Helmet Head

by Mike Baron

  She paused in the kitchen weeping and wheezing, leaning on the counter. She saw the blue porcelain roast pan and instinctively knew not to look. She found her way down the hall, out the front door to the smoking embers of the barn and saw the truck.

  “Macy!” Doc called from the yard in front of the burning barn. Why was he sitting there? Why didn’t he get up?

  Doc, who’d nursed her through the flu. Doc, who treated the bruises and contusions administered by Bill.

  She looked to the truck again. That thing could emerge from the house at any second. She ran to the truck, opened the door and heaved herself into the driver’s seat. The key was in the ignition.

  “Macy!” Doc called again.

  ***

  CHAPTER 43

  Helmet Head Speaks

  Fagan drew the creature deeper into the cavern in hopes Macy could get free. He watched her make her run for the door and when she disappeared into the lab his heart felt light.

  An electric current ran up his arm from the sword. The grip was made of stingray hide with a blue opal in the center. He could feel the centuries singing through his blood along with the blood of countless others—those who’d wielded the blade and those whose blood it spilled. He swung the blade effortlessly in a complicated pattern he didn’t know, as if the blade were alive and cutting its own path through the air.

  He stepped atop a sandstone table so that he was eye height with the monster. “Von Mulverstedt!” he said in his best cop voice. “I know who you are! I know what happened to you. Haven’t you killed enough?”

  Von Mulverstedt stopped. He was a statue with his hands hanging loosely by his sides.

  “Your grandfather was Gruppenführer Heinrich R. Von Mulverstedt. Am I right? That must have been terrible for you, growing up with the knowledge that your grandfather was a mass murderer. Was he on any wanted lists? Did he survive the war? It could not have been easy growing up in modern Germany with that kind of heritage.

  “You were a good man, Herr Doktor! You did good work. Look at what you’ve accomplished here! Your gifts would be of great benefit to mankind. You were raised a Christian. Why turn your back on the light?”

  The minutest shudder shook Von Mulverstedt. Fagan was not even certain he’d seen it in the flickering light. Was he getting through to him? How do you get through to someone who cuts off people’s heads and keeps them in jars? Fagan didn’t know why he spoke as he did. It surprised him as much as Von Mulverstedt. He figured it was the Rabbi speaking.

  Helmet Head reached up and flipped his black visor up over the top of the helmet. His face remained in deep shadow but Fagan thought he saw a glimpse of a smile. He probably imagined it.

  “You are za cop,” Helmet Head in a high raspy voice.

  “I’m a cop.”

  “She iss your woman?” Voman.

  “I just met her.”

  Helmet Head lapsed into silence.

  “What was your wife’s name?” Fagan said.

  “Gretchen. She was carrying our third child.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Macy’s pregnant. You know that, right? What’s your plan? Put your dead wife’s brain in Macy’s body? How you gonna do that? Isn’t her brain pretty much finished by now?”

  Helmet Head reached up and flipped down the visor with a devastating click. He turned and strode toward the platform. Fagan felt a surge of voltage through his blood, leaped off the rock and ran silently after him sword upraised. Helmet Head broke into a run, gained the deck in an instant, reached beneath the podium and withdrew an ancient sword—far older than the katana, made of some strange flat gray metal.

  Fagan had never trained in swordsmanship. But like all cops he had extensive training with the baton. On the deck Helmet Head towered over him. Fagan backed off, wary that HH could reach him in a single leap. Helmet Head moved like an Olympic athlete.

  Gripping the bronze-age sword in both hands, Helmet Head jumped off the deck and ran at Fagan like a runaway locomotive. Fagan spun and dipped to one side aiming the sword at the monster’s ankle but with superhuman reflexes Helmet Head saw the blow and leaped over it, bringing the heavy sword down on Fagan’s head. Fagan dodged just in time taking the blow on his shoulder sending a shockwave of pain followed by numbness.

  How had he ever thought he would survive this?

  Fagan dropped the sword from lifeless fingers.

  Helmet Head tossed aside the claymore. It landed with a dull clang. Helmet Head seized Fagan by the throat in one enormous hand and lifted him to eye level. Fagan hung gasping for breath ten inches from the inscrutable black face plate.

  Fagan reached out and flipped up the lid.

  Von Mulverstedt looked like a mangrove root. The human characteristics were there—the eyes, the nose, the mouth—but they seemed desiccated, transformed by alchemy into something fibrous and mummified. The eyes were deep-set, as cold and blue as the fjords. On the forehead creeping beneath the fiberglass a crude swastika tattoo. Like der Golem. As the world started to turn black Fagan thought how easy it would be to reach out and erase the sigil and the golem would fall to the earth as if its strings had been cut.

  He thought he saw Macy turning toward them holding a stick and then he saw a long tunnel with a light at the end.

  ***

  CHAPTER 44

  True Love Triumphs

  Doc had blown out his knee. Macy helped carry him to the truck where he boosted himself into the bed with his hands and lay down, cradling his knee.

  “I’ve got to go back,” Macy said.

  “Do what you gotta,” Doc grunted. He pulled his five shot from his vest and cradled it like a baby. They both knew it was worthless against Helmet Head. Doc was not going to be one of Helmet Head’s trophies.

  The outside air had snapped Macy into focus. She was ready to do what had to be done. She’d seen the shotgun on the kitchen table when she’d come out. She went back in the house, down the corridor to the gag-inducing kitchen and picked up the shotgun. It was a pump action Remington. Fred may have loaded it with deer slugs.

  She descended the vertigo-inducing stairs hanging on to the banister, stepped over the shattered glass and body parts to go down to the first sub-basement. This time she looked at what she’d studiously ignored on the way out—the three headless biker corpses in grotesque sprawls with their tin can turrets smashed down into their necks. Her stomach flip-flopped. She sucked it up and went down the three broad concrete steps through the door into Nazi Central.

  All Macy knew about the Nazis was they were bad. They were the world-standard in evil, apparently, since every time a politician wished to vilify his opponents he would call them Nazis or compare someone to Hitler. They were the bad guys in World War II. They hated the Jews.

  That’s all Macy knew. She’d never studied WW II. Hadn’t been part of her high school curriculum. She never watched WW II movies. Those were part of another era. She never, ever thought about Nazis unless they were thrust upon her. Her father avoided the draft during Vietnam through sheer luck and a high lottery number. He never talked about it. It blew her mind that at one time the government actually forced young people into military service. Except for 9/11 she’d never known war, and that had barely touched her. The Muslims she met at nursing school all seemed to be nice people, if insular.

  A boyfriend told her that all the Muslims were closet Nazis and wanted to exterminate the Jews. A girlfriend told her Islam was just another great religion and only sought to live in peace with its neighbors.

  Now Nazis had been thrust upon her.

  The temperature dropped fifteen degrees as she stepped through the door into the cave. Helmet Head stood with legs spread holding Fagan from his right hand as Fagan kicked and twitched. Macy leaped off the landing running barefoot across the cool, damp cave floor. Helmet Head was oblivious until she shoved the muzzle up under the lip of his leather jacket from behind and jerked the trigger.

  The explosion made the leather jacket balloon outward. Smo
ke and hair puffed from the sleeves. Helmet Head staggered forward and dropped Fagan. Helmet Head limped away clutching his side. Macy knelt next to Fagan and took his head in her hands.

  “Pete!” she cried.

  Sightless eyes stared up.

  All the air left her like a cockpit open to space. She feared she might disappear into herself like a black hole, sucked down to microscopic size. Nothing left. But there was fresh life inside her and she couldn’t speak for him. It wasn’t her choice to lay down beside the cop and die. She had a baby to consider.

  In her mind the baby was now Fagan’s.

  She had to get out. She looked up. Helmet Head sat on the edge of the deck holding his middle staring at the ground.

  Die, you motherfucker!

  Hanging onto the shotgun she stood and booked, taking the three concrete steps in a single leap. She’d run track in high school, medaled in several events. She flew through the hideously bright lab, up the basement steps out through the front door to the truck. Doc lay in back with a bottle of Four Roses he’d found beneath a pile of rags, feeling no pain.

  “As we say goodbye to Happy Valley …” he sang as Macy leaped into the driver’s seat, set the shotgun next to her and turned the key. The truck started immediately. She gnashed it into gear and let out the clutch. The truck lurched forward spraying gravel and she concentrated on the wild bobbing of the headlights as she wrestled with the wheel down the rutted twisting path. The truck burst from the undergrowth onto the road beneath a clear sky. The storm had moved on.

  The old engine bellowed as Macy pressed the gas pedal to the floor. She double-clutched the upshift as she’d often seen Fred do. Macy could handle a manual. By the time she crested the rise they were going 45 mph. Far off to the east she saw lightning flicker, had forgotten about it by the time the rumble reached her. The eastern horizon began to lighten. The truck plunged into the next gully. Doc started singing the Creedence Clearwater songbook beginning with “Down on the Corner,” his drunken voice drifting in through the open windows along with the rich, humid air.

  Macy turned the radio on and jumped in her seat. Her head would have hit the headliner if she hadn’t been wearing the seatbelt.

  “… utility crews have been working since midnight to restore power to rural Bullard and Lafayette Counties. Once again authorities caution you to avoid driving state highways 123, 38, and 55. Road crews are out now removing storm debris. To repeat, there has been extensive property damage and reports of injuries, but no deaths have been reported so far. Stay tuned to this station for further information.”

  The farm report came on. Macy wept with relief. With any luck the power would be restored at the Kongo Klub. She worked on her story. She didn’t want them to think she was crazy. She would simply tell them everybody but her and Doc were dead and the bodies were out at that old farm on Milton’s Hollow.

  Doc sang “Run Through the Jungle.” Trees and limbs lay all over the road but somehow Macy navigated her way through going around when possible and over when not. The waking cry of birds filled the forest. Macy came to a fork in the road. She was unsure of the route back but knew that eventually both roads hooked up with highway 123 and the KK. The right fork descended into darkness and chaos. The left fork ascended by a fallow field. She took the left fork.

  It was light out by the time she reached the highway. A SHP car streamed by lights flashing silently through the trees as she approached. Traffic was light—a few cars and trucks, but at least it was moving. Macy turned right and drove west nine miles to the Kongo Klub. The power pole was still down. She gave it a wide berth as she pulled up in front of the club and got out, glancing at the plywood sheet that covered the front window.

  She stepped around to the bed. Doc was sprawled on his ass drunk as a bishop, slurring words and waving the empty bottle of Four Roses.

  “Nice, Doc,” she said. Praying that telephone service had been restored she opened the door and stepped into the darkened club.

  ***

  CHAPTER 45

  One For the Road

  The generator had run out of gas but enough light crept in through the north window and front door to see. Macy went behind the bar and reached for the phone. She plunked it on the counter with a ding and picked up the receiver. Dead. But maybe her cell phone was working. It was still in her purse which remained beneath the bar. Next to the bottle of 110 proof corn liquor that Fred brought out for special occasions.

  Well if this wasn’t a special occasion what was. Macy reached for the brown earthenware jug, unstopped it and poured two inches into a cut glass tumbler. It was she who’d doodled the skull and crossbones on the side. The booze hit her like a blanket fresh out of the dryer. She felt the warmth spreading throughout her limbs, wished she could finish the whole jug, lie on her back and sing the Creedence Clearwater songbook like Doc. She slumped on the bar, exhausted. Christ what she’d give for a cig, but she’d already tried that and look what it got her.

  She set her purse on the bar top. It was one of those backpack purses made of canvas with two leather straps. She fished around and found her phone, flipped it open and dialed 9-1-1.

  “This is Bullard County Emergency Services. Due to a high level of activity we are unable to handle your call right now. Please leave a message and we will get back to you as soon as possible.”

  Macy could have screamed. When the voice told her how to leave a number or stay on the line for call-back options, she did scream in sheer anger and frustration. She had to will herself to calm down and speak coherently. Her voice was tight.

  “This is Macy Hanson at the Kongo Klub on Highway 123. Fred is dead, Officer Fagan is dead. Most of the Road Dogs are dead. Get out here as soon as you can.”

  She thought maybe she should call her folks. Not that they were concerned. They really didn’t care. They hadn’t called her, probably were blissfully unaware of the severe weather. They’d sent a card on her last birthday, two weeks late.

  The lights flickered and went on. The refrigerator behind the bar began to hum. The neon sign over the door flickered orange in the morning light—she could see the reflection in the glass.

  Macy sat in an old folding lawn chair Fred kept behind the bar and patted her stomach. “We did it,” she said. She was thirsty. She got up, opened the beer cooler and pulled a homogenized orange juice. Sighing, she sat, twisted off the cap and drained it in eleven steady gulps.

  She would name the boy Fagan. She knew it was a boy in the same way she knew the smell of fresh-mown hay. It was in her blood. Whether young Fagan had a father was the farthest thing from her mind right now. After surviving the night she felt as if she could accomplish anything—finish nursing school, get a master’s degree, raise Fagan into a fine young man all by herself.

  Wait a minute. What was she thinking? Name the poor kid Fagan? She might as well hang a KICK ME sign around his neck. She laughed, breaking the silence and startling herself. She’d name him Pete. Little League. But no Pop Warner football, no concussions for Pete. And she wouldn’t let him ride a motorcycle.

  What was that song her grandfather used to play? “Soliloquy” from Carousel. Pete would study hard, get good grades. But he’d also be gregarious, a charmer, an extrovert who respected his elders and helped those younger. She wouldn’t let him start dating until he was seventeen, make sure he treated women with respect. She would never let him turn out like Wild Bill never. She’d kill him first.

  Her cell phone played Mellencamp’s “Small Town.” She stood and picked it up, too amped to remain sitting.

  “Hello?”

  “Ma’am, this is Bullard County Emergency Dispatch. Did you phone us?”

  “Yes. I’m at the Kongo Klub out on 123. They’re all dead. Please hurry.”

  “All right, ma’am, calm down. I’m dispatching officers to your location. What is your name?”

  “Marcy Hanson.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “You
said Officer Fagan was among the dead.”

  “Yes! He sacrificed his life for me. He saved me.”

  “I understand. Where is Officer Fagan now?”

  “At that freak’s farm in Milton’s Hollow! That’s where they all are!”

  Macy heard herself becoming hysterical.

  “Calm down, ma’am. Do you know who killed Officer Fagan?”

  “That fucking Nazi biker zombie freak! Helmet Head!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Helmet Head! He rides around on a big black bike chopping off the heads of other bikers.”

  “Ma’am, currently we are experiencing extreme backlog due to the events of the past twelve hours. If you’re not in immediate danger, it may be some time before we get someone out there. Are you in any immediate danger?”

  The bell over the door tinkled. The door swung inward. Helmet Head had to stoop to enter the bar.

  ***

  CHAPTER 46

  Corn Liquor

  “Helmet Head is here,” Macy said and set the phone on the bar. She backed against the back bar and heard the glass bottles clink. A rift split her heart into two lifeless husks. Looking down she saw her child’s tiny bones past gyring vultures.

  She bit her lip until it bled. Not yet. Not so long as she had breath in her body. Helmet Head was a man. Underneath it all he was still a man. She’d heard him speak. He’d had a family once, a wife that loved him and two smiling children. Another one on the way. A wife that looked like her.

  She’d never had difficulty talking to men, getting their attention. Well this was it, Macy. This was your shot, your PhD dissertation, your Olympic event.

  Stay alive.

  Helmet Head stood inside the door motionless. Staring at her. She still wore the red dress he’d put on her, his dead wife’s dress. That black face shield—like some kind of medical device—something that sent out rays.