by Eli Constant
Shotgun in one hand, I use my free one to claw at the shelves holding the liquor, desperate to stay upright. They give under the weight of my grasp, crashing down in a great clattering heap of broken glass and pungent alcohol. The smell of the rum and whiskey and bourbon mixing in the blood was so heady that I felt lightheaded. Or maybe it’s that I just blew someone’s head apart that’s making me feel lightheaded. Either or, I guess.
I shake my head violently, focus on what’s happening. Blackthorn is standing in the middle of the bar, he’s the same, but not. His body seems to be taller, to have lengthened without growing wider. It gives him the effect of gauntness. His skin has gone from pale cream to ash gray, like the blushing life-ness has drained away from him.
It comes to me at once, my senses suddenly brought to life now that he’s lost his cool composure.
He’s not human.
I can feel him now, so strong that I’m shocked I didn’t sense it before. He feels…dead. But he’s also not. It is almost a sense of Earth I get from him. Like he is walking soil and water. He’s something I’ve never encountered before. And that scares the hell out of me.
“He. Was. Mine,” Blackthorn’s voice is no longer low or melodious. It’s sharp and scratchy. It’s murderous. He moves forward. It’s not a walk or a run. It is as if he glides across the floor, like he has unseen wings that carry him toward me. “Do you know what it will take to make another like him?”
Lifting the gun, I point it at him. My hands are shaking, my arms too weak to hold it steadily. “I will shoot you,” I say sounding stronger than I feel.
“You cannot hurt me, you pathetic mortal.” Acid, dropping from between his lips that do not move as he speaks. “No gun can.”
“Then this shouldn’t hurt a bit.” I pull the trigger and the bullet goes wide, barely grazing his right arm. “Fuck.” I try again, but nothing happens. Two shots. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I breathe out, moving as fast as I can from behind the bar. I am about to turn towards the back, towards the rear exit, but I can’t leave Jim. He may hate me, he may turn me into the police for what I am, but I can’t leave him to die.
Wielding the shotgun like a baseball bat, I race forward, straight at Blackthorn. In my brain I’m thinking—element of surprise—but as soon as I do it, I feel really, really stupid. You don’t run straight at a threat. You just don’t. I mean, that’s like superhero 101, surely.
Blackthorn opens his mouth, the lower half of his face seeming to extend until it nearly reaches the level of his upper chest. It’s like a shark opening its great jaws. It’s both fascinating and disgusting. Like something out of a fucking horror movie. His upper teeth are as elongated as the lower half of his face. A row of too sharp teeth ready to strike.
Oh my God, what is he? I jerk to the right, treating Blackthorn like a crocodile and pretending he won’t be able to make a quick adjustment to his course.
I think he knows what I’m doing, because he lifts high into the air, his head nearly touching the exposed rafters above, and he bypasses me. When he lands, it is mesmeric. He floats down, his right foot touching the floor first, his left leg bent at the knee gracefully. When both of his shoes are planted on the ground, he lowers his arms which have been raised away from his body. His loose jacket seems to fly about him with some energy not inherent to human clothes.
Power. He reeks of power.
And not just any power, but death magic. It is different from what I wield though. We are like half siblings, born of demon parents.
He holds a hand out to me, stopping me in my tracks. I hold the gun up, ready to swing with all of my might. And then he is rushing forward, like a tornado. He slams into my body with so much force that I think my spine must have broken. But there is no cracking sound and I can feel my toes still as he pushes me backwards, my shoes sliding against the floor. His body pressing against mine is odd, like concrete against rubber. His toothy mouth is leaning down as his right hand pushes my neck to one side.
“Tori, you in there?” someone’s shouting outside. I look past Blackthorn and through one of the windows. Steve. Steve is here. The police are here. Everything’s going to be fine. But it’s not the police. It’s only Steve. And if I call him in here, I’m afraid he’ll be killed.
No one will get hurt because of me.
“I don’t like being interrupted,” Blackthorn hisses, releasing my neck and pulling his face away from the vein there. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done. All of what you’ve done.” His hands hit me in perfect synchronization, slamming into my stomach like dual anvils falling from a great height into a tub of gelatin. It knocks the wind out of me, sends me bending forward against the pain that momentarily leaves me blind. The blindness turns to stars. The stars turn to hazy vision. Blackthorn turns from me, a motion so quick that he is a blur. I cannot see what he is doing. It’s like I am in a train and he is the scenery rushing by. I can’t focus.
Finally, I realize that he is hovering over Jim. No…
Jim’s body, because it is only an empty vessel now. I can feel the death throes pushing into the air like touchable energy.
Beside me, an apparition shimmers. It comes together slowly, like fog assimilating into form. When it is full and perfect, I know Jim is gone forever.
“Oh, Jim. Jim, I’m so sorry.”
He smiles, his see-through hand reaching for me. “I wouldn’t have told, Tori. I’m sorry I acted the way I did. It caught me by surprise, but I wouldn’t have told. I need you to know that before I go.”
“I’m so sorry, Jim.” I close my eyes as he touches me, that soft brush of feeling that I will never feel again.
“Tell Kyle. He’ll understand. I promise he’ll understand.” For a moment, all is lost around us. I open my eyes. It is only me and the last parent figure I have on this Earth abandoning me. Loss isn’t rational. “Is that for me?” Jim isn’t looking at me now. His eyes are trained in the distance. At the light that calls to him.
I nod. “Yes. It’s for you.” He should have unfinished business. Of all the people I know, Jim should have unfinished business. But he doesn’t. He moves ahead, glancing back over his shoulder at me and giving me one of his soft smiles and then he disappears in a quick flash of white light.
“We’re not finished here, Ms. Cage. Not by a longshot.” And then Blackthorn vanishes.
My surroundings come crashing back, crest after crest of tall wave drowning me in reality. Blackthorn is gone. I turn to look at the bar and see that the body of Sausage Fingers is also gone. The blood, the brains, the skull fragments…shudder…it’s all gone.
Slowly, I look back to where Blackthorn was crouched over Jim. There is nothing blocking my view now, so I get to see everything, though I wish I didn’t have to. Jim is not recognizable. His face is gone, ragged edges of skin frayed around the hairline. His stomach is sliced open, his intestines like spaghetti soaking in thick marinara pour from his belly.
I drop the gun and fall to my knees, vomiting on the floor until there is nothing left inside me.
Chapter Twenty-One.
Steve finds me immobile on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.
The ceiling which is spinning like a top and will not cease. It turns and turns and turns until I think I might be sick again.
“Tori?” Steve’s voice is gentle, kinder than I’ve ever heard it. “Tori, are you okay?”
My vision is blurring, so I blink rapidly, trying to clear my eyes. I’m not crying, but the world is still wrapped in an undulating fog. I find Steve’s face. It’s concerned, worried. He’s a handsome man, with eyes that are neither blue nor green, but something in between. His wife’s name is Megan. His son’s name is Steven Jr. He’s just the kind of guy to make his son a junior. I keep rambling about in my head, words tumbling over one another until they are a great, nonsensical heap. I push them aside. I move my mouth. I make myself speak. “No, Steve. I’m not all right.” I curl up on my side, pulling my knees into my chest. “I’m not all right.�
�� I close my eyes tightly, gluing the lashes together in hopes I’ll never have to part them again.
“Terrance is on the way, Tori. Can you at least tell me if you’re hurt?”
I keep my eyes closed, but I shake my head slowly. Jim’s dead. Even if I was injured, I wouldn’t complain. Alive and wounded is infinitely better than dead. Isn’t it?
“Good.” Fingers touch my right arm. “Jesus, what made these?” His touch stings, like he’s brushing my skin with antiseptic and not bare hand. His fingers keep moving, tracing the outline of whatever has his attention. Finally, he wraps his whole hand around my arm and sucks in a breath. “A hand mark. God, who the fuck has hands this big?”
“Sausage Fingers.” I mutter. And then I dissolve into laughter. I lay there, a few inches away from my own vomit splashed across the floor, a few feet away from Jim’s mangled body, and I laugh until I am nothing but dark humor wishing for death. And then I fall silent as a crypt.
In minutes, I hear the bar around me become a bustle of activity. Steve has left my side. I’m glad of it. I want to be alone. Not that I really am alone.
Grief lets my guard down. More so than fear.
When I am lost in sadness, the world comes pouring inward. I hear a mouse trapped beneath a shipment in the back store room, fighting to wriggle out and stay alive. His small life energy is brown, like his coat of fur. It pulses and reaches out for help.
I feel a bee outside. It’s stung a cow and is waffling about in the air looking for a place to land. To land and die. I feel one of the men who have arrived at the bar. He’s older, but not so much older that he doesn’t expect many years of life ahead of him. Yet, unless he goes to a doctor and they find the cancer building like the charge of an electric chair in his lungs, then he will die soon. Perhaps within the year.
I feel someone kneel beside me and know instantly that it’s not Steve this time. “Tori, it’s time to get up now,” Terrance is speaking softly, like he doesn’t want his words to carry. “Jim’s gone. Lying here isn’t going to bring him back.”
Oh, but I could bring him back. If I wanted to, I could reach past the veil and into the afterlife. I could pull him back from the ether with my power and force him into the ruined body. I could make him stay. I could make him stay.
Instead though, I release my legs, stretching them out slowly because I can feel the cramp building in my left thigh. I push my palms against the floor and I force myself to sit up. And then I open my eyes and take in what is happening around me.
Photographs are being taken, the blinking light jarring in the dimness of the bar. A man is lowering a gurney. A long black bag is unzipped on the floor. Death is fascinating. When a person comes across the blood and guts, they look on in what begins as horror, but what slowly changes into morbid fascination. It causes one to be faced with mortality. It causes contemplation. It brings relief that we are not, as of yet, dead ourselves.
The smell of the dead hits me square in the face as Terrance helps me stand and then leads me out the front door past Jim’s body. Metallic blood. The stomach seeping partially-digested food. Hospital food, in Jim’s case. And then there is the smell of shit and urine. Most of us do that at the end—our bowels let loose, our bladders overflow.
So not only are we gone in a snap of Mother Nature’s fingers, but we also leave in the most humiliating way. A twisted joke, if ever I heard one.
The smell of soil and soul are just whispering undertones as Terrance pushes the door open and takes me out into the fresh air.
Outside, no rain falls, but a breeze blows. Its cool breath pushes against me in the loveliest, most life-affirming way. Terrance sits me in the back of his squad car, all doors open and the AC off, which is very comfortable because of the wind and leftover moisture hanging in the air. I lean against the seat and close my eyes.
But quickly open them again when I hear the creak of one of the car doors closing. I sit straighter, scanning my surroundings. No one is near me. Everyone is hovering about the front of the building, waiting for orders. It’s more than just Bonneau’s small police force. It looks like cops from several counties have come out. I got the feeling they were here to offer support, rather than butt in. Jim knew everybody. Even in death.
As I’m looking, the rumble of a motorcycle comes faintly and then builds until it is thunder. I would have bet good money that it was Jim’s Harley.
And astride it is Kyle.
He pulls the cobalt blue bike into a front most spot. It’s reserved for handicapped drivers, but he doesn’t care. No one cares.
He’s jumping off the bike and ripping off the helmet before the sound of the engine fully dies. He’s running toward the front door. Several people try to stop him. Steve is blocking the entrance, his face pleading. He doesn’t want Kyle to see his Dad. I know it’s not vindictive. He holds out a hand, pressing it against Kyle’s chest. They don’t know him or who he is. They wouldn’t stop him if they knew. Or maybe they would… seeing Jim in his current state would be horrific for Kyle.
I nearly fall as I get out of the squad car. “Kyle, wait!” I try and shout, but my voice is thick and hoarse from crying. “Kyle!” My second call carries further. He hears me. When he turns and sees me, his eyes widen and he starts running again, this time towards me. I’m holding myself upright with the car door, afraid I won’t be able to support myself. My legs are so shaky, like sitting down against the softer cushion of the car instead of on the hard floor of the bar has drained some of my remaining strength.
But I move as he gets closer, clutching my side and fighting the little twangs of pain that make my breath come too quickly and too shallow. “Kyle, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Kyle.” My apologies are empty, useless things.
Jim is gone.
“Victoria, what happened?” When he is only a foot from me, he reaches out his arms and I fall into them. He wraps me up like a present on Christmas Eve and holds me against his chest. I can hear his heartbeat pattering through the thick material of his riding jacket. We’re not familiar enough for this kind of embrace, but god it feels good. It feels so full of vitality and life. And I do not push him away or stop our connection. Instead I sink further into it, fully letting him absorb my grief and sadness. I am ashamed that I cannot seem to cry now, when I cry so often otherwise.
He’s quiet while I lean against him, my shoulders shaking so hard that I think my brain might vibrate straight out of my head. Maybe that would be better—I’d never have to think about this day again. I could forget it. Blissful ignorance. When I am well and truly finished, Kyle strokes my hair and pushes me gently away. Still, tears do not fall from my eyes.
He continues to support me, still keeps his hands planted against my waistline, as he speaks. His mouth is against my hair, his warm breath gently moving strands. “What happened?”
“God, Kyle. Jim’s gone. He’s gone. I couldn’t stop them. I’m so sorry!” My voice pleads for forgiveness and I’m jerking my head in quick little shakes. No. No. No. No. This isn’t real. It’s just a dream. Just a terrible dream. “Terrance called me to say he was sending over a squad car to watch over me. I’ve been helping them with a case and your Dad helped us know when the guy we were looking for came into the bar. I was worried. I thought if they knew I’d been helping the police then they knew Jim had helped too.”
Kyle is standing blank-faced, his eyes trained on the stretch of road behind me. I hear no cars, so I know he stares at emptiness.
“Kyle, did you hear me?”
He doesn’t look at me, but I don’t need him too. I’ve seen this type of grief before. It is a quiet storm beneath the surface. It will build and build until the hurricane lands, tearing up the ground and anything in sight. He will suffer greatly with the news, but not now.
I speak again, trying to make him feel how sorry I am. “I figured Jim would want to come to his bar first after being released from the hospital. So I came here instead of the house. I saw his Thunderbird and… there were t
wo men here. Jim was already hurt really, really badly. He tried to stand up for me, but they hurt him worse. I’m so sorry he got hurt for me. I’m so sorry. This is my fault, Kyle. I should never have involved him in this case. Or any of the other cases. It’s my fault.” I pull away from Kyle and turn, not wanting to look at him. The realization that this is my fault brings on my shame in great gusts and threatens to knock me over.
Maybe the storm has come and it is inside of me, ripping at my organs, rather than building in Kyle’s body.
This is just like when Terrance had taken a bullet for me, but different. This time, it wasn’t an injury and a hospital visit. It was final. It was a funeral. It was fucking forever.
“Kyle, say something. Please.” I turn towards him once more. My eyes are fixed on his, his which are still unseeing yet open. The twinkle has died, like it has been extinguished by his father, the man who genetically gave him the mischievous glint. “Kyle?” I make his name a question.
He blinks, comes back to the world that’s bustling and hustling and clearing away the proof his father’s existence. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” He swallows, his gaze still lost. “Dad loved to get involved in things. If it wasn’t this, then it would be some woman’s husband or an old enemy. Dad did time after World War Three. Did you know that?”
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah. He was real messed up. Maybe that’s why he liked to get his rocks off with younger gals. It made him feel like he wasn’t broken and old.” Kyle’s words might have sounded harsh to someone else, but there was such a deep sadness behind them, like a chasm sunk into the ocean, reaching deep into darker places than any human could fathom.
“What did he do? To end up in jail, I mean.” Things make sense now, about Jim. Why he didn’t talk much about his personal life, aside from sharing that he’d been thrice married and thrice divorced.
“He got in a fight with the old owner of the bar. Beat the shit out of him and the guy pressed charges. Cops wouldn’t believe that the owner started it.” Kyle smiles then. “Dad made bail, but then set the guy’s truck on fire. He got out in a year on good behavior. By that time, the bar had gone bankrupt and was for sale and I guess Dad thought the best justice would be him buying the building from the bank.”