Carnival

by Kory M. Shrum

She sidestepped him easily, and as she did, brought her elbow down hard on his shoulder.

  He screamed and hit the far wall with the full force of his momentum. Pushing off the wall, he grabbed an overturned chair and hurled it at her. She ducked, feeling it pass over her head, stirring a slight breeze before crashing behind her. He lifted a second chair, and this one didn’t sail past as cleanly. One of its legs clipped her shoulder, spinning the chair off in a new direction. It hit the counter and broke off a leg. Both pieces clattered to the floor.

  Fish used the moment to charge again, hoping to catch her in the squatting position. But before he reached her, Lou sidestepped into the shadow created by the kitchen table.

  The world disappeared and reappeared, offering her a more secure position in the doorway between the living room and kitchen.

  He only looked for her for a moment. Then he was at the drawers, ripping them open, tossing contents on the floor. When he didn’t find what he wanted, he moved on to the next drawer.

  What does he think is happening? she wondered. Then, He’s not thinking. He’s gone feral with…what? His hunger? His need to feed or cause pain? What?

  And he wasn’t the only one. Lou felt that part of herself—the ravenous, insatiable part—burning with a longing, a deep ache throbbing through her entire core. She wanted to pull her gun. She wanted to shoot him and see his head knock back as if punched the second before his brains sprayed out behind him in a delicious final release.

  She wanted his blood on her hands, on her lips. She wanted to see his anger turn to fear as she hurt him—slowly, deliberately.

  He might have thought that he could return to McGrath, that he could finish this game, but Lou had no intention of letting him out of this kitchen.

  She stepped into the light, giving him a target.

  He snarled, fresh fury overtaking his face.

  With his newfound knife, he slashed at her. She folded her elbow, deflecting the blow, but his immediate reverse thrust caught her upper arm. Fresh, hot pain cut cold across her flesh.

  It burned, igniting an indignation that bordered on humorous.

  Lou pushed this away, focusing on the glinting blade coming toward her. He’d folded it against his arm.

  He struck at her throat, but missed and nicked the collarbone.

  Blood soaked the front of her shirt.

  She lifted Fish off his feet and slammed him into the kitchen table. It didn’t crumple as she thought it might. The wood only creaked, miraculously withstanding the blow. She drove her elbow into his forearm with such force that the knife dropped from his hand and clattered to the floor.

  He howled, groping for her hair. He managed a fistful and yanked hard. Lou saw stars, but more than that, a rage unfurled inside her. She hated having her hair pulled. She hated it worse than a punch to the jaw or ear. She hated it worse than being stabbed or kicked in the guts.

  Before she could fully articulate the rage, or understand why it had been so immediate and all encompassing, she’d pulled her gun and pressed it under Fish’s chin.

  Lou’s scalp burned. She pushed the gun into Fish’s chin harder, until a small sound of panic escaped him. His hands trembled on either side of his head.

  That hungry hand inside her writhed. It opened and closed within her, desperate.

  We need him. We need him. We need—

  Lou screamed, a berserker’s battle cry, and brought her gun across Fish’s jaw hard, rendering him unconscious.

  The man went limp on the table.

  Red and blue lights splashed across the bare kitchen wall.

  Lou checked on Fish once more before crossing the living room to the window. There were the police, and no surprise, a news van. It must’ve been Dani’s doing. But across the street was a shadowed figure, lingering under the tree as Lou herself had done weeks before.

  “Are you okay?” Lou called out to Jennifer.

  “Yeah,” she replied weakly. “Is it over?”

  “The police are here. Come let them in.”

  As soon as Jennifer’s steps resounded on the stairs, Lou was across the street, standing under the thick darkness cast by the old tree’s limbs.

  “Quite the spectacle,” she said into the woman’s ears.

  The woman jumped, turning toward Lou’s voice.

  She took one look at Lou and whistled. “You look like shit.”

  Lou glanced down at the ruined shirt.

  “Are you responsible for this circus?” The woman gestured toward the house. “It’s a pretty quick response for the police and the media.”

  The front door opened and police crowded in, pushing past Jennifer, who held the door open. She was shaken and unharmed. Lou felt—relief.

  The news crew crowded the porch, ready and eager for the goriest of details.

  “Why were you watching him?” Lou asked.

  “For the same reason I suspect you were,” she said, staring at Lou again. “How did you get here so fast? Were you sleeping inside the house?”

  “We should have coffee and talk about it.”

  “Why should I meet you for coffee when you can’t even answer the questions I’ve already asked?”

  “You could try asking better questions,” Lou replied.

  Diana snorted, pushing the hood back from her face. She took an unflinching appraisal of Lou’s appearance. “Maybe you’ll want to clean up first. You look like Carrie had a slumber party and it went all wrong.”

  Lou touched her throat and found it was still bleeding.

  Diana glanced at the house again, at the police crawling over it like ants. The yellow tape was going up. The news crews were pushed back. Jennifer, with her hands wrapped around her body in the perfect mimicry of a victim, answered an officer’s questions.

  “Yes to coffee. Only I’m not going to tell you where. Let’s see if you’ll just turn up like you keep doing. Don’t keep me waiting.”

  Diana started down the sidewalk. She didn’t walk to one of the cars parked on the street, nor to one of the houses. Instead, she hopped over a low stone wall and disappeared into the adjacent field.

  Lou watched her go.

  She stood in the shadows a long time. Long after Fish was dragged from the house in handcuffs. Long after McGrath was wrapped in a blanket and tucked into the back of an ambulance for safekeeping.

  She stood there until the hunger inside felt manageable again.

  Only then did she peer through the darkness, directing her inner eye to hunt for Diana Dennard.

  33

  Lou stopped at her apartment long enough to clean and patch her wounds. After throwing away the ruined white t-shirt, she changed into jeans, a black t-shirt, her boots, and glasses. At the last second, she decided to put on her father’s vest under her shirt.

  It wasn’t an entirely rational decision. Would Dennard really try to kill her in the open? She didn’t think so. Yet Lou knew it was best to trust her instincts even when they didn’t make sense.

  So the vest went on.

  Her compass delivered her to the edge of a parking lot.

  The lot was unpaved, gravel shifting under her boots. It had only six or seven cars, lined up along the front of the Susie-Q’s all-night diner. It looked like an old-fashioned airstream camper, but longer, with a proper door and windows.

  Diana Dennard was sitting in the booth that aligned with the second window on the right.

  Lou crossed the lot and pulled open the door. Show tunes featuring a lot of brass greeted her. Diana saw her immediately.

  “How did you do it?” She looked at her watch as Lou slid onto the opposite bench.

  Lou raised her eyebrows, signaling a desire for clarification.

  “How did you know where I was? This is some deep-state shit. Are you FBI? CIA?” She held a steaming coffee mug with both hands. “You’ve got access to the city’s cameras or something?”

  “Does this place have cameras?” Lou asked. She didn’t see any.

  “So you don’t wo
rk for anyone?”

  “I don’t work for anyone.”

  It was true enough. No one wrote her a paycheck. Though she did work with people, didn’t she? That fact was becoming more and more clear to her.

  “You’re like me then,” Diana said, almost in disbelief. She scoffed, looking away toward the window. When she caught sight of her reflection, the loose blond ponytail and dark circles under the eyes, she scowled. “I was wondering how many of us there might be. Vigilantes, prowling the night, finishing off the assholes of the world.”

  Vigilante. It wasn’t the first time Lou had heard the word, but she’d never used it in conjunction with herself. And it had never occurred to her that there might be other women like her, out there hunting killers.

  As she watched Diana turn her mug in her hands nervously, she realized, perhaps arrogantly, that it had never occurred to her that another woman would be up for the job. Not an ordinary woman, anyway—one who was bound to a time and place. Would Lou have pursued Martinelli if she hadn’t had her abilities?

  Yes. But she might not have gotten as far.

  She’d learned to fight and shoot, but she knew what her real advantage was.

  “Were you pursuing Fish for personal reasons?” Lou asked, aware that Dennard didn’t want to look her in the eyes. It unnerved people to see their own faces reflected back in her glasses. She often wore them to mess with King for that very reason.

  But now, she removed her glasses, folded them, and placed them on the table.

  Yet the woman stared into her coffee. “No. I knew what he was and that Jennifer was in danger. That’s her name, right? I found it in a tax record from two years ago.”

  Lou didn’t want this to be an endless conversation, and she loathed small talk. “Do you hunt these men because of what happened to you in 1995?”

  Diana’s eyes flicked up to Lou’s. “You really want the story?”

  Lou said nothing.

  Diana opened her mouth to reply, but the waitress appeared in her old-fashioned white apron with a menu under her arm. “You keep multiplying. Can I get you something?”

  “Coffee,” Lou said, refusing the menu.

  Tense silence hung between them until the waitress left and returned with a mug and a coffee pot. They watched the cup fill.

  “Cream or sugar?”

  “No.”

  Then they were alone again.

  “Poor little Diana Dennard’s origin story. It seems unfair that you know who I am and what I do and I don’t even know your name.” Diana’s cold gaze appraised her again. “If Fish wasn’t a menace to you, why take him out?”

  Lou said nothing.

  Diana scoffed. “Fish is a breed. You understand that, right? A species. Men like him think they can prey on women and get away with it. Someone needs to change their mind about that.”

  “What happened in the nine weeks you were missing?” Lou asked.

  Diana pushed her coffee mug away. “Give me your name and I’ll tell you.”

  “Lou.”

  “Lou what?”

  Lou shrugged. “Just Lou.”

  Diana smiled. But before the expression had a chance to fully settle onto her face, it hardened again. “One of my father’s friends rolled up to my school one day, telling me that my dad wanted me to ride home with him.”

  Lou’s stomach clenched.

  “So I get in his car. I put on my seat belt. I listen to him because I know my dad loves this guy and trusts him. Even though I wanted to walk home with my friend and I knew we were going the wrong way, I still stayed, quiet and obedient like the good little girl I was raised to be. That’s how they get you. They count on the fact we’ve all been raised to be good little girls.”

  Lou lifted the coffee to her lips. It didn’t hide her furious, working jaw.

  “Anyway, this so-called family friend locked me in a soundproof shed for eight weeks.” Diana squinted. “I don’t really need to describe what happened in the shed, do I?”

  “No.”

  Diana’s cheeks had reddened and her jaw was tight. It was several minutes before she spoke again.

  “When I escaped, I spent a week in the woods behind a pizza place trying to decide if I was going to kill myself or run away. I knew better than to tell my father what his friend had done to me. He wasn’t going to turn him in. Adults don’t listen to kids, and even at twelve I understood that. But also couldn’t let the bastard win. I was too damn pissed. A week in the woods drinking flat soda and half-eaten pizza fished out of a dumpster will do that to you.”

  Lou didn’t smile at the joke.

  Diana didn’t seem to notice. “So I went home. I told them I’d run away. I can’t even remember what bullshit reason I gave them, and they didn’t really care. When the family friend came over to congratulate my father on my safe and sound return, I smiled at the bastard.”

  “How?” Lou couldn’t imagine smiling at Martinelli after all he’d taken from her.

  “I wanted him to think he’d won because I had plans. I’d spent weeks making these plans. I wasn’t going to screw them up.”

  Lou drank her coffee and said nothing.

  Diana, emboldened by the silence, leaned forward over the table.

  “One night I went to his house where he lived with his perfect family. I rang the doorbell. When he answered, I told him I thought I’d left something in the shed. Would he come out and check for me? You should’ve seen the excitement on his fucking face. It was disgusting. So I went to the shed with my father’s pistol and I waited for him. He came in. He shut the door behind him. Then he said something I’ll never forget. He said, ‘I knew you’d be back.’ He already had half an erection pushing through the front of his fucking khakis. He still had that erection after I shot him, too.”

  They both fell silent as the waitress approached again.

  “Thirsty, weren’t you?” She smiled at Lou.

  Lou accepted the top-off, forcing her lips to mimic the smile. “Thanks.”

  Dennard waited until the waitress was out of earshot before speaking again. “I’ve been hunting bastards like him ever since. Serial rapists, women killers, abusers. Anything to do with children and women, really. I happened upon Fish because—” She seemed to catch herself.

  “How do you find out about them?” Lou asked, hoping to coax her into talking more.

  And she was curious as to how she managed to find the men. She didn’t think this woman had an inner compass that responded to Take me to a serial killer.

  “I have an internet forum where women can report offenses anonymously. A lot of them report stuff that the cops have dismissed. I came here because a woman reported her sister missing. Because the sister had a history of drug use, the cops said she was probably just holed up in a drug den somewhere, but the sister insisted she’d been sober for two years. I chose to believe her.”

  She paused to take a sip of her coffee.

  “So I came to town to check it out, interview witnesses and all that jazz. I found out that the last time she was seen was at a coffee shop, and who followed her out of that coffee shop three weeks ago?”

  “Fish.”

  Diana smirked. “I’m well versed in stalker behavior. I should be an expert by now, after doing this for twenty years. And it looks like I was right. I’m glad I stuck around even though I didn’t catch him before he hurt the sister. I have a feeling she’s in one of the graves they found the other day. Did you see that on the news?”

  Lou shrugged.

  “Yeah. You’ve probably been too busy to catch up on the news,” Diana said with a suspicious smile. “Did you have anything to do with that story breaking open by chance?”

  Lou lifted the warm mug to her lips.

  “I’m disappointed that you let him get arrested though. What happens if he’s released? All he needs is the sympathy of some judge calling him ‘a good family man’ or ‘a man with values’ or some shit like that. It happens all the damn time.”

  Lo
u didn’t like hearing her fears voiced back to her. She pushed her coffee cup away.

  “Do you always give them over to the authorities?” Diana asked.

  “No.”

  “Maybe you’re not FBI then.” Diana grinned. “And what will you do if he goes free? You have a protocol for that?”

  “I’ll handle it,” Lou said, and wasn’t sure why she suddenly felt so defensive. It had been something about the comment regarding the broken system. It wasn’t that she disagreed. After all, the system created men like Senator Ryanson and Chaz Brasso, the DEA agent who’d betrayed both her father and King. But it also created men like King. Surely this woman knew that it wasn’t so easy to tell the bad guys from the good guys.

  “And how do you handle it, Lou?” Diana spun her mug anxiously between her palms. “Do you work alone or with a team?”

  Lou didn’t answer.

  Diana held up her hands, palms out in surrender. “All right, all right. You’re not interested in sharing trade secrets. But I’ll admit I’m very curious about you. I was camping out at the house tonight, wondering when Fish was gonna make his move. They always do eventually. So imagine my surprise when he pulled up, went inside, started up on her, and then bam. You were in the house! What? I didn’t even see you come in. How did you get in?”

  Lou recalled the destroyed kitchen. The glass, broken chairs, and those ridiculous sugar packets thrown about like Carnival confetti. But it was the blood on the floor that made her temperature boil.

  “If you were there, why didn’t you step in?”

  Diana leaned back against the booth and shrugged. “I didn’t want to act prematurely.”

  Hot anger ripped through Lou. “What?”

  “Situations like that make women strong. Jennifer will always feel more powerful, more capable now, because of what she went through. I wasn’t going to let him kill her, but I also didn’t want to rob her of the fight.”

  Lou’s fingers itched for her gun. Her desire to pull the Browning and put a bullet between this woman’s eyes was immediate—and it frightened her. She’d never wanted to shoot a woman before.

  Diana spoke, unaware of the emotions rolling through Lou. “Women are strong, so much stronger than anyone gives them credit for. We are survivors. Every single woman you’ve ever met has survived something. But many of them forget it. I just want them to remember what they are.”