The only annoying part was that once the parade hit Canal Street it went one way for a while then turned around and went the other way. This made crossing the street a pain.
She squeezed through the barricades and scampered across one side of the street when a float had trouble making the turn onto Canal. The barricade on the other side had been pulled open a little bit, making it easier to get through. This put her in the large island that divides Canal.
The other side of Canal Street was not so easy to cross. The parade had come to a halt for some reason. The crowd was getting antsy, and the krewe members were getting stingy. It was understandable, they only had so many throws, and they still had quite some distance to go. If they threw all their beads, cups, doubloons and other random crap here, they would have nothing left to give the rest of the crowd.
Sarah got stuck there for quite a while. Finally the parade ended, and she could cross. She headed down Dauphine Street towards Jeremy’s place.
A chill went up Sarah’s spine as soon as she saw that Jeremy’s door was open. It wasn’t open far, just a crack, but that was enough. She tentatively pushed the door open wider. Mojo ran out past her feet, and then the smell hit her. Rotted meat. The first image through her mind was Aldous – Aldous with his throat cut, but still moving. Aldous dead, but nevertheless back to finish his work with them.
Then she heard five shots come from upstairs.
Mardi Gras Day
6:00 a.m.
“Wake up, slug, wake up.”
“Go away.”
“Never. I’ve got you ‘til the end of time. Now get your ass up. It’s time to go kill.”
“At least it’s something fun to do.”
Aldous got up. Moving hurt, but all the weakness was gone. He could no longer see the reptile scale cracks in his skin, but could feel them under the surface. He looked around. The cabin was trashed: the food was gone, the meds were gone, there were blood and other bodily fluids everywhere. The gator was right. It was time to move on. At any other time in his life he would have taken steps to clean the place of evidence, probably with bleach and fire, but now he just walked away.
He walked down the road until he came to a bigger road. Then he walked into the middle of the road and waited. It wasn’t long before a truck came down the road. It was a washed-out blue, mid 80s vintage pickup. Aldous stood in the road, waving his arms over his head. The truck stopped.
Aldous shot the driver three times through the windshield. The driver’s foot slipped off the brake and the truck began to roll forward. Aldous got out of the way, stepped onto the truck’s running board and opened the door. The driver wasn’t wearing a seatbelt – a gentle pull left his flannel-clad corpse in the middle of the road.
It took a while driving for Aldous to get his bearings. He was far away from where he thought he had been when he had driven the cop car into the swamp, but two hours later he was in the French Quarter.
Aldous parked the truck. Actually, parking might be too strong a term; the truck was far from the curb and at an odd angle. Some deeply ingrained level of sneakiness made him stop the truck down the street from Jeremy’s house, but that action seemed to have used the last of his guile.
Mardi Gras brings out some interesting costumes, so nobody was alarmed by Aldous, even though he was wearing an alligator skin as a tunic, and carrying a machete. Aldous walked straight to Jeremy’s door and let himself in. It didn’t strike him as odd that the door was unlocked. It was time for him to be here, why would there be anything to impede him?
“Now hide.”
“Shouldn’t I look for him first?”
“He isn’t here. Pay attention to your senses. Do you hear him breathing? He isn’t here. Now hide.”
Aldous walked down the hall to the Whisper Garden. The maze-like garden offered many hiding places. Aldous crouched in one of them and waited.
It wasn’t long before the garden spoke to him. “This is wrong.”
The gator spoke back, “Last time he was here you thought killing Jeremy was a pretty good idea.”
“That was before you. Then the souls could have been used to remake God. Now ... now they would make you.”
“I think that sounds like a lovely idea.”
“I don’t,” said Aldous.
“Your opinion doesn’t count.”
Aldous had quite a long wait for Jeremy to return. Finally he heard the boy come in. He was thrilled; after he killed him he could get out of the garden and away from the debate.
Finally his wait was over. Jeremy was in the garden. Aldous silently rose and swung, but somehow Jeremy ducked it and ran.
He thought he had Jeremy on the stairs, but the boy must have been some sort of magician. He threw some sort of pain spell, causing Aldous’ world to be filled with a black cloud of pain. It only lasted for a moment, but Jeremy had already gained a bit of a lead. Aldous chased.
He caught Jeremy trying to crawl back into bed. Was the boy hoping the nightmare would end if he could go back to sleep and wake up? Well, it was about to be over. Jeremy would dream no more.
Then Jeremy spun to face him and Aldous saw the gun briefly before it was obscured in a cloud of smoke and fire.
Jeremy’s first shot went wide, but the next three were all solidly on Aldous’ torso. The heavy gator skin took some of the kick from the blows, but it was the Kevlar vest that saved Aldous’ life. The vest was rated to take considerably more punishment than a mere .38 could dish out and stopped all the shots easily. This isn’t to say that it didn’t hurt; it felt like someone had hit him three times with a rather large hammer.
When Aldous saw the gun rising toward his face, he tried to duck. While this action saved his life it did not take him entirely out of the line of fire. Jeremy’s last bullet skimmed along the surface of the left side of Aldous’ skull, cutting a line down his cheek, digging a slight furrow through the bone, cutting his ear in half, and ruining that section of his tattooed crown of thorns. The top half of Aldous’ ear was attached only by a small flap of skin.
Perhaps it was the blow to his skull – even a glancing blow from a bullet still carries quite a bit of impact – or perhaps it was the shock of the injury that pushed Aldous back into an animal state. One way or the other, all thought left Aldous. He became a creature of rage. He forgot about the weapon in his hand, he forgot all his knowledge of fighting.
Aldous was a skilled killer whose skill had suddenly been replaced by fury. He fell upon Jeremy, flailing at him with his fists. He worked his way up Jeremy’s body, punching wildly. A shot to the thigh. A punch to the hip. A couple to the ribs. He had settled into a kneeling position across Jeremy’s chest, punching Jeremy’s head around Jeremy’s pathetic attempts at blocking when Sarah entered the room.
If she had taken a moment to survey the situation, Sarah would have probably noticed the machete on the floor and used that to attack Aldous. If she had failed to notice that, she could have picked up a chair to hit Aldous.
The only option that came to mind when she saw Aldous beating Jeremy was the one lesson Kelly had given her in how to throw a side kick. She took a couple of steps to get closer, raised her leg and threw the sideways stomp at Aldous’ ribs. She connected solidly, breaking a couple of Aldous’ ribs, and knocking him off the bed.
Unfortunately, though she threw the kick well, Sarah had never practiced kicking a solid target and didn’t know how to balance against the impact. Even as she knocked Aldous one way, she knocked herself the other. She fell down, skidding halfway out the bedroom door. That was when she noticed the machete sitting three feet away from her. She lunged for it.
Aldous roared as he stood on the far side of the bed. Jeremy rolled off the bed, away from Aldous. Aldous continued his wordless scream as he came around the end of the bed, heading for Sarah.
It was going to be a tight race with two different fini
sh lines. Sarah’s was the machete, Aldous’ was Sarah. But the race was interrupted. As Jeremy stood, his hand fell on his acoustic guitar. He grabbed it and leapt between Aldous and Sarah. Holding the guitar by the neck Jeremy swung it like a baseball bat, catching Aldous’ chin in the curve of the guitar’s body. It was a solid shot; Aldous’ head was thrown to the right. The blow stunned Aldous a bit, as well as knocking him off balance.
Aldous staggered backwards. Jeremy swung the guitar again, hitting only air, but keeping Aldous off balance. Aldous’ shoulders hit the glass of the French door that opened onto Jeremy’s balcony. The glass shattered easily, sending a rain of razor-sharp shards onto him, cutting his face, neck and hands.
Aldous tripped over the wood frame of the door. He slammed his other foot down, trying to catch his balance, but kept falling backward.
The railing on the balcony did not stop Aldous from falling; it hit him too far below his center of gravity and only served to give him a good spin as he fell.
Aldous landed half on the curb and half in the street. The only visible motion in the scene was from the rapidly growing pool of his blood. Jeremy watched him for a moment then went back inside. Sarah had made it to her feet and was clutching the machete.
Jeremy walked past her. He sat down on the bed and reached under it for the box of ammunition Jimmie had given him.
Sarah asked, “What are you doing?”
“I’m reloading for when that bastard comes back up those stairs.”
Sarah went to the window and looked down. “He’s not moving.” She watched for a moment and added, “I think he’s dead.”
“He should have been dead before. I’ll feel better if I’m ready to shoot him.”
Sarah looked back out the window. Aldous remained motionless, and the pool of blood was not spreading quite so rapidly. A small crowd was gathering. One of them saw her standing in the window, holding a machete, and pointed. Several people were gibbering into cell phones. She dropped the blade and stepped back out of their line of sight.
“I would guess that help is on the way. I really don’t think you’ll need that.”
The gun was loaded. Jeremy put it down between his legs, and picked up the guitar. It seemed remarkably intact, but close inspection revealed that the strings were no longer parallel to the neck. The neck was not sitting at the right angle. He put the guitar down and opened his arms.
She came to him, and they held each other while they waited for the police to arrive.
Friday March 7th
11:55 p.m.
Jeremy couldn’t sleep. His head was buzzing with a set of circular thoughts and he couldn’t seem to break the cycle. He felt like he had been dishonest. Every time he had told the story of Aldous’ second assault, he had left out one important detail. It didn’t matter if he had been talking to the police or his friends; he had never been able to admit that he had heard the garden whisper, “Duck,” just before Aldous’ first strike at him.
He didn’t feel bad about not telling the cops; that would have involved too much explanation about the garden. He doubted the cops would have believed in a self-directed psychic experience. But his friends all knew about the garden, so why hadn’t he been able to bring himself to tell them? Because he had been skeptical of the garden, and saying he had listened to it when it had given him a suggestion would imply that he had believed in it. But he didn’t believe in it. So why had he listened to it? Did he believe? Did he want to believe? If there wasn’t more to it than his brain talking to itself, how had the garden warned him?
After an hour in bed, wrangling with these issues (including some time pondering the question of why he was worried about them – why not giving the garden credit was bothering him more than almost being killed, and almost killing someone), Jeremy got out of bed and went to the garden.
Feeling rather self-conscious, and more than a little dream-like, he tentatively said, “Hello.”
“Hello.”
“I guess I owe you an apology.”
“Why?”
“For not believing in you. I didn’t believe in you and then you saved my life by telling me to duck. Then I wasn’t even grateful enough to admit it when I told the story.”
“We didn’t tell you to duck. What you heard was the sound of Aldous moving behind you. When he stood, his body absorbed some of the sounds of this place. Your brain, which was already spooked, heard that change in sound as the word duck.”
“So now you are telling me that you aren’t real?”
“That depends … What is real? Are you having this conversation?”
“I seem to be. But is it a dialogue or a monologue?”
“Yes. Either. Both. Does it matter, if you learn something from it?”
“So what am I supposed to learn from this?”
“What do you want to learn?”
“I dunno. Maybe what I should do with my life.”
“Keep the girl, she’s a good one. Do what it takes to keep her. Be happy you have friends. Play music.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”
“No, but don’t you need to hear it anyway?”
Jeremy said nothing. The conversation was way too much like talking to himself.
The gurgling water whispered, “I knew you’d think that.”
“Don’t you think that was kind of juvenile?”
“Of course, but it was satisfying anyway.”
Jeremy went back to bed, but sleep still wouldn’t come. He couldn’t understand it. It would have made sense if just being in his bedroom had made him feel panicky, but it didn’t. He would have understood his insomnia if he was lying there thinking about either of the times Aldous had assaulted him, but he wasn’t. He was dead tired, but his mind was whirling through a series of inconsequential thoughts: pointless guitar solos; concerns about the mid-east; echoes of Sarah’s laugh; wondering what happens to the goldfish in the lakes in Central Park in the winter – a series of non-sequiturs that wouldn’t let him rest.
After trying to sleep in his bed for several hours without success, Jeremy moved to the couch in the living room. It was three in the morning. Then it was nine in the morning, and someone was knocking on his front door.
It was Dexter, dressed in his Victorian work attire.
Dexter said, “I know this is a bad time to talk about this, but I am trying to make arrangements and I need an answer.”
Jeremy was puzzled. “To what question?”
Dexter made an apologetic gesture with his hands. “Oh, yes, I’m sorry, I got ahead of myself. You see, I know that you are caught up in this whole Aldous mess, but I don’t know if you know that I am too.”
“No, I hadn’t heard anything about it. Was that your question?”
“Oh, no, no no. He was trying to frame me for the murders. He had quite an elaborate little plot going. He was trying to set things up so it would look like I was a serial killer. He was probably going to frame me for your murder. And what a house to do it in. I’m sorry, but do you know anything about the history of this house? I never realized that you live here.”
“I know a little about the people that I bought it from.”
“But you don’t know its history. Oh my … if you weren’t a block or two out of the way your house would be on my tour. One of Marie Laveau’s daughters lived here. The rumor is that they used to have rituals in your courtyard.”
“Well, I never heard anything about that.”
“Of course not, not unless you went looking. Having a haunted house might be a selling point now that the Quarter is being bought out by time-sharing tourists, but until fairly recently people kept it pretty quiet. It hurt property values.”
“Haunted? By who?”
“Nobody knows, but from the late 1800s on there have been several accounts of people being run out of the
house.”
“Well, nothing has tried to run me out of here.”
“That is good to know. If the stories are right, that means you don’t have any dark secrets.”
“Did you come here to tell me ghost stories?”
“I’m sorry, sometimes my mind skips around like a drop of water in a hot skillet. The reason I am here is that I have decided to stop working on my Civil War history, and try a topic that’s a little more marketable: an account of Aldous’ crime spree. I think it will be quite marketable, especially since I am one of the players in the story.”
Jeremy thought about it for a moment. In Jeremy’s mind, the events had been about him and Sarah. He had no real idea what Aldous would say the story was about, and now here was someone else with what would be a totally different view of everything. “You could probably sell a copy or two, but you had better crank it out quick before the tabloid types get their versions on the street.”
Dexter smiled and nodded. “Oh, yes, that is the plan.”
Jeremy was still bleary from being awakened, and he wasn’t entirely sure why he was having this conversation. If Dexter wrote the way he was speaking, he’d never get past the first chapter. Trying to bring things back on track, Jeremy asked,” You said something about a question?”
“Right, yes, sorry. Before I call my agent to try to sell them the idea, I want to be sure I can tell them what I’ll be doing. I was wondering if you would mind if I interviewed you before I started writing?”
Jeremy was dubious. “I don’t know. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Oh, I understand, I understand, it was a horrible, horrible thing. But if you don’t talk about it, other people will, and your side of the story won’t ever be heard.”
“Why should my side of the story matter?”
“I suppose it doesn’t, if you are okay with people saying anything they want about you. I don’t know. Would it bother you to read that you were in a love triangle with Sarah and Aldous? Someone might write that – I won’t, but if you tell me your side of things, then at least you’d have your side of things out there.”
The Whisper Garden Page 22