Dark Application: TWO

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Dark Application: TWO Page 7

by Brian Krogstad


  Then he reached into his jacket. This was all she could take. Suddenly she flew off the handle, and took two graceful leaps up to him, and pulling back her arm, punched him in the face.

  He was completely unprepared. With all her might, she punched again, hurting her wrist without gloves, and when his face stayed aside this time, she gave him a hook from the left, hearing his teeth clack together hard, something slurping. He was clearly injured enough for her to run, but she was sufficiently angry enough to keep punching through his raised fists. With a grimace she swung again. She remembered jumping out the window, and Leah white and stiff, and just kept swinging, punishing him. The warm electricity that started in her hand and spread down her torso made her muscles feel rock hard. Getting control of her breathing, she began her chant: in, out, hook, upper cut, in, out, jab-cross-jab…

  She swung one more time, missing, and felt his hand finally come up in a block at the waist. She shoved into his hands, trying to knock him off balance, and bounced off him, stumbling backward. He gained his footing, and suddenly the sky grew a shade lighter, stinging her eyes a bit as her irises constricted. He had blood running all down his mouth and chin. She faked a hook to the left, and instead gave him an elbow to the right temple, sending him careening to the cement.

  He managed a hard kick in the stomach from the ground that sent her careening backwards into a metal dumpster with a groan. He bear-crawled to the brick wall and began to straggle up the side. He was hurt. She could hardly breathe but she was winning. She attacked him with morbid glee.

  She stood over him and began to kick him, hitting him up and down the ribs, in the stomach, and in the chest. She was slightly aware that she was shrieking, letting out a scream every time her foot connected with his body. She kicked and kicked, flailing her powerful limbs, reveling in her strength. Despite how much she disliked Leah, she kicked him as hard as she could at the image of Leah’s pretty hair, and he choked and moaned. Then she kicked him in the back of the neck and heard a crunch.

  The sound reverberated off the alley walls. It echoed one, two, three times down the walls, or maybe it was in her mind, replaying the wet grind over and over. It made her stomach turn, it made her realize where she was. She turned as though to run to her car, and then confused, she turned back toward the door to The Drip. She was stunned, disheveled, afraid. She was breathing heavily, panting.

  The mound of bloody flesh made a choking gurgle, and black liquid began to pour out of the man’s mouth and spread across the gray cement. The sky lightened another degree or two. She turned her back and ran straight toward her car. She fumbled for the phone and quickly dialed Sean.

  “Sean, I’m not feeling good,” she muttered.

  “Okay, so what do you want to do? Do you need to come in late?” he asked.

  “Actually,” she said, swallowing hard, I think I might need to take the day off today.”

  “Is everything alright, Sabrina? You sound like you’ve been crying,” he said.

  “I’m just really sick,” she said.

  When she hung up the phone was when she began to cry.

  Once in her room, she sat on the edge of her bed for a long time, unmoving. She stared out the window, through the yellow curtains, at the morning sunlight cascading in pillars through the avenue trees. She wondered, why me? As the sun came up, people came out. Kids rode their bikes or waited for the school bus. An elderly couple ambled down the sidewalk, smelling all the neighbors’ roses. Across the street a man had his hood up and his head down in the engine compartment of his truck.

  Sabrina hardy blinked. Her knuckles were hot and throbbing. Her throat hurt from screaming. Her heart was quiet in her chest.

  At some point Gabriela opened the bedroom door and peeked in. Sabrina could hear her breathing, and sense her presence. She didn’t turn around. “No me siento bien, mama.”

  The door closed and her footsteps were heard passing down the hallway.

  ***

  “Your honor, the Jury, I stand before you today to tell you about the atrocious crimes committed by this man, Lucas Jeffers.”

  Camera bulbs flashed and whined. The press looked like a pack of stray dogs scrambling for a scrap in the press pit, and their microphones hung like carrots on sticks extended out into the courtroom as far as they dared.

  No seats were empty this time. Spectators were crushed together in the rows, and some stood around the back of the room. He saw Chris with his parents and some friends, and he looked for Amit but didn’t see him.

  Kennedy was there, and so was the throng of childless parents. Luke scanned the gallery. He almost swallowed his tongue when his eyes locked on his mother and his older brother, Sam, who sat in the upper right hand row. He had spoken at length with her as often as he could, and she had said she wanted to be here at the pre-trial, despite his protests. But he’d had no idea at all that Sam would show up.

  Sam’s head was shaved and a serpent tattoo extended from under his collared shirt up the back of his neck. He had black bar studs in his ears, and he looked very thin. He looked at Luke coolly, and a shadow of bleakness distorted his face.

  The witnesses were asked to speak, one by one, about the depth of the losses they endured. The judge sat, a balding man with gray hair, and listened to each, nodding. The press were staged and perfectly still. The regal woman from the preliminary trial came to the stand and talked about her daughter, Amy, the light of her life, the tears rolling indiscriminately down both her and Luke’s faces. Her voice was a tinkling bell with a rolling accent that he couldn’t place. Images passed through Luke’s mind one after another, each filling him with grief and shock. The duffel bag in the shed on the roof in the snow. The red pick-up truck, cash up front. Chris and Amit sharing pizza and hot tea in front of the fire. The cute girls in short skirts dancing in front of his oversized speakers in his dilapidated living room. The black silky hair, spattered with pink foam, cascading over the concrete floor. The purple shimmery dress on his bedroom floor. The blue dim letters floating through every picture. The voices came and went, one after another, and a sea of memories drowned his attention, blurring his eyes and ears. The familiar story passed through his mind unheard, until a sudden knot in the thread grabbed him and pulled him to the surface with a slap on the face.

  “And the prosecution is seeking the death penalty.”

  All eyes in the room shifted, and his mother began to sob. Reporters took her picture. There was an uproar from the press pit, and the gallery was filled with talking and chatter, some crying, some hand shaking. The prosecutor leaned toward a colleague to speak into his ear, stopping to smile for the camera flashes that flickered brilliantly over his straight white teeth. Luke saw nothing but bright lights, and heard nothing but his mother crying, as the press struggled to capture that very moment, the face that Luke Jeffers made, when he found out the State of Virginia wanted to see him die.

  ***

  Dennis Kennedy poured a dram of Glenfiddich and lowered himself into his leather armchair, trying to sink deeper into the plush cushion. The room was dark, the leather was cold. The headlights of the cars passing outside the condo casted twisting shadows and pitched the darkness side to side, briefly illuminating the mantle over the cold gas fireplace where a half dozen framed photographs were arranged. One was a picture of a young man, strong with short thick hair, standing with a baseball mitt in his hand. He had a broad smile on his face. Kennedy’s eyes barely had a chance to glimpse it before the headlights passed and nighttime snatched the face back.

  A clock ticked in the darkness. A high bookcase stood beside his armchair to the left. He gazed over the titles of the leather-bound books, admiring their shining gold etched spines more than he was actually reading them. Melville, Dickens, Frost, Steinbeck… Poe. These books had been given to him by his deceased grandfather, and since they were so well-preserved and matched his décor, he had been slowly picking through them. He kept them around more for looks. He wasn’t much of a reader, mor
e of a thinker. But he had grown weary of watching the news, and television shows had grown so crass and asinine, that he’d decided it was time, ever so slowly, to start reading.

  He sipped the liquor and then set it down on the teak end table, reaching over to grab a title from the shelf, and then settled back, threw a leg up on the ottoman, and opened to a random page.

  There was a crackle of the stiff leather binding, and the pages smelled like mildewed wood; they were so thin they rustled softly in the silence. He skimmed the words, reading more for the desire to have his mind occupied than to actually conceptualize a story. He brought the glass to his lips, and the amber liquid stung them. He soon found himself absorbed in a scene, very familiar, and realized vaguely that he’d read this story once long ago, some time in high school. It was a rather arcane novel, one of many he had hated reading back then, about a mutiny at sea, and a man who is locked under the deck as a stow-away and knows nothing of the fighting until he comes on deck and sees all the dead bodies. Kennedy grasped the book, hanging onto every word, waiting to see if he could remember what came next, wondering how his high school self could not have been dazzled by it.

  Another ship, haggard and weathered, approaches.

  Kennedy sipped the whiskey.

  The ship comes closer and there is a strange captain on board. Thinking themselves saved, the last living men begin to shout and hug each other with joy.

  Of a sudden, and all at once, there came wafted over the ocean from the strange vessel (which was now close upon us) a smell, a stench, such as the whole world has no name for–no conception of–hellish–utterly suffocating–insufferable, inconceivable.

  Kennedy nestled further into his chair, and gripping the book, shot the last of his whiskey.

  On his back, from which a portion of the shirt had been torn, leaving it bare, there sat a huge sea-gull, busily gorging itself with the horrible flesh, its bill and talons deep buried, and its white plumage spattered all over with blood. As the brig moved farther round so as to bring us close in view, the bird, with much apparent difficulty, drew out its crimsoned head, and, after eyeing us for a moment as if stupefied, arose lazily from the body upon which it had been feasting, and, flying directly above our deck, hovered there a while with a portion of clotted and liver-like substance in its beak. The horrid morsel dropped at length with a sullen splash immediately at the feet of Parker.

  A knock at the door made Kennedy jump. Confused, he rose, laying the book open on the end table, and answered the door.

  Drake stood there, her hair falling over her ears, in a pair of tight-fitting jeans and her old tore-up cowboy boots.

  “Care for comp’ny?” she asked, holding up a bottle of wine.

  Silent, he took her in for a long moment. “Is this my ‘told you so’ treatment?” he asked.

  She smiled broadly, kindly, and let herself past him and inside.

  “Turn some light on in here, it’s too dark for anything,” she said, flicking the switches, setting the bottle on the edge of the kitchen island. “You were settin’ here reading in the dark? Come on now,” she chided, her accent lilting and sweet. She looked over the room, taking in the armchair, the bookcase, and the empty glass. Her eyes fell on the open pages of the book, lingered a moment, and then she gave an impressed look. “Never took you for a Poe guy,” she said.

  He grunted. “Anything to keep my mind occupied,” he said. He stared at her, vaguely wondering why she had decided to show up out of the blue, noticing how out of place she looked in his kitchen, and then realized that he had been rude. “I’m sorry, please, sit down.”

  He pulled a chair out and she sat down at the table. He turned to the kitchen, figuring that she was waiting for him to open the wine, and did so. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her looking around, checking out his framed photographs. He poured the wine, brought the glasses to the table, and sat with her.

  “So, did you come to tell me that Jeffers is a dead man walking?” he asked.

  She breathed the smell of the wine, and shook her head. “No, please. No more talk about that right now. I just came to say hi, and make sure you weren’t pissin’ and moanin’ all alone over here.”

  “For what? Over the pretrial? I’ve seen enough people hang in my day.”

  She was looking at him, studying his face. “You sure you’re alright?”

  He looked back into her eyes. She appeared to be genuinely concerned about him, her sharp eyebrows drawn together.

  “Well, I got a great book, a delicious glass of wine, and a fantastic and not to mention beautiful partner sitting beside me. At this moment, I’m sure. It probably couldn’t get much more ‘right’ right now.”

  With her lips spread in a pleased smile, they clinked glasses. He allowed himself the pleasure of her company. They remained somewhat awkward and tense, purposely avoiding discussing Jeffers or the trial, but it was hard.

  They chatted about wine, and scotch, and cigars. Then they talked about Mexico, and Costa Rica, and then a job that Kennedy had done in Panama. Before long, they were talking about work again.

  “No! No work talk!” Drake protested, becoming tipsy. “Next person to talk about work is going to take a shot of scotch.”

  Kennedy scoffed. “Touch my scotch, woman, and meet your death,” he warned.

  “Is that a threat, Agent Kennedy?” Her face was stone cold and hard, the mean look, the look she used to interrogate inmates. He forced his mind away from work, but it was difficult to resist, since he and Drake didn’t spend much time together otherwise.

  Silly, he held the glass to the level of his face, and in a rolling British accent, said, “One does not simply shoot the single malt. One must smell it, swish it, and roll it off the tongue.”

  Drake was laughing, holding her wine glass, leaning against the table. Almost two hours had passed without them realizing it. After a few more drinks, they both were beginning to slur their words, and she called a taxi to take her back home.

  “Okay, next time I see you, it’s all business, no goofy stuff,” he said.

  “Oh, you know me,” she said.

  He opened the door for her, and before she left, she turned to him, and thanked him.

  “What are you thanking me for? You came over with wine and I drank it all.”

  She laughed again. Then, sort of awkwardly, she added, “I mean thank you… for the coffee.”

  He nodded and winked.

  “And for being a great partner, and associate.”

  Kennedy stood still for a moment before speaking. “Well, Drake, it’s certainly nice to see you lighten up for once, and you did me a favor tonight. I was feeling a bit down, actually.”

  She looked up at him with her vivid green eyes. “I know.”

  After she left, Kennedy went to sleep, a half-drunken, difficult sleep. Between long stints of wakefulness, he dreamed he was commander of a ship, and birds were ripping open his skin, tearing through his flesh, eating his heart out through his back.

  ***

  The anxiety was exhausting. The ghastly sound of the wet crunch, echoing off the high brick walls, woke her from her shallow sleep. She cried at night. She began to bite her nails. The stutter was beginning to emerge again.

  Sabrina rode the bus to work to avoid the alleyway once and for all. She could not be alone. She could not bear large crowds. Her ears rang from sleeplessness and fatigue. She sat at the very back of the bus to avoid anyone sitting behind her. She kept the Bluetooth pinned in her ear for a sense of safety and rubbed the phone with her thumb for good luck.

  Her face was long and a deep color had set in under her eyes. Her lids were thick and dark from crying. As the bus bumbled down the streets, she scanned the sidewalks. Everyone she saw was a suspect. She imagined every man with a thick black coat and watch cap. And every police officer was looking for her.

  That morning she had scanned the local news, looking for anything about the bloodied, twisted dead body in the alleyway, as a t
hought gnawed at her mind.

  I’ve killed a man.

  There was no sign in the local papers that the body had been discovered. She racked her memory continuously for anything she may have forgotten. Had she dropped anything at the scene? Was her blood on him? Had anybody seen? Or heard her screaming?

  Sean noticed her lack of expression. “Sabrina, are you still sick?” he asked.

  She didn’t even respond, just looked through him and went to sign in and grab her apron.

  The day was long and painful. Sean was a helicopter, annoying, disruptive. The phone spoke softly in her ear although she hardly heard the words. She only listened to the sound, gentle and artificial, her truest, best friend. She mechanically made coffee, the voice blurring with her own mind chatter, making her believe for moments at a time that she was turning into a robot.

  Sean swarmed, making her tremble with anger. I can’t handle this today, she told herself. Sean and his controlling obsessive crap. Sean with his steel cold eyes. Sean. Sean. Sean. He hovered and pestered her to take out the Bluetooth. He made her make more decaf before the carafe was half empty. He had her out wiping tables and stocking napkins when John was not busy, although that was typically his duty this shift. Without Leah there, he had planned on making Sabrina a manager, he’d said. Today, Sabrina would say no. This would be her last week, hopefully even her last day, at The Drip. No more Sean. No more espresso machine. No loud obnoxious hissing steaming wand. No more frightening alley to walk through.

  “Sabrina!” Sean snapped. She turned to him, her eyes going cold with rage. He was frowning at her, stamping out some orders, one hand karate chopping the other. She stood gripping the steaming wand in her hand, the rage boiling inside her with ferocious heat. Her knuckles went white as her grip on the wand tightened. A clang came from the metal espresso machine. Her mind filled with indignation, and in that moment, the phone buzzed.

 

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