Eyes that do not Open

by Claudio Hernández

  How did he know that Kevin was his co-pilot?

  “I’m calling an ambulance right now,” Landon complained taking off his sunglasses. His eyes were wrinkly as an anus.

  “Even better, call the hearse and Reverend Christopher.”

  Landon put his glasses back on and he frowned.

  Jacob, from Portland, looked back at the dead woman and kept on writing. He had been more than an hour like that.

  “I can’t have a conversation with you,” Landon mumbled turning his back on him and getting closer to Ava, again. He looked at her for an instant and snorted like a cat whose tail has been stepped on.

  “Old Jackson did everything better than you,” Andrew mumbled with a joking smile. Then, his phone started ringing in his pocket.

  He remembered that he had scheduled an appointment with Grayson; his beloved psychiatrist. I had a vision, you know? Ava Cox has appeared after being dead, sorry, missing for four years and the judge along with the public jury sent an innocent man to the crematory. This is really good, isn’t it? Ha ha ha.

  He rose his phone and saw Grayson’s incoming call on the screen. His thumb slid towards the red icon and the phone stopped spitting the annoying melody, letting the birds sing again on the branches of the trees.

  It was nearly seven thirty in the afternoon.

  He hadn’t spoken about Ava Cox’s damn white Ford yet. It had been abandoned on the other side of Maine, in the east side. Not in Boston, nor in Lewiston, Bangor, Sanford, Augusta, Saco, Westbrook, Scarborough, Waterville, Windham, Gorham, York, Kennebunk, Falmouth, Orono, Topsham, Lisbon or Cumberland.

  It was on one of the beaches of the East coast, submerged under the songs of the birds and waves of the sea.

  Maybe not?

  It could be by a lake, any lake in Maine.

  He was not so sure about it anymore.

  34

  The sicko had his face stuck to the wall and one of his hands was holding it as if it were to fall down. At the same time, he whispered something:

  “Easy girls. I have to get a new roommate for you. Don’t cry. You’re the most beautiful in the world and that is a great virtue. In sixty-two hours, everything will be over.”

  He was killing them, one by one.

  He had lied.

  35

  Around half past seven in the afternoon, when Ava Cox’s body had been picked up by the ambulance personnel who had a red stretcher between their hands, Andrew tried to open her eyes and confirmed that the eyelids were glued.

  He withdrew his hand.

  The stretcher squeaked as it entered the ambulance and Ava’s tits were impassive under the plastic body bag. She was as stiff as a mummy.

  Even though the sun was still whipping the ground with its long fingers, it didn’t provide as much heat and the white became yellow and it would soon become reddish.

  There were a bit more than forty-eight hours left.

  36

  Herbert Smith had the scalpel between his hands and the blinding light of the lamp licked the clean cut that was leaving behind. The blade that shone like a diamond got stained with dark and blue blood while it sank in the firm and purplish flesh. The cut was an authentic cross on Ava Cox’s chest, who, with both arms next to her body, seemed to entrust herself to the demon.

  The autopsy had begun somewhere in Augusta.

  Before finishing it, Herbert Smith had discovered something horrific that had to tell within the next minutes.

  The short brunette man took off his blood-stained gloves that also had a silky white fluid and threw them away in the dust bin that was waiting eagerly with its mouth open on a side of the room. He walked towards the table on the back, six feet away from Ava Cox’s gutted body, and as he sat in a noisy chair, he picked up the phone.

  Back at Castle Lake Hill police station, about 63 miles away from there, the office’s phone started ringing in an apparently quiet night.

  37

  When the sun just was a memory that day and that mean moonlight embraced every corner of that part of the earth, the sick mind was getting ready to dye the second woman’s hair in blue.

  “You’re so beautiful. Time will pass by and your skin will never get older.” He whispered in that poor bastard’s ear who, with shaky and wet lips only moaned. During the last four years, she had discovered that yelling was not a clever idea. The walls absorbed, like sponges, the sound of her vocal folds and that sicko was getting crazier every day.

  The sicko was mixing the hydrogen peroxide with the dye; it was as if he was whisking an egg in a bowl. The color of that jelly-like mixture was an electric blue and the smell wasn’t precisely like the petals of a daisy. With his hands covered in the rubber gloves that came with the dye, he was now getting ready to get the brush in order to start the task.

  The second missing woman’s tearful eyes were begging for freedom and she knew what kind it was: death.

  He was very meticulous, that’s why he was preparing her.

  She was Madelyn; he didn’t know her last name. Absurd.

  Sitting on a wooden chair that wobbled, she was trying to keep straight. Her hands were tied with a silk handkerchief behind the chair’s backrest. He didn’t want her to get hurt. He was turned on by her skin, it insufflated life and her entire organism encouraged his libido.

  The sicko’s hands delicately caressed Madelyn’s blonde hair to the point that the poor bastard felt some pleasure along with fear.

  “I’m scared of pain,” Madelyne said, whining as some mucus escaped her nose and slid to her upper lip.

  “I’m not hurting you.” He urged. Those eyes shone under the green light. Now, that light was green, and it was in a different room. The five women were now silent in a dark and humid room, lying on a mattress as if they were wedding dresses. He had dressed them in nightgowns, white. “When have I hurt you?”

  Truth is, except for Ava Cox, he had never hurt any of them.

  He had even decided to start a new life for them.

  Death mixed with its horrible beauty.

  “What happened to the other girl?” Madelyne inquired. She was shaking just like the first day she had been kidnapped.

  “She’s in another room.” The sicko lied. He was now with his brush already soaked in dye, raking her hair. A soft foam appeared, getting tangled in her long hair.

  “Is there a room for each of us?” Her voice was now trembling.

  “Well, yes.” He kept on lying while he slid the brush lock by lock as if painting an art canvas. “You have very long hair.” He said, changing the subject.

  Madelyne looked askance. She barely saw that person whom she had contemplated and listened so many times. Now, he was like a ghost whispering in her ear.

  “You haven’t cut our hair in all this time.” She complained. “Your obsession with beauty and care nearly reach madness.” She dared to say at the expense of receiving a slap. That didn’t happen, though.

  There was a brief silence that seemed like an eternity. Finally, the sicko, who kept taking the brush to the bowl and from the bowl to her hair, like a spoon traveling constantly to a bowl of soup, said:

  “That doesn’t exist. What I have is a desire for perfection.” He leaned his face on her shoulder and looked at her in the eye. Delicately contemplating her as if suddenly he felt compassion for her. However, for Madelyne, it was like seeing the face of a clown who had suddenly appeared from the ceiling.

  Madelyne’s greatly accelerated and she felt the strength of all that insanity in his gaze.

  “Don’t be scared. I feel your heart in my hand. You shouldn’t be afraid of anything, it’s just time to make you beautiful.”

  Then, the minute needle started taking off her time.

  The brush kept dyeing her hair in blue.

  38

  Andrew couldn’t get rid of the picture he had seen: the white Ford by the beach or maybe by a big lake. In Maine there were thousands, but he didn’t recall seeing the grebes flying in the scene. It l
ooked like a remote and unknown place; lonely and forgotten. He didn’t have suggestion techniques for his Remote Vision, it just happened. Like a snap of the fingers. He didn’t either control everything that happened when the episodes took place. He just received the information, not enough though, and his fucking head would ache. A lacerating pain prevented him from thinking, seeing, smelling or hearing.

  However, Precognition was something else. He saw things depicted in his brain, like a vague memory from the past. It wasn’t a memory, though, it was something that would occur in the future. It was like an intuition a bit exaggerated. Even more so than a premonition. He saw in detail the brief space of time he would live any moment.

  Now, he was not connected, either to one or to the other.

  His mind was full of thoughts, trying to figure out how to move on. The vehicle. He didn’t want to raise suspicions in front of Landon. Not in front of that jerk.

  He got an idea.

  39

  After getting laid, he desperately wished to take a cigarette to his lips and swallow that disgusting smoke irritates your throat, but he didn’t smoke. Instead, he took a toothpick to his mouth. His teeth caught it in a death trap. He was breathing like a dog after running a marathon, but he was satisfied. His dick was still hard even though it would soon fall down.

  As soon as he started drinking beer.

  It wasn’t his thing but from time to time it suited him. He enjoyed it a lot.

  Aria Miller was putting her panties back on and her eyes lighted up from time to time, every time his lips drew a smile on his face. She was a thin woman, blonde with her straight hair and a pretty pair of blue eyes. She had given birth twice: Tommy and Charlotte. They were a year away from each other. That was about ten years ago. Now they were both sleeping under the sheets of their respective beds, in separate rooms. Everything seemed to be okay.

  Even that fuck.

  She had panted, and the sweat was starting roll down her back because she was on top of him; her husband as if riding: lifting and dropping her buttocks. Enjoying. And afterward, she would put her panties up to her waist and pressed her wet back against the mattress, drowning all her sweat. Soaking the bed sheet.

  “It was nice while it lasted,” Aria said as she was looking him in the eyes.

  “That’s a trivial phrase,” Landon said while the toothpick moved in his mouth like a rabbit’s mustache. His cheek highlighted in a face with a stupid smile.

  “Yes, that’s true.” She said, unsure of saying something even more trivial. She covered her breasts with the wrinkled sheet. It was as if suddenly, after galloping like a horse, out of control and showing her nipples pointing everywhere, she felt shy.

  “Changing subject.” He murmured while his hand was on the surface of the sheet, on the highest part of her right thigh “Today, Ava Cox’s body appeared. The offender or the presumed murderer, Parker Atkinson, is ashes already and that woman appeared today.”

  She stopped after every word to think about it closely. With her gaze almost lost, she waited.

  “That’s good, right? She was found dead and the murderer has paid for it. What’s the big deal about it?” Aria wrinkled her forehead in a sea of little dunes.

  “Well, the body had makeup on it and had been dead for a few hours...”

  “So?” She interrupted widening her eyes.

  “Well, she went missing four years ago and she had already been considered dead back then.”

  The toothpick looked like a log inside of a shredder now.

  “Wow! That is indeed difficult, isn’t it?”

  “Well, it really is. That fucking lunatic was innocent. The murderer is alive and active.” Landon’s eyes rambled more every time on the strange figures drawn on the ceiling. It was the reflection of the TV screen that was on and roaring like a kitten.

  “What do you think it will happen now?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Andrew somehow warned me about it. I don’t know what’s wrong with that old guy, but he was right.”

  “That man is ready to retire. Besides, people say that he’s not in a good state of mind.”

  Now, Aria’s eyes were about to close. She was closing them like when a nerd drops a smartass comment in front of the class.

  “Well, he’s old and has a bad mood, but, why do they say he’s not in a good state of mind? Does he go to the shrink?” Now, his hand was going up her waist.

  “Of course not. They say, though, that he talks to himself when he’s walking on the street. Or that he’s always wearing his trench coat, even in summer.” Aria was wishing to tell the latter in a progressive scream as she emphasized the word “summer”.

  Luckily, Grayson, Andrew’s right-hand men, hadn’t been mentioned by anyone so far. That made things easier for the detective in the long and dirty trench coat.

  “I also talk to myself sometimes.” He smiled. The toothpick fell on his chest, broken in half.

  Aria gave him a nudge and smiled.

  “This fucking job is only for crazy people.” She joked, but she knew she was partially right. With an eye set on the TV and the other on her husband’s face, she added: “You spend the entire day chasing criminals, drunk men, junkies, hookers, pimps and sometimes, murderers.”

  “I like this job,” Landon added. Now, his hand was going up her belly. With his flaccid dick, he wanted to fuck her again like an animal. “And now with this new case it looks like the spark has come to life, have I said it right? “

  She looked at him from the corner of her eye. Her eyes looked like whitish watery holes, like a zombie.

  “That I don’t know. I’m not a writer but I see you’re especially excited about this new case. Are you still going to pay attention to me? What is it going to be?”

  His hand was now pressing a hard breast.

  “Seven women disappeared. Four years ago. Anything can happen. Maybe the other six were in fact murdered by Parker.” He winked, and his lips draw an almost ridiculous grimace.

  “Wow! I didn’t remember that.” Aria was starting to let the sheet go and it would slide down again. She started smiling.

  His fingers played with her nipple and his dick was back on its place.

  He hadn’t had enough, and he hadn’t drunk a beer, but he was looking at it with restless and inexistent eyes. Sometimes, objects seem to have personal value.

  He didn’t know what was about to come.

  40

  “Mr. Andrew you haven’t come to your appointment.” Grayson’s voice sounded hoarse and serious.

  “The doctor’s appointment? For the time being, I pee okay, with all the enthusiasm.” Andrew drew a smile projected on the wall where all those pictures were. He had put a red cross on Ava Cox’s.

  “I’m not in the mood Mr. Andrew. Are you still having those strange visions? Have you taken Arenbil and Abilify?”

  “As usual.” Andrew lied. “See, I just took one of those blue ones.”

  “It’s for your own good. With the treatment, you will stop seeing things that are not there and will stop hearing voices.”

  Andrew had taken the earpiece from his ear.

  “And you’re calling me at night to fuck up my sleep?”

  “It’s just that I think you’re very sick Mr. Andrew...”

  “Do me a favor, don’t call me “Mr. Andrew” ever again. It makes me feel older than I am.” He interrupted him with a deep voice.

  His mind was determined to find the exact location of that fucking white Ford.

  “Ok, I’m sorry, I apologize. Can you come tomorrow?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Early in the morning. Around nine. I’ll do some space for you.”

  “Okay.”

  And he hanged up.

  His eyes hadn’t looked away from that crossed picture. Deep down, he foretold that that had just started. And he knew there was little time to save as many as he could.

  41

  The night was falling.

  He had drie
d her blue hair. Now, she looked like Ava Cox. It was Madelyne, though. The next on the list and the second to disappear. The sicko was very meticulous with all the details.

  Now, that person was naked. His skin tenderized in a viscous mixture of glitter and hair spray; like dry grease. He was showing her his attributes and was also wearing makeup. Now, the sicko was the closest thing to a plastic doll, rather than a person.

  Madelyne, who was already used to his presence, looked at him from the corner of her eye, with wet eyes, after four years in captivity. Yes, she still had tears to shed. She couldn’t think about any other thing than the beating of her heart that seemed as if it were hammering an anvil inside her chest. When she was kidnapped, she had that same feeling during the first month. Little by little she started to lose her fear and just longed to get out of there alive.

  Like the others.

  Befuddled, she didn’t know it had been Ava Cox. She had heard the metallic noise, like a heavy and rusty door closing. Something like a fridge but without the rubber that stops the heavy thud. She then heard the music. A slow and soft melody, too romantic for such a dark person who had, however, fed them and pampered them up until then. Now, that sick mind had switched his lunatic gaze to a more terrifying one. Ava Cox hadn’t come back to them after that. As she thought about it, Madelyne saw the atmosphere in the room falling down on her as a huge plastic top.

  He had undressed her.

  “Now you look perfect.” The sick mind said in a whisper.

  Madelyne instinctively tilted her head. She wasn’t shy but there was something galloping, not in her chest anymore, but on the tip of her tongue, like an animal breathing heavily.

  “I’m cold.” Madelyne lied in an attempt to get out of there, from that nightmare. She was still sitting in a rusty chair and she felt the grit getting stuck on her wet back. That sicko was watching her, surrounding the chair, walking in circles. His sticky skin, his makeup. Everything was unusual that night when he challenged his imagination. Madelyne was starting to feel terrified. Her whitish eyes gave her away.

  “I’ll fill you up with petals.” That restless, absurd mind said. “Petals of every color. It’s spring.”

  He also had a plan for her.