The Girl With Aquamarine Eyes

by Shelley Madden

  “Dad?” He skidded into the kitchen, the bat swinging wildly over his head. The wooden weapon quickly crashed to the floor, as he set eyes on the scene before him.

  Heaven was on top of his father, who’d obviously been knocked to the floor. Perhaps she’d be Heaven Killmore one day. Fancy that, his future wife beating the hell out of his own dad. It would surely be a doomed union.

  She’d come downstairs for breakfast after the wedding. His dad would stare at her and sneer, and she’d slap him. His coffee cup would be thrown from his hand and shatter on the cold tile. He wondered if there was such a thing as father-in-law abuse. His dad would surely be the first case in the whole state, perhaps the whole country.

  He shook his head free of the impossible thought, and tried to focus on the soap opera before him. Heaven sat atop his father, a man who was the pinnacle of society and the poster-boy for health and fitness.

  Her legs held his arms pinned against his sides. She raised her arm into the air and swung her hand across his face. The physician could only flail his legs helplessly, and cry out as she dealt him one blow after another.

  “Where is it?” She demanded. “Where is my Prom Queen tiara?”

  “I don’t know.” The physician moaned, and tried in vain to squirm free. “I swear to you, I don’t know.”

  She slapped him again. “What about my dress? You’ve ruined my Prom.”

  Tommy stepped alongside her. “Here’s your tiara. You dropped it when you were pulled into that car.” He took the tiara from around his arm, and handed it to her with a smile.

  Heaven blushed at the handsome teenager. “Oh Tommy, thank you.”

  “And for you, Dr. Killmonster, this is for you.” She slapped him again.

  “Get her off me, Tommy!” The man’s face was bruised, and his eye was beginning to swell shut. A faint line of blood trickled down his nose. “She is crazy. Their whole family is crazy!”

  “What’s going on Dad? Why is Heaven here?”

  “He’s the one who took me, Tommy. He’s the reason I lost my tiara, and look at the mess he made of my dress.”

  “Why, Dad?”

  “Yeah, why?” Heaven ‘s hand rose high into the air once again.

  “To study her, Tommy. To find out why her wrist healed so quickly, and why a dead child at the hospital is suddenly walking and talking after she left his room.” He wriggled in vain beneath the girl. “Now please son, get her off me and get me some ice!”

  “Come on, Heaven.” Tommy held his hand out to his angered friend.

  Heaven raised her hand once more, threatening to slap the physician a final time. He cowered away, wincing in fright. She finally rose from his chest, but unable to help herself, she kicked him in the leg.

  “My leg, she broke my leg!” The man cried in anguish, as he rolled across the floor away from the madness. “She’s a freak, an Adam’s family freak!”

  “You had it coming, dad.” Tommy gazed scornfully at his battered father. “Come on Heaven, lets get you home.”

  He carefully placed the Prom Queen tiara back on her head, swept her into his arms and carried her out the door.

  “Oh, Tommy, you’re my Prince.” She whispered, batting her eyes at the handsome teenager.

  “King.” He smiled. “Prom King.”

  * * *

  Bice stood in his suite, gazing out the window.

  Without warning, a beam of yellow flashed across the lawn. His blood ran cold as he watched a car stop at the gate house, and enter the circular drive. It was probably a cop, coming to tell them Heaven had been found dead in a ditch.

  Although the house was cool, beads of sweat began to trickle down his neck as he watched the vehicle come to a stop in front of the mansion.

  He rushed from his room and pounded on Harmon’s door as he passed, not waiting for a response. He raced downstairs and flung open the double doors. He braced himself against the frame, waiting for the bad news.

  “Bice!” Heaven flung herself into his arms, but reconsidered and gazed at him somberly. “Oh Bice, tell me why a pile of furniture is on the lawn? Please tell me you haven’t packed my things?”

  “Heaven!” He grabbed her and held her tightly, fighting back a mist of embarrassing tears. The girl he loved to hate was no more. Never again would he call her a freak. “Heaven, I thought you were dead. Never mind about the furniture.”

  “She’s fine.” Tommy explained. “But she’s kind of upset.”

  Bice stared at the boy. The brief taste of melancholy he’d felt rapidly disappeared as reality came to call. “What happened? Who took her?”

  Tommy’s eyes fell to the floor. “My dad. He planned to make her into a science project. He said something about her wrist healing too quickly.”

  Tear’s filled Heaven’s eyes, as she gazed at Bice. “He ruined my dress.”

  “Where is this guy?” Bice grabbed Tommy by the shoulders. “I’ll kill him for taking her!”

  Tommy staggered backward from Bice’s grip. “I think Heaven has taken care of it. She slapped him for ruining the night, and for causing her to loose her tiara.”

  “Heaven?” Harmon stood on top of the staircase, gazing in disbelief at her.

  He rushed downstairs too quickly, and stumbled. He righted himself, smoothed his hair and straightened his shirt, attempting to regain his celebrity composure.

  His composure was short lived. He dropped to her feet, grasped her ankles and hugged them tightly. “My girl, I thought you were gone forever.”

  “Harmon, do you mind?” Heaven gazed at the stricken musician, and blushed with embarrassment. “We have company. Tommy and I are starving.”

  “ I’ll ring Bonita to come and fix you both something.” He righted himself once more, and gazed at her. “I thought the worst.”

  “We’re fine.” She smiled sweetly at her troubled guardian. “We’ll fix something for ourselves, please don’t bother Bonita.” She took Tommy by the arm, and led him down the long hall.

  Bice and Harmon watched the pair walk arm in arm down the dim corridor. They both still wore their prom crowns, as if nothing had happened.

  “Bice,” Harmon finally spoke. “I think they are in love.”

  “I know nothing of love. What will we do?”

  “Read a book?” Harmon shook his head in disbelief, as he watched the pair disappear from sight. “Or take a class?”

  “Never mind.” Bice suddenly snapped back to reality. “I have a score to settle with Dr. Killmore.”

  Before Harmon could react, Bice plunged through the front doors and into the darkness. He watched in horror as the raging man rushed across the courtyard, and disappeared into the garage.

  Harmon raced after him. He’d never seen him loose his temper. He rarely, if ever even swatted a fly. “Let the police handle him. Don’t do this, Bice!”

  Harmon reached the garage too late. He stood helplessly watching as the roar of a car came to life. Yellowed lights snapped on, illuminating dancing shadows in the garage.

  Bice’s face came into view as the beam ricocheted across him.

  Harmon gasped. He was suddenly unable to shout out to the man, unable to move and unable to react. Many faces he’d seen in his world travels. Many he remembered, but most he forgot.

  This face was different. A face which would certainly remain forever frozen in his mind, along with the wadded up lyrics and ruined ball point pen.

  He was gazing at the face of a madman.

  Bice slammed the accelerator to the floor. The wheels spun in protest to their sudden demand, and finally burst into the night.

  He gazed through the windshield, but something was wrong. Tiny yellow dots littered the glass. Crumbled carcasses of bugs covered it. He yelped in surprise. The termites were coming. Oh God no, not now. He stifled a cry as his eyes glazed over. He couldn’t loose control, he’d wind up in a ditch. Like the night in Philadelphia. The night the lights went out in Philly, and the monster came knocking.

  He
was suddenly twenty years old again. He wove around curve after curve along the back streets of the city. He chugged down another beer, and tossed the can into the back seat. He was drunk at the wheel. The car veered and swayed, but he was too inebriated to care.

  If he could only turn the car at the next fork, he could bring his brother back as he once was. He wouldn’t have run off the hill and plunged into someone’s house. But the car was on the road to hell, and he was helpless to stop it. Try as he might he couldn’t pull the steering wheel the opposite direction. It was frozen in place.

  A sound next to him caught his attention. He gazed at his little brother riding shotgun. Twelve years old and a long future to look forward to. Until the night he’d climbed into the car with his big brother. Wide eyed and horror stricken he’d gazed straight ahead, as the car drove faster and faster and faster still, trying to beat time itself.

  He glanced at his watch. He must get to the beer store before they closed. He promised his mother he’d watch the boy that night. He couldn’t leave him behind, so together they jumped into the car and drove straight into the portal to hell.

  His brother used to love to go on car rides with him. Sometimes, he even let the boy hold the wheel. But tonight was different. He had to have that last damned six-pack.

  His eyes held his brother’s gaze too long. He cried out as the car left the road, went airborne and plunged down the hillside. A scream erupted beside him, but he couldn’t look. He fought the steering wheel, but it was no use. The damned fork, if he’d only veered the other way.

  He woke up hanging through the windshield in an abandoned house. His car had exploded through the living room, leaving him covered in splinters of wood. Termites covered the wood. Termites covered him.

  The wreck unearthed thousands upon thousands of them. He screamed again, and slapped the bugs away. It was useless, there were too many. They were crawling into his ears, his eyes and into his mouth.

  He screamed and scratched the insects from his face. He grasped the hood, and pulled himself from the windshield. He rolled off the car and lay gasping for breath near a pulverized coffee table. But the bugs were everywhere. They were consuming him, eating him alive. They’d come straight from hell, and had one thing on their mind. Devouring every inch of his inebriated flesh.

  He lay in a daze for what seemed hours. The sounds of the night drifted through the smoky haze and dust. The chirp of a cricket, the cry of an owl. But one sound was missing.

  Through the blinding headlights, he squinted at the windshield. A length of wood had penetrated the passenger side.

  His brother wouldn’t come home from the store that night. As a matter of fact, he wouldn’t come home for the next nine months. He laid in a coma near death for what seemed an eternity, until one day he finally woke.

  The damage was done. The boy’s neck was broken, leaving him paralyzed. He would spend the rest of his days in a wheelchair, courtesy of his big brother’s drinking.

  His mother called him a monster that night, drove him from the house and never spoke to him again.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty

  Harmon stared after the car as it roared away.

  The acrid smell of smoldering rubber permeated the night, threatening to overcome him. His legs suddenly turned to stone. Try as he might, he could not engage them into movement.

  He staggered backward from the distant taillights. The bottom step of the porch caught him across the heel, and threw him onto the steps. Once again, he righted himself and raced into the darkened house.

  He leapt upstairs and pounded on his bodyguard’s door. “Hawk, wake up!”

  “What is it?”

  “Heaven is back home, and Bice has gone after Dr. Killmore. He’s the one who took her.”

  He could hear the big man stumbling around inside. Apparently, the brute tripped over something, as a jumbled string of obscenities floated through the thick wood. A light snapped on from within, soon its golden embers filtered under the door.

  Hawk threw open the door. “Did you bring donuts?”

  “Are you crazy?” Harmon’s eyes teetered on the brink of certain self-destruction and eventual evaporation. “Go get Bice before he does something he regrets.”

  “All right, but I want them with sprinkles.”

  “Yes, with sprinkles. Now for crying out loud, go get him!”

  * * *

  Bice gazed at the two story house looming in the darkness.

  It was well off the road, surrounded by a solid wall of oak trees. Apparently, the quack had an obsession for privacy. He gazed at the fortress. Flower beds lined the perimeter of the home, and a large fountain straddled the expansive lawn.

  He turned the engine off, letting the car coast silently into the driveway. It came to rest under a canopy of fruit trees. The night was silent, other than an invisible whippoorwill which called from the darkness.

  He quietly slid out and sized up the large home. A fresh layer of fog oozed across the lawn as he squinted into the mist. Not a single light burned in any of the many windows. It seemed as if no one were even home.

  He studied the house a moment more, and finally stormed across the front lawn and up the porch steps. The window panes rattled against his incessant banging on the door. He banged on the door harder and harder, until his knuckles threatened to explode. Minutes passed, which escalated his anger even more. The inhabitant within refused to answer. If the house even contained an inhabitant.

  He pounded again until the throbbing sound reverberated throughout the porch. The big home remained silent. He pressed his ear to the mahogany door, but could hear nothing within. He carefully laid his hand upon the doorknob and turned it. It was locked. Apparently the monster had already gone to bed.

  He stepped back onto the lawn, and gazed at the windows of the upper floor. To the left of the house, a window now burned a single light. A light which he knew hadn’t been on before. He walked toward the yellow beam, watching it glow amber across the foggy lawn.

  He gazed at the window, breaking the silence of the once peaceful evening. “Come out here, Dr. Killmore. We have a score to settle!”

  The room remained quiet. Nothing moved behind the curtains, only the dim light burning silently within. His patience was long gone. He stormed around the corner of the house, and groped behind the shrubs. Finding what he needed, he stomped back to the lit window.

  He ran at the window and launched the brick into the air. It arced upward into the fog, disappeared for a moment and re-entered his view as it crashed through the pane. The sound of shattering glass echoed across lawn.

  “Get out here, I know you’re in there!”

  Movement behind the billowing curtains caught his attention. At last, the physician materialized in the gloom. He watched in horror as the man yanked the curtains back, thrust his head out the window and aimed a large gun carefully at him.

  * * *

  Harmon walked into the kitchen.

  He could put it off no longer, he desperately needed to talk to Heaven. As late as it was, he knew there would be no sleep tonight. Too many unanswered question loomed in the horizon.

  Hawk was speeding into the night in search of Bice. What he hoped to discuss with Heaven, was a subject never before discussed between them, nor anyone for that matter.

  Her secret had been swept under the rug for too long. Now it was out.

  He gazed at the happy pair sitting at the bar eating sandwiches, seemingly in the middle of a lengthy conversation. Neither noticed him as he walked in. He helped himself to a beer, and took a long drink. His eyes never left the teenagers.

  “Heaven, I need to talk to you alone. Please tell your guest goodnight.”

  “I was saying goodnight, Mr. Steele.” Tommy replied. “Thanks for a wonderful evening Heaven. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Soon he was out the door and heading toward his car. Harmon watched through the window silently, as the taillights slowly disappeared down the long d
rive. He could see the glittering crown still on the boys head, casting rainbow prisms inside the darkened vehicle.

  He pulled up a chair next to Heaven. Absentmindedly, he wiped their crumbs from the late night snack into meaningless designs. He finally gazed at her. “Heaven, your secret is out. Now you could be in even more danger than you were tonight.” He sifted the remaining crumbs into a miniature pyramid.

  “What secret?”

  He gazed at her. She smiled at him so innocently, her golden tiara still sparkling in her matching hair. Tonight, she’d shown she could take care of herself in danger. Yet everywhere she went, she would always be a target. Sooner or later someone would figure her out. She was a living, breathing target. Perhaps a threat to national security itself, if she were to fall into the wrong hands.

  He sighed. “The child at the hospital. You brought him back. Now Dr. Killmore knows, and I’m afraid he will expose you.”

  “So?”

  “Tell me how you do it, I must know.”

  “Do what?”

  “You know…heal people. You healed your own wrist, your legs and that boy who was dead. Come on, it was obvious when we found you in his room.”

  She stared at the counter, suddenly looking tired. Tired and alone, with an edge of fear slowing creeping into her thoughts and casting shadows across her eyes. “I don’t know. I’ve told you this all along. If the dead person were meant to do great things, somehow I know and can bring them back.”

  “You don’t know how you do it, but you do it when it strikes you?”

  “No. I can’t bring them back because I want to. If they are a good person, or an innocent child, it seems I can do it. I would never willingly try to bring an evil person back.”

  “Somehow you know who to bring back?”

  “Even if a good person or someone pure of heart such as a child, has gone to the other side, I can’t bring them back if they’ve been gone too long.”