Deadweight

by Robert Devereaux

  He took the first Rocklin exit, Taylor Road to Sunset to Whitney, and turned right onto his street. Past John and Viv Conti’s place; past grim-faced old man Kinski, not looking up, mowing his over-mown grass, not giving a shit for anyone but himself; waved to Flora Larchmont sitting in her front yard, and zapped his garage door open. There was the side door swung wide, just as Flora said. Pickup gone. Oilslick on concrete. He drove the Honda in, shut it off, got out. Across the street, Flora leaned forward in her lawn chair, hoping for one gesture of invitation. Ignoring her, he gazed about the garage.

  Dog tracks all right. And a handsmudge on the side door. The door into the house, though unlocked, didn’t seem to have been forced. Its fake-bronze doorknob and the key still in it were glazed with grit. He opened it. The stench caught him unawares, not an overwhelming slaughterhouse odor but enough there to raise a sob in his throat, to make him picture Karin raped and torn in the bedroom. But the dog tracks and his nose led him down the hall, past the spilled plants, through the TV room and right up to the lip of the kitchen: the stink of death, the pooled blood, Jimmy Gallagher lying at the base of the fridge, the butt end of a cactus blooming from his mouth, the severed genitals on the floor by his head.

  Frank backed away from the sight, light-headed, doing his best not to faint. “Karin!” Frank called, but no, he only thought he’d said anything. He tried again, barely a whisper, then a reasonable shout but it echoed the knot of terror in his gut. Dead quiet. The silent skirl of death piped up his nose, painting and repainting the grotesque picture of Jimmy. He reached past the TV and raised the blinds. The window slid open when he lifted the latch, a rush of fresh air. “Karin!” again, still terrified, not a thought to what the neighbors might think, and no response either. He was about to gather up his nerve to enter the kitchen again, unblind the side door, and check the garden himself, when the doorbell rang.

  His first thought was Flora Larchmont, but then he saw the side of Laura Caldone’s face through the front door’s tiny window, and Joe smiling and holding up a wine bottle, Joe’s favorite Chianti, no doubt, and a very good wine it was. Frank opened the door, tried to speak and couldn’t.

  Joe registered concern. He opened his mouth to say something, obviously in response to Frank’s demeanor, but cocked his head when the smell hit him. He recognized it.

  Frank said, “Maybe Laura should wait in the car.”

  “Karin?” asked Joe.

  Frank shook his head.

  “I’ll be back in a second, buddy. Don’t go away, stay right there.” He walked his wife to the car by the curb, handed her the wine. Frank watched her nod, pull her legs in, and close the door. Then Joe returned, all business. A fly buzzed in just after Joe, and Joe closed the door, guided Frank to the couch, seated him. Phoned in for backup, not two feet from where Jimmy lay. Frank felt like he should get up and help somehow, but he was also numb enough and woozy enough to appreciate sitting here and letting Joe handle things.

  “You know this guy?”

  “Yes. Next door neighbor.” Frank gestured beyond the kitchen. “Jimmy Gallagher. Don’t let his wife see this.”

  “Vegetarian, I see. Sorry, Frank. This guy a good friend or something, relieves the tension, don’t mean any disrespect by it, understand?”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Frank. “Jimmy was a . . . an acquaintance. We rarely saw him or Nona. Joe, Karin is missing and I have no idea where she is.”

  “Did you check the rest of the house?”

  “I called her name, twice. She’s not here.”

  “Did you check the rest of the house?” Slower, more deliberate. Frank took his meaning, saw her on their bed, eviscerated. He said no and Joe said he’d look around.

  But then his eye went to the kitchen table. “Frank, take a look at this.”

  Frank rose, crossed over into the kitchen, the sight near the fridge like a force field repelling him. Single sheet of paper on the table, one edge of it weighted down with a cineraria plant. He read it without touching it, a caution from Joe. It was absurd, forced, not his Karin in the least.

  “Think there’s anything to it?”

  “Come on, Joe, you think Karin did this?”

  “She knifed Daniels, shoved a dagger straight into his heart.”

  “I can’t believe you’re saying this. Just look at him. Jesus, what a . . . I think I’m going to be sick. You think Karin could shove a cactus down a man’s throat? And then . . . do that to him?”

  Joe veered off. “What about Carmel?”

  “I think it’s meant to throw us off. She could be anywhere. Some maniac has got her, and I think it’s the same guy that stole Daniels’ body from the cemetery and killed Romano. There are dog tracks in the garage and down the hall.”

  “This Nona from the note. She the cactus-eater’s wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s call in an APB on Karin, then go check next door.” Joe dialed again, had Frank describe Karin, then they crossed the lawn, knocked, went around back, found the kitchen door slid open. Death stench led them down the hall. The spectacle on the bed struck them both dumb for a moment, then Frank said, “You still think Karin did this?”

  “I’d say it’s not likely. Take more strength than Karin’s got to rip a woman’s head off like that.”

  Frank looked down where Joe gestured, turned away. “Jesus.” He’d thought Nona had her head bowed between her shoulders, hidden like a bird’s head tucked under a wing. Now he saw that her arms stretched down to her bunched furry back and an empty neck, the skin of her arms and buttocks as blue as a stillborn baby’s where it wasn’t splashed dark red.

  “You really know how to throw a dinner party, Frank. Just kidding again. Fuck me, I’m a monster. Look, you want a place to stay tonight, me and Laura have a guest room.”

  “Let’s get out of here.” On the way back across the lawn, Frank said he needed to stay home in case Karin or her kidnapper called. Joe pressed his invitation again, then backed off and nodded.

  A couple of police cars idled in Frank’s driveway. One cop was talking to Laura through the car window, and she looked over at them and gestured. The cop followed her gesture, straightened up with recognition. Joe let the cop cross to them, out of earshot of his wife.

  “Two-for-one special today, Tony. Mutilation in both houses, rape and a skinned dog in that one, a dickless guy with a cactus chaser in his throat in this one. Take your pick.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “He’s okay. Defense lawyer so watch what you say and do. Looks like his wife’s been taken by the freak who did this, I called it in already.”

  “You think we need more people?”

  “Twice the fun, Tony. You decide. Use the phone in the kitchen. I already fucked it up for fingerprints, mea culpa, you know?”

  Tony nodded then was off.

  “You up to checking out the rest of the house, Frank? Maybe you’ll see something out of place, you can tell us what Karin took with her.”

  “Sure. Let’s go in through the garage. I can show you the tracks.” And keep as far away from the kitchen as I can. Frank could see Flora Larchmont leaning back in her lawn chair, fanning herself, beaming obscenely as if God had just given her a front row seat at the apocalypse and was unfolding it all into her lap.

  They went in, Joe’s eyes and ears open to it all. As far as Frank could tell, nothing had been disturbed in his bedroom. Wet towel hanging askew on the rack, not neatly like Karin did it. Water drops tinged red on the shower floor, a shampoo bottle left open, its plastic perfume in the air.

  In the study, Frank noticed it at once. “The swords are gone.”

  “What swords?”

  “Daniels had a wall of ceremonial swords, maybe half a dozen in all, samurai, cavalry, big Scottish claymore, a few more. Those brass circles with the rings sticking out are swordholders. It was my one concession to Karin.”

  “Who the fuck would hijack your wife and a wall full of swords? What the fuck sort of man
iac have we got here, Frank?”

  His mind was an empty suckhole, gaped open as wide as his mouth. “If I didn’t know better,” he said, “I’d swear it was Danny Daniels come back from the grave.”

  ELEVEN

  DEATH CLOSES IN

  Flurries of blood. Fuck the garbage bags, they were useless anyway. One sword thrust too far through Marcie, one puncture, and the couch was blood city. Yanked them out from under her. Stuck gore and shit made it no simple task. Soft spongy cushions. Better. Kinder. He adored this Marcie lady. He dished it out, she took it, she was the fucking love of his life. His little appetizer. His bloody chunk of cheese with a cocktail sword stuck through its middle. Magic act without the box, without any of the trickery of stage magicians, and no teasing sequins come between him and the pretty assistant. Pretty assistant in shackles, taking swords into her where he chose to thrust them. She’d been dead twice before, now a third time—two up on him. Had to be cautious, all that steel inside her, evil angles, had to be careful what new holes he made and how violently he plugged them, didn’t want to lose the old pecker on hidden blades. Sure he was super-strong but hey no sense in testing that too far, lose a finger before he lost his dick. Yep, Marcie weren’t like the rest of these human geeks. Been transformed, that was the word, fucking transmogrified; but he’d held Karin back, made certain she didn’t give Marcie the strength to resist wounds or escape from her handcuffs. But tomorrow he’d bring her back, his bitch-wife would use those powers on Marcie again, gather her scattered limbs together, come hell or high water she would, and then he’d tell Marcie she was one fucking sexy piece of tail, she liked it rough and so did he, and, say, wouldn’t she like to be immortal like him, draw blood when they humped, go off together and start a new race to boot the current tenants off this planet? Bastards were dumb-fuck trashing it anyway. Yep, she’d go for that, and he’d make Karin cure his hurting head, brain-boost the wasp-man out of him, then force her to make Marcie immortal too and then—but he wouldn’t tell Karin this, no he’d pretend he was going to let her go—he’d kill Karin, him and his new bride would take the bitch apart, bit by bit, share their first communion, the blood and body of his old wife, yes, broken for them. His tongue, snaked in mid-kiss between Marcie’s purple lips, brunted against the flat blade of his Charles the Fifth rapier, need to reseat the fucker through her brain, not cheek to cheek, then French the bitch deep inside her dead bloody mouth. Last chance to savor it before Karin made her undead like him and they pounced on that wacky plant lady and stripped and fucked her and ate the flesh off her shattered bones, yes!

  ***

  She’d propped her pillows up and healed her ears, a tingling buzz like the heating pad Granny Eva had rested Karin’s head on when she had an ear ache. Wolf watched her like a coiled spring, brown-black eyes tracking her every move. In the other room, the hoarse muffled sound of suffering, punctuated by Danny’s grunts, whether they were words or something worse—made Karin’s stomach hurt in sympathy for his victim.

  Then she saw the spider. Not huge, maybe the size of her knuckle, its black legs angled up and down and splayed out, two feet across from her on the mattress. Slowly she raised a finger and pointed at it, her mind focused on the now familiar power, but holding it back, drawing it in, a wish to drain the insect—no, stronger than a wish, more an insistence, an order not to be countermanded. Twitch. A black flex. Then a stillness she knew was death.

  She dropped her hand. From the next room—made more terrible by the indistinctness of the sound—came a long, drawn-out, hoarse clutch or slide of flesh around sword, a child controlling her terror as she watches a doctor slip a hypodermic into her arm. Karin was amazed that, in the face of the horror in the next room, she felt a twinge of vileness over having killed an innocent spider. But there was bigger game afoot, and she didn’t know how much time she had nor whether she could gain the control she needed to combat and defeat Danny.

  Again her hand came up, fingers shifting toward the dog. His growl became more ominous; he didn’t like being gestured at. “Nice Wolf,” she said, “there there, boy.” He wasn’t buying it. Worse, he was too far away. She’d felt a connection being made with the spider; not so now. An idea: “Wolf, I have a biscuit for you.” Perked ears. Growl shut off, then came back. She said it again, saw the confusion it aroused. “Don’t you want your biscuit?” She leaned on the word, gave him soothing sentences, all centered on it, gentle hands holding up a gleaming gem to catch the sunlight. Biscuit, Wolf, biscuit.

  He got off his haunches, uncertain yet stirred. The growling kept up, more intense but still low, nothing to arouse suspicion. He sidled toward her, his fur so caked in blood that he seemed in patches to be a painted Revell model of a dog rather than the real thing, simulated fur enameled red. Closer, closer, drawing back and then on when she repeated the word. When he hit the flat tired coils of the throw rug, she felt the thread between them clarify itself. Not too fast. She didn’t want to scare him off or spring him toward her in attack. She needed him a little closer, but it was difficult to keep up the soothing stream of words while beginning her assault on him. She alternated them, dreading that he would catch on and leap at her, or that Danny would come in at any moment and break her concentration. Concentrate, that’s it, you can do it. More praise of biscuits, empty promises, more fumbling for that elusive thread. Wolf’s full belly and rumbled distrust slowed his progress toward her, but the treat-word held its allure and he kept moving, paw inched past paw and that dumb canine look bewildered across his face. Closer, dammit, closer. Wolf eased onto the rug, growls louder now, maybe too loud. She wished for Marcie to cover her, then cursed herself for wishing it—but his face, tight around the growls, weltered with conflict; the monster he’d become now fought against the puppy Danny had raised, whom she’d twice indulged with doggie treats.

  “That’s right, Wolf. Come get your biscuit.” His eyes drifted closer, a 3-D nightmare emerging from the screen, but he was right here with her and his jaws held death. Her hand tingled with life force, finding the core of him and slowly draining what she found there. If only she had time to experiment. She didn’t want to do it too fast, or sensing her hostility, he’d attack. But if she went too slow, Danny might burst in on them or Wolf might realize there was no biscuit and decide to nibble on her instead. But she wasn’t sure she even had any say about the speed of this thing. And there was another problem: She was beginning to feel hateful. Yes, Wolf had become a monster and yes, if she was to survive, then putting him down, and quickly, was essential; but she didn’t have to like it, and she didn’t like it. It made her feel as if animal fat were being smeared all over her soul.

  She took hold now inside Wolf’s head. It was almost as if her arm had grown an invisible metal extender, but as supple as flesh, not metal at all. She held him there on the rug and kept up the slow reverse flow of life, the vileness of him disgusting her as it seeped from him. No more talk of biscuits now, no more subterfuge. She had a grip on him, tenuous though it was, and he tried to back up, tried to approach her, but as long as she maintained her concentration, she knew she had him. Wolf struggled against an envelope of air, whining softly, his face one mass of terror and rage. No growls, no barking now, no unearthly howls to bring his master running. She had a grip on his will and it paralyzed his throat.

  Stalemate. No more coming out of him, but he fought against his enchainment and Karin was beginning to tire. She had to get closer to him, to touch him. Slowly, not breaking her focus, she slid her legs over the side of the bed, felt the floor under her feet. An alarmed look came over Wolf, topping the panic he was already feeling—this was proscribed behavior, this getting off the bed; it was his duty to tear her apart. New stores of life surged in him. She wasn’t as close to killing him as she’d thought. And she felt her resolve slipping, the ugliness coated her insides so. Then she noticed suddenly that all was quiet in the next room, no grunts or curses from Danny, no moans from his victim. That was it. Any moment, he’d
open the door, see what she was doing, and—healing powers or no—maim and torture her to death. And then he’d go after her husband. The distraction was sudden and jolting, and she felt Wolf tear free of her grip in that instant, haunches gathering to launch his twisted mouth at her, the pent-up growl rising to give her away. She was lost, even without Danny’s coming into the room.

  The throw rug shot backward—hockey puck on ice—as he leaped. No puppy now, but monster through and through, two hundred pounds of muscle and fur coming at her like a misjudged train, faster than seemed possible. Her hands came up by instinct, denying the rush of death. Propelled back against her pillows, she felt the crush of his spiked body, saw his teeth sink into her left arm, gripped him by the throat and shouted denial with her whole being. Not a passive denial. No, she squeezed his throat and redoubled her efforts, not physically but mentally, a rush of spirit surging toward renewed connection. All thoughts of Danny or Marcie or Frank were gone. There was only her and this devil dog whose teeth ripped at her arm, making it drool blood like a squeezed hunk of beef. And she was sucking the life out of him, drying him up inside, the surge in her now powerful, controlled, and all-encompassing. She locked on those eyes, gripped him inside, triumphed over him, and felt both soiled and cleansed doing it. The paws fell still first, then the gleam winked out of his eyes and the bunched muscles went lax, and he was like a spent lover crushing her, a bloody stench of a man who’d taken his pleasure and checked out for the night.

  A rustle outside, the squeak of a door. Toolshed by the outdoor shower. Karin winced at the pain and praised God. Danny hadn’t heard the ruckus in here, hadn’t heard Wolf’s growl. A sudden sharp shock. Startled wood. He was chopping. Breaking up a cord. She worked the dog’s jaws off her arm, letting the tears well as freely in her eyes as the blood welled on her arm, but letting no sound leave her. Wolf rolled to the floor, dull thud. The axe stopped. Surely he hadn’t heard that, surely not. Again the rustle, then nothing. She massaged her arm with her good right hand, trying for the power again, reversing it this time. But she was weakened, nearly drained. Don’t pass out now, she thought, not when you’re so close. She put all her mind on her wounds. At first, they seemed as painful as ever, then a numbness crept over the arm. The thought of gangrene, tetanus, rabies occurred to her, but then life came back into it and Karin felt wholeness from the bone out and saw the wounds close over and heal.