Anatomy of Evil

by Brian Pinkerton

“Jamarqui?” said Gary.

  “Yes,” said Carol. “You yourself told us. He said not to go there because of evil spirits.”

  “That’s bullshit,” said Gary. “He made it up.”

  Sam shook his head and looked back across the calm ocean waters. “Did he?”

  As the fishing boat returned to the harbor, Jamarqui emerged from his small tin shed, eyes immediately drawn to the damage.

  As the passengers disembarked, he scrambled toward Gary.

  “Hey!” he barked. “Hey, what—what—what is this?”

  Taking his arm, Gary guided him to a secluded spot on the pier for a private conversation. “No worries. I’ll pay.” Gary pulled out his wallet, still wet, and began extracting bills with double digits. “This will cover repairs, it’s just some scratches and dents, I assure you…”

  “What happened?”

  “We experienced a freak storm…some kind of weather anomaly.”

  Jamarqui studied him with skeptical eyes. “Weather?”

  “Came and went in a flash.”

  “Did you stay on the plan?”

  “More or less.”

  “Did you go…” Jamarqui finished his statement with a stare.

  Gary bit his lip. “Possibly.”

  “Did I not warn you not to go?”

  “Something out there is not right.”

  “No, not right. That is why I told you to stay away…”

  “I didn’t understand then and I don’t understand now.”

  Jamarqui stepped closer. “Listen. Listen to me. Now I will give you a second warning. Do not talk about what you saw. Not to anyone. If you tell the others, there will be more danger. You didn’t believe me before. I ask that you believe me now. Forget about what you saw. Leave here. Forget it all like a dream.”

  Gary nodded. “Believe me, I want to.”

  Gary returned to the other three, who waited for him on the sand. He told them, “I need a drink.”

  “I think we all do,” said Rodney.

  They secured a private table in the hotel’s open café. Even Sam and Carol ordered strong drinks.

  “I still have tremors,” said Rodney.

  Carol looked at her surroundings, hugged herself and started to cry. Sam put an arm around her.

  “We’re going to be okay,” said Gary. “We’re safe.”

  After the drinks arrived, he told them about his conversation with Jamarqui. He shared the warning that they not discuss the experience of the red storm.

  “The last time we ignored his warning, look what happened. I don’t want a repeat. Let’s take an oath here, now, the four of us, that we just bury this experience, evil spirits, whatever the hell it was…” He looked into their faces. “That means we never mention it to anyone, not on the island, not to our spouses. Starting today, consider me superstitious, consider me scared…”

  He grew silent. Then Sam spoke up to the group. “I’m going to pray for us,” he said. “I recommend all of you do the same.”

  Chapter Ten

  On the ride back to the island’s small airport, the seven Chicagoans sat on the wood benches in the back of the pickup truck, a study in contrasts. Kelly, Emma and Jake engaged in lively chatter, reflecting on highlights of the past week and the consistently flawless weather. Rodney, Gary, Sam and Carol sat in silence, faces stoic, emotions cold.

  Emma attempted to engage with her husband, offering him lotion, commenting on the unusual orange tan spread across his arms and face. He shook her off.

  “You coming down with something?” she asked.

  He shrugged.

  “It’s probably the ice cubes from our drinks,” said Jake. “I bet that’s what got me sick. It’s not like they are going to use bottled water for ice cubes.”

  “My stomach’s fine,” said Gary in a firm tone that cut off any further discussion about his condition.

  Arriving at the airport, the passengers began climbing out of the pickup truck. An airport worker loaded their luggage on carts.

  Emma waited in the truck for several minutes before crying out, “Gary, you know I can’t do this by myself.”

  Wordlessly, Gary returned to the pickup truck and thrust his hand at her. She clasped it, leaned on him and delicately descended the stepstool, her face tight with pain.

  Once her feet reached the ground, Gary abruptly let go. She nearly lost her balance. He turned and headed to the main building.

  The driver stood by his vehicle, smiling and wishing the travelers a safe ride home. Sam stopped and stared at the man. An awkward moment passed before Sam wordlessly continued on his way.

  Seeing this, Kelly approached the driver and thanked him, semi-apologizing for the chilly behavior of some of the others. “It’s been a great trip. We’re just very tired.” She gave the driver a ten dollar tip.

  As Carol and Jake reached the entrance to the airport building, a thin, dark-skinned island man and his young son greeted them. The man carried a large piece of cardboard populated with a variety of dusty, out-of-fashion sunglasses. “One dollar,” he said. “Sunglasses, one dollar.”

  “One dollar,” echoed the small boy, smiling, eyes bright, face weathered beyond his young years.

  Carol looked at them both and responded, immediate and firm.

  “No.”

  Jake turned to look at his wife, surprised. Without slowing her stride, she entered the building.

  Inside Cassidy International Airport, the small staff immediately stepped forward to assist the travelers. As the group prepared to go through paperwork and passports, the sunglasses salesman and his son entered the building and continued soliciting potential customers.

  “Get away from us,” Gary told them in a harsh tone. “Those sunglasses were probably stolen from tourists on the beach.”

  “Gary!” said Emma in a disapproving tone.

  A large islander wearing a blue security shirt stepped forward and waved for the old man and his son to leave. “Go! Go! Get out!”

  The old man responded with a rapid fire of words in the local language. The security man shouted back at him, also in Gilbertese.

  An argument broke out and the security guard quickly lost his patience. He grabbed the cardboard out of the old man’s hands and tossed it away, sending sunglasses scattering across the floor. The elderly man’s shouts grew louder and the boy joined in, high-pitched and panicked.

  The confrontation quickly escalated with the security man pushing the old man and his son out of the building. The old man attempted to resist, arms stretched out, slapping at the security man, demanding to return inside for the sunglasses.

  Through the open doorway, several of the travelers witnessed the security man strike the old man, knocking him down. The old man’s son burst into tears and cried out, “Papa!”

  “Oh my God,” said Kelly, heading toward the door. “Rodney—you have to do something.”

  Rodney grabbed her arm.

  “No,” he said. “Stay out of it.”

  She whirled to look into his eyes. “What?”

  “I mean it,” said Rodney.

  Gary called out to the group. “C’mon, let’s not miss our flight.”

  They boarded the small plane for Honolulu.

  Nestling into their seats, many of the passengers shut their eyes for sleep, drowsy from the early hour.

  Carol pulled out her cell phone and called up her email.

  Jake, sitting next to her, gave her a gentle nudge. “Honey, let it rest until we get back. Don’t start now, save it for home.”

  She began working the keyboard frantically.

  “Your boss will understand,” said Jake, leaning toward his wife. “What could be so important that…”

  Then he glimpsed her screen.

  Carol was deleting all of her emails, one by
one.

  “Honey…” said Jake, shocked. “I don’t think you want to do that.”

  She continued the systematic deletion of every email.

  Jake watched as she deleted, unread, a message from one of their sons.

  “Hey!” he said, and he reached over for the phone. “What are you, delirious?”

  She gave him a sharp elbow jab and he retreated.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  In the row behind them, Sam made his first sound in more than an hour. He started laughing.

  At Honolulu International Airport, during the wait for their connecting flight to Chicago, the group found a sit-down restaurant at the food court and filled a table to order lunch.

  “As much as I like fish, I am looking forward to a good old-fashioned American hamburger,” said Jake.

  Gary began snapping his fingers for a waitress.

  “Gary, that’s rude,” said Emma, annoyed. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “I’m hungry and I want one of these bimbos to take our order.”

  His words were loud enough to reach one of the young waitresses, a pretty Hawaiian woman with long, sleek dark hair. She advanced to the table with a look of trepidation. She forced a smile. “Are you ready to order?”

  “Honey,” said Gary, “what I want is not on the menu.”

  Jake shut his eyes and shook his head in disbelief.

  “Let me apologize for my husband,” said Emma. “Too much time in the sun, I think it baked his brain.”

  “No problem,” said the waitress, with a small, nervous laugh.

  Gary straightened up in his chair. His eyes locked on another waitress at a nearby table, taller with a shapely figure. “Can we switch? I kind of like that one.”

  Kelly turned to Emma. “Do we need to kick him under the table?”

  “You’re being an asshole,” Emma told Gary. “It’s not funny.”

  Then Sam began laughing.

  After ordering, Gary watched as the taller waitress walked the aisle near them. He picked up a fork and gave it a casual toss to the floor in front of her.

  “Oops,” he said.

  She stopped and bent down to pick it up.

  Gary’s eyes lingered on her rear end as she doubled over, making his intentions obvious to everyone at the table.

  Emma stared at him, aghast.

  “I’ll get you a new one,” the waitress told Gary, naïve to what had just happened.

  “Thank you, sweetheart,” he replied.

  “How long before we eat?” mumbled Carol. “I’m starving.”

  Rodney reached into his pocket. He brought out a selection of candy and offered it to her. Carol chose a Snickers bar.

  “Where did you get that?” asked Kelly.

  Rodney gestured across the food court to a newsstand.

  “When did you buy candy?” she said, surprised.

  “I didn’t,” replied Rodney, tearing open a bag of M&Ms.

  She looked him over. “Wait. What?”

  He looked at her, shrugged and smiled.

  “Oh, you just took it?” Kelly half-smiled, as if entering a joke.

  Rodney did not smile back. “I’m a police officer. I serve society. Society owes me a few things in return.”

  She turned serious. “But you can’t just—”

  Rodney ignored her. He turned his attention across the table. “Sam, care for some Raisinets?”

  “Yes, please.” Sam took a small bag, tore it open and spilled them across his placemat. He began eating them one by one.

  After lunch, the group headed for the terminal and boarded the flight to Chicago to continue the long trip home, fatigued and brewing with growing tensions.

  As the plane took off, Jake began to mutter about the loss of his camera.

  “We had so many great pictures,” he said to Carol. “I don’t see how you could’ve just let it fall overboard on that fishing trip. Didn’t you have it looped around your neck? I always had it around my neck, or at least around my wrist. That was a high-end camera, we had pictures going back months. I don’t think I downloaded the ones from Michael’s track meet or Todd’s prom pictures. We probably lost a hundred, a hundred twenty-five pictures. It’s not just about the camera, it’s the memories. I had all those fun photos from the luau…”

  Carol turned to him and spoke in a booming voice loud enough to fill the aircraft. “WOULD YOU JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT THE CAMERA?”

  After an extended, awkward hush, a single sound broke the silence.

  Sam was laughing.

  At the end of a very long day, the seven travelers stood disheveled and tired along the rim of a crowded baggage carousel at O’Hare International Airport. Piece by piece, they identified their luggage and lifted the belongings up and across the maze of obstacles to safely bring them to their side.

  After Rodney and Kelly had retrieved their suitcases, Rodney remained standing very still, staring hypnotically at the revolving stream of baggage.

  “What are you looking at?” asked Kelly. “Let’s go.”

  Rodney’s eyes followed a specific item that moved in a wide arc, passing throngs of travelers, unclaimed.

  “I bet I could just take it,” he said.

  “Take what?”

  “Those golf clubs. That’s the fifth time they’ve gone around. Whoever they belong to…they’re not here. I could go over, take them, and we could be out of here in minutes.”

  “Okay…” she said, looking at him strangely. “But why?”

  “Because they’re nice clubs,” said Rodney. “Because I could.”

  Suddenly a woman nearby let out a shriek, followed by an angry shout. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  On the other side of the baggage carousel, an attractive middle-aged woman in a blue business suit and black stockings faced Gary, staring him down. Emma came hurrying over, limping and dragging a heavy suitcase.

  “I did not,” said Gary clearly.

  “You did too,” said the woman. “You grabbed my ass. You keep your hands to yourself or I’m calling security.”

  “Gary!” said Emma, reaching him, dumbstruck. “What are you doing? Why did you walk away? What the hell is going on?”

  “Nothing,” said Gary. “Just some crazy bitch making up shit.”

  The business woman opened her mouth, shocked, and simply let out a disgusted gasp. She stormed off, dragging her suitcase, wheels squeaking loudly across the floor.

  Elsewhere in the crowded baggage claim area, Sam walked purposefully through the crowd, cutting a deliberate path to a destination, eyes steady and focused forward.

  He walked up to a gray-haired clergyman, dressed in black shirt and pants with a white collar. The priest was engaged in a deep conversation with two young people. Sam interrupted him, standing inches away, staring directly into his face. He uttered a firm declaration.

  “There is no God.”

  Part Three

  The Bleeding

  Chapter Eleven

  “Good morning, sunshine.”

  Carol’s eyes opened, thin slits overpowered by the light. Jake stood over her at the side of the bed. She stared at him, stretching under the sheets.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded and slowly sat up, rubbing her face.

  “It’s going to take a few days to get used to the time change,” he said. He kissed her on the cheek and left the room.

  She rejoined him in the kitchen, where the boys were digging into heaping bowls of cereal.

  “I decided to make us omelets,” said Jake, standing over the stove.

  “Thanks,” mumbled Carol.

  “I think what we needed was a good night’s sleep in our own bed,” said Jake, pouring eggs into a skillet. “It’ll be good getting back into ou
r routine.” He chuckled. “You were pretty cranky yesterday.”

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  Michael, one of the teenage boys, chortled. “No way. I’ve never seen Mom cranky.”

  “She swore,” said Jake.

  “Dad, you lie,” said Michael’s younger brother, Todd.

  The boys finished their cereal, placed the bowls in the sink and headed upstairs in loud, thudding footsteps to prepare for school.

  Carol remained quiet.

  Jake walked over and spoke in a low voice, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tease you. It was just a different side of you. But I understand. I’m guessing… You’re having your period, right?”

  An hour and a half later, Carol sat in her car in the parking lot of InvestOne. She had been listening to her Empowerment for Good motivational CD during the commute, but as she approached the office building, the disc started to skip. Now it was stuck in a mad shuffle, a sound collage of syllables producing gibberish.

  The noise transfixed her, a steady rhythm of “crshm…crshm…crshm…”

  Then she heard: “Crush them… Crush them… Crush them… Crush them.”

  Carol left her car. She advanced inside the building, receiving a cheery greeting from Syd, the guard at the front lobby.

  “Welcome back, Ms. Henning,” he said.

  She stared at him for a moment, swimming for a response until the old, familiar automatic pilot kicked in.

  “Thank you. How are the Cubs doing?”

  Syd chuckled. “Not so good. But it’s early in the season. Plenty of time to get it together and make a run for first place. It’s a weak division this year.”

  She stepped into an open elevator, where she exchanged pleasantries with coworkers. As the elevator climbed, she experienced a brief bout of dizziness with small sparks appearing before her eyes. She shook them away.

  On the fourth floor, she stopped by her boss’s office on her way to her cubicle.

  “Good morning, Diane,” said Carol, pushing up her energy levels. “I’m back. It was a wonderful trip.”

  Diane looked up from her desk, eyes filled with a familiar look of panic, fingers tense like claws.

  “Great. Love to hear all about it. Later. Now. Listen. I need your help with something right away. I’m totally swamped. We have a job candidate coming in. She might already be here. I’m supposed to interview her but I just don’t have the time. I need you to cover for me.”