The Wicked

by James Newman

  “Wait!” David yelled, struggling to climb onto the windowsill. “Stop!”

  “Daddy!” Becca reached out with one free arm toward her father. “Daddy, help!”

  “Motherfucker! What are you—” David leapt through the window and to the ground.

  He sprinted through the light copse of trees that separated his yard from the ex-Marine’s. Santa Claus had one hell of a head start on him, but Becca’s struggles were slowing him down.

  “Stop it!” David heard the man say to Becca as she fought to worm her way out of his grip. “Stay still, you little shit!”

  David growled with fury, lunging after the man. His movements felt dream-like, as if he were stuck in slow motion while the man before him continued on at reality’s pace.

  “Put me down!” Becca cried. “Daddy!”

  “Stop!” David shouted.

  “Ow!” The man in the Santa suit yelped, and David’s heart stuttered. Becca must have bitten him.

  That’s my baby. Do it again!

  And then it was over as quickly as it had begun.

  David slid to a stop in the dewy grass as a shape suddenly came at them. Before he even knew what was happening, the tall black figure brought a bottle down hard as it could atop the kidnapper’s head. Looked like a big empty liquor bottle, David thought, though he couldn’t tell for sure in the darkness. The bottle did not break, just made a hollow clunk sound atop Santa’s skull, then went twirling away in a sparkle of moonlight to land in the grass.

  Santa crumpled to the ground and Becca tumbled out of his arms into the grass.

  “You okay, honey?” George Heatherly asked Becca.

  The little girl didn’t answer. She ran for her father, fell into his arms, and David collapsed to his knees as he embraced her.

  “Oh, baby, baby,” he whispered, showering his daughter with kisses. “Are you okay, baby? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  Becca shook her head, whimpered into the crook of David’s shoulder.

  David watched his next-door neighbor walk toward them. The old man wore a dirty white T-shirt—HOOF ARTED? read its logo—and tight cut-off blue-jean shorts beneath his maroon bathrobe. His legs were even paler than Becca’s in the night.

  George offered David a reassuring smile as he closed the distance between them. David wanted to smile back, but did not have it in him. He held Becca tighter than ever, afraid to ever let her go.

  “What the hell was that?” David said, watching the shape of the fallen man a few feet away. As if Santa might jump back up and tear Becca from his arms any second.

  George Heatherly gave a barely noticeable shrug, glanced over his shoulder at the dark shape in the middle of his property. It wasn’t moving. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought I heard something. There he was, outside your house, snooping around.”

  “Daddy...what’s wrong with Santa Claus?” Becca wept, her tears dampening David’s shirt. “Why’s he turned so mean?”

  David didn’t know what to say.

  “Kate, we have a problem,” David said as soon as she picked up the phone. He stood in the center of their kitchen, pacing back and forth while George brewed a pot of coffee nearby.

  “Looks like it’s gonna be a while till I get back to the hospital, honey.”

  “What’s the matter?” Kate’s voice was instantly worried. “Is Becca okay?”

  “Becca’s fine,” David said. “I started not to call you, because I didn’t want you to freak out. But I’m going to be a while.”

  “Oh my God, David. What’s happened?”

  “First of all,” David said, “how’s the baby?”

  “He’s fine. Sleeping. David, please tell me what’s going on.”

  David told her what had happened, trying to keep his voice calm as the memories of the last few minutes came rushing back to him, trying his best to downplay the situation as he relayed the events to his wife. Still, he knew how she would react.

  “Oh, God!” Kate cried. “Who is he? What did he want with her? Oh, my poor baby!”

  “Everything’s going to be fine, sweetheart,” David said.

  “Where is she? Where’s my baby? I want to talk to her.”

  “Becca’s okay,” David said. “You know how kids are. So resilient.” He smiled uneasily at Heatherly, but George’s back was to him. The ex-Marine was staring out the window over the kitchen sink, nervously tapping his knuckles upon the countertop. “She’s asleep, on the couch. You’d think nothing even happened.”

  “Oh, God, David,” Kate cried. “Please don’t let her out of your sight. That’s just awful. The poor thing...”

  “I won’t,” David said. “I can see her right now.” He glanced down the hall, toward the living room, where Becca slept on the sofa beneath the soft glow of a nearby lamp.

  “Where was Joel?” Kate said. “I thought he was watching Becca!”

  “He was,” David said. “We met in the driveway. This guy must have sneaked into the window during the minute or so we were outside talking.”

  “You mean he left her alone?”

  “It wasn’t like that, Kate. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Oh, God, my baby...are you sure she’s okay, David? Please tell me the truth.”

  “She’s fine, hon, I promise. She was a bit shaken up by the whole thing, but she’s sleeping now. She’s going to be okay. You just need to take care of yourself and Christopher. You don’t need this. I’m here. Becca is fine. Mr. Heatherly—”

  “George,” the ex-Marine said, and David flinched. He hadn’t realized his neighbor had been paying attention to their conversation.

  “George has promised to hang around until the sheriff arrives.”

  The coffeemaker at last stopped, and George poured steaming mugs of java for them both.

  “Thanks,” David whispered, tilting the phone away from his mouth.

  In David’s ear, Kate cried, “I can’t believe someone would...oh, my poor Becca—”

  “I know. But it’s gonna be okay. The man who tried to take her...believe me, he’s gonna get what’s coming to him.”

  “They caught him already?” Kate asked, and David could hear her shifting over the phone, changing positions in her hospital bed. “Please tell me they caught him.”

  “We did. We have him.”

  “You do?”

  “In the bathroom. We got that sonofabitch.”

  Considering the situation, Kate did not scold him for his profanity.

  “David, he’s in the...in our bathroom?”

  “Tied up with duct-tape. He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Oh, my God,” Kate said, for what must have been the millionth time.

  “It’s the guy from the mall, Kate. Santa Claus.” David tried his damnedest to keep that I-told-you-so tone out of his voice.

  Kate could do nothing but stammer into her end of the phone, confused. “But, no...that can’t be. I mean...why, David? What does he want with Becca?”

  “I don’t know. But I intend to find out.”

  “David...please don’t do anything stupid.”

  “I won’t,” he assured her, though he didn’t sound very confident.

  At the sound of several pained grunts echoing through the lavatory in the next room, David told Kate he had to go. She protested, but he told her he loved her, promised to call her later with any new developments, and with a final goodbye and a “kiss little Christopher for me” he hung up the phone.

  “Let’s do this.” George headed down the hallway before David had set the phone down.

  Both of their cups of coffee remained untouched for now.

  David followed the ex-Marine toward the bathroom, his heart thudding almost painfully in his chest.

  CHAPTER 40

  Sheriff Guice and Deputy Keenan were finally able to calm Joel. Tears streaked Rohrig’s tan face but at last his sobs had softened into quiet whimpers in the back of Keenan’s patrol car as the deputy drove him back toward town. Sheriff Guice stayed behi
nd at the scene of the accident, calling in a fellow from Plymill & Sons Funeral Home to take care of Michael’s body. Meanwhile, it was up to Keenan to respond to the call at Rohrig’s brother-in-law’s place, something about an attempted kidnapping.

  Deputy Keenan opted not to utilize the patrol car’s siren, though he did engage the vehicle’s swirling lights as he approached Honeysuckle Lane. They washed across the houses along Morganville’s dark streets, changing their colors from red to blue then back again as Keenan cruised by.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that,” the deputy said to Joel as they headed down Pellham Road toward town. “We never knew...”

  Joel’s only reply was a soft sniffle from the backseat.

  “It’s hard, I know,” Keenan said. He glanced in the rearview mirror, saw the younger man’s swollen red eyes staring back at him. “I know it sounds like so much bullshit, but it’s true what they say. Time does heal all wounds.”

  “First Michael, now Becca,” Joel moaned. “This is all too much to handle.”

  “I know,” Keenan said.

  Only the gentle rumbling of the vehicle’s engine and the rhythmic hum of its tires on the asphalt below filled the silence between the two men for the next few minutes.

  Finally though, Deputy Keenan said, so matter-of-factly that Joel thought at first he might have drifted off there in the backseat of the patrol car and dreamed it altogether: “In all honesty, though, I just can’t relate. Seeing how I’ve never sucked a dick before. Or let another man ream my ass.”

  Joel’s breath caught in his throat.

  “Excuse me?”

  Surely he had misunderstood. Joel stared at Deputy Keenan’s broad back, at the fiery orange sprigs of hair sticking out from beneath his Smokey-bear hat. He’d always liked Hank Keenan, had always thought the deputy was a good man. But now this...

  Keenan took a right onto Honeysuckle Lane, said nothing else.

  No way, Joel thought. He had to have misunderstood the deputy’s words. He could think of no other explanation.

  “Why did you do it?” David asked as they stood over the man in the filthy Santa suit. His costume stank of mildew, and was more a red-gray now than its original bright crimson. Looked like he’d worn the damn thing for the last six months. Smelled like he’d shit himself in it several times as well.

  He was sprawled beneath them, in the bathtub.

  “Hold on,” George said. He ripped the piece of duct tape off the man’s mouth. The man hissed through his teeth as some of his moustache came off with it. “Now.”

  “Fuck you,” said the false Santa. They had already removed his thick white wig and beard and his elfin hat to expose the man beneath: late thirties, greasy black hair speckled with flakes of dandruff, thick stubble at his jawline and all the way down his double chins. A thin rivulet of blood trickled from the nasty red welt just below his hairline, and his bloodshot eyes twitched back and forth in futile efforts to focus on his captors. “I don’t have to tell you nothing.”

  “That’s fine,” Heatherly said. “You can tell the sheriff.”

  David said, “You’re going away for a long time, asshole.”

  “Suck my dick,” said Santa Claus.

  It took every bit of willpower David had not to punch the man. His right fist clenched so tightly that he would later see the blood-red crescents left by his fingernails in his palms and he would forget how those little cuts got there, but he was able to refrain from doing anything stupid. Just barely.

  “You some kinda fucking sicko?” said George Heatherly. “Maybe you get off on touching little girls?”

  Santa said nothing, just stared at the men standing over him. Sweat ran down his forehead and across his nose. He bared his teeth at George, teeth that were yellowed and speckled with crumbs from his last meal.

  “Come here, you piece of shit,” George said. He leaned over the man, reached into Santa’s pocket, searching for something. The man rocked back and forth, fighting him, but his movements did little to deter George’s search.

  “Here we go.” George pulled out the man’s wallet.

  “Give that back!”

  “Shut up.” Heatherly rifled through the man’s wallet, pulled out the man’s driver’s license and held it up toward the light.

  “Frederick Leonard Dawson.”

  “What were you trying to do with my little girl, you bastard?” David demanded to know.

  “I ain’t no kiddie fucker,” Dawson finally explained, his voice hoarse. “I did it ‘cause I had to.”

  “Had to.” David shook his head, looked at George. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  George Heatherly did not have to try to be intimidating. Here was a man for whom such a thing came naturally. A guy who didn’t take shit from anybody, never had. David was glad to have the old man on his side.

  “Maybe we’ll tell the sheriff we had to stomp the living hell out of you,” George told the man in the tub. “Didn’t have no choice.”

  “Fuck you. I don’t have to tell you nothin’. You’re gonna see, though. Soon.” The man in the Santa costume nodded vigorously, as best he could within his tight, sticky bonds. “Oh, yeah. You’re gonna see.”

  “Hm,” said George, unimpressed.

  “You wouldn’t understand anyway. This is all so much bigger than you two fucks.”

  “Why don’t you try us?” George said, and his calm tone mocked the man’s incoherent rambling. He glanced toward David, his eyebrows raised. David shook his head, gave a barely-perceptible shrug. “We’re trying to understand, believe me. We’re also trying not to beat the living shit out of you right here, right now, but then that’s just us. We like to think we’re good upstanding citizens.”

  “He’s gonna kill you all, you know,” Dawson said, and his voice was unbelievably calm for a man who had obviously lost his mind long ago. “Every last one of you.”

  “And who the hell is ‘he?’” David asked.

  “Tell whoever he is to bring it on,” said George.

  “You’re all gonna die, for getting in his way. Slowly. I can promise you that.”

  “Who’s ‘he?’” David asked again.

  “He’s older than God,” Dawson insisted. Where his voice was calm before, as his lunatic preaching grew more and more bizarre, his tone grew louder. Spittle flew from his lips now as he ranted. His sour breath wafted up to assault his captors’ nostrils, and the smell of alcohol that seemed to ooze from his every pore filled the air stronger than ever. “He’s more powerful than anything you’ve ever seen! He’s gonna bring my son back...he’s gonna make everything all right again. Because he can. Because he can do anything. The master is growing more powerful every day. And he’s gonna make you cocksuckers wish you were never fuckin’ born.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Heatherly. “Your son?”

  “My boy.” Tears welled up in the man’s eyes. He sniffled loudly. “Billy.”

  “Ah, shit.” It had already hit George. He understood now. He understood everything. “Billy Dawson...”

  “Oh, hell,” said David. This explained everything. David felt, for at least a second or two, a knot of pity deep in his stomach for the man who lay before them. No wonder the guy had lost his frigging mind—David figured he would do the same, if something ever happened to Becca. Or baby Christopher, who was only a couple hours old. He’d go stark raving mad, he was sure of it.

  “What’s with the Santa getup, anyway?” George asked the man. “Christmas was over a month ago, freak.”

  “He’s gonna make you pay,” was Dawson’s only reply, and now the smile upon his pale, sweaty face sent chills down David Little’s spine. That awful yellow smile seemed to belong not to Fred Dawson at all, but to something dark hidden deep inside of him.

  “You’re gonna wish you never fucked with Moloch,” Dawson growled.

  “I think the sheriff’s here,” George said above the sound of a car pulling up outside. He turned to leave the room, but then stopped
as David squatted again, leaned down before his prisoner so their faces were mere inches away from one another.

  “What did you say?” David asked the man. His eyes grew impossibly wide, almost as wild as those of the man in the Santa Claus suit. George touched his shoulder, but David did not seem to notice the gesture. “What the fuck did you just say?”

  “Mr. Moloch’s gonna kill every last one of you motherfuckers,” Dawson said, still smiling that terrible smile. “But he’ll reward me. In the end. You’ll see.”

  “Gimme a break,” George Heatherly said. “Fuckin’ drunk. David, this guy doesn’t even know where he’s fuckin’ at.”

  David’s expression, however, seemed to hint that there might be more to this than they first thought. He looked ill now.

  “Moloch,” David said. He grabbed the man’s collar, shook him. “Where did you hear that word?”

  “You’re not even worthy to say his name!” Fred Dawson spat, rolling about in the empty tub. “He’ll punish you for that! He will punish you for that! Oh, motherfucker, you are going to burn.”

  “Shut the fuck up, will you?” George Heatherly said, before punching the man in the nose.

  Fred Dawson’s nose gushed thick, dark blood. George stepped back and grimaced at the sight of the man’s fluids on his tattooed knuckles. He wiped his hands on his blue-jean shorts.

  “What’s with this fuckin’ psycho?” the old man asked.

  David’s only reply: “Moloch.”

  David’s knees were weak and he dizzy as that name buzzed through his head like a swarm of angry hornets. What the hell was going on around here? What kind of screwed-up town had Kate dragged their family into?

  And why did that name—Moloch—keep popping up every time he turned around?

  On the other side of the house, someone knocked urgently and a muffled voice called out from behind the front door: “David? Are you there? It’s Joel. Open the door, man!”

  CHAPTER 41

  Joel shot a nervous glance toward the big redheaded deputy sheriff standing beside him as soon as David opened the door.

  “David, this is, um, Deputy Keenan,” he said.