“Honest. Big man Wilson told me to call for back up when I get there.”
“So I lose my car?”
“I just lost mine, so it looks that way, yes.”
Neilson sighed. He hated losing his car almost as much as he hated Layton. “All right. Fine,” he said. “Take my fucking car. See if I care.”
PART SIX:
THE END OF IT ALL
122
Officer Layton and Officer Neilson turned towards the sound of somebody screaming.
The screams came from the extra large mouth of Officer White––the cop with the excellent shot. A moment before, without warning––unless you consider ice-cold air a warning––both of Officer White’s arms snapped simultaneously, just below the elbow. From what people could tell, there was no possible reason for the occurrence. It just happened. Then his arms snapped again. Then his arms snapped again––and his mouth opened. He embarked on a tremendous mount of screaming, letting it all out. The pain, shock, wonder and amazement––all came pouring out his mouth in a monumental wave of horrified noise. Then at the end of his screaming, his wrists snapped, cracking like two thin strips of dry and brittle balsa wood.
White fell to his knees. The look on his face was one of complete terror. His arms had become something resembling circles.
“Help me.” White said. “Help––”
Then both of his legs snapped twice and his neck snapped once.
Officer White fell onto his back, silent and mangled beyond belief, beyond repair. The eight police officers that watched it happen were frozen in shock. What they had witnessed was something from a nightmare. Something unnatural.
Officer Steve Carney––a young man that was new to the force––was the first person to speak after White went down. He said, “I’ll go to the cottage, get the medics.” But then he didn’t move. His feet felt glued into his boots, which seemed to be nailed to the earth with railroad spikes.
Thomas Barnet––he was the first to move.
Barnet was an older man. He had a potbelly and a crown of gray hair. He had a wife and three teenage kids––two boys and a girl. He also had a dog, a line of credit, a mortgage, a new car, and a dentist appointment later that afternoon. He walked slowly towards the coils of White’s body, as if White had become contagious. He thought about the things that were his life and wondered if he was risking it all. His feet moved slowly. His fingers sat firmly around his gun, drenched with sweat.
Elmer watched Barnet from inside the car, wondering if he was brave, or just plain stupid. His eyes were as wide as dinner plates.
Standing outside the car, less than two feet away from Elmer, Layton felt like saying something witty. Instead, he stood up straight and rubbed his hands together.
Steve Carney still hadn’t moved. The medical assistance he promised would have to wait.
Barnet moved closer to the mangled remains of Officer Markus White. He could hear bugs buzzing and peeping as they twittered in the trees. He could smell the fresh morning scent that the storm had awoken. He could see White’s body shivering and trembling, looking the way a spider might if you held it under a flame. And he could feel the unnaturally cold air around him that was both unseasonable and wrong. The temperature had dropped below zero where he was standing. His breath hung in the air, along with the aura of an unfamiliar presence.
Something changed inside of him. Fear overwhelmed the moment; he wished it were illogical, groundless or unjustified. But it wasn’t. It was justified all right. His head was on the chopping block and the executioner’s blade was falling.
Barnet stopped walking.
He turned away from Officer White, biting back the urge to scream.
“Is he dead?” An unknown voice asked in a whisper.
Barnet didn’t know. He also didn’t want to know. He wanted to resign from this moment of unintentional bravery. He wanted to put his feet in motion and run.
“I can see my breath,” he said.
“What?”
“I can––”
Officer Thomas Barnet suddenly folded in half. His legs stayed in place while his upper body was forced backwards, like a human folding-chair. Then he fell onto his side with his mouth propped open. The blood rolled over his teeth and lips. Then someone shouted, someone screamed. People began running, scrambling, covering their eyes and dying where they stood.
Officer Layton watched a man’s head snap back and turn in a circle. He watched an officer’s spine get pulled through his back. He watched a man loose his eyes and a woman have her jaw ripped off.
One man jumped inside a police car, only to be pulled through the open window with a broken neck. Another had an explosion inside his head. A woman’s stomach opened up like a gym bag and her intestines fell in the mud.
And while people ran, and screamed, and tried to hide, Officer Layton slipped inside the police car with Elmer. He slammed the door. The windows were up and the Bakisi didn’t catch his scent. And for him, the show continued.
One by one, the people he worked with were being ripped apart, which was fine by him. He didn’t like them much anyhow.
123
When the blood began spilling, and bones began breaking, and people began screaming, and running, and hiding, and dying––James knew what was happening. He knew the score.
The Bakisi had finally caught up with him.
He couldn’t do anything; he couldn’t say anything helpful or explain the situation to the people that were suffering––the cops and the detectives and medical workers. And at this point, he didn’t want to try. James was finished fighting, finished running, finished explaining and crying and wishing that things were different. He wanted the Bakisi to do what it was going to do and be done with it.
James had given up.
It took a little more than two minutes for the Bakisi to finish everyone off––for the beast to cut throats and snap necks and do whatever it was doing. And during this time, James closed his eyes. When he finally opened them again, he could see it: the Bakisi. It was standing at his feet.
Its black skin was glistening, its huge eyes were gazing. It was filled with hate and rage and seeping with death. Fingers seemed almost broken with curves and bends and far too many knuckles that rested on the floor where it stood. Its feet were like webbed hooves, if such a thing existed. Its teeth draped from its gapping maw, twisted and long––teeth that resembled rusted black nails that had been pulled from an un-giving lumber. Its chest, hairless and thin, seemed to shake and quiver at times, as if the cold air was coming from within.
“Okay,” James said, still cuffed and sitting in the chair. “You’ve got me. I won’t run anymore. I’m yours, I’m not sure what you want from me, but I’m yours. I can’t run any longer.”
The Bakisi seemed to understand this. It stepped away from James and lowered its head, looking meek and somewhat submissive.
James stood up––the only survivor among the carnage of the cottage.
He approached one of the bodies. A set of keys hung from a latch on an officer’s belt. He sat on the floor next to the officer and took the keys.
It took James a long time to free himself from the cuffs, almost six minutes. The Bakisi waited patiently. When he finished, he stood up and walked across the room, which looked like the inside of a used blender. Guts and blood and tattered limps, fingers, intestines and severed flesh, hair and bone and opened torsos, decapitated heads and squashed eyes––it was all here, mixed together like the devil’s martini.
James shook his head in disgust; he lifted a gun off the floor. But the gun wasn’t for the Bakisi. He finally understood; you can’t harm a deity.
“Let’s get going,” James said. “Let’s go someplace new.” He walked to the door and then stopped. His eyes flickered. “Wait a minute, will ya?”
The Bakisi gave him some room.
James returned to the center of the room. He set the gun down and picked the axe up.
He said, “I love you” and began cho
pping Debra’s head off. It took three swings. He thought it would make him happy but it didn’t. With Debra being dead it just didn’t feel the way he thought it would.
Oh well. Such is life.
124
Elmer and Layton sat in the car together, seemingly––the last men alive. Layton was in the front and Elmer was caged in the back. But Layton didn’t have the keys to the car. Neilson had them, and Neilson was lying outside with his legs torn off. It was dangerous out there.
They talked about the situation, forgetting all police/suspect protocol.
Elmer wanted Layton to go outside, scoot across the road and dig through Neilson’s pockets.
Layton didn’t. He was thinking something else; he figured fuck that––Elmer should do it.
Layton took a deep breath, building the courage he needed. If Elmer was getting out of the car, Layton needed to open the door for him. Police cruisers are like that. The back doors don’t open from the inside.
He put his hand on the door handle and closed his eyes. On the count of three, he thought. One––
Elmer saw James walking down the driveway. “Oh shit,” he said. “Look who it is.”
Layton opened his eyes and found himself surprised. “That’s James McGee, isn’t it?”
“That’s him. That’s the guy responsible, not me. I’m innocent. That’s your wanted man, right there.”
“What’s he doing?”
Elmer seemed puzzled. “I don’t know. Doesn’t he realize––”
“How can he not realize? Look around you!”
“But he doesn’t seem scared.”
“He’s coming this way,” Layton said. It didn’t occur to Layton to raise his gun. And he could have; it was in his hand.
James approached the car with his handgun in plain view. He pointed it at Layton and said, “Drop it.”
Layton did, feeling like a fool. He should have protected himself, and he wondered why he hadn’t.
“Open up.” James said.
“No fucking way,” Layton replied. Then he put his hands in front of his face. “I’m not coming out there.”
“Do it. Or I’ll blast the window.”
“Good luck buddy. It’s bullet resistant.”
“Not from this range.” James said. Then he pulled the trigger three times.
The first bullet lodged into the glass, causing a spider’s web design to form around it. The second bullet blasted a hole in the window. The third bullet went through Layton’s head, coming out the other side in a rope of blood.
Elmer screamed.
Layton fell back, dead.
James smiled through the broken window. “Hello Elmer,” he said. “Remember me? Do ya? Do ya? Do you remember Debra? Do ya remember what you did to Debra? Remember the hammer? DO YOU REMEMBER THE FUCKING HAMMER?”
Elmer threw his hands in front of his face screaming, “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God please don’t kill me!”
“I’VE GOT SOMETHING FOR YOU, MAN! I’VE GOT SOMETHING RIGHT HERE!
Elmer began crying. “Oh God… don’t! Don’t,” he said. “Don’t shoot me! Oh man, oh man, don’t pull the trigger! Oh please God don’t shoot me in the fucking head!”
James opened the back door and pointed the gun at Elmer’s face, shaking his head back and forth like a rabid dog. He was screaming and yelling and kicking his feet in the mud. Spit hung from his mouth; his fingers squeezed the gun like he was trying to break it. His eyes watered and threatened to pop from his skull.
“TAKE THIS, YOU MOTHERFUCKINGPSYCHO!”
“No! No! Don’t! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Oh man, I so sorry!”
“BUT I HAVE TO ELMER! I’M HAVE TO!” James pulled the gun away. He rammed the barrel into his own mouth, digging the iron into the gums above his upper teeth, screaming, “IF I DON’T PASS IT ON, IT WILL BE WITH ME FOREVER!”
Then, laughing and insane, he pulled the trigger.
The blast was deafening.
125
That first night, while David Timothy Camions (a.k.a. Elmer) sat in his jail cell, cursing and swearing, covered in blood, and laced in cuffs the police refused to remove, he knew he was not alone.
Something cold was there. Watching him, hating him, freezing the air around him.
It took a long time to sleep that night. It was almost morning, in fact, before he drifted into the other world. And when he did sleep, when his eyes fell in a frightful, haunting slumber, he saw a boy with a red balloon walking along the edge of a lonely road. And behind the boy, between the trees that seemed to incase the child like impenetrable wooden fingers, he saw the dead. They were crawling from the ditches and the laneways of the cottage. Escaping the bedrooms, the beach, and the driveway, sometimes in pieces, sometimes destroyed, whispering in solemn tones and moaning voices.
Elmer wanted the dream to end. But it didn’t. It went on and on.
It would go on forever.
He watched them, creeping and crawling with shattered bones, missing limbs, and smashed skulls, bloody and broken. The dead parade––that’s what they were. The dead parade.
They followed the boy with the red balloon.
And the boy followed someone else, someone he trusted and loved. He followed James.
James, with his vacant eyes and his head destroyed, stumbled along the haunting path with his black tie crusted to his shirt with blood; his mouth smashed and gaping.
He was coming.
James was coming tonight.
Start - Aug 01/2006
Finish - Dec 13/2006
1st Revision - Nov 24/2007
2nd Revision - Feb 12/2008
Thank you…
I have a few people to thank; I’ll make this as quick and painless as possible.
I’d like to thank Jacob Keir (Permuted Press) and Roy Robbins (Bad Moon Books) for rolling the dice on this, my first novel, Kim Paffenroth for his insight and wisdom, Lisa Young for editing my stories when they were no better than limericks on a bathroom wall, Geoff Brown and Justin Martin for supporting me early in the game, David Dunwoody for writing me an intro, Weston Ochse and D. F. Lewis for giving me a couple of dope quotes, and some guy I don’t know for assisting me in the task of signing a couple of crappy publishing contracts.
Shout-outs: Alan McGee (my oldest and dearest friend), my family, Colin Crawford, Mike D., and Jay Molloy.
And I better not forget to thank you, the reader. I hope you enjoyed yourself – got a little scared, felt a little nervous, forgave the mistakes… For me it was five months of writing and two years of editing, and then… more editing. And more editing. (Does the editing ever end?)
Take care, people. Till next time…
Yer pal,
James Roy Daley
* * *
Preview of:
GARY BRANDNER’S - THE HOWLING
1
The September heat lay heavy on Los Angeles. In the condominium community called Hermosa Terrace all the windows were tightly closed. The only sounds were the hum of exhaust fans and the muted growl of a power mower.
In the living room of Unit Two, Karyn Beatty stood on tiptoe to kiss her husband, Roy. Lady, their miniature collie, wagged her approval from the sofa. It started as a casual husband-and-wife first-anniversary kiss, but it quickly became something more. Karyn drew back her head and looked into Roy’s clear brown eyes.
“Are you trying to start something?” she said a little breathlessly.
“Darn right,” Roy replied, taking her in his arms.
Roy pulled her close, his big, gentle hands warm through the thin material of her summer dress. He kissed her neck where the blond hair curled forward below her ear.
“Won’t Chris be here soon?” she said, her lips close to his ear.
“We won’t answer the door.”
“You couldn’t do that to your best friend. Especially after we asked him to come by for an anniversary drink.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Roy admitted. “Anyway, he won’t st
ay long. He has a date.”
“Anybody we know?”
“A new one, I think.”
“Doesn’t Chris ever get serious about anybody?”
“Who knows? I think he’s secretly in love with you.”
“You don’t mean it?”
“Why not? All my friends have good taste.”
* * *
Max Quist shut off the power mower and took out a soiled handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his face. He watched as a young couple in sparkling tennis whites climbed out of a sports car and ran laughing across the lawn. They didn’t pay any attention to Max. Nobody living in Hermosa Terrace paid any attention to Max. He was like another piece of shrubbery to them.
No, he thought, not even that much.
Max hated these people. He hated them for having all the things he would never have. He would quit this lousy job in a minute if it weren’t for his parole officer. Just once he would like to show the smug sons-of-bitches that Max Quist was somebody.
* * *
The telephone rang in Unit Two. Roy Beatty picked it up and frowned as he listened to the voice on the other end. He spoke briefly and hung up.
“Anything wrong?” Karyn asked.
“I’ve got to go to Anaheim. Deliver some books.”
“On Saturday? On our anniversary?”
“Dammit, it’s my own fault. I promised to drop off a set of inspection manuals at Aerodyne yesterday. Had them in the trunk of the car and forgot all about it. I don’t know how it slipped my mind.”
Karyn smiled. It was very unlike Roy to forget anything. He was always thoroughly organized, like one of the technical manuals he edited. When she had first met him she had thought Roy Beatty was as stodgy as a church deacon. However, she had soon discovered his warm sense of humor, an open-minded willingness to listen, and a depth of intellect that was not apparent in his All-American good looks. Karyn had been working as a convention hostess for the New York Hilton at the time. Roy was in the city for a gathering of engineers. For the first time, she had broken the hotel rule against socializing with the guests. Roy had stayed on for a week after the convention, and they had been together constantly. When he had returned to the Coast he had said he would be back for her on his vacation. She had not expected him to come, but he had. That was when she had finally admitted she loved him.
The Dead Parade Page 25
