Take Your Turn, Teddy

by Take Your Turn, Teddy (epub)

  Teddy fell to his knees and grunted in anger, like a bull ready to trample its prey. Strode had only grazed Teddy’s neck.

  Strode pulled Burklow to his feet and, with everything he had, tried to guide his hefty body back through the front of the abattoir.

  Strode struggled with the rifle and Burklow, and when he made it to the office, he heard a quick mumble, “In here. In here.”

  There was a door just past the office where Burklow and Strode had left Finch.

  When the door closed, Strode and Burklow saw a small blonde girl with bright blue eyes. Strode recognized her. Ali Abraham.

  “Okay, Officer Finch says we have to get them to turn into the office.”

  “Where is she?” Strode asked.

  Ali shook her head. “She made me swear that I wouldn’t say anything other than her directions.”

  Burklow held a hand to his sizzled shoulder.

  Strode was panicking. They would find them, and they would kill them all.

  “Ali, you need to go. Get out of here and get help.”

  Ali shook her head. “No. No. This is the way. Finch says so. I watched for her as she followed behind Teddy and the shadow. When she came back, she had a plan.”

  Strode didn’t like it, but that woman had yet to fail him.

  “Alright. I can do that.”

  “Good,” Ali said. “Finch said as soon as they get in there, shut the door and count to thirty.”

  “And then what?” Strode asked.

  Ali untied one of her black high-top Converse sneakers and handed it Strode.

  “And then, be ready.”

  * * *

  Teddy and the shadow came around the corner while Strode held his position in front of the office door. The plan was simple. There was an assortment of desk supplies—staplers, cups of pens, pads of paper—piled on Mr. Abraham’s desk. When Strode heard Teddy and the shadow coming, he would throw Ali’s shoe at it. He could hit any of the targets, and he knew it would be enough noise that they would respond.

  Strode still had no idea where Finch was hiding. He just hoped that whatever the hell she was doing, she would be safe.

  A moment later, Strode heard the hissing of the shadow.

  “You have to heal me more. It’s still bleeding.”

  The shadow didn’t answer, but Teddy responded as if it did.

  “Fine, but we can’t drain them. It has to be fast again. We can get a few more on the way out, to get your strength up.”

  Strode waited one more second, and when he saw Teddy’s shadow, his real inanimate shadow, he threw the little sneaker at the tower of office supplies.

  “Found them,” Teddy said. Strode could imagine the sadistic smile on Teddy’s face.

  Strode tucked himself into the nook of the opened door just a foot away from the office. Teddy and the shadow stepped into the office and Strode ran behind them, closing the door. He pulled outward on the doorknob as hard as he could, preventing Teddy from turning it on the other side.

  Through the glass, Strode could see a white fog transcending. Teddy immediately began to scream, and the shadow’s hiss became a deafening screech.

  Strode had seen that fog only one other time, in training.

  It was tear gas. Only one officer passed Strode’s first tear gas test. Her name was Officer Finch. The rest of the men knew the effects, and as Strode had done, they recited them in their heads until their skin crawled with unbearable heat and their eyes melted.

  Of course, a timed test’s purpose was psychological.

  But the gas ate at Teddy’s skin far quicker. His skin welted and blistered, as though he was sitting in flames.

  It was the heat.

  Teddy had said he and the shadow felt constant heat and that if they didn’t eat, they burned.

  Well, Finch had found a way to add fuel to the fire.

  Remembering the thirty seconds rule, Strode pulled his weight from the door, and petite Officer Finch fell out.

  Strode saw Teddy convulsing on the floor like a worm under a heat lamp in the background. And Teddy’s weakening vessel left the shadow figure shriveled into a dark splotch on the carpet. There was nothing almighty about it. In that moment, it looked like nothing more than a stain that had gone unattended.

  Strode hurried Finch to the room with Burklow and Ali. She coughed, and her eyes were red with irritation, but she waved Strode to stop minding her.

  In the office, Strode watched the burns eat Teddy’s skin, far worse than the shadow had Burklow’s arm. It crept up his neck and ate chunks from his face.

  When the gas subsided, Strode put one arm under his nose. The gas didn’t spare his eyes, but Strode knew they would heal. That was something he could walk away from, unlike letting that murderous kid back into the world.

  Strode lowered himself to Teddy and saw the red that filled his eyes encapsulated a warm, chocolate brown. But the burns on his face, the dried cracks in his flesh, said it all. They were unlike any burns he had ever seen on a person. Running between the singed flesh were scraggly strands of black, of death. It looked just like the ashen trees in Warren Woods.

  The black navigated into the crevices of Teddy’s face. It burned away his rosy pink chinks, or any sign or dimples, if he ever were to smile again. All it showed was the wickedness within.

  Strode cuffed Teddy’s nearly charred wrists.

  “And now, when the world looks at you, they’ll see what you’ve truly become. A monster.”

  6

  Strode and Finch saw to it themselves that Ali Abraham collected her things from her home and was all set for Florida. Mr. Abraham’s wife, Lynn, had a sister there. Lynn’s wishes were for her sister to take Ali if anything happened to her or her husband.

  Strode stood in the foyer of the well-kept farmhouse waiting for Ali. Finch was upstairs, helping her pack. Burklow sat in the car. He was Ali’s ride to the Indianapolis airport.

  When they finally came down the stairs, Ali was holding a book to her chest. It was leather-bound and worn.

  Ali handed it to Strode. “I think you should see this. Daddy thought he kept it hidden, but he wasn’t good at keeping things from me. That’s why I was never allowed to talk about the Warrens.” Ali tucked a piece of her blonde hair behind her ears. “Because I knew about this. I think he always knew I’d find it at some point.”

  Strode opened the book and saw it was a journal.

  Strode skimmed through the passages, all confessions of a man gone mad, a man he knew as Mr. Warren.

  Tonight, I killed a man coming home from work. I stood in the corn, and when I heard him coming by, I waved him down. Before he knew it, I stabbed him in the eye with a screwdriver. Blood and gelatin merged into a thick, dark goo. In the moment, I felt powerful. I had done what the shadow wanted. Now, I’m afraid there isn’t a shadow at all, just my mind split in two, like Jekyll and Hyde. And that, I think, is far scarier than the golden eyes I see and the murderous voice in my head.

  Strode flipped through the pages to find more than fifteen detailed descriptions of Mr. Warren’s murders with plenty of clean-up help from Mr. Abraham.

  In one passage, Mr. Warren wrote,

  I fear that, as we do with most things in life, Mr. Abraham sees me as he wants rather than as I am. He wants to believe the world is safe for his wife, for his daughter. He told me that men like me aren’t killers. Instead, we’re unmade. We haven’t known much of support or kindness in our lives, so we take longer to detach from our inherent primitive ways.

  It’s a sweet notion, truly genuine. Although, I believe he has it wrong. I have known love in each of my daughters, Laurie and Jackie, and in my adoring wife. And no matter where I go next, or whether the monster within swallows me whole, I want them to know that I knew love, and I knew it because of them.

  I think the shadow wants me to forget.

  Ali sat on the steps as
Finch read over Strode’s shoulder. “Officer Strode?”

  Strode raised his eyes from the journal, forgetting where he was. “Yes, Ali?”

  “If you skip toward the last few pages, I think you’ll find what you were looking for.”

  It was written two days before the Starling nightmare.

  “I don’t even remember doing it.” That’s what I said again and again when Mr. Abraham found me in the cornfield, leaning over my daughter’s body. The shadow had already collected a kill that night through my own hands. I had bleach, ready to douse the body, and sweet Jackie, curious as ever, came running into the field. “Daddy, Daddy. I could see you from my window. I didn’t want you to play all by yourself.”

  Then, her sweet little eyes fell from me to the body at my feet. Jackie took a step away from me. I could see in my own daughter’s eyes that she knew I was a monster. I unwound the thick hanger wire from my pocket and placed it over her head, the way I might’ve her grandmother’s ruby necklace on Jackie’s wedding day. Of course, I knew then, that was a day neither of us would ever get to see. She coughed, and I could see empty gums from where I had pulled teeth from her the day before, just to feed the shadow her pain.

  When she stopped kicking, I hurried to the shed, grabbed the shovel, and buried her in the cornfield. Not more than fifteen feet into the field. I lay beside my wife that night, knowing our daughter was dead. Dead because of me.

  But the shadow was pleased.

  Strode’s eyes were full of over a year’s frustration and angst. Part of him had always known Jackie was dead, but seeing it on paper, the finality of it, sank his heart into the pit of his chest.

  Finch rubbed the center of his back, just as she had when he panicked outside Warren Woods.

  “We’ll stay another day, Strode. We’ll get her out and put her with her family. Okay?”

  Strode fell into Finch’s chest and cried. “I wanted her to be okay.”

  Finch hushed him. “And now, she is free to rest.”

  Strode nodded. He pulled from Finch and looked at the poor little blonde girl on the step. He got on a knee beside her and said, “Thank you, Ali Abraham. You are one of the bravest little girls I’ve met. Now, I promise you, everything is going to be just fine. Okay?”

  Ali wiped a tear from her eye and hugged Strode.

  * * *

  The next day, Strode, Finch, and Burklow stood in a circle around Jackie Warren. They didn’t tell the town yet. Strode wanted her to have a day of being remembered as the sweet, innocent little girl she was, and not a victim of the state’s hottest murder mystery.

  Strode looked down at the small coffin Finch had found for Jackie and said, “Thank you, Jackie. For everything. You were with me through it all and you showed me that sometimes our lowest moments, our worst tragedies, are simply stepping off points to something better.” Strode turned to his two partners beside him and smiled. “You helped me find the truth, but more than anything, you helped me find my family.”

  Burklow and Finch put an arm around Strode. Burklow went first and said, “Thank you, Jackie. For bringing me this crazy son of a bitch, who has reminded me what it means to be a good cop.”

  Then Finch said, “Thank you, Jackie, for showing this man that in all the bad, there’s always good. We just have to be willing to find it.”

  They each set a red rose on the coffin and stepped away.

  As Strode walked alongside his new partners, he couldn’t help but feel weightless. He supposed people never really know how much they were carrying until they let it go.

  Epilogue

  They transferred Teddy to a facility in Oakhaven to await trial. They kept Teddy in isolation, and each day, the heat of hunger worsened. The shadow was starving.

  The shadow didn’t need to touch Teddy any longer. They’d shared heat for so long Teddy could feel it, even when the shadow wasn’t strong enough to inflict it upon him.

  Teddy screamed and cried for help, hoping to lure a guard into his cell. He managed to get three in the first week, but each time Teddy tried to jab his fingers into a guard’s eyes or strangle another with his sheets, they overpowered him. He was too weak. They then revoked another “privilege,” like showering unshackled and alone, or covers at night. Though Teddy only missed the familiarity of his sheets. In reality, he spent the night waking to the shadow’s whisper or the endless sweating.

  For the first time since Teddy had met the shadow, he felt as helpless as the little boy watching his father beat his mother. He felt the same fear he imagined Mrs. Mayweather did when she saw Teddy raise the bedside lamp. Or maybe the same kind of fear of the boys in the woods before the shadow ripped out their throats. Only Teddy imagined death would be better than a life alone.

  Teddy knew if he couldn’t get out, he would suffer.

  I need to eat.

  “I know. I can’t get anyone.”

  I need to eat.

  The heat would rise each time the shadow spoke to him.

  When he thought the heat had subsided, the shadow would whisper again.

  I need to eat.

  “I know. I will try to think of something.”

  After a few days, there was nothing.

  Teddy stared at the cement wall before him. There were no tally marks or cracks with spelled messages. He tried to clear his head.

  There was nothing.

  Teddy tried running through thoughts, hoping one of them would be interrupted, hoping he would hear his friend.

  But there was nothing.

  “Please, Shadow. Where are you?”

  There was nothing.

  After three days of total silence, Teddy felt a chill like he never had before. He sat in the damp corner of his cell and shivered.

  “Help me, Shadow. I’m so cold.”

  The hall lights flicked on. Teddy could hear footsteps of what sounded like two people, a guard, and a new prisoner.

  “Alright, Dae. This is you. It’s a great place. Recently remodeled with an ocean view. Nothing but the best for creeps like you.”

  The man grunted as the guard shoved him into the cell, just as he had to Teddy.

  The guard poked his head past the other prisoner’s cell and looked in on Teddy.

  “You’ve finally got a friend, Blackwood.”

  The guard laughed and tapped his knuckles against the metal bars.

  “Dae, maybe you can get him to introduce you to his imaginary friend.”

  The guard laughed again, and darkness consumed the hall.

  Teddy could hear the man on the other side spit and spread the saliva with the bottom of his shoe.

  Teddy’s lip curled in disgust.

  Teddy whispered, “Shadow, we have someone. We can get him somehow. I know it. Please, Shadow. Talk to me.”

  “Is it true?”

  Teddy jumped at the sound of a voice but was disappointed with the rugged tone on the other side of the wall as it repeated, “Is it true what you did? To all those people, I mean?”

  “Yes,” Teddy said.

  Teddy wanted the man to fear him. He hoped it would serve as a seasoning, like garlic butter on steak, before he and the shadow could make their move.

  But the man laughed. “Shit, kid. I’ve never seen anything like it. What was it like?”

  Teddy wiped a tear from his face as his expression went cold. “It was like I was God. I held their life and then took it away.”

  Teddy thought that ought to get him, but the man laughed and said, “Wow. You really are a twisted little bastard. Huh?”

  Teddy pulled his knees to his chest and buried his head.

  “Shadow, I can get him. Please, talk to me.”

  “Well, kid. I imagine you’re going to be here for a very long time. I’m lucky. Took a plea deal. I’ll be out in a few months. I have parole for two years, but that’s nothing. Not like I murdered kids or anythin
g.”

  The man laughed, and Teddy wished so badly that the shadow would rip out his throat already. But Teddy knew the shadow was far too weak. Maybe even too weak to talk to him, and it wasn’t like it had doors to slam to remind him it was still there.

  * * *

  Two weeks became three, and there was no sign of the shadow. Teddy felt more and more alone.

  He screamed in frustration, and the man beside him mocked him by screaming louder.

  “Blackwood, Dae, shut the fuck up,” the guard yelled.

  “Kid, you’re way past the insanity card. They’re not going to make that mistake again. Was it the doctor or guard you killed that day?”

  “Both,” Teddy said.

  A tear fell down his cheek, and Teddy swatted it away like a gnat.

  Teddy sat in the corner of his cell, alone with his thoughts. Teddy thought of his mother, the way she hummed “Puff the Magic Dragon” that afternoon his father found them. How peaceful she looked. It made Teddy wonder if his dad never came, would his life have turned out differently?

  It was such an aged thought for a person his age.

  Teddy didn’t know how to sift through the ideas and images in his head. The shadow had guided him for over a year. Without it, Teddy wasn’t sure he even knew who he was. With or without it, Teddy knew that to everyone else, he would always be a monster. And the only thing worse than being a monster was being a caged one.

  * * *

  “Can anyone else hear you?”

  Teddy sat up in his cot and heard the man on the other side of the wall whispering.

  “How have I helped you? What do you mean warmer?”

  Teddy scrambled from the creaky cot and pressed his ear between the bars. His legs felt wobbly and weak beneath him.

  “What does that mean?”

  Teddy closed his eyes and listened for the shadow. It was faint, but he could hear it say, You noticed me.

  “I’m sorry, but you’re better off with the kid next door. I won’t be here long.”