by Ted Minkinow
Equipment stowed, Tilbury did not linger. The night-shift receptionist never bothered a glance when he walked past. Hardly anyone at Grimes acknowledged him because Marlin cultivated the art of blending. Except for Aunt Hattie at the library and books, Marlin Tilbury lived in his own quiet universe. Tonight's events brought the rest of the world nearer.
CHAPTER 9
Friday, July 13, 11:28 pm, Vienna, Alabama
Marlin wished he could have parked closer. The walk across the black, empty lot roused the butterflies in his stomach to a flutter. Hospital rules. The administrator frowned on hired help, except doctors of course, parking close. Sparsely-placed poles dribbled light on small patches of pavement.
Marlin’s throat dried another octave with each pace. Clear images of the bloody sheet and body underneath fueled a desire to reach the clunker’s safety; as if the old car’s familiar universe could deflect the world outside. He focused on the remaining distance; not risking even a furtive glance in another direction.
Marlin reached for the rusty door. The familiar touch of pitted chrome calmed a morsel of fear and he slid into the bench seat…put the key into the ignition and coaxed the dinosaur with pumps on the accelerator until the engine woke. Marlin steered out of the parking lot and onto the highway.
The road was deserted so Marlin could putter without the worry of tailgaters and rude gestures. He longed for his apartment with its metal front door and three dead bolt locks. Two minutes into the short drive an odor wafted forward.
It reeked of freshly smashed skunk, a commonplace offense in northern Alabama. But after a while this stench grew worse…and familiar. It smelled like death…like a ten day old Viet Cong carcass decaying in a dank jungle.
No, he thought, this smells worse.
The odor remained entrenched as he progressed down the dark road. If not so anxious to get home, Marlin would have stopped to vomit
Couple more miles.
The thought hit him like a baseball bat to the ribs.
If this smell moved with his car, it must somehow be smeared on the car...or maybe inside…with me.
Marlin’s throat constricted and his stomach butterflies morphed into condors. Panic seeped past his mind’s lightly-guarded gate and without regard to logic, Marlin connected the invasive smell to the murder.
That's it!
Something hid in the back seat, just out of sight.
Fear bridged willing synapses as visions of a creature entered his brain, an awful incarnation of The Man…a black and white cross of The Blob and Night of the Living Dead. And this mutant lurked somewhere in the seat behind.
Why would The Man wait all afternoon—must have been more than a hundred degrees—in the backseat of my car?
Paranoia whispered an answer.
He needs out of here. Someone to drive him away!
Maybe, Marlin thought, if he didn't move his gaze from the road, if he did not confront the killer…maybe he could survive.
Keep driving. The Man just wants out of town.
The odometer seemed mired in mud.
Play along…pretend he’s not there…just get out of the car and into the apartment and give him a clean getaway.
The thought spawned another line of reasoning. If Marlin kept his eyes straight and feigned ignorance, perhaps he could prevent The Man from gaining physical form. Just like in the cartoons. The coyote walks right off the cliff into thin air. He stays aloft. The earth is a harmless dot far below until he looks down.
Don’t annoy The Man.
The odor grew.
Panic fed terror and Marlin’s condor population nested into a single, squawking mass. He continued down the highway like a man chauffeuring his own hearse.
Rotting flesh.
The words flashed into his mind like an arc from a bug zapper.
How? Another murder? The Man scores twice in one day?
Didn’t the Man win several double and triple headers back in Nam? Now Marlin had it all deciphered.
He saw the faceless killer jump his victim in Grimes’s parking lot. Attack, rip and zip, dismember, and drop all the pieces in Marlin’s car. It made sense, didn’t it? Wouldn’t The Man want his old pal Marlin to know he had not forgotten him? The janitor’s blood thundered through his temples. Electricity buzzed through his ears.
Muggy air escaped the Gulf of Mexico to fill Marlin's car with substance and weight as if attempting to restrain in the manner the mind stops a body from thrashing during a nightmare. Marlin’s hands froze against the hard plastic steering wheel and he rode white knuckled, numb and cold. Icy cold…yet he sweated rivulets.
Like ‘Nam.
His mind saw the days when he battled a similar elusive, faceless killer in the jungles. The Man cashiered all their lives except his and one other. Now the enemy feasted on what remained of Marlin like a virulent cancer.
The janitor expected his old enemy to emerge from the blackness of his car…The Man, replete in black pajamas and smut-darkened hands and face, grasping an AK-47 assault rifle in the ready-fire kill position.
It didn't make sense…even to Marlin. Depleted instincts understood the Cong couldn't be riding down an Alabama country road in the backseat of his junker.
Victor Charlie had his own country…perfect spot on earth for an enema.
He found himself two miles further down the road and beat back an impulse to halt the car to inspect the seat.
Remember the coyote.
Marlin cursed the sun's setting, his night job at the hospital, Vienna, and his oversized American car that could obscure a killer far in the back, out of easy eyesight. He cursed his parents for bringing him into a brutal world and he cursed fate for always placing him on the receiving and never the kicking team. The stalemate would end, and sooner rather than later. He already stepped over the cliff, now he would either scramble back to the safety of firm ground...or join the coyote.
Would be easier to think without that stink.
Each passing moment saw him sink deeper into emotional quicksand. Time was running out and he had no plan. Knowing enough about self to admit no flair for brilliance, the janitor acted.
CHAPTER 10
Friday, July 13, 11:28 pm, Vienna, Alabama
Marlin raised his head and focused on the rear view mirror. The odor-bearer slinked just beneath the field of view making his momentary spike of courage seem wasted. The mirror was useless. Determined to maintain momentum, Marlin advanced to step two. He'd turn his head and look.
His mind sensed The Man back there watching, waiting for the perfect moment. Then, Marlin figured, a heavy hand would dart forward to strangle, or pummel, or stab, or pulverize. He could not concoct palatable options for death…he belched a hot mouthful of bile.
Nobody’s bulletproof, Marlin told himself. Even Charlie got spanked every time he snuffed one of us.
Piles of enemy bodies. Dead Cong littered the ground following Charlie’s night time antics. Marlin returned to the moment…evaluated a cogent person would consider desperate.
Twist the car around a tree...put a serious hurt to The Man.
Despite all the fretting and fear, thoughts and counter thoughts, Marlin possessed no clear idea as to the evil’s physical manifestation. The only certainty was that something concealed itself in the back seat. The weapon and mode of attack remained the only mysteries.
Now or never, Tilbury.
Resolved that he would face the murderer sooner or later, Marlin began his slow, deliberate turn to gain full view of the back seat. Adrenaline stiffened neck muscles; making movement sluggish, robot-like, unnatural…like a strobe light hitting the dance floor of a seventies discotheque crowded with bell-bottomed ghosts.
Dread mixed saliva into a dry paste. He could sense the attacker reaching for him, bloodstained hands sliding toward his unprotected throat. Frayed nerves coaxed Marlin to press harder on the accelerator.
Interior noise departed his perception. Though his window sat wide open, wind noise disapp
eared in step with progress of the janitor's head. His heart filled the new void in his ears and temple with jackhammer pounding. "Kachunk! Kachunk! Kachunk!" blended with rotting stink, attacking Marlin's senses like Death calling him through a neighbor’s paper-thin walls.
Marlin continued, eyes focusing on various parts in the car. He noticed the locked door, the closed back window with its hand roller missing, and fabric from the roof hanging down in irregular slivers. Beyond the passenger’s window the world whizzed by; a world alien to the universe inside his sedan…separate and powerless to influence anything about to happen.
Cocked muscles ached. At any moment he expected to catch sight of the hand, the knife, the garrote. Two-thirds around and nothing. He twisted the final couple of degrees and…
The bright orb smacked him in both eyes, temporarily blinding him, freezing Marlin like a glimpse at Medusa. He blinked, flinched, and prepared for the inevitable attack.
Marlin never felt a thing.
Headlights belonging to a pickup truck rounding the curve…Marlin’s sight grudgingly returned. Mustering all the courage his soul could produce, he took a quick peak down into the back seat.
Empty! Dear Lord, it’s empty!
Joyous relief…that lasted less than a moment. Marlin sensed the speed and whirled back around to face the road ahead.
CHAPTER 11
Friday, July 13, 11:10 pm, Vienna, Alabama, Hattie Jackson’s house
1
Tom opened the passenger door for Hattie and steadied her arm as she eased into the seat. He jogged around to the other side of the SUV, got in, started the engine, and turned onto the highway for the short trip to Hattie's house.
"I think it might be best if I spent the night with you,” he said after a few seconds.
"I could use some company, Tommy," she said. Tom thought she sounded weary.
He smiled and said, "I need to stop for some clothes."
"Sure child. I'll just wait in the car."
He turned onto Main Street. They reached the town square with its antebellum homes. An elegant Greek revival-style courthouse dominated one corner of the square…complete with a marble Confederate soldier with rifle and bedroll slung across one shoulder. The inscription read; “May We Not Forget Our Glorious Dead, 1861 – 1865. Erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, 1928.”
Each of the square’s historic, slave-constructed buildings traced lineage to the early nineteenth century. Tom's house tethered the southern corner. It ranked among the oldest in Vienna…on the Madison County historical register. Tom’s marker read: “Brewton-Brunson Home, Circa 1830.”
Tom pulled to a stop and made a mental note of articles he needed for the evening. Except for scant light offered in trickles by a streetlight, the house stood in complete darkness. In his rush to Aunt Hattie, Tom neglected exterior illumination.
2
Hattie sat alone in the car. Darkness accented the proud and inviting structure. As Tom disappeared through the door, Hattie perceived something new, something different.
Odd noises tickled her senses, sounds that seemed to flow from masonry, custom-fitted and centuries-old windowpanes, and wooden shingles crowning the roof. At first, Hattie denied the improbable messages. Even so, the strange rumble yawned for several more seconds, as if the house animated itself from a comfortable slumber.
“Lord!” she said aloud, “Tommy’s inside!
CHAPTER 12
Friday, July 13, 11:20 pm, Vienna, Alabama, Brewton-Brunson house
1
Anger. Anger born of frustration spawned consciousness in the master bedroom. It possessed no vision, no material form, and could not comprehend purpose or reason, as if emotion alone formed the presence.
Like a newborn fighting the womb, the entity obeyed primal urges into existence. For more than a century, it lay dormant in the old house…in a place beyond the physical world and at the same time, marginally within its bounds. It paused a moment as if uncertain which way to step as it straddled the jagged line of sanity.
Instinct guided the entity through the darkness and drove it beyond the bedroom toward the staircase. Apprehension focused the consciousness on the massive oak door in the entryway at the lower landing. Disembodied emotion molted into a longing for what hovered just beyond that door. Ethereal gravity drew the entity down the staircase.
Icy chill flooded the atmosphere as it passed. Something approached from outside, causing psychedelic reverberations within the growing awareness. Shapeless colors blended with splotches of pulsating heat to soothe the entity's despair.
Patches of warmth resolved into a coarse, glowing outline of Tom Brunson as he stood outside the door, mere feet from the entity. Panic gave way to desire in the faded memory of a different time and circumstance, a memory powered by stray essences emanating from Tom.
2
Standing on the unlit porch, Tom groped for the keyhole.
3
The entity rushed the door and the effort exhausted all energy short of being…forcing a retreat to the foyer. Above, the ceiling fan sprinted from dead stop to maximum speed. Tom unlocked the door.
The entity focused an invisible arm toward the brass knob as it turned, and when the door opened, the full measure of Tom's life force exploded into the room. It forced the entity back…deeper inside the house.
4
Tom reached for the light switch before closing the door. Cool dampness blanketed the room and raised the hair on the back of his neck. A single buzz vibrated the length of his backbone and bounced between his shoulders before fading into the place where electricity dies…causing a shudder as that mild voltage dissipated out his body.
Something in the old mansion seemed askew, out of place. The ceiling fan drew his attention.
Full power?
He left the fan off. Perhaps he missed that detail in his rush to Aunt Hattie.
And speaking of Aunt Hattie, she waited outside. He wanted to get her home and tucked into bed. Tom slammed the door and climbed the stairs. The entity trailed a short distance behind.
In his bedroom, he reached inside the antique chest. That was when the “I’m not alone in this house” feeling hit. His breathing quickened.
Had Aunt Hattie climbed out of the car and come in looking for him?
Unlikely.
Besides, he’d have heard the heavy door downstairs. Tom froze for an instant, straining his ears to pick up anything odd, both arms stretched stiffly into the third drawer of the chest.
Nothing.
5
The entity sensed Tom’s confusion as a rind of thickening gel surrounding Tom’s aura. It chanced a step nearer, curious to inspect and experience this new shade of energy.
6
Crud.
Now Tom could swear that somebody stood right behind him. He even felt—or imagined—a cold breath tickling his neck. A stir at the window across his bedroom was all the evidence Tom’s mind required.
Now where did I leave that forty five?
He remembered last seeing his gun in the kitchen, on top of the refrigerator.
Great move, Torch. Good place for a pistol if you need to defend your beer.
Tingling traced his arms and he looked down to bumps peppering his skin. Despite the wet-cold temperature, beads of sweat formed at his temples and dropped from under his arms. The hair beneath his elbows rose fully erect and he decided to perform a quick security check upstairs. The cold followed him from room to room.
Tom’s inspection yielded nothing more than a quiet, empty house. He passed a mirror and caught sight of his reflection.
Yup, you ARE stupid.
Vowing to ignore further signs of voodoo, he returned to the bedroom. Tom reached for a pair of boxer shorts. The entity took a last brazen foray into the living space and passed close enough to splash a directed, frozen shaft of humid air across the back of Tom's bare legs. The ex-fighter jock bolted straight up and whirled around.
Kick a quacking duck
! I’m out of here.
He shoved some clothes in a gym bag, bolted out the door, and jumped down the stairs. Warm night air waited outside…so did people…sane people.
Tom reached the foyer, paused to shut off the ceiling fan and to catch his breath. He threw open the door, stepped outside, and turned around to engage the lock. Only then did his heart show intent at returning to standard output. He strode as he spun to face the street and almost collided with…
"Aunt Hattie, you just scared ten years off my life! I was ready, but now you’ll have to wait while I go back in for clean underwear!”
"Did you find your clothes, Tommy?"
"Yes."
She looked beyond him, into the house. "Anything else?" Her question cut to the bone.
"No ma'am."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes ma’am.” He paused. “What the heck are you doing here anyway? You should have waited in the car. And look, Aunt Hattie, you left the engine running."
Hattie inspected his eyes and he avoided her gaze.
7
The entity halted in the foyer, frozen by Hattie's appearance.
Sally.
The name flashed.
Sally!
It wailed without producing a decibel of sound.
Once again, the ceiling fan began to rotate.
CHAPTER 13
Saturday, July 14, 00:55 am, Vienna, Alabama, City Hall
Chief Anderson yanked up the coffee pot and the final drops sizzled onto the burner. He arrived at the station before the others for this special meeting of the Vienna Police Department. The bitter taste of the first sip made him wince and he shot an accusatory glance at the loyal mug, wondering whether to blame the late hour or the horrible crime. He decided this pot tasted bad on its own merit.