Depraved

by Bryan Smith

Frustration twisted her features, and she kicked the dead sheriff again.“Fuck!”

  She moved away from him and leaned against the cruiser’s fender.

  “Settle down,” she told herself, her voice brittle, on the edge of cracking.“Think, dammit.”

  Christ, but she’d kill for a cigarette right now. She hadn’t smoked in ages, but she knew renewing the old habit of her juvenile years would calm her for at least a few minutes, long enough to get her head clear. She glanced at Larry’s Nova. There were cigarettes in there.

  And something else, an insidious voice from the murkiest depths of her psyche whispered. Something better…

  She was off the fender and moving again before she was even consciously aware of it. Another voice in her head clamored for attention: You don’t want to do this! This is a mistake! Please don’t do this!

  Jessica opened the passenger’s-side door and dropped into the bucket seat. The glove box flipped open before she could touch it. She gaped at the small amount of white powder in the plastic bag. It wasn’t much, but it would get her focused in a hurry. And that thing with the glove box dropping open had to be a sign. This was meant to happen. Some power she couldn’t comprehend wanted it to happen. Sure, on a rational level, she knew a faulty latch was to blame. There was nothing mystical about it. But the rational part of her mind didn’t hold much sway right now.

  She drew the bag out of the glove box and opened it. Her fingers shook, and the bag almost slipped from her grip. But she forced them to be still and dipped a finger inside, scooping a small amount of coke up with a manicured nail. She lifted the nail to her face and felt her heart surge in anticipation.

  This was it.

  What some secret part of herself had waited for so patiently for so long—the renewal of a pleasure long denied.

  It was wonderful.

  And terrible.

  Christ, so fucking terrible.

  You’re stronger than this.

  Her hand froze inches from her face and she stared with desperate longing at the little mound of white powder nestled in the scoop of her nail. Moments ticked by. Mere moments. But they felt like slow increments of eternity. She thought about times she’d been strong. Like when she’d first given this poison up. That was strength. It also took strength to get out of bed every day and face the world in the aftermath of your beloved mother’s unexpected suicide. A hell of a lot of fucking strength was required for that. Maybe more than the amazing amount of strength and determination she’d displayed again and again throughout the course of this long day.

  So certainly she was stronger than this bit of powder.

  Jessica sighed.

  She flicked the scoop of coke out of her fingernail and leaned out of the car to dump the rest on the ground. Next she dropped the little bag and watched the breeze lift it up and blow it away. She inhaled and exhaled with slow deliberation. Then she got out of the car and breathed deeply of the cool night air. She felt calmer now. And sort of triumphant. But there was still the dilemma of what to do next. Yes, she’d faced down an old demon and won, but her only reward was a few moments of serenity. There’d been no sudden brilliant flashes of inspiration.

  Until the cell phone in her pocket chirped.

  She pulled it out and looked at the display. The number wasn’t one she recognized, but it wouldn’t be. This was Larry’s phone. She’d taken it from him in the car and had forgotten about it since, in the midst of all the excitement. She stared at the phone until it stopped ringing. Then she flipped it open and punched in a number she did know.

  It was answered halfway through the second ring. “Hello?”

  Jessica smiled at the sound of the familiar voice.“Daddy. It’s me.”

  Her father’s voice softened at once. “Oh, hey, sweetie. What number is this you’re calling from?”

  Jessica’s laughter was humorless. “It’s a long story, Daddy. I’m…sort of in trouble.”

  “Trouble?” He sounded alarmed. More than that. Alarmed, but ready to fight. “What sort of trouble? Is it serious?”

  More of that humorless laughter.“You could say that.”

  “Are you in jail?”

  “No, Daddy. It’s worse than that. A lot worse and a lot more complicated. I’ve done some things that could send me away forever, if anyone ever found out about them.”

  Jessica fidgeted during the long pause from the other end. She loved and adored her father. She couldn’t bear the thought of him ever thinking ill of her. She knew he was imagining a lot of dreadful possible scenarios. He couldn’t know the truth was far worse than anything he could imagine. She clutched the phone tight and waited with dread in her heart to hear what he would say next.

  He cleared his throat. “These things you’ve done…Were they justified?”

  Jessica’s eyes welled with tears. She wiped them away and sniffled. “Daddy…I wouldn’t be alive if I hadn’t done them.”

  The pause this time was shorter. “Just as I thought. Justified. Tell me everything, Jess.” His voice hardened, but still conveyed stunning depths of compassion.“And I do mean everything. Leave nothing out.”

  Jessica took a steadying breath and then launched into a condensed version of events.“It started when I went to check out this car I saw on craigslist…”

  It took ten minutes.

  As promised, she told him everything.

  There was another silence from her father’s end after she finished. But this time she wasn’t anxious. The silence was contemplative rather than judgmental, and it lasted less than a minute. He cleared his throat again.“I’ll make some calls. We’ll take care of this. That town’s close to where the Dandridge incident occurred.”

  “The dirty bomb?”

  A short pause. Her father grunted. “Yes. That. Belated follow-up operations will be necessary due to new information that’s come to light. Don’t you worry about any of it. I’ll have someone pick you up once the operation’s under way.”

  “Thank you, Daddy. Dad…” Her heart was beating hard again. She had no business asking this again at a time like this. But the grief welled up in her again and she just couldn’t help it.“Why did Mom do it?”

  A sigh from the other end. “Honey, I’d give anything to know. But I don’t.” There was another contemplative pause, and Jessica knew he was looking back down through the years of life and marriage with his wife, searching his memory for clues. She knew because she’d done the same thing so many times. She heard a tired intake of breath, and he said,“Some mysteries don’t have neat answers. Some never have any answers. That’s just a sad goddamned fact of life.”

  Jessica wiped moisture from her eyes. “I know. I love you, Daddy.”

  “And I love you, Jess.” He coughed and his tone hardened again. “Back to the matter at hand. I do have one job for you. I hate to ask this of you after all you’ve been through, but it must be done.”

  Jessica frowned.“What job?”

  “The one you spared, Jess. Take care of him. Now.”

  Jessica drew in a startled breath. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What? Daddy, you can’t be serious. He’s not a threat.”

  Colonel Sloan’s tone stiffened. “Loose ends are not acceptable. You must do it. I’m hanging up now, dear. Do as I’ve said and lay low until help arrives. Oh, and get that cruiser out of sight.”

  The line clicked off.

  Jessica moved the phone from her ear and stared at it in silent stupefaction for several moments. She flipped it shut and looked at the house across the street. She thought of the man she’d left trussed up there and wanted to weep. She’d killed many people today, but each of them had presented an immediate threat to her life.

  This was different.

  This would be an execution.

  I can’t do it, she thought. I don’t care what he says. I just can’t.

  Her heart continued to slam as she stared at the darkened house. Then something cold rose up inside her and wrapped itself around
her heart. The jagged rhythm of her heart slowed to a normal pace, and she shoved the phone back into her pocket.

  She checked the .38’s load.

  Two rounds left.

  Plenty.

  She crossed the street at an unhurried pace and slipped back inside the house. She paused inside the doorway, listening to the man’s rapid intake of air through his nose. He sounded congested, as if he was having difficulty breathing through his nose. She stood very still for a moment as she continued to listen to him. Maybe he would die without any extra help from her. She listened and prayed, hoping he would go that way, but the sound went on and on.

  At last she sighed and flipped on the lights. The man’s head snapped in her direction and he looked at her through eyes shiny with tears and wide with desperation. But they darkened as he recognized her. The shift was about something more than simple fear.

  He knows, she thought.

  I’ve come to kill him, and he knows.

  She waited to feel the reflexive pang of guilt she’d expected, but there was nothing, not even the slightest twinge. She felt remarkably calm, in fact. She knew it was connected to the conversation with her father. He had a way of making her feel better about anything. He was a problem solver, and he’d helped her solve a number of her bigger problems over the years. Whenever things got too tough, he was there to steer her in the right direction. And it was always the right direction. He was never, ever wrong. Which was why she was able to so easily face what she had to do after getting over the initial shock.

  She closed the door behind her and moved through the foyer into the living room, where she squatted next to the trussed-up man and placed the barrel of the gun against the back of his head. His muffled pleas gave way to a desperate whine. Tears flowed in streams down his flushed face. He blinked rapidly as he looked up at her.

  “Close your eyes, William. It’ll be easier that way.”

  For me or for him?

  But he just kept staring at her, unable to surrender his last glimpse of the world.

  Jessica kept her finger off the trigger. She wasn’t quite ready yet. She looked William in the eye and said,“I don’t think this makes me a bad person. I’ve been fighting like hell to stay alive all day. This wasn’t my choice. Being raped wasn’t my choice, either. Yeah, I was raped earlier today. I’ve had a full fucking day, man. It’s been a losing-your-faith-in-the-essential-goodness-of-man kind of day from start to finish. I hope like hell I never see the likes of it again. Thanks to my daddy, there’s a real chance that can happen. I hate to have to do this, William. Maybe you’re an okay guy, even being from this wicked place. You were a friend of Larry’s, and he seemed like an okay guy. But it doesn’t matter much. You’re sort of in the way of the rest of my life.”

  She slipped her finger through the trigger guard.

  William closed his eyes.

  The report of the gun was loud in the enclosed space.

  Jessica watched a spreading pool of blood stain the carpet beneath his head for a moment.

  Then she got up and went outside to move the cruiser. A cool breeze kicked up and mussed her hair. The kiss of cool air felt good on her skin.

  It was a nice night.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  They were inside the house now, and Pete could hear voices from the videotape. Carl saying a number of rude and profane things to the women between grunts and thrusts. The women answering with orgasmic moans and shrieks that had to be fake. Right now one was telling him how good he was and saying complimentary things about the size of his penis. The woman had to be a first-rate actress. Pete couldn’t imagine how dirty, scrawny, hawk-faced Carl could elicit that kind of reaction from a woman without coercion. And he knew damn well the Prestons were all about coercion.

  Pete stood behind Justine in a large dining space with two tables. Immediately adjacent to the dining space was a kitchen, and beyond that was the recessed den where Gil and his mother were passed out in their recliners. One of the tables was a standard-sized round table for meals. The other was something else entirely. It was a long metal rectangle with leather straps mounted on hooks at the corners. The latter had been shoved into a corner to leave more room for the dining table.

  Pete kept his voice low as he followed Justine into the kitchen.“Come on, Justine. You’re not really planning to, I dunno, chain saw these people. Are you?”

  Justine didn’t answer him. She paused in the kitchen to open drawers and sort through them. Pete fidgeted and glanced past her at the snoring duo in the den. He kept expecting them to wake up at any moment. Justine moved quickly from drawer to drawer. It wasn’t just the time she was wasting that bothered Pete. She was making no effort to be quiet. She dumped some things on the floor in the course of her search, including some metal things that rattled on the tiles and made Pete’s heart lurch.

  “What the hell are you looking for?”

  “This.”

  Her hand came out of a drawer clutching a hunk of black metal he recognized as a large-caliber revolver. Pete knew fuck-all about guns, but he did know this was larger than the average-sized handgun. It looked like one of those big Magnums Clint Eastwood carried around in the Dirty Harry movies. Pete gaped at Justine. She looked like she was posing for a teaser poster for some forthcoming Quentin Tarantino or Rob Zombie movie. Chain saw gripped by the handle in one hand. Big fucking gun in the other. Oh, and she was a wild-looking nude babe with big breasts.

  Mondo box office, for sure.

  Pete arched an eyebrow.“So…what? Are you going to shoot them and then chain saw them? Seems like overkill to me, but then I’m not a crazy psycho person.”

  Justine smiled and came over to him.“It’s not for me.”

  She pressed the heavy gun into his right hand and forced his reluctant fingers to curl around the handle.

  Pete was shaking his head.“No. I’m not shooting them in their sleep.”

  “Why not?”

  “I…Well, I don’t know. It’s not like they don’t deserve it. But I’ve never fired a gun in my life.”

  “It’s simple. This thing has no safety. And it’s loaded. Just point and squeeze the trigger. Keep both hands on the handle and be ready for the recoil.”

  “Fuck. You’re really asking me to do this?”

  Justine shook her head.“No. I just want you to be ready. A bullet to the head while they’re passed out would be letting them off easy. And that’s not happening, baby. I’m about to wake our sleeping beauties up. If they give me trouble or it looks like I’m not gonna be able to handle them, just point and shoot.”

  She turned away from him then and continued on to the den. Pete’s heart was in his throat as he followed her through the kitchen and down the three steps to the den. He saw the high-definition image of Carl’s sweaty face on the large-screen TV and wanted to throw up. The man’s wormy lips were twisted in the ugliest expression of sexual ecstasy Pete had ever seen. And one of the women was saying,“Ooh, baby, that’s so good.”

  Justine walked around the recliners and came to a halt in front of them. She pointed to a spot several feet to her right and indicated with a nod that Pete should stand there. He got himself positioned where she wanted and felt an immense relief at being able to turn his back on the grubby homemade porno.

  Justine glanced at him.“Aim the gun at them, Pete.”

  Pete sighed and raised the gun. He didn’t want to do this. Didn’t even want to be here. But he was powerless to change anything now. It was the sheer futility of resisting her will that made him do what she wanted. The gun’s long, gleaming barrel was now pointed at a spot somewhere between the two dozing bodies. They looked beyond pathetic in this condition. Gil resembled nothing more than a beached whale dressed up in farmer’s clothes. And his mother looked like the most hideously wrinkled old hag you might see sitting on a stool at the end of some grimy biker’s bar—denim cutoffs and a skimpy halter top covering a bony body adorned with numerous faded tattoos. But his gaze stayed
on Gil the longest. His was the face that would haunt his nightmares the most if he survived this night. He only had flashing, brief bits of memory from the rape, but that was more than enough. His fingers tensed around the gun’s grip. The hate that swelled within him in that moment was nearly enough to make him just shoot the guy and have it done with. Only the thought of how Justine might react kept him from doing it. She started the chain saw and brought it to a full rev within seconds. The sound made Pete’s head hurt and made him want to cover his ears.

  The Prestons began to stir almost immediately.

  Gil opened one eye and saw Justine standing right in front of him with the chain saw revving. He remained very still for another long moment as his brain worked to decide whether this was something from a drunken dream or reality. The truth soon penetrated the alcoholic haze. The other eye came open and he sat up quick. Pete sucked in a breath and shifted his aim so that the gun’s barrel was pointed at the center of the big man’s face. Gil’s eyes flicked from the chain saw to the gun and back again. At first there was only dumb recognition of what was happening. Then his dark eyes brightened with fear. This was real, and he wasn’t getting out of it. He almost looked like he wanted to cry. Seeing this made Pete feel good on a very primal level. He felt his lips curling in an expression that was somewhere halfway between a sneer and a triumphant grin.

  And now Ma Preston was starting to come out of her stupor. She shifted in the recliner and yawned, stretching her thin arms high over her head with her eyes still closed. Then her face wrinkled in a frown, and a moment later her eyes fluttered open. She focused on the revving chain saw and her eyes went wide. She let out a scream and jumped out of the recliner. Pete swung the gun in her direction and raised it higher. He squeezed the trigger and fired a shot off over her head. The sound of glass shattering in the kitchen was audible even over the roar of the chain saw. The bullet had smashed into a cabinet. Ma let out another yelp and dropped back into the recliner, cowering now as she stared up at the big gun. Pete’s shoulders ached. The recoil was everything Justine had promised. He could hardly believe he’d actually fired the thing.