A dwarf of a girl with Juicy Couture sunglasses and a ponytail rushed up to Melissa, squealing about concert tickets at the pavilion and pulled Melissa away. They quickly started walking in the opposite direction toward the main building and a group of upperclassmen who were joining in a cryptic huddle. “Thanks anyway!” Melissa called over her shoulder, walking swiftly, her cheer skirt flipping in the wind.
Eric stood glued to the steps, scarcely able to process what had just happened. He watched, as moments later, Grant Leary, a jock-ass prick, bounded up to Melissa like a baboon and started to say and do things that made her toss her hair and laugh.
Eric’s blood rose to a full boil. Hot with rage, he ran home, pulverizing the ground with his heavy boots. He kicked closed his bedroom door and rammed his fist clear through the wall on which the picture of Melissa was tacked, causing the plaster to splinter.
An hour later, he blew up her phone with a series of texts and calls, but she didn’t pick up. He could only stare at her small static image on his Facebook wall, still waiting for her to confirm his repeated friend requests, which went unanswered—ignored; even under the multiple alias accounts he had created. She was icing him out, for sure. In fact, he thought, growing further agitated, she was probably with the Neanderthal jock-prick at that very moment, both lusting for each other, no doubt. She was not unlike the others, after all—every last one of them with their hedonistic, worldly pursuits.
Minutes passed, and he began to rage. He should have never doubted the voices that told him different.
This, he vowed, would cost them. But it would take planning. He did a quick search on the web, which took only seconds to land pay dirt. A guy named “Chucky” knew exactly what it would take to get the job done.
Eric grinned, settling into the pull and bidding of the mission. He had all that he would need to set the wheels in motion—and he had nothing but time.
Chapter 50
July 2015
(Two Months Later)
The first letter had arrived in the mail in early July. It was addressed to The Dr. Hannah Show. The production assistant, Tatum, received it along with a stack of business correspondence addressed to the station and put the unopened envelope into Hannah’s mail slot with all the others.
It was not until the next day that Jon Novotny sliced it open. It was post-marked from Manhattan on June 28th, and had no return address. The paper was torn from a spiral college-ruled notebook and handprinted. Scrawled at the top in red ink, the nonsensical text read:
Dr. Hannah,
They don’t see me or think the way that I do. I watch them move and it disgusts me. They are weak because they don’t cry like they should. They go on just laughing . . . I wait and imagine what I know to be true, that no one else does. One day, they will all BURN and it will be MY TURN TO FLY!
~ EJ
Jon was regularly screening listener correspondence for usable show material for a reoccurring segment called “Hannah’s Mail Bag,” as he did daily. The batch was typically filled with strange and often compelling correspondence from listeners asking for help; others denouncing Hannah’s unorthodox methods of therapy and high- moral route to well-being. All types of people wrote in to the show: fanatics, anarchists, naysayers, believers, beloved fans, saints as well as sinners, and the like. These penned, faxed, texted, and emailed their thoughts, questions and comments to the radio station daily. It was Jon’s job to weed through the chaff to find the cards, letters, and emails worthy of becoming show material. The rest were relegated to the public files for storage by order of the FCC, for public viewing if desired. The real bizarre ones, the “nut cases,” as Jon affectionately referred to them, he filed in a special folder marked, MIXED NUTS.
Jon re-read the letter and simply shook his head. He attached a yellow post-it note to the front, on which he wrote in black marker, “EJ.” Then, he added it to the NUTS file folder and returned it to his desk drawer.
He decided not to bother Hannah with mention of it.
Four weeks later, EJ had earned his own folder, and the hand-written letters began coming at an average of two to three per week, only, as the weeks progressed, the postmarks varied, and the content had become more disturbing in nature, resembling dark, rambling poetic verse:
I dream of them falling, one by one-- See them dancing off my gun. I shoot them as they run. WHY WON’T ANYONE HEAR ME?
EJ also occasionally emailed Hannah’s “fan” account with disturbing text. Jon had noted that on the most recent email, to Dr. Hannah just that morning, he lamented:
Why haven’t you written me back? Aren’t you supposed to care? Maybe you think you are beneath listening to us non-Jews . . . are you a bigot, Doc? Shame on you!
Jon’s pulse quickened as he printed out the jarring text. He did not like the tone of this one and feared that EJ was growing more agitated and impatient. Ignoring him was only proving to incite his eccentric nutcase brain. It was time, Jon reasoned, to share the letters with Hannah. She would, of course, be furious that he had withheld them from her. She was like that about such things, rightfully cautious when it came to dealing with the general public at large, but fearless in the face of psychosis. That was what made her Dr. Hannah.
The other hurdle would be Allison. She did not like to be kept in the dark about anything.
Chapter 51
August 2015
“How long did you say that he has been sending them?”
“About six weeks now.”
“Six weeks!” Hannah’s mouth opened in disbelief.
They were all gathered around the large conference room table: Hannah, Jon, Allison, Stan Newhall, the program director, and Don Brockett from legal. Allison clutched her last working stress ball. She had annihilated the previous dozen she had stowed away in her office drawer. She was furious with the position that Jon had put her in, namely, being out-of-the-know and looking inept in front of her team. Earlier that morning she had given Jon the riot act behind closed doors, in which she colorfully ripped him a new one. “You idiot! You leave me no choice but to stand there with my dick in my hand, unaware, while this Whack-job is sending cryptic manifestos to my number one show host.”
Jon apologized, but felt the need to protect Hannah more than his own job, so he took the tongue-lashing and braced for the next tidal wave to come—Hannah’s reaction to the news.
Marney was in Boston and could not attend the meeting; it was just as well, as she was the biggest alarmist of them all when it came to Hannah’s safety.
The ominous manila file folder sat warily in the center of the conference table. The contents, some twenty-three letters—all hand-written with no return address—had been mailed from various boroughs in New York. They were, however, all from the same ominous mysterious anti-fan simply called EJ.
Hannah could not hide her concern. She riffled through the stack while everyone watched, riveted. She chose one at random and held up the tattered page and read it aloud. Her voice was smooth and flawless in the delivery:
“Damn the makers of the code; the voices who try to
tell us who we are. Redfish sings of sweet release to prisoners of Bremen’s Halls – his trilogy is my shield. A song of seven swirling swords . . . ”
She handed the letter to Jon, who was sitting on her right. “I don’t get it. What’s with the riddles? What’s this guy trying to say?” she asked the room.
Jon was only able to wag his head with the rest of them.
“And who the hell is this Redfish?” Don asked the sea of blank stares.
Much to everyone’s surprise, Hannah offered clarification. “He’s a head-banger from a heavy metal band called Code X. My daughter is banned from listening to their CDs, but some of her friends do. Redfish is a fascist lunatic with a sick mind and a recording contract, which makes him double-dangerous.”
Everyone stirred and shifted in
their seats.
Stan Newhall concurred. He, too, had a teenager. “Yeah, they claim that their music is nothing more than teen angst—senseless ballads blaring from iPods and smartphones. Some call it commercialism, but there’s a fine line between performance art and propaganda. Anyway, this Redfish guy, particularly—he’s the son of Satan—on an off day. He’s clearly unhinged.”
Allison twitched. It was a telltale sign of supreme annoyance. Inside, a volcano was bubbling. The more she heard, the more the lava churned.
Hannah’s mind was spinning. She painfully rubbed her temples. “So is this a threat, or what?” she asked no one in particular.
Don Brockett lunged forward. “Give the letters and emails to me. I want to look them over.”
“No.” Hannah seized the file before he could grab it. “I want them. Every last one. They’re written to me, are they not?”
Jon winced.
Hannah insisted, “I’ve got this.”
Allison hedged, “I don’t like the looks of this at all, Hannah. Why don’t you let Don take the letters and review them? I’ve had a chance to examine only a few, but from what I’ve seen, I’d say that this guy is off his meds, all right.” Then, she added quickly, “But realize, folks—no actual threat has been waged. Let’s keep an eye on things a little while longer.” Then, turning to Jon, “You let me know what, if anything, changes. Meanwhile, Hannah, there’s no need for you to concern yourself here. We’ll keep you posted.”
Hannah sat, deflated, as Allison took the file from in front of Hannah and tucked it beneath her beefy arm.
Hannah didn’t want to put the station in jeopardy, especially with the changes coming with the extended syndication of her show and the pending contract deal with Global Network. Too much was at stake. Jon should have never called the meeting. He should have brought the letters to her attention privately first. She was so annoyed with him she could have screamed. Instead, she smiled valiantly through her veneers.
“That’s all, then,” Allison concluded and everyone rose from their chairs. That was it. Case closed.
Hannah grabbed Jon’s sleeve as he started for the door and whispered quite compellingly into his ear, squeezing his arm for emphasis with each word. “I want copies of every last one of those letters on my desk ASAP.”
The file appeared on Hannah’s desk within the hour. Tatum, who had been sworn to secrecy by Jon, and at his request, had copied every last one without Allison knowing. Hannah placed the file into her Birkin bag and waltzed out of the radio station with no one the wiser.
She proceeded to cancel her afternoon hair appointment, called Adelita to have Olivia picked up from volleyball practice before dinner, and switched her phone to silent. She purchased the tallest and strongest latte that the coffee shop in the Flats had on tap and took a small table near the window, overlooking the river, where any number of barges and freighters could be seen gliding by, along with smaller boats pulling into the port for refueling.
Hannah put on her Cartier readers and bent over the file and got to work, scrutinizing each disturbing letter—every last one of them with mounting distress, as the air-horns from the boats sounded off the water.
Chapter 52
August 11, 2015
Eric was getting tired of waiting. Six weeks had gone by, and the radio bitch had not mentioned a single one of his letters on the air! He had been listening each day to her show on his headphones, glued to the bed, staring up at a picture of Melissa Gates torn from the yearbook and plastered on his ceiling. A photo of Grant Leary lay mutilated in the trash bin. The radio shrink never chose his problems to discuss, did she? It was always one other lame predicament or another set forth by a babbling, bored housewife with a prescription addiction or a disillusioned left-wing millennial with a cell phone, a corporate job, and a ton of student debt, contending with the guilt of an inner-office affair.
He scrawled in his journal, a messy tirade:
Damn the life of the working man’s man who sees his reality shrinking, stinking, with each micro chip . . . another year goes by. This is why he must die and take the worldly rages for his own sins . . . .
He closed his eyes tightly as his fingers dug into the cover of the notebook, breaking the skin, leaving droplets of smudgy blood imprints around the margins. His twisted prose was all there, along with a list of dates, marking the events with no particular distinction that separated the litany of triumphs from the tragedies: Two thousand eleven—January 8th, Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot along with twelve others at a public appearance in Casas Adobes, Arizona; May 22, an EF-5 tornado hits Joplin, Missouri, killing one hundred and sixty-one people and leaving one thousand injured; April 29, the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in the United Kingdom. Two thousand twelve—April 4, re-election of Barack Obama; October 22, Hurricane Sandy hits the East Coast, killing two hundred people; December 14, Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, killing twenty children and six adult staff members; shooter also kills his mother; commits suicide; Two thousand thirteen—April 15, Boston Marathon Bombings, killing three and injuring two hundred sixty-four; May 20, an EF-5 tornado hits Moore, Oklahoma, killing fifty-one people, twenty of them children, injuring two hundred thirty. Two dozen schoolchildren trapped beneath rubble.
He studied the list with a vapid, dark resolve.
Whenever he did leave the house it was to stalk and follow his prey. Little did Melissa and Grant know that everywhere they went—to the movie theater, the mall, and the local coffee shop—Eric was following them. Watching.
He could have been an ordinary fifteen-year-old boy in every way, just enjoying the summer break, with his ball cap pulled low, earbuds encircling his neck, and a graphic novel protruding from his jeans pocket. But this was not the case. Something else was there, deep behind his flat brown eyes, where dark and evil thoughts resided and made their way into a tattered journal in which he poured out his thoughts and plans and cataloged his lists. Where he drafted his poems and riddles before sending them out into the ether. There, where he spilled his thoughts, first onto the page and then into real life. There was something that betrayed the new outward persona he tried to project, staying just below the radar. It was the strange, incessant voices in his head that assured him that he too had the power to somehow change the world. Were they all too stupid to see the truth? he wondered.
No matter. It was nearly time.
Chapter 53
Hannah returned home, exhausted. She ran a bath, staring at the foaming water pensively. Peter had already been gone for nearly six months, but in many ways, it seemed longer. All he had wanted to tell her three months prior at the restaurant was that he was going to stay permanently in Pittsburgh due to Anthony’s failing health condition. He had said that he was not ready to tell the children the truth yet. That he would do it in his own time. Further, he was not sure that it would be in the best interest for Olivia to be exposed to his lifestyle, considering all that was going on. That was an understatement, as far as Hannah was concerned. They would have to amend the visitation agreement on the divorce decree and transfer full custody to Hannah, in which Olivia would be allowed to remain in her normal schedule for school, home, and extracurricular activities until Peter’s life would be in order and he could be the father that she needed him to be. It would be up to Hannah to smooth things out, and try to help Olivia understand what was going on and why her father would not be taking her on his visitation weekends—for now.
As expected, Olivia had taken the initial news like a trooper and said little, although Hannah knew that her daughter’s heart was broken. It was just like Peter to leave the messes for her to clean up, to fix things. However, all the new clothes, latest gadgets, and fancy vacations could not begin to put the family back together again. This was indeed the one thing that Hannah was unable to remedy, or would ever be able to.
; This was not a typical Friday night. Blissfully, the house was completely hers. Olivia was spending the night at her girlfriend Meghan’s, and Adelita had the night off.
Hannah soaked languidly in the steamy hot bath, letting the warmth seep into her bones. She actually ached in places she never knew possible—deep in the crevices of her back and neck, a tension was racking her tiny five-foot-two frame with gridlock.
She smoothed the fragrant suds into her wet skin; the bath smelled like a Caribbean dream of pineapples and coconut. It had been months since she had taken a vacation. Maybe she would take Marney’s advice and whisk herself and Olivia off somewhere warm and tropical, before the school year started and her new hosting job with Global Network would bind her to endless wardrobe fittings, promotional obligations, and tapings. It would do them both some good. Maybe they could even invite the boys as well—Ty, Sara, and the twins too—making it a whole family get-away. She could book them a couple of suites in San Luca or Costa Rica. She then sighed as the idea faded. It would take far more than aromatherapy or daydreams to organize such an excursion. The truth being, she just wasn’t free to up and go anymore. Besides, everyone in the extended family was busy with his or her own lives.
She closed her eyes tightly. There were so many obligations and so many unanswered questions that continued to plague her. For one, who was behind the mystery emails and letters? And why did this EJ single her out?
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