After The Flesh

by Colin Gallant

  Cindy Macpherson ran past my hiding spot and only for the briefest of instants did she glance my way. She ran past me but in that instant as the first domino began to fall, I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition.

  She hadn’t changed much. She was still rail thin and dressed in what might have been the cutting edge of fashion – her fashion. She was grown up. She did have a swell of breasts now. And she did have the slim things that models call curves. But I suppose that was inevitable.

  Freddy knew her as well. I saw the disbelief on his face. Beneath it was horror.

  “It is you!” She reached him and threw herself into his arms. “Holy-fucking-shit! Freddy fucking Cartwright in the flesh!”

  “Çin?” His voice was breathless

  “Still and always. I’ve even got my own label now – Çinful Design.” She rolled her eyes. “Dad helped a little.” Like a marionette she shifted her expression to sorrow. “I heard about Carrie. I’m sorry. I was gonna call but I thought you might misunderstand – you know, after our little summer thing.”

  “Çin?” He repeated.

  “Shit, do I have to give you a slap on the ass to change the track?” Her old pooch-lipped smile resurfaced. “I will if you want.”

  I knew then the truth long hidden from me. Freddy’s fantasies were always a powerful force in his early life. They were even more powerful than they became later in life as he began to live them. But the truth is just as powerful. The truth is undeniable.

  “So, how’s Freddy?”

  “I’m getting married – I think.”

  “You think?” She frowned. “You high? Jesus-fuck, Freddy, share the wealth.”

  The steel was nearly in his hand then. I saw the glint of it under the parkade lights. For a moment it looked like he would do now what he always believed had already been done.

  The steel vanished again. “I gotta go,” Freddy said. He sounded as though he might soon be sick. He pushed past her and sprinted for his car.

  “Freddy!” Çin called after him. “Ah, Christ. What the hell? We were just kids, Freddy. Don’t feel bad. It was just sex! Freddy? It’s not like you tried to kill me or anything!”

  She was his greatest fantasy – greater even than Nancy Hicks and her triangle of lace. In his mind she made him. She showed him where the monster was caged and she gave him the key. But there beneath the piss-yellow lights whining and haloing the falling snow she took it all back. All of it. What was left was the beginning of everything.

  I was stuck. I couldn’t reach the car before him or even after him. I had barely moved when that high-tech power plant came to life. Rubber and pre-cast concrete met and parted in a deafening howl. Ribbons of charred, white smoke stunk up the parkade as his tail lights disappeared into the snowy night.

  There were two choices but instantly I knew where he was going. I don’t know how or I suppose I do. As different as we are, we’ve always been part of something greater, something more defined than either of our own meager little worlds. I knew him. When I itched, he scratched.

  I set out into the night on foot. I knew I could jog five miles without spitting blood or collapsing. I was about to find out if I could do it at a dead run.

  -

  Last year Freddy told me Chelsea was beginning to remind him of Carrie. I never saw the resemblance but then I guess I’m not Freddy. I also have never known Chelsea well enough to draw a comparison. As I ran, I wondered if I ever would.

  Freddy was cascading. The last sixteen or so years were only a dream – vivid, powerful, fleshed out in every detail but still just a dream. Sixteen years fell away from him and from me as well.

  Freddy was fifteen again. I was in the closet and John was dead. The heavy malodor of blood stained my pallet and cooled on my cheeks. Freddy was closing in on her. But this time it was different. This time Çin was alive and she was in New York just like she always said she would be. She said she would run away. She did. She already had.

  And now Carrie would die in her place. But there needed to be another one first. There would have to be.

  It was all very confusing. I don’t know. I ran – that’s all I know. Far off I could see light slanting through the louvered door. I could taste blood in my mouth but I didn’t know whose blood it was.

  Chelsea was Carrie. Carrie was Chelsea. I was Freddy. My hands were slick with their blood. The smell of it seemed to blend in the air with the musk of recent sex like incense. It only lent me strength.

  We always said it was almost faster to get around town on foot or bike than it was by car. Depending on how well you know the pathways and how heavy the traffic is it might actually be true. It was now after eight on a Friday night. Freddy needed to get through the beltline with its strips of clubs and pubs. The night life was hopping. I just prayed he didn’t kill anyone on the way.

  Myself, I had a straight shot – fourteen blocks over and three down. My streets were empty of all but the shambling and the destitute and they left my path wide open. A block from the house I had to cross a swath of reclaimed parkland. Skeletal branches clawed at me. My hands had grown numb and I couldn’t feel to fend them off.

  I vaulted a low fence and went down. My chin struck the paved pathway beyond and I saw stars. The lamp lit gloom swirled around me and for a moment – just for a moment – I think I blacked out. When my senses returned my feet were already beneath me and I was stumbling drunkenly on. I fell again, got up and ran on. My lungs burned unlike anything I had ever felt. Every breath was a dull razor blade in my throat. My legs were wooden and I was very nearly spent.

  As the world cleared, I was again able to focus. The street was in front of me just five hundred feet away. It skirted the park in a meandering curve. In the middle of the street was the cul-de-sac. The house was at the end of it. In front of the house I could see the car, the deep metallic blue paint, the swollen fenders, the exotic lines.

  Like an immersion in a hot, scented bath, adrenaline flooded my tortured limbs and revitalized me. My heart rate must have doubled. It doesn’t matter. All pain ceased. I was nearly weightless in my headlong flight across the field.

  -

  Chelsea’s bedroom faced off the side of the house. She had recently begun trying her hand at smoking. It was now a nightly practice of hers to lock her bedroom door, wedge a towel under the one-inch gap at its base and hang her head out the open window. Her screen was rarely put back in. It made too much noise and she habitually forgot to lock the slides. She thought her parents didn’t know.

  I’m sure they did. The parents of a teenage girl are never completely in the dark. Of some things they are blissfully ignorant, of others blatantly. But even Ryan Childress’ cigar deadened sense of smell could pick up his daughter’s sudden fetish for air fresheners if not the cigarette smoke itself. He said nothing and I think he was quietly amused at her attempts to hide it. Elsie was more than likely pretending not to notice.

  Freddy knew about her habit. On occasion he had stood outside her bedroom window in the evening, bumming drags of her smoke while Stacy stood by shaking her head. Freddy knew the screen was off and he would assume the window was unlocked. If it wasn’t, he could easily get her to open it. Chelsea was an early-riser. She was typically in bed by ten and up by six even on weekends. If she lived, she would be one of those people whose sole-purpose for owning an alarm clock is to tell the time.

  I hoped she had found a good book or, better, a good movie on TV. I hoped Elsie had finally caught her smoking. I hoped she had snuck out to see her friends. I hoped, I hoped. I could not pray but I could hope.

  The cul-de-sac was mostly dark. A scattering of porch lights cast glittering auras in the snow laden air. Everywhere windows were dark. I left the pavement and pushed my way through a row of cut back chokecherry bushes and fell headlong into the boughs of a low, spreading juniper.

  My jaw was throbbing and my head pounding. A suggestion of sleep came to me. Just sleep. I was so tired. The fragrant boughs beneath me were so soft
. They were so soothing. Only the snow falling in my hair, melting and running down the back of my collar kept me from sinking under.

  I fought free of the bushes and ran on. The gate was opened. The empty breezeway beyond shimmered white with a layer of new fallen snow. I could see his footprints like craters in the wet snow. I cleared the gate and there he was.

  Freddy was hunched over her, his shoulders heaving, his legs bunching and shifting as though he wrestled with some invisible assailant. Chelsea was wrapped in her bedspread. She was not moving.

  I didn’t pray or hope she was still alive. I could not afford the time for thought or it would betray me. Impulse drove me forward. What strength I had left I brought to bear and lowered my shoulder. My sights were on the small of his back, a crippling blow. My own rage surfaced to lend a hand. It was a lifetime’s worth suppressed and bottled and forgotten. I visualized my target and as I neared, I imagined the sound of his spine snapping against my shoulder.

  Freddy saw me or heard me in that last moment. He glanced back and managed a half-turn before we came together. My shoulder took him in the side rather than the spine and I felt something crunch in there. He rolled with it. If he felt any pain, he did not show it. He took my arm from me and hurled me passed him. I landed on my back and slid through the beard of snow covering the winter-hard grass. Freddy was on me before I could blink. He was so fast. I had no idea. But his fury saved me.

  Freddy went for my throat. He did not speak to me or goad me. All the words and the confessions and the falsehoods hiding behind the truth, all the hours of his life extolled to me when the sun went down all came to an end. As his hands sought out my throat, he finally had nothing to say about it.

  But his footing failed him and he stumbled sideways. Blindly I flailed my fist at him and caught him on the cheek, just under his left eye. It was the same eye John had closed the year the killing began.

  Pain exploded in my wrist but I hardly noticed. It was someone else’s pain. I reached for him and managed to get a handful of his broad coat lapel as he tried to rise. His foot found my ribs but I didn’t let go. He kicked me again and a third time and the crunch of bones cracking was audible inside my skull. The sudden agony was a firebrand in my flesh but still I didn’t lose my grip on him.

  A scream of rage sounded – a voiceless thing of grating metal and falling water. I couldn’t tell from whom it came. Freddy readied himself to kick me again. I hauled on his coat and brought him down once more.

  I found my knees. Freddy was on all fours with one arm free of the coat. His foot came out of nowhere and caught me high on the forehead. My vision doubled and I saw only the supernal glow of the city lights reflected back out of the swirling night sky above.

  Still I did not let go. My fist was a death grip. Even as my consciousness swirled like the snow around us my brain commanded another few pounds of force out of my aching fingers. He was trying to rise, to run. But I was his anchor.

  At last I cried out. My voice. For him.

  But Freddy was gone. His coat fell over me like a blanket as his retreating footsteps crunched in the snow. Memories came to me then, scenes recorded on scratchy old eight-millimeter film. I felt the loving hand of a parent. I lay on my side playing with my new toys beneath the spreading boughs of a Christmas tree. There was a birthday cake, a camping trip. Now the slick, scaly sides of a rainbow trout on the shore of a mountain lake. I could recall none of these. But they were mine. They were my memories. None of them mattered. Not now.

  Chelsea.

  I rolled toward her. My side groaned with the sharp agony of a broken rib or two. A light had come on in the house. Dogs were barking. Voices babbled not far away.

  It seemed to take the last of my strength to reach her yet still I found more. I discovered just how deeply we can draw. I reached her, slipping in the churned snow and slush.

  She was stirring in the pale blue cocoon of her bedspread. She was alive. “Daddy!” She cried out in the voice of the child she used to be.

  I reached her. Freddy’s coat was forgotten in my hands. I set it aside as I levered myself to one knee to peel away the layers binding her. She was crying. I could hear her. She was alive.

  Her blankets parted and our eyes met. There was recognition in that look and stark terror. Her call for her father was forgotten and she merely screamed.

  The gunshot followed.

  Ryan Childress was an expert target shooter. He was a crack shot. At fifty paces he could empty his Kimber into a paperback novel. I was less than half that distance. My shoulders are broad. I was an easy target. If I had not reeled back from that scream the little bullet would have bored right into my spine.

  But I did pull away. Ryan Childress was in his shooter’s stance. I moved just as he squeezed the trigger. I don’t think I heard the shot. Something slapped me hard in the side. Liquid fire raced through my already tortured ribs. I knew I had been shot even if the sound of it never reached my ears or registered in my brain. I knew I had been shot and I knew another would follow.

  Instinct took over. I rose, stumbled over Chelsea and rose again. She was still screaming. Freddy’s coat was in my hands again but I only held it in a loose ball as I lunged for the gate. The skin on my back cringed and my balls climbed high into my belly. I anticipated the shot. I waited for it. I knew it would end me. I thought I might feel a slap on the back of my skull, the sudden pressure behind my eyes of a sinus headache as the bullet ate through my brain. My vision would grow fuzzy. My thoughts would slip away into confusion. I thought it might not be so bad – the slow, painless fall into the black water below.

  The railing was gone now.

  The shot never came. I believe Ryan was stunned. He had shot someone. I was not a cardboard silhouette humming down the length of the range. No one was going to clap him on the back while he beamed proudly at his tight grouping. I was a living person and he shot me and I was bleeding. Crimson stained black in the night pattered on the snow. My blood – his bullet.

  I cleared the gate and saw the car still sitting by the curb two doors down. I went for it. I had Freddy’s key somewhere in my pockets. I would take his car and say fuck him.

  His coat was awkward and I was shivering. I shrugged into it and gasped at the fresh pain the movement caused. Blood pooled against my belt and ran in rivulets down my leg. Only for a moment did I rest against the car. Already I could hear sirens. They were a long, low banshee wail in the distance.

  I went through my pockets, turning over a ball of receipts, a crumpled pack of Dentyne and a fist full of change. The key was somewhere. It had to be. I just used it tonight.

  Again, I patted my hips. I felt every lump and hard curve. It was not there. Six seconds had passed – five too many. I patted the pockets of Freddy’s coat but it was light, empty. Nothing.

  I should have known the car key would be in the ignition. That just seemed right. I saw it just as a second shot rang out. The rear door glass went white and fell in on itself. I hauled the front door open and fell behind the wheel.

  The high-tech dash was intimidating but I ignored it. As fancy as it was it was still just a car. I saw only the gear shift, the pedals at my feet and the road opening up ahead of the Beamer’s long hood. All my lessons came back to me. This was no different than the Impala – better bred but still a brute. I took the key in hand and flung the motor over. Only at the last second did I recall to put the clutch in. I ditched the brake and found first. The clutch came up as the throttle went down. I was gone, not looking back.

  I drove wildly, not knowing where I was going. Blue and white and red strobes lit the park. I found second and floored it. The first cruiser made to block me and I slewed around it, knocking out a headlight on its rear quarter. A second cruiser was coming but I took the corner and headed for open road, opening the gap. The lights faded behind me and disappeared as I turned again, headed for downtown. The streets were empty there. I thought I could gain ground.

  I was starting to get
the hang of it – driving that is – or so I thought. I was never a very good driver and I couldn’t remember the last time I had been behind the wheel. Good or bad – no matter. With one headlight out I didn’t see the homeless lady until I was right on top of her.

  I was pushing a hundred miles an hour I’m sure – far faster than I’ve ever gone before and three times the speed limit. The road was wet and really starting to slick up as the temperature dropped and more snow fell. The on-board electronics tried to save me. I could feel the brakes chattering and something under the hood rattled. They tried but those things can only do so much.

  The car slewed wide of her and drifted. The back end came out and I was granted an absurd second look at her. She just stood there, gaping at me as my wheels met the curb. My side was just beginning to settle down when the car went over. The airbags went off in my face and the lady and her shopping cart disappeared. I smelled ozone. In my side a knife twisted between the broken ribs.

  Again, I blacked out. Longer this time, I think. The sirens were close. I was still in the car. I thought they would get me. Through the remains of the windshield I saw the spire. I saw the cross.

  Carrie is dead. I knew that then and there is nothing I can ever do to change it. I know that now. I’ll never forget. But Chelsea is safe. I saved her. She is alive.

  I might blame John. I might blame Nancy Hicks. I can’t really blame myself because I never understood. I do now. I’ve often thought, wished, begged, prayed and hoped Freddy was a concoction of my darkest nightmares. If that is the case then he will die with me. That’s for the best.

  But really is Freddy the concoction? If he is a concoction, he must have willed himself into being because I never did. I thought that was a gift only a god might possess. If that were the case will he fall with me or soar again? If he does soar again it won’t be as the phoenix but as the demon rising from a fire of his own creation.