The Third Step

by William Lobb

  She was not pleased, but she had other things to attend to. She was going to be right up the street at the Berkley hotel. Katrina said she’d play with him before killing him and be back by 3:00 a.m. She left without saying anymore. Frankie went to the tractor to get the last quart of vodka. He was going to sit down this night, alone, and finish it. She could wake him or not when she returned; he just needed to get and stay very drunk.

  The few moments of daily sobriety were now moments of terror, not really sobriety at all, just massive hangovers, with shaking, blurred vision, and headaches, quickly cured by fast drinking. The vodka was a quickly and easily applied solution. Sitting and getting drunk in the House of Horrors at first appeared to be a really good idea. Kind of a goof, a challenge to all the ghouls and demons Katrina told her quick-to-pay customers about, who did, in fact, inhabit the chamber.

  Alone in the dark, taking long and hard drinks off the vodka quart, Frankie suddenly felt an unsettling sense of evil, a pure evil. It didn’t scare him. It drained him. He could feel it changing him, as if he had now joined forces with an element of the other side, in the spirit world. He thought back to Sammy and the conversations about the ethereal plane. This was a place of evil and darkness. He used to be a tempted, but somewhat uneasy visitor here, to this place. It was a place that could be ignored, but whose presence was always there, just below the surface. But in the past, he was able to leave, to wake up and walk away. Now this line, too, had become dull and blurred until it faded into nothing. The line no longer existed.

  Frankie was now immersed in this sea, way over his head. The evil had now become who he was. He could not escape; it had become the missing piece inside him, the soul the old lady said he lacked. That empty place inside him was now full. He was alive, perhaps for the first time with a pure and staggeringly hungry evil. He lay down on the rack; it smelled of sweat and old wood and blood, and he was suddenly comfortable with this place and all it represented. He closed his eyes and waited for Katrina.

  He awoke to some strange noises down the hallway, in the back of the trailer. He woke, felt the dryness of his mouth, the pounding in his head; he reached for the vodka bottle and took a long drink. He saw her, walking almost in a trance. He looked at a small clock on the wall, off in the corner. It was 4:30 a.m. The sun would be rising soon. She kept walking toward him; she was wearing a jacket, a man’s jacket. She dropped it and revealed her naked chest covered in blood. She pulled off her short, thigh-high pants and he saw blood on her ass and back and down her legs. It must have been a blood bath in that room.

  She lay down on top of Frankie and began to strip off his clothes. As she did she began to rub her blood-stained skin against his. Frankie wasn’t repulsed and he wasn’t excited; he had once again connected to the darkness that was now complete with Katrina’s presence. They lay there in a hypnotic embrace, Frankie watching as her face changed from angelic, too demonic, too old, too young, and back again, in what appeared to be cyclic waves. This time there was no beginning or end; it was simply the moment—a hypnotic, trance-like state. Not pleasure, not pain, simply being one with the evil. Frankie and Katrina lay there, entwined, until they heard the knocking on the door. It was the Engineer and the Mechanic. The boxes were outside and ready for Frankie to load them.

  He got up off the rack and looked at her nude and blood- covered body. For a moment, he felt fear, so he reached for the bottle and drank. He found his pants, got dressed, and began to load the boxes and crates into the trailer. As soon as they were loaded, they could leave. Frankie came back inside for a drink, shook Katrina, and told her she had better shower now before anyone else saw her. She wrapped herself in a robe that she used as part of her act and quickly, but silently walked toward the door. She turned to Frankie and said, “I don’t wish to wash myself of this blood.”

  Frankie went back outside and finished loading the trailer; it was Monday, July 5th, 7:30 a.m. It was getting hot already. He wanted to be long down the road before that body was found in the hotel down the street. He buttoned up everything in the trailer and saw the girl heading back toward the tractor. He opened the doors, climbed inside, started the engine, and turned on the air conditioner. Katrina climbed into the back, in the sleeper, and instantly fell asleep. Frankie went to tell the boss they were leaving and to get directions. He walked back to the truck, took a long drink on the nearly empty vodka bottle, rolled the truck off the grassy lot, up Ocean Avenue and off onto the Garden State Parkway, heading south before crossing over into Delaware.

  Frankie felt like he was on the run now, even more than when he left Brooklyn. He could feel the additional weight of what Katrina had done. He felt he was being weighed down, every day another stone, just more weight. Freedom had ended for him early this summer, but he was never sure where or when. One time, Alexandrine had asked him if he was ever free. She told him there was a way to be free, but he’d never find it, not on his path. “Frankie, my sweet friend, first you need to seek freedom; it doesn’t come to you. You are the most enchained person I’ve ever known.”

  Frankie reached for the bottle, took another drink, looked back at Katrina sleeping, turned on the radio, determined to listen to NYC drive-time radio until he was out of range. He was watching the north fade away, once again, in his rear-view mirror. Frankie wondered in that moment if he’d ever see the north—or the old woman, Alex, the bar, Betty, anyone—again. He felt like he was missing something in his life. Frankie felt suddenly empty; the voices started again. He pulled off the Garden State and went looking for booze, a lot of booze.

  Chapter Twenty-five:

  On The Road South

  He spent his time in Delaware drinking impossible amounts of vodka, taking Seconal, and acid, living in a semi-comatose state. All the controls were gone. It was shocking to see how fast he unraveled; no one saw it coming this fast. The death of Sammy pushed him, but there were still flecks of his humanity holding on. Back then, he did spend a few hours every day not drunk; almost killing Billy took him a step further. After the death of John Quarry, it was not unlike watching a building collapse. Whatever foundation he had underneath him just fell away and the entire structure that was Frankie simply fell apart.

  The acid was an interesting addition; most of the time—almost all of the time—Frankie was barely conscious. Sometimes I wondered if he could even feel the acid. I always thought he did it to please Katrina. I think he was scared to death of the stuff. The night in the woods was never far from his mind. At best the acid kept the coma at bay. Those were not good days.

  The carnival life bored Frankie. He fought with Katrina constantly. He tried to keep her from having a “date” in every city and tried to not get her and the rest of the crew arrested for murder. He kept her from doing anything murderous in Delaware, but now, they had rolled into West Virginia and he knew she wanted to kill again. Each morning when he woke, he was actually a little surprised that she hadn’t killed him in his sleep. Not necessarily grateful, or even caring, just surprised. That was the beauty of Frankie’s new lifestyle—just getting through the day alive was a surprise, not a big deal either way.

  A very real part of Frankie wondered how long and how far he could take all this. He was sure one day he would push it just a little too far and he would die. Again, he didn’t really seem to care. It was as if his life has become some kind of perverted experiment. Frankie had become part of the show in the House of Horrors. He stopped shaving. His hair grew long and ratty, and he didn’t bathe very often. Unintentionally, he fit right in. At times, he would sit in a corner while Katrina ran her show and her scam, and she would whisper to her patrons that Frankie was to be her next victim.

  He started to believe it was only a matter of time; again, he didn’t care. He was slowly progressing to a vegetative state. Frankie saw her next lover come through the show. He was a good looking guy, a young local hillbilly. He almost wanted to say something to warn him, but then it dawne
d on him: why should he give a fuck? The young man acted kind of nervous when he saw Frankie. Frankie said, “Have fun! Just remember—I looked a lot like you when I met this crazy bitch.” Then he laughed, took a couple more Seconal and a shot of vodka straight out of the bottle, and sat there very still.

  She closed up that night around eleven and started off down the street to meet her date. It was in a sleazy motel not far from where the carnival was set up. Frankie walked along with her, stumbling occasionally. He’d taken acid earlier in the day. He’d forgotten his new and quickly ignored rule about no acid the night before moving day. It seemed to have almost no effect on him at all. He stood outside the victim’s door, who had a light on inside. Katrina told Frankie she’d be back before dawn, and he turned and left.

  He was passed out in the rack when she came in, at about 5:30 a.m. The sun was already coming up. She was very quiet, uncharacteristically so. She softly said, “This one put up a fight; it wasn’t easy. He fought dying, too. He was a strong kid. He made a lot of noise, too. Not a great kill. We should get out of here as fast as we can.” Frankie got up and tried to find his legs. He looked out through a vent and saw the guys were almost done stacking the crates. Frankie took a long drink and stood up, pulled on a shirt, and walked down the trailer and outside.

  Katrina went to get washed up. She wasn’t that bloody. It wasn’t a good kill. Frankie suddenly started puking violently. All he could think was, “This is new; probably a bug or bad food.” He wiped his mouth with his arm and he started to load the boxes. He had about three boxes left to load when he heard a siren approaching fast and loud. He looked out toward the road and he saw the cars heading for the motel up the road. Frankie threw the rest of the boxes in the trailer, locked the doors quickly, and ran for the tractor. After jumping in and starting it, he ran to the showers, went in, grabbed Katrina, threw a robe around her, grabbed her bag, and the two of them ran for the truck.

  He saw the Engineer watching everything; Frankie only knew the next town in South Carolina by name. He told the Engineer, “We’ll meet you on the road. We’ve got to get the fuck out of here.” He ran back to the truck, threw it in gear, and they slowly took off. More cop cars were on the way up the highway. Frankie and Katrina and the House of Horrors were moving, now rapidly, in the other direction. The cards were quickly becoming stacked against Frankie. It seemed he couldn’t deal with one thing before he had another disaster to contend with.

  Late that afternoon, they were set up in South Carolina. The next morning, Frankie was sitting out in the back of the carnival, under a Cabbage Palm tree, on an old milk crate. The carny boss had been about 150 feet away, watching him. Frankie was shaking and puking. It was not a pretty sight to watch from any distance. The carny boss walked over to him and sat down. “You look pretty sick,” he said to Frankie. Frankie could hardly speak. Everything was spinning in a blur.

  The boss took out a cigarette and lit it and put it in Frankie’s mouth. Frankie’s hands were shaking so much he couldn’t even hold the smoke. The boss asked him if he wanted a drink. Frankie just shook his head and replied, “I’ve got to detox; I’ve got to get my shit back together. I can’t do this anymore.”

  The boss had been an army officer in Vietnam. For whatever reason, when he got home he decided he just couldn’t participate anymore. He left the army and did a lot of drugs, and through a complex set of circumstances that he never made very clear, he stumbled onto some money and bought a partnership in this traveling carnival. It was his way of just not being in society anymore, but still making some money.

  “You have to love these people,” he said, “They’re interesting and they’re twisted and they’re broken and they all have some bizarre stories to tell, but none of them matches Katrina.”

  He told Frankie that he had liked him ever since he met him. No matter how fucked up Frankie would get, he always did his job, and no matter how fucked up he got, he always seemed to be an honest guy. The boss just sat there and smoked a cigarette, and drank a beer. He told Frankie he needed to ask him a favor. His family was in Florida, but there was a woman in New Orleans who was very special to him. He gave Frankie an envelope.

  The boss said, “I know when we end the season in a couple weeks in Alabama, you were planning to head further south. If I were you, I’d head for New Orleans. There’s not another place in the world like it, and I’d very much appreciate it if you would take this envelope to this girl. We were very close at one time. I love her deeply, but life and situations sometimes get in the way and you can’t be with who you really need to be with. At the end of every summer, I like to send her some money, but I have a couple other things I want to send down to her and I’d like them hand-delivered. Just so you can call me and tell me how she’s doing and how she looks; I’d really appreciate it if you’d do this for me.”

  Frankie took the envelope and promised the boss that he would hand-deliver it within the next month, as soon as they were done in Alabama. He planned on heading down to the Gulf Coast and probably into Texas. His friend Jones had told him about a guy he should call there to get some work smuggling people over the border. It seemed like anything with the word smuggling in it had a good feel to Frankie.

  Frankie asked the boss, “You were in the war; I wasn’t. I’m not used to this girl and her killings. I’m not comfortable with my own killings. I don’t know how I got here.”

  For a second, Frankie thought he’d said too much, but the boss looked at him, and then at the ground. “I know, Frankie. I’ve had my suspicions for a while now. She took the job, and it became a fantasy, then it became her reality. I thought you were good with all this, too.”

  Frankie said, “I am. I was. I hate it. I hate everything now. I can’t even find my way back; I’m losing my mind, man. And this girl, she is evil on a whole new level. I never wanted to kill, but she does it for a deeper need. It’s not fun to her—it’s a need, it’s a bloodlust. That first night, I thought I’d found magic, a witch, like my grandma. I’m comfortable with witches, but she’s not one. She is purely evil. It’s these moments, right here, right now, when I’m too sick to drink, when I have to sit here puking and shaking, that’s when I connect to what’s left of my own reality. I can’t even process the evil I’ve done, because her evil is so strong. It’s all I can do to hold her at bay. That is when it all comes down, the voices and the faces. We’ll leave here in two nights and then we’ll roll into Alabama and that’s a two-week stay and then we’ll be done. I know she will kill me; it’s in the cards. Save yourselves.”

  Then Frankie went on. “I’ve killed, boss. I’ve killed in anger and rage and I’ve almost killed over jealousy and I’ve killed for revenge. I didn’t start out this way. I want to undo the weight of these acts. The only way I think I can is to kill myself, but I’m a coward. I can’t, at least not consciously, so I drink and I take these pills and every morning when my sickness somehow awakens, I’m sad and disappointed that I didn’t succeed, but that’s okay. I know that if I don’t do it, she will. But you guys, all of you guys need to be extra cautious. She won’t stop at me.

  “You’ve seen the killed bodies, in the war; you’ve seen death piled up in towers of bodies. Did you ever stand at those piles and just think that these are lives gone, real lives: fathers, sons, children? They were alive; they had problems and worries; they got sick and they got happy and sad. Good men and bad men, many better, none worse than me. Why should I live? I’ve no more right to this life than my kills did, your kills, her kills.

  “I’ve seen life go now, twice. I’ve watched it go away, like a light fading. It doesn’t go out quickly. Life lingers, agonizingly slowly; if you watch their dying eyes, you see the movie playing out, the moments that make up that life, and then when the movie finishes you see the eyes change. It’s impossible to see and it’s impossible to miss. I’ve seen that moment too many times when life ends. When Death rushes in and claims one more soul.
Then it’s just like it never was, all the power and joy and anger and rage and worry and laughter, all gone except for the ghosts. I think all men who die a violent death are destined to walk the earth, from the other side, possibly forever. Every man we’ve ever killed, you and me, every single one has died a violent death. Men like us, we are the ghosts. We became the ghosts long before our time and our turn; before we knew who we were, we knew we were to be the ghosts.

  “I knew as a child I would never die. I’d walk that other side forever. I accept my place in the other world. It can’t hurt worse than this one. I don’t want to be drunk all the time anymore. I feel so sick and old and exhausted. I don’t want to have these nightmares. I don’t want to be who I’ve become. I used to laugh at the men who killed themselves and thought they were cowards. Now I see how and why. It’s the faces and the voices of the dead: I see them when I wake and I see them when I sleep. I was never set up for this kind of work, this kind of life. I need to die, like those piles of bodies in your war.”

  The boss reached into the small cooler he brought with him and handed Frankie a beer. The day would start coming together now. Frankie lifted his head up from the sand and looked out at the boiling and angry ocean. On a perfectly sunny day, he could tell a storm would soon be raging. He leaned back against the Cabbage Palm and slowly drank the beer, the much-needed alcohol now entering his system, fighting the ever present urge to vomit. The first beer stayed down, so the boss offered him a second, and things started to get back to normal.