by K Helms
“Well, I knew Mike for about six years. He was always a good worker and seemed to get along well with the other employees.”
“What about the management staff that he seemed to target during his rampage?”
“Well, yes, he did have some trouble taking orders at times.”
“Was there any indication that he was capable of this sort of violence?”
“No. He was a pretty quiet guy. I don’t think anyone would have seen this coming,” replied Finley. He looked directly into the camera and smiled that alligator grin and Mitch felt like he was looking right through him. When Mitch was in the Army, they called it a thousand yard stare.
“Rumor has it that Dunlap was transferred to Waynesburg, Pennsylvania due to a staff shortage at Parkersburg jail; is there any truth to that?” Claire asked Finley.
Finley turned his thousand yard stare back to Claire, shrugged and replied. “That’s what we heard too, I overheard a couple of the cops talking and that’s what they said; all I know is that I’m glad that kook is out of this town.”
Claire returned the mic to under her chin and Mitch happily turned the camera back to her with Finley out of frame. From his peripheral vision Mitch watched the freak stare at Claire for a few moments, than walk to his car and quickly drive away. Mitch thought that Dunlap had not been the only kook here.
Mitch adjusted the camera and with a sudden sense of urgency gestured with his free hand to Claire, pointing behind her. She turned and allowed Mitch to get a better angle.
She raised the mic back to her lips and said “As you can see, the Coroner is removing the bodies. They have each been zipped in a heavy black, plastic body bag and… what the….” she caught herself from cursing, but Mitch couldn’t blame her; he had just seen what she had.
Not just one, but three of the bags resting on gurneys gave sudden jerks, as if the corpses were having a synchronized spasm. The bags jerked again. Now another one joined in, then another, then all of them. EMTs saw what was happening and tore open the zippers of those nearest them.
“Are you getting this, Mitch?”
Mitch gave a shaky thumb up and kept rolling.
“It appears that there are survivors that had been pronounced dead. I’m not sure how a mistake of this magnitude could have been made, but we are witnessing these events unfold live on Action 7 News.”
One of the EMTs leaned over a jerking body; he placed his ear over the chest and listened. Suddenly the body raised both arms upward and clamped down over the EMT’s head, holding it pinned to his chest. The man that was supposed to be dead leaned upward, his jaw distending like that of a snake’s and bit into the back of the emergency medical tech’s neck. The EMT screamed as the man tore out a large chunk of flesh and then broke free from the dead man’s teeth as he instinctively clutched at his neck. Blood spurted in long arcs from between his fingers. His eyes were wide and round, his face pale as he dropped to his knees.
“Oh my God…” muttered Claire.
The living dead man fell off the gurney, stood on shaky legs and staggered down the alley out of camera shot. Another EMT had his wrist trapped in the grasp of another of the dead men. He jerked it free without getting bitten, but the skin was torn by a jagged fingernail and dripped blood. Police ran to his aid and held the man down and re-zipped the body bag around him. Police Chief, Tom Harmon, stormed toward them with a hand palm out toward the camera. “Shut that damn thing off!” he ordered.
Mitch removed it from his shoulder, but left it angled toward the action still rolling.
“Chief, Claire Fontaine Action 7 News. What can you tell us about…?”
“I know who you are lady, now get the hell outa here before I shove that camera up your perky little ass!” roared the cop, his face was flushed and a huge vein throbbed in the middle of his forehead.
Mitch watched as the reporter’s eyes blazed. Claire was not used to people talking to her in such a way. She was used to getting whatever she wanted.
“I could go to the Mayor for that comment Chief,” she warned.
“Good, go do it; just get the hell out of here or I will personally arrest the both of you and lose your equipment somewhere in the evidence locker for the next year.” His eyes were locked directly on hers. Finally she relented.
“C’mon, Mitch,” she said in a tone that the camera man knew he would be hearing for a few hours. He really just wanted to go home and see his wife and daughters.
The Chief stood on the corner and watched them pull away. He made sure they were good and gone before he turned back to the mess that remained. He had no idea what had just happened here, but he knew that he would have the answers within the next ten minutes or some heads were gonna roll.
Chapter 2 - My What False Teeth You Have, Grandma
Peebles, Ohio
The old, wooden, rocking chair squeaked at its apex, keeping slow, steady time as Heather Kilbourne stared longingly out the frosted pane of glass. Part of her wanted to go out there and enjoy the snow like she did when she was young but the biggest part of her preferred to stay where she was. Playing was for kids, kids that had plenty of energy and a world free of cares and worries; that was not her. She sat with a large plate of cheese cake on her lap and watched as the snow falling in light, lazy flakes.
She listened to the rising and falling crescendos of December wind as it whistled through the skeletal trees that surrounded her house like jagged ruins of castle walls. It was a perfect day for listening.
So she listened to her old familiar ghosts.
She had inherited the two story farm house from her grandmother two days ago after the sweet old lady had finally grown weary of battling the cancer that had slowly rotted her from within. As a lot of old farm houses do, they had their own cemetery plot in a secluded spot of the property. It was peaceful there, with only twenty or so stones standing as reminders of the past and that was where her grandmother had wanted her final resting place to be, there with her family that had gone before her with an old iron fence corralling the family closely together. The house itself was by no means, a pristine mansion, but she loved the old house and all its old house sounds; it suited her tastes well. It was secluded and quiet, far removed from the noise and bustle of the city, and most importantly, it held countless memories of her grandma doting over her. Heather wondered what ever happened to that sweet, wide eyed little girl she once had been.
The snow drifted in long elegant waves against the old house and the wooden porch. It looked like a white ocean caught in a frozen frame of time; a moment that only she was privy to.
Heather had once been a beautiful woman, but over the years she had grown to think of herself as ugly. Her body had once been slender and toned, but years of chronic depression had left her sedentary and she had gained a considerable amount of weight. The curves she saw on others she perceived with a quiet, subtle envy that made her succumb to the habit of eating when she was feeling sad. Rubenesque; that was a word she had heard more than once, but it was just a politically correct way of saying she was fat. Her hair was a light blonde with the occasional streak of brown and gray. She wore it pulled back into a braided pony tail. She hadn’t been to a hair salon in over eight years, instead she cut her own hair when she saw fit. Usually she dressed in blue jeans and a plain tee shirt, but lately, pajamas had become her normal attire. She had stopped wearing make-up because she thought that it felt like a wax mask on her face and she had no reason to take the time to apply it; after all the television never judged her.
She absently ran a fingertip over the faint scar above her left eye, a souvenir from a life she left behind, only to be haunted by the memories that had created it.
She preferred the sanctuary of solitude and had few friends. Those she did have she kept at a distance. Trust was something that had broken inside her a long time ago. Anyone that got too close, she pushed away, whether it was a conscious act or not, she wasn’t sure. What she was sure of was; no one had been capable of maki
ng her feel the way she did when she had been a child.
Heather’s most stunning feature used to be her smile, something she rarely wore these days. She didn’t like her smile, it always felt foreign on her lips, it was something like putting twenty dollar wrapping paper on a two dollar gift; it just didn’t belong.
Guilt, a gift from her mother, was her greatest flaw. She tortured herself for events in her past that she’d had no control over; things that hadn’t been her fault. It had been a guilt that had left her sleepless and crying at night. She felt like a failure. Even worse she felt that she deserved the pain. Maybe this life was a form of purgatory. A time to live and maybe make amends for sins repeated; a punishment of sorts; a penance that she could never get quite right.
But there were times that eased the ache inside her and sitting in her grandma’s old rocking chair and listening to the haunting chorus of the winter wind was a Godsend.
Night was a friend that cradled her in its shadowy arms, shielding her as no human ever had. She felt less vulnerable, less ashamed of her scars and her physical appearance when day grew dim. No one could see the sorrow that burned in the depths of her dark brown eyes. It was a private pain and darkness kept her secrets safely hidden.
Heather reached to the window sill and switched on a portable radio. A song that she had danced to at her junior prom filled the airwaves and she was immediately struck with a melancholy that astonished her.
Had it really been her wearing that black evening gown with a corsage tied around her delicate little wrist? Had it been her that had danced in small circles with her cheek resting on the lapel of her boyfriend’s tuxedo as she daydreamed that it was her wedding day?
She switched off the radio and felt like crying. She didn’t need to be reminded that she was twenty-eight years old, overweight, divorced and alone.
Heather closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her knees that were drawn against her chest. She inhaled the lingering scent of lilac that hung like ghosts throughout the house. Her grandma, her smell; Heather had always loved the way her grandma smelled.
But that floral scent reminded her of weddings and funerals too. Whether you were getting married or getting buried, flowers were always there. It was strange how certain scents triggered old memories that were as fresh as yesterday.
She remembered the first time anyone had given her flowers.
She had been thirteen with a smile that glowed with the innocence of youth. A neighborhood boy had picked her a bouquet of tiger lilies that grew wild along the side of the gravel road she lived on. She had worn them woven in her hair; a crown for a waif princess. She remembered how the boy had chased her around the backyard of her parent’s house until she collapsed in the cool evening grass, exhausted from running and laughing. Fireflies flashed their beacons like desperate S.O.S. in the twilight and she remembered he had one stuck in his hair. He had fallen down beside her and for a moment he just looked at her nervously, his face blushing. His shaggy blonde hair tousled and littered with blades of grass. She knew he wanted to kiss her, so she reached over to him, touched his face and smiled that brilliant smile of hers.
That was all the incentive he had needed.
It was the worst kiss she’d ever had. It was clumsy and inexperienced, but it was also the sweetest her lips had ever tasted. She remembered how her cheeks felt hot, her heart had beat like bird’s wings, and that it felt like her whole body was tingling. She remembered that he smelled like fresh cut grass and Big Red chewing gum. That smell was a whole lot more appealing than the buckets of cheap cologne that the Don Juan’s in town bathed in.
It was one of her favorite memories, and she replayed it often in her mind.
But that had not been love.
It had been a childhood crush, or so her parents had told her. It seemed though, that looking back, her parents had been wrong. She thought that maybe that was how love was supposed to be after all; young and fresh and innocent. It made more sense in all its naivety than her sham of a marriage had been.
She had lived with eight years of wearing makeup, sunglasses and making excuses to cover the bruises beneath. She lived with the guilt of a miscarriage. She could still see that pale, pink body lying in a pool of amniotic fluid and blood that had landed there in the bathtub with a wet smack and a massive cramp, just because her husband had ‘one of those days’. She remembered him yelling at her to clean up the mess even as she mourned the loss of the child she would never know.
Of course, the next day he had bought her a new dress. A peace offering, apology and token of his undying affection all rolled up inside a plastic K-mart bag.
Small comfort that, but she had guiltily accepted the offering in fear of receiving another beating, and had modeled the dress for him like a good little wife.
She could feel the self-loathing brewing within her as the scenario played out in her mind. How could she have been so timid, so gutless to have let him treat her like she was some kind of play toy/punching bag. How could she simply allow him to murder their child and do nothing in response?
She had stayed with him through four mistresses that she knew of, because marriage was what love really was; a love, that, would eventually, make everything alright.
Now she knew better.
Love had been a cruel joke and her husband had always delivered the punch line.
Still, even now, she caught herself daydreaming, induced from too many romance novels and made for TV movies, thinking ’what if?’, and she hated herself for it. As hard as she tried, she could not stop herself from hoping, and maybe, that was the worst part.
Then there was jealousy. It was like a disease that gnawed at her from the pit of her stomach. It was always there; ready to discredit anything that she didn’t have. Seeing lovers walking in the park with their hands slipped in each other’s back pockets, weddings she had attended with all their beautiful vows… it all reeked of lies.
It made her want to slap the starry-eyed expressions from their faces. Maybe give them a punch line of her own; just walk up to a couple of newlyweds, say ‘stop me if you’ve heard this one’ and WHAM!
She shook her head in disgust. She was feeling sorry for herself again and thought that a bowl of ice cream might ease the pain as she wiped tears from her eyes.
The snow had stopped falling and the skies had cleared and the morning sun shined against the snow and looked deceptively warm. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since she had left the house so she decided to get her coat, go outside and just stare at the beauty of it.
Bundled in her down-filled coat she thrust her hands in her pockets and made fresh tracks in the snow. She looked back to the bright blue sky and thought her favorite constellation... Orion; the hunter. He had obviously not succeeded either; he still had his arrow nocked but had never let fly. She could relate to that.
She was startled when she heard footsteps crunching through the snow from behind her, the smell of lilac wafted past her in the wind. She knew that smell, but it masked another smell that was not as sweet. There should not be anyone here. She had been the only living relative and she worried that the Lifetime movie she had watched the night before had come true.
“Hello?” she asked, her voice wavering as she began to step back toward the front of the house.
Heather listened, but the only response was a groan.
She peered into the blinding white of the deep snow that hung heavily from tree limbs in that part of the yard. There at the back corner of the house she saw a form staggering toward her.
“Who’s there?” she asked again, and again came the groan.
Heather stepped down from the porch and walked slowly toward the silhouetted figure. The dark figure was skinny and hunched over. She could see the material of a dress billowing behind her. “Grandma?” she asked with her heart racing. She knew it couldn’t be her grandmother; the woman had been buried three days ago.
There was another groan, louder this time. It sounded almos
t like a question, but what had it asked?
Heather cautiously made her way slowly toward the woman, but when the form began to stagger forward Heather stopped, filled with an unnatural fear. She felt the wind picking up and it blew down the neck of her coat. She shivered, unable to move as she watched the figure move clumsily toward her.
The figure weaved left to right, lunging forward and as she emerged from the shadows of the house and into the light of the sun, Heather saw her Grandma. Her Grandma reached out to her and Heather saw the old woman’s hands. It appeared that every finger of her hands had been broken and splayed out in odd angles like the branches of a bush; the skin of her hands was hanging in ripped tatters that blew in the wind.
“Oh my God…Grandma…what did they do to you?” Heather whispered and began to cry.
Her grandma moaned and it sounded to Heather like she was calling her name.
Heather’s paralysis broke and she ran to her grandma. Grandma clawed at the air as Heather came forward, her motions becoming more and more enthusiastic and frantic with each step. Heather threw her arms around her grandmother’s neck and squeezed her tightly, almost knocking the elderly lady backwards. Heather could feel the broken fingers on her back, sliding up her neck.
“Oh Grandma…let’s get you in the house and warmed up, you’re freezing” she said, tears streaming from her eyes. She heard her grandmother groan again. To her, it said that her grandmother loved her and when her grandma’s jaws distended into a lion’s maw her dentures fell out of her mouth and into the snow. She gnawed into Heather’s soft neck and tried to rip chunks of flesh from her granddaughter’s throat. Heather tried to pull away, but the old woman set her jaws. They squeezed together clamping both sides of her neck and pinched off the blood flow of her carotid arteries and jugular veins. Her peripheral vision began closing in, fading to black as she struggled to remain conscious.