“It’s easy when you don’t remember what happened.”
“You don’t?”
“Nope. Not really. I remember stopping the car and talking to the guy… the guy that attacked me. He seemed normal enough, kind of like a used car salesman. He seemed nice, natural. He didn’t come off like a weirdo or anything, so I wasn’t worried. Then I noticed that he had blood on his shirt. I thought, oh my––you’re hurt. Then I looked at him and I realized he was insane. His eyes seemed to be spinning in their sockets. His face looked like a corpse. And before I had a chance to say anything he reaches into the car and grabs me. He slams my head against the window. I remember telling him to stop, and I remember the pain… I remember getting dragged outside. I thought he was going to kill me. And he was kicking me… I remember that. But that’s it. When I woke up I figured he was still around. And I thought I’d been raped. But the guy was gone; he took my car. And… I don’t know. I don’t think he raped me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. I mean… I know my shirt was off, but… I think it came off by accident.”
“Yeah right. How is that possible?”
“I was wearing a bikini top. It was nice; cost me sixty bucks. It might have been sitting in the grass.” Jennifer took a few seconds, arranging her thoughts. “Yeah. It probably came off by accident. Or maybe he wanted a cheap thrill; I don’t know. Hell, if he had of treated me better I would have shown him my tits for nothing.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You wanna see ‘em?”
Debra laughed at the joke. “I’ve seen them.”
Jennifer nodded and smiled thoughtfully. In time she said, “After I woke up I checked myself out… you know, down there. It was one of the first things I did. And, I don’t think he touched me there. It doesn’t hurt, and it’s not wet or dirty or anything. It feels the same.”
“You’re lucky.”
“Yeah, “Jennifer said sarcastically. “I’m real lucky. It’s my lucky day. I should buy a lottery ticket.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m just… you know, fucking around with you.”
“I know.”
“I’m pissed off though. He stole my car. I had a huge CD collection in there, a nice pair of boots and an iPod. It took me forever to get all those tracks and the boots were gorgeous. What an asshole.”
“No kidding.”
They drove without speaking for the next couple minutes, following the signs to the hospital. When they arrived, Debra went inside, leaving Jennifer in the car. She spotted two empty wheelchairs next to a vending machine.
The waiting area was nearly empty; it smelled like medicine. Three women sat in one corner, and on the other side of the room two men sat alone. A Chinese woman sat behind a computer.
Debra shouted across the lobby, “I’ll be back in a minute.” Then she rolled the wheelchair beside the car and locked the wheels in place. She helped Jennifer change seats and brought her inside.
“Thanks again.” Jennifer said.
“No problem.”
“You’ve been my guardian angel. I’ll have to repay you some time.”
“Don’t mention it.”
As the big wheels on the chair stopped rolling a television captured Debra’s attention. “Oh God,” she said, nodding towards the screen. “That’s my stupid boyfriend. What a jerk off.”
Jennifer looked up at the monitor and her mouth dropped open.
The television displayed a CNN split-screen. On the left half of the screen was James. On the right, it was Elmer.
Below the men a caption read: MARTINSVILLE HOSTAGE CRISIS.
84
Elmer leapt from the edge of the bank. Helga lifted a knee and raised both hands. When the two bodies connected Helga’s knee caught Elmer in the groin. Her right arm missed its mark completely and her left arm connected with Elmer’s chest; it shattered like an eighty-four year old brittle twig. They both screamed, but it was Helga that kept on screaming. Her arm, now snapped in eleven places, had a large chunk of bone sticking through her forearm like a blunt stick. The agony was unlike anything she had experienced. It didn’t come and go; it consumed her body and submerged her in a galaxy of physical suffering. When Elmer regained his wits he slapped a hand over Helga’s screaming mouth and punched her in the stomach. Helga’s eyes popped opened and mucus shot from her nose. Her feet kicked and her arms waved. Her broken arm flopped like a fish but she couldn’t stop moving it; her body was going into shock.
Keeping his hand on Helga’s mouth, Elmer slid his index finger and his thumb over her nose and pinched. Now her air was cut off and her face began changing color. It turned pink, then red; then blue. Her eyes opened wide and grew dark. The veins in her neck bulged and her arms and legs kicked with more urgency. Blood ran along her elbow like it was attached to a pump, creating a small pool near her waist. Elmer freed a hand and punched her twice more. He looked fanatical now, dedicated to the art of murdering this unfortunate soul.
Helga was desperate. She slammed her knee into Elmer’s groin a second time, hitting him square. It didn’t hurt much, but the blow threw Elmer off balance and his hand slipped from her face.
Sucking huge mouthfuls of air, Helga began screaming, “OH God! OH GU-God! OH DEAR GOD, SAVE M-ME!”
Instead of covering the woman’s mouth, Elmer plunked his body into a better position and pinned her arms with his legs. He pummeled her in the face with his fists. First a left, then a right, then another left, then another right. The onslaught never seemed to end. It went on and on until her face was crushed and trodden, packed into itself like a pair of rolled socks. When Elmer was finished, which was none too soon, his knuckles were bloody and his victim was dead.
85
James moved furniture into the bedroom for various insane reasons: something was too big, too small, too old, too new, it smelled funny, it wasn’t to be trusted, it was stupid, it was smart, it was thinking, it wasn’t thinking, it was alive, it was dead, it was gross, it was clean, it was dirty, it was a sworn enemy, it reminded him of his mother, it was his mother, it was his father, it talked too loudly, it didn’t say enough, it was listening, it was watching, it wasn’t watching, he had to go to the bathroom, he didn’t feel like being around it, he didn’t like it, he wanted to have sex with it, he thought it was an alien.
As James removed a painting from a wall (the painting was too old, too big, and had too many colors) he remembered Suzy’s shotgun. It was sitting in the car.
Shotguns can get lonely, he told himself. Very Lonely. That’s what makes them hazardous.
He dropped the painting and made for the door. Then he heard Helga scream, “OH God! OH GU-God! OH DEAR GOD, SAVE M-ME!” He stopped dead in his tracks and a shiver rolled down his spine. That scream could only mean one thing:
The Bakisi had arrived.
James ran outside in a panic and opened the car door. He grabbed the shotgun and the box of shells and ran between the two cottages. In the blackened alley he tripped and fell. The shotgun slipped from his fingers and he grunted loudly––loud enough for the Bakisi to hear. Of this he was sure; all hopes of a sneak attack were lost.
James stumbled along the ground, trying to find the weapon. But it was dark and his eyes hadn’t adjusted yet. Fingers tickled rocks, dirt, and grass, with urgency, before ultimately, his fingers found Franco’s warm, bleeding corpse.
He knew Franco; he liked the man quite a bit. Why was he dead?
The answer was obvious:
The Demon is here, James told himself. The Demon is here!
Suddenly he was shouting, “FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!” But that was no good. He needed to stay quiet or the Bakisi would know where he was hiding. And more importantly, he needed to find the shotgun. If he didn’t find it soon, the darn thing would probably start crying.
86
Mia ran from the kitchen as fast as she could. The need to escape her apartment had come at last, in a great, all-consumin
g heap. As her feet began moving she felt the cold air at her heels. It felt like death itself was chasing her, which wasn’t far from the truth.
She made her way out the front door and down the hall staying close to the far wall. Her ankle twisted slightly. She thought for sure she would fall on her ass and before she could say uh-oh-spaghetti-o she’d have her eyes pulled from her head and her arms ripped off and her legs broken into a hundred thousand pieces. But she didn’t slip, she didn’t fall, and her ankle held tight.
When she arrived at the elevator she hit both buttons. But how long would she wait, and how much time did she have? The answer was simple: she had no time to spare and waiting was suicide.
So what options did that leave?
Changing the gears in her mind, Mia decided on the staircase. She took the stairs two, three, sometimes four at a time. The steps soared past. She didn’t know she could move so quickly. Her knees pumped and her hands held the railing for balance. It seemed that her feet never even touched the floor. She sped past a NO SMOKING sign and a fire extinguisher. She wondered if the extinguisher would make a good weapon but the answer didn’t matter. She ran past it before her thoughts had time to settle on a conclusion.
She came to her first obstacle at the bottom of the staircase. It was a discarded newspaper. The headline read: MANHUNT FOR MARTINSVILLE KILLER GOES ON. She slammed her foot on top and it cost her. The paper went one way and she went he other. The railing slipped from her hand and suddenly everything changed: her feet were in the air and her mouth was open and her eyes were facing the ceiling.
After landing on her back (hard, oh so very hard) she jumped up like a rabbit and ran towards a door that led to the underground parking lot. Any other time she would have stayed right there, with her mind convincing her body that it was broken; but not today. Today she didn’t have time for a broken body so she kept on moving. She passed through a door and five long seconds later she was standing at her car––without her purse, and more importantly, without her car keys.
Panicking, she shouted, “What am I DOING?”
Then she began running again. This time her feet moved her body towards a door she hadn’t used before. Hopefully it wasn’t locked. But it had to be, right? Isn’t that the way these things usually ended––with a screaming girl pounding both fists against a locked door? (Sure it is, her inner child warned. Everybody knows that. You’ll have your throat cut and your tits ripped off before you know it. It’s pine-box time, my dear. You and your parents will be buried together now; isn’t that wonderful?) Mia tried the door and to her surprise, it was unlocked. She cranked it open and scooted up six stairs, through another hallway, and out another door.
Suddenly she was outside, which seemed absolutely surreal. Everything was calm, quiet, dark. Hell, it was nice. Maybe even safe.
“Hey!” She shouted.
A few people turned their heads. They seemed curious, but not helpful. She raised her hands in the air and tried to wave down a car, but the driver wasn’t having it.
He saw her standing there, hands in the air, looking haggard and distraught. This meant nothing to the man. He didn’t stop. He didn’t slow down. Truth be told, he sped up and sailed right on past, saying, “Have another drink, sweetheart. It’ll take the edge off.” An hour later he found himself sitting alone in a pub, cursing under his breath, scotch in hand, well on his way to getting shit-faced.
87
Switch drove the highway alone, watching the gray skies turn purple and the purple skies turn black. He spent most of his journey listening to punk rock and classic metal. Today’s music of choice included The Ramones, Judas Priest, Dio, S.N.F.U and NOFX. It was music he knew well and played often. Half the time he was smiling and singing and in a wonderful mood, which was common for Switch. His friends all agreed that more often than not he was a great guy to be around.
The other evening Switch downloaded a handful of Blondie tracks that were recorded live at CBGB’s, back in the day. They sounded like shit but were cool to hear. When he was done listening to Dio––the Holy Diver album, which in his opinion was the best thing Ronnie James Dio ever recorded––he fired up Blondie and enjoyed it for a long while before he clicked off his iPod and took pleasure in the silence.
As Switch closed in on his destination, he stopped for coffee at King’s Diner. Once he was inside he found himself chatting with the girl that was working behind the counter and ordering himself a great big slice of pie. The pie was blueberry, and it was delicious. The girl’s name was Jennifer Boyle. She was cute and friendly and had been working at the diner for seven months. She had a great personality, a pretty face, and knew as much or more about music than Switch did. Unfortunately for Jennifer, her life was about to take an unexpected turn for the worse and her time on this earth was nearly finished. In the days ahead a woman named Stephenie Paige would be arrested for killing her with an axe. The police would find Jennifer sitting on the restaurant’s floor in a pool of blood, leaning against the warm stove with her legs spread apart and her pink underwear exposed. Her left arm would not be found until later, severed from her body and laying beneath the counter, a yard and a half away. Her pretty face would be sallow and terror-stricken. All of this, not five feet from the place Switch was enjoying his pie and flirting like crazy.
Switch left the diner, wiggling his butt like a fool and blowing Jennifer a kiss from the palm of his hand. Jennifer smiled and giggled and blew one back, even though she felt embarrassed to do so. Her co-workers wouldn’t understand. They thought she was halfway to being an airhead.
Most guys couldn’t pull off a silly move like that if their lives depended on it. But for Switch, moves like that came easy. He was charming, and charm is something that should never be underestimated. Charm has the ability to turn tacky into brilliant. It can make the unsightly beautiful. It was the reason Jennifer paid little attention to her other customers, the reason she smiled at Switch endlessly and slipped her phone number across the countertop without his asking. The number would end up being useless, of course. She’d be hacked into pieces and scraped off the floor before he had a chance to use it.
Returning to his car, Switch moved slowly, dragging his feet.
Meeting up with Elmer was something he wanted to do less and less as time moved ahead. He didn’t know how to approach the evening. In fact, he didn’t even want to go there. But he did go. And if you asked him why he wouldn’t be able to give you a straight answer. Switch was like that. He did things his instincts hated and often times felt that he had no choice.
Elmer’s pissed off, he thought. No doubt about that. But killing a man, well, that’s something that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
He decided––at some point after his second coffee was gone, his pie had been devoured, and his conversation with Jennifer Boyle was running thin––that he would make Elmer see things a different way. Show the man logic, talk him down and cool him off––for a day, maybe two. Then if Elmer still wanted to murder a man, well then, Switch would listen to Elmer’s reasoning, and maybe, just maybe…
“No,” Switch said out loud. He wondered what he was thinking.
Elmer was a friend, sure he was; he was a good friend, an old friend, a friend that Switch respected––but he would take no part in the killing. Killing was wrong.
Elmer’s plan had to be stopped.
88
Elmer looked at the blood on his hands and at the trodden face of the dead woman. She was lying in the sand near the edge of her family’s property line. Her right arm was slanted upward and her left arm was folded onto itself near the wrist, showing bone in two places. But Elmer wasn’t enjoying his visuals; he was more concerned with a different slice of his acuity: his sense of hearing.
Elmer, all ears now, listened for the intruder that had become aware of his presence. Somebody was near; he was sure of it.
On the far side of the cottage he heard a voice, possibly two. He assumed that one voice belonged to James, which it
did. He didn’t rule out the idea that James was alone, but Elmer heard more than a voice or two. He heard a door slam and a scuffle. Stuff like that didn’t happen without reason. No sir. Stuff like that happened when somebody was trying to get somewhere fast. Odds were, James came outside quickly wanting to know who was screaming and why.
Slowly, carefully, Elmer pulled himself off of Helga’s body, trying not to make a noise. Wind blew dirt in his face. He put his hands down and shifted his weight; his fingers sank into the sand, which had turned cold. And beneath the top layer, the earth was colder still. Holding his breath, he started moving. First he shifted his right hand and right leg. Then he shifted his left hand and left leg. Each time it did this he could hear his jeans rubbing against the sand. He assumed that his knees were leaving a good-sized trail. He didn’t care about the trail––it was dark now; the trail meant nothing. The evening sky had blossomed into the night, and the moon had shown itself to be small and powerless and shaped like a sickle. And that was before the clouds had erased it completely. No, he didn’t care about the trail; it was the sound that was bothering him.
As Elmer moved his pants seemed unacceptably loud. He figured the entire beach could hear him. And people were nosey. That was one thing Elmer knew for sure. People were irrefutably nosey.
Hell, he thought. Just look around. Two dead bodies on the beach don’t lie. If the old couple weren’t so fucking nosey––why, they’d still be alive.
The Dead Parade Page 17
