Preta's Realm (21 page)

The blood smear led down the hallway and into another room. Drew followed it, dark patches congealing on the ivory ceramic tile. The trail turned into a room with a laundry tub. The woman’s arms and legs hug over the sides. The trunk of her body and her head sat beneath the top of the tub, obscuring them from view.

“There,”

Drew knew before he turned that it was Gaki that had spoken. The long, gray finger pointed at a gallon of bleach on the floor.

“Clean the blood trail first,” the creature said.

Drew spotted a mop and bucket in the hallway. He dumped half of the bleach into the bucket and shoved the mop inside. The vapors burnt his lungs. He pushed the mop bucket on its wheels into the hallway, where he began swishing it back and forth. At first, it made more of a mess on the tile, spreading the blood into a pink film. After several rinses in the bucket, the mop captured the blood. Drew dumped the water into the drain, trying hard not to look at the body of the woman. He refilled the mop bucket. Each time Gaki seemed to find another jug of bleach. Within thirty minutes, Drew mopped the hallway and the garage floor. The bleach stung and made it difficult to breathe, but once it cleared there would be no evidence of the violence that took place in the house. Except for the body.

Gaki handed Drew a hatchet. The wooden handle, stained by decades of use, held a rusty blade. The tip shone in the light of the single bulb hanging from the ceiling of the laundry room.

“You must. If you want to keep killing, you must.”

“I don’t. I fucking don’t!” Drew screamed at Gaki.

The creature stepped from the shadows. It reached into the sink basin and scooped a handful of intestines. He shoved them into the slit of his mouth, managing to chew on a few. Drew gagged and staggered back against the cinder block wall. He saw a clear plastic bag with the woman’s bloody shirt and boxers.

“You do. The rage consumes you. The rape and the murder keeps you alive.”

Drew ran a hand through his hair and wiped snot from his nose. “I’ll kill you,” he said.

Drew swung the hatchet at Gaki’s thin, spindly arm. The blade sliced through the shoulder, dropping it to the ground. Gaki laughed. He tossed his head back and the room reverberated with the sick, grisly sound of his cackle. A popping sound came from the severed shoulder where a thin stream of gray ooze came forth. It coalesced into a long cylinder, fingers forming on the end. In a matter of seconds, the new arm replaced the severed one.

“Dispose of her. Time is short.”

Drew staggered and his breath hitched through choking sobs. He hacked at the woman’s body until it sat in a pool of blood and flesh. Gaki dropped the body parts into a garbage bag. After wrapping a towel around the woman’s head, Gaki placed it in a clear plastic bag. He handed Drew another gallon of bleach. He took it from Gaki and poured the yellow liquid into the tub, where it swirled with the woman’s blood. Drew took his hand, ignored the chemical burn on his skin, and swished the liquid around until most of the blood disappeared down the drain. He turned on the faucet and rinsed his arms in cold water while red patches blossomed on the back of his hands.

“Put the bags in the car,” said Gaki.

Drew heard the automatic garage door open. A sedan sat in the driveway with the front of the car closest to the curb. The trunk popped open and Drew began dragging the bags to it. The street kept its silence.

***

The streetlights blew by in a cloud of spring mist. Drew reached over and turned the volume knob to the right. The sinister riff from Threefold Law scorched the sedan’s speaker system, one more accustomed to Raffi or Barney than the epic doom of “Revenant.”

“Wait for the sun behind the eastern heights,” Drew sang with J. Thorn, the lead singer. He tapped his fingers on the top of the steering wheel and glanced down at the needle of the speedometer edging closer to eighty.

“Keep going.”

Drew looked up into the mirror until his eyes met Gaki’s. He nodded and then laughed at the thought of the corny movie about an old, rich white woman and her black chauffer.

“Sho ’nough,” Drew replied with a fabricated southern drawl.

The car gripped the winding highway. Drew wished he could have afforded the German engineering. Two children and a cubicle made that an impossibility.

“Mind if I smoke?”

Gaki stared straight ahead, unmoving in the backseat.

“Didn’t think so.”

Drew grabbed a cigar from the middle console. He saw the box inside the glass-fronted humidor on the way out of the woman’s house. Considering he had helped dispose of the woman’s body, Drew doubted the man would mind if he smoked some of his cigars. The plastic wrap crinkled as the sweet, rich fragrance of flavor-soaked tobacco filled the car. Drew looked down for the cigarette lighter and pushed the knob in. After a few seconds, he grabbed the plastic knob and held it to the end of the cigar. A few wisps of gray smoke curled out as Drew inhaled and exhaled rapidly. He blew a mouthful of the tobacco out the window, dropped two inches to allow the smoke to escape.

“Don’t want you to become a victim of second-hand smoke.”

Again, Gaki did not reply except with a long stare. The nicotine buzz made Drew’s head light. He smiled and inhaled again, tasting the smoke and rolling his tongue through the warm air.

“I’m good with you now.”

Gaki growled.

“No, really. I mean, I’ll hang if they ever catch me. No way I could possibly blame this on my Gaki friend, the fucking creature that tortured my grandfather in Japan during World War II and then reappeared to wreck my goddamn life. Nobody would believe that, would they, Gakster. I could say that I didn’t rape the women. I could plead that I was innocent of killing Johnson, but somehow, someway, they’d find DNA evidence tying me to it. Wouldn’t they, you motherfucker?”

Drew slammed the accelerator to the floor. The engine came to life and pulled the sedan along the highway as the song “Earth” pumped through the speakers.

“You cannot kill me,” Gaki said. His mouth did not move, but Drew heard him over the roar of the engine and the music pulsing from the sound system.

“I don’t have to kill you, dickhead. I only have to kill me.”

Drew spun the steering wheel to the left, slamming the driver side of the vehicle into the concrete barrier. Tongues of fire leapt from the collision and sparks fell into the car through the cracked windows. Drew felt the tires lifting from the pavement and the suspension shimmy as he began to lose control of the vehicle.

“You have not paid your dues. You still owe life,” Gaki said.

“Nope. Don’t think so. I believe that if I turn this fucking car into a pile of smoldering ash, that I’m free. You can’t mind-fuck me anymore, can’t hold me prisoner in my own body.”

“It didn’t free you from your grandfather’s debt.”

Drew opened his mouth and the cigar fell to the floor. He smelled the rancid odor of burning fabric. His eyebrows creased and he used both hands to take hold of the steering wheel and bring the vehicle back under control, the dashed white lines disappearing beneath them.

“You can’t.”

Gaki smiled. The thin, dark line on its face curled up at the edges. Drew felt the creature mocking him. “I will.”

Drew slammed his head into the steering wheel, opening a laceration that oozed blood. He screamed and tried punching through the roof of the car with his right hand. Gaki sat unmoved.

“He’s innocent.”

“For now,” replied Gaki. “If you do not fulfill your duty, I will have your son do it.”

Drew screamed again. He cried and gritted his teeth until blood spewed from his forehead and his mouth. The speedometer on the car dropped from one hundred and thirty to ninety, and then to seventy. At sixty-five miles per hour, the trees and sound wall bordering the highway slowed to a crawl.

“This stops with me. I will fulfill whatever fucking duty you think my line owns, but it stops with me. My soul for my son and his sons.”

Gaki coughed and stared at Drew through the mirror. “You have no ground to negotiate. You will do as I command.”

Drew pulled the vehicle to the shoulder. Pebbles and debris rattled the undercarriage of the car with deafening accuracy. He slammed the breaks, sending a cloud of dust into the air and blocking out the rest of the world.

“If you’re taking my son anyway, then you have no grounds for negotiation.”

Gaki nodded. He grumbled.

“Well,” asked Drew. “What’s it gonna be, fucker?”

“I shall hold you liable and release your line from the curse, but your duty is not yet fulfilled.”

Drew shook. He reached down and found the remains of the cigar that burnt down and out. Drew placed it between his lips, gnawing at the tobacco and spitting leaf fragments out.

“Of course it ain’t. Who’s next?”

Gaki grinned again.

“No. She’s my wife, the mother of my children. That would be as bad as if I destroyed them with my own hand.”

“The mother of your children,” repeated Gaki.

“She wouldn’t,” Drew said.

“She already has,” replied Gaki.

Drew shook his head back and forth, tears cascading down his face.

“Another one of your tricks, you evil fuck.”

“You have witnessed the infidelity with your own eyes,” said Gaki. “You deny what you see.”

Drew shook, sobs holding his chest tight.

“Her and her lover must be punished. Then your duty will be fulfilled and your line released.”

He took his foot off the brake and slammed the accelerator. Drew swerved back onto the highway with gravel spewing from the tires.

“Where are we dumping the body?” he asked Gaki.

The creature grinned, its thin tongue sliding out of its mouth like a diseased serpent.

***

“I still can’t believe you parked on our street. What kind of dumb-ass move was that?”

“He didn’t catch us.”

Molly shrugged her shoulders as she put her arms through the bra. She reached around and fastened it in the back. “Thanks to me and my vibrator.”

Brian smiled. He watched her dress from his bed with a sheet pulled up to his waist, a cigarette between his fingers and a lighter in the opposite hand.

“Don’t light that. I don’t want to have to explain why I smell like an ashtray.”

“You know how much I like to smoke after getting pussy.”

Molly rolled her eyes and let a hiss escape her lips. Brian reached for the remote on the end table and turned on the television. A tired game show featuring contestants with plastic faces came to life, the audio muted. He watched the manicured moustache of the host twinkle at a female contestant. When Brian looked at Molly again, she was fully dressed and fumbled to get an earring back in place.

“No more today?” he asked with a sly smile.

“We need to stop this, at least until the shit with Drew settles down. And I need to pick up the kids.”

He shook his head.

“I mean it. I’ll get in touch with you. No more calls or any other bullshit from your end. Got it?”

Brian held his palms up, feigning innocence. “You can’t deny my rod,” he said, grinning.

“Fuck off, Brian.”