Sandman

by Tammy Bird

  She pulled into the driveway, guilt still riding shotgun. She didn’t have Elizabeth’s phone number. She didn’t know where she settled in Virginia or if she was still there. She was sure Zahra thought ill of her because of it. She reached for the door handle with what felt like a hundred-pound hand. Push, she told herself. She felt almost ethereal. Her shift started at seven last night. Other than a brief nap in Elliot’s SUV, she had been awake and full of adrenaline for slightly more than twenty-five hours.

  “Kahteeah!”

  Barely through the front door, Katia heard the sweet voice of her little brother. Two seconds later, he rounded the corner of the hall.

  “Hi, mister.” She put her fist out to meet his. It was their version of a hug.

  “Two, zero, zero M. P. H.” He smiled.

  “I know. Did you put it on the board?”

  Her brother nodded, and she smiled. “Marco?”

  He glanced at her face and looked to the side.

  “Did you eat?” He nodded again and rubbed his stomach, sticking it out so it created a little pouch.

  “Hey, kiddo.” Her father’s voice came from the living room. “Left you a plate on the stove. Marco’s favorite.”

  “Frozen pizza?”

  “You know it.”

  “Thanks, Papi,” Katia said, using the term of endearment her mom left behind as a part of her idiolect. Idiolect. Katia loved that word and words in general, really. She got that from her mom. Kind of ironic, since the central being in all of their worlds had almost no words in his arsenal. “Going to shower first.” She tousled her brother’s hair and gave him a slight nudge toward the living room. Over the years, Katia learned this was one mode of touch that didn’t send Marco into panic mode. He actually appeared to like it. It was a win-win. She was able to show her little brother she was connected to him, and he got to show her he accepted that connection.

  “Not really hungry.” She threw the words toward her father who sat in his recliner in the living room. He looked tired, too. She studied the tan face so different from her own. She and Marco had the coloring of their Spanish mother. Marco had inherited his father’s green eyes and the curl of his hair, though his father’s hair was blond, and Marco’s was jet black. She, in turn, had her mom’s almost black orbs and straight black hair, though not as jet black as Marco’s. Funny thing, genetics. I hope he’s okay. Katia didn’t have the energy today to actually ask. She turned from her little family. She didn’t want to say much in front of Marco, and her father, whom she texted all afternoon, would understand.

  Katia peeled away the layers of her navy-blue uniform and her still-damp bra and panties and stepped into the hot shower. She stood, numb, and watched as the sand and dirt rolled down her body. There were no explainable thoughts, no way to make sense of the day. She carried the lifeless bodies of children and friends through rubble and saw the partially eaten remains of the woman she loved as much as any child loved a parent.

  Katia pulled out of her driveway twenty-five hours and twenty minutes ago with a life that was less than perfect, but predictable. She worked. She took care of brother and father. She read. She drew images of death and talked to her mother in the dark. Occasionally she danced and fucked. This was her normal. She had no idea that this was the day her world would be changed forever. But it was, and she didn’t know how to respond.

  She slid down the side of the shower wall until her rear made contact with the warm tile floor. She pulled her knees against her chest, wrapped her tattooed arms around them tight, and let her emotions take over. When no tears were left, she reached up for the soap and scrubbed her skin until it was red and sore. She sat on the floor of the shower until the water ran cold and anger tore through her, smothering the numbness of fear.

  ****

  RU there? Katia typed the message to Zahra and then stared at the white letters in the bright green bubble. It was after midnight, but she still couldn’t sleep.

  She liked Zahra, a lot. The first time she saw her in The Pink Clover, she didn’t recognize her as someone she went to school with. She watched her dance for hours, mesmerized by the way her body melted into the words of each song. The woman twirled in time to her partner’s movements. With arms outstretched and her head back, she bared a long, dark neck that begged to be bitten. The pale-blue peasant top flared out as she spun, revealing a beautiful dark pudge of skin. On a typical night, Katia walked up and talked to a woman who caught her attention. Not with this one. She didn’t want to ruin the moment for either of them. It took three chance meetings for Katia to approach her. Now she fought with herself constantly to stay neutral in the relationship. Zahra deserved more than Katia’s dark moods and hateful outbursts. Elizabeth stayed as long as she could. Katia knew that now. She was the one who screamed first, she who couldn’t trust, she who blamed.

  “You said you would never give up on me. You’re just like everyone else. You used me to get what you wanted. Fuck you. Go. I don’t need your lying, cheating ass in my life. I hope you fucking die.” Katia remembered pieces of the last conversation. She didn’t stop there. Her rant had gone on for many minutes.

  Elizabeth stood quietly, letting her go until she was spent. She looked at her with a deep sadness. “You need help, Katia. Help I sure as fuck can’t give you, and help you sure as fuck can’t give yourself.”

  “What I need,” she responded, “is to quit letting people like you into my life. What I need is for you to get the fuck out and never come back. What I need is to Be. The. Fuck. Alone.”

  Elizabeth left that day. The next week, Katia received the text saying she was leaving town, going to Virginia Beach to try to get her art career off the ground.

  No contact. Please. Her words were followed by three emoticons: a cat, an easel, and a paintbrush.

  Katia respected the request—until yesterday. “I’m trying to reach Elizabeth Dahl,” she said to the strange female voice on the other end of the phone. “It’s an emergency.”

  “This is Felicia Grant. I’ve had this number for a month. I don’t know an Elizabeth Dahl. Sorry.”

  Katia’s stomach turned somersaults thinking about it. Not only had she now lost two moms, she had no idea how to reach the only person who needed to know Gina was gone. Her phone buzzed in her hand. Zahra.

  Still on scene.

  How many? Her fingers tapped out the message.

  Five so far. Unreal.

  Katia’s eyes misted, her stomach knotted even further, and her face burned with anger. So far?

  Four in the dune with the first find. Zahra didn’t say a name in her text, but Katia knew they both understood. Widening search.

  Paige still on site? Katia knew she needed to leave Zahra alone, but her fingers wouldn’t cooperate with her brain.

  No. Had to take Nietzsche in. Start again tomorrow. Headed in soon.

  Talk to you tomorrow. Katia signed off.

  Zahra, Dr. Webb, and the many others who swarmed the scene would work long into the night. Zahra could tell her nothing more now, probably nothing more for days. She needed to work with what she knew. She pushed the button to turn her phone dark and laid it on her nightstand. Exhausted, she reached up, turned out her light, and slept a fitful sleep filled with the foam of the ocean coming up around her dead body.

  Chapter Seven

  “There’s always a trail,” he whispered. “Always.” Looking toward the ceiling, he stretched, elbows out, back arched, head sunk deep into the pillow. The day was filled with dark, ugly swirls that filled every corner of his mind. Such exhilaration. Such doom. He had no desire to keep the ugliness tucked away in the dark. He was proud of it. His gaze searched the darkness of his bedroom, resting briefly on each corner, the closed door, and the opening to the adjoining bathroom. He repeated the ritual several times a night, more often following the procuring of one of them.

  Corner. Corner. Corner. Corner. Door. Bathroom.

  This was his safe space.r />
  Don’t let them in your safe space. If they get in, it will never be safe again.

  Sometimes he woke from a black sleep, and she was there, looming over him. His aunt. He had let her into his safe space, and now she could come and go as she pleased. Even in death.

  Corner. Corner. Corner. Corner. Door. Bathroom. He closed his eyes tight.

  Elizabeth’s apartment hadn’t been hard to locate. He was a very resourceful man with an exceptional memory. Gina bragged all over town that her daughter heard from several exhibition halls regarding her artwork. Later she bragged about the one Elizabeth chose. She didn’t mention a state, but she did mention the name. That was all he needed.

  There was also the whole town’s knowledge of the resident-lesbian break-up between Katia and Elizabeth that sent Elizabeth away. Rumor had it she was just a state up. He heard two women months ago discussing an art gallery exhibit coming up that was going to include a local. The dots almost connected themselves. He knew her address months ago, immediately after killing Gina, and he kept it tucked in his wallet just in case.

  He didn’t like to be rushed. He liked to plan his steps carefully and methodically, sometimes taking months to plan. “Not this time,” he mouthed into the darkness. He could feel his aunt’s presence seeping in like an unwanted spirit.

  “Good job, Little Man. Are you proud of yourself?” Her voice was always there. No amount of planning and ritual made it stop. Killing calmed it, if only for a moment. The rest of the time, he tried to talk over it.

  He lay perfectly still. He opened his eyes and stared upward. The slight movement of the covers from his steady breathing calmed him. He had won when he was fifteen, and he would not give into her presence now. It had taken him three hours to drive to Virginia Beach and three hours to drive back. Add to that thirty minutes in the apartment and thirty minutes to unload and assess. He was proud of himself.

  Now he wanted Elizabeth to feel what her mom felt. He blamed them both for the imperfections of Buxton native, Katia Billings-Castillo, who would have been just fine had the pair of transplanted woodsers not intervened. He blamed Gina for her loose household rules and her demands to have Elizabeth close to her all of the time. It’s unnatural. Completely sick and twisted. When he saw them on the streets of town, touching, walking too close to one another, laughing at something no one else could hear, he wondered what Gina did to her daughter when they were alone. He knew Gina didn’t have a boyfriend, hadn’t since she and her daughter moved to Buxton. He kept a close watch on all of them, and he made it his mission to know about them—everything about them. Women are more dangerous than men. His aunt taught him that. More dangerous and more deceitful.

  His original plan wasn’t to go to Virginia Beach so soon. Two days ago, he didn’t know if he would ever go. Elizabeth left Buxton. She was no longer a threat to his beach. He eliminated Gina a week ago, buried her deep within the dune alongside his other secrets. It was Gina’s fault he made the trip this morning.

  He didn’t need or want the kill that was coming. Kills were like food to him, nourishment after a long period of starvation. Like holding your piss as long as you can before you go to the bathroom, so long you feel like you’re going to explode if there’s no release.

  Have you pissed yourself, Elizabeth?

  He knew Elizabeth wasn’t conscious enough to pull her pants down or to move away from the mattress to find a comfortable place for release. He was sure she had pissed herself by now. The thought pleased him.

  That was what he needed, that moment of pure euphoric release. But he remained perfectly still except for his eyes and the movement of his chest. He focused now on the up-and-down movement of the sheet, barely visible in the dark. He didn’t offer himself release to get away from his aunt, just as he didn’t kill for the sake of killing. To do so would be barbaric.

  He allowed himself thoughts of Elizabeth as he lay in bed. His aunt’s spirit recoiled as he did. She wanted to be the one he pictured. He thought of Elizabeth’s lips—like her mother’s—curved just right, slightly parted, and pink. He would taste them as he tasted her mother’s, gently and with purpose. Elizabeth needed to know men were powerful and gentle.

  Elizabeth was wearing faded jeans and a white, paint-spattered T-shirt when he arrived this afternoon. Retrieval was easy. She was so lost in her brushstrokes she hadn’t heard the light buzz or tap as he cut a small hole in the glass and popped out a circle just large enough for his hand. The window slid open silently, and he removed his feet from his shoes so as to approach without a sound. He was bold. He was secure in his ability to subdue her without being noticed until the needle found its mark, so much so he stood just outside the doorframe and watched as Elizabeth continued to move the brush across the canvas in front of her, the starkness of white giving way to the muted grays tinged with pale pinks and blues. A face took shape as he watched. No solid outline. Just curves of barely-there color. Darker toward the hairline, where gray turned into a soft, unchallenging shade of black. It looks like Katia, he mused as he took the final steps into the room.

  In one swift motion, he put his left arm around Elizabeth’s body and jabbed the sharp end of the needle deep into her neck. He felt himself harden at the memory. Elizabeth was light, maybe one hundred and five pounds and maybe five feet two. He preferred long blonde hair. It afforded him the power to decide the final length. Elizabeth’s hair brushed her shoulders. Not the preferred length, but not bad.

  When he sliced the throat of his aunt all those years ago, he wanted to cut her hair. He gave into fear back then, but never since. He still regretted his haste to shove the body into the grave he dug in the side of the dune. Such a waste.

  When his folks returned from their trip, he explained that he and his aunt played a long game of Frisbee along the beach and his aunt decided to head out immediately after. They bought the story. It wasn’t unlike his aunt, at all. She always left before they returned. “Time’s a wastin’,” she used to say. “Can’t let the grass grow under my feet, Little Man.”

  I have learned so much, Auntie.

  He picked up the phone from his bedside table. Within seconds, Elizabeth’s form came into view. He stroked her lifeless form on the screen. She was his now, and she would not leave alive. The thought made him warm inside, and he wiggled under the covers, his bare skin heating the inside of the cool sheets. After laying the phone back on the table, he rolled over, pulled the covers up under his chin, and drifted into a sweet slumber.

  ****

  Katia’s father was already gone when she came downstairs the next morning. Through still-tired eyes, she read a note on the counter.

  Business in Kitty Hawk. Home late. Message on the machine from the station. Papi.

  She walked over and hit the button on the old answering machine her father refused to toss out.

  “Katia. Garett’s taking your next shift. See you Sunday.”

  She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be thankful or ticked off. She chose thankful. That gave her six days.

  She wasn’t at all hungry, but she needed to eat. Cabinet. Cereal. Milk. Robotically, she checked off the steps. Spoon. Sit. She looked into the living room. Marco was sitting cross-legged on the floor watching cartoons, cereal bowl in hand. “Morning, little brother,” she whispered in his direction, knowing he would get agitated if she interrupted his ritual with normal-volume words. This morning, she couldn’t take them either. She rubbed her temples with the middle finger of each hand, elbows on either side of her bowl. The marshmallows smelled sickly sweet.

  One point of contention between Katia and Elizabeth was Marco. Elizabeth agreed with Katia’s father that the growing boy should be placed in a group home where he could get round-the-clock care. Katia didn’t agree, not then and not now. “We already lost our mother,” she argued every time. “Now you want him to lose his father and sister, too?”

  She glanced at her brother as she chewed her first bite of Lucky Char
ms. His dark, unruly curls that sprouted from his head in every direction always made her grin. She couldn’t imagine not seeing them every morning.

  She often thought it unfair that he was such a beautiful mix of Latina and Anglo with his dark-caramel skin, black curls, and perfectly shaped golden-green eyes. She watched his long, black eyelashes bob up and down. With every down motion, they seemed to lie atop his cheek. Mami’s lashes. Katia inherited only two things from her father. One was short eyelashes. The other was freckles. A freckle-faced, masculine-leaning, lesbian Latina with glasses. That’s perfect.

  She put another bite of the sugary cereal into her mouth.

  It saddened her to think that her brother’s beauty would likely never be shared with anyone but her and Papi. How many people would still find him beautiful in his silence and in his screaming? How many would understand the ticks and the flapping?

  Katia stirred the floating marshmallows and toasted-oat pieces in her bowl and watched Marco. His body was shaking with silent laughter. His smile as wide as his face.

  A smile like Elizabeth’s smile. A full-face smile.

  Katia told Elizabeth two weeks after they met that her smile was like Marco’s smile. Elizabeth seemed happy with the comparison early in the relationship. Not so much as Marco aged and became harder to control.

  Where the fuck are you, Elizabeth?

  Katia took the last bite of cereal, stood, and made her way to the sink to rinse her bowl. She looked out the window as the water ran the milk down the drain. The sand and ocean that served as her backyard her whole life felt different today, menacing, uninviting. It made her heart hurt deeper, more completely. The water ran. She waited. Three. Two. One.