Fear Itself

by Duffy Prendergast

  As the addresses slowly fell and narrowed to the number I sought I slowed Amber’s car to a crawl. I passed a long dark private driveway with the number 46663 stenciled in black on a white-washed quarter sheet of plywood mounted to a tree, which according to Amber’s driver’s license was her address. I turned around in a neighbor’s driveway about a quarter mile past and then turned off my headlights and much to my chagrin the dashboard light as well, and I slowly cruised to the end of Amber’s private road and drove onto the narrow gravel covered driveway. I could hear the crunch of cinder crumble beneath the tires and despite my slow speed the decibel of the stone crushing under the weight of the car seemed high enough to be heard for miles. When I reached the top of her driveway I spied Amber’s house a few hundred yards down a slope. The house was a sprawling ranch with a sandstone façade across the front, blue vinyl siding (the house was illuminated with up-lighting) to the sides and faux slate gable roof made of asphalt shingles. Three small beams of light emanating from round black plastic spheres embedded in the ground shot up like fountains and lighted the stone fascia of the house casting shifting shadows as the evenings misty air shimmied through their glare. Several more brass fixtures, skinny poles with halogen lamps at the tips, lighted a row of shrubs along a walk of beige brick paving stones which wound from the concrete driveway pad to a long open- walled front porch which was lined with dirt- filled flowerless flower troughs.

  The windows were dark but the flicker of a television appeared to illuminate the large picture window at the center of the house. Sweat was pouring from my pores and my pulse was pounding so hard that I could hear the blood throbbing through the veins in my wrists. I killed the engine and I coasted the car onto the concrete slab (that served as a secondary parking area) to the rear of the house and I eased the brake pedal to the floor which caused a high pitched squeal as the metal of the rotors ground against the graphite brake pads.

  All sounds for me, no matter how suppressed, seemed amplified as though broadcast through a megaphone and the squeal of the brakes sounded as loud as if it had come from a train as it slid across the iron rails of a track coming to a stop. I hunched my body low in the driver’s seat as I held my foot to the brake; then I realized that the bright red glow of my brake- lights was illuminating the rear wall of the house and the shrubbery that adorned it. I placed the car in park and I lifted my foot from the brake and I waited to see if I had attracted any unwanted attention; but all was quiet.

  I eased the car door open and I slipped out of the car and squatted and waddled to the shelter of the prickly shrubs against the house.

  I scanned the rear yard for any sign of movement. Below and to the rear of the houses lay a large man-made frozen pond the size and shape of a basketball court only rounded at the corners. Beyond the pier lay a thicket of woods and briar through which could be seen the lights of other houses.

  I waddled from the corner of the garage to the man-door at the center of the garage and I peaked into the window. There was a large late model navy-blue pickup truck backed inside so that the bed of the vehicle faced me. I waddled further along the rear of the house until I reached the window to the kitchen. Inside a dim light was cast across the vast grey granite countertops over and above several strings of maple cupboards.

  I moved, my back sore at the base, a little more boldly and erectly, as I worked my way to the source of the flickering light, a large-screen television playing a basketball game which rested in the corner of the great- room with a dark plush carpet and white walls with a large stone fireplace as its centerpiece beneath a high vaulted ceiling. It appeared, though my view was obscured, that someone’s foot was sticking out from the end of the sofa. I drew a deep breath and then I stood up and tried to get a better glimpse of the sofa. The top of an adult head laid resting, eyes closed, atop a tier of pillows. Her husband Charlie, I supposed.

  I squatted again and I moved toward a window which turned out to belong to one of the children’s bedrooms. A child was sleeping, or so it appeared, with its arm wrapped around a stuffed bear. My heart sank at the thought of the child being motherless. Amber may have been a royal cunt to me but she had been a doting mother to her children. I moved to the next window where the room was too poorly lit to see inside and on to the end of the house where through a set of sliding-glass doors lay the master suite which was lit only by a closet light. I could see a king-size brass bed and a large dresser and bureau painted white and a vaulted ceiling with a large ceiling fan positioned directly over the bed

  I pressed on the handle of the sliding- glass door and to my relief and surprise it opened easily. I took off my shoes and I slipped inside. The room was warm compared to the chill air outside. I crawled up against the foot of the bed and listened for the sound of footsteps or movement but there was none. I crawled to the bureau which sat next to the entry door and then moved to the door and peered into the empty hallway before slowly closing the door and locking it from within.

  Outside I slipped back into my loosely laced tennis-shoes and I scurried back to the car. I opened the rear passenger door and

  Amber’s head slid down until it hung over the seat. I pulled her to me and hoisted her onto my shoulder and I walked slightly slumped through the rear yard.

  I stopped dead in my tracks, sliding and almost falling, as I thought I heard Amber whimper, and I was about to drop her and run when I realized that it was the wind whistling in my ears again. I took a deep breath and then I trudged forward to the end of the house and slipped out of my shoes and into Amber’s bedchamber.

  I stripped the bed of its quilt and pillows and sheets, tossing them onto the floor, and then I unrolled Amber’s stiff torso from the confines of the new blue blanket. She was still wrapped in the as yet damp bloody bed-sheet. I picked her up in my arms and I could feel her cold familiar and statue-like naked body through the thin cotton fabric. I laid her onto the bed so that her head faced the headboard and I unwrapped her from the bloody sheet. Amber was blue and ensanguined but her body was still beautiful. Her abdomen, the lines of her muscles highlighted by the creases of dried blood, was muscled and firm and narrow. Her breasts were flaccid but round and full. Her face, though frozen in a pained expression, was perfectly shaped in a soft rounded V with a recessed chin like you often find with models, and high cheekbones and those Beautiful blue eyes. Her hair, saturated in blood, appeared to be a mix of strawberry blond and red.

  I stretched the fabric of the sheet to the corners of the mattress and wrapped them around the mattress as though I were making the bed. Then I covered Amber with the blue blanket that I had wrapped her in and then with the quilt that was previously on the bed and then I tossed the pillows onto the empty side of the bed stacked as though someone were going to sit up and watch television. I knew even as I laid Amber out on the mattress in specific fashion that the lengths to which I was going were excessive; but I wanted her to look as natural as a Beautiful dead girl could look. It was bad enough that she would be found murdered but I wanted her to at least be presentable. I think I did it more for her than for her family as a last gesture; the least I could do I supposed, and as long as I was taking such a great risk what was the difference. It would be obvious to any detective that she had been transplanted from the site of her murder. If nothing else it would befuddle them.

  I crept to the bedroom door and placed my ear up against it and listened for life before unlocking it then I slipped out through the sliding glass doors and into my shoes and I ran to Amber’s car. Using the spray bottle of cleaner I dampened a paper towel and I wiped down every surface I thought I might have touched prior to putting on the rubber gloves, then I popped open the trunk. I pulled my bicycle out and closed the boot and I peddled down the gravel driveway toward the road. I knew that what I had done in leaving Amber’s dead body in her bed was not the right thing, but the right thing was not a viable option for me. And it was far better than dumping her body into a shallow grave; or in the drainage ditch as I had
contemplated while I stood at the side of the road scared out of my wits, or into a lake to decompose and rot beyond recognition. At least by leaving her body in her bed for her husband to find I was giving them some immediate finality to Amber’s family and a body to bury that still resembled the woman that they loved. That Amber had turned into a heartless bitch to me and to Melanie was undisputable; but she had redeemed herself to some degree with the letter that she intended to leave for me granting me my freedom, and besides, Amber’s family did not deserve to suffer for her sins. And what I had had with Amber had not been all bad. The Amber that I had come to know through many a telephone conversation was human and likable. I would not have turned to her in crisis had that not been the case. And she had saved my bacon and put her self in harms way by aiding and abetting the fugitive that was me.

  Their still remained before me a daunting task. I knew before I left that I would be in for a nightmare of a journey to get back home. It was cold, and more importantly it was dark, and I needed to cover over forty miles without drawing attention to myself to get home and be ready for work in the morning, and around every corner lurked a demon ready to make me leap from my own skin.

  When I reached the end of the driveway I started to peddle along the two lane highway heading west, the direction from which I had come, facing what little oncoming traffic there was. The road was completely unlit and I must admit that my fear caused me to pump the peddles of my bicycle with greater dispensation than I would have otherwise been able. I knew, though, that I could not possibly ride my bicycle all the way home; that my body was not that well conditioned and I also knew that I couldn’t hitch a ride from a local resident so close to Amber’s house. I needed to be miles away before I stuck out my thumb in beggars’ fashion.

  I hadn’t ridden a bicycle in years, and I was grateful for the hard work with Tony that put my muscles in good enough shape to force myself forward, but my lungs were not so hearty as my legs and arms and I huffed and puffed as I pushed my bike up an incline, the devil in the dark my driving inspiration. Strange as it seemed, as long as my bike was moving forward at a decent rate of speed my anxiety was reduced to a fairly low level; but on the inclines as I peddled with every ounce of will, my speed would slow to an intolerable level and the adrenaline would begin to flow through my veins and propel me forward.

  After approximately seven exhausting miles of peddling and what seemed like hours I turned south onto a road that ran parallel to the main highway, interstate one-thirty-five into Hutchinson. The flow of traffic on the highway was heavy but as I peddled along the marginal only a few cars passed me. After a few miles I ditched my bicycle in the dumpster of a machine shop and I climbed, my legs wobbly and unsteady from labor, a steep embankment up to the freeway just past a toll booth where traffic was forced to stop and pay, and there I sought out a semi with California license plates and I was given a ride by a husky hairy bearded man in a red flannel jacket who was hauling frozen dog food from a plant in Pittsburgh. I did my best to shield my face though the cab was dark and I doubt that the driver could have gotten a good look at me anyway. Besides, he would be long gone before any investigation would begin.

  He gave me a ride all the way to Wichita where he dropped me off on the berm of the freeway within a half dozen blocks of my house. I hopped the chain-link fence that divided the highway from the houses and I walked the remaining distance to my house lazily; my body having been exhausted of all my strength from peddling my bike. When I got home Melanie was asleep on the couch with Sarah snuggled next to her. It was a scene that I had rarely witnessed with Catherine and it made me hopeful that we could perhaps become a family.

  I sauntered into my bedroom and looked at the bed. I couldn’t sleep on the mattress that held such horrid memories. I couldn’t let Melanie sleep on such a bed either.

  I would have to dispose of the mattress very soon. I would have to burn it to destroy the evidence. I would have to clean the rooms of the house with diligence to be sure that no trace of Amber was left. The garbage bag full of

  Amber’s belongings along with her bag of toys was stuffed in the closet. They too would have to be disposed of. But my priority was to get everyone out of my house and into Melanie’s house. It was too late for that then so I grabbed a blanket from the linen closet and a pillow from the sofa and I crashed on Sarah’s bed amidst her big fluffy stuffed brown teddy bear and an array of other lifeless creatures.

  13

  A blunder of such monumental proportion should not have caused me to laugh but the morbid humor of my misstep was more than I could contain. On the drive home from work the next evening, as was my habit, I listened to a classical music station because it helped me to relax. At the six o’clock hour the music was interrupted by the news and after hearing about the Ohio democratic presidential debate between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and other national news the commentator read the local stories. An accident on Interstate one-seventy-six was causing a delay for south-bound traffic into Wichita; a fire on thirty-second street a week earlier was determined by the fire marshal to have been deliberately set; and a missing woman, Amber Havisham, was found naked and dead in the bed of her next-door neighbor.

  The proprietor apparently slipped into bed with the corpse thinking that it was his wife (whom he’d been at odds with and had recently made a habit of sleeping in the guest bedroom) beneath the covers. The man, Christopher Kohler, thought that his wife had thawed from her disagreeable state and he slept with the corpse at his side until morning at which time he decided to attempt to rekindle their love. It was then that he discovered the body.

  I laughed out loud at the poor sod I had mistakenly set up for the crudest of unintended practical jokes. I pictured in my mind his surprised expression. I felt awful and tickled at the same time. Keep in mind I’d been there twice before myself and I must tell you that waking up with a corpse in your bed is about the freakiest thing in the world. I wondered how long it would take for poor mister Kohler to recover from that shock. I supposed that there were two mattresses that would never again be slept upon. If I had gone to the correct house I would probably have been caught.

  So tickled was I that when I arrived home to a somber Melanie, who had by then heard the news of Amber’s death and supposed, as did the police, that Amber had been killed by the wife of the cheating Mr. Kohler, that I couldn’t help but to smile and occasionally chuckle to myself despite my most concerted efforts at feigning an acceptable level of grief over Amber’s death. Melanie, regardless of her jealousy and anger, had had a long and close relationship with Amber and I could tell that she was a bit shaken by her death. And I knew that the timing would be awkward but I suggested it anyway,

  “Melanie honey, how would you feel about all of us moving back into your house?”

  “Why not?” she said, “We’re practically living together anyway.” My suggestion seemed to lift her spirits as she forced a smile.

  “How would you feel if we started tonight? I really don’t want to sleep with you on the same mattress where Amber and I slept. There’s something just wrong about that now that all of that is behind us.”

  She smiled at my chivalrous notion. “If that’s what you want it’s fine with me but we might as well eat here. Dinners ready and the table is set.”

  After dinner Sarah and I packed enough things to last us a few days and over the course of the next few days I went about slowly moving what few possessions we had accumulated to Melanie’s house. I borrowed Tony’s van on the pretense of moving my furnishings and I instead disposed of the bloodied mattress and box-spring in a vacant lot several miles closer to town by saturating them with gasoline and setting them afire. I tossed the bag with Amber’s clothes and her bag of sex-toys onto the pyre and I left before any notice was taken of the blaze.

  I rose early each morning and spent my time cleaning the apartment with the strongest cleaners I could find using rubber gloves and paper towels. By the time I was finished t
he house and its furnishing had neither a trace of a fingerprint nor a spec of Amber’s blood. I removed all evidence that we or any other living creature had ever trespassed there.