He heard the voice of the bokor above all, chanting, it shook the apartment and became hypnotic in its repetition.
All around him, pictures frames fell off the walls and shattered on the floor, books tumbled out of cases. He watched the glass in his cabinets crack apart into shards.
The din joined together into one awful pitch and Willard's entire body seemed to vibrate with the sound. He felt like he was going to be shaken apart. His teeth banged together and his organs quivered with the consistency of warm cranberry sauce.
And then there was merciful silence. Willard stood stunned in the ruins of his place. Everywhere, loose papers and broken glass littered the floor.
He made his way way to the bathroom, cutting a careful path through shattered remnants of his possessions.
He stood pensive outside the door, waiting, listening for a hint of who had been victorious in whatever bizarre battle of wills had carried on inside his bathroom.
He heard nothing for a long time. Too long. Something was wrong. He reached for the knob and stopped.
From inside the bathroom, he heard a heavy thud as something smashed into the wall opposite the door. He waited and heard it again. But this time, the thud was accompanied by the thin moan of the bokor. Again and again, he listened to what could only be the bokor's body slamming against the wall.
I have to do something, Willard thought. And then he heard the bokor scream followed by a sickly wet tearing sound.
Without thinking, Willard flung the door open. What he saw inside filled him with a terror so severe, he couldn't even articulate it with a scream.
He saw the bokor suspended in mid-air, hovering in the center of the room, enveloped in a gossamer mist. And all throughout the mist floated spectral forms of faces and hands, the visages of those long dead. They flew around him, and through him, and reached out with their diaphanous fingers and yanked and peeled his flesh away in narrow ribbons that dripped grisly patterns onto the floor. They took his flesh and carried it into the toilet and down their vast and ancient pit.
The bokor turned to look at Willard, who was cowering in the doorway, unable to turn away. The bokor's eyes were two white orbs peering out from a sanguine mess of exposed musculature. They seemed to plead with Willard, to beg for a mercy he was incapable of providing. And suddenly, spectral fingers plunged into his head and ripped them away leaving Willard to stare into blank sockets. The bokor's eyes were flushed away down into the cavernous tunnel, the long tangle of nerves dangling as they went.
And then the bokor himself was cast through the air and came down, hard, belly first over the toilet ring. The bathroom filled with his screams, and then a sound like felled timber as his bones cracked and he was sucked down, stomach first, contorting unnaturally. The last Willard ever saw of the bokor was his heels, sickeningly meeting the back of his eyeless head as he disappeared forever into the infinite blackness.
And he was gone, the forms that swirled in the mist turned on Willard. He leaped back from the doorway and smacked into the hallway wall. He brought his arms up to shield himself, but the phantoms never came.
Willard forced himself to look into the bathroom. The spirits were trapped, like the bokor had told him, unable to cross the barrier of salt he had spread across the threshold. They lingered for a few unsettling moments before fading into the air.
When they were gone, Willard saw something even more horrible lingering in their wake. Something that loomed immense and menacing, black beyond black as if carved from obsidian. In one hand it wielded a hideous scepter, bent and entwined within itself like a tangle of dead roots. On its head it wore a blood red crown. The black king, lord and tormentor of the damned, sat atop his throne, no more Willard's toilet, and surveyed his domain of blood spatter, shattered tiles, and floating chicken feathers.
It raised the scepter and a hurricane gale picked up and slammed the bathroom door in Willard's face.
Bethany yawned without covering her mouth and checked the time again. She wished the clock would hurry the fuck up. She had better things to do on a Friday at 4:20 than watch the slow dirge of mouth-breathers shuffle through her checkout line. Thankfully, at the moment it was slow. If she didn’t have to check out another person before now and five, she could leave work happy. She would probably leave happy anyway though, she had stashed two sixers of Bud and a bottle of tequila beside the stock room exit. She would be leaving with the booze gratis. Five finger discount. She didn't have to be back at work until Monday, and she planned on having one hell of a weekend. She might even let Wade Chambers or one of his funny friends fuck her if she had too much to drink. And she definitely planned on having too much to drink.
If she didn't die of boredom first.
She looked at the clock again, thinking the day could not get any worse. And then she saw him.
The freak.
He was pushing an overloaded cart full of his usual purchases down the isles.
Don't come to my register. Don't come to my register. Don't come to my register, she pleaded internally. This guy seriously freaked her out. Something about the wild look in his eyes, or maybe the fact that he only bought two things every week: adult diapers and salt, really disturbed her.
He turned down the checkout isle, pushed the cart to her register and stopped.
She was bothered by his look. All his clothes were severely salt stained, even where they shouldn't be, even around his shoulders and sleeves for God's sake. And she knew the diapers were for him, too; that tell-tale swelling inside his pants, all puffed up and soft-looking. She wondered if he was walking around with a load of shit in them right now.
Bethany began to unload the boxes of diapers and canisters of salt and swipe their bar codes across the scanner.
The freak looked at her with those crazy eyes. Eyes that seemed to look through her, to be seeing something no one else could. “Have you been to the toilet recently?” He asked.
She stopped trying to cram a package of diapers into a plastic grocery bag and looked at him. Those eyes. There was something in his insane gaze that made her answer him earnestly. “No, I haven't been to the bathroom. My last break was at Two and I'm about to get off so I probably won't.”
“Good,” he said gravely. “You don't ever want to go in there. Trust me.”
“Why, whats in there?” She asked.
“You don't want to know.”
She gave him his change and watched him disappear though the automatic doors.
She shivered. He's right, though. I really don't want to know, she thought. I really don't.
HABEAS CORPSE
It was a bloody one, and all the town could talk about. There hadn’t been a murder since Alistair Bellwether ran down that polack boy with his buckboard; trampled him into the dirt. He hadn't meant to. Said he couldn't live with himself anymore after what he had done, so he just went ahead and plead guilty to murder. Said he deserved to die. Old Judge Hollies obliged and they hanged him.
That was more than fifty years ago, and there were few left in town that could remember it. But this was something else. The first real bona fide murder ever in Markwalder county.
Everyone's lips buzzed with rumors after that august morning when Lester Renfield was led out of his house in shackles, shoeless and wearing only a soiled long john caked with dried blood. Babs Pennon heard that Lester had come home drunk and beat his wife, Annabelle, and when she wouldn't stop crying, he stabbed her to death with a kitchen knife and then set her in the bed and
laid down next to her for the night.
Leigh Anne Geist said she heard the same thing, only different. She heard they were both sauced. Lester had come home from a three-day bender and demanded his jug, only to find out she had already sucked it dry. Well, Lester didn't like that one bit, so he beat her with the empty bottle until it broke and then carved her up with the broken shards.
The way she heard it, anyways.
Lester himself maintained that his wife was alive and well whe
n he went to sleep that night, and some nigger snuck in through the window and murdered his poor wife.
There are some in town that believe Lester had converted to Satanism; that he sacrificed his wife as some sort of demonic ritual; that he used her blood to summon demons to walk upon the earth. Who knows how theses rumors get started.
Everyone heard a slight variation on the same story and the only thing to say for sure was that Anne Renfield was dead and Lester would stand trial.
The sun peeked out in a blushing gleam between the low buildings along Main Street. It was early yet, but the townsfolk had already began their bustling rush to the courthouse. The narrow street was clogged with blithe gawkers, dressed in their Sunday finest and infecting one another with endemic officiousness: an infection spread not with the uncovered maws of diseased hackers, but by the idle gossip and speculation of the morbidly curious.
Babs Pennon was already beginning to sweat beneath her floral bonnet as she walked the unpaved street beside Audrey Dufour. Up ahead, they could see the crowd gathering outside the courthouse.
“Lordy, would you look at that conflagration,” Babs exclaimed to Audrey.
“Yes, it's a crowd alright,” Audrey agreed. “And already more than that little courthouse can hold, I'd reckon.”
“Looky, there's Sheriff Horn at the top of the steps, talking to that Pootes man, the coroner.”
Audrey gave a look of disgust. “I do not like that man Pootes. He's gangly and pale as the dead. As well as may be, too 'cause he don't hardly consort with the living. Locks hisself away day and night, no company save for corpses. The man is a ghoul.”
Babs conceded that his appearance was somewhat ghoulish, “But that don't give you no cause to sour on a man because of his occupation. Complexion neither.”
“Fine,” Aubrey said. “Let yourself come upon him in the dark of night, alone on a empty street. See how sweetly you conduct yourself then.”
Babs had to agree, she wouldn't want to meet the man under those circumstances.
Babs and Audrey took their places amongst the crowd as still more bodies poured in behind them. There was Arthur Beasley, pushing his invalid mother in a wheelbarrow. And Tate Novak, who even at this early hour, was staggering drunk and leaning on his wife as she half-carried him up the street. More were crowding and pushing around the courthouse, more faces than most in the little town could ever remember seeing at one time.
Sheriff Horn stood at the top of the courthouse steps. He had been talking to the coroner, a man named Alabaster Pootes. Their conversation had come to an end; not soon enough for the sheriff. Pootes was difficult to converse with under ordinary circumstances, aloof and usually one to answer a question with curt, monosyllabic replies, or worse, with disinterested grunts or shrugs; but today the man was electrified with an anxious vigor. Pootes couldn't stand still and his weight shifted from foot to foot. He kept demanding the time of the sheriff every few minutes and asked him when he would open the doors (soon) and when the trial would begin (eight o' clock) and how hot did he think it was going to be today (hot) and when he would be called to testify (can't say) and so on and so on until Pootes abruptly excused himself and charged down the steps to force his way through the thickening mob of townsfolk.
Sheriff Horn pulled out a cheap brass pocket watch from his waistcoat and marked the time. Below him, Everette Barbarie cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted to the sheriff, “Yonder tree looks right, do you think? She's oak but I'll wager at least one limb could bear a rotten apple to ripen.”
A titter of laughter loosed itself through the crowd and the sheriff held up his hands to stifle it. “Friends, let us not be so hasty to condemn a man. Every man, no matter how low he is perceived to be, deserves his day in court. And need I remind you that he is innocent until his guilt is proven?”
A chorus of BOOS erupted from the mob. They had come for blood, not mercy.
“What sort of man allows his wife to be butchered while he sleeps beside her and he never stirs?” A voice shouted. The crowed cheered in accord.
Arthur Beasley raised his voice, “Or, what sort of man mutilates his wife so she cannot have a proper burial or even a funeral? I tell you his actions have robbed him of his humanity, and one so vile deserves no pity from us.” And all around, the crowd cheered and Arthur Beasley's fat mother feebly clapped her hands together from her wheelbarrow.
The sheriff quieted the crowd with a gesture and spoke. “We are all aware of the accusations brought against Lester Renfeild. I have also made you aware that he is innocent until his guilt is proven and you will treat him as such. Now I'm prepared to open these doors. You will file in in a peaceable manner and, once inside, will conduct yourself in accordance with the proper respect for legality. There are to be no outbursts of any kind. And anyone who behaves otherwise should prepare himself to accrue the full penalty of the law, meaning you will be jailed for no less than thirty days for contempt of court.”
The ardor of the crowd was subdued by the sheriff's threats. They advanced past through the open doors of the courthouse and packed themselves into the paltry wooden pews. Not even half the crowd could fit into the courtroom and the ones that were not lucky enough to find a place in the lobby crowded the steps or strained their ears to listen from the lawn.
Past the overcrowded rows of spectators, were two tables. At one sat the state's attorney: A fishbellied man named Corrigan, who had come in from the capital. Corrigan had drawn the ire of a good majority of townsfolk with his expensive suits and perceived highfaluting manner and big city amorality. Joseph Tasse occupied the other table. This man was Renfield's appointed attorney. He wasn't local either, but was from two towns over. He received an equal amount of derision for the simple fact that he was chosen to defend a man they had already decided was guilty.
Beyond the attorneys, the jury sat with a stoic calm. They were all proud to have been selected to decide the outcome of the most talked-about event in the town's history. They had already resigned themselves to minor celebrities, and their deliberation would, no doubt, be a story to tell for generations.
They all sat in eager silence, waiting for Judge Stroud to emerge from his chambers and commence the trail. Every sound or movement was echoed to excruciating magnitude, every cough and throat clear was elevated to a jarring boom, every twitch to find comfort on the hard wooden benches creaked like the unoiled hinges of cemetery gates in the airless courtroom. The quiet was so vast, that some even held their breath to stifle the wheeze of their respiration.
And then, from the pews, there issued a raucous and phlegmy groan, like sopping wood cut with a dull saw. All around him bemused heads turned to stare at Tate Novak. The old drunk had passed out with his head dangling over the back of the pew. Sheriff Horn cut his wife a dire look from the front of the courtroom and her complexion reddened with embarrassment. She forced her elbow into her husband's side. His head lolled and he began to snore even louder. A snickering rose up around her. She swung the angle of her arm into him hard enough to make him jerk up with a short OOF! And he came awake without opening his eyes. “Dammit, woman! Do not dig your talons into my side like that. You'll find yourself sleeping on the floor if you can't sheath those abominable clapperclaws,” Tate moaned. The snickers erupted into roars of laughter and Tate's eyes opened. He looked around at the amused faces surrounding him and returned an old drunk's grin, completely devoid of shame or self-awareness. His wife sunk down in the pew, mortified.
Just then, a door at the side of the courtroom swung open. Voices in the crowd shifted into hushed murmurs as one of the sheriff's deputies led the accused to the front of the room to sit beside his lawyer. Renfield was clean-shaven, a nervous-looking fellow, not quite thirty, wearing a navy suit with a tie, and not, as some expected, the blood-caked undergarments he wore when he was arrested. Joseph Tasse shook his client's hand and leaned in close to whisper something in his ear amidst audible sounds of disgust from the pews.
Sher
iff Horn cleared his throat loudly, “Would you all rise, this court is now in session. The honorable Judge Milburn Stroud presiding.”
The door to the chamber pushed open and the robed figure of the obese and decrepit judge waddled through. He heaved himself upon the bench and called the room to order. “You may all be seated,” he instructed. He pushed spectacles onto his plump face and looked over a sheaf of papers sitting before him. “The court will now hear the case of State versus Renfield. Will the defendant please rise.” Renfield rose. “Mr. Renfield, you stand before this court accused of murder. Do you understand the charges brought against you?” Renfield looked to his attorney, then back to the Judge and nodded. “Very good, Mr. Renfield. And how do you want to plead to these charges?”
“I didn't do it.” Said Renfield.
“That sounds like not guilty to me. Let us hear the opening remarks. Mr. Corrigan, the floor is yours.”
Corrigan stood and straightened his tie. He gave a wry smile to the jury. When he spoke, his tone was condescending, as if he regarded the jury as a box full of rubes and bumpkins. “Do y'all see that there man?” he pointed at Renfield. “He's only done gone and murdered his wife, a good christian woman. Now, y'all don't like that sort of thing, do you? Of course you don't. This man has shamed you. Shamed your town, and you personally. Each and every one. And I promise you, if y’all don't convict this man, he'll do it again. And he might even do it to you. He's a cold-blooded murderer, plain and simple. So do the right thing, why don't y'all, and lets hang him.” Corrigan made a dramatic gesture of mopping his brow and gave a satisfied smile to the jury. The jury in turn narrowed their eyes at the man and scowled. Corrigan smiled on, oblivious. He took his seat once more.
Judge Stroud shook his head and looked at Renfield's defendant. “Mr. Tasse, your opening remarks.”
Tasse stood and addressed the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, it has been made obvious to you that my client has been accused of murder. What is not obvious is my client's Innocence. I intend to prove that he is no murderer, but a victim of outrageous circumstance. Lester Renfield loved his wife very dearly and had no cause to harm her. Mr. Renfield is a gentle and loving man, but he is as well the victim of an elaborate conspiracy intended to frame him for the murder of his wife. I reiterate, he is an innocent man, and to convict him would be a grave injustice. Thank you.” The jury regarded him as coolly as they had Corrigan, but Tasse had the sense to recognize it. He returned to his table in a bumbling sort of shuffle, aiming for meek charm, but hitting the mark closer to clumsy imbecile.
Flyblown and Blood-Spattered Page 10
