The Walking Man

by Anthony Izzo

  “Brian, come on, it’s getting dark.”

  “Don’t rush me,” Brian said.

  Darkness was setting in, the shadows growing long. Crickets chirped in the woods surrounding the property. Tim looked at his watch: 8:19. The watch had been a gift this year for his thirteenth birthday.

  Tim looked up at the old Morgan Powerhouse. It seemed to have a thousand windows, nearly all of them broken. The twin smokestacks towered over the property. In the daytime, it was a cool place to hang out, blow off fireworks, and talk girls. They also watched videos on Brian’s iPhone that would make Mom cringe. But now they were surrounded by rusting pieces of equipment, piles of broken concrete, and the building itself. Anyone or anything could be in there watching. “Who do you think killed that runner?”

  Brian flicked the lighter, popping the flame. “Some psycho. He’s probably long gone.”

  “What if he’s around?” Tim asked.

  “I’ll kick his ass. Ready for this?”

  Brian lit the wick and scampered backwards. Tim ducked behind a big piece of machinery and Brian joined him. The M-80 blew and Tim clapped his hands over his ears. Brian laughed maniacally.

  “Now can we go?”

  “Don’t be such a douche,” Brian said. “I got one more M-80. Let’s find something to blow up.”

  Getting darker. The powerhouse was at the end of a deserted road. Fields stretched in all directions beyond the property. Brian got up and headed off into the chest-high weeds.

  “Did Carrie Bauman really let you feel her tits up here?” Tim said.

  “Yep.”

  “What was it like?” Tim said.

  “It was goddamned epic. Get a girlfriend and maybe you’ll find out. Here we go,” he said, stooping over. He picked up a rusty coffee can. “This will do.”

  Brian removed the last M-80 from his pocket. He came out of the weeds, crouched down, and set the can over the M-80. He pulled the wick out, exposing it from under the can.

  Tim heard footsteps in the power house, someone shuffling on the concrete. “Bri, someone’s in the powerhouse.”

  “It’s the wind,” Brian said.

  “There’s no wind right now.”

  “Jesus you’re a baby.”

  But he knew what he heard. He looked at the black maw of a door. He could see someone cloaked in the shadows. “Brian, someone’s there.”

  The man darted from the shadows. Tim got a glimpse of a dirty trench coat. He caught a whiff of something like hot garbage as the man breezed past him.

  Brian, still hunkered down, looked up and saw the man. Tim spotted the huge knife come from under the coat. The guy grabbed Brian’s hair, yanked back, and slashed the knife across his throat. Tim screamed as the blood poured from his brother. Warm liquid soaked his underwear. He’d pissed himself.

  Brian fell forward, his face smacking the ground. Tim broke for the powerhouse and stumbled through the doorway. He was in total darkness. Instinctively, he turned right and banged his knee on something hard. He let out a whimper and hobbled along.

  His foot caught something solid and he fell forward on the concrete. Tim heard footsteps from behind. He started to crawl away, but cold hands closed around his neck and he was jerked to his feet.

  Regina Clark gnawed on her right thumbnail while she held the phone to her ear with the other hand. It was nine-thirty and the boys were a half-hour late. She’d texted Brian twice and called his cell three times. They’d said they were going bike riding, but she knew they were likely hanging at the abandoned powerhouse.

  Being the criminal geniuses they were, her sons wrongly surmised that Regina had no idea about the powerhouse. She was an adult, and therefore, an idiot. She knew they went there to shoot off illegal fireworks and look at dirty videos on their phones. She’d heard rumors that a middle schooler had snuck a six-pack of beer up there, but it was unconfirmed.

  She hadn’t intervened, as she hadn’t suspected them of drinking. Plus, too many kids sat around the house chained to electronic devices. Regina didn’t love the idea that someone might have brought beer, but she was glad to see her boys getting out in the fresh air.

  Except now they were late and someone had been killed last night. She figured if they were home by dark, they’d be fine. Now she felt like the world’s worst mother for letting them go out.

  That was it. She grabbed the keys to the Kia and headed for the garage.

  The road out to the powerhouse sent a chill through her. Dark as a closet, there was trash strewn at the sides of the road. The road hadn’t been used on a regular basis since the power company was in operation back in the 50’s.

  Every few years the town council had a meeting to discuss funding for demolishing the powerhouse. The cost, with asbestos and environmental cleanup, was always deemed too high. So it still stood.

  She came to the weedy lot where employees once parked. Looking at the powerhouse, she reflected that if Dracula had designed a power plant, it would look like this. There were weird gargoyle-looking statues jutting from the upper stories. Lots of shadowy arches and ornate designs in the concrete. She thought the place dated back to the late 1800s.

  The stacks were so high you had to crane your neck to see the very top. She wanted to get the boys and go home.

  She pulled the Kia up to the edge of the lot. Beyond the lot was packed dirt. As she got out of the car, she saw their bikes lying on the ground. Regina ducked back in the Kia and grabbed a mini flashlight from the glove box.

  After popping on the beam, she approached the bikes, stepping over broken glass and a used condom. She really needed to rethink giving them so much freedom.

  “Tim! Brian! You here? You’re both in trouble!” she called.

  No response.

  Regina moved toward the entrance. Something went sploosh under her foot, the ground wet. She shined the beam on it.

  Please don’t let that be blood.

  There was no mistaking it, though. It was blood, and a trail of it led off into the weeds. She pushed herself to follow it, dreading what she’d find. It followed a zig-zag pattern into the weeds. The weeds themselves had been mashed down.

  Maybe it was an animal that had killed something and dragged it off. She tried to convince herself of that.

  She made her way into the weeds and spotted an old piece of rusting industrial equipment. A transformer or generator maybe. It was huge, the size of a van. The trail went around the piece of equipment. She would find the answer on the other side, but did she want to?

  She crept around the press, hands shaking. Regina looked down and screamed. Her legs barely able to keep her up, she ran from the weeds and tore her cell phone from her pocket.

  Maria got the call. Two bodies found at the abandoned power plant. She’d been halfway through sharing a bowl of popcorn with Tim, the two of them catching up on Game of Thrones. After getting the call, she kissed his salty lips, grabbed her badge and gun, and headed out.

  In the car, she dialed Martz. “Swing by and get you?”

  “I’ll wear my best dress.”

  She pulled into Jenna and Rachel’s place. Martz was waiting on the front steps. She wore jeans and a blue button down, untucked. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail.

  Martz got in the car and they headed to the powerhouse. Drove up the driveway, where Maria parked in the lot. A uniformed officer had his patrol car parked at the edge of the weeds that surrounded the property.

  “They should tear this place down,” Maria said.

  “Fire department won’t go in there anymore. Too unstable,” Martz said.

  The two of them noticed a silver Kia parked nearby. A woman stood nearby talking to another uniformed officer. Tears streamed down her face.

  Maria approached the uniform who was parked near the weeds and recognized him as Jared Handley. He was a stocky kid with angry red razor burn on his neck. On a clipboard, he held the log that kept track of all visitors to the crime scene.

  “Jared, how’s the ne
w baby?” Maria said.

  “Healthy and keeping me from sleeping,” Handley said.

  “As it should be,” Maria said.

  The two detectives signed in.

  Maria said, “What are we looking at?”

  “Mom over there has two boys out past curfew. She gets worried, comes here looking for them. She found them behind that old generator. It’s bad.”

  Maria saw where the weeds had been mashed down. “We’re going to have a look.”

  She stepped around the blood spatter and trampled weeds, heading toward the generator. They found someone from the crime lab photographing something that was shielded by the generator. Another tech was swabbing blood samples from the weeds.

  Maria took a deep breath. Kids were the worst. She’d responded to one call a few years back where a shithead named Myron Lafleur had set fire to his ex-wife’s house in the middle of the night. His wife had gotten out, but his two little girls had burned to death in the fire. Maria still couldn’t get the image of the two charred little bodies out of her head. The one kid’s stuffed teddy bear had fused to her body. She sincerely hoped Lafleur was getting ass-pounded on a daily basis by the Aryan Brotherhood in prison.

  “Ready?” Martz said. “I’m not.”

  “Let’s rip off the Band-Aid,” Maria said.

  They rounded the generator. Maria sucked in a deep breath. The boys were laid out side-by-side. Their shirts had been removed. Doll’s eyes staring up at the night sky. They’d both been cut open from throat to waist, their rib cages spread. Viscera exposed and glistening.

  Maria felt her gorge rise.

  Don’t puke. Don’t cry.

  Both their throats had been cut, as well.

  “Goddamned serial killer in our town,” Martz muttered.

  “Looks that way.”

  She guessed they had been killed and then dragged. Maria took a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and snapped them on. She knelt near the bodies. A raw stink came off of them. She lifted the closest boy’s wrist, inspecting for ligature marks. No sign. Didn’t look like they were bound.

  “I hope he did the worst after they were dead,” Martz said, crouching down.

  “If he didn’t bind them, not sure how he did all that cutting while they were alive. Suppose he could’ve drugged them somehow,” Maria said.

  They spent a while examining the area around the bodies. She didn’t find any totems or symbols. Nothing that would indicate a ritual.

  “Satanic?” Martz wondered aloud.

  “Those assholes usually leave behind pentagrams and other souvenirs.”

  “We’ll have to see if the ME finds evidence of sexual assault. This guy’s a real peach,” Martz said.

  She heard someone coming through the weeds. Looked over and saw Handley.

  “ME’s on the way,” Handley said.

  “You thinking pedophile? Assuming it’s the same guy, the jogger he killed was an adult,” Maria said.

  “They’re just missing shirts. Think he would’ve left them naked if that was his thing,” Martz said.

  Maria stepped away from the bodies, if only to give her nose a break from the stench. She heard vehicles approaching. Engines that cut out. She spotted another patrol car and the ME’s county-issue Ford.

  “We’ll get word out in town. Keep an eye on kids. Don’t go out alone. Although after this gets out, we won’t have to say much,” Maria said.

  “The chief will want to do a presser,” Martz said.

  They went over the scene, making notes and sketching diagrams. Dr. Henry Dumont, the ME approached. His tufts of white hair jutted at angles from his head. He wore a loose-fitting tan suit with loafers. He shook hands with both of them and went on to examine the bodies.

  When the ME gave the okay, the bodies were bagged up and loaded for transport to the morgue. She reflected that they didn’t take up much room on the gurneys. Didn’t want to think on that too much. Nor did she want to think what indignities their bodies would suffer on the ME’s table.

  A uniformed cop was still talking to Mom. Her shoulders shook and she sobbed. She watched the EMTs load up the physical remains of her sons. At that moment, she was glad she’d never had kids.

  They moved out of the weeds and Maria spotted the first news van pull up, an orange and blue monstrosity from Action Seven News. She didn’t want to deal with the press right now.

  “So I’m thinking we make the rounds at Horizon House,” Martz said.

  “It can’t hurt. Don’t think there’s any pedos in there right now, but we’ll stir things up,” Maria said.

  “You’d think the town council would’ve found a way to force a halfway house out of town by now.”

  “They mind their business, I suppose,” Maria said. “Mostly tweakers and junkies in there trying to worm back into society.”

  “Guess it’s time to talk to Mom,” Martz said.

  “I hate this part of the job.”

  “Me too,” Martz said.

  Regina saw the detectives approaching. They were both dressed casually, their badges hanging on lanyards around their necks. Even without the badges, there was no doubt they were cops. Had a look that said they’d seen it all and don’t fuck with them.

  They introduced themselves. She forgot their names within a few seconds of being introduced. This whole thing seemed like someone else’s life right now.

  “Mrs. Clark,” the dark-haired detective said. “I’m sorry for your loss. We need to ask you a few questions.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Can you walk us through what happened? When did you realize the boys were missing?”

  Regina ran through everything. How they were late. Texting them, then calling. Finally, she shared how she’d gotten in the car and driven to the power plant. Then there was finding them. By the time she was finished, fresh tears were streaming down her face again. One of the uniformed officers standing nearby offered her a travel-sized pack of tissues. She took one, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose.

  The blonde detective said, “Was there anyone you were worried about? Acting funny toward your kids?”

  The question dropped the temperature of her blood a few degrees. “I never considered that. God, that’s creepy. But no.”

  “Is the boys’ father living at home?” the blonde said.

  “What kind of question is that?” Regina asked.

  “We have to talk to everyone,” the dark-haired one said.

  “He died in an industrial accident two years ago, so I guess he’s not a suspect, right?”

  “We’re sorry for your loss,” the dark-haired detective said.

  “But you’ll check my story, won’t you?”

  Neither one of them said anything.

  “Again, we’re sorry,” blondie said.

  “I doubt that. If we’re done, I’d like to go home. I suppose I have to figure out arrangements,” Regina said.

  “We’ll be in touch with follow up questions,” blondie said.

  “Of course you will.”

  Regina drove home, although upon returning to the house, she couldn’t have told anyone which route she’d taken. This still felt like she was playing out some bizarre movie role. Things were hazy right now.

  Before she’d left, the cops had told her the autopsies would take a few days and then she could make arrangements. They would be closed caskets, she thought grimly. The thought of them laid out on the coroner’s table made her sick. Those tables had gutters on the sides to collect blood, didn’t they? Then were the bone saws. And they weighed the organs, didn’t they? Shit, she’d seen too many episodes of Criminal Minds.

  Were these the thoughts that would run through her head from now until she joined her dead sons? That would be torture. She didn’t know how she’d live with it.

  Did they suffer much?

  Did they call for me?

  What if I’d gone sooner to look for them?

  There was a bottle of Oxy up in the medicine cabinet left
from her husband’s back surgery. It was old, but there would still be some potency to the pills. Especially if she took a handful of them.

  They would go down nicely with vodka. There was a bottle of it in the cupboard where she kept liquor.

  That first glance of them had been the worst. Her brain hadn’t registered right away what had happened. The boys had looked like gruesome movie props. That was a movie she couldn’t allow to play in her head forever.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d thought of swallowing the pills. Ever since Dan had died, the thought had occurred to her on a weekly basis. But the boys had kept her going. Now they were gone, too.

  She went to the cupboard and grabbed the bottle of vodka. Took a pull off of it to prime the pump. She went upstairs, the horror show that had happened at the powerhouse rolling in her head. Thinking of the boys butchered like hogs.

  That was getting shut off. Permanently. The boys were all she had; now they were gone.

  In the bathroom, she grabbed the Oxy from the medicine cabinet. The small green bottle was filled nearly to the top. There were more than enough to do the job. Regina went to the bedroom and made the bed. She picked up her skirt and blouse from the floor and put them in the hamper. There was no need to bother with a note; people would figure it out easily enough.

  She sat on the bed and took another swig of vodka, the liquid scorching all the way down. Then she unscrewed the cap and popped three Oxy. Took a long pull of vodka.

  After waiting a few more minutes, she took more pills, washing them down with what her mother called “firewater.”

  Regina alternated pills and vodka for a bit. Then she fluffed her pillow, head swimming, and laid down.

  Five

  Hope had texted Chris: come on over. Her dad was on a business trip again. It was a great way to start a Sunday: the sky was clear and blue, and his girlfriend’s dad wasn’t home. He told his mother he was shooting over there and they were going for Subway. She didn’t question it.