Horror Becomes Me

by Oldrich Stibor

  There was an idea that began to grow in Simon and part of the reason he had started to think about it was because of Peter. When the kids teased Peter for being small and shy, it made Simon very upset. When he thought of his parents it made him very upset as it did when he thought of Johnny. It was only the people that he cared about that made him feel sad. So if he had no one to care for or miss, would he be less sad in life? If he didn’t care for anyone there would be no reason to miss anyone. Well what if he hated everyone? That would be even easier, wouldn't it? Then who cares what anyone else does or where they are or if you will see them again? Was that really the answer? Is that the secret the bullies at school and now here in St. Joseph had realized already? Nobody can hurt you if you don't care about anyone. Hurt the world before it hurts you.

  But he wasn't like that. He didn't know how to be like that, so he continued to look out for Peter for as long as he could.

  One night, after Simon had woken from yet another dream about his mother he saw Peter climb out bed and sleepily stumbled into the hall. He wanted to warn him against that. Many of the boys would hold it to the point of tears, rather than risk running into Father McDermind in the middle of the night. Once he watched as Jake Macintosh squirmed in bed for an hour or so before going and pissing in a cup in the corner. Nobody had ever told him the same things were happening to them of course, but Simon knew. He wasn't stupid. He saw their faces when McDermind was around.

  So when Peter didn't return after ten minutes he was very concerned. After twenty minutes he no longer wondered what happened. He got up and tip toed to the door and peered out into the hall which was as dark and scary as it had always been. He waited for a second; straining his little ears to detect footsteps and satisfied there were none he quietly walked to the bathroom which he found was just as dark and empty. He was half way down the hall towards the priest’s quarters before he realized he was crying and his hands were curled into little fists. He felt like his entire being was clenched into a fist, a knot of anger that doubled in itself so dense and tight that he wasn't able to untangle it.

  Coming to the end of the hall he peaked around the corner at Father McDermend's room. The door was closed. What if he was wrong about this? He could be caught and forced into doing those things again for nothing. Even worst he realized with a shudder- the old priest may misunderstand and think he was even seeking him out. But no, he wasn't wrong. There was no other explanation. Kids don't just vanish in the middle of the night... not unless they are taken.

  He approached the door, feeling a bit like an explorer wondering into a vampire’s dungeon. He was too scared to think about how scared he was. He didn't even know what he was going to do to stop him. But maybe if two of them stood up to him he would realize that they wouldn't keep this awful thing a secret anymore.

  He pushed the door open, very, very slowly so it wouldn't creek. It was dark and he could smell the musk and the incense which sent a rush of dread through him. But if he just left now he would never forgive himself. Peter didn't deserve to have this happen to him. Once it happens it never leaves your head. So if he could prevent it before the first time, now, maybe he wouldn't try with him again and peter would be safe. It's what he wished someone would have done for him.

  He crept through the door way and was not surprised by what he saw. The priest was seated in a chair, his back turned to the door. Peter couldn't see Simon on the other side of McDermind, where he was hunched over the priest’s lap.

  Simon moved closer, still not knowing what to do until he saw a statue of Mother Mary on a small table. He tip toed to the statue and picked it up in his little trembling hands. It was made of some kind of metal and was heavier than it looked. Much heavier. He walked to the priest, unconcerned if he could hear the sound of his bare feet on the floor or the soft sobbing and high pitch whining in his throat like a sad song.

  The first hit made a loud thud like the sound of he didn't know what, but it surprised him. Not as much as it surprised Father McDermind though. The old man cried out, wheezy and horse and Peter screamed.

  Simon came around the chair wielding the statue like a sacrilegious club, drops of the priest’s blood running down Mary's grim face like tears.

  “Run!” Simon screamed to Peter and he didn't have to ask twice. In a second Peter was through the door and bolting down the long dark hallways of the orphanage.

  McDermend groaned, pawing uselessly on the floor and trying to climb to his bony knees. Simon gave him a second to collect himself. He wanted him to know who was doing this to him. He wanted him to see his face. And when he did, he went even whiter than usual. His eyes wide with sudden realization and he opened his mouth to say something but Simon smashed him across the teeth before he could get the words out. He could feel the old priests teeth shatter and heard the dull thud of the metal reaching his gums. So there it was, he thought. If he was going to hell anyways he might as well finish the job.

  The priest was now facedown in a puddle of his old putrid blood. He grabbed him by his shoulder and turned him around so he could see him. McDermind’s face was a mess, his nose broken, his front teeth all shattered or gone. Simon hated that fucking mouth. Hated his creepy fucking lips and the way his breath smelled like stale milk. The third blow was to his mouth again. It sounded dull and wet. This is my secret communion, he wanted to scream but didn't have the restraint to stop and say it. The fourth blow landed on his cheek bone which smashed inwards like papier-mâché. The fifth was in the same spot, and less loud, more dull like a hammer on a sack of flour. The fifth, the sixth and seventh Simon could never remember.

  CHAPTER 14

  The five of them sat there, still and silently sipping coffee, slowly waking up, preparing for another ten or twelve or God knows-what-hour interval of their shared nightmare.

  “Okay,” Costa said rubbing at the stubble on his cheek and shuffling up to the white board. “This young lady is Danielle White,” he said clipping her picture up to the board. She was a pretty young woman one could imagine in an abercombie and fitch ad. Long curly brown hair and cute deep dimples. Reaching back into the folder he pulled out another picture. “And this fella here is Ryan Maynard. These two both went missing in two thousand and ten. They were a couple. None of the statements attached to the missing persons report filed with the Los Angeles police department suggest any kind of domestic violence in the relationship. So I'm not inclined to think this was a case of boy meets girl, boy kills girl and moves to Canada. They may have just run off together as far as anyone knows.”

  “Any priors on the male? Assaults? Warrants?” Green asked, still staring down at his notepad and scribbling.

  “Squeaky clean. More or less. Seems Mr. Maynard liked to smoke a little grass. Has one possession charge from o' seven in Riverside County.

  “Any suspicion he was dealing?” Mathews asked?

  “No. Half a gram. Personal use. Pleaded it out, received a six months probation.”

  “So we think this is who Mister was using to blackmail Matherport?”

  “Maybe. Foster here found some letters from a Danny. Nothing in them explicitly says it but the language is more than a little curious.”

  He picked up copes of the letters from the table and scanned them for the relevant information.

  “Thank you for all that you've done for me.... I know how hard this must be for you... I can't imagine what this is like for you... And in each letter she displays some kind of intimate knowledge, a conversation they had or somewhere they had been together. Which of course would be interpreted to Matherport as proof of life.”

  “You think they were written by Mister?” Moramarco asked.

  “Yeah. They seem too formulaic to me to be legit. So we pulled Mrs. Whites hand writing from some tax forms and had it cross referenced with the letters. They are not a match.”

  Green dropped his pen and waved his hands to interrupt them.

  “Okay, so Mister took this Danielle White to blackmail Matherp
ort. He has had the girl now since when?”

  “Two thousand ten ,” Costa said.

  “Okay. Two thousand ten. So what do we have here, really?”

  Jeremy who had been sitting there, curled up inside a three day old suit and silent until then spoke up.

  “He’s right. The girl is dead. He may have kept her alive for a while. Long enough to extract the information he needed for the letters. Long enough to have his fun. But he wouldn't have had the restraint to keep her alive this long. He would have bored of her.

  “That's just my point,” Green said. “It's been nearly five years since she went missing. She's a ghost.”

  “He knew him,” Jeremy said, staring down into his coffee. “He must have known Matherport. If this is his game, forcing people to do his killing – at least some of his killing. Then one would think that he would come across someone who couldn't bring themselves to go through with it. One would think they would come forward with this information. But Matherport was already mentally unstable. Already had a history of violence. He knew he would do it.”

  “So he was vetted?” Mathews asked and Jeremy nodded yes.

  “Okay,” Moramarco started, got up and took the letters from Costa so he could look them over. “So Mister knew Matherport was capable of going through with it. Meaning he already knew he was a twisted fuck. And he also knew that Danielle white was important to him. The boy friend, I think we can all agree was just collateral damage. Wrong place wrong time.”

  Nods all around indicated they all agreed.

  “So,” Moramarco continued. “It must have just been more than tailing them and peeping on them and shit. How would he know about Matherport's past just by watching him? The animal abuse and the violence and what not. I mean that's something that Matherport would like to have kept secret I'm sure.”

  “And doesn't it strike anyone else as odd that Matherport and this girl were close. I mean, she looks like a good kid. What was she doing anywhere near a whack job like that?”

  Jeremy felt as though as he should chip in but they were doing just fine. He had other things on his mind.

  “Good point,” Mathews said. “I think the first thing we need to establish is how they knew each other.”

  “Agreed,” Costa said. “This isn’t a whole lot to go on but it's more than we have had up to now. We've been sitting on Mrs. Stien hoping he would contact here again. That doesn't seem to be happening. He must have gotten spooked off of her. So this is all we have. Another thing. His cooling off period is decreasing. Rapidly. Which means he's probably entering a frenzied state. I don't need to tell you that can play either way for us. I want to know what the White-Matherport connection is ASAP.”

  Twenty minutes later they all had their work load for the day. Costa and Mathews were going to go through Danielle’s work history; Interview previous employers. Moramorco and Green went to interview her family.

  “Follow the Matherport angle since you knew him best. See if anyone he knew, knew of Mrs. White.” Costa told Jeremy.

  Though he was still sitting at the table staring down into the blackness of his coffee a half an hour after they all filed out of the room. All he could think about was the email he had received that morning. It was simply a picture of Charlie, naked from the waist up, his face a swollen and bloody horror show, holding a sign which read: three twenty-four Dillinger Drive.

  CHAPTER 15

  There was a boy named Adam in her first year of college Cindy thought would be the guy she was probably going to marry. Though, she had come to that decision without almost no logic or practical reason at all really. Except maybe for the fact that he was able to make her laugh and blush with just a look, and he had the most beautiful blonde hair she had ever seen on a guy. It was like a lion’s mane that seemed to be alive, always twisted to the left or to the right, or combed back, or hanging down over his face like Kirk Cobane and whatever position it was in it looked like he just stepped off the set of a shampoo commercial.

  She didn't really intend to sleep with him as quickly as she did because she was afraid that once he got it he would move on to the next conquest. Which was kind of cynical she supposed but this was a teenage boy after all. And what does it say about the world when your cynicism turns out to be accurate? She slept with him a couple of times. Each time he had gotten just a little more... comfortable. Asking her to do this or that, or just doing it without asking. And then suddenly one day after he had done everything he wanted to do with her, Adam suddenly stopped talking to her, simply acting like they never had even met! A very embarrassing episode followed when they had randomly run into each other in a rez hallway. Cindy was drunk, fresh from the pub and he had another girl under his arm who was blonde and pretty and equally drunk, which meant he was going to have his way with that ditzy bitch too.

  “You're not a gentleman!” Cindy screamed at the top of her lungs until people starting coming out of their rooms to watch the drama and her friends had to pull her away. “You're not a Gentleman!”

  Every now and then when someone who was in the hall that night would see her walking down the street, or in the park in front of the school they would yell at her in mock outrage, ‘You're not a Gentleman!’

  Sitting in the chair with her fingerless stump and her own urine dried into an itchy film on her legs she wondered where Adam was now. He was probably smoking weed somewhere and playing video games. Just being a normal, young guy. Not caring about anything. Not taking anything seriously except maybe getting laid or his fucking football team making the rosebowl or the whatever-the-fuck- bowl.

  What she regretted more than anything was all the time she spent angry at him. Not only did she get played, she wasted so much precious time angry and sad over something that anger or sadness wasn't going to fix.

  Her aunt Mary had spent a lot of time with her during that period. They were always close but Aunt Mary seemed have been around more than usual. Cindy suspected her mother had told Mary about the state she was in, knowing probably that she wouldn't want to talk about it with her mom. As much as she loved Mary she should have had that kind of relationship, or at least something closer to it, with her mother. She regretted that now. Not being closer with her. For taking their time together for granted.

  Mister had said she could thank her aunt Mary for her finger. What did he mean by that? And as though she had conjured him by thinking his name, came the terrible screeching sound of the door opening. Her heart began to pound, her skin instantly started to itch with the onset of perspiration.

  She could tell by the footsteps that he had someone with him. It must be the boy he had taken out of the room days ago. Or at least she hopped it was and not some new poor stranger because that would mean the boy was already dead. She could hear him chaining him to a chair and listened as he walked away and slammed the door behind him. Cindy waited what she guessed was about ten minutes before daring to say anything.

  “Hey. Hey, kid is that you?”

  No response.

  “Are you the guy he took the other day?

  “Yeah,” was all the kid said back.

  “Where did he take you?” Cindy asked.

  Charlie didn't want to answer. He didn't want to talk. Even his tongue was cut. But this girl could be the last person he ever spoke to.

  “Into another room,” he said. “He put a fucking cat on my head.” Which, as he heard himself say, sounded ridiculous. In any other situation it might even have sounded funny. Is that why he did it? It was funny to him?

  “A cat?”

  “Yeah... A cat,” he said very slowly and wincing between words. “He took this crazy cat and like stabbed it. And put it in a bag.... and then put the bag on my head.”

  There was a long silence and then finally Brad's voice broke it.

  “What about your eyes? Are they okay?”

  “Yeah. I think so... I don't know. I'm still blind folded.”

  “We all are,” Brad said.

  “What d
id he want with you?” Cindy asked.

  “He wanted my dad to do something. He was making a video.”

  “To do what?” Brad asked.

  “I don't know.”

  Then it went quiet again because what else was there to say?

  “He's going to kill us anyways. I wish he would just do it already.”

  “Shut the fuck up Brad!” Greg hissed. They were they adults here. They could at least try and act brave for the kids. Go out with a little dignity. But he couldn't come right out and say it because that would defeat the whole point so he just said:

  “Just shut up. Nobody needs to hear that. It's not helping.”

  “Oh really? And what's helping Greg? Lying to ourselves? Huh? Is that fucking helping?”

  Charlie listened as they argued back and forth. Yelling in whispers, it was pointless. More than pointless it was stupid. They were all in this together. There was no point in getting mad at each other but of course it was a horrible situation. The worst, so you couldn't really blame them, but still.

  At least now he knew his father was alive. He knew whatever Mister was asking him to do was bad. Real bad. Maybe he wanted him to tamper with evidence or something?

  “We are all going to fucking die in here,” Brad screamed. Charlie knew it was probably true but fuck him for saying it.

  “I hope he kills your first,” Charlie heard himself say and then Brad began to laugh. It was clear he had already cracked. Charlie wondered if he would live long enough to crack too.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Green got nothing from Mrs. White’s relatives,” Costa said to Mathews, two thumbing a text presumably back to Green.

  “You do realize that this Danny may not be Daniela White?”

  “Of course I do. But if you got a better line to follow I'm all ears.”

  Mathews shrugged and massaged his buzz cut scalp.