Slippin' Into Darkness

by Norman Partridge

Okay, Hanks had a bad day. Well, he was probably due more than a couple. And then he made the mistake of taking his bad temper out on someone who knew how to play rough.

  Steve crossed Marvis’s lawn, which was now a muddy swamp. He wished that he had Ernest Kellogg’s bright yellow galoshes. A fireman tried to stop him, but Steve flashed his badge.

  “He’s okay,” came a voice from the garage.

  Steve recognized Sergeant Rafer Williams’s rasping baritone. The previous winter, he had worked swing shift under Williams. Rafer smiled and they shook hands.

  “Johnny-on-the-spot, huh, Austin? I just got here myself. Don’t tell me you’re turning into one of those nuts with a police radio.”

  “No. I was just passing by. I went to high school with the guy who lived here.”

  “No shit?”

  “Yeah…he okay?”

  Rafer shrugged. “The boys tell me that there’s a body in the house. Crispy critter. Right in the living room. Poor sucker didn’t know what hit him. Molotov cocktails we think.” He pointed. “Anyway if the corpse is your man, he ain’t close to okay. Punks threw the cocktails right through the front window there. Fire boys say that things got going quick—the basement was full of chemicals and stuff.”

  “Marvis Hanks ran a photo shop.”

  “That’s the story huh?” Williams paused a beat.

  “Marvis Hanks? You don’t mean the guy was Marvis Hanks’s boy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Damn. Me and his daddy went back some. There was a time when we were the only two black guys on the force. Hanks was kind of a cold fish, not a social guy at all, but he was a helluva cop.”

  “Yeah,” Steve agreed. “He was my training officer.”

  They stood there for a minute. Rafer lit a cigarette, and Steve was surprised to find that the stink of the little cancer stick bothered him more than the raw odor of burnt wood.

  Across the street, the black guy laughed and the cop who was interviewing him smiled. The kid in the leather jacket was cuffed and shoved into a police car. For the first time, Steve noticed the girl with the swollen eye sitting in another car, all alone.

  The ambulance that had been on scene pulled away from the curb, empty. Flecks of granite-colored ash danced off the vehicle as it picked up speed, drifting to the street like dirty snowflakes, but a few hung in the air long enough to hit the windshield of a black sedan that pulled smoothly into the driveway.

  The guy who exited the sedan wore jeans, tennis shoes, and an old Grateful Dead T-shirt.

  “Here’s the coroner,” Williams said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  * * *

  The three men entered the house. Williams and the coroner, whose name was Vince Ching, held flashlights. Puddles of oily, wet soot pooled on the floor. “Damn,” Ching said. “Here goes another forty bucks. I’m still stupid enough to answer a call wearing white tennies. You’d think I hadn’t been doing this shit for fifteen years.”

  “What you guys need is a uniform,” Rafer said.

  Ching nodded. “Maybe we could get black cloaks and skull masks. Scythes, too. A whole squad of grim reapers.”

  Rafer laughed. “Well, anything would be better than that tie-dyed shit.”

  “Don’t start.” The coroner pinned his flashlight between his arm and ribs while he slipped on a pair of rubber gloves. The gloves made snapping sounds, like giant rubber bands.

  Rafer’s light swept the floor. It was a small room, and he found the body soon enough. “I’ll never get used to this,” he said.

  Steve stared at the body. It lay in a pool of water.

  Calling the thing a crispy critter was an understatement. The corpse was slick black from head to foot, and it looked like it would flake away to nothing if anyone tried to move it. Worst of all, the arms were drawn up, as if the corpse had been trying to ward off an attack at the moment of death.

  “Jesus,” Steve whispered. “Look at the arms…you think he saw it coming?”

  The coroner shook his head. He was on his knees, next to the corpse. “No. It’s called pugilistic attitude. Flesh burns and muscles tighten. The arms curl up. It’s a completely natural reaction.” He paused. “And it’s not a he. It’s a she. And yes, she probably did see it coming. Death by fire isn’t instantaneous, and neither is it pleasant.”

  Words spilled from Steve’s mouth. “I knew the guy who lived here. His name was Marvis Hanks. Single guy…. Are you sure this isn’t him?”

  The coroner’s smiling face bobbed in a circle of illumination cast by Rafer Williams’s flashlight. Ching said, simply, “This isn’t Marvis Hanks, pal. I can tell a boy from a girl.”

  Steve’s knees wobbled, but neither flashlight was aimed in his direction and no one noticed. He recovered enough to ask, “Anyone else in the house, Rafer?”

  “No,” the sergeant said. “Not that we saw. The basement’s a swamp though. The chemicals were really burning down there, and the fire boys sluiced it down pretty well. Water heater was down there, too, and it was spilling water until we got the main turned off. We’ll have to check again but—”

  “Damn,” Ching said. “Will you look at this.”

  Rafer Williams redirected his flashlight beam. “Sweet Jesus. Who…what kind of a man would do something like that?”

  The corpse’s jaws were drawn wide, locked, straining around a billiard ball. The cheeks had split like jerky and curled up, receding to eye level like slashed window shades. The billiard ball was singed and slightly melted, but the number eight was still visible between two rows of stark white molars that were bordered by blackened gums.

  Ching whispered, “I’ve seen things, but….”

  “My God,” Williams said. “The things that happen on a quiet little street like this one. After all these years, I still hate havin’ my nose rubbed in it. What do you think, Austin? What kind of a guy was Marvis Hanks’s boy, anyhow?”

  Suddenly, Rafer Williams realized that he was talking to himself. “Steve?” he called. “Hey, Austin, where’d you go?”

  Two flashlight beams swept the room.

  Steve Austin was gone.

  * * *

  Steve swore at himself. At his hesitation. Paying attention to the stupid questions that danced in his head had done this to him. If he had lost everything because of that…. If he had lost April….

  He couldn’t believe it. Life had given him a second chance, and now—

  Steve threw open the garage door and flicked on the light. The door to his fortress of solitude hung open. The top hinge was broken. The varnished oak was scarred, splintered. Steve stepped into the room.

  Life had given him a second chance, and now it was gone. All his life he had wanted to break the distance. He had longed to feel the way other people felt, see things the way they saw them. He had wanted to smash the barrier that separated him from those simple emotions. But he had never imagined that the distance that cut him off from others also protected him from the world. It kept him from trusting. Kept him from believing lies and false promises.

  And Hanks had promised him. Marvis had sworn to stay away from April. But he hadn’t done that.

  Steve stepped over Doug Douglas’s corpse. The girl from the land of dreams and nightmares was gone. The empty husk of April Destino leaned at an odd angle in the far corner. It didn’t look like something broken; it just looked like something dead.

  There was a note pinned to the dreamweaver’s cheek:

  ONE CHEERLEADER FOR ONE MOVIE

  SEE YOU AT SKYVIEW

  Skyview. The cemetery. For the first time since childhood, tears filled Steve’s eyes.

  “You lying bastards,” he whispered.

  To have seen April like that, in Marvis Hanks’s house. Burned down to nothing. Pugilistic Attitude…. shit, he didn’t care what the coroner had called it. He knew that April had died shrinking from her nightmare, just as he knew that he would forever picture her lying there in a filthy puddle of her own oily ashes, an eight ball jammed
in her mouth.

  To have seen her there, like that. To see her here, like this.

  To see her dead twice.

  It was all his fault. Things had really gotten away from him. He should have shot Marvis Hanks dead behind the counter at the camera shop. He should have broken every bone in Bat Bautista’s body with his tonfa. Instead, he had worked his mouth. He might as well have told Marvis that April was in his basement. He might as well have told Bat Bautista, too.

  And now the girl from his dreams was dead. Marvis was probably dead, too. But Steve guessed that Bat Bautista didn’t know that. Bat was busy setting traps at Skyview Memorial Lawn. He probably figured both April and Marvis were safe, well hidden until things blew over.

  The note pinned to April’s cheek was the biggest lie yet. Steve was sure that Bat Bautista wanted to kill him. He stripped off his coat and shirt, put on the lightweight Kevlar vest he wore under his police uniform, and dressed again. Then he grabbed a shotgun from a cabinet in the garage. Sawed-off, double-barreled, loaded with number 0 buckshot—each pellet as lethal as a .32-caliber bullet. He took some extra shells from another drawer and filled the pockets of his denim coat.

  Something was wrong. There should have been a box of .45-caliber ammunition next to the shotgun shells. Steve closed the drawer, opened another. His .45 was missing, too.

  Bat Fucking Bautista. And Steve had hoped to stop him with a friendly little warning.

  Well, naïveté was a bitch, wasn’t it?

  Steve slammed the drawer, breaking the wooden knob. The missing gun didn’t matter. His .38 police special was already in the Dodge.

  In a matter of seconds, so was he.

  He didn’t bother to close the garage door.

  He was never coming back.

  He gunned the sputtering engine and drove into the night.

  He went to kill a nightmare.

  11:30 P.M.

  Lying in the bottom of April’s grave, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, Amelia Peyton sure as shit didn’t look like she was worth anything.

  Griz Cody steadied the flashlight, and the murky beam filled her startled gray eyes. Griz had taped her mouth shut so she couldn’t scream, but her eyes were doing a pretty good job of it.

  Jesus. Who wouldn’t want to scream? Lying in a grave, in an open coffin half filled with muddy water. Who wouldn’t be terrified?

  The water part was almost funny. Before Griz could find the flashlight, Derwin and Todd had tossed Amelia into the grave. The splash had surprised everyone. Playing the light over the grave, Griz had noticed the bent sprinkler head, which was still dripping a tired trickle. Most of the water had leeched into the soil, but the coffin was still pretty full, like some weird steel bathtub. And the guys had tossed Miss Priss Amelia Peyton into it, dead center.

  Derwin said, “Turn off the light. Her eyes are givin’ me the creeps.”

  “Sure.” Griz thumbed the flashlight switch. He knew what Derwin meant. Amelia Peyton had given them a good scare, and it was hard to shake it.

  Christ, this whole night was going to be hard to shake. First Bat coming over, telling him that Ozzy Austin, who was a goddamn cop for christsakes, had the film and was going to start trouble with it. That hadn’t sounded so bad at first. How much trouble could Austin cause? After all, April was dead, and dead bitches couldn’t testify about anything.

  Then Griz had remembered what was on the film. What it showed him doing. He didn’t want anyone to see that. He had kids, for christsakes.

  That was when Bat dropped the kicker, saying that Ozzy Austin was the one who had stolen April’s corpse. It seemed obvious once Bat explained it—the shattered beer bottles at the cemetery, and Ozzy being the guy who had practically invented graveyard baseball. And then there was the way Austin had always mooned over April, scared to talk to her and all that shit. And when Bat said that Austin had actually jumped in his face that very afternoon, acting all weird and everything…well, that was just the icing on the fruitcake.

  So they went to Austin’s house, Derwin and Todd in tow, planning to kick the shit out of him and get the film. Or maybe even kill him, but nobody actually said anything about that. But Austin wasn’t there, and it didn’t seem very smart sitting around the place waiting for him.

  So they decided to snatch April’s corpse and go somewhere else. Somewhere a little quieter, where they could ambush Austin without any trouble.

  * * *

  Derwin stared into the grave, saw nothing. It was almost worse with the flashlight off, knowing those terrified eyes were swimming in the bottom of that black hole.

  Shit. Terrified eyes. He had a picture of that. Bautista’s fuckin’ eyes bugging out when he kicked his way into Ozzy Austin’s basement and April Destino came at him with a busted bottle.

  Wasn’t April, though. Was that bitch. Amy Peyton, dressed in April’s fuckin’ cheerleading outfit. Wearin’ a wig that made her look dead like April in high school. Sure, Amy Peyton wasn’t no eighteen year old, but she had taken care of herself. Hell, she looked pretty damn good. Except for the barmaid’s kiss that she held in her hand.

  Funny thing was her expression. After Bat got the bottle away from her, that is. Saying that Ozzy was nuts, when she was the one dressed up like April.

  Austin was nuts, though. Had to be. Lockin’ the Peyton bitch up with a corpse. Hell, two corpses. Fuckin’ dead fat guy lyin’ there on the floor. It turned out it was Dougy Douglas. Man had that asshole gone to seed.

  Shit. The whole mess of ’em had to be buttfuck loony. And about that time the real deal dawned on the Peyton bitch. Derwin could see it in those gray eyes of hers. They turned wary all of a sudden, the color of a sharpened lawnmower blade. And he knew what was going on behind those eyes. Here I am, she was thinking. Here they are. But they’re not here to rescue me.

  They’re the motherfuckers who raped April Destino.

  They’re here to rape me.

  Bitch tried to run, but there was no place for her to go. Not with four of them to stop her. Shit, bitch tried to scream, and he got hold of her and made her stop. She felt nice and warm against him, squirming around in her cute little cheerleading outfit. Brought back some memories and made his blood rise.

  And then he tried to cop a feel and got nothing but a handful of paper hankies. Shit. This bitch wasn’t no April Destino.

  Still…it seemed like a waste. They could still have some fun. Nice quiet basement. No one would hear her scream. Even Limp Dick Cody could have his fun.

  Bat snuffed the candles on that particular cake. PDQ. Boy was getting even more paranoid than usual. Said they would leave evidence if they even did the slightest little thing to her. Said sperm was just like fingerprints, and boy did that strike Todd funny. He just laughed and laughed until he could hardly breathe. Then he stared at his fingertips and whispered to himself and started up laughing all over again.

  Bat wasn’t laughing, though. Said let’s pack her up and go.

  Get that nut and get the film.

  Derwin didn’t care nothing about the film. He just wanted a piece of the nut. Rockin’ a cop—now that might make him feel pretty good.

  He felt pretty good right now. Pistol jammed in his belt, blood pumpin’ through his veins, some bitch making sounds like a sick cat down in a hole in the ground.

  This shit was a hell of a lot more interesting than mowing lawns.

  * * *

  Amelia Peyton’s moans turned Bat’s stomach. His kids had whined that way when they were babies. It was one of the main reasons he’d had the vasectomy.

  Christ. If this night would just end. He glanced at Derwin and Griz and Todd, and they didn’t make him feel any better. The only thing that would have eased his worries was if his mama had given birth to quadruplets, and the other three were with him tonight.

  These boys were nuts. Derwin wanting to pull a train with Amy Peyton, as if riding April’s choo choo way back when hadn’t caused them enough misery. And Griz, that boy was a sick
puppy, pinning a ransom note to the cheek of a corpse. Austin was nuts, sure, digging her up and all. But at least he hadn’t done any weird shit to her after he got her home.

  And Todd. Fuckin’ Todd Gould. If you jammed his thumb up his ass and told him he was Little Jack Horner, the fool would try to eat himself.

  Jesus. Bat spit into the grave, but the bitch didn’t shut up. If it wasn’t for that little spool of film, and the knowledge of what it could do to him and his family, he wouldn’t be here at all. These guys weren’t worth it. Tonight was the last night. He was quits with these idiots. Guys like these…shit, guys like these had been holding him back his whole life. Wasting his time, getting him into trouble with his old lady. Maybe there was something to Ozzy Austin’s loner routine, after all. Austin had done all right by it, and he was certifiable.

  “C’mon, Austin,” Bat whispered. “Let’s get on with it.” The only good thing that had happened was Austin doing Doug Douglas. That would save Bat some work down the road. If things went right at the cemetery, he’d only have Shutterbug to worry about. And that particular worry wasn’t any bigger than Griz Cody’s dick.

  But it would be a miracle if this thing worked. What a plan. Grab Austin when he got here, take him out with the .45 they had stolen from his gun cabinet. It had to be a head shot. Then, when he was dead, wrap his fingers around the pistol and drill the coffin, so that traces of powder would show on his hand. It would look like he had killed Amelia Peyton, and then killed his nutty self. Bat couldn’t sort out the crazy shit that was going on between the two of them. He didn’t have a clue about the games they were playing. And that was good, because he figured the cops wouldn’t see it any clearer.

  Bat sighed. Someone would have to go back to Austin’s house, too. Get the note off April’s cheek. Shit. This was too damn complicated. Bat hoped he had thought of everything.

  Amelia Peyton sloshed around in a couple three inches of muddy water, and Bat almost said. Hush hush, you little brat, or daddy’s gonna make you hush.