“Truth be told, she really wasn’t worth it. I just heard what a bitch she was being to you and I had to say something.”
“Well thanks. Not a lot of people wouldn’t have done that.”
“Your thanks is appreciated, but not necessary.”
Bentley turned to leave, but Katie stopped him again.
“Hey, I don’t even know your name.”
“Brandon. We have math together. I sit near the back.”
“Oh. Well, listen. Do you want to, like, walk home together or something?”
“You’re leaving?”
“Yeah, I think most of them are.”
“They’ll stay,” Bentley said. “I only broke the spell for a second; soon they’ll go back to their blindness.”
“Hey,” Brenda called from the doorway. “Are you coming back in Katie?”
Katie turned. “Actually, I’m gonna walk home.”
“What? Are you kidding me?”
Katie looked and Bentley and then turned back to Brenda. “No. You stay though. I’ll call you later.”
Brenda opened her mouth to protest and then saw Katie’s eyes. She let her mouth shut and then nodded. “Fine, okay. Call me tomorrow.”
“Shall we?” Bentley said. He held his arm out and Katie slung her arm around his.
53.
Kyle and Julie sat on the blanket. A few stunted trees grew here and there, but they didn’t obscure the sky. The stars shone down on them, lighting up Julie’s face.
“It’s so pretty out here.”
“I told you.”
“What are they called again?”
“The Pleiades. Or the seven sisters, if you like.”
“What’s that blue stuff around them?”
“Dust. If you look hard you can see Taurus. It looks like a bull.”
“You sure know a lot about this stuff.”
“My professor is really good. I’m thinking about going into astronomy maybe.”
Julie turned her head. Kyle took the opportunity and started kissing. They reclined back as they continued. Their hands worked feverishly, unzipping this, undoing that. It wasn’t long before all their clothes were off.
Kyle moved Julie’s legs apart and crawled in between them.
“The condom,” she said.
Kyle smiled and held it up in his hand. He ripped the package open and rolled it on.
He laid his hands on the ground and entered Julie. She threw her head back and let out a moan.
Kyle started out slow, picking up rhythm as Julie’s breaths started to come faster. Then, something happened. The ground underneath them shifted. Julie’s moans stopped.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Kyle said. He kept thrusting but not with as much gusto as before.
“Stop for a second,” Julie said.
Kyle sighed and disengaged. “It was probably just a little tremor. They happen all the…”
The ground moved again. Julie rolled over on her side and lifted a corner of the blanket. “It feels like it’s coming from…”
A human hand poked out of the ground.
Julie’s scream pierced the night sky.
54.
“So how bad was it?” Katie asked.
“Pretty bad,” Bentley said. “They didn’t think I was going to make it, but I proved them all wrong.”
“I don’t know what I’d do,” Katie said. “I mean for someone to tell you that you were about to die. How do you deal with that?”
“You’ve lost someone though.”
Katie stopped walking. She stared at Bentley. “What?”
“Your father.”
“Who told you that?”
“Someone in school. I don’t remember who. It might have been Jimmy.”
Katie continued to walk. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Sometimes it helps.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, that must have been hard, right? To lose someone so close to you.”
“It was,” Katie said.
They walked on for a few blocks with no words between them.
“Hey, I’m sorry if I hit a nerve. We can talk about something else if you’d like.”
“It’s just so hard to talk about. I mean I don’t even know exactly how I feel.”
“I imagine that you’re sad.”
“I am. I still am. When I first heard I didn’t want to believe it. My Mom and sister went to see him at the morgue. They wanted me to come, but I didn’t want to. I don’t see why they wanted to go, it’s gross.”
“It’s good to see a person one last time. Like a goodbye.”
“I didn’t look at him at the funeral either. I went up to the casket, because I didn’t want my Mom to give me shit about it, but I didn’t look in.”
“Really? You didn’t want to see him one last time?”
“I did, but not like that. Not after what that fuck had done to him.”
“I bet you hate the guy that killed him.”
“I don’t even know him, that’s the worst part. He’s probably still out there somewhere.”
“You think it would help if you knew him?”
“I don’t know. It wouldn’t bring my Dad back, but it would feel good to…I don’t know, to do something to him.”
“To kill him?”
Katie turned towards Bentley.
“I could never do that. As much as I hate him, I don’t think I could do it.”
“I’ll bet you could if you got the chance. I’ll bet you’d kill him and not think twice about it.”
“I don’t know,” Katie said. She looked up and stopped walking. “Well, this is my house. Thanks for walking me home.”
“No problem. The streets aren’t safe for a pretty girl at night.”
Katie smiled. “Why don’t you give me your phone number? Then I can call you tonight and make sure you got home alright.”
“I’ll be fine,” Bentley said. “You just get in there. I’ll see you in school on Monday.”
Katie hesitated for a second. “Okay. Thanks again for everything.”
“It was my pleasure.”
Katie leaned forward and kissed Bentley’s lips. It was a quick thing. Light, but full of sweetness.
Bentley backed up a bit, his eyes wide.
“I’m sorry,” Katie said. Her head was downcast.
“No,” Bentley said. “I liked it. I just didn’t expect it. I’m sorry.”
“Well, I’ll see you on Monday.”
“I look forward to it.”
Katie smiled and strolled up the walkway and into the house. Bentley smiled, watching her go. Things were going along very nicely.
55.
The police and the ambulance showed up in tandem. Three men in blue uniforms rushed to the place where Julie and Kyle, now clothed, sat. The ambulance guys, in their white shirts with the gold badges, were right behind them.
Kyle had thrown the blanket away from the spot where they’d seen the hand. For all he cared, it could stay and rot where it was. He didn’t want it back.
“Get these two outta here,” the cop in the lead said.
One of the other officers walked over to them and led them towards the line of cop cars.
“Pat from CSI should be here in a few minutes,” the one in charge said. “Before he gets here I want this whole place tapped off. We need to…”
“Hey Colin,” the third officer called. He was standing about thirty feet away, near one of the bigger trees. “We got a body and a shovel over here.”
“Any sign of the perp.”
“No, but…Jesus, this guy’s still alive.”
The EMTs, who had been standing back waiting for orders, didn’t waste any time. They rushed forward with their load of electronic equipment. The two men bent down in front of Frank.
“Pulse is weak,” one said.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” the other commented. He looked up at Colin, who had walked over. “We need to get
him in now.”
“Take him.”
56.
Bentley made his way around the freeway. A few cars buzzed by, their headlights filling the road with ethereal light for a second and then fading into the distance. Bentley spent a lot of his time on the freeway now, and the sounds soothed him. It was the lullaby of the night. In the darkness no one could see him. In the darkness the scars were hidden.
Bentley liked to sleep in the morning so that he could be awake at night. When he slept in the morning there were no dreams. He had no idea why, at night all he had to do was think about Ogre and the home and the dreams would come. In the morning it didn’t matter how hard he concentrated on things, the dreams just weren’t there. When he was on the hunt he had to keep a normal schedule. He opened himself up to the light, but the Prize was worth it.
He crested a small hill and stopped. On one of the trees across the way someone had strung plastic police tape. The words warned; do not enter, in black ink.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have come so far west, Bentley thought. The police are faster here. Maybe they have more experience.
He stood for a few minutes, thinking.
I should have buried the cop first, just to be sure. Actually, I really should have just finished the job before going to the party.
But it was done. The cop couldn’t have survived anyway. Not that long. His mind turned to the head shot. It had not been clean. The cop had moved at the last second. Bentley wanted to see brains splatter. He wanted the gore to litter the walls of his adopted home.
Should have used the knife.
Yes, perhaps, but what’s done was done. Better to learn and move on. And that’s exactly what Bentley did.
57.
“How was the party?” Sheila asked.
“Actually, it really wasn’t that fun. I left early. I think Brenda stayed.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Sheila sat on the couch. Hitler paraded across the television, talking to some person or another, while a detached voice talked about his disregard for his general’s suggestions.
“Why are you watching this?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Nothing else is on.”
“You hate history. You complained whenever Dad had stuff like this on.”
“I just miss him. This helps.”
Katie sat down on the chair adjacent from the couch. “You know that I miss him too, right?”
Sheila’s eyes crinkled in the ghost of a smile. “Of course I know that.”
“It’s just…I don’t know. I haven’t really talked about it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. You’ll talk about it when you’re ready.”
“Well, at first I was mad at you.”
“I know.”
Katie grimaced. It was a horrible thing, harboring resentment for your Mother, it was worse when she knew it.
“I never stopped loving you though,” Katie said. “You know that too, right?”
“Sure.” Sheila leaned forward and placed her hand on Katie’s knee. “I did a lot of things that I’m not proud of. I’ve killed myself over this more times than I can count. I think I drank my way through the first week before I realized that I’d better stop.”
Katie ran her hand through her hair and shifted in her seat. She met her Mother’s gaze with reluctance.
“I want you to know that I always loved your father. I still do. I made a horrible mistake and your Dad was kind enough and understanding enough to forgive me. I don’t expect you to forgive me right away. All I ask is that you give me a chance.”
“I can do that.”
Sheila leaned back and focused on the television set again. The two of them watched in fascination as Hitler’s world came crashing down around him.
58.
“Jesus,” Dr. Crenshaw said. “How the hell is this guy still alive?”
Crenshaw sat on the blue recliner. Dr. Goldberg was seated next to him on a beige one. The break room was empty. This late at night the skeleton crew was on, and that meant minimal nursing staff, a few transporters and some environmental staff. Crenshaw selected this location for the meeting because the doctor’s lounge would be crowded with on-call doctors and surgeons.
Dr. Goldberg shrugged his shoulders. “He’s a fighter, that’s for sure.”
“He came through surgery okay?”
“Define, okay.”
“What long term effects can we expect?”
“I have no idea right now. He didn’t die in there, so that’s good. I rather thought he would.”
“What else?”
“He’s in a coma, which you know. Other than that.” Dr. Goldberg splayed his hands out palms up. “I don’t know. It’s a miracle that he survived at all. I removed four bullets. One hit a rib about three centimeters from his heart. One lodged near the lung, but the damage from that one was minor, easily fixed.
Another lacerated the pancreas, but we got that taken care of. The last one entered about one centimeter to the left of the spinal cord, so, if he regains consciousness, he won’t be
paralyzed.”
“This guy must be the luckiest bastard on the planet.”
“It’s as if God himself guided those bullets. Of course the head wound is our chief concern.”
“How bad is it?”
“The bullet did not enter the brain cavity, so that’s a plus. It skidded along the outside causing quite a bit of damage, but I got most of it. The skull was cracked in two places, which is where most of the blood was lost. Luckily, he’s AB positive.”
There was a long table in front of them, where the staff ate their meals while on break. Now, papers and X-rays cluttered it. Dr. Crenshaw picked up one of the X-rays of Frank’s skull and examined it.
“He’s not going to be easy to treat.”
“Hell, the nurses are going to do most of the work on this one, and we both know it. He’s in a coma, he can’t push the call button and have you paged.”
Crenshaw smiled. “The police have been hanging around since he came in. They want to talk to him.”
Goldberg raised both hands in front of him. “I don’t want or need to know about that. I did my job; you can deal with the cops.”
He stood up and made for the door. Before he reached it, Goldberg turned and looked at his friend.
“You know when I first came in; I thought you’d lost it. I didn’t think there was anything I could do. This guy was the best work I’ve ever done. I hope he’s worth it.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“Forget it.” Goldberg paused, seemed to reconsider. “Let me win at golf for once and we’ll call it even.”
Crenshaw smiled. “You got it.”
59.
Bentley sat in his usual spot, only now he resisted the urge to stare at Katie. His presence was known, and it was time to put up the guard.
“So after you left, Jimmy told Jenny to leave,” Brenda said. She was practically bursting. Her words flew out in a torrent. “She didn’t want to go at first, but someone else told her to leave and then we all started yelling at her. When she ran out the door she was crying.”
“That’s…great,” Katie said. Her voice was hesitant, and Bentley suspected that she didn’t really mean what she’d said.
Brenda turned and found Bentley. “You really told that bitch off.”
“Thanks.”
Mrs. Franklin walked through the door and the class quieted.
“Hello class.”
There was a spattering of hellos back. Most of the kids simply turned front in their chairs and opened their notebooks.
“I believe we finished last class with logarithms, does that sound right to everyone?”
There were a few nods, but no one had the courage to speak up. Mrs. Franklin surveyed the classroom for a second.
“Okay, then we’ll pick up there.”
She began to blather on about useless numerical information that most of these kids would never use anyway.
>
Bentley liked thinking about numbers, he liked their logic. Their lack of argument. There were rarely any debates as to whether or not two plus two equaled four. Not like most things in life.
But Bentley had other things in mind. Katie scribbled in her notebook furiously as Mrs. Franklin displayed her prowess at being able to solve problem after problem.
Katie ran her hand through her hair, four times during the forty-five minute class. Every time she did it, it was with the right hand. She would start off with her hand and then get her neck into the act. She looked over at Brenda twice, both times because the bitch had asked her some question. They whispered so low that Bentley couldn’t make out what they were saying, but from the profile of Katie’s face, he could tell that it wasn’t math related.
Katie dropped her pencil once. When she bent down to pick it up, she caught eyes with Bentley and smiled. She straightened back up in her seat, only now there was a piece of paper on the floor. Bentley leaned out of his seat and grabbed it.
He opened it up on his blank notebook:
Brandon,
I had a really good time with you last night. I was wondering if maybe you wanted to come over after school? You seem to get good grades on these tests and I could use a little help.
Write me back.
Bentley stared at the note for a long time. He took out his pen and scribbled: sure, I’ll meet you at your locker. He coughed into his hand and Katie turned around. Then, Bentley dropped the note on the floor. Katie brushed her pen off the desk and bent down to pick it up. When she did, she grabbed the note as well.
Bentley smiled. Katie would be his Prize, his best Prize yet.
60.
Rick was sitting at his desk when Chief Dunham approached. “Can I talk to you in my office?”
“Sure,” Rick replied. He stood up and followed the chief. Once they were inside Dunham closed the door.
Beneath the Mask of Sanity Page 12
