***
I chose a rock the size of baseball and approached my mom from behind. She was still folded into a ball, still holding her head in her hands, crying. I didn’t want to do this. I really didn’t. But she had forced me to. She was going to tell on me. And maybe she would be happy being dead. She would be with Geena and my fake dad.
I swung the rock.
***
I hit her squarely on the top of the head. The impact jarred my hand and caused me to drop the rock. Instead of dying, though, my mom sat up. Her left hand went to the top of her skull and she stared at me in shock and horror. Then she was pushing herself away from me.
I scanned the ground for the rock, saw it a few feet away. I snatched it up and turned back to my mom. She was still trying to get away from me and trying to stand at the same time. Luckily she didn’t have the strength, or the balance, and she kept falling to her side.
I raised the rock.
“Brian!” she said, protecting her head with her arms.
The first blow deflected off one of her forearms. The second struck her in the same spot as before.
“Brian!” she cried.
Furious that she was proving so hard to kill, I swung the rock a third time with all the strength I could muster. This blow was the best yet, cracking open her skull. She collapsed to her chest. Blood gushed down the visible side of her face. One scared eye stared at me, fish-like.
I didn’t think I could strike her again, not with her looking at me like that, and she would probably be dead soon enough anyway. She had a hole in her head.
I tossed the rock aside, grabbed her ankles like I had my dad’s, and began dragging her.
***
I dragged her all the way to the canyon floor. Moving her was a lot easier than moving my dad had been. One, it was downhill. Two, she was smaller than he was, my size, and just as skinny. Even so, it still took me most of the morning to get her to the river. She was awake for the first bit. She kept trying to talk to me, but she wasn’t making any sense. Now she was quiet, her eyes closed. I figured she had finally died.
I rolled her body into the raging river and watched it wash her away.
***
I made it to the original campsite shortly before night descended. Everything was as we’d left it. I’d forgotten to search my mom’s pockets for the car keys, so I broke one of the Chevy’s windows with a rock to unlock the trunk and get to the food. I was so hungry I wolfed down four Oscar Mayer wieners raw and an entire box of salted crackers. I also drank the three remaining Pepsis, then about a liter of tap water. Later that evening, I nibbled on Oreo cookies and read an Archie until I fell asleep in my tent.
When Ranger Ernie found me two days later I was filthy but in otherwise fine shape. Nevertheless, I pretended I was worse off than I was and made myself cry while I explained how a bear had killed my parents. I’d tried to help them, I insisted—that’s why I’d gotten blood all over me—but my mom told me to run away, so I ran away.
I spoke to a lot of police officers after that. I even had to speak to the same detective who’d questioned me about Geena’s death. I really didn’t like him, especially now that I knew he thought I’d killed her. I stuck to my story, however, and he soon gave up badgering me. After all, my dad had clearly been eaten by a bear—I couldn’t fake that—and my mom’s body, discovered far downriver, had been too bashed up and decayed to determine the cause of death.
The police never searched my home as I’d feared they would, never found the squirrel heads, which I packed with all my other stuff when I moved into foster care, where I lived with other kids who didn’t have parents.
I missed my mom at first, but gradually I forgot what she sounded like, then what she looked like. After about a year I didn’t miss her at all.
I never gave my fake dad a second thought—except when I replayed in my head the bear eating him, and when I did that, I always made it daytime, so I could watch it all happen again.
THE PRESENT
When I had first approached the young Swedish couple thirty minutes earlier, they had been friendly and chatty. I told them I was camping in the lot one over from theirs, and they told me to join them for a beer. Their accented English was close to fluent but sometimes difficult to understand. From what I gathered they had both been hired as ski instructors at Aspen for the winter season, and they had decided to camp in Black Canyon to save money on their accommodation until they had to report to the ski resort. The man had introduced himself as Raoul. He was handsome and blond, the hair on one side of his head cropped short, the hair on the other side wavy and chin length. The woman, Anna, was an impish brunette with a thin yet voluptuous body. In fact, she reminded me of my old flame Stephanie. I’d never had a chance to see Steph again before I was shipped off to foster care, but I’d tracked her down through Facebook a couple years back. She was married, a stay-at-home mom with two young boys. She didn’t remember me when I knocked on her door late on a Tuesday morning. But she remembered when I mentioned our elementary school. It had been nice to hear her say my name again, which she did over and over as she begged unsuccessfully for her life.
The once-chatty Swedes, who had been so eager to hear my Black Canyon story, had become fidgety during the last quarter of it, and now, after its conclusion, seemed downright uncomfortable.
“So you see,” I told them, opening my hands expansively. “I really had no choice. I had to kill my parents. It was either me or them.”
Silence ensued, pleasantly uncomfortable.
“You know, that is a good story,” Raoul said finally, clearing his throat. He was sitting across the campfire from me, next to Anna. He ran a hand over the side of his head that had hair. “But, well, it is late. I think we will go to bed soon.”
“Yeah, sure. Bed, sure.” Never one to overstay my welcome, I stood and smiled, to show there were no hard feelings for the not-so-discreet send off. “Well, thanks for listening, guys. It really is a good story, isn’t it? I like to tell it. You can psychoanalyze me tomorrow. Nature or nurture, right?” I tipped him a wink, Anna a smile. She returned the smile nervously, looked at her feet.
“Right,” Raoul said, though I don’t think he understood what I was talking about.
I strolled east, cutting through the forest. When I had gone fifty feet, I stopped and faced the way I had come. Although Raoul and Anna would not be able to see me in the thick shadows, I could see them in the firelight. They were leaning close to one another in conversation. Raoul was gesturing quickly. The next moment they got up and ducked inside their tent.
Still watching them, I undid my shoelaces, slipped off my shoes, then my socks.
Raoul and Anna emerged from the tent carrying their backpacks. Raoul opened the backdoor of the old station wagon they were driving and tossed both bags onto the backseat.
I shrugged out of my jacket, then pulled off my T-shirt.
Raoul and Anna returned to the tent and began dismantling it
I retrieved the twelve-inch hunting knife from where it had been secured snug against the small of my back and clenched it between my teeth. I unbuttoned my jeans, unzipped the zipper, then stepped out of the legs. I shoved my boxers down my hips, stepped out of them too.
Naked, I started forward, transferring the knife to my right hand.
Raoul and Anna were making too much noise with the tent to hear me approach. When I was fifteen feet away, however, Anna looked up from the stake she had pried from the ground and saw me. She froze, like a hare that had just spotted a predator.
She said something in Swedish to Raoul, who jerked around.
I went for him first, closing the distance between us in a burst of speed. He sprang to his feet and bumbled backward into the tent as I plunged the blade into his heart and tugged down.
People don’t die easily. My mom taught me this. But if you don’t mind the mess, slitting open the heart will always get the job done.
Blood fountained from Raoul’s chest and
struck my shoulder with wonderful force.
Anna wasn’t screaming, not exactly. I don’t know how to explain the sound she was making, because it wasn’t really human. Warbling? Yowling?
She ran.
I gave chase. For thirty-six I was in great shape. I went to the gym five days a week and was lean as a barracuda.
I caught Anna before she had even decided which way she wanted to flee.
I sank the knife into her back, into her heart, and twisted the blade sharply, blending the vital muscle into puree.
She expelled a jet of blood from her mouth and belly-flopped to the ground.
I gripped a fistful of her hair, tilted her impish head back, and slit her throat from ear to ear. Then I returned my attention to the boyfriend. He was still on his feet, his hands trying to stem the fountain spurting from his chest as he tottered back and forth on legs that would never ski again.
I finished him off.
***
I know all about famous serial killers. I’ve read about them in books and on the internet. I’ve watched documentaries on A Current Affair and 60 Minutes. I’ve rented biopics on Netflix. I don’t look up to the Gacys and the Bundys of the world. I don’t idolize them, or want to imitate them. I simply relate to them. They’re my kin. Yet as similar as they and I may be, we are all equally unique in regard to what tickles our fancies. Dean Corll, for instance, only tortured and murdered young boys. Bruno Ludke was into young women, and necrophilia. Gerald Stano strangled and shot hitchhikers of both sexes, provided they were Anglo Saxon. Personally, I didn’t care much for the demographics of my victims; I just liked feeding them to bears.
***
After Raoul bled out, I rinsed the blood from my skin using the campground tap, then collected my clothes from where I’d shed them in the woods. Back at my car I dressed, then drove to the Swede’s campsite. I parked fifty feet from their bodies, cut the engine, but kept the high beams on.
The bear arrived thirty minutes later. It never took bears long to show. They were always hanging around campsites, even in the off-season before they went into hibernation, in the hopes of scrounging a last-minute meal. They had amazing noses too. They were like bloodhounds and could zero in on a fresh kill from miles away.
This one came from the west. It stood at the perimeter of the campsite, on all fours, sniffing the air as if for a trap. It looked directly at me, but I knew it couldn’t see or smell me in the darkened cab.
Eventually it waddled toward the dead ski instructors, into the throw of the headlights. It sniffed the hunks of meat, then made a loud mewling sound, calling its two cubs from their hiding spot among the nearby vegetation.
I leaned forward with anticipation as the mama bear and her kids got ready to chow down.
REWIND
CHAPTER 1
When I opened my eyes, the slab of ceiling above me skated back and forth. I blinked repeatedly until the ceiling stopped moving. More blinks brought it into focus—or what I could see of it that wasn’t lost in inky shadows. It was off-white, the paint blistered and cracking in places.
Light came from the left. I squinted at the glow that was bright as the sun. The spangles faded. I made out a single-watt light bulb screwed into a fixture. No shade or anything. Just the bulb, naked, a phosphorescent pear surrounded by darkness.
My mouth, I realized, was hanging ajar. I closed it. My lips felt scratchy. I worked my mouth to generate saliva, but I couldn’t muster any.
Where had I gone last night? I wondered groggily. How much had I drunk? Whose bed was I in?
No, no bed. Some sort of reclining chair. As I pushed myself to my elbows something tugged at my head. In the next moment I discovered a dozen multi-colored wires extending from my skull to a machine on a nearby table. The machine was about the size of a home printer and bristling with knobs and dials. Next to it stood a giant flat-screen monitor, the screen blank, and a laptop, the screen also blank.
My first instinct was to tear the wires free, but I didn’t. I wasn’t sure of their purpose.
Suddenly wide awake, I glanced about the room: sallow yellow walls dirtied with age, scuffed and chipped hardwood floor, a single door, closed.
“Hello?” I called—and almost jerked about to see who had spoken. But it had been me, only I didn’t recognize my voice. It wasn’t coarse from a hangover; wasn’t nasally from a cold; wasn’t high-pitched from fear. It was just…different. Not mine were the two words that came to mind. “Hello?” I repeated. Then, to hear more: “Where am I? What’s going on?” Gruff, deep, generic.
Not mine.
A trick? A gag? A candid camera thing?
I gripped a blue wire, hesitated, then tugged it free, consequences be damned. The printer-sized machine didn’t whirl and click in alarm. My brain didn’t explode.
Nothing happened.
I studied the end of the wire. It didn’t squirm madly in my grip with a life of its own. It didn’t have devil-red eyes and a wormy orifice bristling with razor teeth. In fact, it appeared to be nothing more sinister than some sort of electrode pad.
Still, it filled me with fear.
What the fuck was going on?
I removed the dozen or so other wires, swung my feet to the floor, and pushed myself free of what I now recognized to be an old-fashioned dentist chair. A wave of dizziness washed through me, though it passed quickly enough. I went to the door, gripped the brass doorknob, but hesitated, wondering whether I might be walking into some sort of trap. Yet why would someone bother with that? I had just been out cold in that chair. They could have done to me whatever they pleased then.
I opened the door and peered into the adjoining room. A dozen feet from me a grotesquely fat bearded man lay on his back on the floor, bovine eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
The skin over my skull tightened and tingled, as if it had shrunk a size. But I wasn’t all that surprised to discover the body, was I? Because I was in some sort of waking nightmare, and this is what happened in nightmares.
I forced myself forward. The new room was bigger than the previous one and featured boarded up windows. To my left was a closed door, which I guessed led to a bathroom. Adjacent to the door, in a shadowed corner, sat a cardboard box spewing reams of printouts and manila folders and other miscellaneous stationary. A refrigerator hummed in a dingy kitchenette. An open can of SpaghettiOs and a spoon encrusted with tomato sauce rested on the table.
When I reached the body, I tried to avoid looking at the bloated face and the glassy eyes. The guy must have been close to four-hundred pounds. He wore jeans and an enormous shirt. The mass that was his belly strained at the buttons and hung over his groin like an apron. I crouched and felt his doughy neck. The skin was cool. There was no pulse. I had known this would be the case, of course, yet at least now I could tell the police I had checked—
I stiffened as a bolt of fear iced my spine.
The police? Yes, the police—I didn’t want anything to do them. I didn’t know why. But I didn’t.
Get out of there. Now.
Obeying the warning, I hurried down a short hallway. I took the steps to the ground level two at a time. At the bottom I unlocked and opened a black-painted door and squinted at daylight so bright it seared my gloom-rotted eyes.
I stumbled onto a quiet commercial street lined with dilapidated buildings and started away from the second-floor apartment, my hands jammed into my pockets, my head bowed. I didn’t look back.
CHAPTER 2
My name is Harry Parker. I live at 3225 Turtle Creek Boulevard in Dallas. I’m forty-eight years old, five foot eleven inches tall. I have a full head of black hair tapered into a widow’s peak. My eyes are brown, set into a handsomely rugged face that could have belonged to a washed-out boxer, or a world-weary traveler.
This was all according to my Texas-issued driver’s license, which had been in my wallet, which had been in the inside pocket of my sports coat.
Sitting on a park bench several blocks from the
apartment containing the Doctor Who machine and the dead body, I examined the other pieces of identification inside my wallet. Two credit cards, a Visa and an American Express, both issued by Citibank. A debit card, also with Citibank. A birth certificate. A social insurance card. And a scrap of paper with a seven-digit telephone number scrawled on it.
I didn’t know if the number was written in my handwriting or not.
I put the wallet away and stared at the playground in the middle of the park. A Hispanic mother sat on the grass next to a stroller, watching her daughter play on the colorful equipment while sipping from a bottle in a paper bag.
I watched the girl too, wondering what the fuck I’d gotten myself into.
Why had I been in that chair, in that apartment, hooked up to that machine? Had I been a guinea pig in some madcap experiment, and something went terribly wrong, something along the lines of accidentally pressing the delete key in a word-processing document, or formatting a computer hard drive? Then again, maybe I had known something important, perhaps some government or industrial secret, and someone had wanted it badly enough to take it from my head with all the finesse and compassion that one uses when removing a hook from a fish that had swallowed the hook to the gills?
I grimaced, drawing my thumb and forefinger over my eyes. Now was not the time for fanciful speculation. A couple minutes ago the park had seemed like a safe, inviting spot to gather my thoughts. Yet sitting here, in the open, I was becoming increasingly paranoid. After all, I had walked away from a dead body without reporting it. I felt like a fugitive. And more, I thought maybe I was a fugitive. I didn’t believe I’d murdered Moby Dick. There had been no indication of a struggle, no physical signs of trauma to his body. Nevertheless, any thought of the police still sent a shock of anxiety through me, which led me to believe my unconscious self knew something my conscious self didn’t. In fact, the cops could very well be cruising the neighborhood looking for me at that very moment.
Dark Hearts: Four Novellas of Dark Suspense Page 6