by D. M. Pulley
“Who’s been feeding you, boy?” She scratched behind his ears. His fur still smelled faintly of rotting leaves and sewage, as did her own hands. Her fingernails were black with dirt. In the back of her pounding head, she still heard barking. It had been Gunner and Bogie chasing them down in the sewers. They knew her scent. That’s how Ben had found them. She leaned against the bed and reached up to feel the knot between her shoulders, aching like a tetanus vaccination. Taser? Dart?
Voices from the kitchen brought her back to her feet. She pressed her ear to the door.
“Is that really necessary?” It sounded like Ben.
“Was it necessary for this son of a bitch to pull a gun on me? Who knows what this animal did to our girl. I say we get real traditional with this piece of shit,” a second voice seethed. She could tell from the venom it was Troy.
“But neighbors are still awake. It’s too risky.”
“Nah. You’re not gonna make much noise, are you, boy?”
A muffled grunt barely made it through her bedroom door.
“What about Kris?” Ben said under his breath. She could hear him trying to keep his voice down, as if to protect her from the words. He’d shot her with something down in the sewer. He’d shot her and carried her out.
“We need to get her out of here,” a third voice said softly. The sound of it sent a jolt through her heart. It was the voice of a ghost. “She can’t have any part in this.”
“Isn’t it a bit late for that?” Troy hissed. The wet thump of a fist slamming into raw meat hit Kris in the ear. Jimmy.
She recoiled from the door. Hot tears spilled down her face. It was a dream. It had to be some sort of nightmare. Gunner cocked his head at her and whined. The wood floor creaked as she stumbled back from the voices, willing herself to fly away.
“She’s up.”
Scrambling to the edge of her bed, Kris searched the sheets until she found the knife she’d stashed there in a fit of panic the other night, never dreaming she’d actually need it. This isn’t happening, she told herself as the door swung open.
“Hey, babe!” Troy flashed a manic grin from the doorway. “We’ve been so worried about you.”
She shrank against the bed, sliding the cold blade between her waistband and the small of her back.
Troy grabbed her arm and dragged her from the bedroom and out into the kitchen. The first thing she saw was Jimmy bound and gagged in a heap on the floor. Naked. His beautiful dark skin marred with welts and bruises. Her insides fell out at the sight. Troy had to hoist her back onto her feet as the words Oh, God! Oh, God! sirened through her head.
The rest of the room registered in incoherent pieces. A heavy, squat figure in a police uniform standing over Jimmy. A giant steel hook bolted into the ceiling. A man seated at her kitchen table. Clean-shaven skin. Dyed black hair. Familiar blue eyes bent on her.
Troy forced her into a chair across the table from the stranger.
“Ah, Kris,” the man said in her father’s voice. “You should have just filled out the paperwork like you were told. Now look what you’ve done.”
The sirens in her head went quiet.
“Dad?” she croaked. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t. But the eyes . . .
“Do you have any idea what I’ve gone through to keep you away from all this? Goddammit!” He slammed the table.
She flinched as though it were a slap.
“I was going to let you go. When will these stupid women learn to just mind their own business?” He looked to Ben, standing there with a gun on his hip, and shook his head sadly.
Kris gaped at Jimmy lying on the floor. “What have you done?” she whispered.
“What have I done?” he mocked her. “Christ, I should be asking you the same thing. What the hell were you thinking, sticking your nose in all of this? Poking around the archives? Asking questions in the chat rooms?”
Kris’s eyes widened. They’re watching you.
“This is no place for a girl. I did everything I could to keep you from it, but you just had to go lookin’ for it, didn’t you? You’re just like your mother.”
Kris’s eyes circled the funhouse of horrors that her kitchen had become. Ben couldn’t look her in the eye. A white hood lay on the kitchen counter. The words Ku Klux Klan skittered through her mind. Her mismatched collection of knives had been laid out in perfect order on the kitchen table in front of her. Troy prodded the black man on the ground with his steel-toed boot.
Jimmy turned his swollen face up to hers. Run!
“But.” She shook her head and forced herself to look at her father through the tears in her eyes. “You’re not one of them. You tattooed over the brand. Your parents . . . they hated her . . . they hated me.”
“They didn’t have the stomach to properly hate anything. They didn’t have the nerve to dirty their hands. They just wanted to sit back behind the scenes, the cowards. When Pelley went down, they all turned tail and ran.” He waved his arm in disgust. “You don’t get to sit at the table and eat the meat if you’re not willing to go kill it yourself.”
Kris knew the words well. She’d heard them every time she refused to pull the trigger. She turned to Ben. “You knew about this the whole time.”
“I’m sorry, Krit,” Ben said, putting his bulk between her and the front door. He gave her a sympathetic nod. “I always liked your mom, kiddo. Even if she was half-kike . . . I feel like I failed you both.”
“You signed the accident report,” she heard herself whisper from the recesses of a room deep inside where she’d barricaded herself. She turned back to her father. “What did you do to her?”
“I gave that woman every chance to get right with this world. I plucked her out of that clutch of Jews and tried to put her on the right side of things. I taught her everything. How to be a proper lady. How to be a mother. How to obey God’s will . . .” The warped face of her father shook side to side in disgust. “I tried to save her from herself, but was she grateful?”
Flesh-and-blood memories of her mother had deserted her years ago, leaving nothing but pieces. Her small form perched on the edge of a bed. Sullen stares out the window. Her face buried in her hands. The soft warbling pitch of her crying. The gentle pained smile leaning over her bed. Listen to your father, honey. Please don’t make him angry, baby. The fear in her eyes. Kris had always thought it was her fault for being a bad girl, but . . .
“You beat her,” Kris said more to herself than to anyone else. She stared at him in disbelief. All the times she’d cowered in terror of his wrath, all the times he’d hit her in a rage came flooding back. All the ways she’d molded herself so that he would hug her instead. She’d managed to explain it away, that it was normal. Every kid got punished, right? As she blinked back fresh tears, she saw her mother’s picture still sitting next to his bed. “Did you even love her at all?”
He just shook his head. “Love is a woman’s game, Kris, you should know that by now. But I had such hopes for her. It was such a thrill wooing her, earning her trust, convincing her that I was the one, having her . . . But then, just like a woman, she let me down.”
“You hunted her.” She realized it as she said it. The picture was just a trophy, another deer head mounted on his wall. Nauseated, she shook away the thought, and DHOH’s typed words jumbled together in her head. All dead trains passed through Lima . . . All dead trains on the CDX scrap division . . . Fifty-four dead between 1972 and 1996. Jimmy lying there naked on the floor. “It was you. You killed all those people. The scrapbook. They were all yours. And she found out . . .”
“She tried to take you away, Kris. My own flesh and blood.” He gave her the helpless smile of a self-declared martyr. “I did it for you. I did it so you’d have a chance. And now look . . . I should’ve known better than to dirty my bloodlines.”
The roar of adrenaline in her ears drowned out the words as the truth of it sunk in. For the first time, she could see it all clearly—the locked toolshed, the long hunting trips, her father
sitting in the garage, washing the blood from his hands and boots. It wasn’t an animal’s blood. “How could you kill those people?”
The monster across the table tilted his head at her and spoke as though she were a little girl. “They weren’t people, honey. Not like us. Look at the news. They tear each other apart every day like wild animals. They’d kill you same as look at you. Or rape you. Or drug you and steal you away into the disease-infested hell they make of this world. Take this animal here.” It motioned to Jimmy on the ground. “What do you even know about him? Huh?”
“He’s quite a catch, Kritter,” Ben chimed in. He shook his head at her as though she’d failed a test. “We pulled a few prints from the house. His real name is James Howard Wills, and he’s a convicted felon. Kid’s got a rap sheet a mile long. Shoplifting. Drugs. Armed robbery. He’s even wanted for questioning in a murder. Didya know all that?”
Kris felt the floor shift under her. Jimmy? Murder? He lay there bruised and beaten, pleading with his eyes. No.
“Do you really expect me to let this criminal near my baby girl? I shudder to think what he’s done to you.” The monster eyed her with disgust. Whore.
“No. He didn’t do anything.” All feeling drained from her limbs. Kris squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to disappear, but the thought of Jimmy forced them back open.
“I’m supposed to believe that he didn’t lay a hand on you?” He motioned to Jimmy on the floor. “It’s my job to protect you from the filth of this world.”
She knew better than to argue with the man. He hated back talk, and she needed to keep him talking so she could think. Be a little girl. Be his little girl. “Then why did you die, Daddy? You left me alone . . .”
“What choice did I have?” The monster with her father’s eyes smacked the table hard enough to make her jump again. “Our so-called government started asking questions. These Internet spies began poking around. That idiot Hohman found me at work. I couldn’t just let them take me out and throw me in jail. What would that’ve done to you? No. I would never have left you like that.”
He was pleading his case to her, she realized, working to turn her to his reason. She nodded slowly. “You killed him . . . You killed him and made everyone think what they found was you.” His smug expression told her she was right. “But the tattoo . . .”
He cracked a sad smile. Pity, it said. “It helps to have friends with access to the files.”
Ben.
“We had it all worked out. But then you started asking questions and refused to cooperate. Dammit, Kris! You don’t know what’s coming!”
“What’s coming?” she whispered, quaking inside at his anger, at his insanity. She glanced up at Ben for help but knew she’d find none. Troy stood over Jimmy, hanging one arm from the giant hook in the ceiling in anticipation. The blade of the knife dug into the small of her back, but there were three of them. She needed more time.
“The illusion of this world is about to come crashing down, and we all have to be ready,” the monster explained and gently picked up her hand across the table. “It’s been predicted since the dawn of time. Jesus is coming back, girl. And he’s coming for blood . . . When the grid goes down in eight months, all hell is gonna break loose. It won’t matter who’s alive or dead, but I’ll be damned if I’ll be locked in a cage to starve while the world outside burns.”
“Jesus is coming back? What are you talking about? You don’t even go to church!” She jerked away from him on reflex and immediately regretted it. She could tell by the way the flame went out of the monster’s eyes that she’d blown it.
He shook his head in disgust, washing his hands of her for good. “My church is everywhere. Troy, get her out of here, son.”
Troy let go of the meat hook and grabbed both of her shoulders hard enough to hurt. “Time to go, babe.”
“Troy! How can you be a part of this?” she pleaded with him. The knife was lodged in her waistband, but her arms were pinned.
“You know your dad’s always been like a father to me. He’s taught me so many things.” All their buddy-buddy hunting trips together took on a new color in her mind as he grinned. A chill ran through her. He intended to finish what he’d started back in Cridersville, and this time Jimmy wouldn’t be able to stop him. She was his now.
She fought back a wave of panic and tried to focus. To keep talking. To keep him from dragging her to his truck. “You did it too . . . You helped kill those people.”
Troy planted a wet kiss on her lips. “I did them a favor, babe. I saved them from themselves. Don’t worry so much. I know we’ll get through this thing together. Al’s agreed to let me keep an eye on you from now on. I got a beautiful room all set for you. In time, you’ll understand why all this was necessary.”
Ben opened the door for them. The red eight-pointed star on the door swung into the house like an omen. If she let Troy drag her out, Jimmy was dead. She dug in her heels against the door frame and turned to the monster at the table. “You painted this, didn’t you?”
“I thought you might come to your senses and come home. If you had, all of this”—he motioned to Jimmy and the knives—“wouldn’t have been necessary.”
She kept her knees locked. “You were here?”
“No need, kiddo.” He waved a hand, reveling in his power. “We have many friends in this sewer of a city.”
“The landlord,” she whispered. The spying. The reports back home. “That’s why you made me live here.”
“The Legion is everywhere. We didn’t die out, we went underground and splintered and spread like wildfire. Vietnam may have spawned the free-love movement, but it also trained a whole new generation of soldiers.” He flashed a wry grin. Death from above, it said. “While those hippies were out marching for ‘civil rights,’ we were getting ready to cleanse the world.”
Kris blinked her eyes clear and scrambled for something, anything to say. “If what you’re doing is so good, why—why hide it? Why destroy the records? The archives?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Destroy them? Those are valuable historic documents! Do you know how hard we’ve been working to resurrect the sacred rituals? We’ve got scholars in our midst perfecting the true Holy Bible Hitler ordained . . .” The monster picked up one of the longest knives and spun the blade between his fingers and turned his eyes to Jimmy sprawled on the floor.
Tears blurred her vision. “No. You don’t have to do this. I’ll go with you . . . I will. I’ll behave.”
“I know you will, sweetie. But it’s too late now. You’re going to have to take responsibility for your mistakes. You should’ve just signed the papers like poor Ben here asked. You should’ve stayed in Cridersville where you belonged. You should’ve stayed far away from that animal over there. You left me no choice . . .” His eyebrows wrinkled into a frown. “Don’t make it worse, sweetheart.”
She strained against the crazed football player pinning down her arms, keeping her feet on the door frame. “You can’t do this!” she squeaked.
The monster stood and motioned to Troy to set her down. The football player obeyed but kept a grip on her shoulders. A hand grabbed her chin. “I’m doing this for you.”
“Bullshit,” she whispered.
He wrenched her chin hard. “What did you just say to me?”
That got him. He hated nothing more than sass, and she needed him to stay focused on her, not Jimmy. Kris gathered her voice in her gut and belted right into his face, “Bullshit! All those people on the trains, Mom, Jimmy—you didn’t do this for me. You did it for yourself. Because you’re a Sick. Twisted. Fuck!”
The crack of his hand sent her sprawling out of Troy’s grip and onto the floor. Her head hit the linoleum. Her vision exploded into red spots.
“Dammit, Kristin,” he muttered. “You had a chance. You had a chance to be saved, but I’ll be Goddamned if I let a filthy whore take the place of my daughter. Troy . . .”
The door slammed shut. Troy’s boots shook the floorboard under
her. Two pairs of hands grabbed the heap that was Jimmy and hauled him up by the ankles, twisting and bucking. After three attempts, they managed to get him hooked and left him dangling from his feet, naked.
Dazed, Kris picked up her bruised head. Headlights flashed under the blinds. The rumble of a car passed by on Thurman Avenue only a few feet away and kept going up the road. A pair of hands hauled her up off the floor. “Now you get to bear witness,” her father’s voice growled in her ear. He grabbed the back of her neck and jerked her to his side. The familiar smell of his aftershave made the room reel. This isn’t happening.
“I know what I want to cut off first,” Troy announced, picking the largest blade up from the table.
The monster wrested the cleaver from him. “You’ll get your chance, but that’s not how this is done. First you bleed him. Even the lowest creature deserves a humane death. It’s what separates us from these animals.”
The beast steadied the cleaver at Jimmy’s throat with his other hand gripping Kris’s neck. Both Ben’s and Troy’s eyes were trained on the kill as she grabbed the handle of her knife and pulled it from her waistband.
“Ben, will you say grace?”
Ben closed his eyes and said, “O Lord, we have brought this sinner forth on this altar to atone for his sins. We thank you for your teachings in the ways of the sacrifice. Leviticus tells us, ‘The life of a creature is in the blood.’”
Both Troy and her father’s voices repeated, “The life of a creature is in the blood.”
“‘And I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls.’”
Gripping the knife, Kris felt her soul retreat. The beast holding her neck bowed its head low as it repeated the prayer. Watching herself through the murky waters separating her mind from the hell around her, she wondered if she’d have time to stick his throat before the other two realized what she’d done, if she’d have the strength the bury the knife to the hilt. Jimmy hung bleeding and bruised, his throat inches from the cleaver. Her mother’s shattered car rolled over and over with the pounding pulse in her head, a fury rising to a deafening pitch. He killed her, it screamed. He fucking killed her!