by Glen Krisch
Kevin walked by the baseball field where he hit his first home run. Actually, it wasn't much of a hit. It was a looper over the first baseman's head. The ball trickled down to the right field corner. When the fielder threw the ball back to the infield, it squirted through the infield, all the way in to foul territory. All the while, Kevin was tearing tail around the bases. The opponent's pitcher scooped up the ball and threw home, but Kevin was already popping up from his slide, a cloud of dirt flying everywhere. He smiled at the memory. Smiled even more when he remembered how his family had gone to Renaldi's on Main Street for a celebratory pizza.
Since passing Michael & Son's, a noticeable amount of ease came to his limbs. His shoulders were no longer tense, and his pace slowed. He tight-roped the concrete curb down Chase Avenue. When he reached Winfield Road, the road where he grew up, his heartbeat picked up again. He could see the Stover Realty sign still in the front yard, a white beacon a block away. The houses were quiet and dark as he walked by. The Ruby's, the Hanover's, Scotty Beckman's. All asleep, all unaware that Kevin had come home.
When he finally reached his house, it looked so much smaller than his memory. A dollhouse version of what was in his head. The lawn was mowed, but looked jagged, as if cut with a pair of pruning scissors freehand. The bushes lining the front walk had over-grown their manicured shape--some kind of plantlife on steroids. It seemed like a stranger's house.
Did I ever live here?
The eaves needed a coat of paint. Funny how he never noticed the eaves when he lived here. The kidney shaped rock was still where he remembered it, under the bush near the front door. He turned it over and picked up his spare key. They had been in such a rush to move to his grandma's house and so blinded by the loss of his dad they had forgotten about little things. He wondered what else he would find once inside.
He pushed aside the realtor's lock box and unlocked the door. When he pushed it open, the door's weather strip gave him a swooshing hello. Once he closed the door and had the key in his pocket, tears again formed in his eyes. The smell of the house did it. It smelled warm and soothing. It smelled like family. He blinked away the tears and walked to the empty fireplace. He lowered his backpack to the floor, only now realizing how sore he felt. He nearly collapsed to the floor of the empty living room. Using his backpack as a crude pillow, Kevin settled in, closed his eyes. In seconds, he was asleep, sleeping the deep and easy sleep of someone who is finally home.
The stars over Warren Cove cut through the sky as thin clouds peeled away. The moon was a dewy apparition haunting the darkness for the short while before it fell to the horizon. The still and somber night soon became unsettled. Dogs barked at shifting shadows. Cats clawed at doors for their owners to let them inside. Children wept, their eyelids tightly bunched as they slept, fearful of the nightmares stalking about their minds. The night had been set on edge, and there was a clear and simple reason. Mr. Freakshow was on his way.
Chapter 21
A policeman was kind enough to drive Carin and Maury back to her mother's house. The early evening sky looked like a new bruise. Dark purple and sore. High winds off Lake Michigan roiled the clouds, bullying them into dropping their fat raindrops. As the squad car pulled up to the curb, the cold late summer rain pummeled the windshield. The street was lined with a few unmarked cars and hastily parked squad cars. An ambulance drove by, leaving the scene without lights flashing or siren blaring. They exited the dry interior of the squad car and hurried through the growing puddles to the front of the house. Just outside the door, a group of policemen milled about the front yard, their clothes heavy with rain. They all seemed to be smoking, all of them inhaling deeply, inhaling like the smoke would purify them of what they had seen inside.
"I don't want any part of this. Even if they took her away, I don't want to see where they found her," Carin said to Maury.
"Don't worry. Just stay by my side." Since he approached her at the police station, she had given in to his influence. He was the one who suggested coming back to the house. She had vehemently opposed the idea, but he reassured her it would only be for a few minutes.
"We'll get the photos of Kevin for the policemen, then we can start our own search." He was also hoping to get some idea of where the boy had gone. Something at the house could jog Carin's memory.
The policeman who drove them stopped before they entered the house. "Folks, you don't have to worry about getting near the crime scene. The immediate area, the living room, the hallway leading to the kitchen, we have that blocked off for the investigation. We've cleared the west side of the house--the bedrooms, bathroom, and so forth. You can go there as long as an officer tags along."
"I have the photos in my room. I'm also going to get a few things. I don't think I could stay here. Ever."
One of the milling policemen dropped his cigarette to the wet grass and stomped it out with his foot.
Quite suddenly, anger surged through Maury. "Pick that up," he said, an unfamiliar strength to his voice.
"What?" The policeman was young, brash. He would look as big as a football player even without his Kevlar vest.
Carin stopped just shy of the door. As far as Maury could tell, she hadn't noticed the group of officers, and hadn't been able to focus on anything for more than a few seconds.
"The cigarette. Pick it up. Show some respect." Maury said, his voice stern. He didn't know what had come over him. He was never demonstrative, and would never envision speaking up to a policeman. He glared at the policeman, and he felt like he would vomit if he said anything more. If this young bag of muscles wasn't going to pound him, he was at least going to ask for his driver's license, and run his info through whatever supercomputer the police used to dredge up dirt on people. If they had a file on Maury that contained only suspicion and insinuation, it would fill a file cabinet.
The policeman picked up the butt and dropped it in an empty Coke can he was carrying. "Sorry." He looked like a beaten dog. Maybe he saw the strain on Maury's face. A buzz seemed to travel through the other officers, but no other interaction took place. Maury heard a muffled chuckle from the group as he turned away and entered the house.
"Thanks. Mom always took care of the yard herself. She worked hard. I appreciate it."
"No problem. Let's get the pictures so we can get you out of here."
Maury didn't want to see her mother's blood any more than Carin did. He couldn't tolerate the sight of blood, and he had already seen enough today to last a lifetime. Lucidity was in ruins. At least three people were dead. Nolan Gage, his daughter, Nicole, Peter What's-his-name. Four. Four people dead if you count Carin's mother. How high would the death toll soar? If they could find Kevin quickly, Maury could limit the damage. If Maury killed the boy, Mr. Freakshow would be no more. He would take his killing ways with him. And Juliet would no longer be in danger. At least from the boy's nightmare.
The police officer shielded Carin from the view of the living room as they walked toward the bedrooms. Maury did his best to avoid seeing the bloodstains, the bits of flesh undoubtedly smashed into the carpet after they took away the ravaged body of her mother. But the smell. It reminded him of when he was a kid, long before the apartment fire, when his family had picnicked at a roadside park. The sun was shining, a breeze whipped through the trees. Dale was horsing around with the souvenir black bear statue from Machesney State Park, where they had just camped for a week. Dale roared like a bear in his little kid voice as their mom spread the blanket and their dad readied the food. But the wind picked up, changing directions, ruining the picturesque end to an enjoyable vacation. The stench hit them like a physical blow. Like road kill--flattened meat, seeping internal fluids seeking lower ground--this odor magnified ten fold. Their father didn't know he'd chosen to picnic a quarter mile from the Fredrickson Meat Co., a meat packing plant in the middle of nowhere, a place where two hundred people slaughtered animals and processed meat for a living. A plant surrounded by miles of postcard scenery.
The rotting flesh stench
of the meat packing plant was in Carin's childhood home. The stench of thousands of slaughtered animals at a quarter mile away.
Maury didn't realize Carin had left him and was down the hall, in one of the bedrooms. While she was gathering a few belongings, he had subconsciously turned to face the living room, with its framed family photos, dated furniture and small T.V. He was looking in on a slaughter, seeing the stains that would never leave this place, a man wearing a brown tweed jacket, a loosened and wrinkled tie, checking the murder scene for any left behind clues. Maury's head was swimming. The bluntness of this. The crudeness. Stumbling away from the living room, he made it down the short hallway to the bathroom and closed the door. He turned on the faucet and waited to heave up whatever was in his stomach.
A knock came to the door. He thought it might be the officer telling him that the bathroom was off limits to him unless accompanied by a chaperone. Someone to hold back his hair as he vomited, making sure he didn't touch anything that might be evidence.
"Maury, I found something. Possibly a clue. Maury, are you okay?"
Carin didn't know what to think of it. It wasn't exactly evidence, she supposed. Could something be evidence if it was missing? Maybe the fact she didn't find Kevin's windbreaker only meant something to her. A mother-thing, a mother-clue. It wasn't on the back of his desk chair or in his closet. He had taken it with him. It could only mean that he had prepared his escape into the night and hadn't been stolen away by some vile beast.
"Maury?"
She waited at the bathroom door, her attending officer never more than a couple steps away.
"Ma'am, if you have any information, you should tell the investigators."
"It's nothing. I just didn't see my son's jacket. It's a red windbreaker."
The officer took a nub of pencil from his pocket and jotted something in a small black notebook. He didn't press her for anything more. He put away his notebook and looked quite bored. "I'll pass it on."
The door opened, and Maury stepped out. His face was blanched, his eyes watery. "Sorry. I… I don't know, I just didn't feel well."
"Kevin's windbreaker is gone."
"So? Perhaps it's in the living room." Maury immediately regretted the words. He didn't want to go back to search for the jacket. He wanted to go outside, even with the rain-soaked skies making it seem more like the middle of the night than dusk, he wanted to go outside and get some fresh air.
Carin spoke quietly, but excitedly, "Kevin knew. Somehow, he knew Mr. Freakshow would come for him."
"He could have seen something on T.V. about what happened at Lucidity."
"What exactly happened at the museum?"
Maury wasn't about to tell Carin that his mind was foggy and not so sharp because he had just lost his virginity, at thirty-five years old he had just slept with a dream-woman.
Oh yeah, Mr. Freakshow, your son's nightmare, tricked me into opening his enclosure. Now your son will most likely die a horrible death.
"Some kind of containment failure. Not sure yet. But that's not important right now. We need to find Kevin."
"If that's the case and it was on T.V., he didn't see it. We rented a movie. He went to bed right after." She approached an officer. "Can I pack a bag? I don't want to stay here. If anything, I'm getting a hotel room." The idea that her son was out there somewhere, aware enough to run from Mr. Freakshow, aware enough that he should fight for his life, brought her a strange sense of calm. For the time being, she buried any thoughts of her mother. It was cold of her to do, but Kevin still needed her. She couldn't be weak now.
"Just don't disturb anything. It looks cut and dry. Everything took place out in the living room. Nothing appears to be stolen…" the officer trailed off. He was going to carry on, Carin realized. Without thinking, the officer was going to say her mother's murder was routine. The look on his face said it all. The officers, all the investigators, they could all see the blood and gore spread throughout the living room and divine the killer's intentions, his motives. Just that quickly. They didn't know what they were getting themselves into. They weren't dealing with an ordinary sadistic killer. They were dealing with a nightmare.
Carin shook her head at the officer as she went to her room to gather a change of clothes. She had to be honest with herself. She wasn't going to rest until she found her son, and she was never coming back here again. This was the beginning of some kind of end game. A game in which she didn't know the rules.
She took her credit cards from the top drawer of her dresser and put them in her wallet. She saw Kevin's smiling face inside the bifold. His class picture from last year. It was the best picture she had of him. It showed his innocent eyes. His warm smile. As she slipped the picture from her wallet, she noticed her hands were shaking. She grabbed clothes at random from her dresser and tossed them into a gym bag. She took one last look at the room. Her cheerleading trophies were on a nearby shelf and she felt like she was robbing some girl's bedroom.
Maury leaned against the doorframe, watching her as she gathered her belongings. "Can you think of where he might be? A safe place he might go?" His cheeks had returned to their normal color, but he still looked nauseated.
"No. I don't. Kevin doesn't know the city. Well… maybe the park. He's played baseball a couple of blocks from here." She carried the gym bag as she walked by Maury. "This is the best picture of my son. I trust you can make copies?" She handed the picture to the officer who had given them the ride to her mother's house. He nodded grimly.
Carin continued down the hall, and using the gym bag to block her view of the living room, she left the house. She didn't wait for Maury. She ran through the rain and was inside her Explorer before Maury had even reached the front door. She turned on the engine and put the heat on high.
While she waited for Maury, she wondered why she was with him. Why would he want to help Carin? He had always struck her as odd. It wasn't just his appearance, his scars, his worn baseball cap. Maury seemed twitchy, like something was wriggling inside of him, trying to get loose, and he had to use all of his will just to suppress whatever it was.
She thought of the night she found Kevin outside the garage, in the throes of a terrifying dream. As she and her mother tried to calm him, Carin had noted the clutter on her father's workbench. Kevin had nailed wooden blocks together in peculiar formations. She first thought someone had desecrated her father's favorite place. The place where he had made toys and dollhouses for Carin and the bookshelves lining her bedroom walls. With Kevin's cries weakening, Carin had realized what he had been building in the middle of the night. The odd formations of wood blocks, in a crude way, reminded her of their old house.
If there was one place where Kevin would feel safe, it was their old house in Warren Cove. She felt an urgency to drive there as soon as possible. But Maury Bennett. Something just wasn't right.
Maury ran to the Explorer and waited outside the locked passenger door, getting wetter by the second, before Carin decided to unlock it.
"Sorry about that. My mind's elsewhere."
"Should we go to the park first?" Water dripped from his face.
"I have a better idea."
Their breath quickly clouded the windshield. She didn't know what bothered her about Maury, but if he could in some way help with Mr. Freakshow, she realized it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered to her anymore was the safety of her son.
"We're going to Warren Cove." She backed the Explorer onto the street, pausing after she shifted into drive. She looked at her childhood home, with the officers standing in her mother's front lawn, cupping their cigarettes from the rain, the investigators inside searching the living room's bloody carpet fibers for extraneous information. It was as if she was staring at a stranger's house.
They're having a block party.
The mingling policemen were partygoers and the investigators were the overworked hosts of the party, so busy that they didn't know what was going on. She drove away, certain she would never see her childh
ood home again.
That bitch-whore. Barring the door. Keeping him from entering her home. Mr. Freakshow was livid over what happened at Sophie Marigold's apartment. And the shear amount of dream energy the place contained. It had confused him, temporarily making him lose contact with the boy. He would definitely pay another visit to that bitch-whore's apartment.
Just as soon as--
Tires squealed from the street as a driver tried to control his fishtailing car in the rain. The car jumped the curb and was barreling down on Mr. Freakshow. The rain had chased away most of the pedestrians. He was alone on the sidewalk.
Leaping into the air, he ripped off his tan overcoat, exposing his limp wings. The car hurtled by below him, crashing into the brick wall of a bakery. Blood filled his wings, and he swept through the air, cutting through the rain, feeling alive, alert, and oh so ready to kill.
He flew in a small arc, getting used to his wings in the human world. He landed on the hood of the car that had nearly splattered him. The car horn blared, and people from inside the bakery spilled out into the rain. One man held a cell phone to his ear. Another used his phone to snap photos of the wreck. As soon as they saw the Freak without pretense of disguise, with his clawed feet piercing the hood of the car, his wings fluttering behind him, they ran back into the building.
Mr. Freakshow jumped down to the sidewalk. The driver was bleeding from several wounds--his forehead, nose, mouth--and was holding a newspaper in his lap, trying to catch the blood before it could stain the car's interior.
The driver gave Mr. Freakshow a defensive smile. "It's a rental. I… I just want… I have to get my deposit back…" he said with a short laugh. A gob of blood burst from his ruined nose as he coughed, a blackish splatter hitting the steering wheel. Still, the horn blared.
"Don't worry about that deposit. I'm afraid it's lost already." Mr. Freakshow took hold of the driver's head, slamming it into the steering column. With the force of the blow, the man's face compressed the steering column and silenced the annoying horn.
