Not even close.
Now I am officially too frightened to think.
The hand that rocks the cradle is
Rock and roll ain’t
Noise
Pollution.
I’m going to have to split my mind into several compartments, much like these walls make. I have to consider what qualities I possess that Charlie doesn’t. She may be brilliant, but it’s her splitting that wounds her. Shit, what am I saying? IN order to fight her, I need to lose the one advantage I have against her, and be like Charlie?
Be like Charlie. Charlie is an insane woman. Don’t be like Charlie; you can’t, because she is insane.
We may have to go into the nonbinary logic here.
She talks about the walls. It’s one of the first things I remember her telling me about. The walls in her head that began the moment she came to grips with her mother’s mental illness; and, afterward, her father’s abuse. She says it was after her Dad’s being born again that the truly horrific things started to happen. I don’t have her fortitude…the only reason I’m mentioning these things is because she put them in MY head, and I can’t stop them whirling around in there. It’s not fair. But what about this situation is fair? Suffice to say. Rock and roll.
Once again, I am making myself, forcing myself to be angry. Not on my account so much, but on behalf of my family. I feel so helpless. There’s nothing I can do to reach them. And I’m afraid Charlie will do something very, very bad to them. I can’t. I just. Can’t.
Rock and roll. Give me that old time. Soothes my soul. Old fashioned.
I may have to kid myself I can handle this, when I really cannot begin. Part of me really fell away when I woke up in the cell. But it’s still floating around there. It’s like one of those soft focus bubbles in a sit-com or something, just above a character’s head, where fantasies happen. It’s a nice place to visit until I feel my stomach churn and then it feels like poison. I have to keep hope somehow, but push it down.
Push it down.
She’s been muttering again about Ken.
I don’t understand her obsession. It’s my life, my husband. How in fuck’s name does she think she’s involved? How is she entitled to pass judgment on my family?
Ken and I had been talking recently, about his job stresses, about the case he’s working on, which isn’t very much different from the last dozen or so cases he’s litigated. Ken thrives on stress; I can’t deal. Being a mother is sufficient. And I do have that home business, the greeting cards. I chose. I love my choices.
Who IS Charlie Morgan?
She says a lot of crazy, but now I think maybe I have seen her before.
Outside my childrens’ school.
Sitting on the bus bench across the street from Ken’s office when I took him out for his birthday.
Christ maybe even online, on the social media.
Those eyes.
Those dark, burning eyes.
I’d recognize them anywhere now.
Their names are Thomas and Rhiannon. Thomas is four. Rhiannon is five. And they’re the best of friends. I believe it’s crucial my children respect one another, despite their differences. And they are different. They showed it very early. First, physically. Thomas is like me—blonde, slight, a little bit birdlike. He and I get along better than him and his dad. I wish that were different, but Ken keeps such long hours. Rhiannon is Ken as a girl. It’s remarkable how alike they are. From the dark curly brown hair to that winner-take-all attitude. Rhiannon always has to be the best—at school, at sports, at anything she touches. I wish some of her and Ken would rub off on Thomas. But I have to be fair to them. I must be fair.
God help me, the only reason Charlie is still breathing…why is she? I know more about her than I do some of my closest friends.
I need to get out, get help.
Form a plan.
Please Jesus help me make a plan.
4. Charlie and the Death Train
I am a softie. You probably don’t expect that, considering the big ass-kicking boots and the leather jacket and the attitude. But deep down inside, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, transients and looky-loos, I am a kind and slush-soft human. Not a death machine.
Well, maybe kinda sorta.
And speaking of Death Machines…
You may have noticed I’m scattered. All over the place. This is not my fault. I told you I am a
SHATTER
GIRL.
Ever follow serial killers?
Oh c’mon. Surely you know Ed Gein. Wore vag on his face before it was popular in some recherché circles. Bad Oedipus deal with his dead mom. Seemed like a nice guy, everybody knew old Ed.
They made a movie based on him. It was called Psycho. They made some other movies about him. They were called Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Pretty sweet, pretty sweet.
If you asked me for my all-time fave, I’d have to say H.H. Holmes, hands down. Ah yes, that reminds me why I brought up Death Machines.
This guy, I mean, what a fellow! He was a med student at the University of Chicago. Low on funds. So he came up with a plan. I’m sure you can relate. How long am I going to be stuck down here with the Morgan? Can I contrive some kinda crude weapon from available materials? Well, those are questions you must answer yourself. Obviously I’m not going to advise you on what to do. But teach a man to fish…anyway. Holmes.
Med schools need cadavers. And in those days, they weren’t so picky about provenance, if you get my meaning.
Which is actually a term from the art world, but seemed appropriate in this instance.
Capitalism turns on supply and demand. So does war. And medicine. The U of C demanded skeletons. Well, where would you find such in plentiful supply?
And for $500 and a chance at the grand prize…DING DING DING…
That’s RIGHT! The answer is GRAVEYARDS.
I wonder what Holmes and Gein would have talked about if they’d lived in the same time. Holmes: do you ever… Gein: stuff little girls in a cooler box, or wish you could? Albert Fish: I did not fuck her. Holmes and Gein: Who are you and why are you narrative-bombing us?
They were the originals, baby. Me, I’m just a cloner. With a mental boner. Your predecessor? I own her. Body and soul.
Was that a cartoon lightbulb that just went over your head, or am I completely insane?
Just messing with you. I am completely insane. Just not…watch it with the escape attempts there pilgrim…stupid.
You think YOU’RE scared.
You know what I dream about?
The Death Train, honey.
It ain’t your Grandma’s choo-choo. It’s a monster. A demon. Roaring down the tracks that glow. A flicker and whisper in the night. Voices from the heart of the roiling clouds of steam.
Sparks that streak across the darkness.
The smokebox begins as a face, with a mighty eye planted in its forehead. Rods of bone tug wheels of burning, blackened flesh. The tunnel swallows its own perspective. It’s just you and the face now.
Me Vs. Death Train.
Ya know, I’m a pretty strong bitch. I’ve had the travails that give a girl muscle. I can handle extremes. But the things in my mind? They just won’t stop.
The skin is peeling. Charcoal flakes. Ashes. They swirl like leaves in the tunnel. A gathering storm.
Can you hear it?
Drip
Drop
Splot
Splish
Plop
Plish
I got them Death Train blues. And I got them pretty bad.
Steam screams. CHU CHU CHU CHU thooky thooky thooky. The smokebox, like horror, has a face. But all that is soon to change.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the INCREDIBLE SKULL-FACED DEATH TRAIN!
Focus pull. The tracks eat themselves. The flakes like the skin of accident victims in a windstorm blow down past the cars, sucked into the tunnels, becoming the chattering language of the hollow sidewalks, with their ghouls and ghosts and GOBEL
LINS. Beneath the face in true splatter/shatter form, a marshmallow sludge. But wait there’s more!
5. Hide and Go Seek and Destroy
I’m letting you out now. I lied about the Jigsaw thing. Some of those movies are fun, fun, fun! We are indeed going to play a little game. A real old-fashioned rock and roll kind of game.
Have you noticed how swiftly my thoughts have grafted on to yours? Where you sorta kinda can’t tell us apart? Psycho sisters, under the skin. I mean psychic. Well. You do go a little crazy sometimes, don’t you. Down here with me.
I know it’s hard and damp and cold and uncomfortable in that cube of yours. You’re right, it was probably a jail of some kind. Or a bank vault. Who knows? Most of these tunnels haven’t been explored. Why? Reasons. Safety measure. The kind of thing.
You remember hide and go seek, right? It’s very simple. I close my eyes and count to ten. You hide, then I open my eyes and try to find you. You might get lucky. You might hide yourself so well I never find you. You might even discover the passageway that leads to the manhole…
I don’t think you realize how much I want you to succeed. These ordeals I’m putting you through, yes, I know how difficult they are. As you say yourself, you’ve never had to be strong—this way.
Oh honey, don’t look at me like that. Please. It breaks my heart. And I do have one.
So I’m going to count it down. Ready?
I’m shutting my eyes. Go, go, go!
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
and ready or not, here I come!!!
Charlie’s given her a flashlight, which she splashes at the wood paneling, the dirt. The red brick streaks by as she moves as fast as she can, given she has no idea where in the uncharted network of tunnels she might be. She tells herself there’s no reason to panic. If Charlie catches her, it won’t be any worse for her than it was before. There is a slim, zero point one percent chance that by the grace of God she’ll find the manhole. If there really is a manhole. She racks her brain. Lena thinks she remembers something on the CBS affiliate, a special they had about five years ago where they talked about the tunnels. The only reason the segment caught her eye was one of her friends worked at the restaurant on the block with the…tinted purple balls inset in the sidewalk. The skylights. She’d made a mental note to park in the parking garage across the street from the restaurant to the east instead of coming in the other way she usually did and using the meter. She sometimes took Shirley out for her lunch break, to the park and back.
The restaurant, Fat’s, was about a mile south from the park. Broadway crossed K Street, then L street…Lena flashes on a map of River City. She calculates, recalling as best she could through the shroud of unhappy days and nights how long it had taken Charlie and her to get to the space where she was held.
If she’s not mistaken, the skylights would be…no.
Shit.
Wait…
That manhole. Wasn’t there a manhole on that block? But what if it’s a trap?
Her nerves are screaming. Her brain is set to reptile mode. She must keep going, keep the beam before her. The buttresses every five feet remind her of crypts. She sends that vision packing. Breathes in and out, steadily. When she hears the footsteps behind her.
Charlie’s boots. That chilling CLUMP CLUMP CLUMP of her kickass biker boots.
Charlie’s got a lot of tread for a crazy chick. She knows what she’s doing. Lena Harrington thinks of her family. She must keep it together, for their sake.
“Hide and go seek and destroy, bitch!”
A surge of white-hot anger propels Lena forward. The Maglite’s beam illuminates the interior of a storefront that hasn’t been bricked up. Playing the flashlight along the floor, she sees chunks of brick, glass, a shattered windowframe. She picks up a piece of glass. God help her, she will slash a cunt.
Lena’s brain blossoms with visions of arterial spray, when her next step takes her to a piece of rotten flooring. She scrambles for balance, but the floor caves in beneath her weight, and now she is
FALLING
Down the
Rabbit Hole
But Alice doesn’t live here any more.
5. Lucy
Lana rose. Her body was bruised and her shoulder sprained, but no bones were broken. She found herself in a small rectangular room. Amazingly, the Maglite still worked. Small favors, because, Heaven. She realizes she must conserve her energy and focus on the immediate situation.
When she hears a scratching noise on the opposite side of the wall.
She puts her ear to the damp brick and listens. Her hearing feels keen, sharper than before. The small scratching noise grows.
A mouse? A rat? She shivers. Not that her fear of rodents makes more or less sense than the present ordeal, waiting for Charlie, wondering what will happen next.
There’s somebody in the next room. Another captive? It can’t be rats, because rats don’t mutter to themselves. They don’t cry. They don’t scream out in the night.
She—if it is a she—might be a friend.
I have to contact her.
I decide to knock at the wall. A few light taps. Then harder. I listen with my heart thundering in my throat. Who is it? Charlie mentioned one other, before me. The one she called “a failure.” But how a failure?
“Hello?”
The voice is small, timid. She sounds very young.
“Hello? Who are you? My name is Lena.”
“I’m Lucy.”
“Thank God. Thank God. I thought I was completely alone. Are you…”
“I’m a prisoner. Please, can you help me? I haven’t eaten in I don’t know how long. I’m so scared.”
“Lucy…what can you tell me about Charlie?”
“Charlie?”
“The woman who took you prisoner.”
“I don’t know a Charlie.”
“What?”
“Her name is Rhonda. She’s…she’s crazy. She put me through hell. I thought I’d escaped her, but…”
“Hide and Go Seek and Destroy?”
“Yes. And other things. She made me watch…she ate…”
“She ate what?”
“Some people. She made me watch. She made me eat them too. I didn’t know.”
Lena sinks to the floor. She doesn’t even flinch when she sees a rat scutter across the beam of the Maglite which lies by her side.
Charlie Morgan isn’t Charlie Morgan. Of course she isn’t. But she can’t be Rhonda either. Unless Rhonda is one of her…splits? Splitters? Personalities behind her crazy walls?
“Hello?”
“Yes…I’m sorry, I’m just so fucking frightened. I can’t deal with the…cannibalism or whatever. Overload. But the important thing is we’re not alone. We have each other. We can help each other. Two brains are better than one.”
“Brains. She served up my boyfriend’s brains. She said they were scrambled eggs. I had to watch. Her. Eat him. Afterwards.”
“Jesus.”
“JIZZUS?”
What the actual fuck? Lucy sounds even crazier than Charlie/Rhonda/whatever her name is. But at least she’s…we’re…on the same side. Now I need to get through to her physically. There’s a loose section of brick I found by tapping the walls. I look around for something heavy. A sledgehammer. How convenient. Almost as if it was placed there just for such an occasion. But action speaks louder, and drowns out the fear. Even if it’s all a setup.
I’m so weak, and the sledgehammer is heavy. But you’ve heard the stories about mothers who lift cars to save their children. I’m going to try to pick up the hammer. I have to.
Lucy is pleading with me. I balance myself, bend my knees and focus on my center of gravity. On the first try, the hammer slams down to the floor and nearly hits my feet. Now I just want Lucy to shut the fuck up. This next hammer blow is for you, lady.
On the second
try, I manage to get the thing lined up with my bad shoulder. I’m in so much pain the tears are streaming down my cheeks. I force myself to swing the hammer at the wall. Nothing. A cloud of red dust. Then…
There’s light.
Light?
Purple light.
Have you ever noticed that it’s only after you’ve lost all hope that life replaces the lemons with chocolate cake?
Purple lights mean skylights which mean that somehow I’ve traveled laterally, not down. Which doesn’t make any sense. Because I know I fell, and fell hard. But the light is undeniably the color of skylights on K Street, which means sky, which means manhole, which means escape.
The only other explanation is that I’ve fallen SIDEWAYS.
Unless…
It’s too much crazy to deal with right now. The important thing is to get to Lucy.
I push the tiny hole I’ve made in the wall and rubble rains down. I step back from the falling brick shards. There’s a young girl sitting in the center of the room, in a pool of purple. She can’t be older than 18.
I’ve made my peace with the fact that
Lucy is
Dead and
I’ve been speaking with her
Ghost.
6. Husband
“I see you’ve met Lucy.”
It’s Charlie/Rhonda. She’s smiling like the cat that ate the boyfriend’s brains, and she’s got someone with her.
She’s got Ken.
My husband, the father of my children, looks haggard. His dark curly locks are sticking up in spikes. He’s wearing his business suit and the pinstripe shirt is torn at the collar and the sleeves. His black tie is scrambled.
Shattergirl: Hyr Testimony Page 3