by Lila Beckham
Those boys were the only form of support their mama had since their daddy died. Besides, he did not want to be tied up all day writing reports; he needed to get a haircut and he wanted to get one before he went to Mobile.
The boys were not home when he got there. Mabel, their mama, came when he knocked, but did not open the screen door. She looked worried.
Stokes felt sorry for Mabel; she had had a hard life. Then, to be left to rear six younguns on her own after her husband died, was a damn shame.
Joshua told Mabel that her boys needed to get the field cleaned up and cleaned up quick; else, he would have to pick them up. He told her he wanted it cleared before the end of the month.
Mabel said she would see to it they did as he wished, although it was going to make it harder to make ends meet. Joshua apologized for having to enforce the law on them. He knew the boys would most likely turn to stealing to “make ends meet” and in all their minds that was far worse than growing a little weed would ever be.
He left the Vice’s small clabber board house and drove the back roads toward Semmes. The barbershop would be crowded if he waited too late in the morning.
Buck’s Barber Shop was where many of the nurserymen got their haircuts and Saturday was about the only day they had to get it done. Joshua also needed to go to the tattoo parlor to check on the rosebud tattoo. Every time he headed in that direction, it seemed that something else needed his attention and he would be sidetracked.
He was glad to see that there were only two vehicles at Bucks when he got there. He went in a waited his turn.
“Oh, I’m still alive and kicking,” Stokes chuckled, to James Fortner’s “How’re you a doin, Hoss?” as he sat in Buck Parker’s barber chair getting a trim and a good straight razor shave.
“Yeah, I’m just a simple kind of man” Joshua said, referring to the lyrics of a song that had just played on the radio.
“Yeah, too much smoke and too much coke they say too, but you ain’t no fool” James nodded, chuckling along with his old friend. He knew Joshua was just fooling with him. He could tell that Joshua was in a good mood.
A minute or two later, Stokes was all business when he asked, “The monkey off your back yet, Hook” Joshua used James’ nickname, but all the joking was aside now.
Temporarily caught off guard by the sheriff’s sudden seriousness, James run his fingers through his dark curls before answering.
“Ain’t had a monkey on my back for a while now, Hoss. Still pissed off and I get a little antsy once in a while, but I ain’t gonna let it run me crazy, that’s for sure,” James replied, getting into the other barber chair as Junior Parker finished with Jesse Vice.
Jesse looked back at James as he was headed out the door and said, “See ya later son, and be sure to tell your mama and daddy we said hello,” Jesse then nodded to Joshua adding, “Good to see you too, Sheriff.”
“Will do, Uncle Jesse, good seeing you too,” James replied, before focusing his attention back to Stokes. Joshua acknowledged Jesse’s goodbye with a nodding gesture.
They both knew what Joshua was referring to, and although it had been nearly ten years, neither one had forgotten nor had they discussed it in a while.
So why is Joshua bringing this shit up now, James wondered, and then thought the heck with it, and asked him why he brought it up.
“When we get through here, we need to take a little ride. I got something I want to show you,” Stokes said, all the earlier merriment gone from his eyes.
Buck and Junior Parker glanced at each other, but both knew not to ask any questions. The father and son team had heard many things while they cut hair and shaved men in their shop there in the heart of Semmes. They usually made small talk and listened; knowing that was what was expected of them. They never offered an opinion, unless asked, and they were not asked.
Twenty minutes later, Sheriff Stokes and James Fortner walked out of the barbershop together. James climbed into the patrol car with him and they drove around to the elementary school and parked under the shade of a large live oak.
Joshua reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, before offering one to James.
“Well, you said you had something you wanted to show me,” James said, curious as to why all of a sudden, Stokes wanted to bring up those mutilations that happened a few years earlier.
“I think” Stokes said, reaching into a document folder and pulling out some Polaroid’s, “That our goat molesters have graduated to larger game,” he said, handing James the pictures.
“Da’yum” James exclaimed, looking at the pictures of the murdered women. “Shit fire! Are these for real?” he asked, not wanting to believe his eyes.
“Hell yeah they’re real. Nobody but us in law enforcement is supposed to see these, but I got me a theory I need to explore. Especially after I run into you and remembered your goats.”
“Well, whoever did that to my goats is sick in the head and if they’re now doing it to womenfolk, then they’re really some sick ass fuckers.”
“I know it made you plumb sick to come home and find your goats killed and mutilated like they was. I hated to bring it back up, but we never solved who did that to those goats of yours.
You know, we always figured it was some of them devil worshiping youngsters; the one’s that was having séances and sacrifices in the cemeteries back around that time. Heck it seemed like every weekend we had to investigate some sort of shenanigans. There was everything from sacrifices to crypt robbing going on back then.
I was wondering if you had developed a theory of your own, as to whom it might have been that done that to your goats. Any information you can remember or anyone you might suspect of doing that to your goats, counts, no matter how insignificant, it or they may have seemed at the time. They could have been young, old, or in between. No one should get past your scrutiny. Now think about it, Hook,” Stokes suggested earnestly.
“Well, you know, there were several who I thought it could’ve been back then, but heck Joshua, they was just boys, maybe ten, eleven years old or so. I never… well, I don’t know what to say,” James mumbled.
“They cut your goats heads off, Hook,” Joshua said, “And then they cut their udders off and gouged out their vaginas, the same as with these women here.
I don’t know exactly what they do to the men that are being mutilated over in George County, or even if it’s the same ones doing it; I ain’t seen no pictures of them yet.”
“Why ain’t this crap making the news then? I haven’t heard anything about it.”
“Cause we have to keep things under wraps. People will freak out if they know about this stuff. If the public panics, we will have more than we can handle. By keeping it on the down low, we can investigate it better.
What boys were you referring to?”
“They were from over there on Box Road. Lived way in the back where they subdivided Boots Foster’s old homestead. Those younguns was always a coming through them woods towards my house. They was trying to get my boys to hang out with em, but I told mine if I caught em off with them boys, I’d beat the hide off em. Didn’t like their looks at all; I could tell something wouldn’t right about them two.”
“Do they still live back there?” Stokes asked, hoping that they did.
“You know, I don’t know if they do or not Joshua. I put them as far from my mind as I could, once they quit coming around the house, which now that I think about it, was right after my goats were killed.
I was just glad they weren’t coming around anymore, if you know what I mean.”
“You don’t remember what their names were, do you?” Joshua asked.
“Their last name was Dixon, I think, but I’m not sure.”
“I think I know who you’re talking about; those two have always been into something. I was called to the school once because they had put a dead field rat into the science teacher’s desk. I even heard they would bury kittens up to their neck and then run
over them with a lawnmower. Now that’s perverted. That right there will tell you those boy’s ain’t right in the head!”
“They’d be in their twenties by now, same as my boys,” James offered.
“Yeah, I know. I will look into them. I’m glad I run into you this morning,” Stokes said, lighting another cigarette. He held the pack out toward James, offering him another.
“Well, I’m glad I could help, if that is what you want to call it,” James replied, shaking his head and taking the cigarette Stokes was offering.
They sat there and talked a few more minutes, enjoying the camaraderie before Joshua drove James back to the barbershop so he could get his pickup.
As Joshua drove out of the parking lot onto Moffett Road, a black Ford Mustang, that seemed to appear out of nowhere, broadsided his truck!
James Fortner had seen it all. Watched in horror as the Mustang hit then flipped over Stokes patrol car. It then flipped several more times, before sliding on its roof about two hundred feet past the barbershop.
James jumped out of his truck and ran across the parking lot toward Stokes’ vehicle, hoping his friend was all right, but before he reached him, he could see Joshua’s upper body hanging out the driver’s window, blood pooling on the ground beneath him.
James was stunned into silence, immobilized from the shock of what had just happened; and it happened so fast, so unexpected.
James had witnessed countless fights and injuries in his lifetime, but he had never witnessed anything like this happen to someone he was so close to.
8
fortunate one
“It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no fortunate one y’all,” the singer sung, and Emma thought it quite profound. Especially at this time, with her being as unfortunate as she was, but she would take profoundness anytime over the surreal, unrealistic way she had been feeling. At least this profoundness was something that was solid and real, something she could grasp and take a hold of, feel, recognize.
Listening to the music, Emma began to wonder about their music choices. They listened to music day and night; music seemed to fuel them. Most of the songs were either extremely edgy or very much laid back. All the songs they listened to were about politics, drugs and alcohol, or death; a few were about sex. She had never heard any twangy country or bluesy Negro type music floating down to where she was.
The warm soapy water felt good on her sore aching body, but she was so sick and ashamed she could not fully enjoy it.
One of the men sat on the toilet watching her as she bathed. He was the nicer one it seemed, but the emptiness in his eyes worried Emma.
The eyes are the mirror to the soul. She had heard that her whole life and if it were so, then his soul was hallow, dark, and empty.
His eyes were blank. They held no light, no tenderness, no color to speak of, at least not that she could make out. There were no twinkles in them, no crow’s feet around the edges, no luster… Emma wondered if they had ever held any life at all. His eyes were expressionless, like those of a dead fish.
Emma soaped her exposed body parts and then slipped down beneath the water, running her fingers back and forth through her hair.
That was when she felt the sore spot on her head. It had a scab covering it, as if it was healing. This caused her to try to add up how long it takes a cut to form a scab. If she could do that, maybe she would know how long they had held her there. It was probably days, not weeks or months as she had first thought, but the pink mimosas she smelt and saw returned to her thoughts.
If it were still March, they would not yet be in bloom, unless the milder than usual winter had something to do with them blooming early.
Then, she remembered that the window with pink blossoms might not even be real. If it were not real then what was it she smelt, if it was not mimosa?
Was it a trick of the mind? The subconscious mind that sees something and then associates it with something that one has experienced; she was unsure, but the more she thought about it the more she was convinced that it was just an imitation of a window, a painted scene.
The mimosas probably did not exist at all, except painted on the window as if it were a canvas.
“You need to hurry up” he said, his voice causing her to jump at the unexpected verbal command. He had not uttered a word since the other one had told him to sit in there and watch her.
“Why?” Emma asked, setting upright with one arm across her bosom. She was curious as to why he was suddenly in a hurry for her to get out of the tub.
Once she sat up, she noticed the blackened bath water. Emma figured it was probably from the dye they used on her hair.
“He will be ready for you,” the man replied monotonically, his tone level, showing no emotion at all.
His words sent chills down her spine as she remembered the sounds coming from above her earlier, but since he was willing to talk, she asked, “Ready for me for what?” she wanted to know what he would say, but at the same time, she dreaded what he might say.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” he replied, his tone the same. Everything about him scared her now.
As Emma talked with him, she was giving him a good going-over and as she did, he looked over toward her.
Suddenly, she remembered him from the campground. He was the man that was wielding the axe!
Emma wanted to run as fast as she could away from him, but there was no escape. There was nowhere for her to go; he was between her and the door.
“I’m ready. Bring the jezebel to me!” a voice commanded loudly from the other room.
Emma tried to resist as the one who was in the bathroom with her grabbed her arm and then jerked her upright in the tub and began moving toward the door.
Resisting him was futile; he was just too strong. Emma stepped out of the tub.
Another song began to play loudly from the other room. It was a song called War Pigs, by the group Black Sabbath. Emma remembered it from the frat party she and Rhonda attended the past September.
Axe man jerked her arm again forcing her to stop daydreaming and move toward the door.
When they first entered the large open room, Emma did not see anyone. Her escort dragged her to the center of the room and commenced tying her to a large wagon wheel that was suspended between two posts.
When the light in the center of the room switched on, the lighter objects glowed white. Emma caught a glimpse of something white glowing in the corner of the room, but before she could examine it with her eyes, he forced her to turn and face him.
As far as she could tell, there were no windows.
Tying her up the way he did, left Emma stretched out and straddle-legged.
Her captor tied a blindfold on her, covering her eyes. For a couple of minutes after that, she could feel no one near her just the vibrations of the music. Then, she felt something light and feathery touching along her inner thighs, around her nipples and then lower to the tattoo; goose bumps unexpectedly covered her body.
She felt a jerk of the wooden wheel and as her body and the wheel began to spin, she heard the sound of someone trying to imitate a pig grunting and snorting.
At least that was what she thought it was, and as she and the wheel spun, the music played on and on of ‘War Pigs’ and black masses. The feathery feelings continued all over her body and her private areas. The spinning was making her nauseated and she thought she would throw up.
When the Black Sabbath song ended, she heard the beginning of a song she remembered hearing coming from above her earlier, or maybe it was the night before. The lyrics were something about, do you feel like I do.
The song was not familiar, but if she were not where she was, she might have enjoyed the songs slow up and down rhythm.
Someone stopped the spinning of the wheel and untied the blindfold. Emma was dizzy. She felt nauseated, and it was hard to focus. When the room stopped spinning, there before her stood a naked man.
He was wearing what at first appeared to be a real pig�
�s head, which covered his own and sat squarely upon his shoulders.
As her dizziness subsided, Emma could see it was a rubbery looking, artificial pig head, not a real one.
Instead of becoming more scared, crying, or outright screaming, at the bizarre scene before her, Emma becomes curious. She watches him as he circles around her while he sways to the groove of the music.
He seems lost in the music’s rhythm, but still teases her body with the feather duster.
It is as if she has also become mesmerized. She relaxes to the music and the sensations the feathers are causing. Then he ruins it, when he progresses to rubbing his naked body against hers; it sickens her.
His physical touch is disturbing; the pig head, almost comical. Emma asks him to remove it; he does so.
She can now look into his eyes.
His eyes, are not blank, they hold signs of life. This in itself gives Emma some hope, but also causes concern. After all, he was the one who had called her bad names and spat on her.
Just as Emma thinks she may come away from the ordeal unscathed, he runs his hand between her legs and begins rubbing and probing her.
Emma tries to move from his touch, but tied to the wheel, she cannot move much at all. The only movement Emma can accomplish is to twist her hips from side to side.
She cannot stop him when he bites her bare breast so hard that she cannot hold back the scream that bursts forth from her throat, but Emma is determined that she will not beg. Whatever he is going to do, he just needs to get it over with, her brain screamed, while her lips remained silent.
Suddenly, he released his grip on her, turned, and walked away. The one with the blank eyes untied her and then led her down the stairs into the basement.
Emma took this time to look around.
On one wall, there were 3-foot square, metal doors mounted about waist high. They reminded her of refrigerator doors, but smaller.
One of the doors was open and had a metal table protruding from it. This was where he led her when they reached the bottom of the stairs.
