by Gary Starta
“I loved my father very much. Everybody who had the privilege to serve with him in the armed forces also held him in the highest regard.”
Cheng blinked her eyes several times, feigning tears, while Anna Beth concluded her heartbreaking performance.
“I admire your courage Anna Beth. If the killer is listening to this program, we want him or her to know he can never sully your father’s good reputation. We also want to pay the deepest respects for the former soldier who spent the better part of his life serving our great country.”
Anna Beth became nauseated. No one ever held Charlie Jones in high regard. She imagined that his peers must have held him in contempt. Charlie had been one step away from receiving a dishonorable discharge due to his alcoholism. His tour of duty never became confrontational (unless you count the number of drunken brawls he racked up with fellow officers). And his drinking fueled a foul mood that seeped from the battlefield into his household. Anna Beth really wanted to tell the nation the truth, but like Jack Nicholson once said in the film A Few Good Men: “You can’t handle the truth.”
Would America really want to hear how a veteran of the armed forces abused his family? The list of people who had it out for Charlie could have rivaled a telephone directory, whether they were blood related or not.
“No,” Anna Beth told herself. “Jack was right. They can’t handle that kind of truth.”
Chapter 5
Shenk traveled east along Interstate 44 in Charlie Jones’ cherry red 1999 Chevy Trailblazer. The young killer loaded it up with supplies and a wad of cash in the sum of $1,700. All the strenuous activity of the past twenty-four hours had taken a toll. His head ached and burned at the same time. But Shenk chose to look on the positive side, a road he had never taken before. Yes, things were looking up for Shenk, and starting today, he wasn’t going to be afraid to acknowledge it. After enduring seventeen years of living in destitution with no self-esteem, life was finally his for the taking.
Shenk realized he would “celebrate” a birthday in a few days. He would be turning eighteen—the age a prosecutor could try him as an adult. All birthdays after that would pale in stature. Each subsequent year would only mark the passing of time until the candle of life finally flickered into nothingness.
Nevertheless, Shenk rationalized he would have many years to find his calling. He was damn sure he had a very good reason to live. This new voice didn’t sound at all like the drug induced one that kept him in a constant state of paranoia. This new tone sounded self-assured—almost righteous—and left him willing to explore his true potential. Thoughts of women and freedom began to fill his feverish head.
Maybe he could find a companion to help him celebrate his manhood, he told himself. Maybe the police wouldn’t find enough clues to track him down. Maybe he would finally have a life. It didn’t take long for Shenk to despise the word maybe.
Shenk demanded certainty in his newfound existence. The discovery of the crystal was akin to finding the Holy Grail. Anytime Shenk succumbed to doubt, he would take the crystal into his palm and rub it gently with his fingers. He reasoned now would be as good a time as any to wallow in the comfort of his pink-colored companion. So Shenk kept one hand on the wheel and the other on the quartz. It helped lower his blood pressure and kept the truck traveling within the posted speed limit.
Shenk had watched enough TV to realize he was a fugitive. Consequently, police would have sent an All Points Bulletin to surrounding communities to alert them of his presence.
Shenk reasoned he would have to devise some sort of a game plan to outwit his pursuers. Right now, Shenk doubted any eyewitnesses had come forward to identify him. He had spent nearly eighteen hours in Jones’ residence after the murder. He had enjoyed a hot shower, a shave with an electric razor, and the feel of fresh clothing even though the shirt, pants, and underwear he took were about three sizes too big for him. He had also helped himself to the contents of Charlie’s refrigerator and cupboards. “Who has been sleeping in my bed?” Shenk chuckled to himself while taking a nap in Jones’ Sealy Posturepedic. And just in case someone wanted to know who had been sleeping in Charlie Jones’ bed, Shenk took the precaution of burning the sheets along with his ragged attire and beard trimmings in the fireplace. He accomplished all this without one knock at the door or ring of the telephone.
Shenk’s mind advised him to leave both Oklahoma and Charlie’s truck behind if he was to escape justice. But first he would stop for some new duds. Pulling into the parking lot of Value Mart, Shenk hiked up his oversized trousers and leapt from the truck. He immediately drew stares and laughter from children. Thanks to rappers, the baggy look was in, but the strange man in the red truck had taken this fashion to a new level. The pants Shenk had grabbed from Jones’ closet fit him as well as a potato sack. About five inches of material dragged along the ground behind him. His yellow shirt ruffled like a flag in the breeze as he walked. Still, he only drew the attention of children—anyone over twenty knew it was impolite to stare.
A group of seniors who were out with their middle-aged sons and daughters cast their eyes quickly to the ground as Shenk strode past them, but their silent thoughts could be read on their sleeves. “He’s a bum. Keep your eyes away from him. A vicious dog only attacks when you make eye contact.” It was this kind of thinking that allowed Shenk to shop for better jeans and some nice striped shirts in peace. No store employee or patron put two and two together, which would have equaled the “Arrowhead Killer.” Warnings broadcast on TV, the radio, and Internet went unheeded. In Oklahoma, the age of information had apparently taken a few steps back.
He left the store whistling, juggling the truck keys in his right hand and feeling worthy. Shenk felt so good that he left Charlie Jones’ clothing in the men’s dressing room and $157 in the hands of the cashier. There was no need to steal again for the moment.
Shenk would now work on leaving his vehicle behind. He wouldn’t be “stealing,” he told himself. He would be “upgrading.” Spying on shoppers at the nearby Grocery King, he waited to find some poor defenseless soul he could take advantage of. The wait wasn’t long.
An elderly woman struggled to load three bags of groceries into the trunk of her Dodge Neon. He followed her back to her house without drawing suspicion just as he had seen in the movies. He left a few car lengths between him and Grandma’s Dodge. Shenk really didn’t need to practice such stealth. Grandma drove down the streets in a fog thanks to her heart medication.
Her son Gregory had advised her to always check out her surroundings when entering and exiting her vehicle. But what did Gregory really care? Essentially, Grandma had been abandoned, forced to live alone in assisted housing. Thanks to him, she felt worthless.
But Grandma would soon figure into Shenk’s grand plan. She would “volunteer” her car to Shenk after he surprised her from behind. Green-tinted oranges would bobble out of her bags onto the nearby weed-infested grass that surrounded her dirt driveway. A hushed cry would emanate from Grandma’s lips. And then she would faint.
Shenk used her keys to enter her home. Once inside, he propped Grandma up on her paisley couch. She resembled a version of a geriatric Barbie wearing a green scarf, a blue and white button down dress, and tennis sneakers. “Don’t worry, Grandma,” Shenk told the unconscious woman, “you were a key soldier in my battle.” But for the life of him, Shenk could not fathom why he would say such a thing. In the end, things really would turn out better for Grandma. She would leave assisted living and take up residence with Gregory. Gregory in turn would try to curb his temper toward Grandma out of respect for the ordeal Shenk had put her through.
Grandma was too disoriented to provide a description of her attacker. She didn’t even think to report her maroon Neon as missing until a week later.
Shenk ditched Charlie Jones’ Chevy a few blocks away from Grandma’s house and sped away in his new Neon. As he navigated the car toward the highway, Shenk felt a small twinge of pity for the old woman. She apparently
lived alone. Where were her relatives? Did they all die like his? Any members of her family who were still alive should be punished for deserting poor Grandma. Shenk remembered the girl in the lime green sweater. Had she abandoned her father, or was it the other way around?
Shenk likened America to one big broken family in desperate need of someone or something that could glue it back together. The soon-to-be eighteen-year-old took satisfaction at his mature assessment. In fact, he thought life on the road was beginning to turn him into some kind of philosopher or maybe even a poet. But something other than the road affected the change. Something connected to the crystal churned deep within the recesses of Shenk’s soul. The young man’s fever eventually subsided, relinquishing full control to the foreign agent that had infiltrated it. Shenk’s immune system had given up hope of freeing itself from the parasite that now enveloped both his mind and body. Strange visions followed, invading the subsequent hours of sleep he stole in the backseat of the Neon.
Shenk awoke three hours later. His body sprang up from the backseat of the car. His eyes scanned the vicinity for the bobcat he had seen in his dream. But he was alone. He had parked the car in back of a strip mall that would not open for another two hours. Shenk rolled from the back into the driver’s seat. He turned the ignition and yelled, “Giddy up.” Flooring the gas, the car plunged into a 45-degree angle spin before righting itself. Spewing chunks of rock and sand into the air, the Neon set sail for Arkansas. Shenk was on the road and having visions—all without the aid of peyote.
***
Shenk’s stomach demanded a pit stop. He drove all day through Oklahoma without incident and found himself nearing Arkansas. The teen agreed a good fix of caffeine and sugar would sure do him good right about now. However, fear of police patrol cars outweighed his urge to snack.
“Let me just get over the border, and I’ll feed you.” Shenk negotiated with his stomach like it was a nagging girlfriend. Speaking of such, Shenk was becoming well aware of his need to satisfy another animal desire—lust. Raging loins had certainly summoned the teen’s interest in the opposite sex before, but this current surge of hormones was equivalent to high-octane rocket fuel. He rubbed the crystal with his free hand and again attempted to divert his attention. “We’ll take care of you in time as well,” he replied to the stiff protrusion in his jeans.
As far back as he could recollect—which wasn’t far considering the drug-induced haze he had once lived in—Shenk had never addressed his body parts as separate entities. But the Texan did not find this behavior strange. Not as long as he continued to wear the beaded strand with the crystal quartz. He had tried to remove it during his shower at Charlie Jones’ house, but he became so disoriented he nearly fell over.
Shenk’s fixation with the crystal occupied his mind during the next half hour. Before he knew it, the Neon had taken him to a small town in Arkansas called Van Buren.
He stopped to fuel up the car at a self-serve station. The fumes of the gas nearly intoxicated him. He paid the attendant in cash and asked where he could find a place to eat. The attendant could only offer one suggestion. “Y’all can find yourself some eats right up the road at Quix.”
Shenk refrained from asking just what this Quix was. He could not allow the man with the beard and NASCAR racing cap to paint a portrait of him in his mind. Besides, the fumes had impaired Shenk’s vision and caused the man’s head to flip several times in succession as if it was recorded on videotape in desperate need of tracking. Shenk obeyed his gnawing craving for chocolate and sped off in search of Quix.
***
Josh Mathews hoped he could close up early tonight. He wanted to get home and watch the Razorbacks game he had TiVo’d. He couldn’t believe his luck tonight. Saturday evenings usually attracted a certain clientele—drunken hoodlums. And so far, not one booze-brained customer had come stumbling into Quix to lay claim to the morning’s batch of glazed donuts or day-old submarine sandwiches.
“Just one half hour to go until 11 o’clock,” Mathews dared to dream. The coffee pots had been cleaned, and all Mathews had to do was count the register.
At 10:35 p.m. a stream of headlights poured in through the store’s front window, dashing Mathews’ hopes.
He pounded his fist on the counter, praying the customer dressed in the green-striped shirt and boot cut jeans would not want coffee.
Mathews’ patience grew thinner when he realized the man in the green shirt had headed down the middle aisle to peruse magazines.
“Good gosh,” Mathews sighed as another man entered the store. This man sported a leather jacket and a banadanna and apparently did not arrive in a vehicle. But Mathews could not be sure. He may have been too immersed with his thoughts to notice the rumble of an engine or flash of a headlamp. Mathews’ preoccupation with the endless chatter in his head often caused him to tune out the real world. He would frequently leave real life every now and then so he could acknowledge these voices. His compulsive bouts of worry infuriated his last girlfriend, Amy Jean, to no end. She left him at a diner to ponder her last words to him: “Josh Mathews you jump to conclusions faster than a dog lays claim to a bone.” To this day, Amy Jean could not be sure Josh had ever heard her rant. He was probably too busy worrying.
Shenk ducked in response to the store’s chime. It wailed as loud as an infant’s cry when the man in leather entered. He didn’t need another pair of eyes on him. He knelt to escape the stare of the new patron and the store’s surveillance cameras. Moments before, Shenk had been enthralled with the magazine rack. The glossy publications oozed sex and drugs. He continued glancing at them, despite his concerns.
One cover depicted a big-breasted woman. She promised readers a chance to enhance their boobs at minimal cost. Sports Weekly accused a burly baseball player of taking steroids. A third publication competed for attention with a before-and-after shot of a twenty-something woman in a bikini. Its headline hailed a diet pill as the next miracle drug.
Apparently Shenk hadn’t been taking the right kind of drugs all this time. His prescriptions had only numbed his mind and made him feel drowsy. With a little luck, maybe he could right his course in the pursuit to attain America’s perfect body. But at this moment, he wanted to indulge himself in familiar behavior. He cursed Bandanna Man for interrupting his shopping expedition.
Quix was equivalent to a food armory. Instead of missiles and guns, the shelves offered another kind of artillery—the kind designed to set off a ticking time bomb in one’s nervous system. Sugar-laced donuts, fructose-sweetened soft drinks, caffeine-laced chocolate bars, and nutrient-challenged chili dogs all competed to take credit for eradicating the good health of its customers. Shenk could not deny his cravings. Despite its ability to create uncontrollable mood swings, bouts of depression and bloating, the food was sure going to taste good.
Shenk remained crouched on his haunches. The store clerk strained his head to locate him. But Shenk was determined to stay low until Bandanna Man left, even if it meant pissing off his stomach.
Mathews had been forced to play a chess game with the two men. It was now their move. He would wait for them to come to him. He dared not move away from the cash register. It currently gave the best visual access to his customers/suspects.
Mathews eventually gave his full attention to the leather-clad man who stared blankly into the glass-encased freezer section. The man could see Mathews’ reflection in the glass. He did not take kindly to supervision. As a three-year-old, he had punched his mother in the face because she had looked over his shoulder as he colored. Nineteen years later, Bandanna Man’s social skills were no better.
“We will be closing in fifteen minutes, gentlemen,” Mathews finally blurted out in an attempt to address his frustration. At this moment, he was in full agreement with his mother. Her running dialog channeled into his mind at warp speed: “You should have enrolled in the state university. You should be at home right now studying. Quix is no place for a sane man. It caters to the depraved.”
<
br /> Mathews envisioned an ad campaign written in response to his mother’s ramblings. “Quix offers quick service, quick food, and now, quick death.”
He had fallen into a lull listening to the silent running of his mother’s diatribe, unaware someone had finally approached the checkout counter as he had requested moments before. It seems the customer clad in leather must have picked today to listen to his doctor. He would lay off the junk. Right now, he wanted money—to go.
Bandanna Man brandished a switchblade, its knife rivaling the length of a Quix hot dog. Its shining blade gleamed under the store’s overhead fluorescent lighting.
The store, dead silent except for the hum of the refrigeration unit, played willing host to an imminent showdown. Bandanna Man standing at six foot two and weighing in excess of two hundred pounds would be the odds on favorite. Mathews’ internal voice quickly cautioned him against resistance. The man was a full three inches taller and a good forty pounds heavier. Josh Mathews needed a peaceful resolution—fast.
“What do you want?” Mathews stammered, raising his hands into the air.
“I want it all,” Bandanna Man replied. “But first, I want you to deactivate the surveillance system. That means both the alarms and the cameras, wimp boy.”
“Sure. Just let me bend down to access the control panel.”
“Go ahead. But I’ve got my eyes on you.”
Shenk waited until Mathews had deactivated the surveillance system. Stealthy as a panther, Shenk sneaked down the magazine aisle. He rapidly closed the distance between himself and the robber. Shenk called out, in the best taunting voice he could muster, “Hey, everybody tremble. It’s a tough guy.”
