The Big Bad II

by John G. Hartness

  So I holed up in the back corner of Leo's closet. I spent the remainder of his jog staring at his ties—each one already looped and knotted like a little noose waiting for a neck. The air stank of his cologne. Why did arrogant jerks like Leo always wear too much cologne? Perhaps being that kind of an ass made one's body odor pungent.

  While I waited, I noticed an unevenness to the back wall. I refrained from turning on the closet light in case Leo returned early, and instead, I felt around with my hands. To my surprise, I discovered a sliding panel door that led into a deeper closet—only this room did not contain coats and suit pants and an ironing board. This room had several surveillance monitors set up to spy on the guest bedrooms of the house.

  "Tsk, tsk, Leo. Looks like we're going to have a little talk about privacy rights." Yes, I spoke aloud as if I had an audience in that empty house. I don't often do that kind of thing, but now and then it adds to the mood, makes me feel a tiny bit unhinged, gets me in the right frame of mind for creation.

  And then...bump.

  It's the only way I know to easily describe the sensation I get when my art takes shape, when I know what to do, how to play it all out, and that the time for action had arrived. Other artists say things click for them or open up in their minds. For me, it's a bump. Sort of like the sensation you get when you’re driving a car and you hit a sudden change in the road. The car lurches upward and you sink down. It jolts you awake, rushes adrenaline throughout your body. It lasts only a second, this bump, but its tingle along your skin lingers. Every part of you is active in the sensation for that brief moment. That's the bump. And that's what I felt staring at those monitors.

  Echoing sounds drifted up from the front door—huffing, sneakers squeaking against the wood floor, keys jangling and then landing on a glass table. Leo was home. I smiled.

  In the glow of the monitors, I saw a light switch next to the sliding panel. I flicked on the surveillance room lights, left the panel open, and stepped back to the dark corner of the closet. Listening for him to climb the stairs, a smile crept onto my lips, and I covered my mouth to hide the giggling fit that threatened to betray me.

  Leo moved slowly, groaning over his sore muscles, but I could wait as long as required. I had something great in mind to do. It would astound the world.

  The next few moments played out in my head. I saw Leo enter the bedroom, sweaty and tired from his run. I saw him notice the light coming from his secret room. His face would twist in confusion. Had he left it on by accident? He would approach the closet slowly, perhaps brandishing a baseball bat. He would squat in front of the closet, peeking low. Maybe he would open his mouth to call out, but he's too smart for that. He would refrain from the urge, and instead enter the secret room, ready to attack.

  Like a guerrilla soldier, I would sit back and watch him pass me by. Only when his back was to me would I attack. A swift blow to the back of the head would knock him out. Then my real work would begin.

  Before you ask, because everyone asks an artist this question, let me tell you where I get my ideas. The inspiration for my great art came to me while watching one of those operating room reality shows where they show a surgery taking place for your entertainment—and, I suppose, education. In several episodes, they show people being treated with arthroscopic surgery. This amazes me. A small, innocuous incision to slide in every little piece of equipment needed.

  And I thought—why not do the reverse?

  So, once I knocked out Leo, I planned to take him into his double-wide shower stall and, using the equipment stowed in my car, I would make several small, key incisions. I would gently remove his bones, sliding them out through the incisions. If I did it right, in the end, I would have a perfect skeleton, and a mostly unmarred skin.

  As Leo reached the top step, bump, I had a sudden inspiration. With all those monitored rooms, I could lay out his skeleton on one bed and his skin on another. The detectives would think it symbolic toward some crime in those rooms—especially when they located the secret room in the closet. Of course, I'd have to remove the hard-drives recording the camera images. That would make the whole thing too easy.

  I nodded in the dark closet. That would be a great addition to this already magnificent concept for my work. As that thought floated in my brain, I heard Leo's breath catch. He must have noticed the light coming from the closet.

  No footsteps. He stood in the doorway, playing back his morning, wondering if he had left that room open. Slow steps came next as he tried to be quiet, tiptoeing across the room so he could grab a weapon.

  I nearly doubled over with laughter. As much as one can anticipate what would happen in this situation, I never realized how much joy I would feel. So much that it threatened to destroy my entire goal.

  "Hello?" Leo called from near his bed.

  What a shame. I really had hoped he would be smarter than to announce himself like that.

  "Anybody there?"

  Again, I fought back the giggles. All I had to do was give a ghostly moan, and I'd have that pecker pissing his pants. But then I heard him step closer toward me, and the seriousness of what was about to happen sobered me fast.

  Just as I had imagined, he bent over to peek under the hanging clothes. I watched his upside-down head stare into the closet—quizzical, yet unsure. He looked meeker than I had expected. Not quite the arrogant loser I wanted, but even the greatest artists have had to make compromises.

  Exactly as I had pictured him, he poked a golf club in between two coats and used the metal stick to separate them. He walked right by me. Never noticed that I stood so close. I could smell him—workout sweat mixed with morning dew—and he never had a clue that his life would be turned into my palette.

  He stopped at the edge of the secret panel leading into his room of spying. I had hoped he would go in further, but he froze. Flexing and relaxing his fingers around the leather grip of his golf club, Leo stared ahead. His eyes glistened like those of a naughty child who knew a beating was coming. And while he certainly lacked the level of character I had perceived in him, he was still a prick who abused his waitress and deserved a punishment. Naughty, naughty, naughty.

  Hovering his foot over the lip of the panel, he swallowed hard, unable to find the courage to continue. I should have launched into an attack right then. It would have lacked the grace and simplicity of my original vision, but I think I would have startled him, gaining enough of an advantage to knock him out. I wanted to. But, well, this is not easy to admit to you—I froze, too.

  My heart hammered at the thought of enacting all that I had planned. Could I really do it? Would I be able to create something in real life as amazing as the things I saw in my mind? Would the investigators, the news reporters, and eventually the public be as amazed by my art as I had hoped? And, since I must be honest, would Father have the full appreciation for what I had done? Would he be proud?

  And in those precious seconds that I could not move, that I neglected to grasp the opportunity before me, Leo turned to leave—and he saw me. He stared right at me. His brow narrowed as he tried to understand the information his eyes told his brain. Perhaps he recognized me from the diner. Perhaps he thought I was only a figment of the shadows and dim light. I didn't care. I had been given a second opportunity, and I refused to miss out.

  Screaming my throat raw, I bolted out with my hands and attacked.

  What followed happened in both a rapid blur and slow-motion simultaneously. Leo, forgetting he held a weapon, thrust out his hand like a police officer stopping traffic, and I barreled onward like an eighteen-wheeler with no brakes. I smashed into him, bending back the fingers of his hand, the golf club clattering to the floor, breaking the framing around the panel door, tackling Leo down into the secret room. We punched and grappled, and I had the advantage and then he had the advantage, as we rolled each other over and back again.

  But I also saw his face Slow snaps of his s
urprise. His confusion. His horror as my fist connected with his cheek. Wincing, stunned pain as my knee plowed into his groin.

  Then I was on my feet. Curled in a fetal position, Leo cupped his groin and spewed out one curse after another. I kicked him in the back three times.

  Though breathing hard and sweating profusely, I managed to stay focused on my job. It was exhilarating to know that all the tales artists told of being in a special zone of awareness were true. The rest of the world melted away for me. I saw Leo and the room and the pieces I needed, but the remainder no longer existed. Without looking, I knew that the golf club waited behind me in the closet. It rested against the sill of the sliding panel, its handle sticking out toward me like an offered hand.

  I stepped back without taking my eyes off Leo, crouched down, and took hold of the club. As remarkable as this artistic state of being had been, I knew that this particular work had already failed. It had been so perfect in my head, so effective to the audience, and yet when I created it in reality, it fell short.

  I stood and lifted the club. It would have been incredible to have seen the terrified faces of those detectives when they uncovered the gruesome display I had planned. But Leo froze at the door. He didn't step in, and I failed to knock him out with one strike.

  Though he raised his arm again, crying and begging for his life, I slammed the club down on his head. Artists must improvise from time to time, and while Leo would not turn into the great work I had wanted, I could still make something out of him. As I repeatedly brought the club down upon him, dark globs of blood flew across the room, bearing a majestic quality that reminded me of raindrops splashing in a puddle.

  I don't know how long I continued to work. Time had ceased to make sense. When I finally came down from my artist's high, I saw that I had gone too far. It happens to beginners. It's difficult to know when to stop, when to use less color, less instrumentation, less verbiage.

  His face had become a crimson mash. I could never turn him into a beautiful skin laid out upon a bed. What was the point of removing his bones when any idiot could do that through the gaping wounds of his head? What I had wanted to accomplish would show my superior talent and skill. This had turned in something barbaric.

  Well, even Mozart had to practice before he pulled off any greatness. Studying the walls dripping with blood, I had to admire my first attempt. Not bad, after all. It lacked the grace and precision I sought to achieve, but it captured the essence of brutality that I hoped to instill in my audience. Unfortunately, like all artists' first works, I would have to make sure that nobody ever saw this failure.

  Downstairs, to the side of Leo's dramatic fireplace, I found a cylinder container with long stick matches inside. I hurried back to the secret room and dropped a few lit matches. Then I slowly walked back, lighting and dropping matches as I went. By the time I reached the front door, a roaring blaze engulfed the house.

  I strolled home, taking a circuitous route in case anybody had spotted me, and within days it became evident that no police would be knocking on my door. So, while my work had not succeeded in the way I wanted it to, I managed to succeed in one crucial aspect of it all—escaping the police.

  Like all great artists, I continued to work hard at perfecting my craft. Four more works I created over the last few years. Each in a different state, one in another country. Each unique. Nothing to connect them. Best of all, each one improved on those from before.

  And now, I believe I'm ready to attempt my original dream. That great work I had envisioned in Leo's home. When I finish, I'll be able to make my story public, get the attention my work deserves, and accomplish the secret desired goal of all artists—to be famous.

  Your part in all this, that of the victim, cannot be discounted. I'm sure you wish it were otherwise, and as you read this, I know part of your brain is attempting to dismiss this as a story or think of a grand way out. Any way out, really. But be assured, there is no hope for you. I've become quite good at what I do.

  You were dead a month ago—the moment I picked you. You've been a walking corpse while I studied you and your life and your home. You've been living out your final days in blissful ignorance while I plotted out every detail, every step, so that when you finish reading this, you'll only have to find me and it'll be over.

  And you will go find me. Because you have to convince yourself that this isn't true, that I'm not real, that I'm not waiting to pull your bones out one at a time.

  When you finish these words, you'll go to your bedroom. And I am there. Waiting in your closet. Listening to you read this. Hearing your heart thudding harder. Knowing the fear grows inside you.

  I am in the dark corner. Smelling your scent from the coats and pants hanging off the rod. I'm waiting. I know how to turn you into a great work. I can see it in my mind. Come let me show it to you.

  And I have a special feeling inside that this time is going to be perfect.

  Bump.

  The House on Cherry Hill

  Emily Lavin Leverett

  Labor Day 2013

  “Whoa,” Sammy said from the backseat as Bev turned the car into the driveway.

  Lily pulled her earbuds out of her ears for the first time since Washington, DC and leaned over her mother to stare out the window. “It’s better than the pictures.”

  “It must be, to impress a teenager.” Bev put the four-door into park and clicked free the seatbelt as her daughter climbed out of the car.

  A short blonde woman in a suit was heading down the front steps of the porch with a big smile on her face.

  Bev stepped out of the car and into the breeze that swept strands of her piled-up brown hair out of its bun. In the distance, the crash of the surf pounded relentlessly at the base of the dunes.

  The realtor’s description ran through her head, even as she stared at her new home. Two stories, plus an attic, built in the early 1900s but renovated in 2006 when the last owners took over, the house is a faux Victorian. Brick with brown trim and green storm shutters on all the windows, and generous front and back porches. From the top floor of the house, with its two turrets, you can sometimes see freight ships on clear days.

  Labor Day had come and gone, but the summer heat held on, as it so often did in North Carolina, suffocating. The lingering humidity and heat would be something she and the kids would have to get used to—no more New Hampshire autumns in North Carolina.

  “Hi Bev!” the blonde trilled as she shoved her shoulder-length blonde bob back off her face and fluffed the white blouse under her suit jacket a few times to cool herself off. She held out her hand. “I’m Laura Jean.”

  “Hi.” Bev shook her hand and nodded to her kids. “This is Sammy and Lily.”

  “Great to meet you!” She waved a hand. “Come on, let’s get you into your new home. If the grass is too much, I can always have Beau come over and mow it for you.” She gestured at the lawn as she led the way up the porch before unlocking the iron-barred screen door. She held it open with her hip and unlocked the front door.

  The heat inside the house was heavy, too. But drier, thankfully. Heavy curtains had been thrown back and windows opened, letting in what little breeze there was.

  “Don’t worry,” Laura Jean said, “by tonight the temp will drop to the mid-sixties—and the stuffiness will be gone.”

  “Oh, no worries,” Bev said with a smile. “I’m sure we’ll be too tired by tonight to care.”

  “Can we go upstairs and pick our rooms?” Sammy asked, already two stairs up.

  Bev nodded. “Go ahead,” she said, and watched him run up, his older sister chasing him.

  “The movers are following?” Laura Jean asked once the kids had disappeared.

  “Yes.” Bev nodded and headed for the kitchen. The house was dated in its décor, but she had known that from the pictures. In person, the old beauty of the inside shone through. Sure, the flo
ors and banisters needed a good polish, maybe a refinish.

  The kitchen was huge, and, complete with a breakfast nook, took up the whole back side of the house. Windows gazed out to the sandy dune that dropped to the ocean. The ocean breeze, still warm, blew in carrying the crisp scent of salt. The room seemed to breathe it in with her.

  “Beautiful,” Bev whispered.

  “Isn’t it?” Laura Jean said behind her. “You’ll love Cherry Hill. And it’s going to love you. This old house has been empty too long.” She handed Bev the keys.

  ***

  September 2008

  Rebecca stared at the house from the safety of the street. Its long, straight driveway led to the detached garage, its dark wood door closed. The prettiest house in town, like some seaside castle rising up in one of those old movies her grandma watched on Saturday afternoons.

  She swung her leg over her bike and kicked out the stand. The last people who’d lived there had moved out almost a year ago, just before Christmas. She ran her fingers through the tassels on her handlebars. There was no fence. Nothing to keep her from walking right up to the front door and trying the handle. It wouldn’t open, and she could go home.

  Edging away from her bike, she eased onto the grass. It was lush and thick—Beau hadn’t mowed in a while—and it cradled her shoes like carpet. A few steps and she was up the short bank and onto the lawn proper.

  The whip of the wind and the crash of the waves were the only sounds. Though there were other houses within a few hundred yards, the house seemed lonely. Lots of folks around here rented out places. But not Miss Laura Jean, or at least not this house.

  “Becca?” a voice behind her said, and she spun.

  No one there.

  “Becca?” Behind her again, and she spun to face the house. On the porch was a girl. Not much older than Becca, maybe ten, hard to tell. Chin-length blonde bob held back on one side with a blue barrette. A matching blue, yellow, and white plaid, knee-length jumper dress, gathered at the waist, and a blue shirt underneath. “You’re Becca McKay, right?” the girl asked.