Screaming to Get Out & Other Wailings of the Damned

by J. F. Gonzalez

I could save Andrea.

  I wasn’t out stalking Andrea every night. Most nights I was at the apartment reading books. Surfing the Internet. At some point I got curious about what Lucy had done to bring me into her world, so I started investigating. That’s when I started poking around the apartment when Lucy wasn’t home. The closets, desk and dresser drawers. I even poked around under the bed and sofa. Eventually I found it.

  The steel box that contained the book...

  But it wasn’t the book that captured my interest, although in hindsight it would set off alarms of excitement with any antiquarian (it was a big, dusty, old leather-bound volume). What caught my interest was the comb. And the baseball cap.

  I’d owned them when I was an undergraduate ...when Lucy and I were dating.

  I don’t remember them turning up missing, but then I was at her place so much I’d left my belongings there numerous times. I’d never thought anything of it. I’d left shoes, clothing, books, CDs, all manner of things at Lucy’s apartment. I suppose it was possible that I’d left a comb and a baseball cap there.

  It was from those items that she was able to get a lock of my hair.

  I knew that the lock of hair was an important ingredient from the crude drawing in that leather-bound book. Lucy had even marked the space in the book with a piece of paper. I couldn’t read the text (and I was impressed that Lucy had remembered her Latin from college to be able to decipher the ritual that was described), but I knew I’d found the formula to my being here. A spell, one designed to ensnare the person of your desire into your world and make them yours.

  The following day I found an online translator and typed the Latin phrases into the parameter box. The results it returned confirmed it.

  And now I had the spell. And I knew what I had to do to get back into my world.

  So, as you can see, I wasn’t stalking Andrea. It may look that way to you, but I was following her in an effort to try to get a personal effect from her. Her purse, her coat, even a hairpin. You see, I need a lock of her hair.

  I’ve come close several times. In all those cases the police were called and I was arrested.

  Despite whatever dark powers she used to return me to her plane of existence, she couldn’t kill my need to return to Andrea. She couldn’t curb my undying love for my children, the life I’d lived before she so crudely snatched me out of it.

  It was that need that propelled me, that drove me to follow Andrea around to try to obtain a lock of her hair. It wasn’t just to satisfy my urge to return home. I had to do it to save her from her boyfriend.

  You see, if I’d stayed with Lucy, Andrea would have wound up with this guy. And the way he’s treating her, it’s very possible he could—

  I know you think this is crazy, but it’s the truth! The evidence is still in that box, only I’ve taken it outside of the apartment and buried it where Lucy won’t find it.

  Please! You’ve got to believe me! Go to the apartment complex and dig where I told you to earlier. That will back up my story. You might think it’s insane even after you’ve seen it and, if you do, I can’t convince you otherwise. But please, please do something about that bastard that calls himself Andrea’s boyfriend. He’s bad news, he’s dangerous, he’s—

  NARRATIVE ENDS HERE.

  Statement of Detective Trent Jorgenson:

  Following Doug’s written statement he was taken to his room and given his medication, after which he fell into a deep sleep. Upon reading his statement, I dispatched a squad car and a team of detectives to the apartment complex he resides at with his common-law wife, Ms. Lucy Murphy. Equipped with a shovel courtesy of the landlord, we dug in the spot as instructed and found nothing.

  Lucy Murphy was very cooperative and, unlike Doug’s depiction of her in his statement, proved to be pleasant, neat, clean, attractive, and very sober. We observed a very neat apartment with no signs of abuse or neglect. Lucy Murphy did not strike me, or my officers, as a woman teetering on the brink of alcoholism. A further background check on her shows that she’s held a position at Free State Insurance as a Middle Manager for the last ten years. Her colleagues describe her as professional, good natured, and funny. She readily admitted to being a heavy drinker in college, but eased off completely once she began her career. As for her brother-in-law John, and Doug’s claims that drunken driving turned him into a quadriplegic, that is about the only known fact in this narrative. It is an act Lucy regrets deeply.

  We are still waiting for the psychiatrist’s diagnosis of Doug’s condition, but it is clear that Lucy is expecting the worst. While Lucy is clearly an ambitious, driven woman, Doug was the opposite. Doug’s criminal record notwithstanding, his employment record, while steady, showed a man who never aspired to be anything more than a warehouse worker. Likewise, his academic record shows he dropped out of college in his junior year and simply never returned. It was Lucy who carried the relationship emotionally and financially.

  Regarding Andrea Black and the criminal charges that were followed up on in relation to her murder: we are going to recommend not filing murder charges against Doug due to the arrest and subsequent confession of Andrea’s boyfriend, Mervin Osborne. Friends and family of Andrea adamantly claim that they’ve never met, nor heard of Doug, but that didn’t stop me from poking into their respective lives deeper. You would have too if you’d learned anything of Andrea’s life. Doug had her pegged precisely, from her family background, to her employment, to her personal life. He knew things only somebody who’d known her on a personal level would. But he didn’t know her completely. He hinted at it, but even then, I was under the impression his depiction of her was fabricated. Still, the parts of her he merely speculated on bears an uncanny parallel to Andrea's personal life, which led to her untimely and violent death.

  He never knew that Andrea had a dark side, one that involved alcohol and drug abuse and an attraction to violent men. It was that dark side that led to her murder by Mervin Osborne.

  This is an unfortunate and tragic case. If circumstances had been different, maybe Andrea and Doug would have made a good couple. They might have balanced each other out.

  Strange how things work out.

  Story Notes

  The seeds of this one stem from a nightmare I had back in 2007. I had gone to bed and when I woke up I was in a strange room with a woman who’d been a very good friend of mine in the late 1980s sitting there by the bedside, as if waiting for me to wake up. It freaked me out. It was almost exactly as described in the opening scene of the story.

  I jotted the idea down and thought about it over the next few months. The woman in question had been a friend, but we’d also tried the dating thing for a brief period and decided we were better at just being friends than dating, if you can dig that. If you’re fortunate to be involved in a good, stable, long-standing relationship, you tend to look back at former partners with either a shudder (“what was I thinking?”) or with amusement ("well, that was fun while it lasted"). Sometimes, if you’re honest, you will look back on some with the notion that, while that person might have been nice and all, they just weren’t right for you. Had you stayed with that person, your life probably wouldn’t have turned out for the better. Things would have been out of whack. Good couples balance each other out. Pair up with the wrong person – even if the person in question is wonderful – and it can throw off that balance. And no matter how much you may love that person, they just won’t be right for you.

  That was the theme I had in mind when writing “Balance” and this was all based on that initial dream. I thought about the woman in the dream and tried to imagine what my life would have been like had things become serious for us and we’d eventually gotten married. It would have been a goddamn disaster. And I say this with utmost respect for this person; to this day we have remained friends. She’s married to a good guy and they have a family, and I’m happy for them. I’m even friends with her on Facebook.

  But if the two of us had been sucked into a weird time wa
rp where we wind up married? That’s what I wanted to explore. Of course, the more I thought about all the “what ifs”? I had to think about the other side of the equation – what if I’d never met my wife? What would have happened to her?

  Needless to say once I put that into the equation, things got interesting for my characters.

  You might say they got too interesting.

  The Smile

  The following is an excerpted transcription from the tape-recorded statement of John Datlow, who is Witness #1 in the investigation of murder suspect Charles Williams, taken April 9, 2010 in Interrogation Room #1 at the Lancaster City Police Department. Present are Detective Julie Mowry, Shield #E5876, and Detective Paul Harris, Shield # E8965, both from the Homicide Division.

  MOWRY: Tell me about Victor Collins and Mary Beth Martin. What are they like as neighbors?

  DATLOW: They’re good people. Very quiet. Mary Beth is one of those people that’ll do anything for you. Whenever I go out of town on business, she takes care of my mail, waters my plants, feeds my cat.

  HARRIS: So they’re not the type of people that would have enemies?

  DATLOW: Not at all.

  HARRIS: Have you ever noticed anything unusual about them?

  DATLOW: Not really. They’ve never caused trouble or raised attention to themselves. Their refrigerator went bad two weeks ago and when they cleaned it out, the smell was something fierce. That was the only time they annoyed me. Other than that, perfect neighbors.

  MOWRY: Describe what you heard this evening.

  DATLOW: Well, its like I told the officers that responded to my call...it was late. I was actually in bed asleep when I heard a bunch of crashing sounds next door. Like a fight, you know? And I heard a bunch of yelling, just real loud voices.

  HARRIS: Did you recognize the voices?

  DATLOW: No sir. I didn’t.

  HARRIS: How many voices did you hear?

  DATLOW: It’s hard to tell. Maybe...five?

  MOWRY: Male or female?

  DATLOW: All men.

  MOWRY: And they were shouting?

  DATLOW: Yeah. It was like, all of a sudden I hear a lot of voices going, “motherfucker this!” and “motherfucker that!” and a lot of banging around. One voice kept shouting, “Any motherfuckers show themselves, they gettin’ shot!”

  MOWRY: Did you see the men in question?

  DATLOW: No, I didn’t.

  MOWRY: Did you hear any other voices?

  DATLOW: No, I didn’t.

  MOWRY: You did not hear Mary Beth or Victor?

  DATLOW: No ma’am.

  HARRIS: What happened next?

  DATLOW: That’s when I heard one of the guys start screaming. Then I heard gunshots.

  HARRIS: What was he screaming?

  DATLOW: He said, “What the fuck is that? Oh shit, what the fuck is that?” Like in a really panicky voice. He sounded scared to death.

  HARRIS: And the gunshots came after he said this?

  DATLOW: Yes.

  HARRIS: How many gunshots did you hear?

  DATLOW: A bunch. I’d say twelve. They came real fast, like bam-bam-bam-bam-bam!

  HARRIS: What happened after that?

  DATLOW: That’s when I called you.

  The following is an excerpted transcription from the tape-recorded statement of Louis Jackson, who is Suspect #3 in the investigation of murder suspect Charles Williams, taken April 9, 2010 in Interrogation Room #1 at the Lancaster City Police Department. Present are Detective Julie Mowry, Shield #E5876, and Detective Paul Harris, Shield # E8965, both from the Homicide Division.

  MOWRY: What did you guys take before you set out tonight?

  LOUIS: Take? The fuck you mean, what we take?

  MOWRY: Your boy Dose was reeking of chronic when we booked him. So was your boy Chester. And Top Hat? Well, we know all about Top Hat and what he’s been into.

  LOUIS: That’s bullshit. Top Hat wasn’t on nuthin’. He’s been clean since April.

  HARRIS: We’ll see about that. The drug test we ran on him should tell us what he was on tonight.

  LOUIS: I told you Top Hat wasn’t on nuthin’ tonight!

  HARRIS: That’s not what it sounds like.

  MOWRY: It almost sounds like that time he was busted over on Prince Street about eight months ago. Remember that?

  HARRIS: I do.

  LOUIS: The fuck you talkin’ ‘bout?

  MOWRY: That’s right...you were serving a six-month stretch for parole violation. You weren’t around when that happened.

  HARRIS: Why don’t you tell Louis about the last time his buddy Top Hat saw weird shit while he was flying on ice.

  LOUIS: I told you, man, Top Hat wasn’t loaded tonight. None of us were. Okay, Dose was smokin’ weed, but shit man, that’s nuthin’!

  MOWRY: Last year, Top Hat thought it would be fun to smoke crack all day and then strip down to his underwear and head down King Street to Domineco’s to pick up a cheesesteak. He got as far as the corner of King and Lime Street before units responded. By the time we got there, he was racing up and down Lime Street, ducking behind cars, hiding behind trash dumpsters and shouting that the ghosts in the cemetery were chasing him. You know...the cemetery that borders Lime Street?

  LOUIS: Yeah.

  MOWRY: He was convinced that ghosts and zombies were coming out of the cemetery, that they were literally walking the streets of downtown Lancaster. Every time an officer approached him he’d scream and let loose with these lame-ass karate moves. He was flailing his fists and legs everywhere. Finally, a bunch of officers swarmed him. It took four cops to hold him down and get cuffs on him. He was screaming the entire time to call the police, that zombies were attacking him and were trying to eat him.

  LOUIS: Yeah, well...

  (The sound of Louis chuckling)

  LOUIS: ...that was then, this is now. Top Hat been clean for two months. He ain’t on that shit anymore. He’s even goin’ to NA.

  HARRIS: Whose idea was it to rob Mary Beth Martin’s house at 84 New Street in Lititz?

  LOUIS: Wasn’t anybody’s idea, man. It was just random.

  HARRIS: But you did set out that night to commit a home invasion robbery, correct?

  LOUIS: We weren’t settin’ out to do no home invasion.

  MOWRY: That’s not what Dose says.

  LOUIS: What’s that nigga say?

  HARRIS; That you and Chester came up with the idea of pulling a home invasion robbery tonight. That you decided to drive out of the city and into the country and hit up a little suburb. Didn’t matter which one because people that live in the country all leave their doors unlocked at night.

  LOUIS: That’s bullshit.

  HARRIS: Why is it bullshit? You got popped two blocks from the house you hit.

  LOUIS: That ain’t shit.

  HARRIS: Your homie Top Hat is looking at doing life for murder.

  (There are ten seconds of silence on the tape)

  LOUIS: He kill them people?

  MOWRY: You going to talk to us?

  (There are seventeen seconds of silence on the tape. There is the squeak of wood and linoleum as Louis fidgets in his chair)

  LOUIS: What’ you wanna know?

  HARRIS: Whose idea was it to target this particular house?

  LOUIS: Wasn’t nobody’s, dog. We just picked it ‘cause it was there.

  MOWRY: Is that how you picked the other places?

  LOUIS: What other places?

  MOWRY: Home invasion in Manheim two weeks ago. A smash and grab at an antique store in Adamstown last month. Home invasion in Reamstown two weeks before that.

  LOUIS: Don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout those.

  MOWRY: The victims know all about you, though. They picked you and your crew out of a lineup.

  LOUIS: Bunch of double-talkin’ bullshit.