Grimm Memorials

by R. Patrick Gates

  Steve parked in front and got out. He crept around the side where Conally's car was, but there was no sign of his boss. Steve ran quickly to the backyard. Conally came into view as he reached the rear of the house; he was in the graveyard behind the house, walking from headstone to headstone looking for the one he wanted.

  Steve took a deep breath. He knew before he turned that Eleanor was next to him. She was dressed in a flowing white robe so sheer it was almost transparent. In the sunlight, Steve could see a clear silhouette of her incredible body. With her dressed like that, Conally would probably agree to killing his own mother if he thought he had a chance of jumping Eleanor's bones. Together, Steve and Eleanor walked out to the graveyard.

  When he saw them approaching, Conally dropped his toolbox in surprise. He gave Steve a guilty look, but tried to cover it with a scowl. "What the hell are you doing out here, Nailer? Are you following me?"

  "I'd like you to meet Eleanor, Joe. We lured you out here so we could talk to you about the grievance hearing next week"

  Conally looked at them, his eyes lingering on Eleanor, and laughed. "You lured me? You goddamned little liar! I bet that headstone isn't even out here. You told me that just to get me out here, huh? Then you figure your bimbo of a wife here will show me a little ass, a glimpse of tit, and you'll be able to talk me out of anything. You insult my intelligence, Nailer." He knelt and began putting the spilled crayons and chalk back in the toolbox.

  Steve called to Eleanor for help, but she was wandering away, head down as though she was searching for something in the tall grass between the headstones. "It's not like that at all, Mr. Conally," Steve pleaded, suddenly aware of what a stupid idea this had been. "You've got to drop your grievance. I can't afford to lose my job. I've got a wife and kids to support."

  Conally sneered over his shoulder at Steve. "Tough shit! I was planning on asking for just a reprimand of Dr. Plent, and not that the board fire you, but after this little game, I'm going to get your ass booted out. You're history, Nailer." Conally grinned, obviously enjoying the look of panic on Steve's face, and stood.

  "I can't let you leave until you've heard me out," Steve said, stepping in front of Conally.

  Conally glared at Steve. "If you don't want to get hurt, I suggest you get out of my way," he growled.

  Hold him! The thought hit Steve like a splash of cold water in his face. He jerked from the force of it. Before he knew what he was doing, he lurched forward, and grabbed both of Joe Conally's arms in a grip the strength of which astounded Steve, and Conally, too.

  "Get your fucking hands off me before I break your arms," Conally swore, but the threat in his voice was minimal, giving way to fear.

  Steve's hands tightened and Conally winced, dropping his toolbox and valise. Behind his boss, Steve could see Eleanor stepping around a tall marble monument. She was dragging something heavy behind her. Steve's hands clenched tighter, his fingers digging into the flesh of Conally's arms as if they had a mind and superhuman strength of their own. Steve couldn't control them. He could feel them crushing Joe Conally's arms and he couldn't stop them.

  Conally's face was getting white. His forearms and hands had become numb. The muscles in his upper arms were being squeezed to a pulp. Any second the bones would snap. The pain was unbearable. All appearance of anger had left his face; only panic and pain remained.

  Eleanor was just a few yards behind Conally now. As Steve watched, devoid of emotion, she struggled to lift the thing she had dragged out of the grass. As she raised it over her head, Steve recognized it as an old, rusted pickax used for gardening and landscaping.

  Joe Conally began to whimper as the pain became so bad he nearly fainted. "Please," he whispered to Steve, but never got out another word. Behind him, Eleanor, pickax held unstably up, ran at him. There was a loud thud, a snap, and a quick squishing sound as four inches of the pickaxe's tip came through the front of Joe Conally's sweater, spewing blood all over Steve's pants and shirt.

  Steve's hands kept tightening on Conally's arms, even though Conally's knees were giving out and he was gasping and coughing up gurgling wads of blood. His eyes rolled up into their sockets and his head began to jerk rapidly back and forth. Steve wanted to let go of him, but his hands refused to obey. He held Conally up, his hands still crushing the dying man's arms. Steve heard the bones splintering, and watched Conally's breathing slow and stop along with the flow of blood from his mouth.

  Conally was dead, and still Steve couldn't let go of him. He felt as though his hands were embedded in the flesh of Joe Conally's dead arms. It wasn't until Eleanor stepped up to him and caressed his face that he was finally able to release his former boss. Conally sagged to the ground like a worn-out beanbag chair. The handle of the pickax hit the ground, propping Conally up for a moment on his knees as if he were begging. When the handle hit the ground, the spike through Conally's chest shuddered, and the last of the air that had been trapped in his lungs escaped in a soft moan. The pick slipped in his chest, squishing wetly. Slowly, his body teetered to the left, and fell as if in slow motion. He hit the ground without a sound at the foot of a narrow, thin old head stone. His dead face looked up at it and so did Steve. The gravestone had an epitaph written on it:

  Pause a moment, ye passerbye As ye are now, so once was I As I've becum, so ye shall be And remane throughout eternitee.

  Steve read the inscription and began to giggle. Eleanor sidled up to him, wrapping her arms seductively around his chest, and slid them down to his waist, where she undid his pants. Steve's giggle grew into hiccupping laughter. Eleanor slid his pants and undershorts down around his ankles. Steve's laughter took on a taint of hysteria. Eleanor fondled his penis, blowing on it, before sliding her lips over its entirety.

  Steve's hysterical laughter stopped abruptly in a sharp intake of breath. He arched his body, his head hanging back, and rode Eleanor's face. She drained the hysteria and memory of what he'd been a party to from his body and mind in a cataclysmic orgasm. By the time she was through, Steve had been driven to the ground where he lay leaning against Joe Conally's dead body. He didn't care; he wasn't even aware of the body there, nor had any memory of the murder. All he could see was her. All he could think of was her. She was everything. He was her slave; she owned him completely. He would do anything for her.

  Disengaging her face from his crotch, Eleanor slithered up his body and kissed him. Looking deeply into his eyes, she told him what he must do. After several moments, she rolled off him and he got up.

  His face blank, Steve went through Joe Conally's pockets until he found his former boss's keys. Lifting the dead man to his shoulders, he carried him into Eleanor's kitchen and laid him on the table.

  Steve went out to Conally's jeep, got in the driver's side, and started it. He backed it out, and drove it through the woods to the same spot where Eleanor had dumped the Eameses' Volvo.

  When the Jeep Cherokee had been swallowed up by the swollen waters of the Connecticut, Steve hiked through the woods, back to Grimm Memorials. Eleanor was waiting by the front porch for him. He went to her. She kissed him deeply, and squeezed his aching testicles.

  "I'll be back tomorrow with what you need," Steve said, his voice a dull murmur. He got in his Saab, looked at Eleanor, and drove away.

  Eleanor stumbled into the house and up the stairs to Edmund's study. She went to the desk, where Edmund kept their supply of medicines and drugs, and slid the large bottom drawer open and rummaged around the pile of medicine bottles there until she found the supply of nitroglycerin pills. She fumbled the large bottle open, and popped a pill under her tongue. As she waited for it to work, she fell back into the chair.

  The pain had begun galloping through her chest again when she'd lifted the pickax to kill Joe Conally. Only through a superhuman effort had she been able to finish what she'd started with Steve and send him on his way. Now the pain was so bad that her entire body ached. Nausea washed through her stomach and up into her throat with the taste of vomit. H
er hands trembled and her skin crawled with a sickening feeling.

  "Two more days," she gasped. In two days it would be Halloween, Samhain, the Harvest of Dead Souls, the only day of the year that the final ritual could be carried out.

  Four more boys, Edmund said with a mocking chuckle. From the sound of his voice, Eleanor could tell he was standing by the fireplace, but she didn't look up. The pain was still so bad that she couldn't have if she'd wanted to.

  Edmund chuckled some more. Two more days, four more boys, and your ticker is ready to pop.

  Eleanor closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on slowing her breathing and the rapid beat of her tortured heart. Edmund was not to be ignored.

  Hurts, doesn't it? His voice was strained as if speaking of it reminded him of how bad the pain had really been. It'll get worse, Eleanor. Trust me. What's that? You don't trust me? But, Sister, you can trust me as much as I trusted you. He laughed and it was a hollow, spiteful sound.

  A fresh pain tore through Eleanor's chest, ripping her breathing to shreds.

  You're not going to make it, Eleanor. You're pathetic. All you've ever been able to do is destroy. How fitting that now you are destroying yourself.

  Another pill went under Eleanor's tongue. Her hands twitched and trembled on the arms of the chair. Her face was a pasty gray, her lips purple. Her eyes remained half-open, glistening wetly, pupils dilated. The room had begun to melt into a deep red fog of pain around her. The fog began to pulsate to the beat of her heart and the throbbing of the pain. She tried to hold on to consciousness, afraid the Machine would fail again if she blacked out, but the pain overwhelmed her. She slid into the depths of unconsciousness as easily as a drop of water into a pool.

  When she woke she thought she had been out for only a few minutes. The pain in her chest was still clutching her insides in its clawed grasp, but she was breathing a little better and the red fog had receded to the periphery of her vision. When she walked to the window and parted the drapes, she saw that it was already dark, and the moon was high in the sky. She realized she'd been out for hours. She listened urgently and intently for the Machine. It was still running. It had continued running while she was out. The children were quiet; Steve was off on his errand; his daughter was a bird in the hand-all was intact.

  "I can do it," she stammered, turning away from the window. Was that a snickering laugh she heard echoing faintly somewhere in the house? It didn't matter. She took a deep breath. Her head was clearer; she was feeling better. "Damn you to Hell, Edmund!" Eleanor muttered to the ceiling.

  I'll see you there, came the reply, whispering out of the air.

  A sharp pain bit into her chest. She staggered to the leather couch by the fireplace and lay face down on it. The pain wasn't as bad as before, but she was too exhausted to deal with anything. Within minutes she was sound asleep and remained that way all night and well into the next day.

  CHAPTER 28

  A diller, a dollar, a ten o'clock scholar!

  Seventh period was Steve Nailer's eighth-grade health class and he awaited it anxiously all day. He had even dreamt about it last night and awakened that morning eager to get to school. Except for the sex, he was ignorant of the events of the day before. Eleanor was with him always now, living in his head, seeing what he saw, feeling what he felt, making him do her bidding. He didn't mind. Actually, he liked it. It was nice not to be in control, to not have any responsibilities.

  The bell to end sixth period rang. Steve jumped in his seat as the students jostled out the door. His seventh-period class was at the other end of the school, making the walk from sixth to seventh period the longest of his day. Usually he took his time walking it, sometimes stopping to pick up a cup of coffee in the teachers' lounge. Today, though, Steve took a direct route to room 201 where the class was held. He arrived before any of his students, which had never happened before.

  The period was interminably long. He gave them a test on personal hygiene, something he harped on with these particular students since most of them were entering or going through puberty. After the test he handed out a worksheet on dental hygiene and tried to correct the test he had just given. It was a ploy to pass the time so he wouldn't keep glancing at the clock every few minutes.

  The final bell of the day rang. Steve stood, motioning to a small, brown-haired, thirteen-year-old boy who sat in the back. "Mark, come up here please. I wish to talk to you"

  The boy looked longingly at his friends departing for their lockers, then the buses. He'd get the worst seat on the bus again, right behind the driver. Reluctantly, he walked up to Mr. Nailer's desk.

  "Mark, I wonder if you could tell me how all of your answers on this test happen to be exactly the same as Rebecca Allway's, who sits next to you?" Steve asked him.

  Mark looked genuinely puzzled. "I don't know, Mr. Nailer. Maybe she looked at my paper and copied off me," he said unconvincingly.

  Steve shook his head. "I don't think so, Mark. Becky has an A average in this class, while you are a borderline C minus. I doubt she would need to copy from you"

  Mark's puzzlement was quickly turning to fear. If he got accused of cheating, he'd get kicked out of the academy. His father would kill him. The worst of it was that he hadn't been cheating. It wasn't that he was above it if it was absolutely necessary, but this was just a health test. He had been ready for it, which, granted, was a rare accomplishment.

  "But Mr. Nailer, I didn't copy from her. You can ask her! I wrote all my own answers. I studied for this test. Honest!" Mark pleaded his case. His face was getting hot and flushed and he could feel tears just waiting to spring.

  Steve looked at him thoughtfully, knowing his hesitancy was giving the boy hope. "I'll tell you what, Mark. Becky's bus has probably already left, but she lives right down the road from me, so why don't you and I go over there and see if you are telling the truth?"

  Mark didn't know what to do. If he had been cheating, now he would have to admit it to avoid getting Becky in trouble. But he hadn't cheated, and he'd be damned if he was going to get blamed for it. He didn't want to involve Rebecca, but he had no choice. He had to prove himself innocent.

  "Okay," he said defiantly. "Let's do that. I'll prove to you I didn't cheat"

  Steve drove the Saab quickly down Route 47. He had a half hour before he had to get back to the school for football practice. As he drove, he thought about the strange disappearance of Joe Conally. Word had been all over school about it. It seems that Conally's wife had contacted the school, then the police, when Joe didn't come home all night. Steve, along with all the other teachers and many of the students, was questioned by someone from the sheriff's office. He'd told them he'd been sick the day before so he hadn't seen Conally for two days. He didn't mention that he had come in yesterday, because he no longer remembered having done so.

  Steve smiled as he drove. He felt great again, strong and safe. The confidence he'd lost after his fiasco with the poetry competition judges had returned full volume. Eleanor had assured him that everything would be fine and it certainly looked as though she was correct. Conally's disappearance (gossip around the teacher's lounge was that Conally had a girlfriend whom he had run off with), just days before the hearing that would have got Steve fired, was an incredible stroke of luck. Steve sincerely hoped nothing had happened to his boss, but was ecstatic at the turn of events. And he had Eleanor to thank for it.

  He slowed the car and made a left turn onto Dorsey Lane Extension and drove through the woods. Mark sat up, drawn by the fiery colors of the dying leaves, and looked around. "Are you sure this is the way to Rebecca's house?" he asked.

  Steve smiled at him and nodded. "Trust me, Mark," he said.

  When they pulled in at the front of Grimm Memorials, Mark was certain it couldn't be Rebecca Allways's house. Before he could say anything, Mr. Nailer was out of the car and walking up the porch stairs, motioning for Mark to follow. "Mr. Nailer," Mark started to say as he got out of the car, but Mr. Nailer disappeared through
the front door without even knocking. "Mr. Nailer?" Mark called out again, getting no answer. He went up the stairs and crossed the porch to the open front door, peering warily into the gloom within. All he could make out was a black marble floor, some dim furniture, and a stairway. He stepped inside cautiously.

  What is this place? he wondered, glancing around the room. He looked at the marble pedestal with its open dusty book atop it, and read the legend at the top of the page aloud: "Guests of the Dearly Departed." A chill of trepidation shimmied down his arms.

  "Mr. Nailer?" Mark called out timidly. "I think we're in the wrong house" Behind him, the front door swung closed. Mr. Nailer had been standing behind it.

  "It's the right house, Mark," Steve replied, his face hidden in shadow.

  A door to Mark's right opened and Rebecca Allways stepped through it, smiling at Mark. Mark smiled back, blushing hotly with embarrassment: Rebecca Allways was completely naked. Mark knew he shouldn't look at her, but he couldn't help it. Her long brown hair hung over her round, milky white shoulders to the tops of her small, puffy breasts with their large pouting nipples. A fine black dusting of pubic hair showed on the little mound of flesh between her thighs. Mark felt his cock grow hot and hard as he eyed her.

  "He's too old," Rebecca said to Mr. Nailer. Mark looked at her, then Mr. Nailer, in confusion.

  "No, he can't be," Mr. Nailer replied, his voice sounding frightened.

  "What are you talking about?" Mark asked, puzzled.

  Do you play with yourself? The question shot into his mind like a burning arrow. He spun toward Rebecca. Do you beat your meat? Another arrow. The thought questions were coming from Rebecca. Involuntarily, Mark found himself answering with a thought of outrage: No! He felt her mind enter his, exploring his memory like fingers flipping the pages of a book, learning everything about him. It was a horrible feeling having her search his mind like that, knowing all his private secrets and embarrassments. It gave him a headache and made his ears ring.