by Glen Krisch
The hand dryer stopped. The man's breathing, a wet near-sob, sounded incredibly loud without the whir of the dryer.
"What'd I do!" the fat man cried, the old guy's palm pressing his face into a morbid sneer.
"It's your turn, jackass. Just your turn is all. Ain't no shame in taking your turn."
Kevin inched away, his back against a stall. The toilet flushed behind him and his dad opened the door.
"What the hell's going on?" His fists tightened at his sides, the muscles alive under his skin. Kevin cowered on the floor next to him.
The old man didn't even flinch at the interruption and didn't seem to notice anyone else in the restroom. The fat man was still smashed against the mirror and he couldn't move at all. Kevin had no idea how such a feeble-looking man could manhandle someone so large so easily.
With sympathy in his eyes the old man looked at his victim, as if might even decide to let him go. But then swiftly, violently, he slammed the man's skull against the foggy metallic mirror. The stranger's unconscious eyes rolled back to full whites as he fell to the floor. Before anyone could react, the old man started stabbing him with what looked like a steak knife.
His dad rushed forward to grab his arm on the back swing. Kevin knew his dad was strong, just about the strongest person he knew, but the old man somehow lifted him off the floor with his stabbing motion. His dad lost his grip and tumbled across the stranger's body.
"Dad!" Kevin cried, tears clinging to his cheeks.
"Looks like it's your turn now," the old man hissed as he feverishly attacked his dad, the knife a big blurring motion of metal and blood. His dad tried to deflect the stabs with his forearms which were soon littered with wounds. He looked defeated, afraid. His eyes met Kevin's, even as the crazed man continued his assault. His lips moved wordlessly, his life drifting away.
But something steeled in his dad's eyes, and the fear disappeared. He struggled to one knee and then stood fully. Ignoring the knife, he grabbed the old man's face between either hand, leaving his abdomen unprotected. The old man took advantage by pressing the knife in deeply, just below the ribs. As the stranger lifted the knife handle, his dad slammed his gray head into the wall, hard.
Kevin wanted to look away, but couldn't. Not even as both his dad and the old man fell with dual thuds to the floor.
"No, Daddy. No…" Kevin whimpered, losing coherence. He slumped down the side of the stall until he sat with his legs sprawled out before him. He blinked and saw the nightmare in front of him: his dad's ravaged body, his wheezing last breath, his empty eyes left staring at Kevin.
Kevin's eyes glazed and his mind cowed away, finding shelter in a safer place. When he opened his eyes again, how long later, he had no idea, he began to scream for his mom. He screamed with a fear bordering on madness. He screamed until his words became a simple wailing pain.
Chapter 3
As she pulled the Ford Explorer into her mother's driveway in Chicago, Carin's heart felt empty. Kevin sat in the passenger seat, wearing the same blank expression as the previous two weeks. She was hoping that completing the move to her mother's house would help draw him out of his grief. It would take some time, but she was hoping to see some inkling of her sweet little boy still inside him somewhere.
The front yard was so lush and green that it looked like a bed of emeralds. Newly planted baby pine trees lined the drive on either side. The leaves of the two large oaks in the front yard hung limply and had curled in the heat. The yard was mostly shadow and cool air, a luxury during the heat of summer.
She eased the Explorer to a stop, and shut off the engine, leaving them in silence. It was as if with the turn of the ignition key she expected Kevin to snap out of it, for him to show the same joy he always did when they would go to her mother's house. A minute or more slipped by and neither one of them stirred. The mounting pain behind her eyelids wanted release. It would be so easy to let it overwhelm her, to let it drown her in its violent and brackish waves. Her temples pounded and if she didn't get things under control, she was going to start crying again. She didn't want to be in that condition around her mother.
She took a deep breath, fighting the hitching in her chest with every inhaled ounce of air. Her hands still gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles white and trembling.
Come on Carin, you can do this. You have to do this.
She slowly let out the pent up air from her lungs. She had to do this. "Hey, bud, let's go inside. Your grandma's waiting for us."
Kevin didn't say anything or even look at her. Tucking his baseball glove under his arm, he opened the passenger door. He was nearly to the front door before she remembered to move. She grabbed her purse and hurried to catch up to him.
That wasn't so hard, was it? Carin thought. But getting out of the car wasn't the worst of their problems. Moving on with the rest of their lives would be their true challenge.
Kevin stood staring at the door, his eyes rimmed with brown bags. Carin was digging in her purse for her key when the door opened.
"Oh, my babies, you made it." Carin's mother reached out to touch them. She had been blind since childhood, but she got around so well that Carin sometimes forgot.
"Hi, Mom. Thanks. Thanks for everything."
They didn't say anything else. Her mother leaned in for a deep hug with Carin, and then shared a dead-fish embrace with Kevin. He slinked away to the living room and turned on the T.V. He flipped the channels until he landed on cartoons, and then he watched like a zombie, barely blinking.
When the door closed behind them, darkness shrouded the interior of the house, even with the sun still high in the sky. All the curtains were closed and not a single lamp was alight. A rush of air that bordered on an arctic freeze greeted Carin and she realized her mother had the air conditioning cranked up high. Her mother was raised poor, and not until Carin was into her early thirties, did her parents pull out of it. Some of the frugal practices never went away, and Carin doubted her mother was aware of most of her quirks. She almost never used the air conditioning, even during the blistering heat of summer. Her mother had consciously cooled the house for their benefit.
The smell of the house was comforting and familiar. The well-oiled molding and oak shelving her father had built into their home, a little each year until it looked so much more than the cookie cutter G.I. housing it had once been. A repotted plant, moist and freshly turned soil, fragrant leaves and snaking tendrils, probably in the kitchen window where it would get the best light. The rose-scented powder her mother dusted the carpet with before vacuuming. For the first time in months, even long before James's murder, Carin felt a measurable amount of ease. Walking into the home of her youth and knowing she would find solace here once again seemed to wash away the coppery tinge of anxiety from her mouth. In its wake, she was aware of how emotionally raw she felt. It was a palpable feeling, yet distant, almost as if they were someone else's emotions mentioned to Carin in hushed tones.
"Would you like some chamomile tea?" her mother asked, hopefully.
"That sounds wonderful." And it did. Carin suddenly felt tired. She could imagine taking a nap after a soothing cup of tea.
Carin followed her mother into the kitchen and sat down at the dinette. She thought about helping, but knew that her mother wanted to make it herself, mothering her as if she had never moved away. "I should probably get the suitcases from the car while you make the tea."
"Don't be silly. You're home now and your car is in the driveway. It isn't going anywhere and neither are you," she said, nodding for emphasis. "We can unload it after we catch our breath." She put the teapot on to boil, and then took a tin of tea from the cabinet.
"Jeremiah is dead," Carin said. She didn't want to bring up her husband's killer, at least not this soon after coming home. He didn't deserve to be spoken about, not in such a welcoming environment. But she had to get the weight off her chest.
Her mother turned from the stove and stood quietly.
"He had a heart attack,
or at least that's what the police told me."
"When?"
"Two nights ago. He was asleep. They told me he went painlessly."
"I don't exactly know what to say."
"Neither do I. But I do know I feel cheated. I was praying that the prosecuting attorney would be able to steer away from the insanity plea. I knew that probably would've never happened, and he'd end up at some cushy mental hospital. I wanted him to suffer in prison, I wanted him to see those bars and feel the loneliness and see them every minute of every day and I wanted him to suffer for seeing them."
"At least he's gone." The teapot began to whistle. Her mother turned off the stove and poured the steaming water over the teabags to steep. Her movements were flawless, her light, flickering fingers comprehending details from the slightest surfaces of her world, a sense of touch keener than most people's sense of sight.
"I know I should be grateful," Carin said. She took the enameled cup offered by her mother. "At least he won't hurt anyone else."
They both sat at the dinette, sipping the steaming tea.
With the burden of Jeremiah's death off her chest, Carin wanted to change the subject. She couldn't remember the last pleasant conversation she'd had. First it was the police, and then a brief talk with the F.B.I., then the funeral home, the insurance company, the realtor, and the moving company. It never seemed to end. "You look good, Mom."
"Thank you dear. You seem to be getting on all right, all things considered. But, Kevin, he doesn't seem to be doing the same." Her voice softened upon mentioning Kevin.
No matter what Carin tried, her conversations always turned to unsavory subjects. "I know it's only been two weeks, but I'm worried about him, Mom. I can understand his behavior around me and when we're in public. No one his age would feel like being social under the circumstances. What bothers me is how he's having those dreams I was telling you about. They seem to be getting worse."
"That pains me to hear."
"It's one nightmare in particular, a dream monster he calls Mr. Freakshow. He says Mr. Freakshow is going to take over the world, stare everyone in the eye one by one and see their weaknesses. Every night he dreams that this Mr. Freakshow is coming for him, is coming to kill him."
"Dear God, that poor boy." Her mother reached out, covering Carin's hand with her own.
"I'm going to take him to see a doctor," Carin said and there was another pause in their conversation. She didn't want her mother to respond. She wanted the whole idea of some horrible dream monster tormenting her son to go away. All she wanted was for them to move on, but they couldn't do that as long as Kevin had these nightmares.
Kevin normally liked watching Ben 10, but hadn't paid attention since it started. Instead, he listened to every word spoken in the kitchen, keeping his eyes glued to the T.V. While he listened in on the conversation, his own conflicting thoughts threatened to overpower his outside world. He knew from overhearing his parents' arguments that his dad had been acting inappropriately at work, acting in ways that wouldn't seem right for a married man. Or for someone's dad. Kevin was so mad at him. Anger broiled in his gut and he didn't want to love him anymore. But then his mind returned to the final moments of his dad's life. How he tried to save that stranger from being butchered, and how he'd given his life to protect Kevin. People he didn't want to love anymore shouldn't act so selflessly, without regard for their own life.
"If it comes down to it, you can take him to see Dr. Edwardson," his grandma said.
Kevin didn't want to see a doctor. What was the point when he didn't remember much from his dreams? Sure, he remembered who Mr. Freakshow was. But the monster always seemed to change. If Kevin closed his eyes he couldn't see the nightmare man. Upon waking, Mr. Freakshow became faceless, void of detail. Only the fear remained, haunting his every thought.
He didn't want to hear anymore. He shut off the T.V. and went to the bedroom that had been Kevin's whenever they visited. He closed the door and leaned against it, taking in the room. The bed was too hard and he never slept well on it. Now he would have to sleep on it every night. On top of the dresser, was a red and blue lamp with toy soldiers on the shade. A Chicago Bears poster hung on one wall, a Michael Jordan life-sized poster on another. While he liked Jordan, he didn't even watch football. This was his bedroom, but it sure didn't feel like his.
Everyone asked how he was doing, how he was sleeping, or not sleeping. He was just glad that it was still summer break and he didn't have to face the kids at school. They would've looked at him funny and forever know him as the guy whose dad was killed in a bus station bathroom by the Steak Knife Killer. At least he was starting fresh at a new school and no one would know. He would miss his friends, but he didn't want to face them, either. Even with school out for the summer, his classmates had sent condolence cards made out of construction paper and white school glue. He didn't read any of them. At the insistence of his teachers, he had made similar cards for people when a grandparent had died, or when a car had run over someone's dog. When he had made those cards, he'd felt like he was being kind and that the people would appreciate his thoughtfulness. Now he realized none of that mattered, and that his teachers had used the students' tragedies as a way to fill their art hour requirements.
He lay down on the stiff bed and twined his fingers behind his head. He didn't want to hear his mom and grandma talk anymore. He didn't want to think about his dad anymore. Or school or distant friends, or their move to his grandma's or anything else. All he wanted was for his mind to stop whirling at a million miles a minute.
When he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, it did. He was swiftly off to sleep, the sun beginning its arc to the horizon.
The night swallowed the sun, leaving his room draped in long, skeletal shadows. Enough moonlight shined from the window for Kevin to see through the ethereal gloaming. He sat up from the stiff mattress, groggy as usual. His back ached and his right hand had fallen asleep, making it feel like a battalion of fire ants marched across his skin. Shaking his throbbing hand back to life, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
That's when he saw the bulky shape in the window.
He stood, feeling the cool hardwood under his feet as he approached the window. The bulky shape shifted, becoming less a mass of shadow and mystery. The moon illuminated details in shades of somber blue and bruised indigo. A broad, muscled back, with tree trunk arms outspread in the shape of a crucifix. Raised gray scars lined his back like grubs burrowed under tree bark. Greasy swaths of black hair fell forward over mountainous shoulders. Each inhaled breath defined his spine--sledge-hammered stones piled one on top of another; his shoulders heaved, his head bowed in thought.
Kevin was close enough to the window to feel the cold glass pulling at his body heat. He touched the glass with his finger and felt a shiver quake through the digit, up his arm and beyond, until his whole body trembled.
With arms still outspread, the monster turned to face Kevin. Endless black irises surrounded pupils that swirled with liquid fire. Intricate henna tattoos covered his massive chest--the artwork's reddish hue contrasting the deadman-blue of his skin. Blood-caked wooden splinters pierced his nipples, and iron shackles bound his wrists, trailing clinking chains to the ground.
Mr. Freakshow smiled at Kevin. An openly lascivious smile.
"Hello, boy." The monster's breath steamed the glass. Mr. Freakshow's voice was deep and discordant, the sound of the earth's plates grinding on one another.
Kevin couldn't move away from the window.
"I see you've moved to your dear old grandma's house. So far away, and yet I found you." Mr. Freakshow ran an index finger over the glass separating them. He traced a circle in one of the central panes, his claw-like fingernail scratching a trail into the glass.
Kevin's voice caught in his throat, but he fought through the turgid thickness of his fear. "What do you want?"
Mr. Freakshow tapped the circle and the cut glass fell to the bedroom floor. Reaching through the hole i
n the window, he flipped open the locking mechanism. Corrupted air seeped into the bedroom as the window opened. Open sewers on a hot day, rotting fish floating in a dead lake.
"Leave me alone." Kevin staggered away until the backs of his legs bumped into the bed. He lost his balance, falling to a sitting position on the mattress.
"Oh, Kevin, I'm not going to hurt you. Not yet. It's way too early for that. I've come to teach you a thing or two, to enlighten you. All I ask is for you to pay attention." Mr. Freakshow stepped aside and waved his shackled arm like a game show diva showing off a shining brand new car. The window widened, the whole bedroom wall seemed to fall away.
What Kevin saw made his heart ache and forced a sluggish surge of adrenaline to drop into his bloodstream. The canopy of oak branches and the emerald green yard were gone. It was no longer night. Blinding sunlight broke through a lead-lined stained glass window. The multi-colored puzzle pieces of the window focused, revealing Christ on the cross, the two Marys at his feet--their time of mourning. Dust motes spiraled in the broken beams of light, twirling down away from the window, down to the smell of burning incense, down to the sight of his dad's funeral.
A stooped and ancient priest spoke in Latin, his palms raised heavenward in benediction over his dad's coffin. Sunlight gleamed on the coffin's polished lid. The six pallbearers, all strangers except for his Uncle David, stood in the aisle behind the coffin, their heads lowered, their hands clasped respectfully in front of them.
"Such a sorry sight, isn't it?"
Kevin felt a tear spill from his eye. He blinked and it blazed a trail down his cheek.
"The sadness of this spectacle is not the fact that a perfectly healthy man, still young in years, was cut down so mercilessly, so viciously. The sadness, at least in my eyes and I assume probably in yours, stems from the fact that Amber Winstrom, the petite blonde standing three rows behind your own mother is actually the last woman that your daddy ever... how shall I put it, knew."
