The Third Step

by William Lobb

  Frankie walked back to the others but he already knew, for some reason he couldn’t understand, that he had to go back to the chamber of horrors. Jones seemed to be fine entertaining both the blonde and the brunette. They were sitting under the boardwalk, down by the casino, smoking joints and drinking wine and talking, laughing. He walked up to the three of them and sat down, took a hit off the joint and passed it back, took a long drink from the wine bottle and handed it back. There were fireworks about to go off from a barge about 300 feet out in the Atlantic.

  Frankie needed to explain why he had to leave tonight. Jones, the blonde—who seemed to like being called “the blonde”—and Barbara seemed to be doing fine without him. They asked where he went and he started to tell them. They had a look of fear and disturbed concern on their faces as he talked. Frankie was using words like “amazing” and “beautiful” while he described the carnival girl’s tortures.

  Jones stood up and asked Frankie to walk with him to get some more wine. They turned and headed back toward the convention center and a small liquor store just past it down on Ocean Ave. About halfway down the boardwalk, Jones said, “Look man, I’m just going to say this. You and me, we’ve been tight for almost a year now. We’ve been through some shit together my friend, but you are starting to concern me a little now. I’ve seen it since that night in the bar in Richmond. I saw it the other morning with Fat Joe; I saw it this morning after we left John Quarry’s place.

  “You’re starting to scare people, Frankie. You are scaring the shit out of those girls. Barb said she was scared to go back to the room with you the other night, but you both got so wasted she didn’t seem to care. I don’t know what it is, but if you need to go and hang out with this demon torture princess, trust me, no one here wants to stop you. I like you, man. We’ve been through a lot. We trust each other, we have each other’s backs. But now I’m starting to really think you need some rest or something. I think things are starting to get to you. Maybe too much weed, too much booze, too many deaths, too much pressure, I don’t know; only you know that, but if it’s time we part ways, I think now is as good a time as any.”

  Frankie looked at him, half smiling, and said, “You think I’m losing my mind, Jones? I’ve wondered that myself. I think I need to get south and stay there for a while. I’m sure you can take care of both the brunette and the blonde.” They both smiled.

  Frankie said, “I’ve still got your mom’s house phone in Pennsylvania. I’ll give her a call when I get back up here. I’ll look for you”

  Jones just said, “Yeah, you better, buddy”

  They shook hands and Frankie walked back over to the carnival. He saw no one at the door to the House of Horrors. He poked his head inside. It didn’t smell good in there, kind of like mold and sweat and body odor. He walked in a little further; it was pitch-black dark in there. He heard a noise behind him. It was the girl.

  She said, “I knew you’d be back. I didn’t think it would be so soon.” The woman turned on the backlighting and showed him around: whips, chains, spikes, racks, axes, hammers, collars, things that looked like fake blood and body parts. Simply seeing this would have had any sane man running. There was a forbidden and dangerous attraction to this woman and this place. He wasn’t sure he’d survive the night with her. He actually had his doubts, but he had to know. He looked into her eyes in the darkness and he noticed they were dark and hugely dilated. She reached into a pocket in her skirt and pulled out a small packet. “It’s blotter acid; you’ve done acid, right?”

  Frankie said he had, smiled, and felt a chill. He’d not done acid since that night in the woods when he saw his own death. He was scared, not a good mental state to take acid. She took him by the hand and led him back outside. The fireworks had started; they stood there holding hands and watching the light show in the sky. Part of Frankie didn’t care if she did kill him in his sleep, for now she felt like a kindred spirit. For a moment he felt he’d stepped away from his war with the world, like a Fourth of July truce. He wondered how he could feel such peace with someone who could and possibly would kill him. Maybe because he was now with his own kind. They watched the fireworks, both of them completely tripping. The colors were startlingly real, deeper, more alive than he’d ever seen. He could feel the colors, taste them, smell the smoke as it wafted in off the pounding and roaring Atlantic; he could feel the pummeling explosions in his chest and deep inside him.

  He looked at her and said, “Do you think I have a soul?”

  The woman smiled and said, “No, but we can steal you one,” and he smiled. The thought of having a soul, even if he had to kill to get one, made him happy.

  They saw people standing and leaning by the temporary fence as they watched the display over the ocean. The ride and games of the carnival were now largely abandoned as everyone stopped to watch the spectacle in the sky.

  She spoke. “Who shall we kill tonight? Pick one and we’ll kill him or her.” They stood there for the next hour, at times loudly debating whom they should kill and why, the merits of killing one over another. Suddenly they noticed they were alone; everyone else had gone back to the games and rides and sideshows. She and Frankie went back to her trailer and they waited together for people to arrive.

  Listening to her in character was horribly disturbing and real. First, a group of teenage boys arrived, then a young couple, then a few men on their own. She played to their fears and fantasies, making each one, each individual person want to run for the exit door. She said to each one as they left, “Why don’t you come back after we close and spend the night?” Watching each beat a hasty retreat, she smiled a purely evil and empty smile. When they were alone, she told Frankie, “No one ever comes back, only you.”

  She pulled off her bloody blouse and skirt and led Frankie by the hand to the very back of the trailer, to a tiny room built underneath the stairs. Really, it was just a tiny closet with a mattress on the floor. There was a small window that brought in some of the humid outside air, but not nearly enough. She pulled him in and closed the small door behind them. They pulled off his clothes quickly; when she touched him, he felt complete terror and complete excitement. Lying on top of him, he felt her hard nipples in his chest and she began to bite his neck, on the right side, right over the jugular. He grabbed her ass and pulled her into him tightly as he entered her. The pain on his neck as she bit into him deeply just augmented and intensified the moment. The tiny closet began to smell like them and their sex; she didn’t speak, neither did he. They moaned in some guttural exchange as time passed, neither knew how long.

  He touched her and tasted her in places he never dreamed he would go. Dark, forbidden places that were suddenly opening up new worlds of tortured pleasure. It felt tantric, an endless orgasmic peak. Thoughts of losing his life mattered less and less as each moment passed. United sexually and spiritually joined, they rode out the moments, rolling highs and lows, like touching the sky, then touching the ground and bouncing back to the sky; this seemed to last for hours with many moments of confused flesh, where one began and the other ended was lost. It was as if they were one being. In the extremely faint light that filtered in through the tiny window, he saw her transform her skinny, dark haired, pointed features into an image of a red-eyed demon. He pushed her back off of him, slightly, still inside her, and he asked, “Are you the Devil?”

  She arched her back and her head high toward the ceiling of the tiny closet, and rode him until they both crossed into that moment where everything collided and detonated. In that moment, a moment that seemed to last until the sunrise, he knew he’d met the Devil’s daughter. He’d drawn the Devil’s hand; he was now lying in the Devil’s dirt.

  Chapter Twenty-three:

  Fourth Of July

  The Fourth of July dawned hot, the air wet and heavy. Frankie went outside and leaned against the railing of the temporary fence that surrounded the now-silent rides. He walked the couple blocks to w
here the tractor was parked, climbed up inside, opened the cooler in the sleeper and grabbed a breakfast beer.

  He sat in the driver’s seat and fired up the diesel engine and let it moan and roar to life, coughing out a constant cloud of black, foul-smelling, smoky exhaust. He turned on the radio and listened to some NYC AM Sunday morning radio. He finished his first beer and grabbed another: breakfast of champions. Fleetwood Mac’s “Gypsy” came on. Frankie thought, “A gypsy would be easy; I have no idea what the Hell this girl is.”

  Demon, gypsy, nightmare, or possibly all of the above? He backed the tractor out of the parking space and headed back toward Kingsley Ave. and the carnival. He was going to try to work a deal with the carnival boss; he didn’t need much money and he wanted some time with this girl. The carnival would be packing up tonight and heading into Delaware tomorrow morning.

  Frankie backed his tractor under the House of Horrors trailer and locked the pin. He shut down the engine, grabbed his bag of clean clothes, hopped out of the cab, and went to find the girl. She had walked out of the portable shower area and was headed back toward her trailer. She didn’t smile. She didn’t really look at him. The woman simply motioned with her eyes and Frankie followed her to a tent. A large canvas tent with four cots inside, this is where she slept most nights. At the end of each cot was a large travel chest full of belongings. She finally spoke and said he’d better go find the boss and work out some kind of deal. He threw his bag on her cot, grabbed some clothes, and went to get cleaned up.

  The boss’s trailer was small and dirty and as creepy as this entire little show. The boss was a small man, who definitely had little-man complex. He needed everyone to know he ran the show. Frankie could and would play along as long as the guy wasn’t a complete ass. They talked for a while. Frankie basically offered to work for fuel and meals and a place to sleep. He was just trying to get anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico eventually.

  The boss told him they would end the summer season and winter over in a small town in Louisiana. If he was willing to work for what he offered, Frankie was a welcome addition to the crew. The boss did warn him about the girl. He warned Frankie that sometimes she took her role a little too seriously. He could fuck her and have all the fun he wanted, but he should be careful. There was something about that girl he did not quite trust.

  Frankie shook his hand and said he’d be fine and walked off to her tent. He found her laying on her cot. She jumped up when he approached and asked him to join her for a walk on the beach since they had a couple of hours before work. He agreed and they walked down the street to the ocean. They walked silently down the beach for a few minutes then she said, “We’ll be packing up tonight and tomorrow morning. I need to make a date today. I’ll go to their room and mutilate and kill them, whoever it is. You won’t need to watch or even participate. I’ll do it, get what I need, and come back here. In the morning, we’ll be on our way. It’s so much easier with you, another nameless killer; someone who understands the need.”

  Frankie wanted to stop her, but he let her continue talking. He didn’t listen.

  Finally, he said, “I’ve killed two, almost three. None was an accident, but all had a motive behind them, anger or revenge. I’m not just a killer like you. I don’t get any sexual pleasure, any satisfaction, or any real pleasure at all from killing. In fact, there’s always a bit of sadness and remorse, even in killing that piece of shit John Quarry”

  She replied, “Yes, but you’ve seen it. You’ve felt that magic of life and death, the power of death over life. You’ve seen life fade; you’ve watched the eyes at the last moment, that last second and then it’s gone. That second always brings me to orgasm. That’s what I need; that’s what my soul craves. I want to kill with you. One day I want to kill you.”

  Frankie thought suddenly of home. He realized that her statement didn’t disturb him. It almost felt like another step in this process he could no longer understand. It may have been the first time he ever felt homesick. It was at that moment that he realized Jones was right; he’d gone too far out. There was no way back, no way to get back home. There might be a candle burning in a window for him, somewhere; maybe with Alexandrine, or Cora, or Eddie’s wife or even Pam or Betty, but he knew that candle would burn out and the wax would turn cold and solidify long before he ever saw home again. He’d never felt more completely alone.

  Frankie sat down on the sand, oblivious to the girl, the breeze running in off the waves, the sun, and for the first time in a long time he stopped moving, stopped doing. He just sat there and saw everything he’d done, laid out before him like a thousand scattered and disconnected pieces of paper and he realized he could never put them back in any kind of order, could never make sense of any of this. Somewhere between that first drink at age fourteen, that moment when he found his way out of the dull and gray and the boredom, to today, to this, to being here sitting on the sand in Asbury Park, New Jersey on the Fourth of July 1982, everything had completely unraveled. Everything had broken. He wanted to go run to find Jones and the girls, hop in the trucks and get out of here, as if the place he was in was on fire, but he didn’t. For a reason he didn’t yet understand, he chose to stay.

  Chapter Twenty-four:

  Life At The Carnival

  Frankie found things to keep him busy during the day. There were two guys on the crew, one named “the Engineer,” the other “the Mechanic.” They did most of the setup and tear down work and also did maintenance on all the rides and equipment. Frankie spent a good part of his first day on the job getting drunk and hiding from the boss. He also avoided talking to the girl, whose name he discovered was Katrina. Everyone was a little spooked by her, it seemed. Late that afternoon, he went to the store and brought back a cooler full of beer and vodka, found the Mechanic, the Engineer, and a secluded spot in the shade, and sat down with them to get a little wasted.

  It seemed Frankie had spent most of his life battling, trying to get back to even, trying to get back to the place where he started, never going forward and never going backward, just staying static. As these days with the carnival began to unfold, he realized that even getting back to where he started was no longer a possibility. He just found himself slipping further and further away from any remnant of the person he used to be. All these days after the death of John Quarry had a different look and feel to them, not unlike that first day when it really feels like autumn after a long hot summer. Everything looks the same, everything feels the same, but there’s a subtle, yet very noticeable difference. That is how these days felt to Frankie. Square one, getting back to the beginning, one more shot at renewal, that whole concept now seemed to fade off into the distance, like a drowning man who’s been thrown overboard and he’s left watching his ship sail away into the dark night.

  It was about 5:00 p.m. when he decided to venture over to the House of Horrors and see Katrina. She was alone; a large crowd had just passed through. She had a happy grin on her face. She said she had a date, an older man, very proper acting, but apparently a closet pervert. She looked in Frankie’s eyes and said, “But aren’t we all?” She told the older guy to get a room in a nearby hotel and wait for her. She’d be there around midnight. Katrina began to offer details, but Frankie preferred not to hear them.

  He asked, “Is this sexual or just another killing?”

  Katrina’s reply was, “Isn’t it always a little of both?” She asked him to wait for her in the trailer. Frankie could think of nothing more appealing than being alone in the eerie House of Horrors, waiting for his newest love interest to return from another night of sex and murder.

  There was still a spark of something deeply buried that cried for him to save himself, that cried out, “Run!” The pathway back had started to collapse and crumble and become overgrown with weeds and garbage and the detritus of his recent life, but a small voice still cried out that he could get home, but he had to leave now. He looked at Katrina, strangely beau
tiful and deadly, as she stood there in the fading sunlight and said he’d be there waiting, feeling controlled and helpless and lost.

  Frankie walked up to the liquor store, grabbed a couple quarts of vodka and headed back to find The Mechanic and The Engineer. He found them doing some prep work and early tear-down jobs. Frankie’s job was limited to taking care of the House of Horrors and Katrina’s equipment, and driving the truck. There was a list of boxes of equipment to be loaded in the empty spaces within the trailer, through a couple of side access doors. Those boxes would be stacked outside early in the morning. Frankie had to load them and be ready to go. By early morning they’d be gone. The carnival was still pretty busy. Frankie and the other two guys went back to their secluded spot and began to drink heavily. They had little to do until after midnight when the carnival closed, and Frankie had nothing to do until morning. He’d drink heavily tonight, but no acid. He’d decided no acid on moving days. The controls on Frankie’s life about gone, he took little pride in this decision, but it was something.

  It was about 11:00 p.m. The carnies were really able to hold their booze, a personality trait Frankie found very important and admirable. They both got up to leave, thanked Frankie for the drinks, and headed off to work.

  The Engineer said, “Be careful fucking Katrina tonight. We need you alive to drive the truck in the morning.” Frankie sat there a few more minutes. He was nicely drunk now. The voices were quiet, like sleeping babies. He didn’t want to make any sound that might awaken them again. He headed toward the House of Horrors. As he walked inside, Katrina was still there. She looked different than he’d ever seen her. She was nervous and excited and dancing all over the place. He was quite drunk, so she offered him acid. He said he had to drive in a few hours. He’d do it tomorrow after they got to Delaware. For tonight he’d settle for good and drunk.