[Criminally Insane 01.0] Bad Karma

by Douglas Clegg

  Agnes Hatcher fell asleep in the cabin. When she awoke, it was still not morning.

  The boat was docking on the island.

  She felt his power, his pull. Jack. Beloved.

  Cobra wanted to fall asleep, but he was too keyed up. He told her how much he loved her. He confessed his crimes: the stolen things and the murdered people. He murdered like a child, from a quick temper. He loved like a child, too.

  “Do you love me?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, truthfully. “But I knew all about you when I saw you. I knew what you had done.”

  “I saw it in you, too,” he said, nodding off to sleep. Agnes knelt beside him and watched the dreams come to his closed eyes. Then, she went up on the small deck and waited in darkness.

  The threat of memory enveloped her, not her beloved, but the man from her childhood:

  The man tying her to the chair, carving into her skin with the wood-burning iron. Teaching her about the life they had been a part of. Teaching her about how he had been there, had witnessed what she and her lover had done in the previous existence, and he had taken her in order to punish her for what she had done.

  After days of the torture, the memories of the past life had come so strong and vividly that she could not see the present world for the past one.

  The past life exploded across her vision: She was nineteen, and living on the streets of London, occasionally sleeping in the great sweat-shop basements, which were warm at night, even though the machines clattered all through the dark hours. She had been forced into the life at twelve, by her mother, and did not enjoy any man’s touch, no matter how much he paid.

  Then, one night, she met the gentleman surgeon. He promised her more than money. He promised her immortality.

  “Each life we take,” he whispered into her ear as he made love to her, “we gain another. The ancients knew this. That was their reason for human sacrifice. I have taken several lives. If you will believe in me, I will never abandon you.”

  She had delighted when her lover scarred her, or drank a drop of blood from the tip of her finger. He had a hunger to consume life in every way. He taught her how to use the surgery tools, how to peel flesh back so as not to traumatize it.

  They took the other girls, together. She held Mary Kelly’s head down while her lover operated. She watched the terror of their victims’ faces, and finally, the love, too, for in suffering these whores achieved a great beauty. She watched for the police, or she sat in the carriage, waiting for him to run out swiftly so they could drive off.

  Her life was never the same afterwards. It was full of gorgeous moments, of the taste of blood, of the understanding that the immortal soul was in the body itself, in the part of the body which was most important to its owner. Sometimes, their victims lived in their hearts, and sometimes in their genitals and sometimes in their brains.

  And always, afterwards, he brought the scalpel to her, to taste. He would combine their bloods: their victim’s blood, and then hers, and then his.

  Communion for eternity.

  She took the scalpel from his hands. She pressed it lightly against the thick skin of his collar.

  His eyes burned with excitement. She could tell that he was aroused in a way that he had never been before.

  She brought her face to his and kissed him as a man kisses a woman, hard and deep and conquering.

  “We are the gods,” he said, after the kiss.

  That was the day of the hounds.

  That was the day of the Coppers with their shouts and fury.

  That was the day of betrayal.

  That was the day she opened the locket which was pinned inside his cloak.

  As the sun rose, slowly, from the east, behind her, she saw its first purple-pink rays slash the island.

  There it was: the place of her dreams. Not the squalor of a district of an ancient city, but the reincarnation of that place in their new time, their new skins. It was sacred to her, now, this island.

  This island was the place where time and space would meet.

  The great spires of rock, ending in needle-like formation. The several mouths of caves, stacked on top of each other. The bottom, an opening into its depths. The magnificence of it in the early sunlight, where its white chalk seemed to glow against the rest of the island. It rose like the gothic cathedral of nature.

  The sacred home of the Fates.

  Capilla Blanca.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  It was on the morning news, but Trey and Carly both slept late the next day, so they missed the news item.

  The woman in the canyon was finally identified as Mary Beth Clark, born in Tennessee, a resident of San Bernardino County for the past eight years. Although much of her body was burned, it was the eye color which caused the discrepancy with Agnes Hatcher. Eventually Mary Beth’s husband, Jerry, contacted the police about his wife, and all of it was traced back to the Wal-Mart in Riverside.

  Trey Campbell awoke at nine-thirty, innocent of this correction in the news. He was feeling like he had the biggest hangover of his life.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Which Trey did, because when he and his family had gotten back home the previous evening, and after Marky’s now-famous perfect dive in the pool—and after the kids stayed up to watch The Little Mermaid yet again—he’d made a couple of killer margaritas. Heavy on the Cuervo Gold. Light on the sweet and sour. Crushed ice. Heaven.

  And had drunk them both because Carly wanted a glass of wine instead.

  They’d stayed up until two watching bad late movies. Then he’d begun reading The Three Musketeers, which Carly had brought. He couldn’t put it down until about three fifteen. He fell asleep on the couch, and when he awoke, it was because Mark was spritzing him with water.

  “What the—” he gasped, wiping at his face with his hands.

  Mark was giggling. Already in his swimsuit and wet, he held the plant spritzer up and sprayed a few more times. “It’s only water!” Mark began dancing around, until he dropped to the carpet, exhausted.

  Carly was out on the porch sipping coffee; Teresa was taking a shower.

  “We already went swimming, Daddy. I dived six times. Just like a dolphin. Now get up,” Mark said with some authority in his voice.

  “Look, fish-boy, Daddy’s feeling a little creaky today.” Trey slowly rose, tasting the after-effects of the margaritas mixed with morning breath. He stumbled to the bathroom and shuddered when he saw what seemed to him an old man staring back at him. After his shower, he felt like going right back to sleep.

  But Carly had an idea.

  “Oh, no, nothing special today, please,” he groaned.

  “Just listen. We’ll call Jenny and cancel today and take the kids horseback riding. Won’t that be fun?”

  Mark cried out, “Yeah!”

  “I’m an old man, sweetheart. My ticker ain’t so good,” Trey faked a limp and hunchback.

  “It’ll be fun.”

  “Okay, okay, but let’s not cancel on Jenny. Mark’s too young to go on a horse.”

  “I am not!” He protested.

  “Are, too. Nobody in their right mind is going to rent a horse to a kid your size, trust me.”

  “Discrimination,” Mark said, and the word seemed too big for his mouth.

  Trey looked at Carly. That would be a word that he’d heard her say. “It’s because you can get hurt on a horse. Until you’ve had lessons…” The worst thing about telling his son this, was that Trey knew that he sounded just like his own father. He had always hoped he’d grow up to be a more liberal, easy-going dad, but it just never happened.

  “Terry hasn’t had lessons,” Mark said.

  Teresa appeared at the patio doorway. She dripped water from head-to-toe onto the stone walkway. “I don’t want to ride horses. They’re filthy.”

  “What?” Trey said. “Every girl likes horses.”

  “Not me. Why can’t I stay here and swim?”

  Carly sighed, clapping her hand
s together. “Okay, okay. Your father and I will go riding, and you guys hang out here. You’re sure you want to do that?”

  Teresa nodded, and padded back to the swimming pool. A loud splash in the water signified her approval of this plan.

  Carly ran out to the pool, shouting, “But you are not to go swimming without Jenny watching you. Get out of there right now.”

  Mark looked cross. He eyed his father like he was the enemy. “I don’t wanna.”

  “What can I do to make you happy?” Trey asked.

  Mark furrowed his brow. “Take me riding.”

  “No can do. What else?”

  “I don’t care.” Mark, who moments before had been in a good mood, got up off the floor and stomped off to his bedroom.

  “You knew he couldn’t go riding,” Trey said after Carly came back inside.

  Carly crossed her arms. “Don’t jump on me just because you’re tense. Why don’t we just do separate things today? You go do what you want, which I’m assuming is ‘get wound up,’ and I’ll go horseback riding.”

  “I’ll go, I’ll go,” Trey rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean for this to become a production. I’m not jumping on you. Okay?”

  “All right. And it’ll be fun. You wait and see,” she said.

  The one piece of advice his father had given him that seemed to work in his marriage, the only decent piece of marital advice the old man had ever conferred upon him was: “Remember, son, the wife is always right. You remember that and you’ll have many happy years ahead of you.” It seemed like the code of the troglodyte to believe that, but Trey had found that it worked. When he and Carly got in a jam, he generally gave in and told her she was right. Things often worked out from there.

  Jenny arrived at ten thirty, looking like she’d just come from working in a garage, which was not her normal look. “I forgot to wash my clothes,” she said by way of explanation. “These were the only things even approaching clean in my dresser.” She twirled around in the dungarees and bleach-spotted blue chambray work shirt.

  “Like we care,” Trey said, cavalierly.

  Jenny’s face lit up when she heard about the horseback riding. “Oh, god, it’s so great. If you can get Elmer to let you off the trail with his old nags, you can ride out to the beach around the coast. It’s so pretty. Just make sure you go to Elmer’s. Tell him I sent you. God, I wish I was going.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Carly said, bringing Jenny’s traditional morning cup of tea to her from the kitchen. “Sorry you can’t. It’s just that the kids…”

  “I know, I know. Kids are always falling off horses around here. It’s amazing to me that some parents let them ride at all. I’ve been riding since I was ten, but I took lessons the whole time,” Jenny explained to Mark, who sat right next to her. Trey could tell that Mark had a crush on the babysitter, and would probably cry when he had to leave her at the end of the week. Jenny turned to face Mark and pinched his cheeks. “Hello you cutie pie. What do you want to get up to today?”

  Mark’s face went from fascination to disapproval. “I want to go riding.”

  “We can go hiking,” Jenny said. “You like that?”

  “Maybe. If I was on a horse.”

  “Well,” Jenny winked at Carly, “we’ll pretend.”

  Outside, Carly grabbed Trey’s arm. “Jenny has a major crush on you.”

  “Naw.”

  “When you were outside with Terry, she told me she thought I was the luckiest woman on the face of the earth.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No. Really.” Carly leaned against his shoulder like a school-girl. “ Of course, I set her straight.”

  Of all the horses in the stables, Trey was given the one nicknamed “Assassin.” And there was a good reason for it. It kicked several times just being brought out from the stables. He had a time just getting the saddle strapped on tight so it wouldn’t slip off out on the trail.

  “Why is it you get the horse named ‘Dorothy,’ and I get ‘Assassin’?” He said, as he tried for the third time to get the saddle on the large dappled mare.

  Carly grinned. “You can handle her.”

  “I haven’t ridden for six years. She’s tried to bite me twice already. My rear end is going to be burning soon from the friction, and she’ll probably drag me in the dust for several miles. Come on,” he groaned, finally getting the horse to breath in long enough to strap the saddle on sufficiently tight. He grabbed the horn, slipped his right foot into the stirrup and raised himself up to the saddle. “Just stay still for about a minute, okay?” Trey started giggling like a kid.

  “What’s so funny?” Carly asked, her back straight as she trotted her mare up to his.

  “I was wondering what she’s called for short: Ass?”

  “Get your mind out of the gutter. Call her Sassy.”

  “That’s cute. Sassy. Hey, Sass, ya wanna gallop?”

  “Trey, no, no,” Carly said.

  But it was too late. Sassy was galloping across the sloping hill, and, in turn, Carly’s horse started up, too, even though its rider kept calling out, “Whoa, whoa, slow down.”

  It became one of the best days that Trey could remember, between his horse trying to bite him even while he was astride, and the riding across the beach, at the water’s edge. More than loving Carly, he liked her like he had never liked anyone before. He thought: It’s nice to be married to your best friend.

  Trey thought such warm, loving thoughts right up until the time Assassin threw him into the waves, and between the fear of breaking his back and the fear of drowning, he cursed his sorry fate.

  Carly rescued him in due course, and he spat sea water out of the side of his mouth. “No bones broken,” she said.

  He sat in his wet clothes in the surf and watched the mare take off on its own down the beach. “Great,” he said, “Now I’m going to have to chase down that damn horse.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Jenny was doing something very bad, Mark was sure.

  He knew that even though she was a lot older than he was, she shouldn’t be pouring the wine from the fridge into a glass for herself. But he said nothing.

  He had just finished lunch, and Teresa was out by the pool, taking a nap in the sun. Mark was bored, and even though Jenny had told him to stay outside because she’d be right out, he had come back in.

  “What’s wrong?” Jenny asked as she sipped from the glass.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re looking at me funny, Marky. What’s up?” Jenny wore what Mark would call a phony grin. It was the smile he usually had when he lied to his parents (and was caught, as usual).

  “I know what you’re doing,” Mark said, slowly. “And you’re not supposed to.”

  “This?” She held up the glass full of wine as if it were a soda. “Oh, we grown ups are allowed. I already asked your Mom.”

  This threw him. If she had asked his mother’s permission, than it must’ve been all right. He didn’t pursue the subject further. She got sillier as she drank the wine, and picked up the phone and spent half the day yakking it up with her friends.

  Between calls, he said to her, “I liked you.”

  “I like you, too.” Her words slurred together.

  “I mean I used to like you.” He wrinkled his nose up, his eyes squinting. “I don’t think you’re very nice.”

  “Marky, Marky. I know you don’t mean that.” She leaned over to give him a hug, but he pulled away from her.

  “I do too.” He crossed his arms on his chest.

  “You’re still mad because you didn’t get to go horseback riding.”

  “Am not. I don’t care about dirty old horses. I’m telling my parents.”

  “You’d do that to me?” She took another sip of wine. The phony grin had disappeared. She looked like she was about to pout.

  “Yeah. I would,” he nodded. “You’re being bad.”

  “Well,” the tone of her voice changed dramatically into a nasty, low t
one like a cat that was about to scratch. “How would you like it if I made up stories about you and told them? Who do you think they’d believe?”

  “That’s mean. To make up stories.”

  “You’d do it to me,” she said.

  “I’d tell the truth.”

  “Listen,” Jenny said flipping her hair back behind her shoulders. “You’re too young to understand these things. If you want, tell your parents. But that means they’ll get a really nasty babysitter. Ugly and big and mean. There are only two of us on Catalina.”

  Mark considered this for a moment.

  Jenny picked the phone up again and tapped in a number.

  Mark got off the couch and wandered back outside. He stood over Teresa, who was sleeping on her stomach in her one-piece with ruffles at the edges.

  After a minute, she woke up. “You’re dripping on me,” she said.

  “I don’t like Jenny.”

  “Me, neither. That’s why I didn’t want to go anywhere.”

  “Mom and Dad like her.”

  “That’s because she fakes everything around them, like she’s Miss Perfect. I can see right through her. If they knew why she wanted to take us to the movies…”

  “Yeah,” Mark said, remembering the boy that Jenny had met there, and how they had sucked face through all of Pocahontas. Although, it had been something of an education for him. He was curious as to why her boyfriend had kept sticking his tongue in her mouth. Mark had found it disgusting to watch. He squatted down on the concrete beside his sister. “We should run away.”

  “Not,” she replied sarcastically. “Besides, where would we go?”

  Mark shrugged. “I have five dollars.”

  “How’d you get five bucks?”

  “I been saving,” he said smugly. “Every week, fifty cents for cleaning out the cat box and feeding the fish.”

  “You save your allowance? Mine’s gone before I get it. You’ve saved that money for ten weeks?”

  Mark nodded.

  “Five bucks can buy us ice cream,” Teresa said, sitting up, doing a quick mental calculation. “And we can get some corn dogs. You wanna?”