Dead Girls

by Russ Trautwig

  She willed herself to stand and did, taking a few steps forward. Jimmy paid her no mind, he never wavered from his self-appointed task. That’s when she saw Annie’s face, it had a bluish pallor, her eyes were bulging, and her tongue protruded from her closed mouth, blood was running down her chin from her biting it. 911 might save her life, but it wasn’t saving Annie’s. She grabbed the lamp from the nightstand, ripped off the shade, held the base and in her home run stance, swung it like a baseball bat at Jimmy’s head. As she made contact, there was a sickening crack as his skull split and out of the corner of her eye, she saw a dog that appeared to be smiling sitting on the chair across the room.

  Part Five

  A Lion Roareth

  Chapter XL

  Chris Carter stared long and hard at the man. Who was he? Where had he been these last ten years? Where was he going? The hair was brown with lots of gray speckled in and the long beard matched its color and lack of style. Despite some lines on the tanned withered face, the eyes were clear and focused with a child-like twinkle, they looked too young for the rest of him. There was a red bandana in the small garbage can at his feet and a scissor in his hand. What the mirror couldn’t see was the melancholy inside, the pain of loss that should have eased by now but never had and the sadness of a father who could not share his son’s life. But there were some good things in there too.

  He had, for the first time in those ten years, stopped thinking of his son as a four-year-old boy chasing imaginary stormtroopers with his wrapping paper cardboard lightsaber. He had gone to see the young man and he had done so, he was reasonably certain, without putting his son’s life at risk or even jeopardizing his happiness. That alone had caused a place he had forgotten about in his heart to glow.

  He had a new, if tempered sense of accomplishment hiding inside himself as well. After having spent ten years researching something that was beyond the realm of understanding, beyond comprehension and beyond reality, he knew he had figured something out: something big, something important, something meaningful. It had taken volumes of reading and years of online research including military databases, satellite imagery and even pictures posted by tourists on Trip Advisor who had no idea what they were posting. He had done such good work that even though it sounded crazy, he was now thinking there was a chance that the FBI was about to join him in his plan. There had been barriers to his plan before, most of them involving transportation issues. He had a license but no car and no credit card. He couldn’t fly because he had things one was not allowed to bring on a plane. He would have had to resort to buses and walking, not insurmountable, but longer and harder for sure.

  And then there was that FBI agent. She had also awakened dormant places inside his heart. She had touched him like no other had in a long time. She was the reason he had come here. There had been no express timetable agreed upon between them, no promises made, and he had no way of contacting her, but there was a sense in him that something was coming soon. So here he was. He brought the scissor up to his beard and snipped four inches of it away in one cut. He paused, studying the man in the mirror intently, like he could see through the reflection of his own eyes what was coming next. He already looked different, but not near as different as he would. The YMCA was a great place for people like him. He had taken a nice hot shower and now, sitting on the ledge of the sink in front of him were a razor, shaving cream, and hair buzzer.

  It took him almost an hour and by the time he was done, it was like he had sidestepped through a time warp. The man looking back at him now, clean-shaven with a military buzz cut, looked years younger; not a kid again like Jimmy, but no longer the old man people crossed the street to escape. The face he saw was the face of man ready to do battle, ready to face the world in all its glory and all its horror. He was done hiding.

  Chapter XLI

  There was a quote stuck somewhere in the recesses of her subconscious and she was searching for it like a lost lyric from a favorite song. It was something about people not shaping destiny but rather how destiny shaped people. She was heading to a rendezvous that would lead her further into this crazy labyrinth and perhaps to a purpose like none other she could imagine. Had she created the labyrinth to isolate and identify and yes, destroy the preternatural evil? Like Daedalus had built his, to hold the Minotaur, she had created a virtual one in her mind to hold Jimmy and his partners. Daedalus had barely escaped his own labyrinth, she hoped she would be as lucky.

  Kimberly was in line at the Hertz counter at LaGuardia. There was one woman in front of her and she was contemplating her next move. Outside, the sun was setting on an oppressively hot and humid New York August day. The night air was not forecasted to offer much relief and thunderstorms were likely to break out at any time. Agent Watson flashed her government ID and proffered her government credit card, she signed for all the extra insurance available. Yes, a Ford Taurus will be just fine. No, there will not be any other drivers. Yes, I will be leaving the state and yes, I will most likely not be returning to the same location from which I am renting it. Yes, I understand there is a surcharge. She initialed in all the the places she was requested to.

  She knew the area well but still put the hotel address into her Waze App and was pulling out of the rental lot at just past eight, the darkness had settled on the city and the lights of Manhattan in the distance were a lure on a fishing line, she wanted to take the bait, wanted to be reeled in. She put that thought on hold as she negotiated the traffic on the Grand Central Parkway. It seemed whatever time of day or night she drove here, the traffic was the same; stop and go, stop, wait, go. One time, she was staying at the Marriott across the street and she woke up in the middle of the night from a dream. She couldn’t sleep. She went to the window and looked out, it was three in the morning, and the cars were bumper-to-bumper.

  Just as she reached the Robert F Kennedy Bridge, lightning clarified the skyline and thunder rocked her car. She looked down from the bridge towards “Chris’s place,” but didn’t see anything. The fork to the right would have taken her there but it was dark and large silver dollar sized raindrops were beginning to BB the windshield. The fork to the left took her to the SoHo hotel she had booked, past the lights of midtown and all the dark places that the light didn’t reach. Heading left down the FDR Drive toward the southern tip of Manhattan Island, she exited twenty minutes later onto Houston Street and found street parking around the corner from the SoHo Grand Hotel on Thompson. She checked the signs three times to make sure she could park there and to know what time in the morning she had to have her car moved. Figuring out New York City’s alternate side parking signs was a roulette game.

  She stayed there in the car debating the night. She was tired, really tired, and she had a hell of a few days coming, she thought. She needed to be alert, focused and sharp, scalpel sharp. But, this was potentially her last night in New York City, ever: Her last chance to step out and feel the excitement of the chase, the thrill of the conquest, last chance to scratch an itch. She loved the pulsating music and the lights, there were always great lights. In the end, she decided that if she believed she wasn’t going to survive whatever was coming, she needed a new plan. So, she did believe she’d be back in this city, convinced herself that she knew it. Tonight, would be a night to sleep.

  She grabbed her carry-on from the trunk and pulled up the handle, then placed her purse on top of the wheeled luggage and headed to her hotel. Agent Watson walked down Thompson and turned left on Canal. Her light blue shorts and white peasant top seemed to draw in water from the air as she walked, but she found the heat comforting, the humid air and warm breeze had a tropical, sultry feel to them. The brief shower had stopped or paused, the sky was still full of clouds and flashes of lightning continued to light up the distant skyscraper canyons.

  Kim walked with purpose, quickly and steadily nearing West Broadway. Her eyes were pulled across the street, lights, it was always the lights that grabbed her and tried to drag her in. Canal Room, the sign over the
doorway said. There was a line outside, a line of pretty people, and she knew somehow what it would be like inside: the smells, the sounds, the naked flesh pressing in. She walked on.

  As she headed up West Broadway, she passed a man walking the other way. He was tall and handsome, clean shaven and well dressed. His shoes looked like they cost more than her whole closet. He smiled at her and she smiled back. She thought for a minute he was going to stop, to say something, but he just slowed his pace and then continued walking. After they passed, she waited a moment before turning to watch him walk away just as he had turned to look at her. There was no embarrassment and no awkwardness at being caught, they both just smiled again. He turned back and continued on his way. Kimberly stood her ground and watched the man cross the street and pause at the front of the club. He spoke briefly to the man at the door and then bypassed the line and went in.

  Up in her room, she showered and dressed. It wasn’t sleep-clothes that she put on, it was a silky black dress, mid-thigh length with a deep V-necked collar. She fluffed her curls and put the minimum make up on, perfume was sprayed strategically, and her gun was placed in her purse. She sat on the bed giving herself one last chance to reason out of it and go to bed. It didn’t work.

  Chapter XLII

  No Home Depot today. Chris had not even expected to still be in New York. He had given her a week to come back, thought for sure yesterday was the day, but she was a no-show. He had not had a drink for three nights and the neurotransmitters that alcohol had been suppressing for him were now in overdrive. His normal nightly anxieties, his fears, his dangerous introspections, were magnified ten times. He heard dogs barking from miles away, or so he thought. He saw Father Flynn in every stranger’s face, and he saw the rejection of his son, the cruelest of all his illusions.

  They were dreams, just dreams and yet he didn’t sleep, not while the sun was down. As a result, his daytime hours were spent cat-napping at this place and that: on a bench, under a trestle to escape the sun and finally in the library, where the air-conditioning brought him some measured relief from the sweltering heat and oppressive humidity of a New York City August.

  He had no fire last night, the sudden rains had soaked everything he might have burned. He sat in the dark, watching shadows, seeing things in them that weren’t real and hoping the next pair of headlights that came blindingly around the curve were hers. He couldn’t do this much longer, he decided. He would give her one more night and then he would leave and make the trek alone. Buses would get him close, he had it all plotted out on the piece of paper he had in his pocket, the result of a half hours work on a library computer. A couple of trains to Penn Station and then Lakeshore Limited Bus to Chicago and Mega Bus to Wisconsin would get him most of the way there in about 24 hours. He would then be about a day’s walk from the park. He couldn’t risk hitching because he couldn’t risk getting picked up by police, not with that loaded backpack.

  As the shadows of the night receded, cooler dry air was pushing in. He was fixed in his position beneath the trestle now, knowing it was the only place she would look for him. It was almost time to sleep, his thoughts drowsy and disjointed, his desperate struggle with the night was at an end. Nearby some robins had started a morning song and the hum of the cars above was building just as the sound of the cicadas were, building toward their mid-day crescendo.

  He frequently curled his body on the far side of the trestle to conceal himself from the view of the passing cars. Today, however, he lay his body down in full view of the road. An orange tabby ventured near, but his slightest move sent her scattering into the brush. She tried coming over three times and each time the same result followed her brave beginning. After that, she must have decided that there was insufficient gain to be had, in contrast with the potential to be eaten by this much larger animal, she didn’t come again.

  It was so hard to slow his racing alcohol deprived brain down. His thoughts were a discordant orchestra, a Babel tower’s workforce. When sleep finally did come, it came from exhaustion and it came without the participation of his brain. His dreams were vivid and frequent and frightening, then terrifying. Father Flynn had his boy and they were sitting on a bench in the Trinity Church graveyard. Only, Conner was four, not fourteen, and he couldn’t see his face behind the stormtrooper mask. Father Flynn was holding the knife, the knife that he had slit that girl’s throat with. His face was stoic. Chris knew it was his son beneath the mask, he recognized the blue striped shorts and the R2D2 tee shirt. He also knew what Father Flynn was about to do.

  He ran at them but never got any closer. He ran and ran and ran. Then the priest’s face went from stoic to manic, laughing like a person whose mind had left them, just flown away. He realized he was never going to get there and then he remembered the backpack. He stopped and took the backpack off, without ever taking his eyes off Conner, and reached inside, where was it, where? And then he felt it, he still had time, he pulled out a banana. Now the dog came into view and it started to laugh. There were suddenly people all around, some were strangers, some were faces he knew, and they were all mocking him. He looked down at the banana and then up at Conner just as the priest sliced the blade across his throat. The blood flowed in epic torrents down his chest and onto the floor where it ran in rivers directly to him. His feet became completely submerged in blood and the red river was rising. There was still a chance it wasn’t Conner, wasn’t there, he thought.

  “Chris? Chris?” he heard her call and he looked around, thought it must be his wife, she had been there earlier, but she was a cardinal now, right? “Chris, wake up.”

  Chapter XLIII

  Kimberly had woken from a fitful sleep, in an unfamiliar place. She was naked on a cold brown leather couch. A beige thermal blanket was pulled up to her neck exposing her legs from the knees down. She lay there on her back, looking up at the ceiling fan spinning slowly, directly above her head and her first thought was Damocles. She wondered where this sudden obsession with Greeks came from. That’s your first thought? Really? She asked herself and looked around the small room.

  A dull ache crept slowly into her head along with her consciousness. The room looked to be a very unlived-in living room in a very unused apartment. It reminded her of a staged home that a realtor might show as a model. There was a half-empty bottle of Grey Goose vodka on the table next to her and three tumblers, two empty and one full. The full one had red lipstick on it, melted ice she figured. The lipstick was not hers. She didn’t see her clothes as she took in the room although there was a violet bra on the floor, also not hers, she hadn’t worn one. Nothing about the room looked familiar.

  She sat up and allowed the blanket to fall away as she looked around the other half of the room which she couldn’t see from her prone position, she was alone. A sudden panic grabbed her by the throat and began to squeeze; where was her bag, her gun. She stood up and stumbled as she walked, it was definitely not in this room. What the fuck, why can’t I remember last night? What the hell happened? She walked to the window, naked and pulled aside the sheer curtain to look out at her hotel across the street. She was close at least. She looked left and found the club, she remembered going in, meeting the man from the street. He was with his wife, she thought. It was beginning to come back through a smoky fog and a pounding head. A police siren was barely audible as it raced down the street below. This building was made for silence. It was warm but not by August in New York City standards. There was air-conditioning flowing in somewhere.

  She tiptoed to one of the closed doors and opened it. A man and a woman were asleep, naked on top of the sheets, she was face down and he, face up. Her arm was draped across his six-packed mid-section. Kimberly’s dress and shoes were on the floor near the bed. Her purse was on the nightstand. She looked around the room and nothing came back to her. The man was the one she had first seen on W. Broadway but the woman…did not look familiar from that side. Long, thick blond hair was everywhere, all the way down to her perfect buttocks. A colorful t
attoo on the small of her back peeked out from beneath the hair. The man’s chest rose and lowered as his lungs periodically pulled in air, then let it back out. The woman was motionless. Had she been part of a threesome? She walked quietly to the nightstand and grabbed her purse, opening it to look inside, her gun was there. She sighed quietly, and her heartbeat slowed, on its way to normal.

  Grabbing her dress and shoes off the floor she went back out to the living room and slipped it over her head. Her panties were not there. She never had more than two or maybe three drinks, never. She thought she must have been drugged. She wanted to leave, needed to leave but had to do something first. She went back into the room, and despite the cobwebs and echoing jackhammer in her head, located his wallet and took a picture of his driver’s license with her cell phone. Then she left.

  The weather had changed dramatically since yesterday and the cool morning air was like medicine. Her head began to clear but still, she could not recall the night before, scary shit. She dodged the cars, crossing mid-block and was up the elevator and into the shower in less than five minutes. She thought she saw a smirk cross the face of the female desk clerk when she crossed the lobby at half past six in the morning sporting evening wear. She threw the few things she had taken out back into her suitcase, then towel dried her hair and dressed in travel clothes: jeans, a white tee shirt and Toms. She checked the bill that had been slipped under the door into the empty room last night and tucked that away in her laptop bag. After one more cursory glance around to check for power plugs and cables, she left.