Blue Stew (Second Edition)

by Woodland, Nathaniel

  “No, it’s not like that. Timothy is a maniac. He admitted—I heard him—he admitted to killing all of those five men.”

  Officer Corey’s response was too fast and garbled to comprehend, as hard as Walter tried.

  “Not directly, not by his own hands . . . he tricked them all into taking some extreme psychedelic drug. He’s a biochemist . . . it was some horrible home-brew drug.”

  Tom Corey’s voice now was too low for Walter to hear. Or, he might not have said anything.

  “Tom, we’ve just been running for our lives. Timothy was shooting at us,” Braylen’s voice wasn’t raised, which helped amplify the severity of his tone. “I’m dead serious about this. You need to call dispatch, you know, get some backup, and get over there and arrest the insane son-of-a-bitch right now.”

  Walter heard a distorted, “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. Timothy was completely deranged. He tried to murder Walter—there’s no ambiguity there at least. That’s enough to go on to bring him in immediately, isn’t it?”

  Officer Corey made some sounds that didn’t seem as disbelieving as before.

  “Good,” said Braylen. “What should we do now? Should we meet you at the station so someone can take our statement . . . or what?”

  Again Tom Corey spoke too low for Walter to piece any of it together.

  “Okay. Yeah, that is much closer. We’re getting to the lights right now, actually. We’ll see you in a minute.”

  Braylen closed his phone and set it on his lap. They were approaching the only other set of lights in Sutherland besides those at the intersection in the center of town.

  Walter was looking at Braylen expectantly.

  “Okay, so Tom’s putting in the call now. He’s gonna get his guys to assemble at his house, I guess.” Braylen slowed at the red light, and then made a left through it when he’d gotten close enough to see around the bend. At that point Walter knew where they were going, but Braylen said it anyways, “We’re going there now, too.”

  Walter nodded. The adrenaline overdose was finally wearing off, and he was beginning to feel sick.

  “Between tonight and the other night, you’ve been through a few levels of hell, haven’t you? Jesus.”

  Walter thought for a second, and then shrugged. “It’s all been my fault. I mean, not the shit itself, just my getting my nose into all of it . . .”

  Braylen looked at him with a frown. “You were rear-ended by Victim One. Isn’t that, by traffic law, not possibly your fault?” He laughed, “You are Walter Boyd, right? From the papers?”

  “Yeah, that’s me,” said Walter. Privately, he thought of the reason he’d been out driving that night, and what had been going on in his head moments before the collision: He’d been scheming up ways to crash his intervention . . . when life intervened with a much more literal crash. Walter had to wonder if instant karma was a real thing.

  “And, tonight, you were out getting some air—clearing your head, I heard you say. You saw something and you were curious. It’s not your fault; it’s that lunatic’s fault.”

  “Well,” Walter’s full voice had been missing since he’d entered Timothy Glass’s underground lab. “Getting air was part of it. But that wasn’t what took me in that direction. I was out snooping. I don’t know what for . . . but I had a funny feeling about Timothy. The scars, his history . . .”

  “Then be proud, Walter! Your keen intuition and fast thinking—and bravery—tonight has exposed and is about to bring to justice a very dangerous man. A man who, from everything I overheard, was planning on spreading his personal plague far and wide.” Braylen took his right hand off the wheel and set it firmly on Walter’s shoulder, giving an affectionate shake. “Walter, you might’ve saved many lives tonight!”

  Braylen didn’t see it, but a fleeting smile surfaced on Walter’s face, before receding back behind the previous stony, pale expression.

  • • •

  They pulled into the Corey’s horseshoe driveway minutes later.

  Tom Corey intercepted them at the front door. Lit by the porch’s classical iron sconces, he was dressed in full uniform, though his severe bed-hair and sagging face negated any sense of togetherness that the get-up might’ve implied.

  Officer Corey didn’t waste any time, speaking as Walter and Braylen ambled up the stone walkway, “I put in the call pinning Timothy Glass for attempted murder. You’re going to have to clear this picture up real quick, though, before backup arrives and we move out to bring Timothy in, because my head is spinning trying to make any sense of what you said over the phone.”

  “Can we come in and sit down? It’s freezing out,” said Braylen, leading the way.

  “Yes, hurry,” said Tom Corey impatiently, backing into his home. He held the door as they hastened up the porch and through the doorway.

  Walter hadn’t realized how cold he’d been until being buffeted by the warmth of the Corey’s large entranceway. His extremities tingled as they started to thaw.

  Officer Corey shut the door and pointed to the adjacent dining room, lit softly by a yellow hooded-lamp in the far corner, “Take a seat.”

  The sound of shuffling feet and creaking wood and scrapping chair legs echoed through the previously silent, spacious room, and then Braylen jumped into it without prompting.

  With how concisely he laid out all the odd spontaneous choices and chance connections that’d instigated that night’s wild events, it had the effect of arraigning and solidifying everything for Walter almost as much as it did for Tom Corey. Until that point, Walter’s consciousness had been regarding what had just gone down as something more like the disjointed bits of a crazy dream, rather than something immediate and real. Sure, the Night of Horrors had significantly elevated his tolerance for nightmarish situations, and he would’ve come to grips with this night’s events before too long. Braylen just expedited that process by framing all the wild, flimsy details in a healthy matter-of-fact way. As always, crazier things have happened, right?

  “So the fucker went completely bat-shit insane after his wife died, and no one knew?” asked Tom Corey.

  “Well,” responded Braylen, “I guess not completely. Clearly he couldn’t accept what had happened to his wife. So he obsessed over it, and his obsession drove him to flip the whole thing over into some warped positive light. The end result, in his mind, was that death had become an absolute good thing—a release—and life an absolute bad thing, a ‘prison’ for the soul . . . or whatever he meant.”

  “Victim Three, in Doris’s house, was saying things like that . . .” Officer Corey intoned.

  “Yeah . . . that’s where this gets really messed up,” said Braylen. “I’m sure this has happened before: the person someone loves the most dies tragically, and the surviving someone comes to accept such a terrible thing by forcing themselves to believe that life is no good anyway, and that their loved-one is better off. You’d think that the typical worst-case outcome would be for the surviving loved-one to become suicidal, right? No. Timothy seemed to have come at all this from a disturbingly scientific angle, and he convinced himself that there’s a ‘chemical imbalance’ in the human brain that keeps us trapped in our bodies, which he sees primarily as instruments of pain and suffering.”

  Tom Corey was shaking his head.

  Braylen finished, “So he set out to create a ‘cure.’ A drug that seems to . . . reverse our self-preservation instincts. He called it ‘Blue Stew.’”

  Officer Corey looked at Walter. Walter nodded. Officer Corey said, “Wow . . . this shit almost makes sense. I think I prefer when fucked-up shit doesn’t make sense, honestly . . . easier to keep at a distance that way . . .”

  For the first time since they’d entered the room, the dining room now fell as quiet as the night outside.

  Officer Corey heaved a sigh that was extended and amplified by the hard surfaces and open space, “So, did Timothy have more of this ‘Blue Stew’?”

  Braylen diverted the question to Walt
er with a look. Walter, now, spoke his first words since he’d entered the Corey residence, “Yes . . . a lot of it. Sounded like he meant to use it all, too.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Tom Corey looked up at nothing, and then back down at Walter, “You know, I can’t say I understand any of the choices that led you there tonight, Walter . . . but you might’ve spared the world many more Nights of Horrors by stumbling on all this now—and that’s a fucking good thing.”

  Braylen nodded.

  Walter shrugged, though an odd—and unfamiliar—sense of positive accomplishment had been creeping through his numbed mind.

  “It’s also good, because I want to make damn sure we can pin this lunatic for five counts of murder, and not just one attempted. Hopefully we can find more evidence throughout his—”

  “Oh!” Braylen exclaimed, digging into his pocket. “I forgot, I also found this,” he said as he held up the water-stained paper-scrap that he’d picked off the forest floor much earlier that day.

  “What’s this?” asked Tom Corey, accepting the folded paper from Braylen.

  “I’m almost certain it fell out of Victim Number—Frank Gross’s Jeep,” said Braylen as Officer Corey unfolded it. “It looks like a printout of some of the communication between him and Timothy . . . gives you some idea of how Timothy lured the five men out there. It also gives you hope that you can get a warrant and check everyone’s email, and amass some bulletproof evidence against Timothy.”

  There was another silent moment as Tom Corey squinted over the blotchy text.

  He put the paper down after part of a minute.

  “My god, it’s scary how easily Timothy would’ve been able to slip his Blue Stew into just about any communal drinking source and watch the horror unfold . . .”

  Wearing a contemplative face, Officer Corey sat still for a second. Then he sprung to his feet.

  “This is urgent, you know. We haven’t captured Timothy yet.” He looked at Braylen severely, “Let’s go over the relevant details so I can head out the instant backup gets here. First, what kind of rifle was Timothy using?”

  Braylen looked at Walter, “You got a much better look . . .”

  Walter’s heart jumped as a vivid visualization of the rifle trained at his chest enveloped his mind, “Um, I don’t know . . . it was loud . . .”

  “Louder than a twenty-two?”

  Walter shrugged, squirming unconsciously.

  Braylen jumped back in, “I heard it. It wasn’t a twenty-two. Larger gauge—it ripped through the floor and into the ceiling of the cabin. Also, as we were fleeing, Timothy fired off a few shots in quick succession, so it might’ve been a semi-auto . . . or he was working the bolt like . . . well, a mad man.”

  “Shit,” said Tom Corey, shifting his feet. “Okay, I know this will be hard for you to say for sure, but—hoping we corner him—would you expect him to surrender, or to open fire?”

  Braylen had to stop and think.

  “Just the fact that you have to stop and think frightens me,” Tom Corey commented flatly.

  “Honestly, there’s not much Timothy could do at this point that would surprise me. I would say it’s completely within his capability to shoot you guys down, if he gets the chance.”

  Walter spoke softly, “If he got the chance, he would probably take some of his Blue Stew before he would surrender.”

  Braylen nodded, “That rings true, actually. I do have trouble seeing the man outright surrendering.”

  “Great,” grumbled Officer Corey in a gruff, sarcastic voice that was becoming steadily less effective at masking his anxiety. “Victim Number Three all over again . . . no thanks.” He began walking towards the entranceway.

  Walter and Braylen now got to their feet.

  Moving after him, Braylen said, “Hey, as long as he’s the final victim, at this point. I mean, Timothy must know we’d go straight to the police . . . every minute that passes gives him a chance to destroy evidence, or to pack his plague and flee . . .”

  Tom Corey had made it into the entranceway when Braylen finished airing out his fears. He responded while staring through a dark window facing the main road, “These are exactly the thoughts in my mind, too . . . Eugene, Lerra: where the hell are you?”

  Last to leave the dining room, Walter saw Melisa slide cautiously into the room from the direction he knew (from his dinner visit) to be the kitchen. The fearful look on her face told Walter that she had heard everything, while the calculated distance she was maintaining told him that she probably had been instructed to stay out of this.

  “They’re here,” Tom Corey’s voice announced. Walter turned as he threw open the door. Tom Corey looked back at Braylen, “So, where is the sauna in relation to the house?”

  “It’s actually pretty far from it, towards the river and downstream . . . I should come, in case he’s still out there.”

  Walter now saw the two flashing cruisers swing into the driveway.

  “Fuck. Okay,” Officer Corey agreed. He took a step out the door and spoke hastily over his shoulder, “Walter, stay here with Melisa. You can explain to her what’s happening.” He picked up his stride and waved urgently at his fellow officers.

  Before following, Braylen addressed Walter, “With any luck, next time you hear from us we’ll be on our way to the county jail, and the world will have one less psychopath to contend with. Now shut the door, stay warm, and sit tight.”

  In contrast to the night he’d been rammed off the road by the Jeep, Walter, tonight, did not require any encouragement to stay put—to stay as far away from Timothy Glass as possible. This night had been more than a terrifying thrill for him; he had stared death in the eye, and he hadn’t liked what he had seen.

  As he pulled the door shut, Walter heard Officer Corey shout to Officer Eugene Everett, “We can’t wait for the Staties, we gotta roll out now!”

  The door latched. For a silent second Walter stared at the colors of the police lights as they warped through the embossed glass of the door’s window.

  The creaking of the floorboards behind him told Walter that Melisa had joined him in the entranceway.

  Walter turned as she spoke to herself, “Oh god, Tom . . . please be careful . . .”

  Walter tensed at this second, closer look at Melisa Corey. Her hair was wild, her expression was afraid and vulnerable, and, above all, she was wearing a silk green nightgown that tugged around her full breasts—leaving small work for the imagination—and cut off near the upper-thigh, revealing long, sturdy legs marked with bed-creases.

  Walter didn’t say anything, or react beyond staring. For one spontaneous second, some dislodged part of Walter’s brain took Melisa’s appealing figure and swapped Melisa’s persona for Madeline Wendell’s. His heart yearned like it hadn’t in years . . . he wanted a woman like this, to come home to after a long, cold day of outdoor labor . . . to share a warm meal with, and a happy, lazy conversation . . . later on, to lose himself in all her humps and curves, moving about in a warm, disheveled bed . . .

  That’s all. Walter wanted the companionship of a woman who wanted the same from him.

  It could be so simple. It was so simple. Why had he allowed life to become so grey, muddy, and unsettled? Walter really didn’t know—though, if he had been thoughtful and objective enough to know, would he have allowed it to happen?

  At any rate, beyond that was an equally relevant question: of course he had been in the company beautiful women before, so what was triggering this powerful new outlook now?

  It was almost—Walter realized in a flash of uncharacteristic clarity—as if, in Timothy Glass, he had seen the farthest end of the dark path that he’d been stumbling down. This had the effect of unraveling an overview of his destructive course.

  There were times when Walter had questioned the merits of life, seeing it as something of a needless burden. At times, he had embraced the idea of chemical substances that offered escape from the increasing sadness and triviality of his existence. But now there was
Timothy—straight in line while far ahead of all these building perspectives—who flatly saw no merit in life; who saw it as not just a burden, but a full-on prison sentence . . . and who had taken the notion of substances that offer escape from life to the absolute extreme.

  “Walter, are you okay?”

  Walter blinked and looked Melisa in the eye. He wasn’t sure, but he might’ve been staring at her ineffectively contained breasts for some time.

  “Oh . . . I think so.”

  “Can I get you some coffee or tea or anything? Maybe tea would be good; calm the nerves . . .”

  “Ah . . . that might be nice,” Walter replied absently, possibly caught it the middle of a life-altering epiphany.

  “Come have a seat in the kitchen,” said Melisa, turning.

  Walter nodded and followed.

  As they walked through the large house, Walter experienced a bizarre stretch of time in which he was self-aware of the possibility that he was having a life-altering epiphany. He now wondered: was this real, or had he just gotten unhinged, and would his original outlook reassert itself after the haze of that night lifted?

  The question momentarily dampened Walter’s elevating mood. But then he returned to the meat of it, and the wonderful feeling of clarity washed back over him.

  His previous outlook on life had been so much like Timothy’s, but just in the very seedling stages and not the full-bloom stages. Thanks to Timothy so boldly exemplifying the full-bloom manifestation of the seeds of thought in his own mind, Walter could now perceive these seeds in a clear light, and what he saw was ugly.

  He must’ve been in denial when he’d defended his recent life choices to his friends and to himself, he decided, because he could no longer agree with what he’d been saying. It had all just been sad excuses for his general mental weakness and terrible coping skills—his friends had been right all along.

  That’s what Walter chose to conclude.

  “Please have a seat,” Melisa urged gently.