Doctors of Darkness Boxed Set

by Ellery A Kane

  “Nasty habit,” he says, securing his spittoon in the cup holder. The brown liquid sloshes a little as the jeep traverses a pothole. I shrug at him, already feeling better. I’ve seen worse. “Sorry ’bout your mom.”

  “It was a long time ago,” I say, like that makes it any better. Like time isn’t amorphous, expanding and constricting at will, seconds stretched out like miles on the highway, years shrunk into a thimble. This drive has already lasted a century.

  “So what do you do, Anne?” That’s my hitching name. It jolts me to hear him use it. I assumed he’d forgotten. “When you’re not accepting rides from strangers.”

  “I teach yoga.” My hitching profession. I announce it matter-of-factly, hoping to quash the giddy lilt in his voice.

  “I’ve always wanted to try that stuff. They say it makes you better in the sack. Any truth to that?” I laugh, because it gives him an out. He can still pretend he’s joking. “Just teasin’,” he says, obliging. But then, “I don’t need any help in that department anyway.”

  His spit sloshes again, the brown sludge leaving its mark against the side of the cup, and I feel sick. “What about you?” I ask, fingering the outline of my pepper spray in the front pocket of my bag. “What do you do when you’re not picking up hitchhikers?”

  He turns his head from the road to smile at me, showing his stained teeth. “Librarian.” I don’t ask any more questions. We ride in silence until I point to the exit.

  “This one,” I say. “You can drop me at the Chicken and Waffles. I’m meeting a friend.” That’s my hitching story. The restaurant is a few blocks down from the hanging tree, and a quick bus ride back to my new apartment.

  He takes the exit but taps the brakes a few times, jolting me forward then back, as if he can’t make up his mind. “You wanna go somewhere?” he asks, his voice suddenly decided, already thick and husky with lust. I doubt the answer matters, but I give it anyway.

  “I told you. I’m meeting a friend. He’s expecting me.”

  He chuckles to himself, and I figure he knows I’m lying. “Your friend can wait.”

  I know this story. I’ve heard it a hundred times from the men in my groups. I know how it ends, but still. He won’t touch me, he won’t touch me, he won’t touch me. He pats my knee once, then leaves his fingers resting there like I belong to him. My mouth gets dry. I stiffen. This is a first. No ride has ever put a hand on me, not like this. It’s the precipice of terror, but I try to lean into it, knowing (as twisted as it sounds) this is what I’ve been waiting for.

  The same state of consciousness.

  Abject terror.

  This is where I’ll find it. The memory.

  Streetlamps glow in the distance, but we’ll never get there. Danny makes a sharp turn toward the Port of Oakland, then another down one of the long, dark, dead-end roads that look like the sort of place this would happen. A makeshift dumping ground with an overflowing dumpster and piles of trash bags vomiting their contents onto the street. But the worst, a bare mattress, stained and waiting.

  “You don’t want to do this,” I tell him, addressing him like a patient. He’s George, inviting a little girl onto his lap. Tony, ogling his stepdaughter in her short shorts. Vince, a finger poised at the keyboard. It’s that moment, the one where he can still turn back. “You don’t have to do this. Just let me out here. I won’t say a word about it.”

  “Look at you.” He practically spits the words at me. If I could feel them, they’d burn. “Standing out on the side of the road in that little T-shirt. You wanted this from Jump Street. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t.”

  Danny stops the jeep, and I’m a prisoner of whatever comes next. I’m not even surprised—how could I be?—just a dreadful combination of pathetic and ironic. This is what I get for helping sex offenders. No. This is what I get for letting Cassie die. But not only that. This is what I get for keeping quiet for twenty-three years. This is what it will take to be square with the universe.

  I don’t reach for my pepper spray. I don’t open the door. I don’t even scream. Because that’s what fear can do to you. At thirteen. At thirty-six. Everything in me sucked out the way the tide draws out the water. And there it is—in that smooth, empty place—a new memory. The faceless man had touched my hand where it rested on the top of the seat, and I’d jerked it back like I’d been stung. He’d said something too, asked a question. “Are you down with that?”

  But it’s a flash I can barely hold onto, a tail that slips away in the underbrush. And I’m left with Danny and his hot tobacco breath and the knife he’s slipped from his boot.

  “It’ll be easier if you don’t fight.” He actually has the nerve to say that. “Just close your eyes. I’ll be quick.” He giggles like a schoolgirl. “Not too quick though.”

  His hands crawl on me, and I think of Cassie with her eyes locked on mine, frozen. Do something, Evie! Had she said that? No, but she should have. Like the swell of a knock-down wave, my senses come rushing back—crash!—and I fill with life again, all of it. White-knuckling it in the backseat while my mom scored heroin; sitting with her cold body in our dumpy room at the Blue Bird, the needle still in her arm, until the cops showed up; elbowing Bobby Pierce in the stomach when he told everybody I’d killed her with my witchy stare; running from school with the girls behind me, chanting Evil Evie; squeezing Jared’s hand on the last day he was alive, the day my curse—and his cancer—finally caught up to him.

  All of that is fuel on a fire that had been burning long before I met Danny. It rises in my chest. “It’s not going to be easy, asshole.”

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  Evie

  January 13, 2017

  Friday

  One of us is bleeding, I know that much. There’s a smear of red on the dash, and my fingers are wet, so it must be me. But I feel nothing except the raw throb of adrenaline commanding my body. I’m sheer muscle—no brain—taut, instinctual, ready to strike, to destroy if necessary. And the way Danny’s grunting and snarling, searching beneath the seat for the knife he dropped in the scuffle, destruction seems necessary. Imminent even, for one of us. Him or me.

  I fumble for the door and scream again, louder this time. The noise that comes out of me is nothing I’ve heard before, but I imagine it’s the sound Cassie would’ve made if those hands had let her. It’s primal. Animal. And it scrapes my ears.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Danny looks up from the floorboard, face flushed. A few jagged red lines mark his cheek, one of them deeper than the others. My handiwork, and I hope like hell it leaves a scar. “Where do you think you’re goin’? You’re not leavin’ here till I get what I want. Till I give you what you deserve. Understand?” His hand wraps itself tighter around my calf like a tentacle and pulls me back toward him. The other hand behaves differently, caressing the side of my face, winding gentle fingers in my hair.

  “I understand,” I tell him, feeling the floorboard for something, anything I can use. The pepper spray’s there somewhere, lost when Danny banged my head against the window. “Please just don’t…don’t hurt me. I’ll do whatever you ask.” I don’t understand. He’s already hurt me. And there’s no way I’m doing anything he asks. Because we both know if it’s up to him, I’m not leaving here. Not alive anyway.

  “I knew you wanted it—”

  I fling Danny’s spittoon in his face. It’s not the pepper spray, but somehow it’s better, watching him recoil at the taste of his own polluted saliva. His grip softens, releases—for an instant—and I’m out. Free. And flying. With Danny behind me. I don’t look, but I hear him. His heavy steps on the concrete, the huff of his breath. He swipes at my back, grabs a fistful of ponytail, and yanks hard. I fall against him, crumpling down his legs and onto the cement. He leans over me, and I see his teeth grinning or grimacing, I can’t be sure which. I smell tobacco and sweat, taste the metal of my own fear as pungen
t as a gun in my mouth. He’s got me pinned by my arms like I’m one of those frogs pickled in formaldehyde and tacked spread eagle on a dissecting board. I close my eyes—squeeze them so tight no light gets through. Please don’t let his face be the last thing I see. And that’s when I realize I’m not the girl in the tree anymore. I’m the one down below.

  With his weight on me, it’s too much to breathe. My chest burns, and my vision goes in and out, the darkness luring me, pulling me under. Telling me it’s not so bad dying. Until I hear his voice in my ear, a rasp that comes straight from hell.

  “Like mother, like daughter.”

  He lifts up a little, and I suck in a greedy gasp of air. Like mother, like daughter? Is that what he said? I must be hallucinating. Because he’s quiet now, busying his lips on my neck.

  Then, his mouth, parted and vicious as a barracuda, is mashing against mine. But at least his hands haven’t moved—one secures each wrist, grinding the soft flesh of my arms into the wet pavement. As chances go, it isn’t great, but it’s the last one I’ve got. He groans a little as I kiss him back, luring him, and I read his thoughts. I’ve heard them before. Spoken by other men, different from him, but the same too. She didn’t stop me. She didn’t fight. She was into it. When the mocking voices in my head quiet—this is it—I bite down on his lip with all the force I can muster. He cries out and lifts up off me just enough. I knee him in the groin, roll from underneath him, and spring to my feet. He’s scrambling behind me. Wild. Desperate. He can’t let me get away. His fingertips slash the air like claws at my back and grab hold. This is how it ends, I think, detached. Like I’m watching us from a distance. These two frenzied, needful shadows grappling to decide each other’s fate.

  At the long end of the alley, just out of the glow of the streetlight, I see the tall silhouette of a man. With it comes the slippery feeling I’ve been here before. He’s not moving—not at first—but I yell out anyway. He’s just staring. And it’s strange, inexplicable really, how fast he goes from standing statue-still to barreling toward me with the urgency of a man possessed. It’s almost as if he’s being chased himself.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  Butch

  January 13, 2017

  Friday, fifteen minutes earlier

  I killed a girl. There, I said it. Best to be up-front from the get-go. After all, honesty is the best policy. That’s what they say, isn’t it? Whoever they are. I can tell you this—they’ve never done ten to life in Folsom and come out on the other side. Still, I killed a girl. Did you ever think to come up with one sentence that defines your entire life? Go ahead. Try it. I killed a girl. That’s mine. Now you already know everything about me.

  That’s the conversation I have, mostly with myself, every time I go on one of these waste-of-my-time job interviews Agent McElroy sets up for me, and today was no different. Waste. Of. My. Time. Four and a half months on parole. Twelve interviews. And jobless, in spite of the degree I’d earned behind bars. Yep, I’m a college boy, but if it wasn’t for the last of the settlement money, I’d be dead broke. And that’s a bitter pill to swallow since that money all but put me in prison. Now, here it is, saving my ass.

  “Sorry, son, you’re just not a good fit for us.” The boss man had offered a tight smile, sort of like he was afraid of me, before he ushered me out the door lickety-split. “Best of luck to you though.”

  Nobody wants to hire an ex-con with a murder rap. Even if it was twenty-three years ago. Even if I recite all that mumbo jumbo I practiced about how I’m different now, reformed, a new man. Truthfully, I’m still Butch Calder. And Butch Calder ended somebody’s life. Not just somebody. Her. Strange how a girl I barely knew in life would latch on to me close as my own shadow, how I’ve come to know her better than a lover, as well as my own hand. In one night, I’d linked us for eternity in some kind of sick death dance.

  I take another bite of the waffle that’s gone cold and pretend to read the newspaper some other diner left behind. It’s empty in here now, just me and Brenda and a table of four, staring at their smartphones and fast-typing on those mini keyboards with their thumbs. They’d probably LOL—I’m learning the lingo—if they knew Agent McElroy had to help me decipher this ancient flip phone I picked up for twenty bucks.

  “Didn’t eat much today, hon.” Brenda pats my shoulder as she clears my table. Per her usual formula of seduction, she leans forward as far as she can, letting her shirt gape open enough for me to catch more than a hint of cleavage. My half-eaten waffle slides dangerously close to the edge of the plate, threatening a syrup waterfall, but I doubt she cares. It’s me she’s eyeing. “You on a diet?” A shameless wink, then a toss of her bleached hair. I swallow the urge to tell her everything so she’ll leave me alone. I killed a girl. Strangled her, if you want specifics. Now there’s a conversation ender.

  But I just shrug. “Not hungry today.”

  “Well, don’t wither away. Biceps like that need fuel, you know.” I’m pretty sure I’m blushing, because she laughs at me. Her laugh is amazing—it’s freedom, the fast car on an open road kind—and it’s been a long time since a girl…woman…looked at me that way, really saw me. As a man, not just a number. Young Butch would’ve been all over that. But now, geez, I’m forty-one, and I feel like an old man. My outside’s okay, I guess. I’ve still got my sandy blond hair; I’m letting my beard grow to cover the unfortunate shank scar on my neck; and not to brag, but I’m in the best shape of my life. Solid muscle. Prison will do that to you with push-ups and burpees and running in circles on the yard. The inside of me though, that’s another story. In there, it’s all withered and dusty and gray. It’s been so long I’m not even sure I’d know what to do with a woman. Frankly, I’m not sure I ever did.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I tell her, careful not to flirt. “And I’ll take the check whenever you get a chance.” Not that I need it. I always order the same. A ten-spot doesn’t get you much these days. Just a waffle, two eggs scrambled, and coffee strong enough to wake the dead. So Chicken and Waffles it is—every single night—but I don’t mind the routine.

  “Sure thing.” She tears off the bill and lays it next to my hand. Her fingers graze my wrist. “Same time tomorrow?” Even though I saw it coming, I pull away. Fast.

  “Sorry,” I say. “It’s just…uh…it’s been a long…” Time. Day. Life.

  “Don’t be.” She turns to walk away, and I figure the spell’s finally been broken. Brenda’s totally over me. But then, “You know my dad did a stint at Quentin. When he came back, he slept on the floor for two months. Said he just couldn’t get comfortable out here in the real world. I know a fish out of water when I see one. So if you ever want to talk or…” She gestures to the bill, her name and phone number scrawled on the back.

  I give her a polite smile, drop twelve bucks on the table, and beeline for the exit, my heart already off to the races, slamming against my chest like it wants out. It does that a lot lately. Like it can’t quite figure out where we are, how we got here, what to do next. And Brenda’s or isn’t helping.

  I lean against the wall outside and try to look cool. But really, I’m listening to my breathing, waiting for it to get quiet again. Take it slow, Calder. Agent McElroy’s always saying that. As if there’s any other way to take it when you’re plopped right back down in the middle of all this. I tell ya, sometimes I feel like a squirrel that darted onto the freeway during rush hour.

  It’s a three-block walk to the remodeled warehouse I call home—me and thirty-one other fine, upstanding ex-cons—and I’m in no hurry. Transitional housing. That’s what the brochure said, and to the parole board it must’ve sounded good enough. Personally, I prefer halfway house, because that’s what it is. Halfway a home. Halfway a prison. But at least I’ve earned an extended curfew. And my roommate got violated—parole lingo for sent back to the clink—last week on a dirty test for coke, which means I’m flying solo i
n my one-hundred-and-twenty-square-foot lap of luxury. In a way, it sort of feels like I belong there. I haven’t lived in a house, a real house, since the accident. The big rig that crossed the centerline and wiped out my whole family with one head-on thwack.

  Two blocks to go, and I’m shoving my hands in my pockets, deep down, past the crumpled-up slip with Brenda’s digits. Don’t get any bright ideas, Calder. That’s going straight in the trash. Why’d you take it anyway? It’s colder than I expected tonight. Quieter too. And I spin around, paranoid, just to make sure I’m not being followed. It’s another thing I do now. Too much open space, I suppose.

  One block to go, and I’m thinking about my bed. How Brenda was right. It’s too soft. And too big. And the room is way too still. Maybe I’ll try the floor tonight. The scream comes out of nowhere…the shadowy nowhere at the dead end to my left, where people dump things they don’t want anymore, do things they don’t want seen.

  I’m two places at once. I’m here, and it’s a woman’s voice shrieking, and I’m standing still, staring. Don’t get involved. Do. Not. Get. Involved. I can’t risk it. On parole, it’s one wrong move, and I’m back in the slammer.

  Also, I’m there, twenty-three years ago, the girl’s eyes wide and white, and I’ve got my hands around her neck. I can’t stop squeezing.

  Before I’ve made up my mind, the woman screams again, and I’m running, sprinting, straight into nowhere. What choice have I got anyway with this ghost at my heels?