by Bryan Smith
“Who else would it be? You saw my name, right?”
A sigh from the other end. “Did you call just to be mean again? You did, didn’t you? I knew I shouldn’t have answered.”
“But you couldn’t help yourself. Because it’s me.”
“I’m going to hang up now.”
“No, wait!” She sighed. “Look, Lee, I’m sorry for busting your balls. It’s just instinct. I don’t mean anything by it.”
A pause, then: “I wish I could believe that.”
“It’s true. Lee…I need to see you.”
“Why?”
“I want to talk to you about something.”
“We’re talking now, aren’t we?”
Now it was Kayla’s turn to pause and weigh her next words. She lifted her gaze from the sidewalk and watched the people walking by. Only a few of them glanced her way. An older man in a rumpled suit smiled at her. A younger man frowned and picked up his pace until he was past her. A thirtyish woman with a profusion of colorful tattoos and piercings gave her a long stare before moving along. Everyone else ignored her completely. It was as if she didn’t exist at all, an impression that chilled her because she knew it was a taste of what life would always be like if she failed to fulfill her contract with the devil.
“Kayla? You still there?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I’m sort of out of it. I’ve got a lot of shit on my mind, Lee. A lot of crazy shit. The kind of thing I’d really rather talk about in person.”
“Is it anything to do with what happened last night?’
Kayla frowned. “I…don’t think so.”
“Are you sure? Because I know you must have seen the news out of Belle Meade by now. Those murders, all the bodies the cops are pulling out of that house.” He paused again, almost as if he was afraid to say the next part. She knew what was coming and couldn’t blame him. “That’s in the same area where I picked you up. All that must have been going down right around the time you were walking around out there.”
Kayla didn’t say anything.
After a full minute of silence, Lee tried prompting her. “Kayla?”
She sighed. “Okay. Last night is part of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“You weren’t…somehow…mixed up in all that…were you?”
Hell, yes. I was knee-deep in that shit.
Which was a bit of information she intended to save until they were in the same room together…if then. She didn’t know yet if she could fully trust him. But there was one true thing about what had happened that she did feel safe sharing with him now: “I didn’t kill anyone last night, Lee, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s crazy.” He laughed, as if the idea of Kayla killing anyone was the most ludicrous thing ever. “But when I started hearing about it and thought about the timing…well, I started to freak out a little.”
“Yeah, I get it. Look, I really do need to talk to you, Lee. You remember how we were talking about what happened when I came to see you that time? About how your reaction to me made no sense?”
“And how I couldn’t remember why I reacted that way when I started thinking about you again yesterday. Yeah. I remember.”
“You were right, Lee. It’s very, very strange.”
He laughed again. “No shit.”
“Well, there’s an explanation. But, and you’ll just have to trust me on this, I really can’t talk about it over the phone. A story like this has to be told in person so you can look into my eyes and know I’m telling the truth.”
“Okay. Fine. But I can’t see you until tonight. Got school stuff to do that I can’t put off. How does seven o’clock sound?”
Seven o’clock was still several hours away. She’d had her fill of walking around the city. A box on the street corner filled with copies of the latest issue of the Nashville Scene, the city’s free weekly alternative paper, gave her an idea that made her smile. It’d be the perfect way to kill some time and turn her off mind for a while.
“Seven o’clock sounds good.”
“Where do you want to meet?”
Kayla thought about it. She didn’t want to go to a bar or any other place where there’d be a lot of people around. She wanted to tell her tale without having to worry about eavesdroppers. Some place secluded or at least relatively private would be preferable. “How about we just go for a drive and park somewhere?”
“Well…I guess that’d be okay.”
She laughed. “What’s the matter, Lee? You’re not afraid to be alone with me, are you?”
He had no immediate reaction. Then he laughed, too, but it sounded forced. “No. Of course not.”
She decided not to tease him about it. His commitment to following through on this felt tenuous, at best. “So you’ll pick me up at seven?”
“Yeah. I will. Listen, I have to go, Kayla. I’ve got that…school stuff I mentioned. It’s…pretty important.”
“I bet. You go do your important school stuff. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Yeah. Okay. Bye, Kayla.”
He hung up.
Kayla frowned at her phone. She was used to being the one to hang up on guys. This whole shunning episode aside, she couldn’t remember the last time the opposite had happened. She’d always been very skilled at cutting things short at just the right time, when the conversation was winding down but before the guy was really ready to let her go. It gave her a sense of power. It was a little thing--and kind of petty--but she’d never given it much thought until now.
Huh. Hang up on me, will you? You’re gonna pay for that, boy-o. Wait and see.
She put her phone away, walked over to the Nashville Scene box, and helped herself to a copy of the free paper. She flipped immediately to the back.
Where the movie listings were.
20.
Kayla tucked the folded copy of the Nashville Scene under an arm and wandered off in search of the nearest bus stop. The one she found wasn’t enclosed and had no homeless people loitering about, which was a relief after her experience with karma bum. The only other people sitting at the bench--which was emblazoned with a garish ad for Gummy’s Bail Bonds--were a well-dressed middle-aged woman and a young corporate go-getter type with gelled hair and an iPhone that looked surgically attached to the side of his head. Both ignored Kayla. The guy was sort of hot in that I’ve got tons and tons of money way, but she wasn’t too put out by his apparent lack of interest. She was used to being ignored by now. Sad but true.
The next MTA bus came along ten minutes later. Kayla was not a fan of public transportation, but hopping on a bus was more convenient than walking back to campus to retrieve her little Mini Cooper from a congested parking lot. The bus deposited her outside the ritzy Green Hills Mall a short time later. Green Hills was another well-to-do neighborhood. Kayla had enjoyed shopping at the mall on several occasions with girl friends her freshman year. No one wanted to shop with her these days because the shunning spell had turned all her old friends into stuck-up cunts. The draw today, though, wasn’t one of the shops inside the mall but rather the Green Hills 16 theater in an outlying area adjacent to the mall.
There was a whole lot more ignoring of Kayla going on as she walked from the bus stop to the theater. And there were a lot of people about. The mall was always a busy place, as were most of the satellite shops in the surrounding area. And yet only a handful of people glanced her way even for a moment. A lifetime of this shit would get old in a hurry. She recognized this thought as exactly the sort of thing she was looking to escape for a while. She was greatly relieved to get inside the theater, where she purchased a ticket to the latest Vin Diesel car porn epic, bought a bucket of heavily buttered popcorn, a large soft drink in one of those cup sizes giants of myth would find unwieldy, and made her way to screen 16.
The movie had been out for a while and so the screening in the mid-sized auditorium was lightly attended. The lights were down and the coming attractions had already started, but Kayla could see
that there were no more than half a dozen people present. This was the reason she’d selected a movie near the end of its run. A raucous crowd would be unpleasant--to say the least--given her current state of mind.
She settled into an aisle seat three rows from the back of the theater. After securing her humongous soft drink in the cup holder to her right, she popped a handful of popcorn in her mouth and scanned the sparse crowd. The seat she’d chosen was in the best possible location. It was about as far as she could get from anyone else in the theater.
After suffering through a seemingly endless series of previews for forthcoming movies that looked so wretched she briefly considered blinding herself rather than having to sit through another one, the main feature finally started.
She became absorbed in it right from the beginning. There was lots of noise and action, as well as plenty of virile-looking Hollywood studs doing lots of manly things. She even started smiling after a while, between bites of popcorn. This was exactly the kind of mindless distraction she needed. The on-screen eye candy was nice, too. A scene with two shirtless hotties yelling at each other about something to do with honor and money or some damn thing got her hot and bothered. Which had the unfortunate effect of reminding her of her ongoing state of sexual frustration.
Which made her think of her date later with Lee Stanley.
Kayla momentarily froze with a handful of popcorn halfway to her mouth.
No, Kayla. Just…no.
It wasn’t a date. In no way, shape, or form was it a date.
She put the popcorn in her mouth and munched it more slowly than usual, frowning as she thought it over. Their scheduled rendezvous later definitely wasn’t a date. It was more of a meeting than anything else. A means of coming together in order to provide information and perhaps exchange ideas.
Kayla stopped chewing the popcorn for a moment.
Coming together?
She swallowed hard, forcing the popcorn down her throat. She tried to guess what Lee’s perception of the whatever-it-was might be and began to feel slightly ill. Lee was smart. Surely he wasn’t thinking of it as a date either. On the other hand, he was your typical hopeless geek. Some desperate part of him might wish to treat the occasion as a date, even while his practical side knew it was nothing of the sort.
Fuck.
Her mood spiraled downward a few moments more, until she gave herself the equivalent of a mental slap. She was overreacting and she knew it. She had no way of knowing what Lee was really thinking and it didn’t matter anyway. She had to talk to him and that was that. The thing to do now was to put it out of her mind and deal with it when the time came. The screen in front of her was still bursting with lots of pretty and flashy nonsense. Time to focus on that again.
She heard a low squeak from directly behind her and a moment later a dark figure appeared in the aisle next to her. The figure stopped and turned toward her. Alarms bells started clanging in Kayla’s mind right away. The row behind her had been empty when she arrived and no new arrival had ventured up this way since the start of the movie.
With exceedingly great reluctance, Kayla turned her head toward the figure.
And choked on her popcorn.
Jack.
He moved into the row and settled into the seat next to her.
She turned and stared wide-eyed at the smiling murderer. “Where the fuck did you come from?”
“I was born in a stately manor house in the countryside on the fifth day of--”
“Cut the shit, Jack. I mean how did you sneak up on me like that?”
“As I told you last night, I am skilled in the art of stealth.”
Kayla snorted. “No shit. You’re like a fucking Jedi master of stealth.”
“Jedi?”
“Never mind. How do you walk around dressed like that without people harassing you about it?”
The Ripper was still attired in the manner of a 19th century gentleman. Top hat and long black cloak. Black vest over a white shirt. He did have one additional accessory she hadn’t noticed last night--a long, silver-tipped cane that was currently propped over his knees.
“No one has harassed me. Perhaps everyone I encounter assumes I am en route to a costume party.”
She glared at him. “You killed someone last night.”
His expression betrayed nothing, yet remained vaguely playful. “Indeed. Your Red Nose.”
“Not him. Someone else. A woman.”
He pursed his lips and gave a slight nod. “News travels fast in this age.”
“I wish you hadn’t done that.”
He smiled again. “My dear, we humans wish for many things. Unfortunately, only rarely are our wishes granted.”
“That’s bullshit, Jack. You have control over your actions. You didn’t have to kill that woman.”
“True. However, I wanted to kill her.” His smile became a smirk. “So I did.”
“Well, I’d consider it a personal favor if you wouldn’t do it again.”
A strange look crossed his face then. It took her a moment to recognize it as mock regret. “Oh, dear. I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”
Kayla swallowed hard and tried to breathe evenly. “What have you done, Jack?”
Instead of answering, he sat up straighter and reached inside his cloak. He extracted something from a pocket and turned toward her, proffering some small object. “I have a gift for you.”
He pressed something cold into her hands.
She glanced down and saw what it was.
And then she screamed.
Instinct caused her to thrust the object away from her body. It landed on the floor amidst a sea of spilled popcorn. Kayla was shaking all over as she stared at the vile thing again. It was a heart. A human heart. Maybe the heart of the woman he’d murdered in Belle Meade last night. The temperature of the organ indicated it likely wasn’t any fresher than that. Jack was laughing and she was breathing hard again as something else odd verging on disturbing occurred to her.
They’d been making quite a bit of noise up here.
And yet no none had shushed them or voiced any grumbling complaints. The thunderous audio from the action picture was loud but it wasn’t that loud. At the very least her initial scream should’ve elicited some kind of response. Panic gripped her as she moved to the edge of her seat and strained to make out the dark forms of the other people in the theater.
Not one of them was moving.
At all.
“Jack, what have you done?”
She turned toward him to ask the question again.
But he was no longer there.
She jumped out of her seat and turned in a full circle, popcorn crunching under her feet as she scanned the theater for any sign of the Ripper.
Nothing.
Steeling her nerves, Kayla eased out of the row and started slowly down the steps. She paused at a row halfway down, where the only couple in attendance were seated. She shot a nervous glance over her shoulder and moved into the row of seats. She came to a dead stop several feet before reaching the seated couple. There was no need to go any further. The couple, a young man and woman, sat perfectly still. Their eyes were open but vacant, staring at nothing at all.
Their throats had been slashed ear to ear.
There was blood.
A lot of blood.
Kayla slapped a hand over her mouth and swallowed another scream. Although she was terrified almost beyond reason, a detached part of her was already thinking in practical terms. She didn’t want to draw the attention of anyone outside the theater. Jack was no threat to her. At least not a physical threat. And the people in this theater were beyond help. They were all dead and there was nothing she could do for any of them. Her immediate priority was getting out of here without being detained. She didn’t need the scrutiny. Couldn’t face the questions. Could explain nothing.
Not in a way anyone would believe or understand.
So Kayla retraced her path back to the aisle, where she turned in
a circle again and scanned the theater a final time.
Empty.
Except for some poor bastards who’d seen their last movie.
Sorry it couldn’t have been something better, guys. Some classic for the ages. Star Wars or some shit like that.
Kayla hurried down the steps until she reached the floor, then went around a wall and down a short hallway leading to a door. The door was metal, but had a small glass panel. She peered through it at the corridor outside the auditorium. When she was sure no one was in the immediate vicinity, she pushed through the door and, keeping her head down, proceeded at a fast walk until she emerged from the Green Hills 16 into a bright afternoon sunshine that belied the horrors she’d just witnessed.
She didn’t slow down once she was outside. She continued to keep her head down, but soon realized it didn’t matter. For once the shunning spell was working to her benefit. No one was paying any attention to her.
She’d calmed down some by the time she reached the bus stop. But she was still pretty freaked. And she had a strong feeling it would be a long time before she experienced anything like true peace again.
If ever.
When the MTA bus came, she took a seat at the very back and sat straight up with her eyes wide open all the way back across town.
21.
After the MTA bus let her off on Broadway, Kayla started immediately back toward campus. Where else might she go? Anywhere she went, the Ripper would be trailing along after her, always loitering in the shadows or lurking just out of sight. Hiding out in her dorm room until her date--FUCK!--with Lee was the only thing that made any sense at all to her just then. She had a bottle of high-octane booze squirreled away in one of her overflowing desk drawers. 190 proof Everclear. Maybe if she got drunk enough, the vivid memory of those frozen, dead faces in the movie theater would go away, at least for a little while.
She stormed through the dorm’s front entrance and hurried over to the elevators. Two other girls were standing there when she arrived. One was texting away obliviously on her cell phone, while the other was staring intently at a large flyer taped to the wall between the two sets of elevator doors. Kayla’s stomach clenched at the sight of Martha Atwater’s picture.