by Ron Ripley
It robbed an opportunity to say goodbye, and to make amends.
Victor wished he could have apologized for arguing with Jeremy. He would have liked to thank him again for his help, and for taking him in.
That chance was gone.
Victor stood in the viewing window of a small morgue, Jeremy’s body stretched out on a metal slab and half covered with a white sheet. The bandages Victor had put on his friend’s chest were gone, the vicious wounds visible to all.
“Yes,” Victor managed to say. “That’s him.”
The female detective who had picked Victor up and brought him to the morgue motioned to the attendant.
“How did he die?” Victor asked, turning away from the viewing window as the morgue attendant covered the body.
The detective said, “Severe trauma from a small caliber gunshot wound. We have a description of the man who shot him, but unfortunately, there aren’t any cameras in the restaurant. I was hoping you could tell me about those wounds on his chest and throat. And the gunshot wound to the shoulder. Does it have anything to do with your own injury?”
“No,” Victor lied. “I had seen the bandages on his throat this morning, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about his chest. As for the gunshot wound, well, someone was showing him a collectible rifle and had failed to make sure the weapon wasn’t loaded.”
The woman nodded, and Victor could see that she didn’t believe him.
He didn’t care.
“You two haven’t had any problems lately?” she asked.
“We were friends, detective,” Victor answered. “I lost my wife recently. And my home. Jeremy gave me a place to live, and he was keeping me from sinking into depression. Nothing more.”
Again she nodded, but this time he saw belief in her eyes.
“I hate to sound like a television cop,” she said a moment later, “but you’re not planning on leaving Fox Cat Hollow anytime soon, are you?”
He shook his head. “No. Not at all. I plan on being here for quite some time, Detective.”
“Good, I may have some more questions for you,” she said.
Victor nodded and turned to leave.
“Where are you going now?” she asked, as his hand took hold of the doorknob.
“Now?” Victor asked without looking back. “Now, Detective, I am going to go make arrangements for the burial of my friend.”
And without saying anything else, Victor left the room, certain that it was Stefan Korzh who had slain his friend.
Chapter 53: A Burial
The ceremony had been brief and painful.
Several members of Moran and Moran had arrived and attended the graveside service, as had Shane Ryan and a friend of his named Frank. Victor didn’t recall the man’s last name, only that he too had served, as the majority of those in attendance.
The air in Middletown, Connecticut, where the State Veterans Cemetery was located, and where Jeremy had a plot, was crisp and smelled faintly of snow.
In his ears, Victor imagined he could still hear the faint echo of the 21-gun salute fired for Jeremy. He held the flag that had been draped over his friend’s coffin, vaguely remembering the professional soldier who had extended her condolences when she had presented him with it.
Victor was alone at the grave, and he knew he had to leave. The cemetery employees were politely waiting for him to step aside so they could finish with the burial. Victor knew they would put away the chairs and roll up the faux turf. The awning would come down and the mechanism used to lower the casket taken away.
He had done this only recently, when he buried Erin.
Victor let out a sigh, nodded to the grave and whispered, “Bye, Jeremy.”
With his head bent, Victor walked down the slim path between the neatly arranged headstones to the smooth asphalt road. He switched the flag from his right hand to his left, and felt alone.
He had only gone a hundred or so feet when he heard a cough.
It caught his attention and he looked up, his steps faltering for a moment.
On a small bench sat a young woman, who bore a striking similarity to Erin when she had been in her early twenties. The stranger smiled and said, “I’m sorry about your friend, Victor.”
“Thank you,” he said, and then came to a stop.
He felt an uncomfortable chill seep into him as he turned to face her.
She wore a calf-length black coat, with matching gloves and boots. A cane rested on the bench beside her and she offered him a crooked smile.
“Do you want to know how I know you?” she asked him.
Victor nodded, moving onto the grass to avoid any cars.
“It took a little research,” she said, “but my father pointed me in the right direction.”
“And who is your father?” Victor asked, finding his voice again.
“My father,” she said, straightening with pride, “is Ivan Denisovich Korzh. Which means, unfortunately, that Stefan Korzh is my brother.”
Hatred spiked through Victor at the mention of Stefan.
“My feelings exactly,” she said, reading Victor’s face. “I have been instructed by my father to tell you that he still must be the instrument of Stefan’s death. However, he also wants you to know that Stefan will remain, shall we say, pinned to southwestern Pennsylvania.”
“How is he going to manage that?” Victor asked.
She smiled. “My father will manage it. That’s all.”
Victor watched as she took hold of the cane and pushed herself to her feet. She winced, smiled and said, “My brother will be much like a hunted animal. And he will be more dangerous than before. If you reach him before my father does, and deal with him, Ivan Denisovich will be displeased, and I doubt you will survive his vengeance.”
“I don’t care if I survive it or not,” Victor hissed.
“Yes,” the woman said, nodding, “we know.”
In silence, he watched the woman limp away.
After a moment, Victor took out his phone, and searched for an earlier flight back to Pennsylvania.
* * *
Bonus Scene Chapter 1: Quality Time
“Does it sit well against your shoulder?” he asked her.
“Yes, Father,” she answered.
“Excellent,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. He smelled of coffee and vodka, old books and antiques well-kept, of strength and power. These odors wrapped around her, comforted her and made her understand that she was the most precious person in his life.
“Now,” he said in a soft voice, “look down at the sight. Place the top of it on the center there. Yes, there.”
He guided her hand ever so slightly, his rough skin gentle upon her own smooth flesh.
“Always the center,” he whispered. “Yes?”
“Yes, Father,” she replied in a hushed voice.
“Slow your breathing, child, look only at what is in front of you,” he continued. “There is nothing else in the world right now other than the two of us, and what you see before you.”
Dutifully she did as she was told, moderating her breath.
“When you are comfortable,” her father said, “I want you to hold your breath. Remember, when you do that, you will be perfectly steady. Then you take up pressure. And only then.”
She didn’t answer.
Instead, she held her breath, felt her body become still, and she did as she had been taught.
***
Alden Park placed his hand in the brown lunch bag and withdrew a handful of dried breadcrumbs. He scattered them at his feet and smiled at the pigeons that came up to eat. Their coos and various utterings were soothing to him. The early morning sun had crested the horizon a short while before, and soon it would glow in the still waters of the small, man-made pond in King’s Park.
He shifted his weight on the bench and winced at the pang of arthritis in his neck. It reminded him of his age, and of how he had a doctor’s appointment later that day.
He sighed and gl
anced at his watch.
Once more, the old-time piece was running backward, and he squelched a burst of anger. He had taken it to three separate jewelers, and one watch specialist and all of them had assured him that the watch was fine. Fantastic even, and the specialist had offered to purchase it from him for three hundred dollars.
The watch was not for sale though. And it never would be. It had belonged to his uncle, and the man had been like a father to Alden.
Alden inhaled sharply, wincing as pain blossomed in his chest. A heartbeat later, a dog barked once, the sound rolling across the pond.
Alden dropped the bag of breadcrumbs to the ground, ignored the way the pigeons struggled against one another for the prize within, and reached up and touched his chest.
His flannel shirt was warm and damp, and when he pulled his hand back, he found his fingers stained with dark red blood. Alden stared at it and took a shuddering breath. The sound was mimicked by his chest, and when he leaned down, he could see blood on his shirt. Small bubbles formed and popped with each ragged breath.
He tried to move, to get off the bench, and when that failed, he attempted to call out for help.
It was no use.
His voice didn’t respond, and the reason he enjoyed King’s Park was that no one went there in the mornings.
He was always alone.
As he sat upright on the bench, slowly dying, he heard the crunch of feet on the crushed gravel of the pathway. Hope sprang up within him as he turned towards the sound, but it was crushed by the sight that greeted his eyes.
A tall man, dressed in clothes similar to his own, walked beside a young girl, perhaps no more than eight or nine years old. She held his hand, and in her free hand, she carefully balanced a long, .22 caliber rifle on her thin shoulder. Her auburn hair was pulled back in a pair of pigtails, and she wore pink overalls. Sneakers decorated with dancing bears clad her feet, and there was a pleased smile on the girl’s face.
One almost identical to the smile on her father’s.
“Go ahead, Ariana,” the father said, his voice bearing a slight accent. He let go of her hand and took the rifle from her.
The girl skipped the last few feet to the bench, ignored Alden’s pained gasps, and deftly turned his wrist over. She stripped the watch off and showed it to her father.
“Good,” the man sighed. “Very good. Let us go now.”
“Help me,” Alden finally managed to beg, his voice no more than a croak.
The father raised an eyebrow and looked at his daughter.
She, in turn, faced Alden and said, “No.”
Alden Park died on the bench, watching the father and daughter walk away from him while the pigeons ate the breadcrumbs around his feet.
Bonus Scene Chapter 2: An Important Conversation
Ariana’s mother hadn’t returned from grocery shopping when she and her father walked into the basement through the bulkhead. Her father, the great, strong man that he was, hummed cheerfully, smiling down at her.
“Ah, my dear daughter,” he said in Russian, “I am very proud of you. You are so smart.”
Ariana beamed and wrapped her arms around his neck as he picked her up.
“Now, let us clean our weapon before we put it away, yes?” he asked.
Ariana nodded. She disliked speaking when he was visiting. Every word was important, and she savored them, wanting to make certain she missed nothing he said. In her pocket was the watch that she had killed the old man for. She didn’t think much about the act of murder. Her father had said it was a necessity, and if Ivan Denisovich Korzh said something, then it was to be taken as gospel.
At least that’s what Ariana’s mother had taught her, and Ariana believed her.
Her father carried her to his special room and set her down in front of the heavy, iron-bound door. From under his shirt, he withdrew a small key that hung on a length of silver chain. He slipped it over his head and handed the key to her.
Ariana jumped up and down with excitement as she fit the key into the lock, her father chuckling behind her. It took her a moment to work it back and forth, and when she finally twisted it far enough to the left, the tumbler clicked. She extracted the key and handed it to her father, who pulled playfully at one of her pigtails before he put it back under his shirt.
When he finished, he turned on the light, and they entered the room.
It was small and windowless, lined with wooden shelves that held a variety of objects both mundane and obscure. There was a small, grinning figure her father referred to as a netsuke, and beside that was a Star Wars action figure. A pair of chairs; one for him and the other for her, were seated across from each other at a narrow, rectangular wooden table. The air in the room was cold and, not for the first time, Ariana thought she could hear people whispering. Yet as soon as she and her father took their seats, the whispering stopped.
She started to take the watch out of her pocket, and he shook his head, smiling.
“The rifle first,” he reminded her as he set the weapon down on the table. From underneath he retrieved a cleaning kit, and as he opened it he asked, “How has school been?”
She told him, refusing to leave out any detail, however insignificant her mother might think it would be. Ariana told him about looking at cursive writing, and about how Chris Tatum was going to be moving to North Carolina.
Her father listened attentively as he guided her hands in the cleaning of the rifle. He asked pertinent questions and was quite pleased to learn that she had already mastered her times’ tables up to number six.
“I am very proud of you,” he said, putting the cleaning kit away and reassembling the rifle. He stood up, placed the weapon in its rack, and returned to his seat. “You are a smart young woman, Ariana, and you will do great things when you are older. I know it.”
She felt her face go red with pride as she swung her feet back and forth.
Ivan Denisovich chuckled and said, “Now, let us see this watch we retrieved.”
Ariana reached into her pocket, took hold of the timepiece, and placed it on the table in front of him. Her father twisted a thick black ring on the index finger of his right hand and nodded. The watch, Ariana saw, was running backward. And much too fast.
“Is it broken?” she asked.
Her father shook his head. “No. Well, yes, to the rest of the world it is. For us, my daughter, it is working exactly as it should. This watch is possessed.”
She frowned and tilted her head.
He smiled, and in the same gentle voice he had used to teach her to shoot, and to explain the necessity of killing, Ivan Denisovich told her about ghosts. She listened attentively as he spoke of ghosts who lived in buildings or homes, of those who were bound to various roads and bridges. Others, who remained in graveyards, close to their mortal remains. And then there were those who would not be separated from favorite possessions. Not even through death.
“Some of them,” he continued, “are possessed by murderers. Killers whose dark souls are too terrified to move beyond to the next world. Others who simply hope to continue killing. These are the ones that I am interested in, Ariana.”
She looked at the watch on the table between them, thought about it for a moment, and then asked, “And this is haunted?”
Her father nodded and waited.
Ariana considered the item for several more seconds before she said, “And so it is a murderer who is in it?”
“Indeed there is,” he replied, smiling at her understanding. “This man, Thurman Park, was a killer. He enjoyed using a blade. Do you understand?”
Ariana nodded. “He liked knives.”
“He did,” her father agreed. “And he liked his watch.”
“Why?” she asked.
“He enjoyed seeing how long it would take a man to die,” Ivan Denisovich said. “He was also of the belief that each minute he stole from someone’s life was added to his own. That is why the watch runs backward. He never saw the watch as telling time. No, c
hild, he saw it as letting him know how much time he was stealing back from Death.”
Ariana nodded, then frowned and asked, “How many?”
“Did he kill?” her father asked, surprised.
She nodded.
“He confessed to over three hundred before he was killed in 1941,” her father answered. “Some doubted him. I do not. His confession was made to a priest, and that priest wrote it down in a journal, horrified at what he had heard. I came into possession of the journal two years ago when the priest died, and they auctioned off his things.”
“Hm,” Ariana said, and she continued to stare at the watch. After almost a minute, she looked at her father and asked, “What do you do now, then?”
Her father let out a pleased laugh, his voice booming off the walls and filling the room. Ariana smiled happily and waited for her father to speak again.
“Now, my dear daughter,” he said, “we will seek to converse with our newly acquired murderer.”
“Why?” she asked.
Her father leaned forward and gave her a conspiratorial wink, whispering, “Because we can, and nothing more. Are you ready?”
She nodded that she was, and her father picked up the watch.
“Thurman Park,” he said in a commanding tone, “I would have words with you, man. Come out and speak.”
Thurman Park burst out of the watch, a roiling, shimmering mass that forced Ariana to bite back a squeal of surprise and fear.
The ghost rushed at her father, and Ivan Denisovich slammed his fist into the mass.
Instantly the ghost vanished, and a chorus of voices rose up around them. The possessed items on the shelves screamed and catcalled, and Ariana’s father bellowed, “Silence!”
The dead went quiet.
Her father gave her a questioning look and Ariana, in turn, gave him the thumbs up, smiling through her fear.
He winked at her, focused on the watch again, and said, “I told you to come out and speak.”
The dead man came out, and it was a repeat of what had happened the first time. Then a third, a fourth, and a fifth.
