by J. L. Murray
“I guess you'll do. There are killers out there.”
“That there are. Where you headed?”
“I don't know,” I said. “Maybe east.”
“You don't know where you're going?”
“I'm waiting for a sign.”
“I'll give you a ride,” he said. “I'm going to New York in the morning. I've got a shitty Civic, so it's not the lap of luxury or anything.”
“But,” I said, motioning around the motel room, “I've grown accustomed to such finery.”
“Buck up, princess,” he said. “I'll treat you like a queen.”
I don't remember falling asleep, but it was still dark when my eyes flew open, my heart beating fast. I looked around the room, getting my bearings, my eyes moving to Dekker. He was deep in an alcohol-induced sleep. I wondered if he'd even remember me in the morning. I inched out of bed and went into the bathroom, relieving myself and then drinking straight out of the faucet. I caught my reflection in the mirror and turned away. I was about to get back into bed when I heard it.
“Frankie,” came the whisper, so familiar that it hurt.
“No,” I said. “Not again. Just let me sleep.”
“Frankie,” it came again, loud and close and inside my head. “Frankie come outside. Come, come, come. Come out, Frankie Mourning and get your redemption.”
I slipped my jeans on in the dark. I couldn't find my shirt, so I pulled on Tommy's followed by my coat and boots. I left the door ajar, peeking another look at Tommy as I slipped out.
It was a clear night, but the stars were just out of view, the city illuminating the sky with a dirty light. I pulled out a Camel and lit it, walking around the corner of the motel. A raven squawked as it landed on a rusty pickup truck. It watched me out of one beady eye as I passed. The wraiths liked dark places, so I needed to find the shadows, even in a shady, sleazy place like this.
“Hey,” I said, walking behind the motel. There was an empty lot, surrounded with a barbed wire fence, my boots crunching on gravel. “Where are you, you creepy shit?”
“That's not very nice, nice, nice,” said a voice in my head. I spun and it was crouching in front of me, seeming to bleed into the shadows. I took a drag of my cigarette and blew out smoke.
“I was sleeping,” I said. “I haven't slept in days.”
“Maybe you don't deserve to sleep,” it said. This one's voice wasn't male or female, though most times it was usually one or the other. They liked to sneak up on you when your back was turned. As far as I could tell, it was a different one every time, though having never seen their faces, I couldn't have said for sure. I called them wraiths, but I didn't think they really had names. The raven watched us from atop the barbed wire, cocking its strange little head in the semi-darkness.
The wraith crouching in front of me was covered head to toe in a hooded cloak that seemed a part of its body. The edges were indiscernible, as if it could melt into the darkness at any moment. I couldn't see its face, either, the space under the hood unnaturally dark. I sometimes wondered if there would even be anything there if I ripped the cloak off. I also wondered if the wraiths were really there. Maybe I was just imagining all this. It was a pretty thought.
But I touched the Y-shaped scar that wound its way down my breastbone and I remembered the first night I woke up. I was pretty sure I wasn't making all this up, because if anything was real, it was pain. And those first days had been nothing but agony.
“Stop staring at me,” I said. “What do you want?”
“Touchy,” it said, voice echoing in my skull. “Seems I pulled you from lover's bliss, bliss, bliss.”
“Fuck you.”
The raven squawked, as if in agreement.
“You can't keep him, Frankie. You're not exactly girlfriend material.”
“I'm not trying to keep him, asshole. Now tell me what you want.”
“It's what you want, Frankie. Redemption, remember? It's why you're alive. Mostly, mostly alive.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. I dropped my cigarette onto the gravel and ground it out with the toe of my boot. “Yeah, I know. You creeps remind me every time. So where are you sending me?”
“We need you to do something a little different,” said the wraith. “Something a little outside of your pay grade, grade, grade.”
“I don't get paid.”
“That's not true. You're working toward a goal.”
“Yeah, like a company store,” I said. “With no indication of how long I have to do this or how many it's going to take to be done.”
“Even if you're never done,” said the wraith, “it's a better deal than where you'd be headed if we let you stay dead, stay dead.”
“Says you,” I said. “So what's this next job? And what do you mean, something different? Worse than a killer? Because that last guy killed a whole lot of hookers. It's worse than that?”
“You'll think it's worse.”
“Just tell me what the job is then, Morticia,” I said. “Or we could stand around yapping all night.”
“You have to go home,” it said.
“Home?” I said. “I don't have a home, I'm fucking dead.”
“You had one once,” said the wraith. “Your best place, and your worst place. All those trees and fresh air scrambling your brains. Where it all happened. The beginning of the end, end, end.”
“Oh, no,” I said, bile rising in my throat. “I'm not going back there.”
“You are,” it said. “You must.”
“I died, remember? Someone will recognize me.”
“You left ten years ago and your family never left their mountain. No one will know you.”
“I went to school.”
“Have a lot of friends, friends there? Besides, we know you only attended school for a few months. Before, before, before.”
I glared at the wraith. “Don't do this. Pick someone else. You must have other people doing this besides me. Anyone else.”
“You're the only one, one, one,” said the wraith. “Boss's orders.”
“Tell the boss to fuck off.”
“You don't mean that, Frankie.”
I looked away from the wraith, trying to slow my heart.
“I can't go back there,” I said. “Hellville is cursed.”
“Helmsville,” corrected the wraith. “Rugged country. It's beautiful there, isn't it?”
“I can't go back to that place,” I said. “Please don't make me do this.”
“It's already decided,” said the wraith. “And Frankie, Frankie, Frankie?”
“What?”
“Helmsville, Montana isn't cursed. You are.”
The cloaked figure seemed to spin in front of me, and with a sound like sheets on a clothesline, the wraith was gone. And I was alone, but for the raven. I stared at the bird for a few seconds, waiting for it to screech at me. But even the bird was silent, and after a moment, it rose into the air with a flap of wings and disappeared into the darkness.
“Quitter,” I said.
Dekker was still sleeping when I slowly pushed the door open and slipped into the room. He was snoring softly, his wide chest rising and falling. I found his keys in his pants pocket. Feeling around, I found his thick wallet. I wasn't going to look at him. If I didn't look at him, I'd be fine. If I didn't look at him, I could keep on breathing. I turned to go.
Dekker snorted loudly and I froze. I turned slowly to look at him. His eyes fluttered and I felt my heart in my throat. I didn't know why I was so nervous. He was just a roof over my head. He was a bar tab and entertainment for the night. What did I care if he caught me? But I stared at Dekker's face, stock still in the dark. And I breathed again when he started snoring again.
I backed away, watching his face. He was just a guy, and a weird one at that. He was probably a shit when he wasn't drinking. Maybe he had a wife and kids. Maybe he kicked puppies for fun. But I recognized the feeling in my chest. It wasn't love or lust or anger. It was that feeling I got when what-might-
have-been slipped out of my grasp. I'd had a lot of might-have-beens in my life. For the most part, I didn't think about them. Even when they were staring me in the face, I put them out of my mind.
I shouldn't have looked at him.
“I'm sorry,” I whispered. “I'm really sorry.
Dekker's Honda was being guarded when I found it. Three ravens sat on the hood, blinking at me.
“Come on,” I said. “I don't have a choice.”
The birds flew up onto the low-hanging roof of the motel, still staring at me. I was used to the birds. They were always there. Sometimes they were the only ones I talked to for days. I turned my back on them and got into the car.
The car started nice and quiet and barely made a sound as I pulled out onto the highway. When I flipped on the headlights, the ravens were gone. I was so exhausted my bones hurt. I pulled out his wallet, my stomach churning as I looked at it. I blew air out and opened it. I'd need money. I knew he had some, he'd been buying my drinks in cash all night. I wouldn't use his credit cards, it was the least I could do. He'd have them canceled by morning anyway.
Why had I given Dekker my real name? I didn't understand it. Usually I picked something out of the air. Sally McGrady. Antoinette Carter. I'd even used Rita Hayworth once and no one batted an eye. But I'd given him my name, the name I'd been born with. The name I died with. It was dangerous. I was being risky and I wasn't sure why.
I kept my eyes on the road, glancing down at the wallet by the light of the headlights behind me. At first I didn't know what I was seeing. Then I couldn't believe it was real.
“Holy shit,” I said. “Shit, shit, shit.” Repetitive as a wraith. I threw the wallet away from me, like it was a cockroach, but it fell open on the passenger seat. As a semi truck passed me, I chanced another look at it, as it gleamed in the lights cutting through the night.
It was a badge. A silver badge shaped like a star, the words Chicago Police etched into the metal. And across the top, the word Detective.
“Shit!”
The wraith was right. I was cursed.
chapter two
T
he way my sister died is this: I set her on fire and watched her burn. It wasn't as simple as the cops made it out to be, but it's true. I killed her and I wasn't sorry. Just like I killed the seven other bastards afterward, in what the newspapers called an “orgy of death.” There was no orgy. They all had it coming and I didn't enjoy it. But the district attorney didn't see it that way and neither did the jury.
So when I found myself strapped to a table with a needle in my arm and a crowd of people looking on, that should have been the end. To be honest, I was relieved. I closed my eyes, thinking it was the last time and I think I even smiled. I could finally get some rest. I wasn't supposed to wake up again, especially not with my insides scrambled and a Y cut from my chest to my pelvis, stitched up with black thread and screaming from the pain.
You might think that coming back from the dead would be a good thing, but it wasn't. Not for me. I wanted to be dead. I wanted to fall into the abyss and never climb back out again. I wanted to close my eyes without seeing my mother and my sister covered in my father's blood, laughing at my screams. I wanted to sleep without dreaming of fire. But it's like Jagger says, you can't always get what you want. I wanted to be dead, but someone else wanted me alive.
I should have left the car on the side of the road and hitchhiked, taken the bus, hopped a train. Anything but this. I'd stolen a cop's car. Not just a cop, a damn detective. I fucked him and robbed him blind while he slept. I didn't know why I kept going, why I didn't immediately pull over and hitchhike my ass out of there. I just kept driving. And I didn't stop until I was in Sioux Falls.
Maybe I wanted to get caught. Maybe I wanted to see what would happen. Or maybe I just wondered if I was too far gone to turn back. Being on Death Row was the quietest time in my life. Strange as it seems, I found peace in that little white room. A soft voice came from a grate in my cell, the woman next door whispering prayers every waking second. I found it comforting. It reminded me of my father and his sermons. It reminded me of the time before. And I slept like a child.
What would the authorities make of me now? My body disappeared from the morgue, my organs all put back in good working order, and most assuredly not dead. Would they execute me again? Or would I spend an eternity in a hospital, poked and prodded? Why did I wake up after being pumped full of chemicals, cut apart, and stashed in a refrigerator? Why was I seeing hooded wraiths that melted into shadow, telling me where to find killers, where to stalk my next prey? The wraiths said it was the blood of Cain, tainting the mind, making humans kill. Was I a serial killer myself? Vigilante, like the old days? Or was I just another asshole desperate to grasp at any chance of redemption?
I found the shittiest motel I could find. The kind of place that takes cash and doesn't ask any questions. I grabbed my bag from the passenger seat along with Detective Thomas Dekker's wallet and found my room. Exhausted, I dumped everything on the bed, shed my leather jacket and my clothes, and stepped into the shower. The water pressure was shit and the shower head was crusted in a sickly white calcium deposit, but I closed my eyes and let the tepid water fall over me, trying to wash everything away. I stood there until the water was icy cold and goosebumps stood up on my skin.
But I didn't feel clean.
I lay on the bed, my hair still dripping, and lit a cigarette, watching the smoke curl and loop around itself. I listened for police cars, more curious than nervous. But all I heard was breaking bottles and the raucous laughter from a biker party in the parking lot.
I took another drag and let the smoke swirl in my lungs before blowing it out. Then I sat up and grabbed my bag, pulling out a book and laying it across my legs. I opened it and took in the familiar and jarring first page. The scrapbook was black paper and I had glued the newspaper article, clipping the end of the article from the back of the newspaper and pasting it underneath the headline: West End Preacher Found Dead. There was a grainy black and white photograph of our old horse corral, a police officer standing inside of it, looking morose. Next to the picture was a photograph of my father, smiling in front of his church.
Trampled by horses. That was the story. No one asked any questions, and they surely didn't ask the shy 16-year old girl who hid in dark corners and shadows, trying hard not to be seen. I still didn't know if I would have told them, had they asked.
How do you tell a policeman that your mother and sister are no longer themselves? How do you tell someone that the people you love are no longer human? Back then I thought they were demons, from Daddy's sermons. The devil, the old adversary. But it wasn't so simple. I didn't know what happened to my mother and sister, but I know they changed. They were people I loved one day, and murderers the next. It only took me a year to become a murderer myself. To go from preacher's daughter to killer. It took me a year to feel good about burning my sister to death. One year from child to criminal.
It wasn’t that simple, of course. Is it ever? My sister, Rebecca, had never been what you might call kind. She was perfect. Pretty, smart, and willing to do anything to impress my mother. Odd images flashed in my mind when I tried to remember the exact moment when she changed from girl to monster. Snippets of nightmares, things I thought were true as a child. Adults thought I was crazy, or too imaginative, or full of the devil. And over time, I realized how surreal the memories were, too dreamlike to be real, too frightening to happen in real life. They were just dreams. But as a child, they had seemed real, and I was convinced for a long time that they were.
Rebecca was never kind, but slowly she became something darker. And, in time, she took my mother with her. In a way, they took me with them. Made me a monster, too.
The next page in the scrapbook was dated one year after my father died. The headline read: Teenage Harlot Kills Sister, Wounds Mother In Fire. The picture showed the collapsed bricks that had once been a chimney and the ashes of our house. The fence aroun
d the horse corral in the background. The smaller headline read: Frances Mourning Pursued By Police. The picture of me was a bad one. My one and only school picture for the one and only year I was allowed to attend public school in St. Thomas. By that time, I'd gone into full-on rebellion, as noted by my black eyeliner and sullen expression.
The facing page was an article about an unidentified doughy white man found dead in Wallace, Idaho. Police had no leads and no idea about why he was dead. I could have told them. His name was Kurt Garrett and he attacked me. He nearly got me. I was so young then, inexperienced, but I had already seen horrible things. Too many for a young girl; too many for a lifetime.
Kurt was an accident. I snapped. He was maybe 130 pounds, soaking wet. Just a greasy old perv with a thing for young girls. But I started hitting him when he grabbed me. He was trying to shove me into an alley when I began kicking him, punching him, and I didn't stop. I was a country girl, raised in the mountains. I looked small but I was strong from climbing trees, riding horses, doing chores. He was expecting a girl, easily pliable and timid. What he got was me.
Even after he fell, I didn’t stop hitting him. Not even when he stopped screaming. I didn’t stop until I was hitting wet meat and grinding bone and I couldn’t feel my arms anymore. I didn’t stop until my fractured knuckles throbbed and the skin on my fists looked like hamburger.
When I caught my breath, I looked down at what I'd done. How many others had there been? How many girls that weren’t as monstrous as I was? I wiped the blood off my boots with the back of Kurt's salmon-colored polo shirt and walked away. I found his car idling a block away and got in and drove. What little that was warm inside me, I left in the street next to Kurt Garret's body. A bystander might say there were already ravens circling the dead man. But I knew better. They were circling me, just as they always had. As they'd done since I was a child. Before I killed my sister, before my father died, before anything, there were ravens. They followed me like they smelled death on me; they circled me, waiting, watching me trying to be good.
And they were there when I stopped trying.