The Next God

by MB Mooney

  Mr. Smith did not hesitate. “I demand to be made a member of the Assembly.”

  More voices filled the room, and two or three laughed at him. A man’s voice, new, rose above the rest: “Quiet. Quiet all of you. He knows we will not accept him as part of the Assembly. He only wishes to challenge us. He wishes to make fools of us all.”

  “You are already fools,” Mr. Smith retorted. His words quieted them all. “I have acquired power all my own over time, power apart from the Assembly. You have, no doubt, been keeping track of my progress, much as I have yours. One day I will bring you down myself. Either join me now or be destroyed.”

  The woman again, obviously some type of authority among them - a strong voice, smooth yet defiant. “You think to convince us with threats? Your threats are useless, and we know your agenda.”

  “What do you think you know?” Mr. Smith asked.

  “This would be your greatest triumph over your enemy, would it not? Step in his empty seat, to destroy his vision, to rule it and bastardize it.”

  “Gaius was a fool. We all know it. I will rule it, as he was afraid to do, firmly and extensively. With or without you.”

  The woman raised her voice. “Never. The evil being that you are, you would bring shame to his legacy were you to have such power. Do you truly think that we do not know all of what you do? Do you consider us that stupid?”

  Mr. Smith. “What do you think you know?”

  “We know it all. We know of all your crimes against humanity. Against God. We will not overlook them,” she said. “We cannot.”

  Mr. Smith scoffed. “Humanity? What do I care for humanity? They are all animals for our keeping. And you speak of crimes against God. We are all gods, cursed here to live among the dung of the universe. We might as well rule! I might as well rule. What have I done that is so wrong?”

  The woman spoke again. “You know the regulations. You cannot work among them as you do. You cannot use them, make them worship you.”

  Mr. Smith shouted, “Regulations? Hypocrites! You make yourselves rich off their labor as well, manipulate their governments and condemn me for the same. You act as a god but will not let them worship you. You let Gaius blind you, cover your eyes with his deception.”

  “Gaius was a true man. We listened to him because of his compassion and generosity.”

  “He was weak.”

  “Yet he always found a way to defeat you.” She paused. “He was a great leader.”

  Mr. Smith chuckled. “And where is he now? Where is this great hero, Gaius, who you regard with such loyalty? Is he part of this Assembly now? Where is his loyalty to you?”

  “You know that he is not here. Why must you torture me with talk of him?”

  “Because your lover abandoned you and he still clouds your judgment. Pathetic.” He dropped his sarcastic tone and raised his voice again. “There is an empty seat on the Assembly, and I demand it be given me.”

  “Never,” the woman spit the word. “One is being prepared for the Assembly now, more powerful than you can imagine. We will call on him shortly.”

  “Who is this? I demand to know.”

  “You are not in a position to make demands.”

  There was a long silence. Mr. Smith finally spoke. “A boy. You choose a boy over me? What does he know of the Assembly? Of what we are?”

  Shade heard footsteps, Mr. Smith heading towards the door, turning the latch. “I will return with the head of this boy on a platter in my hands. You cannot protect him from me. When I return, hope that your sacred and ancient rules and regulations can save you then.”

  Mr. Smith’s footsteps sounded quick on the floor to the elevator. The chaperones hurried to keep up with him. They were all quiet again in the elevator. Shade stashed the earpiece. Within a matter of minutes, his boss exited the hotel from the front door and walked towards the van.

  Walking with a very calculated gait, Smith was not very tall, only five foot seven or eight at the most, very thin, and the close cropped lightly colored hair didn’t help the effect. He had a flat narrow nose and wide mouth, dark eyes that hid underneath the shade of his protruding brow, a very unique appearance combined with the square jaw. Mr. Smith looked thirty-five, but Shade believed he was far older.

  The yellow streetlights cast a shadow on Mr. Smith as he rounded the van. “Come, Mr. Shade,” Mr. Smith said. “We have much work to do.”

  “Yes sir,” Shade answered. He wouldn’t be seeing much of the city now, after all.

  -----

  Matt knocked the door to Richard’s apartment. It was just after school in the afternoon, and he waited for a full minute before Richard answered in sweats and a T-shirt. The apartment smelled like cigarettes and beer.

  “Oh, hey,” Richard said. “Come on in.”

  Matt stepped cautiously into the apartment, shutting the door behind him. Richard’s father, a mechanic, was at work, and he showed Matt around the small apartment. In his bedroom, several canvasses were piled against the wall, some of Richard’s paintings. Matt perused them.

  “These are pretty good,” he said.

  “Oh, those.” Richard shrugged. “Doodles.”

  “No, really, these are good.”

  “Thanks. You want anything to drink?”

  They went into the kitchen for a soda. “Sorry you were suspended today,” Matt said. “That’s gotta suck.”

  Richard scoffed as he sipped from the can. “I been suspended before. Not a big deal. Plus, I got to sleep in. Well, sleep in the bed instead of history class.”

  “I heard that dude Marcus is pretty pissed.” Matt leaned against the counter. “You did kick his ass.”

  “He deserved it.”

  “Not arguing with that, but he probably disagrees.”

  “Well, if he wants to be a bastard, I can live with that. He should meet my dad.”

  Matt let that comment hang.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Matt said.

  “You just did.”

  Matt grunted in frustration. “Very funny. I’m serious.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Do you dream?” He had one again the night before, even more violent and disturbing – the killer cut up a man and moved the pieces around like a puzzle. Matt felt like something might be seriously wrong with him.

  Richard stared at him for a moment. “What are you, my shrink?”

  “No, I just wanted to know if you had dreams.”

  “I guess so. What kind of dreams?”

  “Dreams that you think might mean something.’

  Richard thought for a moment, shaking his head. “There was this one dream, though, where I was sitting on a tree stump in the middle of the forest, and Fran Dresser came walking up in a string bikini.”

  “You mean from that old show, The Nanny?”

  “Yeah, the friggin’ Nanny comes walking up to me in a string bikini, and she wants to know if I’ll go and lay this floor with her in some penthouse. She’s talking in that voice that annoys the crap out of me, but I’m staring at her in this bikini.”

  “Yeah, I hate her voice.”

  Richard rolled his eyes. “I know, but she’s hot, right? So the next thing I know, we’re putting down this hardwood floor in Elton John’s house.”

  “What? Where did that come from?”

  “How should I know? It’s a dream. Then Elton John walks in and Fran Dresser is like, ‘He is so hot,’ and I’m telling her that he’s gay. But she’s hot for Elton John. Can’t explain it.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Richard frowned. “Dunno. Don’t remember.”

  Matt shook his head at his friend. “You’re no help at all.”

  “Sorry. Thought you wanted to talk about dreams.”

  “I did.”

  “Well, that’s the best I got.”

  Chapter 5

  Her cel phone told her it was 6:32pm, and the Georgia winter air was crisp as the sky turned a dark gray. Valerie took her time, breathing deeply bef
ore opening the door to the second floor apartment of the latest victim. She stood behind Bill Young with her hands on her hips. “Why the hell did you try to get me off of the case?”

  Bill Young stood from his kneeling position and turned to face her. He cursed. “What are you doing here?”

  Valerie pointed to the badge she wore on her hip next to her sidearm. “My job. The job that I started with you two days ago. What’s all this about me being off the Person case?”

  Bill waved his arms in front of him, as if shooing a fly. “You’re off the case. Period. No arguments.”

  “Why?” Her jaw was set, her right foot almost tapping with the angry energy surging through her body.

  Bill Young shook his head. “Did you read the paper yesterday?”

  Her foot stopped its moving. Valerie was quiet for a moment, her anger subsiding. “Yes, but ...”

  “Yeah, but nothing. What were you thinking?” He looked up at her. “When you talk to the press about a case like this, you should give them nothing. It can sound like something, but it’s really nothing. You don’t get creative and start a whole damn legend out of one murder. What did you guys do, go out and have some coffee and have a nice little bloody chat?” The incredibly fake British accent might have been funny had she not been so upset.

  “Well …”

  “I thought so,” he cut her off. “Well, you've succeeded in making this guy an immortal story in the eyes of himself and the news. The ‘Postman’? What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I wasn't. I didn't call him the Postman, I just said ...”

  “You said that he seemed to be, let's see if I can get this quote right, ‘delivering his revenge.’ Is that about right?”

  “Yes.” Her face flushed with embarrassment now, not anger.

  “The city of Atlanta doesn't pay you to be a paperback writer, Missy.”

  Something finally woke up in her chest, and her anger caught up to her words.

  “Don’t call me Missy, you bastard. I don't care if I went to Tom Brokaw himself and gave him every detail, I didn't deserve to be taken off of the Person case!”

  She felt defensive now. Why did she care what he thought of her?

  “Well, you are,” he stated in an even tone.

  “No, I'm not.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No.” Valerie held her ground.

  “Who says?”

  “The Captain.”

  “The Captain put you back on this case?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “That stupid son of a bitch. I ...” But he faltered. He just turned his back and walked farther into the apartment, stepping over the body.

  That was the first chance Valerie had to look at Andrea Gorman.

  Valerie turned and took a couple fast steps back out of the apartment, vomiting right there on the sidewalk for God and His mother to see. No amount of swallowing or clenching could have stopped it, and she didn’t try. As the nausea began to subside, she blinked, and a local streetlight that just came on left a flash in her vision. “Oh, my God,” she kept saying, over and over.

  “Mann!” she heard Bill Young yell from inside the apartment. “Mann! Are you all right?”

  With her head down and her body slumped over, she nodded her head slowly. Her eyes were still closed. She stood carefully. “I’m okay,” she said.

  There is no way that could be a human corpse, she thought. The body lay on its back. She could make out the form of a naked woman, the limbs and face visible, but the whole front of the dead woman was red with one long, gaping wound that exposed things she tried to forget about college biology. The blue clad officers were still taking pictures of it.

  There was blood everywhere.

  “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Valerie said, and she crossed herself right there over this poor woman's body. She wasn’t even Catholic. “Who found her?”

  “Her brother came up to visit late last night. He’s a cross dresser from Savannah.” Bill stared a long time at the body. “As if he’s not screwed up enough already.”

  “Where is he now?” Her dry throat cried out for satisfaction.

  “Under heavy sedation at the hospital.”

  She nodded.

  “We should go talk to the people where she worked, see if they remember anything,” Bill said. He was almost sensitive to the dead body lying before him.

  “I already did that.” Valerie avoided Bill’s angry eyes by watching the officers going over the apartment inch by inch.

  He cursed under his breath. “Tell me.”

  Valerie took the short notebook out of her back pocket. “I talked to John Edwards, bouncer at the club she worked at. Goes by the name ‘Big John.’”

  Bill chuckled short. “Cute.”

  “He said she asked him to walk her to her car that night.”

  “So?” he asked.

  “She had never done that before. In two years working there, she had never asked him to do that. He said it seemed like something spooked her.”

  “Ah, circumstantial. It could have been anything.” He dismissed her by turning away and pushing air away from him with his right hand.

  “Yeah, but get a load of this, I talked to another girl who worked there. A young girl, very upset, name of … Lucy Ames, but she said that there was this one guy that showed up at the start of her shift and sort of monopolized her time, if you know what I mean …”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “... and he left at the end of her shift. She’s down at the station now giving the sketch artist a description.”

  Bill Young knelt down again, staring at the body. He muttered, almost too quiet to be heard. “Damn. He wants to get caught.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Nothing.” Bill stuck his hand in his pocket and withdrew an envelope encased in a plastic bag. “Since you’re here, put on a pair of gloves and look at this. You should be proud.”

  She did her best to keep from heaving up whatever was left of her stomach, if anything at all, as she stepped over the mangled corpse to get the piece of evidence from her partner. She did this successfully by concentrating on applying the gloves. “What's this?” she asked as she took it from him.

  “He left it in her mouth.”

  She opened the Ziploc bag and extracted the envelope. There was a single piece of paper inside. She removed it from the envelope and unfolded the piece of paper. It took her a moment to understand the implications as she read the note. There were only three words in a man's handwriting.

  The Postman Comes.

  She had royally screwed up when talking to that reporter. She knew it almost as soon as she did it. The unprofessionalism she exhibited, especially in front of the old detective on testosterone overload, embarrassed her to no end. She should have known better. As the daughter of a very secretive government spook, she had learned long ago how to keep a tight lip from the best.

  But her instinct about the Person case had proved correct, and even Bill Young saw that, now. This murderer was making it personal, as was more than evident with the note now in her hand. And it was now the kind of case that makes or breaks a career: a serial killer. Now he was challenging them, letting them know it was him. Call it pride or haughtiness or just an overinflated ego, but she was more than willing to take up the gauntlet.

  “Bill?”

  “Yeah,” he said, quiet and sounding a little tired.

  “You still want me off this case?”

  “Hell yeah I do.”

  She put the paper back in the envelope and the envelope back in the plastic bag. She handed it to Bill. “Tough shit.”

  -----

  Richard was back at school the next day. The last bell rung, and he closed his locker, his arms free of any and all schoolwork. The halls were emptying quickly. He could hardly believe the voice from behind him.

  “Hi, Richard,” she said.

  He turned to see her. His words caught in his throat for a split second. After
considering the act of turning and walking the other way, propriety got the best of him, or maybe it was loyalty to the past they shared.

  “Hi, Vikki,” he said.

  They were both silent for a moment, and she broke first. “I saw your latest work in the lobby in the front of the school. It’s very good.”

  “Thank you,” he said politely, his smile incredibly difficult to force. “Well, speaking of work,” he looked at a watch on his wrist he did not possess, “I have a lot to do. So, we’ll see you.”

  He started to walk away. “I’m not doing this on purpose,” she said, and it stopped him in his stride.

  “Oh, really? And what exactly is that?” He didn’t turn, but his head twisted just a bit to aim his words at her.

  “You know what I mean. Don't be such a jerk.”

  Then he did turn on her, his eyes narrowing. “Don't treat me like an idiot. What would you have me believe?”

  “That I like him.” Her arms extended to plead with him. “I want to go out with him. Surely you understand how I could like him so much.”

  “He’s a great guy, I agree, but that doesn’t explain everything.”

  “There’s nothing to explain, I swear. I’m not doing any of this on purpose, not at all. I didn’t know you were friends with him until the other day, when you fought with Marcus.”

  “You saw that?” He looked down now, at the ground near his feet.

  “Yes. And that was very … good of you.”

  Richard shook his head. “But not good enough for you?”

  She winced. “Come on, don't be this way …”

  “What way is that?”

  “I want to be your friend.” She cocked her head at him, just a little, to the right. “We’ve been friends for so long. We were friends before anything else. Why do we have to just give all that up?”

  “I don’t know what we are, necessarily. You asked for some space, and I gave it to you.”

  Vikki nodded her gaze away from him. “You know, it’s kind of ironic. The first guy I meet that I really like, and it happens to be your new best friend.”

  He chuckled only because he did not want to cry. “No. What’s ironic is that I’ll never be good enough for you, and no one else will ever be good enough for me.”