She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be

by J. D. Barker

  “Again,” this deep voice said.

  “He might not be able to take it again.” My voice, but an octave higher.

  “Again,” the deep voice insisted.

  The child voice, droning, “No more, no more, no more, no more.”

  Deep voice, “Again, dammit.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Cut the radial artery, right there at the wrist.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Give me the scalpel.”

  “No more, no more, no more. No—”

  “Dammit.”

  “You can’t do it, either?”

  Deep voice, “No.”

  My voice, “Momma? Where’s Momma?”

  “The sedative is wearing off,” the higher voice said. “More thorazine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’s the boy’s father? Is he here?”

  “Out in the waiting room. Want me to get him?”

  “Yeah. I want to see if he can do it.”

  Two loud clicks. The various voices were replaced by Kaylie again, reading aloud from a psychology text book. Study notes of some kind. A remnant recording. Probably part of whatever was on the tape before she recorded our session.

  Stella was staring at me. “What are we listening to? Is that someone at Charter running tests on you?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know.

  Another two clicks.

  Tick…tock.

  Tick…tock.

  “Can you hear me, Jack?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What was that?”

  “Not sure.”

  “When was that?”

  “Young.”

  “Less than five?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Less than two?”

  “I think so.”

  “Let’s go back.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  Tick…tock.

  Tick…tock.

  “Did you see that doctor again? After that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Take me to the next time. You’re safe with me, Jack. They can’t hurt you. These are only memories.”

  Tick…tock.

  Tick…tock.

  “Jack?”

  Silence.

  “Jack?”

  “Increase to 75 milliamps,” Deep Voice said.

  “We’re already at 75,” High Voice replied.

  “His breathing hasn’t changed. Are you sure?”

  “I’m certain.”

  “Go to 100 milliamps.”

  “That’s a fatal level.”

  “I’m aware.”

  Silence.

  “We’re at 100. No change. Breathing, heart rate, all slightly elevated but still within the range of normal.”

  “Remarkable,” Deep Voice said. “Go to 150.”

  “Increasing amperage to 150 milliamps.”

  “No more, no more, no more, no more, no more.”

  “Is he protesting because you increased and it’s finally at a level that hurts, or because he wants you to stop altogether?” This was another voice, a pitch somewhere between High Voice and Deep Voice.

  Deep Voice said, “Hard to say. Does he use that phrase at home?”

  “Maybe with his mother. I’ve never heard him say that.”

  That last one hit me like a kick to my gut.

  My father was there while they did these horrible things.

  Stella’s grip on my arm tightened as she realized it, too.

  Tick…tock.

  Tick…tock.

  Kaylie again. “Jack, what was that?”

  No response.

  Tick…tock.

  Tick…tock.

  Kaylie said, “Jack, I want you to tell me about the chocolate milk.”

  “Chocolate milk?”

  “That’s why you came to me, right? Your parents. You wanted to know what happened. You said there was chocolate milk. Take me there. Take me to the moment with the chocolate milk. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  Tick…tock.

  Tick…tock.

  “He’s been drinking it?” Deep Voice said.

  “Every day. Sometimes twice a day.” The middle voice. My father’s voice.

  “And you’re mixing it, like we showed you?”

  My father said, “Yesterday, I nearly doubled the dose. It didn’t do a damn thing.”

  “That’s enough arsenic to take down a horse. You realize that, right?”

  A loud click.

  The tape stopped.

  The scent of vanilla lofted past me from Stella at my side. She stared at the GTO.

  My father’s voice came through the tinny speaker of my handheld radio. “Jack. It’s not what you think.”

  And from the woods, nearly fifty people stepped forward, all dressed in white. They carried candles as they started toward the gully between the distant railroad tracks.

  20

  “Shit,” Preacher said, peering at the rushing mob through the scope of his Savage model 110 long-range hunting rifle.

  Hobson was to his left, Dunk to his right.

  “Do you have binoculars?”

  Dunk handed him a bulky pair of Swarovski’s. Military grade with a built-in laser rangefinder. Dunk then pressed the transmit button on his radio. “Hold fire until I give the word.”

  Hobson said, “How many?”

  Preacher panned back and forth. “Fifty, sixty…hard to say.”

  They had heard the recording blaring from the speakers of the Pontiac GTO. They had also heard Eddie Thatch chime in at the end over the radios. When Preacher looked for him on the roof, he wasn’t there. He had seen him earlier, gone now, though.

  Dunk said, “Do you see any weapons?”

  “Maybe. Under the coats. Hard to say. Looks like they’re all carrying candles.”

  “Candles?”

  Dunk frowned. “Any idea why they always wear white?”

  “Fuck if I know.” Preacher handed the binoculars back to Dunk and chambered a round in his rifle.

  “You want to start a fire fight?” Dunk said.

  “I’m gonna teach them some boundaries.”

  Dunk pressed the transmit button on his radio again. “You’re going to hear some shots. Everyone else, hold fire. I repeat, hold fire.”

  The rifle bucked, but Preacher’s shot held steady. Through the sight, he saw a chunk of the hill at the railroad tracks explode about a foot away from two of the approaching figures.

  Dunk watched through the binoculars. “That could have ricocheted.”

  “I’m not too concerned with their well-being.” Preacher tugged back the bolt, ejecting the expired shell casing and loading another round. He pivoted slightly and fired again, this shot landing near the opposite end of the gully. The shot struck a railroad tie about a foot away from one of the people in white. He didn’t flinch, didn’t react at all, just kept coming.

  Dunk asked, “Can Pickford tell someone to ignore bullets or not fear death?”

  Preacher fired again. The round embedded in the dirt less than four inches from a twenty-something woman in white. She didn’t flinch either, only pressed forward.

  “If Pickford can tell someone to kill themselves and they do it, I think we’ve gotta assume he can get them to do damn near anything he wants,” Preacher said. He fired again. This time he hit the foot of a man coming toward them near the center of the line, now past the railroad tracks and moving faster on flat ground. The man’s shoe exploded, but he kept coming, dragging the damaged leg behind him, oblivious to what must have been a tremendous amount of pain. “I can do this all night long, but they’re not stopping. We need a new plan.”

  “At their current pace, they’ll reach the building in about three minutes,” Hobson pointed out.

  Preacher looked at Dunk. “This is your show, but the way I see it, you’ve only got two choices. We open fire and take them out, or let them get close and risk fighting one on one. It’s an even match by the numbe
rs, but it will be bloody for both sides.”

  “We don’t even know if they’re carrying. I’m not comfortable mowing down a bunch of unarmed, candle-toting nuts.”

  Preacher smirked. “I thought you were some kind of gangster.”

  Dunk thought about this for a second, then reached for the transmit button on his radio. “On my count, all shooters with long-range weapons fire half a dozen shots—group them about a foot in front of those people. Warning shots only. We don’t want to hit anyone. Not yet.”

  “We need to go for the head and heart,” Preacher muttered, lining up his site.

  “Kill shots come next,” Dunk said, giving the order to fire.

  21

  “Jack, are you okay?”

  Stella’s gloved hand was on my arm.

  The recording echoed in my head.

  My father’s voice after. Jack. It’s not what you think.

  I forced a nod.

  That was when a hail of bullets streamed out from the roof and various positions at the front of the steel mill. Out in the open field between the railroad tracks and Carrie Furnace Boulevard, the ground exploded—dirt, dust, and grime filled the air just ahead of the large mob moving toward the building.

  The people in white weren’t running. Instead, they all walked at an extremely fast clip, the candles cradled between their hands and held out before them.

  They didn’t slow down.

  They didn’t acknowledge the gunfire at all.

  They kept coming.

  They didn’t stop coming until they reached the concrete surrounding the main buildings of the steel mill. At that point, they finally stopped advancing forward and went still.

  I could see their faces now. They were close enough. Their expressions, all were blank, void of any emotion or thought, and that blank stare probably frightened me more than anything else about them. I thought about how quickly I had turned my gun on Hobson back at Cammie’s house when David Pickford told me to. I thought about what he told each of these people, his voice probably being the last they heard.

  Over the radio, I heard, “I’ve got eighteen on the north lawn!”

  “Sixteen on the south end,” someone replied.

  “Twenty-eight in and around the front of the building.”

  I did the math in my head.

  Sixty-two.

  “The ones out in the open are standing still, but we’ve got movement in the trees. Couple dozen out there, maybe more.”

  This was hopeless. I don’t think any of us were prepared to kill nearly a hundred people.

  All of them took a step forward at the same time, perfectly in unison.

  “Holy shit, you see that?”

  “How are they coordinating?”

  Someone fired a shot from the roof. The ground in front of one of them, a balding man in his late thirties, exploded in a puff of black dirt. He didn’t budge, his face blank.

  Another step. All of them, moving closer.

  “I think we’re done with warning shots. We need to start laying them out.”

  “Negative,” Dunk replied. “We open fire, they rush us, and we’re done. We can’t stop them all, not like that. There’s too many!”

  I recognized Hobson’s voice. “If the Pickford kid is telling these people what to do, they may be innocent in all of it. Just pawns. Like what he did to me.”

  I pressed the button on my radio. “Does anyone see him? We take out Pickford, and maybe we end this.”

  Nobody replied. Only a handful of us even knew what David Pickford looked like.

  Without any noticeable command, every person in white reached behind their backs and pulled cowls up and over their heads, hiding their faces.

  Then they moved again.

  Not a single step forward or back like before, but a fast shuffle—some moved to their left, others to their right.

  Forward, backward, diagonal. Nearly a dozen more came from the woods and through the gully near the railroad tracks to join the others as they shuffled again. Although they moved in multiple directions, absolutely none of what was happening appeared to be random. They moved at the exact same speed. Nobody looked up or down at their feet, to the side or behind, yet nobody collided.

  They all continued to face forward. Like a flock of birds shifting position while in flight. A well-coordinated shell game.

  When they finally stopped, at least twenty new people in white stood among the already large crowd. Heads covered, burning candles in hand.

  David called out from below, somewhere to my left.

  I hit my transmit button. “Headphones on!”

  All around us, Dunk’s people placed the noise-canceling headphones on their heads, powered them up, and plugged in their radios.

  Stella and I did the same.

  The sounds of the outside world disappeared.

  A moment later, I heard Dunk through my headphones. “Keep radio chatter to a minimum, or we’ll all end up talking over each other.”

  I gripped both of Stella’s shoulders and mouthed the words, “Are you okay?”

  She nodded and tried to force a smile.

  Over the radio, I heard my father’s voice. “Jack? You’re not in the bunk room. Where are you?”

  Stella heard him, too. Her eyes went wide.

  I looked up and down the catwalk where we sat and only saw Dunk’s people.

  To Stella, I gestured toward the stairs.

  She nodded.

  I stood and helped her to her feet.

  At first, I thought she might collapse, but she drew in a deep breath and somehow found the strength to remain upright. I put her arm over my shoulder and led her down the catwalk, down a series of steps, and into the large space where I had met with Dunk ten days earlier, Blast Furnace #7.

  My father again, over the radio. “Jack. They gave me no other choice. I had to let them experiment. It was part of the deal. That was the only way I could keep you and your mother safe. If I would have said no, they would have killed her, killed me, taken you. That was never an option.”

  I pressed the transmit button. “So you let them try to kill me, instead? Over and over again? I was just a baby!”

  Another thought came into my head, and I wished it hadn’t, because I didn’t want it to be true. Couldn’t possibly be true. I said it aloud anyway. “My God, they paid you, didn’t they? That’s how you afforded those houses. That’s why you didn’t have to run all these years, like the others. They were never chasing you. Charter paid you, didn’t they?”

  My father said nothing.

  Another realization came into my head. “The money I received every month, that came from you, didn’t it? Out of what? Guilt? Some misguided sense of responsibility? Some kind of bullshit child support?”

  My father didn’t reply.

  Not at first.

  Not for nearly a minute.

  “I knew I could use some of the money to get you a better life. To help keep you safe. I hired Preacher to deliver it. I couldn’t risk returning to Pittsburgh.”

  I led Stella toward the back of the large, open space, toward a hallway leading off into the dark. From there, we turned right. We kept going until we found a room with a window overlooking the front of the steel mill, someplace where we could see what was happening outside.

  The people in white stood only about twenty feet away, their blank stares facing forward. None of Dunk’s people were on this level, safer on higher ground.

  Nobody would find us here. That’s what mattered.

  I pulled the Ruger from my waistband, ready to use it if I had to.

  “Where are you, Jack? We should discuss this face to face, not like this.”

  Stella doubled over.

  She yanked her arm from around my shoulder and clutched at her chest, her stomach. Her face grew red, her eyes pinched shut.

  From my radio, through the headphones, came a blinding, loud burst of static followed by a high-pitched squeal, like a dagger jabbing at both my ears
. I reached up and yanked off my headphones and threw them to the ground. I wasn’t alone. I saw several pairs come flying off the roof of the steel mill and shatter on the concrete outside the window.

  When Stella screamed, when she pulled her knees up into her chest and let out a shriek, the sound came again. Loud enough that it blared through the headphones at my feet.

  Like the radio in the cemetery when I was a kid.

  Like the Mercedes stereo right before the incident at the lake.

  I knelt down and wrapped my arms around her, squeezed her tight.

  Stella clawed her headphones off, too, dropped them to her side.

  Outside our window, a series of shots rang out and when I looked, three of the people in white were dead.

  I didn’t know if David had kept talking while we had the headphones on, but I heard him now, shouting.

  “Those guns are awfully hot, aren’t they?” David yelled out from somewhere among the crowd of white. “It’s got to be tough to hold onto them. That burning hot metal. Like pressing your palm to a skillet. Sizzle, crackle, pop!”

  At first, my Ruger only felt warm.

  I loosened my grip slightly, but I didn’t let go. When that got too hot, I slid my hand around on the butt of the gun. The movement bought me a few more seconds. I couldn’t hold the trigger. I tapped a finger against it.

  Then I smelled it.

  Burning flesh.

  I knew it was a trick.

  I told myself it wasn’t real.

  But about ten seconds after David Pickford said the words, I found myself dropping the handgun to the ground and rubbing both my palms against my jeans.

  All around the mill, I heard the similar clatter of weapons dropping along with mixed cursing. People shouting, too. Yelling to each other. I wondered if anyone still had the headphones on. Then Stella cringed again, and static burst from my discarded headphones and I knew the answer—there was no way anyone kept them on, not if they were hearing that, too.

  I unplugged the headphones from my radio. A moment later, I heard Preacher. “Anyone got a clue as to where he is?”

  “North yard, I think. Came from that way.”

  The people in white shuffled again.

  When they stopped moving, the entire group had gained more ground, at least four feet closer to the building.

  “This is so wonderful! Everyone finally together! Like some ragtag family reunion,” David said. This time, his voice came from the front, somewhere between the Pontiac GTO and the entrance to my building. “And Cammie, I believe congratulations are in order! I saw the girl’s room at your house in Carmel! A daughter, that’s wonderful news! What’s her name?”