by Hadena James
My hospital room had a door. Lucas stationed a chair so that he could see out the small window. I wondered if we were in the psych ward and decided I really didn’t want the answer in case it was a yes.
We were approximately seventy miles from home. I would not be flying. They’d have someone drive me home. Flying and I don’t always agree, especially when I was seriously injured. Something about my ears never wanting to pressurize. Xavier would make me do all the silly things people did to get their ears to pop, but it never worked. My highest hope was that when we landed, the sensation that I was listening to the world through cotton would go away in a few hours.
“Well?” Lucas asked me.
“Well what?” I replied.
“Are you disappointed or glad to be going home?”
“I have a week of Malachi in my future. I think I would prefer to be set on fire. Maybe mom would want to come stay with me. That would be fine.”
“Call her before you leave,” Lucas closed his eyes and reclined. I stared at the tiled ceiling wondering if my head hurt more than normal because of the skull fracture or if it was the medications.
Free
Nick was released from jail on a Tuesday. He’d missed the weekend. His plans for the fair would have to be reconsidered. However, he had seen an interesting news story about the US Marshals’ Serial Crimes Tracking Unit being at the Missouri State Fair. He wondered if they had been there for him. It had never been in his plans as a target. Even on its worse days, there was too much security. Also, it was a little far for him to travel.
With a cold beer in one hand and a bottle of industrial drain cleaner in the other, he stopped to think. How had he come this far? He didn’t know when the transition had happened. One day he’d been a loving father, devoted husband and executive. The next thing he knew, the barbecues and white picket fence were gone, replaced by drain cleaner and hatred.
The only thing going his way was his job. He hadn’t been fired. The boss wanted him back on the job first thing tomorrow morning. Drinking and driving had just been one bad decision in a string of them. He drained the beer with one last, long swig and tossed it into a trash can. He used to recycle, but he couldn’t even be bothered by that anymore.
In his inebriated condition, he considered calling the St. Charles police department. Turn himself in, get a cell and three hot meals a day. If he was lucky, he’d end up in The Fortress, very little socializing required. His ex-wife could choke on the news and lack of maintenance payments.
Although, after being a guest of the police department, he decided he didn’t want the inbred rednecks that ran the place to get the glory of catching him. He’d earned a name for himself, a reputation. The press was calling him the Carnival Killer. It was sort of catchy. He liked it. It was one of the few bright spots in his life. He was famous, even if no one knew it.
His body was tired. He grabbed another beer, tossed the drain cleaner on the floor and went into the living room. His body fell onto the sofa without him even thinking about it. The plastic bottle in the kitchen made a loud boom as it exploded. He’d have holes in his cabinets and floor and maybe the ceiling, if he didn’t go clean it up. But hell, that was the sort of thing that was expected from bombers. He’d deal with it later. His hands found the remote control and he turned on The Weather Channel. An episode of Prospectors was coming on. He watched it until he passed out.
Stinging eyes and a runny nose woke him up. The Weather Channel was announcing the conditions for the next day. The sulfuric acid in the drain cleaner was producing fumes from eating away at all the materials in his kitchen. His head hurt, but he got up from the couch.
He found the baking soda in the pantry and began to sprinkle it on everything. The fizzling and burning sounds stopped almost instantly upon the powdery substance coating the goo it had become.
Damn it, Nicky. He scolded himself mentally. He should not drink. It had terrible effects on him. Why had he tossed the bottle onto the floor anyway?
You are losing it, pal. Do crazy people know they’re crazy? His mind asked. Nick didn’t know the answer. He did know it wasn’t normal to talk to yourself, even if it was just in his head. When it started happening out loud, he’d become really concerned. He was sure that time would come sooner than later.
He let the baking soda sit for a while. Getting sulfuric acid on the skin wasn’t fun, it ate through biological material fast. He searched for his rubber gloves, the big kind that went up to the elbows and protected you from just about everything. As he did, he opened windows to let the smell escape.
The cabinets were ruined. The counter had holes in the protective coating. The linoleum floor had cracked and faded where the largest puddle of liquid had sat. Smaller areas of discoloration and damage could be seen radiating from it. In high school, he’d seen sulfuric acid used on the corpse of a rat. It had completely dissolved it in under three minutes. Of course, that had been pure and this had only been an 80/20 mix. It was enough to do the job though. He had dreamed about hitting his ex-wife in the head with an axe and then covering her in the stuff to watch her bubble and melt away.
However, killing the mother of his child was not acceptable. He’d have to deal with substitutes. The baking soda box was empty. The kitchen seemed safe enough. He went in with a rag and began to scrub everything.
It was early morning when he finished. Only three hours before he had to go to work. His head still hurt. His nose still burned. Only his eyes seemed to have cleansed themselves of the caustic fumes.
If he hadn’t spent nearly a week in jail, he might have called in today. But he desperately needed the money and now, to get out of the house for a while. He went upstairs to shower.
The water felt good on his skin. It was hot. The bathroom quickly filled with steam. The shower eased his throbbing head. The steam soothed his nose and sinus passages. He dressed quickly, going through the motions without really paying attention. Bright yellow shirt, jeans, boots, and finally socks thick enough to protect his feet and make them horribly hot and smelly by the end of the day. However, he’d seen guys with concrete poisoning and he didn’t want to end up with all the skin burnt off his feet.
He entered the garage and stopped. It felt like something was wrong. It felt like someone had been inside the garage. Nothing seemed out of place, but Nick rushed to his room to get the last set of photos he’d taken. He’d felt that way before in his garage. That’s why he’d started taking the photos in the first place.
It was the largest find the differences game he’d ever played. His eyes scanned only a small part of the photo before moving to the real scene. His gaze feel on every tool, every piece of equipment, even the cobwebs and dust caught his attention. For over an hour, he worked his way through the room, examining the photos and matching it up to everything he saw.
Nothing was out of place, not a single cobweb or dust bunny. His garage looked exactly the way he had left it the night before he’d gone to jail. He shook his head.
Nicky, your paranoia is getting the better of you. He berated himself. Besides, to most people, the garage would look like a garage. He had all sorts of stuff in there, but everyone had lots of stuff in their garage. Some of it looked more practical than other stuff, more commonplace, but it was all garage like stuff.
The coolers might look a little odd, he had dozens of the soft-sided nylon and foil coolers that didn’t do a very good job of keeping things cool. However, that’s why he bought them. Without ice, the chemicals heated up at a good steady pace until they were warm enough to react.
His car was parked outside the garage. He never parked it inside, it took up too much space. Space that he needed to work.
As he was about to hit the garage door opener, his gaze fell on the map. It looked normal. Nothing out of place, but there was a small smudge in the corner. He didn’t remember there being a smudge. That didn’t mean there wasn’t, he was always dirty when he got home, perhaps when he inserted a pin, he left a smudge.
The smudge nagged at him.
Chapter Ten
Dante was wrong. There are more than nine levels in Hell. Currently, I was stuck in level twenty or so, it was called “family time.” My niece, Cassie, was on summer vacation and she was all about helping babysit her aunt. She was still at the age where she thought I was cool. Her younger brother, Kyle, was more interested in my collection of serial killer literature that my sister-in-law had hidden away the first day that they came to stay with me.
The three magpies were in my dining room discussing the day’s schedule. They appeared to have a schedule for everything. Even the week’s meals were completely planned out and it was only Wednesday. There was no spontaneity in their life, they knew that tonight we were having roast with potatoes, carrots, onions and mushrooms. There would be gravy, green beans and toast served with it. The roast was already in the slow cooker. Tomorrow night we were having spaghetti and Friday night we were having something with the word casserole at the end. I had every intention of ordering out that night, even if they didn’t know it yet.
So far, they had been with me every day since I had been home. To add to this festive family fun, my mother was upstairs in a guest room, sleeping in. Since it was six a.m., I wasn’t sure what that meant for her, but it was way too early for me. I hated being up at six in the morning. The only reason I was awake at this exact moment was that my nephew, in his haste to get downstairs to attend the family meeting before going to some kind of practice, had tripped about half way down. The commotion had woken my mother, but she went back to bed a few minutes after discovering Kyle was fine, claiming that she hadn’t slept well the night before and would be up in a few hours.
I had not been so fortunate. As I had turned to return to my room, my very perky niece had grabbed hold of my pajama top and proceeded to ask questions about my visible scars, like she was making a mental catalogue in case she had to identify my mangled remains. I could verbally attack her like I did most people that asked about them, but instead found myself answering questions as she pointed to different spots on my arms, shoulders and feet.
After about ten minutes of this, her mother had discovered the conversation and chastised Cassie for being rude while apologizing to me. I had shrugged it off and told her it was no big deal. However, I was awake, at least for a while and found myself sitting on the couch considering different absurd things. My current imagining was that Colombian drug lords decided to do a slash and burn of all the coffee plantations in the country and the repercussions on the world’s coffee market as a whole. These inane mind wanderings kept me from thinking homicidal thoughts about the people who were here to look after me.
“Aislinn, I’m going to take Kyle to camp today, so he’ll be out of your hair for the next few days,” my sister-in-law said. Elle was a strong, determined woman of German stock. Her fighting spirit came from her parents, who fled Germany at the start of World War II and lived by their wits as they crossed into France just ahead of the invading German army. Eventually, her father found a spot in the British Royal Army and her mother was moved to the US. They were happily reunited after the war. However, they had given their poor daughter a name that captured that spirit in German. Helmine Bathild was her first and middle name. She never used them and glared when others did.
“Sure, Elle,” this left me with Cassie and Mom all day and the three women in the evenings.
“Do you need anything on my way home?” She asked. I considered all the things I could ask for and rejected them all. Finally I shook my head. “Ok, Cassie, don’t bug your aunt.”
“Yes mom,” my niece rolled her eyes so far into the top of her head, I wondered if she was possessed. Elle and Kyle left. Cassie plopped down on the couch next to me, picked up my favorite lap blanket and snuggled down against the arm of the furniture.
“What do you want to do?” She asked.
“Don’t you ever sleep in?” I asked her.
“Not really,” Cassie answered. “Usually when I’m sick.”
“I thought you were in charge of entertaining me, not the other way around,” I asked, raising an eyebrow at the teenager.
“Well, I can’t figure out what you like to do. You play video games and listen to movies and chase bad guys. Or you put on headphones and listen to music while reading. None of those are really two people activities.”
“I’m not really used to having people around.”
“You have people around; Nyleena, Xavier, Lucas, Gabriel, Michael and Malachi, not to mention Oma.” Cassie indicated my mother, Oma was the German diminutive that the kids used to talk about their grandmother.
“Well, I mostly chase bad guys with four of the seven you mentioned. Nyleena and I watch movies together, usually Monty Python. Not really your thing, I think. And your Oma and I, well, we just talk.”
“You could talk to me,” Cassie suggested.
“About what?” I asked her. “It is summer, I don’t believe you want to talk about school. I don’t date or understand men, so talking about boys is out. We don’t like the same music or movies and I get the impression you’re not really into history.”
“What do you and Oma talk about?”
“Life,” I sighed. Usually, it was just the highlights reel of my life and the down and dirty of my mother’s. I was pretty sure my mom wanted to know and understand more about what I really did, but I was also pretty sure I didn’t want to tell her. It felt like tainting her, which was strange given the life she had already led.
“So, talk about life,” Cassie suggested.
“You don’t want to hear about my life.” I assured her.
“Why aren’t you married?” Cassie asked.
“I’m twenty-seven,” I responded. “Why do I need to be married?”
“Ok, why don’t you date?” Cassie asked.
That was complicated. I didn’t date because I didn’t have sexual urges and all my emotional needs were fulfilled by the few people already in my life. Romantic love was outside my scope of understanding. However, explaining that to a wide-eyed teenager who hadn’t even attended her first prom yet was like scaling Everest without equipment.
“Because,” I shrugged at her. “Because I don’t understand men any better than I understand the universe. Actually, I understand the universe better.”
“What about Malachi?”
“Malachi is,” I frowned. “Malachi is like my evil twin.” I let my face change to a smile. “You don’t date your evil twin, it’s just weird.”
Cassie giggled at that. For the first time, I realized life was taking its toll on my niece. Her face already had more frown lines than smile lines. She looked older than fifteen going on sixteen. Most people probably wouldn’t have carded her for cigarettes or alcohol. Despite her lack of a tan, her skin seemed dry and old. That was something I could understand. I had looked old at fifteen. I looked older than twenty-seven now. Smoking hadn’t helped, but the damage had been done long before I had taken up that bad habit. There was a moment of connection with my niece, something I had never really had before. However, like a wisp of smoke, it disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
“Have you seen my dad?” Cassie asked, her voice quiet.
“Yes,” I said. “A few times. He misses you and Kyle.”
“Do you think he’ll ever get out?” She asked.
“I don’t know,” I lied through my teeth. My brother was never getting out. The guards at the Fortress might have been sympathetic to his plight, but society was not. It was easier to get sympathy as a crack addict on a drug-fueled paranoid killing streak than to get sympathy as an everyday person driven to mass murder. The new laws were great at keeping serial killers and mass murderers out of the general population, they weren’t known for clemency or sympathy. Elle and my mother could argue diminished capacity all they wanted, it wouldn’t do any good. The same laws that gave me power kept my brother behind bars. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
“Cassie?” I turned my full atte
ntion to my niece. “When you think about your dad, I want you to remember that he did the same thing I did. He killed a handful of bad people because they were killers. The difference is that I do it while wearing a badge. He is not a bad guy, just a guy who got caught up in a bad situation. I cannot tell you if what he did was right or wrong. That is a decision you have to make, on your own. I can tell you that if I had been older, it could just as easily been me on that roof with that rifle.”
“Aunt Aislinn?”
“Yes?”
“How many people have you killed?”
“More than you need to know about,” I told her. “It is never my goal.”
“So, it just happens?” Cassie’s voice held doubt.
“I consider it a side effect of my life.”
“It sounds like an effect,” Cassie giggled.
“Some would agree with you,” I smiled at her.
“You look younger when you smile, you should do it more often,” Cassie told me.
“My life is not conducive to smiling,” I admitted.
“And the way you talk. Wow! It’s like you just stepped out a Victorian novel or something. No one talks that way anymore and haven’t for like a hundred plus years. You need to learn some slang.”
“No, no I do not.” I said. At that point, my niece began correcting my English to make me sound like a more modern human being. I took it in and learned a few new words that I never intended to use unless I was being tortured into it.
Chapter Eleven
“Oh thank God,” I said as Gabriel came through my front door. Cassie gave me a strange look. I tried to ignore it. I had spent an entire day doing arts and crafts with her and my mother. Elle had come home and finished dinner, telling us to enjoy what we were doing. This meant I was stuck with the arts and crafts thing. We seemed to be making bracelets that melted in the oven. I wasn’t entirely sure I had grasped the concept despite being on my fifth bracelet. I also wasn’t sure why Cassie seemed to be enjoying it so much. At fifteen, I would have thought she was too old for such things.
