by L. T. Vargus
“I don’t get it then.”
“The local papers. We need this,” he tapped the story about the Worthington vigil, “in every paper in Ohio, and we need it to be big. A fucking extravaganza. If I had my way, there’d be a front page story in every local rag, every day leading up to the memorial. Profiles on the victims, interviews with the family, with law enforcement.”
Darger leaned back in the chair.
“You want to lure him to the vigil.”
He winked.
“Now you’re gettin’ it.”
“And what? Record the plate numbers of every dark sedan that rolls through?”
“Bingo. And don’t forget the orange doohickey on the rear view.”
He raised a finger in the air, wiggling it as though flicking something hanging from the invisible rearview mirror hung above him.
It could work, Darger thought. It could also be a colossal waste of time and manpower. But she didn’t have any better ideas.
“You don’t think he’ll be too leery of showing up to something like that? After the leak about the stakeouts?”
“Not if we make it worth his while.”
“How?”
Loshak opened his mouth, stretching the muscles on either side of his jaw.
“That’s what we have to figure out.”
“You think everyone will go along with it? The family, I mean? And the local PD?”
“Might take some convincing, especially with the task force. I guess I should handle that, ‘til your little snafu has a chance to blow over.”
A little bit of heat spread over her cheeks at the mere mention of her screw-up. She couldn’t imagine it being forgotten anytime soon.
“Bureau’s not gonna like it. If we’re in the newspapers again, even if it’s only local.”
“We,” Loshak said, raising his eyebrows for emphasis, “aren’t going to be in the papers. Our part is strictly behind the scenes.”
Darger watched a smile spread over Loshak’s face.
“Oh yeah,” he said, seeming to be talking to himself more than her. “He’s perfect.”
“Who?”
“The young Detective Luck, of course. Good lookin’, squeaky clean guy like him? The cameras will love him.”
Darger felt an involuntary tightening of her chest at Luck’s name. She picked a piece of lint from her sleeve cuff, hoping her discomfort hadn’t shown.
“What a bunch of dumb, superficial apes we are, eh?” he said.
“Huh?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just that we like our pretty things.”
They agreed that Darger should wait outside while Loshak met with the two Sheriffs and Chief Haden that afternoon.
“Well?”
“Well, let’s just say it’s a good thing your scrap was mostly with Sheriff O’Day. He’s still fuming over it, but he’s deferring to Chief Haden being that the last two victims are his.”
“But they agreed?”
Loshak nodded.
“It’s on. Luck is going to talk to the Worthingtons, make sure they’re OK with us horning in on their memorial a little bit. We’ll meet tomorrow to start going over things. Get Luck up to speed, write up some press releases and whatnot.”
“Did it take much convincing?” she asked. “I can’t imagine they were wild about the idea of more press.”
“They had their doubts. But when I mentioned that amping up the news coverage might actually buy us more time before another murder, they were all ears.”
“You think that’s true?”
Loshak’s eyebrows appeared from behind his sunglasses.
“Maybe. I sure as hell hope so.”
Chapter 53
He blinks. His eyelids swiping tears away like windshield wipers. The wet blur slides aside to reveal the road for a while. But more water wells to take the place of that which has fallen. Beads of liquid that cling to his lashes for as long as they can.
This is goodbye.
He eyes the duffel bag on the seat next to him. Zipped up tight. It will be gone soon. Falling away from him. Forever. And still, he cannot imagine it. His mind blocks him from picturing it. From feeling it all the way.
The hurt he feels now is just a sliver of what he’ll feel when it’s done. He knows this. And knowing it does him no good.
The night sprawls before the Prius. The headlights piercing the blackness. Reflecting from the blacktop. The engine’s vibration makes the steering wheel tremble in his hands.
It’s late. Some unthinkable hour. And he’s the only thing stirring for miles. The only source of sound or movement. The only thing all the way alive.
He couldn’t sleep now if he wanted to. Not tonight. He has to finish this first. Has to be rid of it.
He rolls through the slumbering city. Surrounded by unconsciousness. All of the windows darkened. The curtains drawn.
This is a different kind of loneliness. Somehow stimulating and strange. Not as unpleasant as the lonesome stab he gets when he’s surrounded by people and somehow apart from them. This one has an innocence to it. A peacefulness.
He exhales. The fumes spilling out of him. Hot air. Heavy with booze.
How did it come to this? To killing these women. Cutting them apart. Mourning the loss of the body parts.
It is madness. Isn’t it?
He doesn’t know anymore. None of it makes any sense. Like life itself is an abstract painting. A crappy one at that. Lines and curves and smears that add up to nothing if you take a step back. A mess of color. Feelings and impulses are there to experience. Yes. But they are meaningless. A trail of stimulation that goes nowhere.
The water tower looms overhead. Spotlights pointing at its rounded dome. Muted blue metal the color of a cartoon dolphin. Big black letters etching the name of this place across its belly.
He is close now. Less than a mile from the end of this journey.
His mind races.
This world holds its meaning away from him. It hides it. Locks it behind glass. If it has any meaning at all.
Even when he was young, he couldn’t be part of it. Not the way everyone else was. He couldn’t picture himself getting the girl. Couldn’t picture himself becoming the hero. These doors were never open to him.
He was an Other. A loathsome creature.
So the pictures in his head shifted. Morphed slowly but surely. And soon the girls in his fantasies were dead. Lifeless bodies. Those he could have and hold. That was something his imagination could believe.
And the violence was just the means to that end. It was how he asserted himself. How he proved he was here.
Because he was. Because he is.
He is here. A man. Not some meek thing for the world to walk upon. Not some eunuch that exists for society’s convenience. Not the faceless, worthless nothing they treated him like from childhood to present.
A man.
And the world has to see that. Has to feel it like a blade jammed in their guts.
And every garbage bag proves it. Every thrust of the knife proves it. Over and over again.
He sails the seas of black nothing. Holds the infinite in his head even if it will break him. The void. The distance between himself and everyone.
But he is here. And he is a man.
Right fucking here.
He takes his foot off of the accelerator. Lets the car drift to slower and slower speeds.
An electric prickle pulses in his torso. Gaining intensity as the vehicle’s momentum tapers off.
He applies the brake. Watches the ruddy light flare in the rearview mirror.
This is it.
He puts the car in park. Kills the engine. The silence makes the prickle in his chest rage to new levels. An itchy tingle crawling over his skin.
His fingers scrape the surface of the bag. Find the zipper and peel it back.
And his hand fishes into the black opening. Finds her hair. Pulls her free.
Her face looks like a Halloween mask now. A sheen to it like la
tex. A rotten thing. The flesh taking on a faintly green and black undertone in recent hours.
Her skin shifts with every movement like under the thin outer membrane is a layer of runny custard ready to slide away from the bone. Liquefying. Is that how it works? He doesn’t know. It seems so.
She smells like roadkill. And he retches. Hears his stomach contents lurch for his esophagus. A sound like a wave slapping at rock formations along the shore. He tastes bitter acid on the back of his tongue. But he manages to keep most of it down.
He lets his eyes go blurry. Tears filling them in slow motion. All of reality fading to a soft focus.
And he doesn’t see the rot anymore. Doesn’t see the putrefied thing she has become. He sees who she was. The girl that he made and froze and tried his damnedest to keep. The companion he brought with him everywhere he went over the past many days.
How strange to feel nostalgia over someone who was never real. Over a decapitation victim used as a prop.
That’s what she is. Right? A prop at worst. An imaginary friend at best.
But no. No. Maybe that’s what she is from afar. To him, she is more.
He brings her near. Hovering the severed head over the steering wheel. Inches from his face.
Those dead eyes seem to look into his. At least through the prism of tears. He believes what he sees. He wants to believe it.
A connection. One last connection. And it’s real. The realest thing he will ever feel.
He kisses the rotting head passionately. Lovingly. His tongue probing the strangely dry gums and teeth. The white, shriveled tongue. His teeth scrape her top lip, and it stays puckered. Pinched from the pressure. It looks like a pasty worm drooping over that gaping mouth.
He weeps openly now. Putting her back in her duffel bag with care. Zipping her closed.
Water pours from his eyes. His body spasms. Silent sobs that shake him. Rattle him like he’s freezing cold.
No sound comes out, though. None at all. He keeps it all inside.
He plucks the two handles dangling on each side of the bag. Weaves them around his hand. Lifts.
It’s heavy now. Much heavier than before. It pulls his arm all the way down to his side as he steps out of the car. Makes the muscles knot up and shake. Tiny flexes firing as fast as possible. Cords of quivering meat.
He’d loaded the bag with rocks from a decorative display outside the apartment complex a couple doors down from his building. Kneeling among dead flowers in the dark. Piling in a bunch of limestone gravel and a handful of larger stones ranging in size from softball to cantaloupe. For the weight.
Would he have done this without the alcohol? He doesn’t know. He’d been so cautious before tonight. Never doing anything onlookers could find noteworthy. Never exposing himself to any risk aside from the fleeting moments of the abductions themselves. But tonight he had knelt among shrubs with the bag open. With the head exposed. Funneling in fistfuls of rocks.
He drank beforehand to build up the gumption. To turn off the timid part of his personality for a while. Six big glugs from the Jim Beam bottle on an empty stomach. It burned all the way down. The fumes crawling up from his stomach to fill his sinus cavities. To make his eyes water.
That was enough. And within seconds, the drunkenness began to take hold.
The booze makes him fearless. Removes all of his doubts. Restores the single-minded focus he needs to carry out these acts.
He staggers a little as he makes his way onto the bridge. The wind picking up to greet him with a burst of chilly air.
He arrives at the guard rail. Hears the water burbling. Smells the Hocking River wafting up from below.
The bag rests a moment on the rail. The gravel inside grinding out a sound. All of those fibers in his arms twitching like crazy again.
He pushes the canvas rectangle over the edge. Watches it shift into something limp. It tumbles end over end on the diagonal. Handles whipping like its tiny frightened arms. Waving for help that will never come.
It cracks into the water. A slap like shattering concrete. And after wiggling a second on the surface, the water pulls it under. Swallows it whole.
He stares down there. The black water flickering in the places where the moonlight touches its surface. He almost wants it to bob to the surface. To reveal itself to be alive in some way. Sentient.
But nothing happens.
A big breath sucks into his lungs. And he turns his head away from the scene of the fall.
His arms feel so strange with the weight removed from the end of them. Useless and naked and trembling.
The wet that slicks his whole body makes him feel opened up. Like the night air can blow straight through to touch his insides.
And the emptiness is everywhere. Inside and out. Spanning to the horizon in all directions from this bridge. Engulfing all things from here into the heavens.
He walks to the car. Climbs in. The starter beeps. The engine catches. The gearshift ratchets into place.
And he’s moving again. Moving on.
Emotions burst in his head like fireworks. A black rage darkening everything.
His leg twitches. Foot pressing the pedal down. The car seeming to stand up taller on the tires as it accelerates with violent abandon.
He wants to flick his wrists. To send the car careening over the shoulder and into the woods. He can feel the impact in his imagination. That kiss of wood and steel. Mashed and splintered bits. Fire engulfing the broken pieces.
He wants it so bad. Destruction. Annihilation. Of himself. Of someone else. Of anyone.
The pedal bottoms out. Feels strange jammed all the way to floor. He grinds his foot into it harder without effect.
And the car expresses his hatred with kinetic energy. It hurtles on. Penetrates the emptiness. The engine wailing like it was about to break.
Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off.
The car reaches top speed. Accelerating no more. Ripping over small hills with enough force to make his stomach lurch.
The notion of getting pulled over enters his head. Arriving late to the party.
Fuck it. Let them do it. He’d happily pull over right now. Happily jam the barrel of his gun down some dumbshit cop’s throat and squeeze the trigger until the ammo was spent.
He laughs thinking about it. Picturing it. Seeing some cop’s brain jettisoned from his skull. Escaping from a gaping slit in the back of his head.
Heat flickers in him as these violent fantasies dance in his imagination. He lusts for them to be real.
Tears drain down the sides of his face. His intestines squishing wildly in his gut. Chest and arms reverberating electrical current that feels like insects run amok inside of him and out. He knows that he’s right on the edge of psychosis. Of that plunge into an insanity that can’t be undone.
The car shakes now. Fenders squeaking like bedsprings. Steering wheel rattling. It sounds and feels like it wants nothing more than to come apart.
So let it. Let it. Let the pieces fall away into nothing.
He teeters on the edge just the same as the car. The edge of what? He’s not entirely certain. Of madness. Of chaos. But he somehow holds it together.
Holds the void in his skull.
It should break him.
Should.
But it doesn’t. Can’t.
He is still here. Still walking the Earth.
Even with the vast seas of nothing flowing into him. All the way. Becoming part of him.
Even with no hope of connecting to any other. Even with loneliness and emptiness left as the only things that are real on this plane.
Even with all he has done. All the humanity he has fouled and defiled.
He is still here.
And he is what he is. What he has always been.
He gets that now. Understands it.
Owns it.
He releases the pressure on the accelerator. Letting the car slow to a normal speed. The shaking and roaring dissipating to smooth going. Falling back under con
trol.
He catches his eyes in the rearview mirror. Stares into them. The pupils are empty black pits like a beast’s.
And he knows somehow that he will be fine.
That there’s work left to be done.
Chapter 54
Loshak milled around outside of his motel room, pacing back and forth on the concrete catwalk that ran in front of the second story units. He looked down through the wrought iron guard rail into the parking lot, but he saw no sign of movement yet. So be it. He didn’t mind stretching his legs.
He shivered a little. It was cold, but it felt good to be on his feet again. He still felt like shit, but his gut wasn’t aching the way it had been. Was it real progress? He didn’t know.
The sound of tires rolling over wet blacktop caught his ear. He gazed down at the police cruiser wading through the mud puddles. This was it.
He jogged down the flight of steps and peered into the cruiser, a little surprised to find the passenger seat empty. He climbed into the open spot.
McAdoo smiled, and they shook hands, but the officer looked a little under the weather himself. His chubby cheeks seemed unnatural sporting stubble, and his complexion looked yellow. Waxy.
“Where’s Novotny?” he said. He caught himself just shy of saying Nose-votny.
“Oh, he won’t be on duty for a couple hours yet. Me neither.”
“I see.”
They were quiet for a second as the car pulled out of the lot, squishing through the puddles again on the way to the street.
“You heard what happened, I’m sure,” McAdoo said. “About The Daily Gawk and all the fallout. The stakeout getting shut down.”
“Indeed.”
“Do you think… I mean, it doesn’t sit right with me is all. Ending the stakeout, I mean. I don’t know. Feels like we should be watching those scenes, you know? Just in case.”
“I know what you mean.”
“What do you think?”
“Our guy is surely following the media coverage. I suspect the articles spooked him, and I think he’s smart enough to stay away. If we had all the resources in the world, we’d keep all four dump sites staked out, but we don’t, so… Not much use investing so much in a low percentage play, I guess,” Loshak said.