As Claire watched, Lionel’s face seemed to smooth over as if an invisible hand had caressed his wrinkled skin. He leaned in slightly, shuddering as the hand ran through his thin hair. Holding his shaking hand out, he seemed to clutch something in his grasp. Claire felt the chills traveling through her body like icy insects and she held her breath. For the briefest of moments, she had seen a form shimmer slightly in the humid air.
“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice lowering as a single teardrop fell to the floor, slapping the linoleum floor audibly in the eerie silence of the kitchen. “God, I love you.”
Just a scintilla of a smile was on his face, giving the appearance that he had died almost peacefully. She looked around fearfully before stepping over to Lionel’s body.
She picked up the old man’s still-warm hand in hers and began to sob, each detonation of grief seeming to explode out of her cathartically. She sat down next to him and held his body, her head resting on his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she caressed his arm.
By the time Claire got up from the floor, being careful not to look at Kenny, Lionel’s body was already stiff with rigor mortis. She walked up to the window and looked past her tattered reflection and into the back yard. Although she would never be certain, she thought she saw two ghostly figures twirling around on the lawn. They spun around the grass accompanied by a light, otherworldly glow.
When she saw her bedraggled reflection for the second time, there was a smile on her blood-covered face. Seconds later, the ghostly forms vanished, leaving behind a swirling jumble of colorful fall leaves. Though she did not know it at the moment, she had been given a gift.
As Claire left the house, her blood-stained hair blowing in the summer wind, she was smiling. She thought of Lionel and Harriet and of all the things she had been told about them. As painful as the last two days had been for her, she felt that she had gained something from them. For the first time in her life, she felt she knew what love was.
From the Ashes
“I have your son,” the voice said calmly, with just a hint of menace.
Those four words dug into Daniel Russel’s head like newly sharpened knives, twisting around torturously as they slipped in. Those words, when laced with danger, would be dreadful to any parent. They were much more effective when they were spoken to Daniel.
Daniel’s son, Billy, had been dead for two years, murdered at the age of four by a killer that had never been caught.
His mutilated corpse was found deep within the woods of Rawley. The day they found Billy’s body still tormented Daniel vividly—he called it The Burning. It was the day that reality incinerated his tired brain to ashes, leaving him changed forever.
Daniel’s voice came out sounding robotic and unemotional. He was already withdrawing to a safer place. “My son is dead,” he whispered.
“Is he? He does not look all that bad to me, Daniel.” The man on the phone enunciated every word with cold precision. “In fact, he looks pretty good to me considering the circumstances.” He spoke to someone else in the room. “Isn’t that right, Billy?”
Daniel surprised himself with a sudden burst of anger, his voice crackling with emotion. “You son-of-a-bitch! Why are you doing this to me?” His anger suddenly depleted, he lowered his voice. “Do you know what is left of me since Billy died? After he was murdered? I died with him.”
“No need to get all emotional, Daniel. That’s some pretty predictable bullshit you are spouting, my man. Everyone says that shit when they lose a child. No one said losing a child was easy. Like I said, he looks pretty good to me.” Something about the man’s voice was metallic. “You sound like hell, Daniel. Maybe you should sit down.”
Daniel laughed bitterly. “I sound like hell? I live in hell, you fuck! Every day I wake up and the first thing that I see is my dead son’s face! I don’t have a single thought that doesn’t involve Billy. Not one day has gone by that I haven’t thought about killing myself. My marriage is in shambles—”
“Can you save this for a therapist? I mean I can understand your pain, Daniel. I lost a son myself. Do you want to see Billy, or not?”
“You fucking bastard!” Daniel shouted, slamming the phone back into its receiver. His shoulders were shaking with uncontrollable sobs as he collapsed against the kitchen counter. He cried out in frustrated rage, mucus running from his nose, spittle firing from his lips.
Daniel winced when the phone rang again, rubbing the bridge of his nose in an attempt to relieve his migraine headache. He tried to compose himself, but a tremor reverberated through his bones as if he were collapsing from within. Unable to speak, he picked up the phone and put it to his ear.
“I love you, Daddy,” Billy’s voice rushed into his brain.
Daniel fell back against the counter, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor. His eyes were clamped tightly shut, tears dripping from his chin. “Billy?” he whispered.
The metallic voice broke his train of thought. “Believe me now, Daniel?” the voice said. “I’ll be in touch.”
Daniel looked up at the ceiling and howled. He collapsed into himself, retreating into a fetal position.
Later, sitting on the dark kitchen floor, he felt the knives come out. Suddenly, memories that had receded to a painful throb were now burning through him with intensity. The aspect that bothered him the most about Billy’s death was the fear. The last emotion that his son had experienced was one of fright. That was something that he would never be able to accept. His son had been kidnapped from a shopping mall and had then been brutally murdered. One minute Billy was standing next to him asking for a toy, the next he had vanished.
He thought about the metallic voice. He knew that it belonged to his son’s killer. The cold fact that really sent his heart into overdrive was that the child’s voice was unmistakably Billy’s.
The idea of going to the police physically sickened Daniel. The police had not been able to save Billy, nor had they been able to ever catch his murderer. He was going to try and handle this on his own—it was the only way that it could be done right. The police didn’t care about Billy.
There was only one person who could understand his pain. He picked up the phone and dialed his wife. She answered it on the third ring. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Daniel said, running his fingers over his favorite photograph of his son. It was the one where he was laughing. The camera had frozen that moment of joy forever, a ghost of much happier times. He had only just recently been able to look at it again.
“Danny?” Her voice immediately began to get colder. “What do you want? I thought I told you not to call me anymore?”
“It’s Billy, Lillian, he’s—”
She promptly cut him off. “I don’t want to hear it, Danny. I can’t. My doctor told me that I need to stay away from you for a while.”
“Lillian, please,” Daniel pleaded, trying desperately not to scream. “You’re the only one who can help me.”
“I’m sorry, Danny, I can’t. I can barely help myself, don’t you understand that?” Her voice hardened. “I’m finally starting to be happy. We need to move on. Billy’s dead, Danny. We have to accept that. Please.”
She hung up, leaving nothing but the sound of his heartbeat. He took a deep breath and hung up the phone. I can’t blame her, he thought. I wish I were able to feel happy again.
He walked into the bedroom and began to rummage through the drawer. Pulling the .38 out, he sat back on the bed with a sigh, caressing the cold metal. It was a ritual that he went through every day of the week.
He fell asleep with the gun clutched tightly in his hand.
When he awoke the next morning he realized that he must have had a psychotic break. Sometimes he lost touch with reality, especially near the time when Billy’s grave was freshly dug. One time he had served breakfast to his dead son, even going so far as to helping him brush his teeth afterward. When he finally felt the real world swimming back into focus, he
was overwhelmed. He wanted to retreat back into his fantasy. Back into a world where Billy lived.
Lillian had left him a few months after they had found Billy’s body. She said that it was not possible for her to save them both. She felt that Daniel was suffocating her with his grief and that she needed to come up for air. For a while, he barely even noticed that she was gone. He hadn’t been to work in the last two years, choosing instead to live on his savings. Before his world had collapsed he had been a successful real estate agent, running his own agency.
Daniel opened his front door to get the morning paper. A small sealed package was sitting near the front of his enclosed porch. On the top of the box, scrawled in a child-like manner, were two words:
FROM BILLY
Black motes began to race across his field of vision as he fought his body’s will to fall apart. When he felt that he was not going to pass out, he picked up the box and brought it into the house.
The package was light, barely weighing a pound. He set it on the kitchen table and sat back heavily, staring at it as if it was a poisonous snake.
Billy’s dead, Billy’s dead, Billy’s dead, he chanted through his mind like a protective mantra. He needed that reassurance.
Picking up the package tentatively, he put it to his ear. He heard nothing. Gently, he shook it back and forth, tracing his fingers over the duct-taped seal. Whatever was contained in the box was so light it was almost non-existent. Retrieving a knife from the drawer, he cautiously began to cut open the box.
A shriveled-up child’s hand was resting inside—the fingers curled up tightly in death.
Daniel howled and pushed himself backward, sliding across the floor, his face writhing around in his disgust. He leaned over and vomited, already weeping uncontrollably. “Oh my God,” he whined aloud.
After running ice-cold water into his face, he felt that he had enough strength to look back in the box. The hand, if not Billy’s, was definitely a child’s hand. He could see parts of the bones sticking out from between the pieces of dried skin, indicating that it was old. There was also a folded-up piece of notebook paper in the box. Careful not to touch the hand, he pulled the paper from between the bony fingers.
Dear Daniel,
I thought I’d let Billy give you a hand in convincing you that I have him.
I’ll be in touch. Do not bring the police into this.
Lukas Theda
Daniel felt a surge of powerful anger run throughout his body, burning away all traces of pity and sadness with furious speed. He closed his eyes, clenching his hands tightly around the note. The anger healed him somehow; it cleared up his thoughts. When he opened his eyes, he felt different, almost new. The note had somehow led him to resurrect himself from the ashes of his grief.
I’m coming for you, Lukas Theda. And God help you when I find you. God help you.
After burying the hand in his back yard, he went back into the house to wait for the phone to ring. When the phone rang two hours later, he picked it up immediately. “Lukas?”
“I take it you got the package?” Lukas asked, his firm voice still carefully enunciating every word. “I could not trust the post office with such a delicate operation, so I personally brought it myself. I watched you sleep, Daniel. Did you know you talk in your sleep? You told me all your secrets, but don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. Do you always fall asleep with a gun in your hand?”
“What do you want from me, you fucking piece of shit?” Daniel hissed, surprised at the force of his voice.
“Are you convinced that I have Billy, Daniel? I mean, if you don’t believe me, you can always dig up his grave. I can assure you that he won’t be there. I was pretty thorough; I didn’t even leave a hole. I guess I must have some grave digger in my genes.”
“I want my son back.”
“Did you call the police? Because if you did, it’s over for Billy, Daniel. I’ll throw his body in a shallow grave in the woods. He’ll become just a corpse in a forgotten grave. Lord knows I’ve dug enough of them.”
“What makes you think I want the body? Billy’s already dead,” Daniel said in attempt to take some control.
“Please, Daniel. Isn’t it bad enough that Billy was murdered? You don’t want him laying out in the woods somewhere all by himself, do you?”
“Tell me where you live, you son-of-a-bitch. I’ll come over and take him.”
“Ooooh, don’t you sound like a tough guy, Danny-boy? This is a much different tone of voice than the one I heard on the news when Billy disappeared.” He brought his voice up to a high, whiny pitch. “‘Please give me son back. Don’t hurt him, we love him’. Isn’t that what you said on the news, Daniel? You know something? Maybe if you would have copped this attitude back then, I wouldn’t have killed Billy. I might have had some respect for you. Instead you acted like a pussy, Daniel. You got up on that podium with tears in your eyes like a fucking wuss. When I saw your crybaby act, I knew I had to kill him.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Daniel whispered furiously, his hand turning red as he squeezed the receiver. “I’m going to cut you up into pieces and send you all over the fucking world.”
“There you go, Daniel!” Lukas shouted mockingly. “Now you are acting like a man! I can respect that, Daniel, really I can. You can be more original than that, though, can’t you? I mean I already did the body part thing and all. He asked for you before I killed him, you know. He asked where his Daddy was. I told him his Daddy hated him before I stabbed him.”
Daniel flinched, despite his newfound anger. A single teardrop fell from his cheek and landed on the smooth floor. “Why are you doing this?”
Lukas took a deep breath. “Because I like the way you make me feel, Daniel. When I watched you plead for the life of your son on the news, I liked the way I felt. You made me feel powerful. I thought to myself that if I could make a big grown man like Daniel Russel cry then I must be filled to the brim with omnipotence. I asked myself how I could get that feeling back. I thought about getting your wife, but then I found out that she left you. I asked myself what you had that I could take that would make me feel that wonderful power again. Then in a stroke of brilliance, it came to me. I could just take Billy again. And here we are.”
“I’ll find you, Lukas,” Daniel said. “So help me God, I’ll find you.”
“Well, you’ll have to get me soon, Daniel. I’m dying. My face is fucking rotting off. I look like a living mannequin. I feel kind of like a plastic man. I thought I’d try to get a final dose of enjoyment out of life, so once again, here we are.”
“You’re a fucking loser, Lukas. If you derive your power by killing an innocent little boy, you’re nothing. If you think you’re so mighty, tell me where you live. We’ll engage in a little power struggle and then you can show me what a ‘pussy’ I am.”
“You know something, Daniel?” Lukas said, his voice finally rising in anger. “I don’t like your tone of voice. I think you’re overstepping your bounds. I’m the one in power here, not you. I have the edge here. I’ll be in touch.” He hung up.
Daniel slammed the receiver against the wall, smashing it into little plastic splinters. Filled with helpless fury, he tore the kitchen to pieces, overturning chairs and smashing dishes. When his rage was spent, he stood in the middle of the chaos calmly, his hands clenched tightly into fists. The only sound was the blood dripping from his bleeding hand and onto the linoleum floor.
There has to be some clue in what he said, he thought. I need to get the edge. He must have said something that I can use. ‘I’m dying. My face is fucking rotting off. I look like a living mannequin. I feel kind of like a plastic man’, he had said.
His brain was filling with a white fire, when it came to him. His friend Lewis was an oncologist. They had known each other since childhood. After Billy had been murdered, Daniel had turned away from everybody, including Lewis.
One time on a fishing trip, Lewis had told Daniel about how some of his patients had been fitted with p
rosthetic pieces after cancerous parts of their bodies had been cut away. He had told Daniel how a woman had been fitted with a false nose. Daniel remembered joking about staying away from the sun. He had said that her nose would stand out glaringly on a tanned face. Lewis had admitted that was the case, but they also could use makeup in instances like that. They look like living mannequins, Lewis had said.
I feel kind of like a plastic man.
He took the Rolodex from the drawer and went into the bedroom to use the extra phone. He dialed Lewis’s office. He told the secretary that it was an emergency. Reluctantly, she went to get the Doctor.
“Can I help you?” Lewis’s confident, professional voice said.
“Lewis, it’s me Daniel. I need your help.”
“Dan?” Lewis asked, unable to hide the surprise in his voice. “How the hell have you been? It’s weird that you would call me, because I was just talking to somebody about you the other day. You don’t know a Luke Willis, do you?”
“What?” Daniel asked, his eyes widening in surprise.
“Lukas Willis. He said he’s a friend of yours. He’s a patient of mine. It’s a shame he’s dying though, he’s such a nice man.”
“Lewis, I have to go. Someone’s at the door.”
“What did you want?”
“I’ll call you back,” Daniel said, hanging up the phone. He was in shock. The man’s identity had literally fallen into his lap. Grabbing the phone book, he flipped through the pages excitedly. The name and address stared him right in the face. For the first time in two years, he smiled.
Lukas Willis lived on the other side of town, only twenty minutes away. It was a wealthy section. All of the houses were widely spaced with acres for yards. The neighbors would have a really hard time hearing the cries of any children that Lukas might have killed in a neighborhood like that.
Closure, he thought. I’m finally going to close the book on this nightmare. He felt something cold in his hand. He looked down, surprised that he already held the gun. He smiled for the second time.
Body Counting Page 11
