Cursed

by J. R. Rain

  I turned right up Denny Street and headed toward Capital Hill, which is an unofficial “district” of Seattle. Capital Hill is also known as the “Freak District,” and there, as we passed the homeless and junkies and fellow creatures of the night, I made a right onto State Street and soon turned into Dick’s, Seattle’s infamous burger chain.

  Dick’s only served burgers and fries and Cokes and so I didn’t need to take her order. I told her to wait in the car and a few moments later, I returned with a single order of food. I gave it to her as I sat back down in the front seat.

  She looked at the meal, then looked at me. We were sitting under a parking lot light and her face was glowing palely. The oddballs and freaks were consuming their hamburgers nearby, since Dick’s didn’t have any indoor seating, and were laughing and talking and sometimes arguing. I caught one or two of them looking our way, sort of like a wolf might that had observed some sheep that were almost within range.

  “Nothing for you?” she asked.

  “I’m not hungry,” I said. Which was a lie. I was very, very hungry, and I was watching some of the lost souls sitting on curbs just outside the glow of the parking lot light. They should have been in shadows, but to my eyes, they weren’t. They were clear as day, and the darkness in me wanted to do something very bold and very stupid. The darkness in me wanted to hurt and kill and suck and drink. I closed my eyes, and did my best to ignore the darkness.

  “I can hear your stomach growling,” said Parker, and I knew she was teasing me.

  “Ha, yeah. I’ll eat later,” I said, and decided to change the subject. “So tell me why you need my help, and why I’m the guy you picked.”

  She took another bite, chewed slowly, and washed it down with some Coke. She set the Coke carefully in the cup holder, then turned and faced me, tucking one leg under her as she did so. Girls can do things like that. I couldn’t tuck my leg under me like that to save my life.

  If I had a life to save, that is.

  “They say you like to help people,” said Parker. “But most are afraid to ask you for help.”

  “Afraid of me? That’s hilarious. I’m a buck forty, dripping wet. Who are these people you speak of?”

  “Well, maybe not people, just the guy I asked about you.”

  “Well, don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “I heard what you did to those bullies. It didn’t make the papers, but word on the street says you’re either a hero or a lunatic.”

  “Maybe a little of both,” I said, not even bothering to lie about what really happened. Word on the street trumps the truth, anyway.

  “If people are afraid of you...why do you still like to help?”

  “Helping makes me feel good.” And it kept the darkness from consuming me, which of course would have caused me to consume others. I looked at it as a little preventive health care for the universe.

  “What kind of problems do you help with?”

  “Any problems.”

  “How do you fix them?”

  “Any way I can. Whatever it takes.”

  “But you’re my age...I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t need to understand,” I said.

  “But these are adults.”

  “I fix adults, too,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

  She had completely forgotten her food. She wondered if some punk teenager could help her with her problems, and I was beginning to suspect her problems were very, very big.

  “Look,” I said. “None of us wind up in night school without a seriously screwed-up life. All the normal kids are getting trained for day jobs in regular society. We’re the sort they don’t want peeing in the pool. So whatever it is, it’s okay.”

  She chewed without tasting, staring blankly out the window at her past.

  I reached out and gently touched her forearm with my finger. I knew what the reaction was going to be, and so I was ready for her to shiver.

  “I can help you, Parker. But you need to tell me what’s wrong,” I said, and something interesting happened as my fingers rested on her arm, as I spoke sincerely and honestly with her. The darkness in my heart, the dark whisperings that sometimes filled my mind, subsided. Subsided significantly. I almost, almost, felt human again.

  “There is a man who likes killing girls.”

  For most people, something like that would be a shock. But I’m not most people. I’m not even people.

  “That’s terrible.” I didn’t ask if she was making up a story. She wasn’t.

  “You believe me?”

  “Who is this man?”

  She turned and looked at me, and I saw the tears in her impossibly round eyes.

  “My dad,” she said.

  Chapter Three

  I hoped this wasn’t a pervert case. I hate pervert cases.

  “And you know this how?” I asked.

  “That part I need to fill you in on later.” Her once-sweet, shy exterior had now turned a tad darker. Which was okay with me. Darker was right up my alley.

  “So what can you tell me?” I now grabbed a pencil from my pocket and began writing on a piece of paper.

  “What are you writing?” she asked abruptly.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “My notes will be cryptic.”

  She didn’t get the wry humor. “Alright, my dad is one of the most intelligent men in the world. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. He’s a world-renowned physicist. He does a lot of research for Berkeley and Ivy League schools. Over the past eight years he’s been delving into a different, ah, kind of scientific method.”

  “Different how?”

  “It’s not even really scientific. It’s more...metaphysical. To put it simply, my dad runs a cult. He has this big compound called ‘Cloudland’ on a property near Mount Shasta.”

  “A Moonie-type thing? Branch Davidians? Suicidal comet-hoppers?”

  I wondered if she would catch the references, but she didn’t miss a beat. I guess when your dad runs a cult, you’re up on all things cultish. She said, “One man’s cult is another man’s paradise. But this is way bigger than just one power-tripping dabbler in the dark arts. He’s converting some of the greatest minds in the world into believing his theories.”

  “And how does killing girls play into it?”

  “Just like with every cult, people eventually wise up and want to leave.”

  “And he kills them before they leave?”

  “Well, he also wants the blood sacrifice, I guess. Killing two birds with one stone.”

  “Why only girls?”

  “Because he believes women are the conduit to the mystical power he wants to channel. The ‘feminine divine,’ I’ve heard him call it.”

  “So mostly women are in his cult.”

  “Right. Men are just not that attracted to a religion where they are second fiddle. Plus, he kind of likes to be the center of attention. He’s a total alpha male.”

  “So what do you want me to do?” This was becoming a lot larger than anything I had previously taken on. There were a lot of layers to this.

  “I want you to stop him.”

  This was a pretty tall order for someone who, as far as she knew, was just another loser in night school. “Stop him how?”

  “Any way you can.”

  I would have thought she was a little out of her gourd if I didn’t suspect she was telling me the truth. I get a feeling from people, and more often than not it’s the right feeling. From her, I was experiencing honesty and fear and confusion. Still, even a crazy person could project honesty and fear. And pretty much everyone on the planet had a heavy case of confusion.

  As I said, night school isn’t exactly a haven for the best and brightest. I’d have to learn a little more about Parker Cole, and even though I trusted her, I’d need to know things about her she wasn’t even aware of.

  And I also needed to know what she knew about me. This was a little extreme for our first conversation. One minute I’m sitting across the aisle in hist
ory class, the next I’m hearing the kind of dark confession that don’t usually come up until at least the third date.

  I said, “Do you want me to expose him for the fraud he is?”

  “If that will stop him, sure. Especially if it will put him in jail.”

  “Wouldn’t that ruin your life?” I asked. “Sounds like he makes good money, and all that will be gone. And you’ll wind up on Fox News as ‘The Daughter of the Monster.’”

  “I can handle all that,” she said. “That’s a lot easier to live with than knowing it’s still going on.”

  “Is your dad on to you?” I asked, knowing I sounded a bit like Dick Tracy, but sometimes there just wasn’t any better way of saying something. Besides, Dick Tracy was cat’s-pajamas cool back when I was alive.

  Her eyebrows knitted themselves together. “On to me?”

  “You know, does he know if you know what he’s doing?”

  “You talk funny. How old are you?”

  “Too old to rock and roll, too young to die.”

  She wanted to say something else but didn’t. Parker was pretty and was probably used to getting her way. Pretty girls mostly didn’t get a reaction from me. Mostly.

  “Fine,” she said petulantly, and I idly wondered if she even knew who Dick Tracy was, or Jethro Tull. Probably not. She said, “No. I don’t think he suspects anything.”

  One of the guys I’d been watching at the edge of the scraggly shrubs came sauntering over. He wobbled a little, probably high on something. I could smell the cheap wine and stale tobacco and the urine, and his heart was beating faster than a little stroll would trigger.

  “Trouble,” I said.

  “It’s just some homeless guy.”

  “Here’s a lesson they don’t teach you in night school, Parker. The most dangerous people are those with nothing to lose. You take a guy who is willing to strap dynamite around his waist and blow himself up in a crowd. What can you possibly threaten him with? He’s already decided his most precious asset, his life, is worthless.”

  “You sure do talk funny.”

  The guy wore a ragged Seahawks T-shirt and baggy jeans. He’d lived hard, so under the lights I couldn’t tell if he was teen or middle-aged. My window was down because of the mild weather, and I wasn’t going to roll it up, because that would have shown fear.

  “Yo, yo, my friends,” he said when he was three feet from the car. “What you people looking for tonight?”

  “We already found it,” I said. “Burger and fries.”

  He laughed, showing dark gaps in his teeth. Meth addict, I figured. “You funny, man. But I bet you want something more.”

  “We’re good,” I said. “We were just leaving.”

  He leaned awkwardly into the car, his face a foot from mine, sharing the scents of all the poisons inside him. “I got what you want, and you got what I want.”

  Parker instinctively clutched my arm. I wondered if she could tell my pulse was as steady as ever—six beats a minute.

  “Later,” I said to the man, but as I reached for the ignition, he thrust one clawing hand toward my throat.

  I knocked it away, and it cracked on the steering wheel. Maybe breaking a bone, maybe not. Not my problem.

  With my other hand, I grabbed a fistful of his greasy hair and banged his forehead off the edge of the roof. When his mouth opened in pain, I plucked the remainder of Parker’s burger and shoved it in his mouth.

  As he fell backward, grunting and choking, I said, “Don’t forget to tip the waitress.”

  I started up the Mustang and headed back toward the school.

  “That was...” Parker said, having trouble forming a sentence. “That was....”

  “That’s one way I solve problems,” I said. “Are you down with that?”

  I wanted her to know that some messes couldn’t be cleaned up with a whisk broom and dustpan. Sometimes you needed a hammer. Sometimes you had to bring out the big guns.

  “Are you...going to do that to my dad?”

  “Whatever it takes,” I said. “If that’s what you want.”

  She sighed. “Whatever it takes.”

  As I drove, I reached with my left hand to the edge of the roof, feeling the wet splotches there. “Do you live with him?”

  “When he’s up from Berkeley, yes. But he spends most of his time at Cloudland. He comes home and visits his family once in a while.”

  “Who else is in the family?”

  “My younger sister Lilith and my mom.”

  “Do they...know?”

  “Mom’s like the robo-wife, on the library board and bridge club and whatever club it is where you drink a quart of vodka a day. Lilith is just a sweet, innocent kid. But I’m worried that Dad has designs on her.”

  “Designs?”

  “Looking at her funny. Thinking. Like maybe she’s about old enough to get in on the action.”

  I pulled my fingers inside the window and pretended I was wiping my mouth. The blood was bitter and tainted, but intoxicating nonetheless. “Have you ever visited Cloudland?”

  “A couple of times. I really don’t like it because all the girls go out of their way to kiss my ass so that they get on his good side. Plus they’re all spaced out on peace and love and that type of crap. Plus whatever he’s putting in the punch bowl. It’s just wrong.”

  “Would he be opposed to you bringing your boyfriend down to meet him?”

  “At Cloudland?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It would probably throw him off, but I’m pretty sure he’d be okay with it. Especially if we just popped in.”

  “All right.” I said. “Are you up for it?”

  “You’re serious?”

  “As a corpse.” I pulled into the school parking lot, feeling a slight rush from more than just the blood. When I feed, I take on some of the victim. It’s one of the unfortunate side effects of my lifestyle, and in this case, the victim had definitely been on speed.

  “But I didn’t do this to date you,” she said, running her eyes over me as if maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  “I’m not saying we’ll be dating for real. But we will need to pull it off around your family a couple of times before we go out and meet Dad. Your dad will be less suspicious of me if he thinks I’m just a goofy eighteen-year-old trying to get into his daughter’s pants.”

  “You’re not a goofy eighteen-year-old? And you don’t want in my pants?”

  “Oh, I’m goofy. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  She was looking at me curiously as I took out a piece of paper from my glove compartment and wrote my number down for her. I was used to people looking at me curiously, but it always made me nervous—like I was an insect they wanted to swat with a newspaper, or maybe a snake to trap behind glass. I gave her my cell number and she looked at it, and then promptly snorted with laughter.

  “Why does it say ‘Wal-Mart’ above it?”

  “Because it’s better—and safer—than writing ‘Spider for Hire.’”

  She snorted again. “But Wal-Mart? That’s so lame.”

  “Not any lamer than being named Parker.”

  “Jerk,” she said and slapped my arm.

  “Well, if we’re dating, I’d better drive you home, so your dad can look out the window and see us.”

  It had started raining. Big surprise for Seattle. The light patter on the roof of the car was always pleasant. Even after all these years of living, I loved the sound of rain. A few minutes later, following her directions, I pulled up in front of her two-story house.

  It was upper middle class, and a Volvo wagon was parked outside. So Mr. Cole was the practical, safety-minded sort of psychotic religious fanatic. But it made me wonder why he forced his daughter to ride public transit.

  When I stopped the car, she paused with her hand on the door handle. “So, you said ‘for hire.’ What will this cost me?”

  She wore a little smirk as if she suspected it had something to do with the remark about getting
in her pants.

  The rain drummed rhythmically, hypnotically. Light from her front porch reached us weakly, illuminating her pretty face. “We’ll work something out.”

  “That sounds creepy.”

  “Not like that,” I said, although she had no room to call anyone else “creepy.” After all, she was the daughter of a serial-killing cult leader. “Sometimes I ask for favors. Depends on how much I trust you. We’ll see.”

  “What kind of favors?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

  She suddenly leaned over and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “Wow. Your skin is cool.”

  “I’m a cool dude.”

  She rolled her pretty brown eyes. “See you tomorrow...boyfriend.”

  She winked and dashed off to her house.

  Chapter Four

  I looked at my test again and couldn’t fathom that there was actually a question that this second-rate high school could find in U.S. History that I would not know.

  “In 1906, who was the Speaker of the House?”

  First of all, who cares? Seriously? How was this question going to help any U.S. citizen get further in life? It was almost as if Mr. Harris, my history teacher, threw this question out there because he was tired of me acing every test.

  I looked at the clock; it was five minutes before 10 p.m. I had to come to terms with the notion that, for the first time in my life—or at least my new unlife—I didn’t know the answer to a question on a test.

  Well, if you’re going to go out, you might as well go out with a bang. In the available spot, I put “Robert Pattinson.”

  I walked to the front of the class and handed Mr. Harris the test, staring the old fogey down.

  “May I help you, Mr. Walsh?”

  “Well played, sir,” I said. “Well played.”

  Mr. Harris smiled at me through the corner of his mouth, knowing that he’d gotten the best of me. He and I both knew what he’d done. I turned around and made zero eye contact with anyone on my way back to my desk.

  “Hey, diphead,” a voice from behind me echoed. It was Frank Manciti. The class bully who thought he could intimidate the undeveloped smart kid. Yes, even night school has bullies.