Theater Macabre (21 page)

“Well I—”

“Yes, Mr. Cavanaugh? Surely for a reader to truly get to know your work, they must first truly understand you. Is that not correct?”

Cavanaugh is taken aback by the sudden volatile edge that has crept into the host’s voice.
Does Stills think he’s Mike fucking Wallace or what?

Write Time
is supposed to be a quiet arts show, a filler for that thirty minutes of early Sunday morning airtime no one watches. Cavanaugh’s thundering heart belies the composure he is forced to show the camera because of Stills’ scathing tone, and his world feels anything but quiet. It feels closer to a waking nightmare. His mouth is beginning to hurt and again he asks: “Can I get some water?” and again he is ignored. The host’s eyes have adopted a curious glow, like smoldering coals. Cavanaugh knows it is a trick of the light, a curious weaving of light and shadow, but yet it is unsettling.

What is considerably more unsettling however, is the next question to snake its way from Stills’ mouth: “Tell me what happened to Madeleine Kay?”

Silence smothers the audience and Cavanaugh finds his ears filled with the thunderous tattoo beat of his own heart. Madeleine Kay. It is a question he wasn’t expecting and would rather never have heard again. But perhaps he misinterpreted the host’s query. Perhaps it was meant to be benign. Besides, Madeleine’s death is old news and has never been a secret.

“No one was ever quite sure. Apparently she fell off a cliff and drowned. Is that what you’re asking?” His throat feels as pinched as the crimson knot at Stills’ throat and he is aware that beneath his jacket, his shirt is drenched with sweat. It trickles down his sides.

“How did she drown?”

“How could I possibly know the answer to such a question? And why are you asking me this anyway?”

Stills smiles. A small smile. “But you know the truth.”

Cavanaugh swallows, shifts in his seat. “What?”

“You know what really happened to her that day, don’t you?”

“This is an outrage. I didn’t come here to be interrogated like this.” The simple act of standing is achieved only in his mind; his body refuses to obey. His quivering arms are pinned to the wooden arms of the chair, his legs bolted to the floor. Stricken, he wills himself to move but is held, a feeling of lazily swirling sparks running through him. It is not an unpleasant sensation but the paralysis sets his mind alight with terror. Inside himself, he thrashes while outside he is a picture of calm.

Someone in the audience giggles and is hushed.

Stills strokes his chin, again referring to the blank clipboard. Camera 3 blinks on and fixes itself on Cavanaugh’s vacant expression.

“When you decided to come ‘out of the closet,’ you brought Madeleine to Cutter’s Point and told her the pretense was over, that you no longer needed her assistance. Unbeknownst to you, of course, she had fallen in love with you for real and was infuriated by your rejection. She had managed to convince herself you loved her too despite your openness about your sexual preferences. You argued; she slapped you. You hit her back and broke her nose. She screamed. You tried to quiet her and in so doing, forced her over the edge of the cliff where she fell to her death and was carried away by the tide.”

Cavanaugh finds he can still speak. “I can’t move. I might be having a heart attack.”

Stills looks up from his clipboard and frowns. “I sincerely doubt that. You see, that tingling feeling you’re experiencing beneath your skin is the echo of your electrocution.”

“What?”

“You’ll remember when I permit you to,” Stills says, casually. “As we speak, in a place where justice reigns supreme, 2,300 volts of electricity are being shot through your body in accordance with Florida State Law. Justice in a fairer realm than this one. What you say or do here and now will dictate how your crooked life concludes. Eight minutes and you will be dead. You have until then to plead your case.”

“My case?”

“You have eight minutes to justify killing Madeleine Kay; eight minutes to justify sodomizing a minor in a New York subway restroom in 1988. Eight minutes to defend your persecution of an elderly homophobic man named Jed Kramer, who lived in the same building as you until his fatal heart attack in 1990. Shall I continue . . .?”

Now Cavanaugh can feel the burning, the previously benevolent tingle suddenly razor-edged and dancing across his veins, tugging at his inert muscles, hovering in that no man’s land between fear and unimaginable agony, promising wicked pain. He bites his lip. “Someone help me!”

The host of
Write Time
chuckles and is mimicked by the audience. “Who would help you, Cavanaugh? Them?” He nods pointedly out past the cameras and Cavanaugh’s head is wrenched to the side by unseen hands, allowing him to see what a new spotlight has revealed. The light is angled above their heads, but beneath the beam, he can see enough to bring a scream barreling up from the pit of his stomach. The image they conjure is of wavering stacks of rotten meat, held together by whipcord filaments that hiss and weave through the air before their hosts. Now that they have been exposed, the audience emits a discordant hollow laugh. Despite the shock currently scratching its nails across the backs of his eyes, Cavanaugh recognizes the old reliable television staple—canned laughter. That hideous quivering mass of bone meal and sundered flesh is laughing at him.

He focuses on himself, sitting in his chair, frozen, the hair all over his body rising and twitching as on some other plane, lethal voltage is pumped through his body. His head is snapped back to face the host, yet he is permanently aware of that liquid seething horror roiling beyond the cameras. It is something he has neither the desire nor the time to comprehend. Stills studies him, with all the calm reserve of a patient interviewer. “Where am I?” Cavanaugh asks, his voice quavering. “What is this place?”

Stills frowns. “You don’t have the time to ask questions and even less to demand answers. I, on the other hand, need to ask only one.”

Cavanaugh waits, blocks out the liquid sliding sounds from the rows.

“Did you kill Madeleine Kay?”

Cavanaugh does not respond. Can’t. His tongue probes the back of his teeth, biding time, waiting to carry a lie. “No. I’ve never killed anyone,” he says at last and exhales deeply.

“Is that so? Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

Stills nods. “Very well.”

The pain, when it comes, is so sudden, so ferocious, so utterly excruciating he almost manages to free his body from the invisible restraints. Fire engulfs his arms and he shrieks, pleads for mercy but cannot look away from the sight of his own quickly scorching flesh. His tongue roasts. He is starkly aware of his own agony and little else, although somewhere, in a vacated lot in his mind he sees shifting creatures pretending to be human and “Yes!” he cries out at the top of his lungs. “Yes, I murdered her! Yes, I murdered Madeleine Kay!” He is cooking, the skin on his arms puckering, bubbling and splitting open like the skin of a rotten pear, inner flames tonguing the air, joining the outer fire. “Oh God!” he roars as the heat singes his hair and then . . . is gone. There is nothing but a wisp of smoke curling itself into an S-shape before it too vanishes. The fire is gone, and with it the pain. Cavanaugh sucks in great gasps of air, sweat running freely all over his body.

The host leans forward. “You killed Madeleine Kay. You set yourself on a path that leads far from the light Mr. Cavanaugh. You engaged in perverse activities and you let egotism and selfishness share your bed. There is so much more but we can discuss that later.”

Cavanaugh can scarcely breathe. The choking heat returns, clambering up the walls of his throat and he prays it is only his imagination telling him the audience have left their seats and are coming to greet him. Surely the shuffling and slithering sounds closer than it really is…?

“You’re accustomed to fame, Mr. Cavanaugh,” Stills says, though Cavanaugh can no longer see him. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut and he whispers a prayer, what little of one he can remember. Something wet brushes his arm, causing him to flinch and whimper.

“This will be the biggest story yet,” says the host.

*

RENOWNED AUTHOR CONFESSES TO MURDER

Report by Andrea Hutton

TAMPA, FLORIDA -- In a stunning revelation, acclaimed author Jack Cavanaugh admitted to the murder of his one-time girlfriend Madeleine Kay, during the taping of popular ABS talk show
Write Time
shortly after noon today. According to
Write Time
host Jeffrey Stills: “I can’t even remember now what it was I was asking him at the time, but he suddenly started shrieking and batting at himself, as if he was on fire. Then he began to cry out: ‘I murdered Madeleine Kay, I murdered Madeleine Kay.’ I can only hope it was a moment of insanity or lapsed judgment and not a confession.”

Authorities refused to speculate as to whether or not they believe Cavanaugh admitted to a crime he was suspected—but never accused of—twelve years ago. According to sources, there is a strong possibility this development will revive interest in the case of Madeline Kay.

Jack Cavanaugh is the author of eleven novels. His most recent book “Damnation” will, according to publisher Faulkner & Stanton, be released on schedule.

912

“Nine-one-two. What is your emergency?”

“Yes I…hang on, did you just say nine-one-two?”

“Sir, what is your emergency?” The female voice sounded sterile and bored, devoid of the customary concern befitting an emergency operator.

Louis frowned and scratched furiously at his rain-soaked hair. “Is…is this nine-one-one?”

“Sir, what is your emergency?”

“I…okay, yes. I just…I just saw someone get hit by a car.”

If he expected the voice on the other end of the phone to be moved into urgency by this revelation, he was sorely disappointed. Instead, the same monotone drone buzzed into his ear. “Please hold the line.”

“No wait! You don’t understand, they’re still—.”

“Please hold the line, sir.”

There was a soft click and Louis cursed. Was this how all emergency calls were supposed to go?

The Plexiglas windows of the phone booth had fogged over from his panicked breathing. He reached out a trembling hand and wiped a black rainbow clear. Stooping down, he could see the crumpled form, lying like a crippled dog against the pavement, a dark flower of blood blossoming on the back of the guy’s trench coat.

A moment later and Louis would have passed him by, thinking he was some homeless guy who had tripped and fallen into the gutter. But he had been right on time to see the silver Mercedes slam into the man in the beige trench coat, sending him cart-wheeling through the air in a spray of muddy water and blood. Louis had run to the man, stunned by what he had witnessed and only vaguely aware that the Mercedes was reversing back the way it came.

A quick unqualified check led Louis to the conclusion that the man wasn’t breathing. His face was mashed up pretty good too.

“Sir, what is your location?”

“Braddock and Third. Just outside that big white pharmacy.”

At last. Although he had displayed no hesitation in coming to the assistance of the victim, he was eager to be done with the whole situation.

“Sir, can you tell me what happened?”

“Yes, I was…I mean someone was hit by a car. A silver Mercedes I think. It didn’t stop.”

He held his breath, waiting for any sign that the operator was shocked by this news but of course she wasn’t. They were trained to be calm regardless of the situation.

“Have you checked the victim?”

Again he looked over his shoulder. The rain was coming down heavier now and the man’s yellow coat was beginning to darken to the same shade as the blood. Louis shivered.

“Yes. Well, kind of.”

“Is he showing signs of life?”

“Is he…you mean…?”

“Sir, is the victim breathing? Have you checked him for a pulse?”

“No. I mean, yes. I have checked him and no, he’s not breathing.”

“Okay, thank you,” the operator droned with only the slightest hint of impatience. “Where are you calling from?”

“A payphone outside the pharmacy.”

“Sir, I’d like to ask you to stay with the victim until someone gets to you. If you have anything you can cover him with then do so, but do not under any circumstances move the body. Is that clear?”

Louis felt as if he was being talked to like a child, but again he figured these people were trained in the best way to handle people over the phone. Perhaps the emotionless tone was supposed to calm his nerves? If so, it wasn’t working.

“We’ll have someone there in a few minutes. May I have your name sir?”

Louis slammed down the phone and the resulting
ping!
made him jump.

Okay Louis
, he thought,
now what the hell was that all about?

He didn’t know. What he did know was that the hounds of hell themselves couldn’t have forced him to tell that woman his name. In fact, the mere idea of divulging such simple information filled him with inexplicable and irrational dread.

He ran a hand through his sodden hair and turned around, his back pressed against the phone, eyes fixed on the fading arch he had cleared in the condensation on the booth door.

Perhaps he should have been relieved to see that the man with the yellow trench coat was gone from the gutter. After all, now he could just go straight home with nothing weighing on his conscience, right?

Wrong.

The man had been in no condition to walk anywhere and certainly not in the space of time since Louis had last looked out at him. So where the hell had he gone?

And why was Louis suddenly terrified?

He cracked open the booth door and poked his head out into the downpour.

Incredibly, it did seem as if the man had simply gotten up and walked away.

Trembling, Louis spun around and picked up the phone. His finger paused, hovering over the nine button as something occurred to him.