James stopped cold.
It was Johnny’s house. The authorities had the place enclosed, but why?
Suddenly, James remembered the gunshot. Somebody must have heard the gun go off and called the police. Or maybe it was the pizza. He ordered pizza and gave the operator his name and address. Did he leave Johnny’s door open? Did the pizza guy step inside?
Did reasons even matter?
James was the prime suspect in a string of deaths; nothing else was relevant. Maybe it was time to come clean.
James put a hand over his face and rode away from the scene. He turned a corner and disappeared from view. Then he felt his muscles tighten. The stress was getting to him.
No, he thought. Coming clean is a bad idea. The demon––
James slowed down and looked over his shoulder. The demon was gone.
Holy shit, he thought. I did it!
With animated eyes James pedaled hard. For the first time all day he was smiling; he felt like he was in charge again. The sensation sparked an idea designed to put him in an offensive position. It wasn’t a good idea. In fact, the idea was absolutely terrible.
He was going to Suzy’s house to get the shotgun.
* * *
And in the hospital room Mathew whispered, “No.”
But nobody heard a thing.
PART THREE:
BECOMING THE BEAST
37
James knocked two times, waited a few seconds and was about to knock again when he sensed déjà vu. He felt like he had done this before, and he had… at Johnny’s house. But this time things were different. For one, James didn’t look fresh; he looked haggard and beaten, like he had strolled through a war zone on the way over. And James didn’t feel the way he had this morning, numb. He felt energized, almost exhilarated.
As he waited, he noticed that Sue’s lawn needed to be cut and her shrubs needed to be groomed. He wondered if the backyard was loaded with junk. It probably was. Instead of knocking a third time James opened the door and stepped inside.
“Hello?”
The house seemed to be deserted; he could hear flies buzzing and smell rotting meat. As he walked through the door he eyed the floor and the walls the same way Johnny had earlier. But there was nothing here this time, he hoped. And the house wasn’t cold; the August sun had turned the place into an oven.
He walked through a near-empty living room and entered the kitchen. He found the refrigerator door wide open. On the counter he could see unwashed dishes piled next to a basket of bananas, which had melted into rot and decay. On the floor several bags of garbage had been stacked into a heap. A dead cat lay facing the corner. Dishes on the dinner table sat together with a stack of unopened mail. Flies crawled on top of everything.
He closed the refrigerator door, which was a big mistake. The flies became airborne and circled the room annoyingly. There must have been a thousand of them.
James walked down a hall and entered a bedroom. The room was completely empty.
Then he entered a bathroom and relieved himself. After washing his hands and face he checked another bedroom. The room had wall-to-wall furniture, reminiscent of Johnny’s backyard. He wondered why, and then it came to him: Johnny didn’t want to give the creature a place to hide. And either did Sue.
Shaking his head, James entered another bedroom.
He found Sue dead, as he knew she would be. The bullet had entered the temple on her right side and circled endlessly, never finding its way out. He wondered how it felt to have a bullet doing donuts inside your head as blood squirted into the air; he wondered how long she managed to keep on living.
James rubbed his eyes. Of course, Sue’s handgun was missing; Johnny had taken it. And the shotgun was nowhere in sight.
But James knew where to look; he had known all along.
It was time to check the basement.
38
James slid a hand along a dirty wall and found a light switch. After a single bulb came to life he walked down an old wooden staircase, eying the ridged shadows that cut the rooms into sections. Even with the light on the basement was dark. It was also damp and gloomy. The walls were an off yellow color. The ceiling was oppressively low, home to a long metal heating duct that weaved its way through the center of the room. As James followed the duct his stomach began to turn. The basement smelled like a nasty synthetic grade of cheese that had gone bad.
At the far side of the room was a door.
James approached it covering his mouth.
He clicked another switch and the glow of sixty-watts blanketed the room. He saw a workbench and some tools, a desk and a bookshelf, a small beer fridge and something that ran shivers up his spine. He stood very still, looking at three bodies lying next to each other on the floor. Each body was covered with a dirty a white sheet.
James couldn’t pull his eyes away. The sheets were game-show mystery boxes, the answers to all his questions.
He lifted the first sheet and found Sue’s sixty-year-old father.
The man had not been shot, but attacked. Half his face was missing. His skin color had changed from a warm coffee tan to a hard moldy black. His single eye was swollen and closed. His lips had been torn off. His mouth resembled a large wormhole of broken teeth, tattered gums, and a thick web that housed a sack of spiders.
James imagined the body sitting up and grinning as tiny white arachnids scurried from inside his throat. He imagined the corpse gurgling, “It’s not over. It’ll never be over. Not for you James, not for you.”
Feeling a moment of dizziness, James put the sheet over the corpse and placed a hand on a wall. A heavy spider scurried across his fingers.
He noticed a packet of shotgun shells sitting next to a pile of books. There were books on Voodoo (and Vodoun), books on Bokor, two on Haiti witchcraft, one on Nkisi and several loose articles printed in a language he didn’t recognize. He also spotted several seashells and cornhusks, an animal horn and a large hoof, which was turned upside down and stuffed with black soil.
James turned away. His eyes narrowed slightly.
The spider was crawling up his arm now; James knocked it to the floor.
He looked at the bodies again and felt disgusted. He imagined the swollen eyes of the dead opening. He imagined the bodies standing one at a time, like something from a vampire movie, with arms reaching and faces white.
But the faces under those sheets aren’t white, James reminded himself. They’re black and moldy. They’re covered with bugs.
A mouse scurried from one corner to another.
He followed the mouse with his eyes and noticed Suzy’s shotgun sitting on top of a wooden box, just beyond the bodies. The box itself was large: two feet by three feet. He didn’t notice it originally; the white sheets had overshadowed everything.
On the side of the box eccentric letters formed archaic words. They seemed antediluvian, like a bastardized version of Egyptian script. Below the mysterious markings in small faded letters were four words written in English: CONGO, BASIN, MINKISI and BAKISI. The words had been burned into the wood with an unskilled hand. He didn’t know what the words meant, but Congo—that was a river, wasn’t it?
He reached across the desk, picked up a pencil and wrote Congo, Basin, Minkisi and Bakisi on the back of an envelope. Then he stuffed the paper into his pocket, grabbed the shotgun and the shells and made for the exit.
39
James stood near the front door. He leaned the shotgun against a wall, placed the shells on the floor, pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Debra’s number.
The phone rang once.
“Hello?”
“Debra, it’s me.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t be mad.”
“Why not? You called me a bitch, you remember that, don’t you?”
“No. As a matter of fact, I don’t.”
“Well you did.”
James shrugged. “Debra, listen to me. This is important, ‘kay? My brother is dead and P
enny is dead. Johnny’s dead. And Sue’s dead too… in fact, her entire family is dead.”
“What?”
“Honest. I’m not kidding. I’d never make jokes like this. I couldn’t talk earlier ‘cause everything was going crazy.”
“Joseph and Penny are dead? How?”
“Car accident.”
“And Johnny?”
“He shot himself.”
“Oh my God, why?”
“I don’t know. Actually I do know, but I can’t explain it now.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t, it’s a huge story that I don’t really understand. I’ll tell you everything I know later.”
“Well… where the hell are you? Can you tell me that much?”
“I’m at Sue’s house. I might stay here a while.”
“Which Sue are you talking about? You don’t mean—?”
“Suzy, the cute black chick. The one that throws those parties… you know who I’m talking about, right? We were at her place for––”
“The Christmas party! She has that little Siamese cat.”
James nodded thinking, not anymore she doesn’t. She has a Siamese cat corpse. “Yeah. That’s her.”
“Oh shit. She’s dead?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened? Did Sue kill herself too?”
“I think so.”
Debra expelled a large mouthful of air. She was speechless. A moment ago she wanted to yell at James but now her thoughts were spinning. She still felt angry but she couldn’t yell. Not now. She wanted more information.
“Oh man,” she said. “This is bad.”
James opened his mouth but said nothing. He wanted to explain it all: the car, the fire, the incident at the school, the disturbing things he had seen in the basement, the things he had done and the reason he was standing in Suzy house. But as soon as he tried to put his day into words he broke down. Suddenly his chest was heaving and his bottom lip was trembling. His fingers strangled the phone, turning white around the knuckles.
“Oh my God, I don’t know what happened,” he said. Then he cried for a few seconds, and in-between breaths he spat out, “My brother is dead and I don’t know what to do!” After that, tears ran down his face and dropped to the floor like rain.
Thirty odd seconds passed before Debra said, “Shit baby, you’re scaring me. Are you okay?” Her voice was calm and soothing.
“No, I’m not okay! Everything is so fucked up!”
“Have you called the police? They can figure this stuff out for you. If people are dead it’s a police matter.”
“I can’t call them.”
“Why?”
“They’ll think that I did it!”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No it’s not!” James barked. Then he slammed an open hand against the wall. A photograph of Sue’s grandparents rattled, threatening to fall.
Debra let him have his moment. When he was finished, she said, “Why would the police think you’re involved?” There was an uncomfortable silence followed by a moment of uncertainty. “Are you involved, James? Why are you at Sue’s house?”
“Something’s chasing me.”
“What’s chasing you? You’re not making any sense.”
“I don’t know what it is… no… wait!” James wiped the tears from his eyes; he reached into his pocket and retrieved the paper that he had scribbled on. “I need you to check something for me.”
“James, listen to me. I’ve got to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Did you do something wrong? Tell me the truth now, okay? I want to help you but I need to know what the situation is.”
“No. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Honest?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause in the conversation. “Okay then,” she said. “I’m calling the police. Sorry James, but it’s for the best.”
40
“No!” James barked.
“Why not?”
“Because the police will think I’m responsible! And…”
“And?”
The words got caught in his throat. He wondered if he should tell her. He wondered if he should explain.
“Who cares what the police think?” Debra said. “You didn’t do anything wrong, remember? Just tell them what happened and sooner or later they’ll believe you.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain, what don’t I understand? What are you not telling me?”
James couldn’t go on. He wanted to scream. He wanted to punch someone. He wanted to kill himself. “Fuck Debra!” He screamed abruptly. “Don’t call the police! I mean it!”
“You don’t have to yell.”
“But you’re not listening to me!”
“Well come to my place so we can talk about it, alright?” Her words were soft like butter, like she cared a great deal.
James shook his head and hung it low. “Oh God, I don’t know. You have no idea what you’re asking me.”
“I’m asking you to come to my place. Is that so bad?”
“I don’t know…”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? If you don’t come over, sooner or later I’m calling the police. You know that, right? I’ll have no choice.”
“Debra, don’t.”
“What else can I do?”
“If you call the cops we’re finished.”
“Yeah right,” Debra said, completely unthreatened.
“I mean it.”
She wondered if he did. He probably was being truthful, but that didn’t mean anything. She could always bring him around again. All she had to do was caress him physically and give him the affection he rarely received. He would come around, he always did. James was an easy instrument to play. And when it came to playing men, Debra had developed her fair share of skills.
“Come to my place and talk to me,” she said. “I’ll make lunch for the two of us. We can cuddle up on the couch and have a drink and find our way through this together, okay? Don’t force me to do something we’ll both regret, James. I want to help; you know that, don’t you? Please let me help you.”
“Stay away from the bloody phone, is that so fucking hard?”
“You told me that people are dying. This is a police matter. You know it and I know it.”
“Okay,” James huffed. “Fine. I’ll come over. But don’t get mad when something bad happens.”
“‘Something bad’ is not going to happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Are you coming over?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you coming, yes or no?”
James expelled a deep, displeased breath. “Okay, I’ll come.”
“That’s all that matters.”
“Alright, whatever. Whatever you want. We’ll do it your way… we always do it your way.”
“That’s not true,” Debra said, knowing that it was true. They always did things her way. She often wondered why he allowed it. “Don’t say that.”
James felt conquered. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just stressed out and I’ve had a bad day, a very bad day. God. I can’t even believe this is happening, and I need a favor. I need you to do something for me.”
“Okay baby. Whatever you want.”
“Is your internet working?”
Debra raised an eyebrow. She wondered if someone had posted some photos of girls-night online. She wondered what photographs had been taken. Did James see something incriminating? Did someone write a party review on a message board? Did someone tell him something? She hoped not. Sooner or later he’d find out the truth about her, sure. It was inevitable. It’s hard to keep people fooled forever; it’s a full time job, really. But she didn’t want the relationship over. Not yet. Not today. She didn’t want the relationship over until she had another man lined up. And she hadn’t soured James completely. He was still good for a while; he could still buy her thing
s and take her places. Plus her condo needed to be painted and her bathroom could use a renovation. She wasn’t finished with him yet.
Cautiously, Debra said, “I think my internet’s working. Why?”
“I need you to check something.”
“Oh, okay. What is it?”
James unfolded the paper that was in his hand. He said, “Congo Basin Minkisi Bakisi.”
41
James rode his bicycle with a loaded shotgun and a box of shells sitting across his lap. It was an awkward journey, but in time he learned to pedal comfortably and balance his belongings like an acrobat. He didn’t rush. He didn’t feel the need. Keeping aware, that was the important thing now. Seeing things clearly was job number one.
A car turned a corner and trouble arrived, showing its face in the form of a woman: Tina Comfrey. He had met her earlier. She was the large woman in the overly frayed nightdress, the one that called James a bastard.
Passing James inside a Honda Civic, Tina shouted, “Stop the car!”
Without inquiring, the man behind the wheel did what he was told; he parked the car a short distance in front of James. He looked very bookish.
James predicted trouble and decided to face it head on. He stopped peddling and slammed on the brakes.
Tina stepped out of the car and faced James.
Her outfit had changed. It now consisted of Nike shoes, faded gray track-pants, and an oversized t-shirt with the words NEW YORK CITY printed in glittery letters on the front. A fashion queen she was not.
“That’s him.” Tina said, announcing her findings to the world. “That’s the guy the cops are after. I should know. I’m the star witness and I watched the bastard run away. This son-of-a-bitch should hang. Mark my words, he killed five people.”
James was stunned; he didn’t know what to do. Should he run? Should he hide? Should he try to explain himself? As he struggled for answers, Tina said, “Hand me your cell phone, Elmer. I’m calling the cops on this asshole.”
The Dead Parade Page 7
