The Killing Collective

by Gary Starta

  Eliza reached into the inside pocket of her jacket. Deeprose shifted in her seat, ready. “I don’t have a weapon, Agent, I’m just checking my phone to see if he left another message.”

  Deeprose studied Eliza’s face. “Maybe these are just prank calls, Eliza.”

  “No. They’re not prank calls.” She answered much too quickly and decisively.

  Deeprose started to close in. “How do you know that, Eliza? You sound pretty sure.”

  “Because. They have my name, for starters.”

  “Maybe you said your name when you answered the phone the first time he called and just don’t recall it, but let’s leave that one alone for now. There’s somethin’ that doesn’t make sense to me, Eliza. Even if Michael Santiago was tryin’ to terrorize you to keep you from testifyin’ against him, how would he have gotten your name and cell phone number? Ah mean, if he really is a stranger to you, he doesn’t know either one.”

  “I-I don’t know. But someone does.” Eliza’s volume rose with her agitation. “That’s why I think your organization is trying to scare me.”

  “O.K., Eliza, fair enough. For now. So, where are we headed?”

  “I’m taking you to the Dead Horse Bay. It’s an abandoned strip of beach off the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn. It used to be a garbage dump. It’s pretty cool. Sometimes I find old bones there. I go there to blow off steam.”

  Deeprose felt that was the first true thing she’d heard Eliza say so far. She smiled to show she understood the feeling. “It must be a quiet place.”

  Ah can’t let Eliza know her inner psycho is showin’ or the game’ll be up before Ah can find out anythin’.

  “Yeah, quiet. Nice and quiet. It’s my place; it belongs to me. No one can boss me around when I’m there, because when I’m there, I’m the boss.” Eliza pulled up and parked. “We’re here.”

  Deeprose looked around and saw nothing but old, torn up railroad tracks up and down the water line as far as the eye could see.

  “Eliza, this place isn’t safe. There’s nothin’ but vermin an’ drifters an’ garbage here. Why, of all the places in the world, would y’all wanna come here to be alone?”

  “Because I feel right at home here, Agent, that’s why. ‘Queen of the Garbage’ – that’s me.” The lack of feeling in her voice actually moved Deeprose.

  Jesus, Joseph and Mary, she must have had one hell of a life.

  “Look, you gotta make those calls go away. Listen to the message he left on my phone.”

  They were still sitting in the front seat of the car. Deeprose turned to her to accept the phone, making Eliza’s job fairly easy. She used it like a pile driver to bash Deeprose right in her face. Her nose broke instantly, spewing blood all over the car and herself. Her head flew back against the window.

  Deeprose mumbled, “Eliza, killin’ me won’t make those angry, irrational thoughts go away.”

  “I suppose you’re right, but as long as I’m screwed, I might as well enjoy the power trip now, right? Besides, it has to be done. You’re the only threat to us, now.”

  Us?

  Deeprose tried to draw her gun, but she could barely move. Eliza put both feet up against Deeprose’s head and rammed it into the passenger-side window again with all her might. Deeprose heard the sound of her own skull crack at the same time everything went black.

  She groped her way back to consciousness slowly, unable to remember what happened or how long she’d been unconscious. She tried to sit up, but the smallest move of her head was blindingly painful. She was dizzy and nauseous. Her hands flew to her pounding head, thinking she could keep her brains from spilling out that way.

  “Ohhhhh, my head!”

  Eliza was still sitting next to her, waiting. “I knew you suspected me the whole time. I’m not stupid.”

  Her phone is still on the seat of the car! If Ah can get ahold of it while she’s talkin’, Ah still may have a chance.

  “That’s a matter of opinion, Eliza. So what’s your plan? Ah’d really like to know why Ah’m still alive talkin’ to y’all right now when you coulda just shot me to death.”

  “True, true, I did take your gun, but it wouldn’t have been much fun to shoot someone who couldn’t shoot back. Now the game is more even.” She guffawed. Menacingly close to Deeprose’s face, she allowed her eyes to travel from the poor, broken face to the blood and vomit-stained shirt. Deeprose did her best to lock her gaze with Eliza’s.

  “Ah don’t understand you. Fun? Is killin’ fun for you? Does it give you that powerful, triumphant feelin’ you get when you win a game or does it give you a little sexual thrill maybe?”

  “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, Agent Deeprose – to anyone! And I’m gonna enjoy it; that’s what I mean. I live by the law of the jungle - kill or be killed.”

  “We don’t live in the jungle, Eliza! And we don’t live like we do!”

  “Who says we don’t? It’s a different kind of jungle, that’s all.”

  “Animals don’t kill for enjoyment, Eliza; they kill to eat.”

  “We kill for both, Agent Deeprose, so what makes you think animals don’t? I didn’t make the rules. If some rich bastard has to die so I can get a little something, why shouldn’t I kill him and enjoy it?”

  Deeprose answered her while her left hand worked its way toward the phone still halfway between them. “Y’all may hate the fat cats of this world, Eliza, but no one’s keepin’ you from tryin’ to become somethin’ better, to make somethin’ of yourself. You say you hate them for lordin’ it over you, for screwin’ with the rules, for takin’ the bread outta your mouth. All right. But committin’ murder won’t change any of that. And it won’t change the outcome for you. You’re sick, Eliza, and you need help. Let me help you.”

  Eliza was silent for a few minutes.

  “I have to kill you. If I don’t, it’s over for me. But that’s not all of it, I guess. The truth is, I always wanted to feel what it was like to have the power of life and death in my hands. To tell you the God’s honest truth, I don’t give a shit who has what and how much of it. I don’t care who dies, and I never did. All I know is that I want to do it. I don’t know why I love that rush of fear I get from people, but why is that so bad? Why shouldn’t I feel the way I do? I’ve never felt any other way. If I was born that way, then it must be O.K. to do what comes naturally. It’s not sick; it is what it is. Not good, not bad. Just different than most, but not all. There’s lots of killers out there, so how can it be sick or unnatural?”

  Like the eye of a storm, any rationality she might have had was suddenly gone, replaced by the hard, unthinking, brutal beast she’d always been. “You’re pretty stupid for an F.B.I. agent, you know that? You shouldn’t have gotten in my car. Oh, I expect to get caught, eventually, but not until I finish what I started. After that, they can do what they want to me, but it’ll be months before anyone finds you, and when they do, all they’ll find are what the birds left behind.”

  “Look honey, they won’t hurt you if they know you’re ill. Ah promise Ah’ll make them help you, not hurt you. They’ll listen to me, Eliza, but if you go through with this, there’s no comin’ back. How about it?”

  Eliza replied by mimicking Deeprose. “Ah say put your head between yaw knees and kiss yaw country ass goodbah.” She threw her head back and laughed.

  Deeprose closed her eyes, and even in excruciating pain, turned her head away from that laughing face. Eliza was a born killer, she knew it now. She was wired up that way. No amount of nurturing could have brought about a different result. Eliza was born without a conscience, without the capacity for introspection and without remorse or pity. She knew right from wrong, but didn’t understand why wrong was so very wrong. Her brain was simple. She did what felt good and took what she wanted any way she could get it. Eliza was like the carrier of a fatal disease running rampant through a village; the only way to stop her was to contain her before she could hurt or kill anyone else.

  Eliza finally n
oticed her phone laying on the front seat and snatched it up.

  Shit! Ah’ll have to try somethin’ else…

  She tried bluffing.

  “My cell phone, Eliza… It’s been on the whole time. They’ve been trackin’ us. They know where Ah am. And you too.”

  “We’ll be long gone by the time anyone gets here. Honey.”

  “Who else is involved, Eliza? Where are they?”

  “Never mind that. Just make sure you don’t move. If you do, I swear I’ll push your head right through the fucking glass.” She pulled a lever with her free hand, and the trunk popped open.

  Deeprose struggled desperately to stay conscious.

  The blood pooling in her mouth tasted like tin. She spat it out. “Eliza, if someone put y’all up to this, he’s the one Ah‘m after. Understand? Not you. Now tell me what Ah need to know so Ah can do my job.”

  Eliza stared straight ahead, unmoved.

  She’s got the same stony look on her face Agent Seacrest did that day in the lab. Holy Mother of God! She got ahold of that drug somehow and took it because she likes the boost of courage and confidence it gives her.

  Deeprose heard knocking on both the driver and passenger side windows. A delicate looking girl stood at one and a scared, sullen looking redhead stood at the other.

  Hey! That pretty one is the ballerina Carter and I met with at her school. Ah, the second girl at The Ginger Man was Clara. All right, that’s it; if Ah’m goin’ to make a last stand, it has to be now.

  Deeprose wasn’t afraid; she’d made her decision. She pulled her gun out of Eliza’s hand and aimed it straight at her head. “Tell them to step away from the car and put their hands on their head. If they surrender now, Ah won’t shoot, but if either one makes a move toward me, Ah’ll kill you, Eliza. Tell ‘em!”

  Eliza did something Deeprose could never have anticipated in her condition. She leaned forward and wrenched the gun back out of her hand. “The safety’s still on. That wasn’t smart, Agent.”

  Eliza turned her attention to the task at hand. “O.K. you two, I have her gun. She’s no threat anymore; she’s already half dead. Open her door, Alison.”

  Deeprose thought her head would explode.

  Show no pain. Show no fear. Look for your opportunity. One moment is all you need…

  The redhead did as she was told. Deeprose tumbled out of the car and onto her back. The redhead apologized before stomping on the agent’s arm. Deeprose made no sound, but her arm was broken, maybe even shattered.

  Alison hesitated, but picked the gun up off the ground where Eliza threw it. “Christ, Alison, where are the balls you had on yesterday? You killed three people in cold blood! It doesn’t matter that you were drugged that first time or that Clara tricked you into the other two. You’re going to jail for the rest of your life, you idiot! They’ll NEVER let you out. NEVER! Now cut the shit and do what we came here for.”

  Deeprose didn’t yet know that the video camera had recorded Alison’s crime, but she did know that someone turned the camera off and then on again, so she took a calculated risk and tried another bluff. “Don’t listen to her, Alison. The two murders at The Ginger Man were recorded on their surveillance camera because someone turned it back on. You were double-crossed by Clara, and Ah can help you prove it now.”

  The gun shook like a leaf in Alison’s hand. They all waited to see what she would do. “Clara? You switched the camera back on? Oh, no. No, No, No!”

  Alison looked at Deeprose with infinite sadness and regret. “I’m sorry for this. I wanted to help end all of this. That night at the micro-brewery, the plan was to confront Abby and scare her into leaving Clara alone. The security guard knew them both, so he let us in, but he got drunk and was hitting Clara when I got there. It looked like he was trying to rape her. I had to do something; I thought she was my best friend. Right.”

  Alison shook her head in abject misery. “There was a struggle. Somehow, both of them wound up in the vat. No matter how you look at it, I’m guilty. I’m sorry, but you said it yourself - they’ve seen it all on the video by now. You can’t help me. Eliza’s right; I have no choice. I can’t spend my life in prison. If they’re busy searching for you, it’ll give me enough time to get away.”

  Alison took off the safety catch and used both hands to steady the gun. She aimed at Deeprose.

  Distraction is the only thing Ah can use now.

  Using her one good arm and her two legs as weapons, Deeprose kicked dirt up into Alison’s face. Using every ounce of strength she had left, she grabbed back her gun, catapulted herself into a mid-air somersault and used Alison for a landing pad. She stood up slowly, heaving and gasping. Alison remained on the ground with the wind knocked out of her.

  “Don’t make me use this, ladies.”

  “Please, please help me!” Deeprose raised her eyes in the direction of the voice. Clara was crying and shaking. She screamed accusations at the other two. “This woman killed my two friends and then kidnapped me from the bar and threw me in that girl’s trunk. I’ve been in there suffocating until now! They brought me here because I’m a witness, just like you are. That’s all I know. I have no idea what they’re trying to hand you, but I don’t know either one of them!”

  It was quite a show, but it wasn’t good enough to convince Deeprose, who noticed she’d been calm and collected when she tapped on the car window and hadn’t made any attempt to run away when Eliza opened the trunk.

  Eliza come out from behind the car with an old hockey stick she kept in the trunk intending to smash Clara’s head in. Holding the stick horizontally in front of herself, Eliza walked straight toward Clara. She’d had enough. “I’ll kill you for that, you lying sack of shit!”

  “You heard her! You’re a witness! She’s a killer. They both are!” Clara inched as much away from Eliza as possible.

  Deeprose yelled, “Stop! Stop, Eliza, or I’ll shoot you where you stand!”

  Eliza kept on coming, as inevitable as a Sherman tank and every bit as threatening. Deeprose shouted a last warning and aimed for her knee when Clara let out a blood-curdling scream and ran straight into Eliza, who was twice her weight and size. The force of her own momentum knocked Eliza off balance who lost her footing and fell. Clara grabbed the hockey stick. She knew Deeprose had no reason to believe her story, and seeing no way out of this, she swung the stick at Deeprose, forcing her to drop her gun so she could grab the stick mid-swing with her one good hand.

  Clara stood like a statue with a sick expression on her face, knowing what was coming and knowing it couldn’t be stopped. Deeprose swung the hockey stick right across her midsection and heard a few ribs crack. It was a very satisfying sound.

  Alison knocked Clara to the ground and jumped on her. Eliza pulled her off Clara and delivered a glorious right hook to her jaw just for the hell of it. She’d been wanting to smack Alison since the day they met.

  Deeprose held the stick up over her head and yelled, “Stop! Stop!”

  No one heard her. She started searching the ground for her Glock.

  Alison lifted a hand to her face, ostensibly, to see if it was still there and lowered it again. She’d been badly abused as a child. Eliza and Clara froze as if they were waiting for someone to snap a picture. Neither one had seen Alison go over the top. The tension was unbearable. She stared at the blood dripping through her fingers, and shrieked, “You fucker!”

  All hell broke loose again. The three girls rolled on the ground, ripping clothes, pulling hair, biting, kicking and bitch slapping. Deeprose never saw anything like it – not even in Iraq. She bent over to pick up her gun. Eliza saw the opening she’d been waiting for. She threw the others off her the way a dog shakes off the rain, picked up her old hockey stick, and…Wham! Deeprose dropped like a stone when it connected with her head.

  Eliza raised the bloody stick in the air and yelled, “Score!”

  Alison dove to the ground and snatched up the lost gun. She pointed it at Eliza’s temple. “You shou
ld have kept your eye on the gun. You’re both shit straight out of the gutter! Neither one of you is worth saving. You’re not worth it!” Alison broke down and cried, still holding the gun.

  Deeprose thought it was a good moment to intervene since Alison seemed like the only one of the three capable of rational thought. “Alison, honey, put down the gun. It’s over. You’re O.K. now.”

  Alison had begun to lower the weapon with trembling hands when they heard a deafening boom. She looked down at it in disbelief; the gun discharged at almost point blank range piercing Deeprose’s right shoulder. With her last conscious thought, Deeprose pulled a small, sparkling crust of meteor out of a pocket. It was the stone Carter had given to her before her flight to Langley.

  Alison was the only one left standing now. She saw the Moldavite reflect its brilliance in the sunlight. As if the question came from someone else, she heard herself ask, “What is that?”

  “It’s hope.”

  Deeprose finally passed out. Her body was almost unrecognizable.

  ***

  A motorcycle roared past just then, and as it did, Alison felt a slight stinging sensation. “There’s a dart in my shoulder!”

  Seconds later, Eliza and Clara felt it too. All three were out cold in less than half a minute. The motorcycle stopped, and a man in black with an equally black visor pulled down over his face, knelt beside Deeprose. He pulled out a handkerchief and soaked it in water poured from a plastic bottle. He gently squeezed it all over her face.

  A voice whispered in her ear, “You’re all right. You’re going to be all right.” He held the handkerchief to her lips to suck on. She lifted her eyelids slightly to see who it was.

  “Agent…Carter?” Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she passed out again. The man got back on his bike. The motor thrummed to life and faded away into the distance.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  At the hospital, Carter held Deeprose’s hand in both if his. The parts of her that weren’t in traction or a cast were taped up, bandaged or splinted. An I.V. dripped morphine into her body for the unbearable pain. The injury to her skull had caused swelling of the brain.