ƒ ƒ ƒ
∞ ∞ ∞
“What will it be like?” Jen had asked.
“What?” Paul had said.
“When we get married, how will it be different?”
“Well, in a lot of ways it won’t be. I mean we already spend a lot of time together, we already sleep together, I already feel like I know you really well.”
“Then what’s the point? Why get married at all?”
Silence stretched out between them like an expanding balloon, then he said, “I’m not sure. Maybe for other people to know we want to be together for the rest of our lives.”
“I’m not sure why we should care what they think.”
He said, “What are you saying? You don’t want to get married?”
“No. I’m not saying that. I’m sorry. That came out wrong. Of course I want to marry you. I love you.”
“Well then, maybe that’s the reason,” Paul said. “Just because we want to.”
“Also,” she smiled mischievously, “I’d like to have a baby.”
∞ ∞ ∞
That really was the question. Perhaps the final question, the question asked just before all questions were destroyed. Do I want to?
He let go of clare. released his grip on everything.
que sara sara sara sara sara sara
EPILOGUE † SPIRIT
I was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins. Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell; yea, I saw that I had rebelled against my God, and that I had not kept his holy commandments.
Yea, and I had murdered many of his children, or rather led them away unto destruction; yea, and in fine so great had been my iniquities, that the very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror. Oh, thought I, that I could be banished and become extinct both soul and body, that I might not be brought to stand in the presence of my God, to be judged of my deeds.
—Alma 36:12-15
A little child shall lead them.
—Isaiah 11:6
JULY 4th, THE NEXT YEAR
ON THE COMFY COUCH IN THE LIVING ROOM, baby Clark held Daddy’s big finger with his tiny hand. Low light from outside marked the onset of another late summer evening. In Clark’s eyes Paul could see the first signs of true intelligence. Just a flicker here and there amidst the constant curious stares. Clark was a baby who cried loudly sometimes, but he was a good sleeper. A sense of love and loyalty seemed to spread from him. His body may be tiny, Paul thought, but his spirit is large. He didn’t really know what he meant by that, but ever since Clark had entered his life, he had much more tender feelings about spiritual matters.
Soon it was time for Clark to have some milk, and Paul wished there was breast milk for the boy, knowing there never would be. He went to the kitchen to warm the bottle the way his mother had shown him on her visit, and Cards padded along with him. She looked so much older than she had; perhaps Jen’s death had taken a toll on the dog as well. Paul’s baby sucked the plastic teat greedily. Paul patted Clark’s downy hair, and a tear came to his eye. He wiped it away, knowing if he got started with that he wouldn’t be able to stop. Instead he laughed lightly. There was nothing very funny, it just came out, saving him from another weeping session.
Five months ago Paul had found four bodies in the trees by his house. Jen he recognized, but the other three he had never seen. The police in the area were baffled when identities were determined. At first Paul was under heavy scrutiny as the possible murderer, but with no evidence or motive he was soon declared no longer a suspect or even a person of interest in the case. There was absolutely nothing in the notes of the late Detective Matthews—or any other officer for that matter—that implicated Paul in any way to these murders or that of Donald Harmon or anybody else. As for Paul himself, he felt very little curiosity about what had happened. He agreed it was mysterious, but he was more interested in healing his shattered heart than tracking down the killer or killers. He knew he should care, but he let the police deal with it.
Jen’s death had devastated Paul, and for a while he had nothing to live for other than the baby, apparently belonging to the girl whose remains were found outside. The police said her name was Clare Clark. As a sign of respect to her, Paul had named the baby Clark Kenner once it had become legally his.
In addition to missing Jen horribly, he missed someone else. He’d never talked about it with the police or anybody, because he had no idea who it was he supposedly missed so much, but the ache was real. Not a woman. A man. A childhood friend, almost. There was a big, round, empty hole in his life.
Without Clark, Paul reflected as he watched the baby suck in formula, he would almost certainly have taken up serious drinking, drug abuse, or worse. He would have probably committed suicide.
But Clark, this beautiful little baby, had redeemed Paul from destruction and despair. It was just he and Clark alone in this big house where Clark would probably grow up. Paul vowed to always care for the baby who would one day grow into a man. He wanted to be a good father more than he wanted anything else.
At first, he hadn’t been able to write at all. Partly because Clark required so much attention, but also because he felt totally blocked from the action. He wanted to write, he knew it would help him heal, but until April he’d been unable. That was when he’d decided to give up on Scott’s Anaconda. It wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was anything else that had to do with the Civil War or surrounding periods. Once he’d decided that, the words had come. But the words had changed.
He had been writing a different kind of story, one not at all like his previous work, and it came to him fluidly, easily. It was some kind of supernatural horror story, in line with the norms of the genre: his protagonist was a writer who had just moved to a new town with his wife. There the writer felt the presence of someone in his home, and things got weird fast.
Paul thought it would sell well, though he’d probably have to use a pseudonym at least to differentiate it from his old body of work, even though it probably wouldn’t be any big secret who he was. He wasn’t sure how much he cared for the book, honestly—it was much darker than any he’d written before—but it just felt good to write again.
He looked down and saw that Clark had fallen asleep. After laying the boy in his crib, Paul went to the big empty office.
Sitting there at the computer, typing away as his adopted son slept, Paul began to feel like his old self again.
† THE END †
About the author — Matthew Allred is a prolific writer and renaissance artist. When he isn’t penning horror novels, he writes webcomics, paid genre fiction, scripts, poetry, and anything else that strikes his fancy (or his wallet). Allred is also an avid singer-songwriter, a visual artist and cartoonist, party hypnotist, and royal pain in the neck.
He lives with his wife Sarah in Idaho, but their hearts are far away in the fictitious land of Utah.
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Tomorrow I Will Kill Again Page 34