The Haunting of the Gemini

by Jackie Barrett

  My hand began to shake as I stared at this plain cardboard box. I scribbled my signature and then paused, making sure that I had signed my name, and not someone else’s. Patricia was not asserting herself, but I still had the feeling that this was going to be a very bad day. I took the box from my oblivious mailman and carried it inside like I was holding a bomb. I set the alarm, went downstairs, and locked myself in my office. I sat with it on the floor. My heart began to pound and my palms to sweat.

  During the months that we had been communicating, the temporal Eddie had sent me letters, artwork, clues, symbols, codes. Nothing had ever come in a box like this, however. I slowly opened it and looked inside.

  On the top, there was a thick gun-parts catalog—672 pages of information on what seemed like every kind of weapon known to man. Somehow, and I still have no idea how, he had managed to get it through the prison mail screening—normally, inmates would not be allowed access to an entire book full of weapons. And he had sent it on to me to show that he could obtain anything he wanted. The rest of the package showed me that he could also hide anything he wanted, for as long as he felt like it.

  Next came a full paper bag. I did not know what to expect, and there was no way in hell I was just going to stick my hand inside. Instead, I turned it upside down and shook it. And out fell two Zodiac masks.

  I stared at them in horror, these lumps of material festering on my office floor. This was what his victims saw, and if they had been chosen to survive, I was quite sure it was something they would never forget. There was the bandanna, black with white designs, and a stain that had to be blood. That was what he had worn as he prowled the streets in the dark, covering his face so that only his eyes showed. He had laughed when he told me on the phone that he’d looked like the villain in an old cowboy movie.

  Then there was the one no one had seen. He had worn this while hidden in his room, before he emerged to kill. This was his psych-himself-up mask. Evil oozed from every thread. It was an old black ski hat, with eyeholes and a nose slit cut into the cloth. And in red—right in the middle of the forehead—was a faded but still unmistakable sign of the Zodiac. That familiar bull’s-eye symbol stared up at me, and I knew I was the next target. He was trying to groom me into becoming his other half. Patricia wasn’t enough. His mission was now to make me a part of him. So that I would help with the massacre he was planning. The one that hadn’t happened yet.

  I sat on my floor with these things in front of me and noticed the paper that had fallen out with everything else. It was folded several times. I smoothed it open with dread. Eddie had scrawled phrases all over the page.

  Hi Jackie

  now that you broke the codes of my identity

  How many am I

  wear my mask. It has my hair in it

  Plus the hair I sent you

  we are 2 the good & bad

  This is the Zodiac speaking

  See through my eyes

  Wear it, see me, feel me, Be me

  You will never forget me

  All my secrets “live in you” aways [sic]

  we are both possessed

  your [sic] never alone

  Don’t forget to look in the mirror you are me now

  How many parts of the soul? As many as you can hold!

  Come closer closer closer did you feel that?

  He had drawn his ski mask next to the line where he said, “Wear it, see me, feel me, Be me.” And he’d decorated the whole thing with several Gemini and zodiac signs.

  I don’t know how long I sat there staring at everything before I finally began to move.

  I picked up the bandanna, and it smelled just like Eddie. It was the same smell I got from his letters and cards. That in itself wasn’t unusual—we all have our own distinctive scent. But now imagine that combined with odors from a maximum-security prison. Kind of like the smell of trash mixed with the stench of an overflowing urinal. Eau de American Serial Killer.

  I took up a loose floorboard and put the bandanna underneath. It seemed like it deserved its own burial place. I thought of the lives of his victims getting snuffed out, and I put the board back, nice and tight.

  But every time I stepped on that spot, I sensed the remnants of the killings. The feelings of the shots burned through my body. The images of the deaths flashed through my mind. My cats hopped over the spot as though it were electrified, their body language communicating their fear. The floor creaked at night and woke me in a cold sweat. I knew I needed to find another place to hide it.

  But as much as I wanted to get rid of the bandanna, I couldn’t help but keep the ski mask close. I carried it with me sometimes. I even took it on the subway, just to see if people would sense something when it was nearby. Some people did—they would look down at my bag and move away. Many didn’t, however, and I wondered if it was because people had become so desensitized to the evil that walked among us every day. They should really have had their guard up.

  Finally, it got to be too much. I stood in front of the mirror in my downstairs bathroom. My hands shook as I fought with myself. It was as if someone were standing next to me, slapping me, forcing this thing onto me. The mask pulled over my head. I looked in the mirror, mesmerized by the reflection of a person in the Zodiac mask. It was who I was—working in death, living in him, the victim living in me. He needed to show me firsthand, and I did see through the eyes of a monster as I stood there.

  I ripped the mask off and threw it down. The sickness rushed up and out of me. I vomited all over. The pain in my stomach was like a sharp knife twisting. I curled up on the floor, trying to find a comfortable position. I felt like I was shedding old skin, molting, becoming a new thing. And all I wanted was to be an old thing—normal and ordinary and not able to see what I did.

  I must have cried out, because Will banged on the door and tried to push it open, but I was in the way. Since all this started, the poor guy had had to rush in to help me so many times that it was getting ridiculous. He was big and strong, but this evil was so great, I felt I had to protect him any way I could. I felt for the mask and hid it under my body. He asked me what happened, and I lied to him, telling him I had the flu. He demanded to be let in, and I insisted that he give me a minute to wash my face. I had to hide the mask! I looked quickly around the small bathroom, and my gaze landed on the air vent in the ceiling. I stood shakily on the toilet seat and stuffed the mask inside.

  Will was banging on the door again. I jerked it open, and he gaped at me.

  “What happened to your eye?” he said.

  How the hell should I know? I tried to brush past him. He grabbed me and brought his face close to mine. “Your eye is bleeding. Right near the tear duct.”

  Fantastic. I stomped up to the other bathroom and took a shower. I tried to scrub away the smell of Eddie and the sight of his murders. As I used every soap product I could get my hands on, I thought about how I could get rid of that mask without letting anyone else touch it. It was like an old genie’s lamp. Rub it, and release the evil.

  * * *

  Will and I walked through Times Square on our way to Carmine’s, a famous family-style Italian place known for its huge plates of food and good company. I hoped that a nice meal and my husband’s companionship would help me shake the hold Eddie’s mask had on me. As we strolled along, an overwhelming feeling of peace came over me. I wished desperately that I could hold on to it and keep it forever, but it lasted for what felt like only a split second before vanishing into the night.

  We got to the crowded restaurant and were shown to our table. Will had made a reservation—that was my man, always prepared. I looked around. More than one hundred diners packed the large room, and waiters rushed here and there. As I watched, they began to move faster and faster, until they seemed to be traveling at the speed of light. The babble of voices began to fade, and the overhead lights started to sway back and forth.
I had a silly thought that someone had slipped me a hallucinogenic drug and was comforted at the idea. Who would wish for that? Me, because the alternative was worse.

  I excused myself and headed for the bathroom. I passed the bar and noticed one older bartender who wasn’t moving as quickly as everyone else. He stood there, calmly cleaning a glass with a white cloth. He noticed me and spoke. “You can go, Jackie. William is busy and can’t see you through this crowd.” I stared at him and then looked back. Will was out of sight. I pushed through the door and out into the night.

  Walking along Seventh Avenue, I reached into my bag and pulled out the mask. Part of me was astonished to find it. Wasn’t it still stuffed in the bathroom vent? But the other part of me had known it was there, nestled close to my side, waiting to be worn.

  I stopped in front of the window of an electronics shop packed with tourists. I took in my reflection, seeing Jackie but not feeling her, and pulled the mask over my head and down over my face. I gazed at the merchandise in the store, then turned to look up and around. People snapping pictures, vendors hawking purse knockoffs, billboards flashing, taxi horns blasting.

  Usually, I hate these kinds of crowds more than anything. The chatter I pick up from the dead in places like this is overpowering. But that night, it didn’t bother me at all. I wallowed in the chaos as I felt Eddie rushing through the crowd straight toward me. He found me on the corner, waiting for him. And in a flash, I became the biggest threat ever . . .

  * * *

  . . . I turned around slowly. My very own buffet. A piece of every continent at my fingertips. Cops were scattered about. I stood right next to three of them as they chatted together. I walked right past, laughing under my mask and saying to myself, “I did this shit before.” Despite the mask pulled down over my face, no one noticed me.

  There were two voices in my head. Jackie’s was very quiet. I ignored it. I got to the corner of Seventh Avenue and Forty-Third Street, where they had that little NYPD building that made tourists feel safe. Ha! There were more cops here. Boy, these guys sure knew how to eat, bellies hanging over those belts loaded down with flashlights and handcuffs, mace and a gun, and now terrorist packs, too. But do you have an Eddie pack, cops? Do you?

  The sweet smell of death filled the air. This isn’t real, the quiet voice said. “Shut the fuck up, Jackie,” I told it. “Listen and learn from the best. They said I had a low IQ. Yeah, fool the public so the pigs don’t look so bad. I tricked these pigs for years. They didn’t catch me. My master was done with me and turned me in. Now I’m back.

  “Settle in, Jackie,” I continued. “After all, you’ll get a nice vacation with lots of meds and a nice padded white room and those paper-thin gowns with your ass out. And you’ll get this walk, that sound everyone knows, that shuffle of your feet. Only very few people will know the truth. The Zodiac Killer lives in your body. You are the Gemini, my sweet love, Jackie. Feel me, Jackie. I’m alive. You’re the one behind bars now, tape across your mouth. Your dreams of the old insane asylum, that name tag around your wrist? It’s all you, Jackie. It was your psychic premonition of what was to come. Now we’ll always be together. How cozy . . . and every night I can crawl up next to you, inside of you. No one will listen. No one will care. You’re safe with me now. You’re a killing machine, and very soon your hands will be as dirty as mine.”

  * * *

  I struggled to get louder, trying to drive Eddie’s voice out of my head, staggering around on the sidewalk. I didn’t even care who saw anymore. I had to get him out. I saw the station on Forty-Third and had the hope that I could run in there and yell, “I’m the next Zodiac Killer, and I need to be stopped!”

  His voice came through my head like a lion’s roar. “No, you don’t! Not yet, not so fast. First you have to feel the lust of murder, the rush, the thrill. I’m not done yet.” We fought, yelling at each other. I clutched my head and tried to make my voice—Jackie’s voice—as loud as his. But I couldn’t.

  * * *

  I stopped her yelling and looked around, forcing Jackie into the background, where she belonged. And what did I see standing in front of me but cartoons. Two fuckers dressed up in knockoff Elmo and Minnie Mouse costumes. Trying to get tourists to pose with them for a few bucks. And they were in my way. I pushed past, and one of them protested.

  “Hey, who are you supposed to be?” Elmo asked my masked self. I went up to him and whispered into his mask where his ear would be, “Your worst fucking nightmare.” I saw right through his costume to the young man whose face showed that he knew the devil had just spoken to him. He backed up and grabbed Minnie’s hand.

  I saw them as lovebirds getting shot dead. No, better yet, cut up and left on the corner for all to take pictures with. Oh, the news headlines would read, “Disney Gets Cut Up in Little Pieces.” I was like a child in a candy store. So much to choose from. And I was doing it all for you, Jackie, my Gemini.

  I moved through the crowd, looking for my dinner. Who shall stray into my path? Behind me, I heard a commotion. I turned and saw that Will person coming toward me, pushing people out of his way. I had to get away from him to complete my transformation and accomplish my mission. I moved like a pro on the football field as I dodged the crowds and ran away from him toward the West Village.

  I turned down a dark city block and saw an old homeless man asleep against a building. A shopping cart full of his pathetic life was next to him as he lay covered by a filthy old blanket. I kicked his half-busted shoe. “Hey, drunk,” I growled at him.

  * * *

  That’s when my anger surfaced. Eddie always picked on the helpless. On the lost, the left behind, the ones most easily hurt. The ones who befriended me all my life. I pushed that anger forward and spoke in my own voice. “Don’t hurt him! Leave him alone!”

  “Why?” Eddie replied. “Because the old hobos on those railroad tracks were the only ones that accepted you, you pathetic, motherless child.” He bent down toward the man, who was now awake. “After tonight, everyone will know who you are. Get up, old man, I have a gift for you!”

  “No!” I screamed. A hand was trying to remove the mask, but it wasn’t mine. I wanted that damn mask off, but not if it was going to harm someone else, so I struggled to keep the mask on. “Don’t take it!” I yelled at the poor man, whose face was frozen in fear as he started to crawl away from the possessed person. He said what I felt when he screamed, “Help me, God!”

  Eddie yelled out and threw my arms wide, like he was nailed to a cross. One arm swung toward me and hit me on the head, and I started to feel faint. I couldn’t fall now. “God, please help me,” came out of my mouth in a mixture of two voices.

  The homeless man, who had made it to a doorway and pulled himself up to a standing position, began to pray. In an instant, I pulled off the mask and fell to the ground. In my own quivering voice, I said, “Don’t come near me. Stay back.” I tried to look at the man, but one of my eyes was closed in pain, and the other made everything seem like I was seeing through a fish-eye lens.

  I heard footsteps pounding up from behind me. It was Will. I held up the mask and begged him to take it. He stuffed it into his back pocket and picked me up.

  He carried me across the street and looked into my eyes as they began to clear. My sight was spotted and hazy, but it was mine again, not Eddie’s. Will wiped blood from my face and covered me with his coat.

  The homeless man came over and put an old, broken string of rosary beads in my hand. “She saved my life,” he told Will, as he wrapped my fingers tightly around the beads.

  Will shifted, and a large knife fell out of my jacket pocket. Will snatched it away and put it into his own pocket. “Don’t put that knife near that mask,” I whispered into his neck as he held me. “Don’t do it.”

  The homeless man gaped at me. “Look,” he said, pointing at my face. “Her eyes, they’re changing. She had one black eye . . . completely black . . . no whites
, no pupil. Just a big, black hole. Now they’re both sky blue.” Just then, a drop of blood fell from that eye. It was Eddie, leaving my body.

  The sweet man asked if we should call an ambulance. Will shook his head. “This isn’t medical, my friend. It’s spiritual.” It certainly was. And as Will held me on that city street, I knew that every fire I walked through, he would be right there with me. I had known him before, I knew him now, and I would know him forever.

  * * *

  I don’t know how we got home that night. I just remember a fog like the kind that blows off the ocean covering the ground. I awoke in bed, with Will sitting by my side and a wet cloth on my head. He took the cloth off and kissed me. I looked over at my nightstand and saw the broken rosary beads. Be it in this world or the next, I hoped that one day I would see that homeless man again.

  That day I regained my strength enough to go to the bank. I put on dark glasses to shield my still-sensitive eyes from the light and went with Will to the branch where we have a safe-deposit box. We took both masks. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of putting them in the safe-deposit box before. Along with valuable jewelry, it was where I kept things I didn’t want in my house. And I sure as hell didn’t want these anywhere near me anymore.

  We entered the private little room in the back and put both pieces in the box. As we left, the box shook and moved along the table. I jumped back and called for the bank attendant. We told her we were done and watched her carefully as she used her key in unison with Will’s to lock the box away. I could tell that we made her nervous and uneasy, but at least the box did not move again.

  She worked quickly and then ran up the steps ahead of us. As we left, I stopped to tie my shoe, as the lace had come undone on the stairs. As I tied, I overheard her whispering to a coworker, “Those people gave me the creeps. The room turned ice cold, and I felt sick.” As I straightened up, Will and I looked at each other. Will squeezed my hand and told me he loved me. We walked back into the sunlight knowing that the war was not over but that we had at least won a battle.