The Resurrectionist

by Wrath James White

The old detective looked at Dale without speaking, his bloodshot eyes out of focus and uncomprehending.

  “Where is Sarah? You can tell me now and avoid a lot of pain. I know all about pain. I’ve killed more people than anyone you’ve ever met. No serial killer in history has murdered more often than I have. I just bring them back to life. No harm. No foul. But before I bring them back, I make them scream, just like I’m going to make you scream. I’m going to skin you alive, Detective. I’m going to tear you apart piece by piece. But if you just tell me where Sarah is I’ll kill you quickly and then I’ll bring you back and you won’t remember a thing. It’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

  “Fuck off, you little twerp.”

  The detective spit in Dale’s face and Dale lashed out and smashed him across the face with the butt of the pistol. This time, the detective took it well. He spit blood onto the windshield and then turned and smiled at Dale with his teeth stained red with blood.

  “I was in Vietnam in the seventies and Grenada in the eighties. I have killed a lot of people too and I’ve seen even more death. You, my friend, are a lightweight, a pussy. And you can kiss my ass.”

  Dale hopped out of the car and ran over to open the passenger-side door. The detective fell out of the car and Dale caught him. Just as the detective fell into his arms, Dale felt searing pain in his neck and shoulder. Dale tried his best not to scream.

  “Stop. Stop. Stop it! Fuck. Stop it!”

  The cop was biting him, trying to tear out his jugular with his teeth. Dale cocked the pistol and placed it under the detective’s chin.

  “I will kill you. And this time I won’t bring you back. Now, let go.”

  The detective released his hold on Dale’s throat. His bite had broken the skin and blood dripped down Dale’s chest and shoulder. Dale wiped the blood from his neck. He was okay. The old detective hadn’t gnawed through any major arteries.

  Dale wanted to beat down the detective right on the driveway but he didn’t know if the neighbors were watching and he didn’t want to have to drag the big man into the house by himself. There were also cops still patrolling the neighborhood so the sooner he could get the big man inside the better. Dale walked the detective around to the side of the garage at gunpoint. There was a service door put there by the previous owners that was unlocked. Dale pushed the big man inside.

  He walked the long-haired detective into the kitchen where Dale had set up a card table and a couple of chairs.

  “Sit down, Detective.”

  “Harry. My name is Harry.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what your name is. All I want to know is where Sarah is.”

  Detective Harry Malcovich laughed.

  “So, what are you going to do? Beat it out of me? Waterboard me? Shove toothpicks under my fingernails?”

  Harry laughed again. Dale felt his anger rising, taking over.

  “What if I do to you what I did to Sarah’s husband?”

  The old detective snorted.

  “What if I fuckin’ enjoy it, you sick piece of shit?”

  “I promise you, Detective, whatever I decide to do to you, you will not enjoy it.”

  Dale sat Harry down in the chair and began wrapping his ankles with duct tape. He wound the tape around Harry’s chest a few times, strapping him to the chair. He put another piece of tape over the detective’s mouth. Once Harry was tied tight to the chair, Dale pulled out his diver’s blade, straddled Harry’s lap, and began sawing off the detective’s nose with the serrated knife. Even Dale winced at the sound of the knife ripping through flesh and cartilage. He was disappointed that he couldn’t hear the detective’s screams. Even muffled, they were excruciating.

  Blood poured from Harry’s face in a steady downpour. The ragged hole where Harry’s nose had been was now a bleeding crater in the center of the detective’s face.

  “You ready to talk now, Detective Harry? Or do I have to pull out my cock and fuck that hole in your face? With all that blood and mucus, I bet it feels just like pussy. Come on, Detective. Don’t make me keep hurting you. Just tell me what I want to know. Tell me where Sarah is.”

  The detective shook his head. Dale began to unzip his pants and unbuckle his belt.

  “I guess you’re going to get skull-fucked then. Please, don’t think I’m enjoying this. Well, actually, I’m loving every fucking minute of it.”

  The detective began thrashing his head back and forth and trying to break free from his bonds. The chair rocked forward and backward and then fell over. Dale straddled the chair and looked down at Harry. The detective was still shaking his head back and forth. Dale knelt on the detective’s chest with his stubby, stiffening cock bobbing above the old cop’s face.

  “Don’t worry. I cum quick.”

  Dale grabbed Harry’s face in both hands and held it still. The old detective’s screams vibrated up through his nostrils sending tremors up through Dale’s organ. True to his word, Dale ejaculated after a few quick strokes. The detective began gagging and choking as Dale’s seed obstructed his breathing. With the tape still covering his mouth the detective could not spit out Dale’s semen, neither could he breathe through his mouth. First he tried to sneeze out but without nostrils he only succeeded in making cum bubbles. He began making a snorting sound and Dale realized that the detective was trying to suck Dale’s semen down his throat and swallow it so he could breathe again. As Dale watched, the old detective began to heave and wretch. He regurgitated with the tape still covering his mouth and began to spasm and convulse. Dale stood up and tucked his blood- and mucus-slickened cock back into his pants. He started to reach down and pull the tape off the detective’s mouth but then he hesitated.

  There was no way the detective was going to tell him where Sarah was. If he hadn’t talked after getting his nose cut off, then he wasn’t going to talk no matter what Dale did to him. He would hunt him down and tell the rest of the police where to find him. But not if he was dead. All Dale had to do was let him choke on his own vomit and he would be out of the way. Dale knew that he could always bring him back to life later, after he had Sarah back.

  Dale stood silently, watching. The old cop thrashed about on the floor, slowly asphyxiating, lungs filling with vomit, drowning, arms still handcuffed behind him, still bound to the chair with duct tape, unable to move. His struggles increased in their intensity, then came to a halt. His chest ceased its rise and fall. Dale checked Harry’s pulse. Nothing. He removed the handcuffs from the detective’s wrists, picked up the pistol, and walked back out the door, hoping that he would have better luck with the black detective.

  He drove slowly back up Washburn Street to the police station, wondering if he could be stopped for driving too slowly. He speeded up a bit so that he was just a mile or two over the speed limit. The night shift and morning shift were just changing when he arrived. He wasn’t sure what shift the black woman worked or if she even had any set hours. On TV, it looked like the detectives were always on duty. If that was the case, Dale knew that he could be waiting all day. She could be anywhere in North Las Vegas, probably out looking for him.

  Hours went by. Dale sat still for a while listening to everything from Stevie Wonder to The Doors to Guns N’ Roses to Michael Jackson on the oldies station. Every once in a while a cop would start eyeing his car suspiciously and Dale would drive off and circle the block once or twice before parking again. There was no sign of the black detective and Dale was getting anxious again. Several times a black woman would leave the police station and Dale would start up his car and prepare to follow, only to realize that it wasn’t her. The longer he sat there the more he began to wonder if he would recognize the detective from every other black lady cop that came out of the station. Luckily, there weren’t many of them.

  Maybe that black cunt isn’t even working today, Dale thought and he felt a sudden pang of sorrow. Tears filled his eyes and he wiped them away with the back of his hand. What the fuck is wrong with me? He wondered if he was falling in love with
Sarah Lincoln but knew that was impossible. He barely knew her, except for the glimpses of her life he stole hiding out in her laundry room and the feel of her flesh, the sound of her screams. Certainly not enough to fall in love with but yet that’s what it felt like. The very fact that the cops were scouring the street looking for him and he was risking his freedom by parking in front of a police station waiting to kidnap one of the detectives assigned to track him down was proof enough that he had developed a dangerous obsession. He couldn’t help himself though. He had to have her. But if he couldn’t find the black detective he’d never find Sarah. He would have to leave town without her or stay and continue looking for her himself and risk getting caught. If he got caught there would be no more Sarah and no hope of finding a replacement for her.

  There are a lot of fish in the sea, Dale thought. If I leave now I might find someone even more beautiful than Sarah. But Dale had never seen a woman more beautiful than Sarah, not even on television. She should be mine, Dale thought. It isn’t fair. Why can’t I have a woman like that? Why does that big hockey-playing blackjack dealer get to have her? It isn’t fair!

  Dale punched the dashboard and wiped more tears from his eyes. He knew he was falling apart, losing his grip. All he needed was Sarah and he would be okay. Everything would be good again. Maybe he could kidnap her and take her away with him somewhere. Maybe he would just make love to her one last time. No violence this time. At least not until the end. Then he would strangle her sweetly, lovingly and this time when she woke up, Dale would be gone forever. It sounded perfect. Almost romantic, but Dale wasn’t sure he could really leave her. It was too much to think about now.

  The sun was high in the sky before the black detective finally appeared. It was nearly noon. He had been sitting in front of the police station for over six hours. He was hungry and dehydrated. His mouth felt like he had been drinking dust. He licked his chapped lips and squinted through eyes blurred from lack of sleep. The detective was wearing a pair of tan high-waisted pants and a white blouse with billowing sleeves buttoned all the way to the top. She was wearing a pair of black pumps. She looked like she should have been carrying a riding crop. It was definitely her. Dale started his engine.

  The detective pulled out of the parking lot in a sleek black BMW sports car with large chrome rims on the tires. If he hadn’t known that she was a cop he would have thought she was a drug dealer or a stripper. She had obviously picked up her taste in cars from the suspects she dealt with.

  Dale followed her to the 215 freeway staying two or three car lengths behind as they traveled south toward Henderson. The BMW exited at Green Valley Parkway, then continued south past the Green Valley Ranch Casino and The District retail shops and restaurants. Dale studied the happy couples, the families, the groups of teenage friends, all enjoying themselves shopping, talking, laughing, and embracing. It was a life that Dale could scarcely imagine. He had never had a best friend let alone a group of friends to hang out with. He had never been part of a couple. His family had never gone out for a fun afternoon of dining and shopping. His mother and father had been too busy chasing the next high to take him on any fun family outings.

  The BMW turned into a small gated community on Horizon Ridge. Dale waited until she’d turned the corner before stepping on the accelerator and racing to catch the gate before it closed. He just barely made it through the gate and caught a glimpse of the BMW as it turned the next corner. Dale piloted the Sonata through the maze of cul-de-sacs one block behind the detective’s BMW. Dale spotted the BMW pulling into a garage and he stopped his car at the end of the block. He hopped out of the car and jogged down the street toward the detective’s house. The garage door began to close and Dale broke into a full sprint. He slipped under the door just before it closed. The detective wasn’t in the garage. The fire door slammed shut and Dale jumped, startled. She had gone into the house. Dale crept slowly toward the fire door. His hand trembled as he reached for the handle and his heart pounded like a taiko drum. He could not be sure that she had not seen him slipping under the garage door. The detective could have been crouched on the other side, aiming her weapon, prepared to shoot him the minute he opened the door.

  Dale placed his ear against the door. He could hear water running in the kitchen and the detective hum-ming and singing some gospel song. Dale inched open the door. The detective had her back to him. She was washing dishes and singing. It was not the gospel tune Dale had thought it was. You didn’t shake your ass like that to gospel.

  The door was open a quarter of the way. Dale knew he couldn’t open it much wider without the tightly wound springs in the bomber hinges squealing. He stood in the doorway, a few short feet from the detective, breathing hard. He had the old hippie cop’s .40-caliber Glock in his hand. He could have just shot her in the back. He pulled the hammer down on the pistol and the detective whirled around, reaching for the pistol on her belt.

  “Don’t do it, Detective. I will kill you.”

  The detective had her gun out of the holster. All she had to do was raise it six inches and it would have been pointing directly at Dale’s chest. He knew she was probably a better shot than he was. Dale had never even fired a gun before but he already had his gun aimed at her stomach, and with her so close, he could hardly miss. All he had to do was pull the trigger. He could tell by the look in her eyes, the doubt, the fear, that she knew he had her. Dale wished that he was a sharpshooter like the cowboys on TV and could have shot her in the arm or something just to get her to drop the gun.

  He saw the look in her eyes change from fear to anger.

  “Aw, shit!” He knew she was about to shoot him. He knew it beyond the shadow of a doubt. This was why he preferred to ambush his victims rather than confront them face-to-face. You could never guess how someone would react to being attacked. Some became terrified, passive, and compliant. Others, like this detective, fought.

  The detective raised the gun. Dale closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The bullet went low, hitting the detective in the belly instead of the chest. The detective paused for a second, wincing and grimacing and belching up blood. Dale waited for her to fall or scream or run. He was still pointing the gun at her. The black woman’s eyes widened in shock, then hardened.

  “Oh fuck.”

  She started moving forward again, aiming her nine-millimeter at Dale and pulling the trigger. Bullets struck the fire door, the doorjamb, and whizzed past Dale into the garage. One dug a searing furrow along the side of Dale’s head, barely missing his left eyeball. She was aiming at his head. Dale dove behind the kitchen island and returned fire. He struck her in the chest, the thigh, her right arm. She continued moving forward. The large woman dove on top of Dale and began punching and clawing at his face. He felt her hands clamp down on his throat and squeeze his windpipe shut. He was already breathing heavily from the adrenaline racing through his veins after being shot at. With the large black woman’s hands clamped down on his esophagus he could not get any air into his lungs. He still had the gun in his hand and he aimed it at the detective’s chest and pulled the trigger until the hammer fell on an empty chamber. Blood sprayed Dale’s face and arms as each bullet bore a new hole in the detective’s torso. Finally, she rolled off him and collapsed onto the kitchen floor, bleeding out on the ceramic tiles, dead.

  Dale coughed and wheezed, then took several deep breaths trying to slow his breathing. His lungs burned with each breath. His heart hammered in his chest. Dale’s arms and legs trembled uncontrollably. He tried to stand but the trembling in his legs almost dropped him back to the floor. He held on to the kitchen island and waited for the trembling to stop. Dale looked down at the dead detective.

  Jesus, that was one tough bitch, Dale thought. Even with almost an entire clip in her chest and stomach she had nearly killed him. Dale grabbed her by her legs and dragged her toward the fire door. He spotted her car keys on the kitchen island and grabbed them. He dragged the detective out into the garage, opened the rear door of her
BMW, and pulled her up onto the backseat. Dale shut the rear door, slid into the driver’s seat and shoved the detective’s key into the ignition. There was a garage-door opener attached to the visor and Dale pressed the remote. The garage door rattled and squealed in its tracks as it rose. Dale started the engine and put the BMW in reverse. He pulled out of the garage and drove off down the street. Several of the neighbors had come out of their houses. An elderly couple carrying a dachshund and wearing what looked like matching pajamas and slippers tried to wave him down as he sped off down the street. He was less than two blocks away when two police cars raced by him heading back toward the detective’s house with their sirens and lights blaring. If he had been even two minutes slower, they would have caught him.

  Three more police cars raced by as Dale exited through the gate and turned back onto Horizon Ridge. Soon he was back on the freeway, headed home, the dead detective bouncing around on the backseat. Blood rolled out from beneath the driver’s seat and pooled under Dale’s feet, sloshing onto his shoes. Dale took the 215 and headed toward North Las Vegas. Back to the abandoned house where he’d left the old detective with the ponytail.

  The road began to blur as the pain in Dale’s skull roared like a forest fire. Blood dripped into his eye and Dale wiped it away quickly, squinting to try to bring the road back into focus. Another white-hot flare of agony tore through Dale’s skull and he struggled to keep the BMW from swerving into the opposite lane. Another drop of blood dribbled down Dale’s forehead into his left eye. He wiped the blood away with his wrist and then reached up to touch his forehead. The entire left side of his head was wet with matted blood and there was a neat round hole in his skull just above his temple. The detective hadn’t missed after all. Dale felt around and found the exit wound, a jagged hole in the back of his skull on the right side of his head. The bullet had gone straight through his skull and come back out on the other side. He should have been dead. Dale smiled and rolled his eyes skyward.