His hope was that if things went right this time, in his periphery there would be no lingering bitterness to spoil anything. The idea of a perfect kill made him almost giddy. No mistakes.
He tamped out his cigarette and was about to light another when the door to the men’s room swung open. His breathing became shallow and steady. He slunk back in his seat, pressed flat into the darkness of his truck.
The man exited the bathroom, wiping his hands on the seat of his pants. He walked a few feet and stopped at one of the vending machines outside the information booth. He fished through his pockets for a few seconds but seemed to find no change and gave up the idea. He continued back to his car, halting in his tracks about ten feet from the Pinto when he noticed his tire was flat. He brought both of his hands to the top of his head and bent his neck back, yelling an assortment of expletives into the night that fell flat against the rain. The man covered the remaining distance to his car with an irritated, concerned gait, kneeling down by the tire and inspecting the damage.
The killer continued to watch. It might just have been his favorite part, the watching. It was when he felt most powerful, as though the situation were his and only he knew it. It was his secret knowledge that they were not long for this world, his secret power over them. And he liked to hold onto it as long as he could to prolong this control, to savor the rawness of it all.
Keeping his eyes on the man, he leaned over to his glove box and opened it, pulling out an old 9mm Luger. Besides a small pension inheritance, the pistol was about the only thing his father had really given up in death. And it wasn’t so much that he’d left it to him as it was he’d helped himself to all his father’s belongings, including his bank accounts, before anyone knew the old man was dead.
The killer tucked the Luger into the pocket of his coat, an old Army jacket with a faded peace sign duct-taped on the back. It had been his father’s as well (the jacket, not the peace sign; he’d added that himself). He’d never liked the man, especially after his mother left and his father really started to drink, but he did like some of the old war memorabilia his father collected. He’d wanted him to go into the service after high school, thought it would make a man out of him, but much to the old bastard’s dismay, he chose the college route instead of being sent off to Vietnam to die in a rice field. He wasn’t sure, but sometimes he wondered if that made him a coward. Click-click, click-click.
The man hurried to the back of his car, opening the rear door and pulling out a green slicker. The rain had let up slightly but still continued to come down at a steady spit. After he rushed into his raincoat, the man unlatched the trunk, bent down, and began rummaging through it.
The killer continued to watch. Click-click, click-click, click-click. Then he stopped with the knife, sliding it back into his pocket and breathed deep and slow through his nose. He turned the key to the ignition and started the truck. The engine growled to life. His lights flicked on, slicing the dark. They caught the man and his maimed vehicle in their beams. The man straightened, leaning back out of the trunk. He cupped a hand over his brow, shielding his eyes. The killer put the truck in gear and slowly drove forward.
The man raised his hand, waving at the truck as it came closer. “I got a flat here,” the man yelled, hardly audible. His wave turned into a swooping, beckoning gesture. “A flat. You got a jack?” He pointed excitedly to his tire.
The killer pulled up alongside the man and his car, rolling down the window. “Car trouble?” he asked, grinning.
The man walked up to the truck and wiped his hand over his face, clearing away the rain. “Yeah, looks like I must’ve run over something on the highway. My tire’s completely pancaked. I guess it’s my lucky day.”
The killer laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. I was just sleeping back there. Woke up to see some fool running around in the rain. Thought I’d offer a hand if you needed it.”
“I suppose that makes me the fool, huh?” the man asked.
The killer had known the guy was young when he’d first spotted him back at the Gas n’ Guzzle in New Hampshire, but now that the fellow was standing right in front of him, he could see he was practically still a kid. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen, twenty at the most. This wouldn’t change anything, of course. He was just caught a bit off-guard, and the misjudgment felt all too much like an oversight, something ready to taint this experience. But the horse was already bucking. No matter how hard he tugged on the bit and yanked the reins, this beast was going where it wanted. The kid was already dead. He just didn’t know it yet. There was no stopping this far in.
He’d meant what he’d said before about seeing a fool running around in the rain, only he didn’t think the kid a fool for being caught out in the elements unprepared. He thought him a fool for the same reason he had thought his other three victims were fools. He thought them fools for not being able to see the obvious thing that was right in front of their faces: the fact that they were so close to death and didn’t even know it.
Why can’t they see what I truly am? he thought.
“S’pose it does,” the killer said, “but I won’t hold it against you. Whaddya need?”
“Thanks.” The kid laughed uneasily. “Wouldn’t happen to have a jack, would you? Whoever owned Old Reliable over there before me must have lost it. I have a tire and a wrench but no jack. I guess I should’ve checked at some point, before I needed one.”
“Rookie mistake,” the killer said, pausing and looking beyond the kid at the Pinto. “Yeah… yeah, I think I got one. Let me pull up, and I’ll give you a hand.”
“Man, you’re a godsend, you know that?” the kid said.
The killer laughed. “Sure, sure, buddy, I’m a godsend all right. Give me a minute, I’ll be right over.”
Fool.
“Thanks, man.”
“Don’t mention it.” The killer rolled up the window, put the truck back in gear, and rumbled forward into the space next to the kid’s car. He shut off the ignition, killed the lights, and threw on his faded Red Sox cap. Reaching into his pocket, he felt the gun and adjusted the grip, making sure he wouldn’t have a problem getting to it when the time came.
He opened the door and stepped out into the rain.
No mistakes.
CHAPTER 3
The sheriff, Calvin Lee Gaines, leaned back in his chair with his feet on the desk, reading a copy of The Heartsridge Chronicle. The fan on top of the filing cabinet was tilted down and blowing directly on the back of his neck. The mayor had been too cheap during budget reviews to allocate any funds to the department for air conditioning, so fans were the best they got.
“Says here those things’ll start coming out any day now,” Gaines said, keeping his eyes on his paper.
The deputy on the opposite side of the room punched away at a typewriter. He glanced up long enough to offer a bewildered look to Gaines but gave no response. He put his head back down and continued with his work.
“They really as loud as they say? I can’t believe a little bug like that can make so much damn racket.” Gaines tried again.
The deputy on the typewriter looked up once more. “Sorry, sir. I’m having trouble with this one. I can’t for the life of me figure out what to put in this report. That lady’s batshit crazy.”
He was referring to Mrs. Garity. She’d called the station earlier that day to report a robbery at her house. When they went out to Lakeman Road to check it out, they’d found her pet Chihuahua, Marky, to be the only thing missing. He’d run away after she’d left the porch door open. The only thing stolen had been their time. “What was it she said again?” the deputy asked, grinning.
Gaines laid the newspaper down on his chest and removed his reading glasses. “Well, let’s see. I believe her exact words were, ‘The no-good colored boy from down the street stole my Marky for a sacrificial, devil, voodoo some-shit-or-other.’” He tried to mimic her thick Dixie accent (she’d moved up to Massachusetts from the south about ten years back), but what c
ame out sounded more like deep-woods Maine.
The deputy laughed. “Can I quote you on that?”
“Have at it, Sam.” Gaines stretched back, running his fingers through his short dark hair and interlacing them behind his head. After a moment, his attention shifted and he brought a hand to the window blind beside him. Forking two slats open with his fingers, he peered through. “Almost eight o’clock in the evening, and it’s still eighty-five degrees out there. Christ sake, it’s hardly even spring.” He was eyeing the thermometer on the post outside the station. “Two days ago it’s fifty and raining, today it’s like Florida. Gotta tell you, if I’d known about the weather in New England I’d never have left Kansas.”
Calvin Gaines was a big man who still looked very much like the corn-fed Midwestern boy who’d travelled north most summers to work the oil fields of the Nebraska panhandle—broad shouldered and fat fisted.
The deputy finished on the typewriter, pulled the page out, and laid it in a filing tray marked RECORDS. “This’ll have to do. It’s Saturday, it’s getting late, and I need a beer.” He walked to the coffee pot. “Now what’s that you were saying?”
“Now or before?”
“Before. About the locusts.”
“They’re not locusts.” Gaines lifted the paper again, replaced his glasses, and checked the article. “Cicadas. That’s what they’re called. You should know that better than me. You grew up here.”
“Oh right. Those noisy little bastards,” the deputy said, turning around with a fresh mug and leaning against the counter, his uniform sagging off him like wet laundry. They didn’t make a size designed to fit someone with Sam Hodges’s build. He was a young man, late twenties, with a tall, thin frame—thin being an understatement; there were pencils that had forty pounds on Sam Hodges—a pointy nose, and a tightly cropped military haircut. There was an air of clumsiness about him, the way his lanky legs seemed to call the shots and lead him as if they were pulling the rest of his body along. “You never had them out west?” Sam asked. “I thought they were out there, too.”
“They are, I’m pretty sure, but never came around where I was,” Gaines said.
Sam rubbed his chin. “To be honest, I was only eleven the last time they came around. I think they come every fifteen years or something like that. I remember my dad telling me that once.”
“Seventeen,” Gaines said.
“What?”
“They come every seventeen years. Not fifteen. Says it right here.” Gaines smacked the back of his hand off the paper. “Feed for seventeen years underground, then emerge when the weather gets warm. And it’s plenty warm.”
“Right, right, seventeen,” Sam said. “Anyway, I don’t remember too well. But I suppose that’s a good sign. If they were that bad, you’d think I would remember.” He grabbed a napkin off the counter then dipped his hand into a white cardboard box and pulled out an éclair.
“Yeah, you’d think. Hey, those pastries are from this morning, probably pretty stale,” Gaines said.
“I’ll take my chances. Anyway, those things, the cicadas, they kind of just buzz a lot—” Sam seemed to reach for something in his mind to compare it to. “Like heavy power-lines. Lots and lots of ’em.” He took a bite of the pastry, and his voice went soft and muffled. “You get used to it though. I don’t remember losing any sleep.”
“Well, either way, the mayor’s up in arms. I think he’s worried that they’re gonna turn tourists off from the festival.” Gaines brought his feet down and leaned forward. He caught the falling newspaper with one hand and tossed it on his desk.
Sam swallowed hard, his face darkening. “Never mind that buffoon. Harry Bennett just likes to cause a stir so he has something to rally around.”
“No argument there,” Gaines said.
“What does he want us to do, be on bug patrol?” Sam moved slowly toward Gaines’s desk and took a seat in the chair beside it. “Son of a bitch probably bought us flyswatters to replace our service weapons.”
Sam and Gaines both broke into laughter.
“Yeah, maybe,” Gaines said, leaning forward on his elbows. “Big ones.”
“That’s nonsense. It’s just some bugs,” Sam said dismissively.
Gaines eased back on the sarcasm. “No, I get it. That festival is his baby. A lot of people in this town make a good bit of income off of next week’s tourism. They prepare months in advance. Hell, I think I saw Mrs. Joslin buying her pie makings three months ago down at the grocery store. I know Bill Simms already did a dozen or so of them chainsaw carvings—you know, the ones he does of animals—and those things go for a few hundred dollars a pop. This ain’t just chump change to some of these folks. They take it serious. So does Harry.”
“Hmph,” Sam snorted in contempt, dismissing Gaines’s words. “Spring Festival… never did like it. Too many tourists. I can’t stand all those people. They think we’re all just a bunch of rednecks here for their amusement. Norman Rockwell did us no favors.”
Gaines placed his hands on his desk palms down. “Tell ya what, why don’t you type up a complaint? I’ll swing by Mayor Bennett’s offices and drop it off on my way home tonight. Make sure you sign your name real clear, though. He’ll want to know who to respond to.” Gaines was smiling wide now, showing his teeth and dimpling his cheeks.
Sam waved him off. “He’d love that, I bet. Probably fire me.”
“Oh, come on. He ain’t all bad.”
“Sure. I don’t know. Just never really liked the guy.”
“He bed your mother or something?” Gaines said.
Sam shot back a serious glance. “Really?” he said. “You want to speak like that about the woman who raised me?”
Gaines surrendered his hands. “Okay, sorry, I was only fooling with you, Sam. Didn’t mean any disrespect… but I guess I have my answer.” He sat back and laughed.
Sam smirked and picked up the newspaper on the desk beside him, tossing it at Gaines. “Jackass,” he said.
“That’s no way to talk to your superior—” Gaines was saying when the phone rang.
The receptionist, Carol Mathews, answered. Her voice filtered through to the back office. “Good evening. Heartsridge Sheriff’s Department. How can I help you?” There was a pause of twenty seconds or so. Then: “Just a moment, Mr. Price.” Carol leaned in through the window. A strand of her blonde hair fell over her eye as she bent forward, and she brushed it away with her hand. “Calvin, it’s for you. It’s David Price. He says it’s urgent. Something about his daughter.”
Gaines looked at Sam and shrugged. “Put him through in here, Carol. I’ll take it.”
Sam leaned back, smiling at Carol. She smiled back and then addressed Gaines. “You got it, Sheriff. Right away,” she said, but lingered for a moment, shifting her gaze, making gooey eyes with Sam once more. The two had been dating for almost six months now.
“Carol?” Gaines said in a tone one might use with a child. She was only twenty-one, after all.
She broke her gape. “Yes, sir?”
“Now, please.” His voice was stern but fair.
The young receptionist smiled once more at Sam, and her golden curls disappeared back through the window. “Sorry,” she said softly.
Gaines looked at Sam, whose face was bright red and twisted into a half guilty, half love-struck grin. “Can’t you two do that after work? Or do I need to get you fixed?”
Sam didn’t answer, only looked down at the floor trying to hide his smile.
There was a click. Then a muffled voice once again: “I’m putting you through now, Mr. Price.”
CHAPTER 4
David Price paced outside the bathroom door as his wife, Ellie, tended to their daughter on the other side. Ellie had told him to let her handle this, and so he had, albeit with great reluctance. He had no clear understanding of what had happened to Kara, but he knew she’d been hurt, and that was enough.
Coming from the bathroom, he heard the rising and falling pitches of conversation
but nothing specific. He put his ear to the door and heard Ellie say, “Sweetie, this is going to sting a bit, but I need to clean that cut so it doesn’t get infected.”
Then there was silence, only a moment of it, but to David it felt like hours. His impatience—which was really only a father’s concern for his daughter—got the better of him, and he knocked gently on the door. “Ellie? Ellie, what’s going on in there? Is everything okay?”
The last question seemed foolish; he knew everything wasn’t okay. If everything were okay, his daughter would not have come home with bruises on her face, crying hysterically. It had taken them an hour and two of Ellie’s Valium just to get her to calm down and allow Ellie to take her into the bathroom and clean the cut on her lip. That was when his wife told him to wait outside. He had just stood there wide-eyed, feeling helpless, and for the first time, not a part of the family—his family. David didn’t like the feeling of being asked to sit this out, but deep down he knew there was a reason. It was a reason he wasn’t quite ready to allow to enter his mind. But he’d seen his daughter’s face—the bruises, the cuts, and the ghostly look that haunted it. So he treated the notion like such an unfathomable scenario that it couldn’t possibly be true. Denial was his poison, and he drank it greedily. No. No way. Not his daughter. That couldn’t happen to her, not in this town. Heartsridge was home to only two thousand residents (population 2,038, according to the last census), and he couldn’t for the life of him think of anyone capable of harming a teenage girl. It simply wasn’t that kind of place.
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