Still nothing, but her words seemed to have an impact and Montgomery winced with the violence and volume of her voice. Again his mouth worked a few times, but still no response. It reminded Ashley of Henry’s reaction during one of their occasional, particularly bad arguments. She would rip him to pieces and he would just stand there wide eyed, guilty, but sorry and unsure of how to properly express himself, knowing full well if he said the wrong thing she would pounce, turn his words against him and destroy, destroy, destroy.
Any semblance of control was losing out to anger and fear and worry. Ashley tried to keep it together but falling apart was so much easier. She blubbered, “Why are you doing this? I just want to go. I just want to go.”
At long last Montgomery moved away from the door and approached the tub. He got within a foot or so and stood still. His eyes looked far away yet again.
Ashley felt the fucked up vibes in the room go even wonkier and a deep panic began to buzz in her chest. Time was running out, she could feel it shifting and the world seemed to spin faster upon its axis. Instantly, in her mind’s eye there was a picture of Henry, rock God pose, belting out an aggressive chorus into a spit glistening microphone.
Look, there was another one: Heather at her prom with poofy hair and some dweeb (at the moment Ashley couldn’t remember his name even though she had set them up) wrapped around her.
Flash, another – her parents, Ashley at three in tow, laughing at the beach on some innocuously sunny day ages ago.
The photographs multiplied and filled the craft board in her brain until there was nothing but a wall of memories.
The sobs began anew and in her hitching she inadvertently shifted the bath towel and revealed her left breast. For an instance embarrassment trumped all else. She tried to readjust, but the towel wouldn’t cooperate with her heaving bosom. Ashley stole a glance at Montgomery and noticed he was watching her. She felt sick, but then a thought made her swallow hard – perhaps sex was her only way out, perhaps this motherfucker was a pervert freak and degradation equaled salvation.
Earlier she didn’t think she could do it even if she had to, but the will to survive was strong. All thought and logic switched off as she twisted and tried to look alluring. “I can be yours, Montgomery. Is that what you want?” Sniffles made it hard for her to sound sexy, but she pressed on. “If that’s what you want then all you have to do is get close.” She shifted more and the towel slid completely off and wedged itself between her body and the tub.
The air attacked exposed flesh and she felt ten times colder, her skin, especially around her stomach and pubis seemed to tighten.
More nausea, but Ashley held her sensual pose and focused. Baiting the hook she awaited Montgomery’s reaction. If he moved in and touched her, she feared that gut instinct and natural impulse would take over and drive her to try and inflict damage upon him prematurely (how? Teeth perhaps?). She couldn’t fathom how she would be able to endure his touch without absolutely flipping out, but if she were to make any headway she would have to get him to undo her restraints and ease him into a sense of security, that was priority one.
But how?
Sweet talk?
If she could somehow entice him and then get him to untie her wrists then she could swallow back the mounting bile and bash his fucking head into the unforgiving enamel of the bathtub.
Just her wrists and then she could take care of the rest.
Montgomery moved closer and bent over her.
“I want to touch you,” she moaned in her best mock-sensual whisper and brought her bound wrists slightly upwards.
He put a hand on the wrists and pushed them back down to her abdomen and then with his other hand reached over her and retrieved the towel. Ashley’s naked side reconnected with the cold tub and a chill shot through her body. Montgomery gently shook out the towel, let it catch air and float down on top of her. He tucked in a few corners, covering her nakedness completely, and then resumed standing mutely beside the tub.
The nausea welled and crested. A small amount of bile breached her throat and stung as she swallowed it back. On top of everything else she now felt like a complete idiot. It took a mountain of strength to mentally conjure sensuality, to expose her intimates and willingly offer herself to this monster and his blasé rejection felt like a kick to the stomach. Not that she wasn’t a little relieved, a sexual encounter would have been horrific, but humiliation bested respite and embarrassment seeped in to intermingle with those roiling fears and worries.
“Please, Montgomery,” she pleaded.
He gave her a sorrowful look and then reached over her yet again. This time he shifted the towel, pulling it up, uncovering a portion of her thighs, so that it covered her face. Ashley shook her head frantically, but the towel stayed put.
“Please,” she howled through a new army of tears and a suffocating layer of cotton.
There was movement, indecipherable sounds, shuffling, and then after about ten seconds of hellishly mounting claustrophobia, Montgomery folded down the towel so that Ashley’s face was no longer concealed.
Panic filled her with fizzing stars of light and the undersides of her skin began to tingle when she saw that he was holding a heavy sledge hammer. The inner alarm intensified as he gripped the sledge hammer’s long handle with two hands and brought the hefty hunk of metal over his head.
“Please, Montgomery!”
IX
The Laestrygonian Blues
There was no avoiding the eyes.
Not this time.
No blindfolds or aversions or far off focal points.
And though he disregarded hearing and tuned out sound and pleas and promises, Montgomery held his stare and gazed mutely into Ashley’s brown eyes as he raised the sledgehammer high over his head.
Tears collected and her lovely eyeballs seemed to drown in an ocean of salty sorrow. He pushed harder with his vision, trying to seize her attention and communicate everything he felt in his heart.
A moment, two, her eyes danced, darted and then finally honed in upon and locked with his.
There was a split second of communion before Ashley broke her stare and her eyes continued to swim. Montgomery wanted her to understand that this wasn’t a thing that he wanted to do. He wasn’t a killer that enjoyed murder, but a victim much like herself and he was trying to make right on a situation that continually haunted him.
Did she get it?
In that fraction of a second?
Did she understand all that he hoped she would?
It was likely she didn’t. Fear was too insulating; the hammer raised menacingly overhead didn’t help.
But he did what he had to.
For a moment there, Ashley offering herself to him sexually, and then his embarrassed response, covering her up with the towel, Montgomery almost chickened out. He adjusted the towel so it obscured her face and all he had to do was find something to kill her with. Quick. Easy. No eyes, no real guilt, just a towel entombed corpse. But, sledgehammer in hand, purpose came flooding back.
He fucked up, this was painfully clear, and he would regret losing his cool and attacking Ashley for the rest of his life, but there would be time for atonement later. Now, he had to do what he had to do, and he had to do it right, so he uncovered her face and tried to lock eyes.
And he did, momentarily at least.
And the sledgehammer hung in the air, waiting.
And his heart felt no less pained.
What happened to you, Montgomery?
Young Montgomery, five years old, head too big for his body, teeth oddly spaced, fascinated with dinosaurs and volcanoes and Yoda.
One day, out of the blue, months after his birthday, months before Christmas, just because he was the coolest dad in the world, his dad surprised him with a kitten. It was a cute, little calico with alert, blue eyes and a sand papery tongue. For about a year, young Montgomery took great pride in caring for the creature. He named it Grover (even though it was a female) after his favor
ite Sesame Street character and cherished it more purely and deeply than anything before or since.
The cat would sleep with him at night.
In the morning before school (or cartoons on Saturdays and Sundays) he would feed and water it.
He would clean its litter box and defend it from his mom when Grover used the couch as a scratching post or jumped on the kitchen table.
For a while the two were inseparable. As Grover got a little older, she began to get unruly and Montgomery’s dad made the executive decision to officially make her an outdoor cat.
Young Montgomery was upset initially, but Grover always stuck around, only prowling after dark, long past the little boy’s bedtime and before long the arrangement became as commonplace as his nightly bath or daily nap. Montgomery still fed Grover every morning, he still cuddled with her every afternoon, he still fed her again every evening, but now he didn’t have to clean her litter box (yucky) and he didn’t have to worry about crushing her when he slept as his dad had warned him about.
Everything was purrfect.
A few months went by and Grover got fat. Montgomery heard his mom and dad call her a “slut” on a few occasions, which Montgomery found funny, but didn’t quite understand. He figured it meant the same as pig or fat. A few more weeks down the line he came to discover it actually meant pregnant, which he still didn’t necessarily understand, but was overjoyed to find it meant more cuddly little kitties.
The kittens were adorable. Well, not at first. At first they were disgusting. But after Grover cleaned them up they were absolutely delightful.
The very day after they were born young Montgomery heard his parents arguing about what to do with them. This was perplexing to his five year old brain. The solution was obvious. What to do with them? Love them of course!
But love must have meant different things to different people, because Montgomery’s mom wanted the little fuzz balls gone. His dad suggested they give them away. His mom didn’t want to burden anyone else and said she had another way. She grew up in the south, on a farm, and knew exactly what to do with five unwanted (by everyone except Montgomery) kittens.
The next morning after Montgomery’s dad left for work his mom told him to play in his room for a while before they had to leave for school. Montgomery was a good little boy and he wanted to make his mom happy, always, even though he had to go to the bathroom and he told her so and she told him to hold it for a little while and play first. Half way into building a fire truck out of pillows, Montgomery felt his bladder nearing bursting. He wanted to obey his mommy, but if he didn’t go to the bathroom immediately he would wet his pants and his mom would be even madder at him for going in his pants than she would for abandoning his playing for the bathroom. This kind of moral dilemma was unfamiliar to Montgomery and making the right decision was torturous. At the time there was no possible way to internalize the notion that life, real life with its hard decisions and ethical obstacles, had officially begun, but something inside his tiny chest ached as he dashed from his bedroom for the potty.
On his way he caught a glimpse of his mom playing with the kittens outside.
This image stopped him dead in his tracks and made him forget that he had to pee. His brain double-taked: his mom was playing with the kittens?
She didn’t even like Grover let alone her babies.
Montgomery pivoted and redirected his run until he was standing at the sliding glass door watching his mom put each of the kittens into a large black plastic garbage bag.
Montgomery frowned. Was she hiding them?
After all the kittens were in the bag his mom carried the squirming bundle over to the swimming pool and dunked it into the water. The bag floated on the surface and his mom struggled with it. The whole scene was comical, his mom wobbling for control, a plastic bag full of kittens going crazy and Montgomery laughed, excited, jumping up and down. He wanted to run out and join her, but he knew he was supposed to be in his room playing so he watched from behind the slider for a little longer.
His mom shifted the bag and opened it some. A few kittens popped out, but she pushed them back in. Montgomery went into another fit of exultant hysterics, but by the time he calmed down and his vision realigned the scene had changed from one of joy to something entirely different. Again, as common with five year olds the world over, Montgomery stared on confused. His mom allowed a flood of water to fill the bag and then held the whole thing under. A minute passed and she just leaned there holding the bag down.
Was she teaching the kittens to swim?
He could remember a time when he tried to throw Grover in the pool, for fun, and his dad yelled at him, telling him that cats didn’t like the water and it was dangerous for them or something.
Worry blossomed in his chest. He had to tell his mom. Maybe she didn’t know and just as it was his dad’s duty to tell him he felt it was his to tell his mom.
Forgetting all about playing in his room or having to go to the bathroom, young Montgomery slid open the slider and rushed outside.
“Mommy!” he yelled, “Kitties don’t like water!”
His mom turned, a look of alarm widening her eyes, “Go back inside, Monty!”
Little Montgomery was too determined to let it rest and picked up the pace to a fast kid waddle, “Daddy said Grover can’t go in water!”
By the time he reached her side she heaved the bag out of the pool and let it thunk down to the concrete beside her feet. Montgomery ran straight for it, ignoring his mom’s cries and working to free the kittens from forbidden swimming lessons, except when he got the bag open and a glimpse of the felines they weren’t moving. They just laid there all bunched up. A few of them were sticking out their tongues. He looked up at his mom quizzically.
She was frazzled, and for the first time in his short life Montgomery didn’t feel completely secure and safe.
“They’re taking a nap, honey.” His mom picked him up, though lately she had been telling him he was getting way too big to carry, and held him tight.
Montgomery was as naïve as any five year old and his mom could pretty much tell him anything and he would have wholeheartedly believed it, but despite his limited cognition he knew she was lying.
Tears stormed and he began to cry.
He didn’t know exactly why emotion overwhelmed, death was still foreign to him, but it raised a lump in his throat nevertheless and tinged the air with an unmistakable feeling of dread.
What happened to you, Montgomery?
The sledgehammer was heavy and when he brought it down it required minimal force. If Montgomery were to let it fall, merely guiding its descent, it would have probably been enough.
To kill?
Maybe not, but it would have definitely knocked her cold and he could have given her a cleaner death with a slit to the throat during the impending disposal process.
In any event, Montgomery swung the hammer with a modicum of force. Upon its fall he lost sight of Ashley’s pretty, (sadly) crying face. Her cries escalated into a high pitched scream, but it only lasted a second or so. Once the hammer touched down its weighty head crushed through a portion of her forehead and the top of her skull right about where her hairline started. It punched a fist size hole into her head, mangling and intermingling skin, hair, skull bone bits and gray matter. A little blood (but not nearly as much as Montgomery would have figured) escaped and splattered around the edges of the metal. Ashley’s body bucked a few times and Montgomery held on to the sledgehammer as it violently jolted in tandem with her death rattling convulsions.
By the time the commotion had settled and Montgomery was able to right himself, the life had completely drained from Ashley’s eyes. They stared dead, gone milky, and her mouth hung slightly askew, slack, peppered with spittle. As careful as he could, Montgomery pulled the hammer free. Ashley’s body shuddered fast and then stilled. The hammer left behind a crater sized cavity, deep and dark and upon its debut, outwardly bloodless. However, after a second the red stuff mad
e its grand entrance, welling and pouring from the hole in a torrential burst before slowing to a trickle and then seeping slow.
Montgomery threw the sledgehammer to the ground and held his face in his hands. He felt sick and could no longer look at the broken shell that used to be Ashley.
When Montgomery exhausted every feasible option he had no choice. Liz was going to be home in a couple of hours. He couldn’t compromise their safety (any more than he already had). The girl had to die. And now that she was dead he didn’t feel any better, but he did feel a whole lot less crazy.
Seconds before he got up the nerve to drive the sledgehammer home his brain began really flipping out. Dementia, or something damn close, claimed him and sent his thoughts reeling without regard for sense. Ashley must have thought him to be a real nut job. Which didn’t matter any longer, but for some prideful reason Montgomery still felt embarrassment over his ramblings. In his mind’s eyes he was bombarded with images and snippets, with voices of the long dead and a collage of regret. Old memory morphed with new shit and he felt completely unhinged.
It was all tremendously unnerving, but he supposed it was the psychotic kick he needed to follow through and get rid of Ashley. He hoped and prayed he would never have to experience anything remotely like it again.
What made this so much harder than any of the others, aside from brutally swinging a sledgehammer (he was ordinarily a strangler or throat slitter) and feeling a weird familiarity with his victim, was that he had no plans to portion and eat – which essentially made this a real murder. Okay, yes, the others were real murders as well, but there was always a purpose. At the heart of the matter, Montgomery spent hours pacing and agonizing over this one because he knew that he wasn’t going to consume her and the act of murder would almost be senseless. There was a purpose of course, if self preservation wasn’t a good enough reason for offing somebody he didn’t know what was, but it still felt unnatural, like opening a bottle of the finest wine and then just dumping it down the drain.
As Fate Would Have It Page 22
