Held, Pushed, and 22918 (3 Complete Novels)

by Kimberly A Bettes

  I ran to the shed out back and grabbed some rope, which I used to secure the whore’s arms. I tied one end of the rope around her wrists and the other end around the legs of the bed. She’d never be able to free herself, assuming she ever woke up. I highly doubted she ever would.

  All that work made me thirsty. I grabbed the beer from the car and took it into the house. I drank a couple of cans warm and put the rest in the refrigerator. Then I turned on the radio, stretched out on the couch, and fell asleep at a quarter after two.

  When I woke the next day it was close to noon. I stretched and yawned and tried to remember why I was on the couch. As I reached down to scratch my balls my hand brushed against my usual morning hard-on, and that’s when I remembered what had happened the night before. For a few minutes I laid there with my hand on my crotch, thinking about all that had happened. Then I got up.

  My plan was to go upstairs and piss, and then get rid of the whore’s body. But as I walked down the hall I found myself passing the bathroom and heading straight to my mother’s bedroom.

  She was exactly as I’d left her, only now the room smelled awful. There was a lot of work to be done to make sure my mother never found out what had happened in here while she was gone. Not that she’d care. She didn’t give a shit about anything except her precious Fred. That asshole son of a bitch Fred. I hated him. How could my mother be with someone like him? How could she let him touch her?

  A thought crossed my mind that nearly made me sick. What if…what if he had sex with my mother? My mother. A married woman. It didn’t matter that her husband was dead. She was still married. Still a mother. Still my mother.

  The thought of Fred screwing my mother made me angry. Not just at him, but at both of them. Him for doing it and her for letting him.

  I soon found myself on the bed with the whore who could’ve passed as my mother’s sister, doing to her the things that Fred probably did to my mother. Her body was stiff and cold, just as I’d always imagined my mother to be in bed.

  Later, when I was finished with her for the last time, I pulled the edges of the tarp over the body and tried to tie it closed with the rope. It was no easy task because her legs were spread open wide, stiff and immovable like the branches on a tree. Rigor mortis was a bitch.

  With my hands on my hips I stood staring down at the problem that lay before me and pondering ways to get rid of it. If I tied the tarp around the body as it was, anyone who happened to see it would know immediately what it was. But I had to do something with her.

  Unfortunately I saw only one way to do what I had to do. I grabbed the tool I needed from the shed and went back in the house. Instead of heading straight up to the bedroom I stopped in the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife from the drawer and a beer from the fridge. That beer turned into two, which led to another one, and I washed that down with two more. After drinking another one for good measure, I figured I was ready to go upstairs, which I did slowly, feet falling on each step like lead weights clumsily attached to the ends of my legs.

  There she was. Still atop the tarpaulin. Still dead. Still stinking.

  Breathing only through my mouth, I sighed heavily and crossed the room, stumbling once from the alcohol before crawling up on the bed and sitting on my knees beside the whore’s body.

  Her skin was thin and easily torn, almost like tissue paper. I could’ve probably ripped her open with my bare fingers, but I chose to use the blade of a knife.

  She was skinny so there wasn’t much meat under her skin to cut through. Her age and nutritional neglect had brittled her bones, making it an easy chore to saw through them.

  The job may have been easy but that didn’t mean it was clean. While her blood didn’t spill from her as freely as it would have if I had just killed her, it was still there, seeping out in a thick, syrupy ooze. The smell was indescribable. It reminded me of passing rotting road kill on a hot summer day, but worse. Much, much worse.

  I got as little blood and matter on me as possible as I removed first her left leg, and then her right. Once they were detached from her torso, I laid them next to her on the tarp before moving on to her arms. I could’ve probably wrangled her arms into place since they weren’t as outstretched as her legs had been, but by this time I was on a roll. Cut, saw, cut, saw. Of course the beers helped blur my judgment, otherwise I might’ve felt a little bad about dismembering her body and I would’ve stopped with the legs. Stopping would’ve been a good idea. It would’ve been less mess and less work. But I didn’t quit until she was in five pieces. I even considered removing her head. You know, for the hell of it. Just to see what it was like. But by then, the smell had soured the beers on my stomach and I was starting to feel nauseous. The last thing I needed was to add the smell of puke to the situation so I decided to call the job done.

  After wrapping the tarp around her and securing it with the rope, I carried her downstairs and dropped her onto the porch, where she stayed while I backed up the car. I didn’t even need to lower the tailgate to throw her in the bed of my Ranchero. She didn’t weigh much, and in her current condition she was easy to throw, just like a bag of lawn fertilizer. Bags of shit were easy to throw.

  Using the water spigot on the side of the house, I washed the gore off my hands. Then I unzipped my jeans and pissed on my mother’s rose bush.

  Once I was done with all that, I went back inside to drink a few more beers while watching television.

  Kicked back in the recliner with a cold beer in one hand, I barely thought of the corpse in my car. I knew I should get rid of it, but I didn’t think I needed to hurry. The hard part—the dirty part—was done. The rest would be easy and I could do it later.

  12

  It was dark when I woke up. Yawning, I brought my hands up to rub my eyes but the smell stopped me. I needed to wash my hands. Hell, I needed to take a shower. I smelled like body odor and sex and death. Not a pleasant combination.

  Lingering in the shower after washing my body, I let the hot water run over me, relaxing tense muscles and easing various aches. Close to half an hour passed before I stepped onto the mat outside the tub and toweled dry.

  My mother would be home in the morning, probably early. She was usually coming in as I was leaving for work. Now that I knew about her secret romance with Fred, I wondered if she’d come home later. Or earlier. Or at all. My stomach knotted at the thought of her telling me she was going to move in with him. If that ever happened, it would be the end of Fred. I was tempted to get rid of him anyway, but if he took my mother away from—really away—I’d kill him for sure.

  Stepping out of the bathroom, I smelled the lingering odor of blood and death. It originated from and was the strongest in my mother’s bedroom, but all of the upstairs and probably the rest of the house stunk of it. To get rid of the stench and air out the house, I opened all the windows on both levels, upstairs and down. It was chilly outside, with temperatures due to dip down in the upper thirties overnight, but it had to be done and I saw no other way to do it. When my mother came home and asked what that awful smell was I would have no believable, logical explanation. Besides, the scent of death was strong. It was a smell that you couldn’t mistake for anything else and you couldn’t lie about. She would know immediately what it was and then I’d have some serious explaining to do. No, I would just have to throw an extra blanket on my bed and leave the windows open all night. Even then, it might still smell.

  I went to bed cold and hoping for the best.

  When I woke up Monday morning, it was with chattering teeth and an uncontrollable shiver. The sun hadn’t yet cleared the horizon and a frost had settled over everything beyond the window. As cold as it was in the house, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find frost in the house as well, but the thin layer of white ice had fallen outside only.

  After pulling on jeans and a sweatshirt, I went through the house closing windows and sniffing, trying to detect any trace of the bad odor. As far as I could tell, it was gone. But maybe I was ju
st used to it. The real test would be when my mother came home and either demanded to know what that atrocious odor was or went about her business as if nothing was wrong.

  I scrambled a couple of eggs and buttered two pieces of toast, washing it all down with a cup of coffee. I normally didn’t drink the stuff but I needed to thaw my insides and figured that was the fastest way to do it.

  Just as I finished swallowing the tar-like concoction that failed to taste good even with cream and sugar, my mother came through the front door carrying her suitcase. The smile she wore was an insult, a peacockish display of the great time she’d had with Fred and without me.

  I don’t know what I’d ever done to make her hate me so much. All I did was love her and want her all to myself, the way it was before that wretched little girl came into this house and stole all her love. Why couldn’t it just be like that again? If I could go back in time and change anything at all, I would kill Cathy Ann the day my parents brought her home. I’d hold a pillow over her face until she stopped moving, and I’d leave it there for several minutes more just to be sure. That little bitch had ruined my life. I was glad I pushed her out of that tree. I only wished I’d have done it sooner.

  Surprised to see me sitting at the table, my mother stopped just inside the kitchen doorway.

  “Lester. I’m surprised to see you here.”

  “Why? I live here. Remember?”

  “Yes, but normally you’re gone by this time. Is something wrong?”

  Oh there was plenty wrong.

  “No. I’m fine. And how are you this morning?” I asked without bothering to disguise my hateful tone.

  “I’m fine.”

  After several seconds of intense staring and awkward silence, she announced she was going upstairs. I watched her turn and leave the room, listened to her footsteps as she ascended the staircase, and waited patiently for a scream or the sound of her feet pounding on the floor as she ran back downstairs and demanded to know what had happened in there while she was gone.

  None of that happened, which meant that I’d successfully cleaned up the mess and got rid of the smell. Satisfied with myself, I stood up, scooted my chair in toward the table, and put my dishes in the sink. After making sure I had my keys and wallet, I started out the door, but my mother called down the stairs to me.

  “Lester.”

  At the foot of the staircase I looked up at her, waiting to see what she wanted.

  “Do you suppose you could drive my car today?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “I have an appointment at the garage this afternoon and I thought maybe you could take it for me. You know how those mechanics are. They see a woman come in by herself and they just see dollar signs.”

  I hesitated, considered saying something like ‘have your precious boyfriend Fred do it for you’, and then nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”

  She smiled. For the first time in…well, I couldn’t remember just how long it had been, but my mother smiled at me. The weirdest part was I smiled back. And I meant it.

  Feeling as though a huge weight had been lifted from my back, like the clouds had parted and finally let the sun shine on me, I swapped my keys for my mom’s and took her car to work, driving to the first house of the day with a smile on my face. I raked the whole yard wearing that smile, thinking of how things used to be between us and hoping they would be that way again. And they would be. I could feel it. Her smiling at me was just the beginning.

  For the rest of the day, I felt good. I smiled at strangers, had friendly conversations with my clients—even the assholes, and chatted up the mechanics at the garage. Not even when the clouds rolled in that afternoon did my mood dampen. It seemed nothing could wipe the smile from my face or the happiness and hope from my heart.

  But then I got home, and the smile disappeared, taking with it the hope.

  I left my mother’s car in the driveway and went inside to grab a beer. Just one. I didn’t want to get wasted, just kill the thirst I’d worked up throughout the day.

  The house was empty. Normally I would’ve assumed my mother was out with one of her friends, but I no longer thought that. Now I figured she was out with Fred. The thought of it didn’t make me angry. Not after our exchange this morning.

  After quickly downing the beer, I tossed the can in the trash and headed out the back door. There was still one thing I had to do.

  I froze on the back porch, staring blankly at the back lawn, at the spot where I’d left my car, the spot that now stood empty. My car was gone. Gone. Gone as in not there. Not where I left it, not over by the shed, not under the walnut tree, not in the driveway, not anywhere. It was gone.

  My mind raced to figure out where it could be. Ridiculously, the first thought that came to mind was the hooker stole it. I knew that was nonsense because to drive a car, she’d have to reattach her legs and arms, and she couldn’t do that because, well, she had no arms. They were wrapped in the tarp, nestled against her sides, as were her legs. She lay in five pieces, snuggly secured inside a tarpaulin which was in the back of my car. The car that was now unaccounted for. Gone.

  Used to, I considered myself a man who was able to keep calm in a crisis situation. When Cathy Ann fell to her death from that tree, I didn’t panic. Of course, I was the one who pushed her but still, I remained calm. When the two hookers knocked me out and robbed me, I didn’t panic. I tracked them through the snow, killed them, and took back what they stole from me. But this was different. This was a situation that called for panicking, and that’s precisely what I did.

  I ran around the house, hoping to find it in the driveway even though I knew it wasn’t there because I’d just come from there. When I failed to find it, I ran inside, frantically searching the house for a note from my mother that would explain where my car was. I found nothing.

  No note.

  No mom.

  No car.

  No dead hooker.

  I was screwed. They were going to hang me from a tall tree with a short rope. This was it. It was over.

  Was it a neighbor? Did one of them see me bring the whore into the house, or perhaps watch as I threw the tarp into the bed of the car and just know it was a body from the look of it? None of them could’ve seen me dismembering the body. The bedrooms were on the second floor. But maybe someone had heard her scream the night I brought her home with me. But if they had heard screaming—did she scream? I couldn’t remember—why didn’t they call the police? Why wait a couple of days and then steal my car? And why would they steal my car anyway? To drive the evidence directly to the police station, of course.

  Oh man. I was in some deep shit here.

  Pacing back and forth across the kitchen floor, I weighed my options, which were few.

  My mom’s car was in the driveway. I could grab the cash I had squirreled away, throw some clothes in the back seat, and just drive. North to Canada, south to Mexico.

  I was in the kitchen, a room full of sharp objects. A couple of deep slices to the wrists would end it all. No more worries about anything. Except I didn’t want my mom to find me like that, to have to see the boy she raised lying in a pool of his own blood, blood that she would have to clean up. That option was out.

  Unable to think of anything else, I decided to pack up and leave. I didn’t want to, but there was no other way.

  Taking the steps two and three at a time, I rushed upstairs and started throwing clothes in a suitcase. I tossed in all the money I had hidden away and anything I had that I might be able to sell. Old comic books, those baseball cards I’d shown Charlie in my fort so long ago, and anything else that might be worth something.

  I was fighting with the luggage, trying to squeeze the lid closed enough to hook the latches, when I heard the front door close.

  My heart beat against my ribs, the blood rushing through my ears as a rush of fear shot through me like a bolt of lightning.

  This was it. In my mind, I saw the police coming through the house, searching for me wi
th their guns drawn. By now, they’d probably pieced it together that not only had I killed the hooker in my car, but also the hooker I’d buried in the asshole’s back yard, and quite possibly all the others as well. They knew. They had to know. And they were coming for me. They were in the house, just feet away from me, definitely within shooting distance.

  It crossed my mind to open the window, toss out the suitcase, and just jump. I could be in the car before they made it to my bedroom. I was still mulling it over in my mind, trying to decide if it was worth the risk of breaking my neck, when I heard the footsteps coming down the hallway. They were heading right for my bedroom.

  I grabbed the suitcase from the bed and started toward the window, fully prepared to toss it and jump. Before I could do either, my mother called out to me from the other side of the door.

  “Lester? Are you in there?” She knocked.

  With a frantically racing heart, I said, “Yeah.” I was afraid she’d open the door and find me standing next to the window holding a half-latched suitcase with a comic book and pair of dirty underwear sticking out of it, forehead covered in fat beads of sweat. Instead, she spoke again through the closed door.

  “I parked your car in the back yard, where you’d left it. I’m not sure why it was back there, but I put it back.”

  “You…you took my car?” I looked out the window, down into the back yard. From where I stood I could only see the back end of my car. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I saw that the blue tarp was still laying in the back.

  “Yes. You had mine and I needed to go to the store. You left your keys in the kitchen, so I took it. Sorry I didn’t ask, but it was an emergency and you weren’t here. Sorry again, Lester. And thank you for taking my car to the garage. I really appreciate it.”

  I closed my eyes and dropped my head, relieved that there were no cops waiting for me outside my room. No one knew anything.

  “No problem,” I said, smiling and shaking my head, grateful that I’d been lucky and hadn’t got caught. Things may not always turn out this way, but they had this time.