, and the light is quite dim, projecting all kind of colors in the small room. The murderer is looking out the window. He is praying and watching the organ... Samuel! The murderer is hiding inside a room on the church! It is the same place where Reverend Larry was!”

  Peter opened his eyes; he kept shouting and repeating the same sentence with a great enthusiasm, which was recorded by the camera lens.

  Burt snapped his fingers.

  “Come on, boys, you know where we are going!” He yelled while running towards his car. “Peter, come with me!”

  “That’s it? Just like that? Are you going to believe in such a phony?” But Ethan was talking to himself.

  The engines of the cars roared and their wheels rolled on the water.

  So, when the emergency lights started disappearing in the horizon, Ethan decided he would go with them.

  Even though he did not believe any of it.

  78

  The vehicles stopped in front of the church at 18:18 p.m., and then all the slamming doors could be heard.

  Burt had given instructions to his officers by radio, while they were driving towards the church. When all of them had arrived, they took out their service weapons and grabbed them strongly with both hands. They did not shy away, although their faces were concerned.

  The church door was open, as usual. It was the House of God, as Samuel, the new reverend, used to say. Richard, Jack, Lloyd, Martin and Burt came into the church in an orderly and well-planned way. The place seemed to be empty. But it wasn’t, actually.

  There was a figure at the bottom of the church, in front of the lectern. He was kneeling down and his hands were together. The barrels of their guns were targeting his head. But they noticed it was Samuel, who was praying quietly, like a child who is playing alone and talking to an invisible friend.

  Peter came into the church and he dragged his wet boots, making a strange sound, as if he was splashing in the rain.

  “Samuel! Turn around, you could be in danger!” Burt ranted while he was getting close to him.

  Samuel stopped mumbling and he turned around slowly.

  “What’s going on, Mr. Sheriff?” He asked. His eyes were empty, tired. Age withers, Burt thought, he should retire. But Samuel had told him. But Samuel always said that the Lord would retire him.

  Burt approached Samuel, lowering his weapon. His men were getting his back, looking everywhere with his guns up, as if it was going to start a gunfight suddenly.

  Peter headed to the wooden door which was at the bottom of the church to the left, next to the lectern. He pushed it with his fingers and the door gave way with a screech of the hinges.

  “Peter, you might be in danger” Burt said as soon as he saw him going upstairs. “Let me go first.”

  But Peter was not listening.

  Michael and Julia had come in the church and were filming everything, while Julia was narrating the events in a hushed tone. When he was already reaching the room, Jack stopped them.

  “You better wait down here” he said seriously. He was a man with a broad face, who was always smiling, but now he was dead serious.

  “FBI!” Someone shouted. It was Ethan, who was showing his ID. Jack looked at them from afar, and shook his head as if it was a tennis match, rolling his eyes. And he thought: Too late, we know who you are, asshole.

  “What a jerk” he whispered.

  “What have you said?” Julia asked him bringing the microphone closer.

  “I’ve said that how nice, we are all here.” He looked at the camera and he added: “Get that micro out of my face.”

  Ethan was next to Jack already, and Charlotte was running after him with her noisy shoes.

  “Let me in, officer. I command you in the name of the FBI” Ethan said with a demanding tone.

  “They are already up there” Jack said, raising his weapon.

  Ethan was not intimidated by him.

  “I have to go up anyway” Ethan said, looking at him coldly.

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to blow a hole through your forehead in self-defense.” Jack explained.

  “Then you will fling into jail.” Ethan answered very angry.

  Charlotte, who had just reached the door, grabbed his arm, but she did not say a word. Jack looked at her boobs. He hadn’t noticed how big they were before.

  Samuel started praying again in front of the lectern, with his back to them.

  Time was up.

  79

  Burt was the first to go in. The smell of nicotine was unbearable, but there was another smell too. Peter recognized it.

  “Burt, he is dying. It is the same odor I felt when I held that poor girls hands.”

  Burt nodded. He kept his gun up. Lloyd, Richard and Martin entered after them.

  There was not much room left in that stinky room, and they were pointing their guns at each other.

  “This looks empty.” Burt said sadly. “Are you sure you are not wrong, Peter?”

  Peter pointed at the colored window.

  “That’s the window he saw, sir,” Lloyd admitted, joining the conversation.

  “We haven’t come this far to be chatting” Burt said, holding his gun in his hands.

  “I think it is too late” Peter said looking to the small bathroom door.

  Burt turned his head, and then he saw it with his own eyes.

  Ethan joined the crew just then.

  “What a disgusting stench” He said.

  80

  The man’s body was
naked; he had drowned in his own blood inside the bathtub. He had three long and sharp scissors stuck in his eyes and his mouth, going down his neck. His face was full of blood and they could not see the real aspect of the murderer. He had killed himself. It was all it could be seen with the naked eye.

  Ethan’s eyes were wide open now. However, Burt and Peter did not even flinch. They had seen something quite similar before, the previous winter, although less dramatic.

  Written in blood on the wall tiles, it could be read:

  You will not condemn me.

  The handwriting was similar to another one they had seen before. It was irregular and there were some strokes wider than others. He had been probably cutting his arms and writing at the same time. Peter pointed at his inert arms. He had deep cuts which were still bleeding. There was some coagulated blood on his chin. His position was somehow strange, as he looked as if his head had been caught up in a tube. The scissors were fixed to the faucets with duct tape. They had been placed in a vertical position, angling downwards, and those three scissors had caused the three holes in his face.

  Then, Peter held one of those hands stained with blood.

  “It’s him. I can see all his killings here. The cross is under the mattress, next to the victims’ clothes. The mask is there too. He has imitated perfectly Reverend Larry...”

  Then, Peter was speechless.

  “What’s wrong, Peter?” Burt asked, putting his gun into its holster.

  Peter looked at him, still holding the killer’s hand.

  “When he was a kid he was forced to rape his younger sister. He would be around thirteen years old, but he is not alone. There is someone else there, another kid. She is four years younger than them. His father forces them to do such an abomination. He is always drunk and on drugs, and they have to rape their sister against their will. He mentions the boy’s name, Grayson. He also names his brother, Larry. They are twins! Burt, they are twins! Larry had a twin brother, his name was Grayson.

  Peter drops the hand inside the blood puddle and he looks at Burt with eyes bulged with horror.

  “Let’s wash his face to see him.” Burt ordered with a tremulous voice.