The Dead Parade (16 page)

“
Okay, okay.”

“
No, it’s
not
okay! You’ve ruined everything. Do you even know that?”

“
I’m sorry.”

“
I’m sorry? Is that all you can say?
Sorry!?
What kind of cop-out bullshit is that? You’re sorry, why? Because you walked into my apartment with a loaded shotgun and murdered some people, is that it? Jesus Christ playing air hockey, it’s a fucking madhouse here! You’re Breaking News on CNN for crying out loud. Nice going, McGee! Way to go!”

“
What do you want me to say?”

“
Uh, I don’t know. Let me think… that you didn’t kill those innocent people, I suppose. That would be a good one. But you can’t say that, can you? You can’t say it because you did it. You’ve lost your fucking mind and now you’re running across the country with a loaded shotgun. Tell me I have everything wrong. Please, tell me you’re innocent.”

“
No. I… guess I can’t say that.”

“
They’re finding dead bodies all over the place. Do you know anything about that?”

“
I said ‘I’m sorry’. What else can I say?”

“
Nothing,” Debra said. “Nothing at all.”

“
Don’t be like this, please.”

“
Remember when we met? Do you? Remember how fun it was? We’d hang out day after day, just drinking and talking and goofing around. There was no stress back then, no
real
stress, anyhow. What happened, huh? What the hell happened to us? Do you know? Do you even have a clue?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
When was the last time that you and I were happy, can you tell me that? I’m just wondering, is all. I don’t know what’s been going on lately, and I’m looking for a few answers. Do you have answers, James? Do you, because I don’t. I’m all out of answers, and I don’t have anything left in the tank. I’m spent. And this… this unbelievable stack of bullshit that you’re unloading on me, it’s too much. It’s way, way too much. What the hell should I do with
this?”

“
Debra, I love you. I don’t want to murder you yet.”

“
What? What the hell do you mean by that?”

James shook his head, confused. Where did that statement come from? he wondered. Why did he say something like that?

“
I just meant to say that I love you, and I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

“
Yeah. Right.”

“
I do.”

“
I don’t care if you love me… not right now I don’t. I’ve been thinking…” Debra stopped talking. She hated her thoughts, and the situation. She was fighting a sea of tears––tears of anger, tears of frustration, tears of confusion and a future lost.

“
What?” James said. “What is it?”

“
Never mind. But… I thought about what you said.”

“
What did I say?”

“
On the phone, before you came over, before you lost your fucking mind… you told me that something was chasing you.”

“
Oh yeah. I forgot about that.”

“
You forgot?”

“
I forgot that I told you, I’ve had a busy day.”

Debra huffed. “You asked me to look something up on the Internet. Do you remember that? You asked me to look up ‘Congo Basin Minkisi Bakisi’.”

“
Did you look it up?”

“
Yes.”

“
And?”

“
Tell me something first, was it an animal?”

James looked over his shoulder. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.”

“
Was it a dog?”

“
No, it was definitely not a dog. It was small and… I don’t really know what it was. I couldn’t make it out. Why? What did you discover?”

“
I don’t know why I do these things for you. I don’t need this headache.”

“
Debra, please…”

There was a slight pause while Debra gathered up loose pieces of paper. She put on a pair of glasses and quickly scanned her notes. “This is what I found. You ready?”

“
Yes.”

“
Okay. Listen to this…”

57

“
The Republic of Congo is a place in Africa,” Debra said. “It’s also a river. A basin is a body of water. And the Congo Basin is the world’s second largest tropical forest. It’s huge. It covers seven hundred thousand square miles, across six different countries. So those first two words are pretty straightforward. The Congo Basin is a forest in Africa. You with me so far?”

“
Yeah. Okay, what else?”

“
And then there’s that next word, Minkisi, and I’ve got to tell you, that’s a tough one.”

“
Why?”

“
Well… the English language has no word that’s equivalent to Minkisi. The word ‘fetish’ is close, but not close enough––and everything I’ve read is confusing. A Minkisi seems to be a spirit, but it’s also a mask and a medical treatment. It’s considered a container, a ceramic vessel. Sometimes it can be an animal’s horn, or an animal husk. A grave is considered a Minkisi, or more accurately, a portable grave is considered a Minkisi. And somehow, a Minkisi is a punishment. I’ve tried to find more info on that statement, but I haven’t found much yet.”

Debra flipped pages.

“
What else do I have here? Oh yeah, here it is… a Minkisi is part of an African religious practice, you know, like voodoo shit? I’ve read a bunch of stuff about ‘figures’ too, but I don’t understand what I’ve read. I want to jump to the conclusion that a figure is a voodoo doll, but that doesn’t quite fit. I read somewhere that a ‘figure’ can come in the form of an animal, which is why I asked you about that. Apparently dogs are tied to this Minkisi stuff, and they live in two separate worlds––the world of the living, and the world of the dead. I don’t understand that statement at all, by the way, so don’t ask.”

“
Okay. I won’t ask. Did you say a portable grave?”

“
Yeah. A Minkisi is a portable grave.”

“
I think I saw one of those. This is making some sense, believe it or not.”

“
It is?”

“
A little bit, yeah.”

“
You saw a portable grave?”

“
I think so. It was at Sue’s place, in the basement. There was an old wooden box. It reminded me of those black and white Dracula movies, where Dracula gets shipped around inside of a box of dirt. You know what I’m talking about?”

“
Sort of. I’m not big on Dracula. You know that.”

“
Well… the box at Sue’s place had strange markings on it. And below the markings, the words ‘Congo Basin Minkisi Bakisi’ had been burned into the wood. That’s why I asked you to look it up.”

Debra said, “You think this box is relevant somehow?”

James nodded. “I know how this must sound.”

“
Normally, it would sound stupid. But the stuff I looked up for you, well… I don’t know. This stuff isn’t folklore drivel. It’s African history, you know? It’s real. The museums are loaded with it. Jewelry, hooves, skulls, witchdoctor trinkets and charms… all connected to Minkisi. I have a quote here from somebody named Simon Kavuna. Do you want to hear it? This guy studied Minkisi back in 1915.”

“
Sure.”

“
Okay. Here it is: ‘
The Minkisi receives powers by composition, conjuring and consecration. They are composed of earths, ashes, herbs, leaves, and of relics of the dead. The properties of Minkisi, is to cause sickness in a man––to destroy, to kill, to benefit. The way of every Nkisi is this
… Nkisi and Minkisi seem to be the same thing, by the way. Uh… okay, where am I? Oh yeah, here it is: ‘
When you have composed it, observe its rules, lest it be annoyed and punish you. It knows no mercy
.’”

“
Huh. It knows no mercy.”

“
Yeah.”

“
Strange stuff.”

“
Yep. It is.”

“
And what about that last word? I gave you four words to check out, not three.”

“
Bakisi?”

“
Yeah.”

There was a hard knock on Debra’s door. “Miss McClure, open up. This is the Martinsville police.”

“
Oh shit,” Debra said. “The police are here.”

James gasped, “But what about that last word?”

“
Miss McClure, open up now. We need to speak with you and it’s urgent.” There was another knock on the door, and this time it was louder than before. “Miss McClure?”

“
I’ve got to go James. I’m sorry.”

“
But what about that last word? I need to know!”

Debra said, “A Bakisi is a spirit, an ambassador from the land of the dead.” Then she hung up the phone.

58

James was shaken; the conversation didn’t end on the best note.

He wondered if Debra was in trouble, if she was okay, and if she was still in love with him. He wondered what it would be like to slit her throat, and what her blood would taste like severed cold. He wondered if the police would trace the phone call. Probably. This was serious business now. Tracing phone calls would be the first thing they’d do.

James tossed Mia’s phone out the window and glanced at Elmer.

Elmer was deep inside his own thoughts, enjoying the silence and plotting his revenge.

* * *

After an hour, James felt a little better. His evil and obscure thoughts seemed to be less frequent, and since he hadn’t told Debra anything, she didn’t know anything. It was a comforting notion. He contemplated his destination, deciding that Debra’s cottage was the best plan. He figured the odds on it being empty were fifty/fifty. The cottage belonged to a bunch of people: her brother, her sister, her mom and dad, plus several aunts and uncles and the families they shared.

With the fingers in his mind crossed for luck, James tried to summon a plan B.

He came up with nothing.

Oh well, he thought. If Debra’s family is enjoying life at the cottage, I’ll simply have to kill them all.

59

The road had few travelers.

James attempted an open dialog with Elmer but it didn’t work. Elmer had become a unified stack of negative emotions, indestructibly fused from within. He was tangled in a web of multifaceted thinking, with no desire to bite into the apple of conversation––at least, not yet. Not with his eyes on the road and his face expressionless. He strangled the steering wheel with his hands; his fingers were white-knuckled and unmoving. Sleeves covered in Tina’s blood were crammed up to the elbow.

James sighed.

Having Elmer in the car was a big problem. It was kidnapping.

And although James didn’t know it, CNN had connected him with the High Park Murders and his image was plastered on every News program in the country. His family, friends and acquaintances were talking––the last time they had seem him, how well they knew him, what they thought had gone so terribly wrong.

Back at the hospital Anne was crying again, and for the first time in her life she was none to proud of her family. To make matters worse, the police were on their way, which was breaking her heart in two.

James hated people being upset with him, especially when he was in the wrong. And this time he was––there was no denying that. He had definitely made some mistakes.

But guilt, for the most part, was simple; Elmer wasn’t.

James wasn’t sure how to deal with the man. Should he shoot Elmer? Should he set the man free? It was hard to say. Bringing him along seemed like a good idea when Elmer was being a tough guy, but now it felt like another mistake.

So what now?

James was hungry. He wanted to eat something––a steak would be nice. Lobster would be better. A rotting corpse would be best. But what could he do––sit down at an all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant, go to a drive-thru, hit the local morgue? Not likely. Not with Elmer in the car.

He could lock Elmer in the trunk, he supposed. Or try him up and toss him into a closet once they reached the cottage––but why? So Elmer could starve to death? James didn’t want to kill anyone. Or did he?

He thought about Tina.

He thought about jumping in front of a train.

He thought about sticking his fingers into his ass and biting off his tongue.

And what if Elmer escaped? What would happen then?

They drove past an old farmhouse, followed by several cornfields and an abandoned silo. They zipped past an unpaved road that ran along a sea of trees, and an old fence that looked ready to fall over. The woodland seemed to go on forever, but James knew the area well and knew that it didn’t. Twenty miles up the road there was a gas station sitting next to a greasy spoon. The gas wasn’t cheap but the food wasn’t bad. It was a fair trade.

James decided to make his move.

60

“
Pull over.”

“
Why?”

“
You’re getting out.”

You’re going to kill me now, right out in the open. Is that it? Kill me on the highway? Jesus man, be reasonable.”

“
No, that’s not it.”