[Darkthorn 01.0] Pond Scum

by Michael Lilly

  Pulls out a packet of cigarettes, offers me one. I refuse. He taps one out for himself and pulls out the lighter that I stole from him eight years ago, and lights his cigarette. Then he closes the Zippo and holds it out for me to see, like a magician about to ask, “Is this your card?” And indeed it is.

  “Where’d you get this?” he asks calmly. I smell a hint of alcohol on him, but only slightly. The silver lighter has a fading skull and crossbones on one side, and in the shimmering light filtering through the leaves above, they themselves looked like they had been ignited by the very fire that the lighter was designed to create. He recognized it. He remembers it. He knows it was me.

  Even so, I must play dumb; if there’s even a chance that he is bluffing about his certainty, I need to call him on it. Beyond that, he may be equipped with some sort of recording device. And, while it wouldn’t hold up in court, it would still give plenty of reason for the investigation to turn on me.

  If I get caught, I get caught for murder. However, if my framing is successful in all of the ways that I want it to be, he gets ‘caught’ for murder, in addition to playing a key part in the sales, circulation, and distribution of child pornography. Half the reason I didn’t kill him myself is that I know his future cellmate will probably be happy to do it for me. Plus, I didn’t really have anyone to pin his murder on.

  Keroth repeats himself: “Where did you get this lighter?” He verbally identified the object. He’s definitely recording this conversation. Dumb mode engaged.

  “I’ve never seen it before.”

  “Jimmy, be real with me.” Internal eye roll. “Where did you get this?”

  “I’ve never seen it before,” I persisted.

  He eyes me for a moment and, apparently determining that there is no combination of words or actions he can take to come out on top at this time, says, “Fine. But I know you did it, and you’ll pay for it.”

  I smile at him. “I know this monster will be caught, Detective,” I say. “But I’m no monster.”

  His phone rings. As he pulls it out, I recognize Beth’s number. I love Beth. He answers. “Keroth.” His eyes go from confused to laser focused, then border on panicked as they come to rest on me. “I’ll be there shortly,” he says. I keep smiling at him.

  “Like I said, Detective,” I say, delighting in the exaggerated earnestness and sarcasm, “I’m sure this monster will be caught and brought to justice.” I wink at him and leave him on the bench, paralyzed in anticipation of the fight he’s about to have. I make sure to soak in every detail of that moment, because it’s likely the most satisfaction I’ll have until this asshole is chewing on his foot in a prison cell. I head toward the café across the street from the park.

  Suddenly, the day seems brighter. The sweet smells of autumn, both natural and otherwise, penetrate my mind, and bring with them the sharpness and the focus that I’ve been lacking all day and night. The sheen of the cars parked on the street is dazzling, and I suddenly realize how hungry I am.

  I check my phone and it’s nearing two o’clock in the afternoon. I pick up some lunch while working out the details of my next move.

  The café allows me to retain a decent line of sight to the park, where I look to see Keroth storming away, evidently working himself into enough of a panicked rage to get off the bench. He has one hand in his hair and the other in his pocket, likely gripping the lighter like a worry stone. I’m in his head, wreaking havoc, and he’s giving me clearance to do so.

  I watch him climb into a shiny black Audi and drive away, and I amuse myself imagining the strings of profanities likely spilling from his mouth at this moment.

  A black Audi.

  I wrap up what remains of my sandwich to eat for later, and head straight home, not taking the time to hop over to my preferred route, two blocks removed; if I’m to pull this off today, I need to hurry. And if I’m to put the necessary amount of pressure on my adversary, I need to pull this off today.

  I hurry into my bedroom to collect a few items, pet Odin for a few seconds, then rush back out the door, the folds of plastic bags creating a conspicuous bulge in my jacket pocket. I then head straight for the station. As I approach, I check the time. Two thirty. With any luck, Keroth will still be dealing with the shitstorm that I made for him while I do my business.

  The windows of the interview rooms are on the north side of the building. Most of the parking for the precinct is on the south side, but if Keroth did opt to park in the back, this move will need to take place another time. I quickly scan the main parking lot for a black Audi and locate it without difficulty; the problem with being an arrogant asshole is that you’re quite a visible target to anyone who chooses to make you theirs. This dynamic works in my favor.

  Keeping my ears open for doors opening or closing, or the voice of Satan, I crouch low and begin my journey through the cars. A car alarm goes off a block or so to the south, startling me. I pluck a pair of gloves from my back pocket while I move, never daring to waste so much as a second, if I can help it.

  I hear the building doors close; it’s been a matter of seconds since someone either entered or exited through them, and I didn’t hear them open. I stop to listen for any voices or footsteps, but hear none. Risking revealing myself to any onlookers, I rise to a low slouch. Visually confirming that I’m (at least, most likely) alone, I continue my quest.

  Finally, having donned my gloves and readied my picks, I approach Keroth’s car on the passenger side. Fortunately for me, he parked all the way on the east side of the lot, reducing the likelihood that I’d be seen by someone going to or from their car.

  My uh … hobby has endowed me with some unconventional skills, and picking locks is one of them. I have his passenger side door open within thirty seconds, and carefully extract my bundle of plastic bags to fish out the one that I need.

  I slide the map carefully out of its bag and place it under the mat at the feet of the passenger seat.

  I shut the door and hear a noise that could have been either the door to the mail building or the echo of it. I want to remove myself from view of that particular car as quickly as possible, so I head back toward the southeast corner, ducking and dodging between cars to avoid sight as much as possible. As I’m working my way through the last row between me and freedom, I hear, more distinctly now, the front doors to the building open and close, followed by footsteps.

  I rise as much as I dare and look through the tinted back windshield of a Honda Pilot. Though two tinted windows were plenty to obscure vision, I can see clearly that my new and old friend, Jeremy Keroth, is walking toward his car. And he’s … smiling?

  I watch him climb into his car and start it, mercifully unaware that my shenanigans have taken place. Carefully, I track him through the aisle and out of the parking lot, ensuring that I’m never in his line of sight as he exits.

  Much as I’d like to poke around and find out what happened to make him so smug, I can’t afford to spend any more time here. I have more errands to run.

  Riverdell’s small size is normally pleasantly convenient, as virtually everything is reachable on foot. However, in this case, it may prove detrimental, because it also means that virtually everyone is familiar with virtually everyone else. That being the case, I need to make myself invisible, even in the overbearing brightness of the afternoon sun, on my way to my dad’s house. My childhood home.

  Five

  Rather than pleasant, the warmth of the sun on my head brings on a small, but noticeable, bout of nausea in me. The sandwich that I ate half of earlier seems to be writhing in my stomach, as if the sprouts were actually tentacles of a species foreign to man.

  I turn to face Ripple Drive, the unassuming street that bore my bare feet throughout my upbringing. Physically, next to nothing has changed. A few trees have been trimmed down since I was a kid, and a few more trees have grown up. A couple of houses have new paint jobs or a new vinyl fence, straying from the white picket norm that the rest of them have. Rebels.
r />   Emotionally, though, and implicitly, it’s a different world. This street used to strike terror into my heart. Returning from school as a kid, this street was where my few friends and I parted ways, and I walked to the end of the road, shouldering the anxiety and anticipation of Dad for that unbearable minute.

  I had two friends in elementary school, both of them boys who had everything in common except their birthdays (and even those were only separated by a week).

  With each other, but not with me. They both sprouted in the nourishment of middle-class families (back when middle class was much different from working class), with a wealth of affection from their respective parents and without a care in the world. A part of me, naturally, felt envious. Resentful, even. Why them? Why not me? Why everyone but me? But in the interest of basking in what little light existed in my life, I came to appreciate their own lives. Perhaps this sentiment wasn’t entirely selfless, either; I was raised, without my consent, as a survivalist. Vicariously generating positivity through Ben and Zach, I dared to stoke the flames of hope, flames which grew to illuminate the eventual way through the mess that was my youth.

  When we reached middle school, Ben’s family moved east. At first, it was just to Idaho, but each progressive year would deliver postcards and the occasional letter from states farther and farther away before our correspondence petered out. I think about Ben sometimes, mostly just long enough to acknowledge the memory of him. Hey. Remember him? He existed.

  Anxiety would always well inside of me as I ascended the walk to my home (christened The Pit by my dad), never knowing what mood Dad might be in that day, or whether Mom would be in a decent enough state to make dinner or help me with my homework. Usually bad news, and I came to expect it.

  Now, staring at the house, my dad’s penance delivered, and his accomplice’s in the works, I feel a sense of accomplishment. I have conquered this house. I have conquered the demon that haunted it, and now must wrap up the loose ends. Or end, really. All I can hope is that Keroth didn’t have the same idea. But that’s an optimistic sentiment; Keroth could never have survived for so long in such a trade without a notable degree of ruthlessness and wit.

  Still wearing my gloves, I pick the lock at the front of the house and enter. I’m sure my old key works, but I’m not ready to be so familiar with the house. A dank coolness permeates the dwelling, with the offensively sweet odor of decay, as though the house is permanently channeling the smell of my dad, now drawing upon his rotting carcass.

  For that reason, I expect the house to reflect the messy excuse for a human being that my dad was. But, in the seven years that I’ve been gone (save for a mild misadventure last year), and in the nine that my mom has been gone, it has remained well-kept, neat.

  Obsessively so, even.

  Over the course of maybe five minutes, I’m enveloped in the thick, perverse tension that plagued this house when I was a child. Although I remain, at least physically, steady, I become more and more edgy with each passing second, cresting when I’m about to move things or enter a room that was off limits to ten-year-old me. I feel sweat encasing my hands inside my gloves, threatening to bead and drip off of my wrists if I upturn my hands at just the wrong angle. I remove them and put them in my back pocket, extracting a fresh pair from the same one. After drying my hands on my pants, I put on the second pair (which proves much more difficult than I imagined, with my moist hands), and re-focus my mind.

  I have a goal here, a purpose.

  I am no longer a captive of the past, and now take steps to create a better future, for myself and anyone else affected by these men. I try not to consider myself a hero—after all, my extracurricular activities began less in the spirit of protection and more in the spirit of righteous fury at the blatant and obvious failures of the legal system.

  I step into the kitchen and remove the second plastic bag from my jacket pocket, lifting the wallet from it and placing it on the table, in a way that I hope looked like Dad noticed it on the floor and left it out to remind himself to call Keroth to return it to him. An average person may not make that connection, but the detectives at the precinct aren’t average people. Typically.

  Fearing what I may find, I pick my way through the living room, dining room, the den. Finally, Dad’s room.

  It’s as bad as I expect. And worse.

  Without fear of anyone outside of his circle stumbling upon it, his work is not only left out—small stacks of photographs on the bedside table, a couple of DVDs on the little desk, various extras on Mom’s old armoire, the bed itself—but hanging on the walls, too.

  I close my eyes, which is almost unnecessary, due to the tears that burst through my ducts and obscure my vision.

  I remove the third plastic bag and place the pen among a scattering of filth on the bedside table, keeping my gaze fixedly on the floor. I may vomit. I will vomit.

  I hurry out of the house of perversity, half-assing the precautions I take to avoid detection; I can’t bear to spend any more time in that place than is absolutely necessary. I exit through the back door, check the street for passersby, find it deserted, and bolt out of it, gagging and heaving along the way.

  I’m lightheaded, and praying to Orion to help me back to my apartment without spewing all over the street. By the time I make it within a block of the main road, my head has cleared some and I’m no longer nauseous. Still, I slip into a gas station for a bottle of water to help my mental clarity sharpen, and end up sitting at a stool inside to allow the water to run its icy course through my veins. By the time I finally manage to depart, it’s getting dark.

  This is the nitty-gritty I signed up for. When I assigned myself with this endeavor, this burden, I knew that I would see, hear, and feel things that would strip me of my humanity. But even I, a detective, underestimated the depths to which evil can reach in our offensively mortal world.

  A part of me has always believed that, as a basic qualification of humanity, there is some good in everyone. Until now. Not now.

  I walk back toward my apartment, sipping what remains of my water bottle, my pace slowing gradually to the par of sloth-with-mono. I reach my front door and unlock it. I feel the last of the plastic bags in my jacket pouch: the one I decided not to use. For now, at least.

  I ease the door inward and there’s an unnatural stillness to my home. I like stillness, when it’s organic. But this one is synthetic, arbitrary, forced. Odin doesn’t greet me at the door. Grateful that I didn’t make much noise with my ascent or my entry, I don’t turn on the lights. I reach for the .9mm handgun that I keep strapped to the bottom of the coffee table in the living room.

  As quietly as I can, I check it, rack it, and proceed through my apartment, hoping that I won’t have to pull the trigger. No one crouching in the kitchen. No one in the pantry, save for maybe a mouse or a spider scuttling behind expired boxes of cereal. The hallway closet is empty. I nudge the bedroom door open a crack and see nothing in the section of my domicile that is revealed by what little light spills through.

  I push the door the rest of the way open and sweep my gaze and my piece over the remainder of the room, before swiftly crossing to the other side to assure that no assailant is crouching in wait on the other side of my bed.

  Nothing.

  The door to the master bathroom is closed. I habitually leave that door open to allow Odin easy access to his food and water throughout the day. My heartbeat becomes a throb in my chest, my breaths becoming more intense in volume even as I attempt to suppress them. I push open the door and point my gun at an empty shower, then toward the equally empty toilet.

  My apartment is void of intruders.

  I see Odin sprawled on the floor, and initially assume the worst, but when I turn on the lights, he raises his head lazily to look at me, and wags his tail with all the enthusiasm he can muster.

  Shaking, I kneel to pet my dog. I turn back to my bedroom and flick on the lights, to reveal several items on my bed: a map, a wallet, a pen, a lighter, and an i
ndex card with a smiley face drawn jaggedly in thick, black ink.

  Six

  He’s toying with me now. I went in for a kill on his queen, but it was a pawn in disguise, and now he’s poised to remove my own queen from play. I’ve always been an excellent chess player, but it’s different when none of the pieces are what they seem and every move is draped in rippling shadow. I need clarity. I need my historically reliable eyes to see through the illusions and decide what’s what.

  I put on yet another pair of gloves and clear the items from my bed. Presumably, Keroth had wiped them all down to remove his own fingerprints from them, as well as removed every piece of identifying information from the wallet. Just then, I remember my shoebox.

  I open my closet door and remove it. The comb is still in there. The last good piece of ammunition I have against this guy. I would love to toss it into my dad’s house, but I need to wait for the correct moment, the time so very dripping with opportunity that a successfully taken risk would yield the world in return.

  I need Beth. I need her in on this. And not just in on this. In on this.

  I’ve yet to shake the feeling of being exposed, so rather than call her, I put on my darkest jacket and step back out of my apartment. While that doesn’t do much to alleviate the feeling of being exposed, I’m much more at ease in an open environment when I feel like someone’s eyes are on me. This way, I can slip into shadows and let them wonder where I’ve gone, rather than flitting about under their microscope, waiting to be crushed by a giant finger.

  I stalk silently through the town, its charm exhausted with the daylight and replaced by an ominous crispness. The shadows hug me and bend with me as though they conspire by my side, aiming to take down the same perpetuator of treachery. Street lights expose me here and there, but only momentarily, and not so much as to reveal my identity or my purpose.

  The .9mm is heavy at my hip, riding in the holster that I rarely have to use. I feel that this is a special occasion, however.