314 Book 2 (19 page)

“Alma,” said Ben from the other room. “Get out!”

“Alma?” asked Michael as he let go of Terry’s neck and walked back into the bedroom. He wiped his hands on his pants as he approached his daughter. “What did I tell you about coming in here?”

Alma held up a butcher’s knife and Michael stopped at the edge of the bed. He was furious, but didn’t have the chance to punish the girl before they were all startled by Terry’s scream from the bathroom.

The junkie was still alive.

The chemicals in the tub had severely burned her, causing her skin to turn
a brilliant shade of red, like a lobster leaping from its pot. The water had become thick and gelatinous, dripping in syrupy strands from her arms as she pulled herself from the tub. She was crying out in pain and anger, her eyes wide as she staggered across the slippery tile. Terry had been blinded by the chemical soup, and was desperate to get away. She ran past Michael in a blind rush, and he tried to grab her hand. He thought the slick fluid was making her impossible to grip, but then realized that her flesh had actually torn loose of her arm from where the boiling water had hit her. He was reminded of a chicken’s skin being pulled up from the breast meat as it peeled away. He was horrified as he looked down at the wet strip of flesh he was left with as Terry ran from him.

Alma had been standing in the room with her knife outstretched in an attempt to defend herself from Michael. Terry was blinded by the chemicals, and ran directly into the little girl’s weapon. The two of them hit the floor,
and Alma was pinned beneath Terry as the junkie screamed in pain.

Terry’s feet squeaked on the wood floor of the bedroom as Alma tried to push her away. The junkie rolled to the side and gripped the knife stuck in her belly when her cries of pain turned back into gurgles. Blood spewed from her mouth as she shook her head back and forth in agony. She kept trying to pull the blade free, but it was stuck inside of her.

Michael was determined to kill her for good this time. He grasped the handle of the blade and ripped it free, causing Terry’s body to jerk upward and then flop back down.

“Die, you stupid bitch!”

Michael fell to his knees over the nude woman’s waist and started to stab at her stomach over and over. He plunged the blade into her more times than he could count, and continued even after she stopped flailing around. His assault turned her abdomen into a hole of tattered meat and blood, and he continued to eviscerate her. Pink intestines protruded from the gore, and he pulled at them in a maddened attempt to disembowel the woman that had attacked his children. His hatred for her was as uncompromising as it was unexplainable. There never existed a single thing that he hated more than this woman, and he had no idea why.

When
Michael was finished, he stood and shook the gore from his hands. He was winded from the assault, and heaved as he tried to catch his breath. Then he stared at Alma and said, “What did I tell you about staying out of my room?”

The little girl’s eyes were filled with tears.

That’s when the fog swept in.

Do you remember your first memory?

I thought I did, but I was wrong. I swore that the first memory I had was when I was just a toddler. I had found my mother’s Polaroid camera, a large, boxy thing that spit out a picture moments after you clicked the massi
ve red button on the front. I’d been warned never to touch it because the film and bulbs were expensive and she didn’t want me wasting them.

I coveted that camera.

Then one day I saw it on the kitchen counter, and I reached up and grabbed it by the strap. I was still shorter than the counters, and had to dance away as the camera swooped down. In a daring move, I had plundered a treasure, and I darted away with it. I went to the first safe place I could find, which ended up being the stairs to the basement that were beside our home’s backdoor, just off the kitchen.

I aimed the camera, put my finger on the red button, and pushed it.

The bulb flashed, and I swear that camera was the loudest thing on Earth as it ka-chunked out the picture. I was terrified, having committed my first crime, and saw the picture as everlasting proof of what I’d done. I plucked the picture out of the camera’s feeder and tried to figure out what to do with it.

The wooden stairs that led to the basement had no back to them, meaning that you could see down to the cement floor below between each step. In a panic, I tossed the picture through the stairs and then ran back to the kitchen.

Years later, I told my mother the story about the camera and how I’d tossed the picture through those stairs. She laughed, and said it must’ve been a dream. She explained that the house that I’d lived in until I was five didn’t have a basement.

Are you sure your earliest childhood memories aren’t just dreams?

Widowsfield

March 14
th
, 1996

Claire tapped her fingers on her desk, bored. She could hear Darryl on the other side of the room, eating a bag of chips while typing incessantly. The click-clack of his keys was the only noise in the otherwise silent call center.

There was an odd sort of selfishness to feeling bored while working at a 9-1-1 call center. Claire felt a certain amount of guilt knowing that she enjoyed the busy days more, since that meant others were suffering to help make her day go by quicker.
She attributed her work ethic to upbringing, but wondered if there was a morbid ghoulishness to it as well.

Nancy came back in from her first smoke break of the day, which she’d taken mere minutes after arriving. Claire smiled at the young mother, ha
ppy to have someone to talk to.

“It sure is a nice day out,” said Nancy as she returned to her desk behind Claire.

“Days like this make me want to make sun tea,” said Claire.

“Sun tea?” Nancy sat in her seat and put on her headset.

“Haven’t you ever had sun tea?”

“No,” said Nancy as if Claire was playing a joke on her. “What is it?” She clicked the buttons on her phone that would halt the transfer of her calls.

“It’s where you put out a big old jug of water with some tea bags in it and let the sun do the brewing for you. Are you seriously telling me you’ve lived in Missouri all your life and you’ve never had a glass of sun tea?”

Nancy smiled, shrugged, and shook her head. “Sorry. Does brewing it in the sun make a difference?”

“I’m sure you could find a million people to tell you there’s no difference, but I think those people must have themselves a wooden tongue. For me, there’s no sweeter thing in the world than a glass of ice cold sun tea on a hot summer day.” She closed her eyes and smiled as she gave a content sigh.

“I’ll have to give it a try sometime,” said Nancy.

“Darryl.” Claire called out loudly to their coworker a couple aisles over.

“Yup?”

“Do you like sun tea?” asked Claire.

“Nope.”

“No?” asked Claire, acting offended. “What in the blazes? How can anyone not like sun tea? I swear, all you drink is coffee and beer. Is that right?”

“Yup.”

Claire chuckled and then looked back at Nancy with a crooked smile. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He burned up his taste buds with all that cruddy coffee he chugs down.”

“I heard that,” said Darryl.

“I’m not trying to keep it a secret,” called Claire back at him. “Just telling it like it is.”

Darryl responded with a grunt.

“On days like this it sure is tough to sit on my butt in here,” said Nancy.

“Agreed,” said Claire. “And it seems like everyone else feels the same way. Not a single call since I got here. Mr. Sunshine came out and calmed everyone down a bit. Quiet as a nursery at nap time in here.”

“Give it time,” said Nancy. “I’m sure once five hits we’ll have the usual round of accidents.”

Claire yawned and stretched her arms out. “You got any plans for the weekend?”

Nancy was quiet as she thought about it. “You know, I swear I did, but I’m drawing a total blank. I hate it when that happens.”

“Brain fart?” asked Claire.

Nancy nodded. “I guess. If you offered me a million bucks, I couldn’t tell you what the hell I had planned for the weekend, but I know there was something. Oh well, what about you?”

“Well,” said Claire, ready to offer a million details about her plans, but then suddenly
unable to recall any of them. She paused and thought about it. “You know, I think your brain fart’s contagious. I can’t for the life of me remember what we had planned. Were we going somewhere? I thought I was… Gosh, that’s just plain bizarre. It’s right there on the tip of my tongue, but a butcher knife couldn’t scrape it off.”

“I know what I’m doing,” sai
d Darryl as if he were gloating while eavesdropping from the other row of cubicles.

“Oh yeah?” asked Claire. “And what’s that?”

“Nothing.”

Claire grimaced and waved his comment away, although he couldn’t see them over the fabric walls that separated the aisles. “Bully on you. Maybe if you got out once in a while and tried to meet a nice girl you wouldn’t be such a dour Danny.”

“I already met a nice girl,” said Darryl. “My dog, Muffy. She’s the only bitch I need.” He laughed at his own joke.

Claire whispered to Nancy, “God help that poor dog.”

Nancy chuckled. It was rare that Claire made jokes at other people’s expense, but Darryl deserved them.

“You two making
fun of me over there?” asked Darryl after hearing Nancy’s laugh.

“Maybe we are and maybe we aren’t,” said Claire. “It’s a mystery for the ages. Did you leave any coffee in the break room? I think I could use a cup or two to kickstart my brain this afternoon.”

“Should be enough for another cup,” said Darryl. “If you drink it, make some more.”

Claire got up and set her headset over her keyboard. “I swear, Darryl, your momma must’ve dipped her tits in coffee grounds when she fed you.”

Nancy laughed again. “Well, that takes the top spot for most disturbing visual I’ve had all day.”

Claire was going to respond when something outside caught her eye. She went to the door and looked out onto Main Street.

“Something’s up out there,” she said.

“What?” asked Nancy.

“I don’t know. The UPS guy’s wandering around and there’re some people coming out of the diner. I think there might’ve been an accident.”

Nancy
joined Claire and they both went out into the parking lot as more people came to investigate what had happened at the end of the street. A young man in a flannel was running toward the truck, his long hair pulled back by his headphones. Winnie Anderson, the owner of the used book shop on the corner, was walking briskly behind.

Nancy and Claire ran across the street to intercept Winnie.

“What’s going on?” asked Claire. She was wearing a fly skirt with a low tie, making it hard to run, so she hiked her apparel up to help her move faster to get across the street.

“I don’t know,” said Winnie. “I just heard tires screech and when I came out I saw everyone running over there.”

Winnie was a slight woman, in her mid-forties, with her hair tied up in a bun and a plain blouse and skirt. She looked like a school mistress plucked from the fifties. She was timid but kind, preferring to spend time alone reading rather than socializing.

“The driver was yelling about something,” said the young man ahead of them.

Grace and Juan were standing in front of the Salt and Pepper Diner and joined the crowd. “I heard him say he hit a kid,” said Grace.

“Oh my Lord,” said Winnie as she picked up her pace.

Claire made the sign of the cross and kissed her knuckle as she rushed to the scene.

“I’ll go back and call for a…” Nancy started to say before they all saw Walter, the UPS driver, walk around from the front of his truck.

“Water,” said Winnie in a panic. “Is everything okay?”

“I guess so,” said the driver, his normally tan skin now taking on a pale green hue. “I think I’m just losing my mind or something.”

“What happened?” asked Juan.

Walter glanced back at the front of his truck and then took of his cap and wiped sweat from his brow on his short sleeve. He put the cap bac
k on and shook his head. “A little girl ran out into the road. I swear to God, she just darted right out in front of me.”

“Is she okay?” asked the young man with the CD player hanging from his belt. He started to move to the front of the truck and Walter followed. The crowd moved with them.

“That’s the thing, man,” said Walter. “There’s no one there.”

The young man got on his belly to look under the truck.

“I looked,” said Walter, abashed. “There’s no girl, but I swear I saw her. Weirdest damn thing in my whole life. I saw her so clearly.”

“Oh, that’s giving me the heebie-jeebies,” said Grace.