Fear Itself

by Duffy Prendergast

  It was then that I noticed Amber’s purse sitting on the kitchen chair. I quickly grabbed it and bolted to the bedroom. Amber would certainly not have left her purse behind. I had to pack it into the plastic garbage bag with all of the other bloody objects. But before I could shove her purse into the bag I noticed the corner of a white envelope sticking out of a side pocket and curiosity got the best of me. Inside the envelope was a letter addressed to both Melanie and me. It read:

  Dearest Melanie and Mathew,

  Sorry to be such a rotten bitch! I hope the two of you fuck each other until death do you part. It was fun while it lasted. If you ever need a third don’t hesitate to call.

  Love Amber.

  I was shocked. The heartless bitch had a heart after all. Her spending the night was her version of a fond farewell. The ass raping she had given me was not the kindest send-off I could have hoped for, but she was planning to set me free. I suddenly felt guilty for feeling glee at her demise.

  I restored the letter to the envelope and slipped it into my shirt pocket and I reached into Amber’s purse and found her cell phone. I removed it and put it into my pants pocket. I would need to destroy it (it contained my phone number). Then I shoved her purse into the garbage bag and I hurried back to the kitchen and tended the skillet.

  I was in the midst of cooking breakfast, the realization that Amber’s body lay cold and stiff no more than thirty feet from where I stood no longer the arduous burden it once seemed, when Melanie came trundling up the kitchen stairs.

  “Good morning.” I turned and smiled at her and then returned to my cooking but in the flash glance that I had taken I realized instantly that Melanie didn’t look at all herself. Why should she? She had killed someone and it was playing on her mind as it would any sane person. I turned off the burner on the stove and I slid the last few pieces of French-toast onto the serving plate and I sat it on the table; then I removed my apron, a full-length white chef’s smock that Melanie had brought from home at some point over the recent months, and I turned back to Melanie to give her my full attention. Her eyes had bags under them from lack of sleep. She wore no makeup. Her hair was disheveled as were her clothes, the very same clothes she had worn on the previous night. Despite the horrible act she had committed, an act of love as far as I was concerned, I saw nothing but her beauty.

  She spoke in a low almost inaudible baritone growl, “Where is that cunt?”

  “What?” My head involuntarily twitched to the side. Her words did not register but her anger was pervasive.

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s…” I turned my head toward the bedroom, and then I looked back at her as I swallowed hard and felt the swell of my Adams apple rise like a grating lump of dung being forced from a rectum, “in the bedroom, where you… left her.” I stuttered. I was confused. What a ridiculous question, I thought. My brain was having trouble deciphering the meaning of her words.

  I took a long hard look at Melanie as I tried to elucidate her disposition. She looked absolutely miserable and full of rage and anger and hate. Her eyes were narrow and focused and her brow was wrinkled in a stressed pattern of ripples as though she had used an eyebrow pencil to stencil multiple lines of musical notes across her forehead. But despite the fact that she still wore the same clothes as she had the day before there was no indication that she had stabbed someone to death; no blood splatters or ripped seams. She stormed past me, breathing through her nostrils like a bull seeing red, and stomped through the living room and into the hallway. I trailed behind her and watched like a spectator at a bullfight as she forcefully thrust the bedroom door open and then turned back to face me.

  “Don’t fuck with me.” She growled, “Where is she?”

  I was beginning to get the impression that Melanie hadn’t killed Amber after all. She didn’t appear to have a clue that Amber was dead. I didn’t know whether or not I should explain to her that Amber had been murdered; that she lay cold and hard and grey and wrapped neatly in a blue blanket just a few feet in front of her. My mind was racing, trying to figure out what exactly was happening. It was at that moment that my stomach wrenched in pain as I realized that Sarah had done the murder. She had killed Amber in her sleep. Her words from the night before echoed in my hollowed head “What if she dies?” I wondered, should I tell Melanie? Or would she freak? And even if, in the midst of her tempest, she rejoiced in Amber’s demise, would she, upon recapitulation, freak? Would she wonder if I hadn’t killed both Amber and my wife and was shamefully trying to blame those barbaric acts on sweet innocent Sarah? And if I told her the truth, that Sarah was a sociopath, and she believed me; would she be able to look at Sarah lovingly as she so often had?

  “She must have…left.” My words fumbled from my lips like the wobbly footfalls of a toddler taking its first steps.

  “Her…car…is…still…parked…outside

  !” Her words were deliberate and spaced in a steady, angry, impatient rising pitch.

  I could feel my brow furrow in fear and shame at having been caught in an obvious lie. I scanned my brain for a sequential and logical fabrication. “She…was waiting for her sister to pick her up…her…car wouldn’t start. She’s going to have it towed.” I finished with conviction. “She must have left while I was in the bathroom.”

  Melanie’s face melted, “I can’t take this anymore.” She started to sob and I watched as her knees began to wobble and I was sure that they would collapse beneath her weight.

  “It’s okay.” I stepped forward to catch her before she melted into the floor. Her face was now filled with anguish and despair. She was experiencing actual physical pain. I wanted to waive a magic wand and rid her of her agony. I wanted to take her in my arms, like an infant, and comfort her and let her know that it would all work out.

  “No, I can’t do this anymore.” She sobbed; but even as she said this she wrapped her arms around my neck and collapsed her face into my chest. “I can’t go on like this…with you fucking her and I pretending like nothing is happening. I just can’t be with you anymore.”

  “It’s okay.” I whispered, “You don’t have to worry about Amber any longer.” I slipped my hand beneath her shirt and I gently stroked the baby-soft skin of her back, “I told her that it was over.”

  “Really?” Her sobish tone hinted at hope and relief.”

  “She said she understood. That she was sorry for having treated you so badly and for forcing me to…sleep with her. We didn’t even sleep together last night.” Melanie hugged me tight. “She slept in my bed and I slept on the couch.” I looked at the couch. Sarah had apparently gone to her bed after she had finished her evenings work and had abandoned the pillow and blanket I had used to make her comfortable. It looked as if I had actually slept on the couch.

  “I love you Mathew. I love you so much.” She wrapped her arms around me and buried her head in my chest once again.

  “And I love you.” I said to her for the first time. And I did love her; perhaps not with the totality that I had loved Catherine or the unconditional component with which I loved

  Sarah, but then I had only known her for a short while relatively. But she was the only living person besides Sarah that I cared about. What I felt for her can only be described as love. She responded with an enormous hug. “Why don’t you lie on the couch and take a nap. After Sarah and I have breakfast I’ll watch television and sit with you and rub you feet while you sleep.”

  I helped her to the couch and laid her down and kissed her cheek and tucked her in and waited until she fell asleep before I started the process of moving Amber’s body down to her car. I checked on Sarah, who was still asleep, and then I went to the coat closet where Amber had hung her coat and I retrieved her car keys before I crept down the rear stairway and opened the garage and pulled my car out onto the street; then I climbed into Amber’s car. The seat was pushed forward to its furthest setting and I racked my knees on the steering wheel and I winced in pain. I slid the seat back to a com
fortable setting while I cursed under my breath and started the car and backed it up into the driveway to just outside the rear door. I got out and opened the rear driver’s side door and then I climbed the rear staircase and slipped into my bedroom and I grabbed the rolled parcel of dead-weight that lay beside my bed. At my bedroom door I peaked out to be sure that all was still quiet and then I hauled Amber’s body, which I had slung over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, out to her waiting car. I heaved her into the back seat head first and tried to close the door but her feet, stiff with Rigor mortis and completely extended, were sticking out too far. I opened the trunk and mentally measured the compartment but aside from the work of removing the spare tire and many other miscellaneous items, I could tell that no matter how I positioned her lifeless body she would never fit without bending and possibly breaking. I could have closed the door by thrusting my body-weight at it but that would have caused trauma to the corpse that would later be the subject of curiosity for the police. I wanted to arrange things so that it looked as if she had died at home. I walked around to the passenger door and opened it and rolled down the window and then closed the door. Reaching in through the window I lifted up on Amber’s head and I pulled her up until her skull was resting on the armrest. I had hoped to make quick work of my effort but I realized that I had consumed an extraordinary amount of time loading Amber into her car so I looked around to be sure that no one was spying on me. When I looked up at Sarah’s bedroom window I almost fell over from the shock of seeing her staring down at me. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t seem at all phased. It was if she had sent me a message not to bring anyone into her life without her tacit approval. And Sarah’s emotional detachment was her exclamation point. Thank God she had an affinity for Melanie, I thought, or I might have had a second corpse to dispose of once I ascended the stairs.

  I rounded the car and closed the rear door with only the least bit of resistance and then climbed back into the drivers’ seat. I reached back to the rear door and I rolled up the window with some difficulty as I bumped Amber’s head with each rotation of the handle. Then I backed the car into the garage and opened the trunk again. I grabbed the lime- green ten-speed bicycle that Melanie had convinced me to buy (it was on sale for ninety- nine dollars at the local department store) so that we could go riding together in the spring and I folded it into the trunk and tied the hood as close to closed as I could get it with the front wheel of the bicycle protruding and then I closed the garage door behind me.

  Once back inside the house I went to

  Sarah’s bedroom door and pushed it open. Sarah was sitting on the edge of her bed.

  “What were you doing with Amber’s car?” She didn’t bother to look up. She was mocking me with her indifference to the trouble she had caused me.

  “I think you know damned good and well what I was doing.”

  Sarah looked up and feigned shock.

  “Get out into the kitchen and eat your breakfast.” I said with authority so as to reestablish my position of power over her.

  I had to microwave our food to make it edible and still the French-toast which I had labored over was chewy and bland and the yokes of the eggs, once soft inside prepared sunny-side up were thick and dry. We ate in silence as I am sure that Sarah could sense my anger at her behavior.

  12

  Sarah was a murderess; a sociopath; a serial killer. She would kill and kill and kill for the rest of her life whenever she felt that the circumstances called for such action. She held no value for human life save for her own. She was probably also incapable of love. She was capable of affection, of that I was certain, but as a sociopath she would be incapable of love.

  That did not change my feelings toward her. I loved her more than life itself. She wasn’t even my flesh and blood, and yet I loved her as if her soul were conjoined with my own. I knew that I would do anything for her even as I sat brooding over the bind she had gotten me into.

  But I dared not confront her. I was resolved to clean up her mess and move on. I couldn’t undo what was already done. All I could do was deal with the situation as pragmatically as possible. I sat on the couch massaging Melanie’s little bare feet waiting for the fearful cover of darkness to fall down upon the earth so that I could return Amber from where she had come. I was sure that her family would be missing her. She had been away from her home for over twenty-four hours. And now that I had more time to consider the mission that awaited me I realized that returning Amber to her home might prove to be a very difficult task. The obvious dilemma of overcoming my fear of the dark aside, there was a good chance that Amber’s family might be huddling in their home in the hopes that she might return. At first I had estimated that they would be at the police station or out searching for her; but this would be unlikely. In all of the police dramas I had watched on television the family was told to stay at home and stand by the phone in case the missing person phoned or returned.

  That Amber’s family was concerned there was not doubt. Her cell phone, which I had in my pocket set on vibrate mode, had rung incessantly since noon. Her sister was no doubt still covering for her, but was trying to reach her to find out what had become of her. Her husband had also called several times according to the caller I.D. on Amber’s cell. Every time her phone buzzed in my pocket I jumped like a nervous cricket. I reached into my pocket and turned the phone off. I could not wait to dispose of the cell phone.

  Sarah played innocently on the floor with the dollhouse that Amber had bought her for Christmas. I wondered if she had chosen to play with that particular toy on purpose as a sort of snub to Amber. Sarah never gave any indication what-so-ever that she had done anything wrong. She had to know, for God’s sakes, that I couldn’t help but notice a bloody corpse lying next to me in my bed. I drew a deep breath and my eyes teared up at the thought that she was capable of being so unfeeling; so inhuman. Her outward appearance was so innocent. But her behavior was unequivocally disturbing; from her attempt to simulate intercourse with me to her brutal execution of Amber. She was the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing and my heart broke at the realization that she was as capable of barbarism as she was of affection.

  And who was at fault? I was. I had made her into the monster that was she. My espousement of her had no doubt caused her confusion and her confusion had led her to brutality and her appetite for blood had been wetted as a result of her jealousy and murder of Catherine. All things stemmed from me. There was no chemical imbalance; no birth defect; no hormonal disproportion. I was to blame. And her life, as a result, would be a painful and short lived affair because eventually she would be found out. The baby that I once held in the palm of my hand, who once laid her head on my chest and slept to the beat of my drumming heart, was a child no more.

  The sun that had earlier cast a short beam of light onto the floor through the living room window grew visible from where I sat as it washed the room in a blast of yellow splendor. I adjusted the blanket to shield Melanie’s eyes from the glare in the hope that she would sleep until after I had left; but when I rose from the couch she opened her mouth in a deep yawn as she stretched her legs and extended her toes and blinked her eyes open.

  “Where are you going?” she croaked, parched from so many hours of sleep.

  “I have to go to work.” I had been mulling a variety of excuses and this was the only lie that I could produce that would preclude her accompaniment.

  “But it’s Sunday.” She extended her yawn as she sat up. Her face looked much better than it had earlier, her skin was smooth, no longer baggy about the eyes and her eyes were no longer bloodshot, and neither were the muscles in her face disfigured with tension and rage. She looked as pretty as the day I had first met her. “Who works on a Sunday?”

  “Tony called a little while ago. There is a problem at a house we finished wiring on

  Friday. The customer lost power to half of their house, so we have to fix it. Their refrigerator doesn’t work and neither does their furnace.” I shrug
ged, and as a contagion to her yawn I opened my mouth and evoked my own expressive drowse.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “I don’t know. How ever long it takes to restore their power. Can you keep an eye on Sarah for me?”

  “Sure honey,” she extended her hand and I tugged her up into my arms and I kissed her as she pursed her lips to shield me from her stale sleepy breath.

  I hugged Sarah and kissed her forehead and then I looked into her eyes and searched for the innocence that had once lived within her pretty blue eyes but I saw only coldness. I forced a smile, “You be a good girl for Melanie.”

  “I will. I like Melanie.”

  How reassuring, I thought.

  I waited until Melanie retreated into the bathroom before I left so that she would not see me leave in Amber’s car and then I donned a pair of rubber kitchen gloves and climbed into the car and made my way down the street and toward the highway to a route that I had mapped out earlier. I hoped to arrive just as darkness fell to limit my exposure to night. If I had waited until dark to leave the house I knew that I would have lost my nerve.

  During the almost hour-long drive from Wichita to Hutchinson the night grew dark and the radio and the dashboard light were my only distractions. The radio played a mixture of

  Motown oldies but the song that seemed to stick in my mind was the howling deep voice of Sachmo as he sang “What a Wonderful World”.

  With Amber’s corpse riding in the back seat, in my jittery state, I kept waiting for her to unfurl her blanket and rise up behind me and claw at my face with those long red fingernails of hers. I checked my rearview mirror incessantly and several times I was startled as I imagined that she was leaning over the console breathing in my ear. Finally I thought I heard her speak and I could actually hear and feel her warm breath inhaling and exhaling against my cheek. The hairs on my arms stood at attention and I must confess that I panicked. I pulled the car abruptly to the side of the highway and I hopped out of the car leaving my door open and scampered into the road hoping that she would jump out of the car and run off; I was convinced that Amber’s body had reanimated itself with some demonic spirit. Standing in the road I was completely focused on the activity (or lack-there-of) inside of Amber’s car and I was oblivious to the elements outside and I was promptly buzzed by an oncoming tractor-trailer which blared its loud whiny horn as it passed and caused me to leap forward towards the car as I clenched my bowels in my best effort retain my bodily fluids. I stood in my lane with my arms outstretched and my hands open prepared to run but at the same time trying to gather the courage to further approach the car. I crept up to the rear window and peaked inside to find Amber’s body resting peacefully and completely undisturbed. As I stood outside in the dark I became more frightened of the sounds of the country wilderness than I was of the body in the car; the hoot of an owl, the rustling of cattle from a nearby field, the Gregorian chant of the crickets in the grass and the gurgling trickle of a stream; all of these innocent sounds manipulated within the expanse of my imagination became monstrous indescribable beasts from the depths of hell so I scurried back into the driver’s seat and I caught my breath. I thought about turning back but I had driven so far and I still had Amber’s rotting carcass to dispose of. I thought about dumping her body in the drainage ditch along side the road and doing an about face, but I knew in my heart that if I had done so I would have been traced and tracked and found-out. I gathered my composure and I put the car into gear and I continued my journey along the two-lane country road.