by Keith Knapp
After grabbing the kid in the smoke, he took him to the alley between the sheriff’s office and the ice cream shop which was where the fun began with the illusion of the playground and ended with the façade in the bathroom. Brett needed to see what it was he was paying for. The Bug Man wanted to fully illustrate just what a weak fool Brett had been. The weak had to pay for not standing up for themselves, for giving up on life when it got the best of them, for simply not understanding that sometimes life sucked. The wicked had to pay for preying on the weak. The ignorant had to pay for being so fucking stupid.
And that was the Bug Man’s job. Always had been, always would be. These creatures of earth had been given a wonderful gift and most of them squandered it away watching TV and feeling sorry for themselves. They didn’t like life? He’d give them something to really not like.
Brett’s wide eyes stared at him but the Bug Man knew he wasn’t seeing him—Brett’s mind was too far gone to see much of anything, now. He studied the boy’s face as he succumbed to the final resting place of death and found himself wondering what it was like. What was it like to not know anything at all, for there to be utter blackness and complete nothingness? That’s what was beyond this world, the Bug Man knew it. This was the Final Stop In The Universe.
Spiders covered Brett’s face. Two went into his mouth, followed by a team of cockroaches to do their dirty work on the inside. Within seconds Brett’s body was a mound of bugs, a moving mass that only vaguely resembled the shape of a human being. Once inside, the Bug Man could feel the roaches forwarding—uploading, as the humans liked to put it—Brett’s essence to him. He collected the boy’s weakness, his cowardice, his forgetfulness, and made them his own. The Bug Man felt himself grow stronger from Brett’s shortcomings.
He smiled his bug-smile as the cockroaches exited Brett’s mouth and marched back onto his arm. The spiders soon followed suit, and then all that was left was Brett’s lifeless body.
The skin on the inside of the Bug Man’s forearms opened up, slowly tearing apart as if an invisible knife were cutting it. The flaps of skin separated. The roaches and spiders entered the empty cavities and filled them up, marching back into his body by the dozens.
The three hounds awaited him at the far end of the alley. Like the animals they were, their mouth’s salivated at the prospect of another meal. Knowing that their master was now done with his portion of the feast, the hounds moved forward.
The Bug Man squinted at the beasts, his pupils flashing a hint of reptilian slits, talking to them without really talking. He stood before them in his raggedy clothes and regarded each hound with a silent warning.
They had devoured the little old lady in the station wagon—she was of no interest to him as she had led a good life and had no remorse and no regrets. And the trucker woman, Jillian? Her weakness was nothing more than a two routine dark periods in her adolescence; once when her mother had died, then again when her dad kicked the bucket. Hardly special, hardly worth the effort—so he had let the hounds feast on her, as well.
But the others belonged to him.
All three hounds bowed their heads and backed away. They sat on their hind quarters as their master bent down and picked up Brett’s body with little effort and tossed the kid over his shoulders.
38.
A ceiling filled with fluorescent lights and shelves lined with canned goods stared down at Rachel. Campbell’s Soup. Hormel chili with beans. Chef Boyardee macaroni and cheese.
Holding onto a metal shelf stocked with Pop Tarts, Rachel got to her feet. She was immediately punched in the head by vertigo. Did she hit her head on something? Man she was out of it. Think. If she could just get the room to stop spinning.
There were only five aisles of products—this place was too small for a grocery store. When she was finally able to stabilize herself some, she saw a wall of refrigerated drinks, from beer to Red Bull, on her left. To her right was a lottery station and a stack of probably shitty tasting wine advertised at 2-for-$10.
A convenience store. That’s right. They had robbed a convenience store.
Something must’ve happened during the robbery. She had been knocked out. Maybe a fight had broken out—that certainly sounded like something Jimmy would do. So where the hell was he? And Brett, for that matter? Had they ditched her? Jimmy might do something like that if the sloppy shit hit the fan hard enough, but certainly not Brett—that wasn’t how he rolled. Brett wouldn’t let Jimmy do it, either.
Every inch of the front window had been covered with red paint, so she couldn’t see if the van was idling out there or not. Rachel didn’t remember the store being like that when they had staked it out…or when they had arrived that morning to make their withdrawal. There was no sign of anyone else in any of the five aisles. Rachel was all alone.
Something wasn’t right.
Slowly but surely she made her way to the refrigerated section and pulled open a door revealing ten rows of bottled water. Parched, she grabbed an Evian, twisted open the cap and downed half of it in one gulp. Cold. So cold and oh so good. It cooled her throat and she felt it travel down to her stomach, creating a nice, cool calm lake there.
“You’re gonna have to pay for that,” a voice said from behind the counter.
Startled, Rachel whipped around to see the clerk approach her. She let the bottle move slowly away from her lips, keeping the clerk’s stare. Had he been there a few seconds ago? Had she even looked over at the counter? Did it matter? The guy was there now.
“Don’t worry, s’okay,” the clerk said, “as long as you pay for it.”
“I will.”
“But what you and your friends did, that’s not okay. No sirree bob, not okay at all.”
The clerk moved from behind the counter and into Rachel’s aisle. He was tall, at least a good six-feet. Casually he strolled up to her, not a care in the world, just a member of the staff walking up to a customer to see if they needed any assistance.
Rachel found it hard to stand her ground. She took a feeble step backward. She tried to give him a strong look, a look that said don’t mess with me, buddy, but it came off more like please don’t mess me up. This guy was big. One punch would probably send Rachel into next week.
“My f-friends?” she said with a shaky voice. She felt like she was in a dream. A nightmare.
“Jimmy and Brett,” he said. “Well, Jimmy more so than Brett—after all, Brett was just the wheelman. It was how he rolled, heh. Still, like you, he let it happen. But he’s paid his dues already. Yes sirree bob.”
Now Rachel wanted to run. Run like hell outside. The clerk’s breath was rancid, putrid, the smell of death. And his eyes—there was something way fucking off about this dude’s eyes.
The nametag pinned to his shirt stated that his name was Frank and that he was the manager of this fine establishment.
“His name was Frank Bancroft. He had a wife. Two kids. A brother. He was just trying to get through life. Pay the mortgage, save some scrap for the future, maybe have another kid before he got too old to fuck. But you and your buddies saw to it that he couldn’t. Frank lived a good life, so I never got to meet him. Heh, no sirree.”
The robbery had gone bad alright, and now she was remembering it. Jimmy had shot his load prematurely (to be fair he should not have shot his load off at all) and the buckshot from the shotgun had sent the clerk’s brains all over the whiskey bottles and porno mags behind the counter. If such was the case, what was he doing right in front of her making sure she was an honest paying customer?
Then his face started to change and Rachel was soon quite positive that this was not Frank, the poor clerk her boyfriend had killed—this was someone or something else altogether. It was more than just him referring to himself in the third person; there was a sense of power around him that was inescapable. A sense that he could, if he wanted to, mess her up big time at the drop of a hat. Shit, his breath alone would do the trick if she had to breathe it for much longer.
His lef
t eyeball sunk into its socket and rolled down into his skull. His nose underwent the same magical effect and was soon gone, replaced by ripped tissue and blood. The left cheek followed, then his mouth disappeared along with most of his teeth. The telltale signs of a shotgun wound to the face.
“You’re a sinner and a liar, and now it’s time you paid the piper,” the Frank-thing said. Or tried to say. Due to his quickly forming wounds, it came out more like Yur a shinner und uh lieer, und nuw itsh time uh paieeed duh pieeper.
Then he shoved her in the chest, hard. She had been right: he had power.
Sailing down the aisle—her entire body had been lifted off the ground by the force of this man—her arm ricocheted off the glass doors that kept the beer nice and frosty. The bottle of Evian slipped out of her hand and went spinning past the Frank-thing, water spraying out of its top like a faucet. Her back slammed into a wall of dog and cat food. The pet products exploded, falling to the floor with her. A three-pound bag of Purina Puppy Chow landed by her head.
Wheezing, Rachel grabbed her chest. Air couldn’t get in. Every vertebra in her back pulsed with pain. Jesus this guy was strong. Although he wasn’t a guy, was he?
The Frank-thing walked toward her, still casual. He rolled his good eye in her direction.
With one arm, he picked her up by the collar. Rachel reached out and grabbed the Puppy Chow, then wasn’t sure what to do with it. Smash it against his head, hope this batch of Purina had some sulfuric acid mixed in with the chicken and liver?
He tossed her to the side, sending her through the EMPLOYEES ONLY door. She skidded along the cold concrete floor (guess this was how she rolled), then her head hit something soft and she stopped. The Puppy Chow was still in her hand.
The stock room was dark, lit only by one working fluorescent light positioned in the far corner which kept flickering on and off. Shadows were long and always moving. The stench was unbearable, almost as bad as the Frank-thing’s breath. Rotted frozen dinners. Dead rats in old, abandoned traps. A stack of pre-made sandwiches that never made it to the front and looked as though they had arrived three years ago.
The Frank-thing gave it his all to speak. “You stay here with your friend,” he said. Yuh shtay hur wif yur frund. “When I come back, you’ll find the town was Heaven compared to what’s in store for you.” Whin eh coom buhk yull fiend ta town us ehehen cumpured tuh uht’s en shtore or you.
Then he turned, walked out, closed the door, and locked it behind him.
Like an avalanche of snow rolling down a mountain, the gaps of confusion in Rachel’s memory filled in. They hadn’t robbed a store run by the devil or some monster—it had been run by a normal guy (whose name was apparently Frank Bancroft) who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had been in an earthquake and ended up in the town. And this town, it played tricks on you. Showed you things. Things from your past. Bad things.
There had been smoke, and the smoke had pulled her…here? Was that right? Yes, she thought it was. Where she was now was yet another game in the town.
Rachel tried to look around and see what “friend” this lunatic was talking about. Rolling onto her side she lifted herself up, staring at what had stopped her from sliding all the way to the back of the room. Instantly her hands went to her mouth to stifle a gasp.
Brett’s body was a crumpled mess, a rag doll. His legs looked like a madman’s attempt at forming a pretzel. He lay on his stomach, his arms criss-crossed diagonally against his back in a position that could only mean they were beyond broken. But she could see his face and his still open eyes because his head was backwards. He was looking right at her, his eyes frozen in a look of fear and pain—neither of which Rachel had any trouble understanding. But just underneath that fear and pain was something else.
Peace.
39.
She was seven years old. The fall breeze ruffled her hair, which flapped behind her like a flag. The trees were already well into their metamorphosis from green to red, orange, yellow and brown. Earth tones. The air was crisp and felt good against her skin.
Westmont, IL. She’d grown up here. For a few seconds she wondered what she was doing here—she hadn’t been back to Westmont in over twenty years. That thought quickly disappeared: she was seven, not twenty-seven. She lived here, that’s what she was doing here.
Sophia turned her bicycle down Naperville Road, passing small suburban homes on her right, five- and six-story apartment buildings on her left. Another kid rode his bike toward her. As he got closer, she recognized him as a classmate from school. What was his name? Timmy? Tommy? They passed each other. Sophia gave the boy a courtesy smile, but he didn’t acknowledge her—he just kept on riding down the street and-
-then she was in Blackhawk Park, coasting across one of the three basketball courts. Her tires dropped off the pavement and onto the soft grass and-
-now she was parked in Jack Welling’s Ford Mustang. Seventeen was now her age and Jack’s tongue was in her mouth. His hand lifted up to cup one of her breasts and she let him. They had been going out for three months, so why not? Jack reached inside her blouse for a hefty helping of second base, and that’s when it got weird for her. Yes, she loved the guy—at least she was pretty sure she did—but this wasn’t right. Not now. Not like this. She wanted some romance in her life.
“Stop,” she whispered and pulled away.
It was night. The soft yellow glow of the park’s lights let her see just enough of Jack’s face to register his disappointment.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just…this is gonna sound so clichéd…it’s just that I want it to be special.”
Gradually Jack moved his hand to his thigh and absentmindedly wiped away the thin film of Sophia’s sweat that had collected on his palm. “No, I’m the one that should be sorry. I got carried away. You’re right, this should be something special.”
She caressed Jack’s previously sweaty palm. Their fingers interlocked. She combed his hair with her other hand and smiled. “My parents will be out of town next weekend.”
“Talk about clichéd.”
“Hey, if you don’t want to-”
“I didn’t say that!”
Sophia took his cheek in between her fingers and pinched, like an old aunt who just can’t believe how cute her nephew has become. “You’re so adorable when the prospect of sex is dangled in front of you,” she said.
“Then why did you do it?” he asked.
Her face crinkled.
“Let me rephrase,” Jack said. “Why did you let her do it?”
More crinkles on her face. “Why did I let who do what?”
“I was a good guy going through a rough patch. You knew that. But you still let her do it, and what’s even worse is you let her get away with it.”
Jack wasn’t making any sense, and-
-now she was at the Nightstrip Gentlemen’s Club in Van Nuys, CA—3,000 miles away from Westmont and the awkward conversation with Jack. She took off her jacket and placed it in her locker. Mötley Crüe played over the speakers, which meant Carmen was on stage. Carmen loved classic Hair Metal.
Off came Sophia’s wedding ring and onto the top shelf of her locker it went. She didn’t like taking it off every night, but the unspoken rule was that most customers frowned upon a married stripper—even though chances were most of the customers were married themselves and wouldn’t be looking at her hands, anyway.
She slipped off her clothes and put on her employee’s uniform—frilly purple lingerie covered by a black see-through nightgown. She hadn’t had time to do her hair but figured that really didn’t matter. Like her hands, most of the guys out there wouldn’t be admiring that part of her body.
If Jack knew what she was doing with her nights he’d go insane. She wouldn’t blame him for it, either. She realized that this was no way to raise their daughter, but money was tight and this was all they had. Moving out to California from Illinois in order for her to pursue an acting career had not pann
ed out at all. Jack had gone willingly enough—it wasn’t like the guy had any huge prospects to begin with. But still, she felt guilty for taking him away from his high school drinking buddies only to have her become a nightclub dancer. Yes, she’d had auditions and once landed a small role in an indie (she didn’t have any lines, but you could make her face out in the background if your TV was big enough) but nothing that, as the saying goes, she could write home about. And Jack wasn’t swift enough to catch on that Sophia’s income didn’t come from the flick. Shit, he practically thought she was a movie star.
This gig was only temporary, too. She knew it. Waitressing didn’t pay all the bills, and dancing a couple of nights a week helped make ends meet. And once Jody was old enough to go to college, spending Sophia’s hard-earned money on something more worthwhile than Jack’s alcohol, she could go through with a divorce and live the quiet life she’d secretly always dreamed about.
The Mötley Crüe song ended. It was not replaced with the DJ announcing the next dancer (Cherry Pie, Sophia’s current stage name) or the thumping bass of Sophia’s first song (a Snoop Dogg remix). Instead she heard nothing but silence. Carmen didn’t enter the back staging area, which meant she was still out there. Something was wrong. The club was never, ever silent. Horny men make way too much noise.
She walked up the three stairs to the stage and poked her head through the curtains. It wasn’t just the stage that was bare—the entire room was vacant. The lights danced and throbbed to no music. Sophia moved onto the stage slowly, passing one of the two poles. Every seat in the house was empty, from the tables by the bar to the couches near the VIP area.
“Hello?” she said. Her own voice startled her in the near-absolute silence. “Somebody wanna tell me what the hell’s goin’ on?”
The sound of someone clapping came from the left. It was a slow clap drenched in sarcasm. Jack appeared from the shadows. He leisurely moved around the tables, his clapping eventually ending.
