Anatomy of Evil

by Brian Pinkerton

  In the chaos, Kelly picked up Christina and ran from the kitchen. She hurried down a corridor and into the bathroom. Inside the bathroom, she locked the door. She heard an immediate hammering on the other side. “You don’t have a chance, Kelly!” thundered Rodney.

  Kelly tried opening the window. The latch had been painted over a long time ago, sealing it in place.

  Rodney’s hammering grew fiercer. Christina cried, covering her ears. Kelly set the child down on the floor. “Stand back, honey,” she said. Kelly lifted the porcelain lid off the toilet tank. She threw it into the window, shattering it.

  Kelly grabbed the small bathroom rug from the floor and draped it across the bottom of the broken window. She lifted Christina and gently dropped her into some bushes. Then she jumped out of the window, landing alongside her daughter.

  She scrambled to her feet and picked up Christina. She knew that if she made it to the cornfields, she could lose them. She knew the various, mazelike passages from childhood. She knew the way to the neighbor’s house, the Baileys. The Baileys were fishing and hunting enthusiasts. They had guns.

  Kelly ran across her parents’ lawn, carrying her daughter. She heard a crazy burst of laughter. Looking behind her, she saw Gary racing to catch up.

  Kelly kept running, but she was no match for the former football star.

  He tackled her and they fell together, tumbling on the lawn. Christina landed in the tall grass.

  “He brings her down at the 30-yard line!” shouted Gary with glee. “First down, Chicago!” He advanced on Kelly and punched her across the face. “Unnecessary roughness! But the refs are going to let it go!”

  He held out his fist for one more punch, and then Rodney yelled out, “Stop!”

  Gary sat up. “Did you see that tackle?”

  Rodney walked over to Kelly in a slow, purposeful stride. Her nose bled into her mouth. She started crawling through the tall grass, trying to reach Christina, who was still crying from the sudden fall to the ground.

  Rodney aimed his gun at them. “I could kill you both right now and feel not the slightest remorse. You might call it evil. I call it freedom. Freedom from guilt, shame, morals and decency. To me, it’s just getting rid of a distraction so I can get on with my business. Gary and I, we have a football game to get to.”

  Rodney stared down at his wife and child. He aimed the gun at one, then the other. Then he lowered the gun.

  “This is so easy, it’s just not fun,” he said. “And if it’s not fun, it’s not worth doing. I have a better idea.”

  Rodney stepped closer to Kelly, blocking her path to Christina. Kelly stopped crawling and looked up at him.

  “Kelly, sweetheart,” said Rodney. “Do you remember how you told me I work too hard? You said I spend too much time on the job. You said we don’t do enough as a family. I’m beginning to think you’re right. After all, the family is sacred. That’s what we’re taught, anyway. So here’s my idea. Let’s have a family night out, tonight. Let’s go to the ballgame! You, me, Christina and our good pal Gary. It’s going to be a historic event. You wouldn’t want to miss it. Family night at the football game! What do you say? We’ll have great seats…to catch all the action.”

  “Please…” said Kelly, shuddering.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” said Rodney. He turned to Gary. “Bring out the truck.”

  Gary looked at him. “But…there’s only room for the two of us in the front.”

  Rodney said, “That’s fine. Because we’re going to make this really special.” Rodney faced his wife and daughter. “Because you two get the VIP seats. You get to ride in the back…with the bomb.”

  Kelly sunk back into the grass, letting out a loud cry.

  “We’re leaving now,” said Rodney. “Stop your crying. It’s embarrassing. This is going to be fun for the whole family. What’s the matter, you don’t like football? That won’t matter. Tonight, there’s an added attraction. You’re going to love the fireworks show.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Emma lay on the cold kitchen floor in a small pool of her own warm blood, limp with eyes closed, listening.

  She knew others were dead around her.

  She prayed she was presumed dead by the killers who overtook the farmhouse. Killers that included her husband.

  After the explosion of violence and chaos, the kitchen had gone quiet. She heard voices outside but no longer coming from inside the house.

  Emma’s shoulder burned from the bullet fired from Rodney’s gun. Her hip stung with fresh agony, aggravated by the fall to the floor.

  Emma forced back the pain. She made the decision to take a peek.

  Emma opened her eyes.

  She faced Jake. Jake lay dead on the floor in front of her with a knife stuck in his chest. Emma had to stop herself from screaming.

  Carol’s body was stretched out nearby. One of her arms was draped across her husband, probably unintentionally, but strangely affectionate.

  Reunited in death.

  Emma slowly sat up. She gasped through the pain and clutched a hand over her wound. Her heavy breathing created the only sounds in the room.

  Outside, a car engine started up. Emma moved toward a window and cautiously peered through the curtains.

  She saw Gary driving the Gary’s Game Day van down the gravel driveway and toward the road. Rodney sat with him in the front seat.

  She knew their destination from the maps and blueprints discovered on the kitchen table: Chicago’s football stadium, mere hours away.

  Emma could picture her husband’s easy entry into the loading dock beneath the stadium. He was a local sports celebrity, guaranteed a quick pass through security. All he had to do was announce he was delivering merchandise.

  Then, before a national television audience, Gary and Rodney would detonate a bomb in the midst of 60,000 people, sucking them into a permanent, gaping portal to hell, changing them and the world forever.

  Emma watched the van reach the road. She realized she was probably the lone survivor of her group. She knew she couldn’t allow the van to reach Chicago.

  She staggered out of the kitchen, leaving a trail of dripping blood. She fought back the tears and horrible pain that lit up her body.

  Emma exited the farmhouse. She nearly fell down the front porch steps. She quickened her pace, hobbling toward the large cornfield.

  In the tall grass, she rediscovered Kelly’s dead parents, flies buzzing around their corpses. She averted her eyes. She advanced through the rows of soybeans, searching for an opening in the corn. She found it and entered the path that had brought her to the farmhouse.

  Emma maneuvered through the corn stalks. They towered over her, creating a claustrophobic, disorienting maze. She tried to run, cursing at the pain and numbness that slowed her down.

  When she reached a split in the path, she shouted out in dismay. She couldn’t remember the way that led back to her car. The two choices looked identical.

  She knew she had a 50/50 chance to be right or become horribly lost and perhaps pass out to die in the crops.

  Emma made her choice and kept going. She crunched through the path. She heard her own panting grow louder in her ears. The gray clouds above painted a stark, unchanging ceiling, providing no points of navigation.

  Emma found herself praying repeatedly to the rhythm of her footsteps. “Please God, please God, please God…”

  Then colors appeared ahead, a sudden break in the continuous blur of yellow stalks. An opening.

  Emma emerged from the cornfield, still clutching her bleeding shoulder and let out a small cry of victory.

  The SUV sat parked where they had left it on the side of the road.

  Emma dug the keys out of her pocket. She reached the driver’s side of the vehicle.

  “Stop!” shouted a voice, shattering the silence.
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br />   Emma looked up from the car door and saw the crazed “border patrol” boy with the shaved head running toward her. Stripes of blood covered his face from Jake’s assault with the tire iron. He was moving in groggy but aggressive steps, eyes fierce and mad, awoken from his unconsciousness with a singular mission to stop her.

  Emma’s hands trembled as she worked the key to pop open the car door. She climbed in and slammed the door shut, immediately securing the locks.

  The boy stood in the road. He started screaming at her. Most of it sounded like gibberish, a delirious rant invoking the name of Satan.

  Emma started up the engine. She placed the SUV into gear. She wrapped her blood-sticky fingers on the wheel.

  She slammed her foot on the accelerator.

  The boy gave chase to the vehicle. He tried to stop her by running into her path.

  It did nothing to slow her momentum.

  Emma plowed forward, watching as the front grill struck the boy’s body with so much force that his head nearly snapped off. She saw his bug-eyed expression and gaping mouth and then he disappeared under the car, producing a pair of violent, jolting bumps under the wheels.

  She sped forward, avoiding a look in the rearview mirror.

  Dizzy sparks began to dance in her vision. She blinked them away and took deep breaths to regain her focus.

  She pressed harder on the accelerator. The open country roads produced little traffic, allowing her to send the needle into 70 miles per hour and beyond. She felt confident Gary was not speeding because it would draw attention. Surely the last thing he wanted was getting pulled over with his current cargo.

  As the road climbed and began to curve, she entered a temporary blind spot, unable to see ahead. When the view returned, she found herself charging directly at a large yellow tractor chugging across her path.

  Emma slammed the brakes to avoid a collision. The momentum of her speeding caused her to spin out, narrowly missing the tractor’s large back wheels. The SUV left the road in a cloud of dust, tearing through the tall weeds before crunching against a low wire fence.

  Emma took a moment to catch her breath.

  The tractor hissed to a stop. A man in overalls hopped out, alarmed and rushing to help.

  “Ma’am!” he called out. “Are you okay?”

  Emma waved at him with a bloodied hand and responded, “No problem! Sorry! I’m good!”

  “Ma’am, you’re bleeding!” he exclaimed.

  He continued his approach, eager to help, but she was already done with him. She backed the SUV up, pulling a chunk of fence with her for several yards before it snapped free. She returned the car to the pavement. The farmer stood at the side of the road and watched her in stunned silence, hands at his sides.

  Emma waved once more and took off.

  She climbed the needle back to 70 miles per hour. Then 80.

  The narrow road gained additional lanes on either side and she realized she was hurtling toward a small downtown area.

  Additional vehicles appeared on the road, moving in both directions, forcing her to slow down to prevent an accident.

  Then she spotted Gary’s van.

  Up ahead, the white van advanced toward town. A roadside sign announced a connection to the main highway just one mile ahead.

  Emma knew she could not afford to let the van reach the highway. The highway led to Chicago, and she would quickly lose them in the busier, faster traffic.

  Emma sped up to get closer to the van.

  As the van approached the small town’s Main Street, Gary slowed down, staying within the speed limit.

  Emma used this to her advantage, quickly gaining on the van, passing several vehicles between them.

  Within 15 seconds, she was directly behind Gary’s van. There was no oncoming traffic on the other side of the road. She accelerated and pulled even with Gary and Rodney.

  Emma could see Gary’s face, stoic and determined, looking ahead. Rodney was a shadow beside him.

  Seeing her husband triggered an explosion of recent memories—the cruelty, the blatant affairs, the cold disdain and the brutal violence she had suffered since returning from vacation.

  Adrenaline surged through her body. She became dizzy again. This time the sparks before her eyes threatened to take away her vision entirely. She realized the blood loss was catching up with her, a slow but steady drain of her life into liquid, soaked into her lap and the car seat.

  Gary turned his head. He saw the SUV running parallel with his van. He stared straight at Emma and his face lit up with recognition.

  Emma gave him the finger. “Fuck you,” she said.

  Then she pressed the gas pedal to the floor, accelerated ahead of the van and swerved directly in front of him.

  The two vehicles converged in a powerful crash. They spilled into the main portion of downtown. Fused together, the van and SUV spun in violent circles, plowing into parked cars, creating bursts of broken glass and a trail of twisted metal and chunks of plastic. Their momentum carried the collision onto the sidewalk and into the front window of an ice cream shop, shattering it, setting loose a stream of screaming patrons.

  Emma’s view of the crash resembled a filmstrip in fast motion, furiously panning across an assortment of barely glimpsed images, her vision clouded with a rapid growth of shooting debris, losing all sense of grounding as the world spun upside down and inside out and then disappeared into the deepest and darkest black.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The wreckage from the collision blended the two vehicles into a single, smoldering heap. The SUV had been crushed to half its original size, while the front end of the van had been pulverized to almost nonexistence. Pedestrians approached the scene from various directions, emerging from shops and small offices. Oncoming cars pulled over to the side of the road. A shocked stillness hung in the air. Several ice cream shop patrons suffered cuts from flying glass but no one had been struck or run over. The crashed vehicles sat on the sidewalk alongside the shattered picture window that moments ago displayed the latest new flavors in big, colorful letters.

  The two doors at the rear of the white van had been broken out of alignment, one riding higher than the other, with a thin split between them.

  A sudden, metallic thud sounded at the rear doors, followed by another. A tall man in a sports jacket from a nearby real estate office stepped forward from the group of onlookers to exclaim, “Someone’s trapped in there!” He approached the back of the van and grabbed a handle. He tugged hard until the door opened with a loud, scraping creak.

  A woman and child stared back at him.

  The handsome man in the sports jacket offered his hand. Kelly handed him Christina. He carried her out of the van. Kelly climbed out, bruised but unbroken, joined by a spill of small, plastic footballs to the pavement. The thousands of little footballs packed in cardboard boxes had provided a cushion from the impact of the crash.

  Kelly took several steps, then turned to look back at the wreckage. Emma’s limp arm stuck out of the twisted metal. Kelly’s eyes followed the arm into the flattened front seat of the SUV. She looked away when she witnessed the crushed body. A sob escaped from her throat.

  Kelly continued stepping away from the crash and heard a growing buzz in the crowd around her: panicked voices, followed by a series of shouts and then some screams… Something about a “head.”

  Then she saw it.

  Gary had been decapitated in the collision. His head sat on the pavement, directly below his grinning, cartoon head decorating the side of the van.

  Gary’s Game Day was over.

  “Ma’am…” The realtor in the sports jacket stepped up to her, carrying Christina. “Your daughter appears to be okay, but we need to get both of you to a hospital. My car is right here. Let me drive you. You’re probably in shock. You shouldn’t look at the accident. Come with me. M
a’am…”

  “The bomb,” said Kelly.

  The man stared at her. “Excuse me?”

  “There’s a bomb,” said Kelly, dazed from the crash but still focused on the warhead that remained in the back of the van, buried under blankets and boxes of toy footballs.

  “Bomb?” said the man, not understanding.

  At that moment, a gunshot rang out. The crowd erupted into screams, scattering in all directions.

  Kelly immediately realized the source of the gunfire: Rodney.

  Rodney, badly bloodied but alive, vigorously fought to extract himself from the van wreckage. One arm was loose, aiming his police gun at his wife.

  “Oh my God, he’s shooting at us,” said the man in the sports jacket. “Come with me!” Carrying Christina, he hurried across the street to his parked Mazda. Kelly followed close behind. Another shot rang out, striking the pavement near Kelly’s feet.

  The realtor unlocked his car and thrust Christina into the back seat. “Sweetheart, keep your head down. Stay low to the floor. Lie down.”

  Christine’s eyes stared up at him, wide in confusion.

  “It’s okay, honey,” said Kelly, looking in at her.

  Another shot rang out. The man in the sports jacket crumpled to the ground. A growing red stain appeared across his back. His face tightened in a grimace and then he became very still.

  Kelly screamed.

  A bullet shattered one of the side windows on the Mazda.

  Kelly fell to her knees next to the dead man. She grabbed his hand and extracted the car keys from his stiff, clutching grip.

  Another gunshot rang out as Kelly climbed behind the wheel. She started up the Mazda and immediately threw it into gear. She accelerated away from the scene, swerving around the people and stopped cars in her path.

  A final bullet blew out the back window. Kelly screamed and looked back at Christina to see if she had been hit. Christina remained huddled on the floor, safe.

  Kelly sped away, crying.

  Rodney took one final aim at the departing car and squeezed the trigger.