Blackened

by Erik Henry Vick

  Have to get out! Have to get away from these dogs! From Herlequin! But how? He couldn’t even think with the dogs snarling at his back, let alone come up with a plan.

  He grabbed a tree trunk and spun around it, running in a random direction. His foot slipped off a slick root and into a hole. His ankle twisted beneath him, forcing a shriek of pain out of him. He sobbed out a breath and stumbled on, lurching from trunk to trunk in the darkened woods.

  Behind him, the dogs howled, and Herlequin cackled like a hyena.

  6

  Owen drove across town, obeying all traffic laws and even waving at people like he was a normal person. He had no plan yet, he was just moving, letting whatever it was that guided him to that damn sheriff’s house guide him to his new location. He had another eighteen rounds for the rifle—might as well use them before he drove somewhere to buy more.

  Too bad Brigitta flaked, he thought. It was nice having her beside him while the pleasure rolled through him. He got the distinct impression that she got off on his little games as much as he did. “Women,” he scoffed.

  “I’m no ordinary woman, my love,” Brigitta breathed in his ear.

  “Holy mother of fuckall!” he screeched. He twitched away from the sound, jerking the wheel of the Skylark and almost running up on the curb. “Don’t do that!”

  Mist swirled in the middle of the backseat as Brigitta solidified. Her laugh was light, but it had a nasty edge. “Why not? It’s funny.”

  He glared at her in the rearview, his lips twisted in a frown. “Like that fucked up dog was funny?”

  Brigitta favored him with a one-shouldered shrug. “Not my doing, Owen. And, anyway, that was your own fault. I told you.”

  “Told me?” he snapped. “You told me?” His cheeks burned with fury, and every sound he heard took on that tinny cast he recognized from the worst of his rages. He grabbed hold of his temper with desperate strength. He had the feeling that if he tried to beat up on Brigitta, things would get out of control.

  That’s right, my love. Hit me, and I’ll hit you back. You wouldn’t like that. The voice in his head was crooning, conciliatory, but the words…the words only fed his fire. He stared at her in the mirror, and she looked back at him with a bored expression on her lovely face. He longed to put his fist right in the middle of her boredom.

  Her eyes sharpened and narrowed at the same time. “I doubt you would survive that, my love,” she said. “If I didn’t break you in half, my father would, you can be sure.”

  He tore his eyes away from hers, staring out the windshield without seeing anything, marshalling his control. She’s in my head somehow. Don’t even have privacy in my fantasies.

  In the backseat, Brigitta smirked. “It doesn’t have to be like this, my love. Bitter. Angry. It can go back to sweet and…”

  “Sexy,” he muttered.

  “Yes, that’s right. Sweet and sexy. Just promise me.”

  His eyes snapped back to hers in the rearview. “Promise you what? I’m not willing to pull any stupid-shit suicide runs. I don’t care how tight you are.”

  Her expression soured for a moment, but then, with obvious effort, she smiled again. “Yeah, okay. Not that then. Promise me you won’t bait my father anymore. No more talk about killing kids.”

  He waved his hand in a distracted way. “Oh, sure. I promise. No more kids.”

  Her smile was slow and lazy—like a cat grinning at a mouse. “And promise me you won’t get so angry if I tease you.”

  He snorted. “Easier said than done, babe.”

  She shrugged, looking at him from under lasciviously lowered lashes. “It’ll be so much more fun that way,” she crooned. “I promise.”

  A grin spread across his cheeks, and the dark, bitter anger left his heart. “Well, if you put it that way…”

  “I do, my love, I do.” She snapped her eyes forward. “Owen!” she screamed.

  Without thinking, Owen jammed the brake pedal to the floor. The Skylark skidded and drifted toward the curb, tires smoking and shrieking. Hands locked on the wheel, Owen gritted his teeth. The two little girls crossing the road on their pink Huffys shrieked in unison and, to a one, locked their brakes, stopping right in front of him. “For fuck’s sake,” he muttered, jerking the wheel toward the curb with all his strength.

  With a slight pop, Brigitta disappeared, leaving Owen alone, white knuckled. Everything was too bright, too loud. To Owen, time slowed to a crawl. He could see the people inside Sally’s Stationery gaping out the window, hands up to cover stupid, gaping goldfish mouths. Brigitta appeared next to the girls and grabbed a set of handle bars with each hand. With a mighty heave, she flung both of the girls toward the center of the road. A moment later, the bumper of the Buick passed through the space they had so recently occupied. The Skylark bumped up over the curb, smacking the mailbox through the plate glass window of the stationery shop.

  When the car stopped, Owen just sat there looking through the passenger window at the biddies inside the shop. They stared and pointed, but not a one of them moved to come outside and see if he needed help. He glanced at the street. The two girls were on the macadam next to their bikes, crying and squealing like the bitches they would become in twenty years. Brigitta was gone again, or invisible, or whatever.

  Owen turned back to the stationery shop and scoffed. He flipped the women the bird and mashed the accelerator to the floor. With screeching tires, Owen bumped the car off the curb and raced away. At the intersection in the middle of town, he didn’t brake, hanging his hand out the window, shooting everyone the bird.

  “That was close, my love.” She was back. In the back seat, like nothing had happened, like she hadn’t just teleported out of a moving car.

  “Gotta teach me that trick, babe.”

  “If only I could, my love,” she said.

  To Owen, her tone was a bit lacking in the conviction department, but he let it slide. “That shit put me in a mood, babe. I want to—”

  “Shoot some motherfuckers?” she asked with a lilt in her voice. Her laugh tinkled like glass.

  “You have a way with words, babe. The thing is, I’m not getting an idea of where to go. My radar’s busted. We can camp out at the library and shoot mommies coming to pick up their kids, or maybe shoot a few teachers over to the high school.”

  “What about town hall, my love? Or that newspaper place?”

  Owen shook his head. “Town hall’s where the police sit and the paper’s just down the way. I don’t want to get that close until I can shoot Mr. Town-fucking-manager, and I want to know he’s there for sure—”

  “He’s gone, my love.”

  “What? Gone?”

  Brigitta nodded. “Yes, love. He ran like a coward. Took his stupid wife and kids and ran for the border. Don’t worry, though, my father’s dealing with the Cartwrights.”

  Owen nodded once, slow and deliberate. “That’s fine then. Where to?”

  Brigitta tapped her front teeth with a long, somehow graceful finger. “Teachers.”

  Owen smacked his palm on the horn. “I hate teachers,” he sang, blipping the horn on each syllable.

  “Yes, my love.”

  They grinned at each other in the mirror.

  7

  Matt brought his cruiser to a halt half a block away from Sally’s Stationery, where he could see the skid marks in the road and up on the curb. The two little ones were up on the sidewalk now, being mother-henned by two ladies with blue hair and eating ice cream. Matt recognized the ladies as Mildred Kenny and Margaret Ward. With a sigh, he opened his door and got out. He strode up the sidewalk toward the girls, hitching up his duty belt as he walked. The girls looked at him with wide eyes.

  “Didn’t expect the chief himself,” said Mrs. Ward.

  Matt smiled. “Hello, girls,” he said. “I hear you had a little accident. Are you hurt?”

  “No, we’re fine. It wasn’t our fault,” said the girl on the left.

  “And you’re not in any trouble,
but I need you to tell me what happened.”

  The two girls looked at each other, and each took a lick of their ice cream before turning back to stare at him. “We were crossing the road,” said the girl on the right.

  Matt held up a hand. “Before we get into all that, what are your names?”

  The one on the left smiled. “I’m Meredith,” she said.

  “And I’m Mary Beth,” said the other girl.

  They turned and looked at each other, smiling. “We’re not twins,” said Mary Beth. “People think we are, but we aren’t.”

  “Not even sisters,” said Meredith. “Just good friends.”

  “Okay, I’ll be sure to remember that.” Matt ducked his chin to hide the beginnings of a smile. “Now, tell me what happened.”

  “We were crossing the road like Mary Beth already said. On our bikes—we both have Sweet Thunders.”

  “They were perfect before today,” said Mary Beth in a mournful voice.

  “Yeah, now they’re all scratched up,” said Meredith in a matching tone.

  “Did the car knock you down?” Matt asked.

  “No, he screeched his tires and hit the mailbox.”

  “Sent it right through Sally’s window,” said Mildred.

  “And then the mean lady threw us down into the street,” said Meredith.

  Greshin arched his eyebrows. “The mean lady?”

  “Yeah, she came out of nowhere and grabbed our bikes by the handle bars and knocked us down.”

  Matt glanced up at the two ladies. Mildred Kenny gave a slight shake of her head.

  “What can you tell me about the car?”

  The two girls looked at each other and shrugged. “It was big,” said Mary Beth.

  “As big as a Cadillac?”

  Again, the two girls shrugged.

  “Did you see the driver?”

  Meredith nodded.

  “Some old guy,” said Mary Beth.

  “Okay. Grandpa old or more my age?”

  “Like you, I guess. We mostly stared at the lady.”

  “And why was that, Mary Beth?”

  She gazed up into Matt’s eyes, the picture of solemn innocence. “Because she appeared right out of thin air. She’s a witch.”

  Matt looked at Meredith, who nodded, then glanced at Mildred. “Okay, girls,” he said. “That’s all I need for now. In the future, I want you to be extra careful when you ride across this street, okay?”

  “Don’t you want to know what the woman looked like?”

  “No, that’s okay, Meredith,” he said. “I’m sure Mrs. Kenny and Mrs. Ward can tell me all about her. Are your parents on their way down to get you?” The girls nodded and turned their attention back to their now-dripping ice cream cones. Greshin looked at Mildred Kenny and jerked his chin toward the store and walked over to the door.

  When they were out of earshot, Mildred put her hand on his arm. “There was no woman, Chief.”

  “So I gathered,” he said. “Did you see the driver of the car?”

  Mildred nodded. “Yes, I did. Brown, greasy hair, about shoulder length…skinny…mean looking.”

  Something in Matt’s guts twisted. It sounded a lot like the guy calling himself Randy Fergusson. “Anyone else in the car?”

  She shook her head. “He was speeding, though, of that, you can be sure. And he wasn’t watching where he was going. He almost ran those two beauties down, barely missed them by jerking his car up onto the curb.”

  “Big car like the girls said?”

  Mildred shrugged. “A Buick. Older one, I believe.”

  “How old?”

  “Ten years, I’d guess—from the sixties, anyway. I’m not much on cars.”

  “But you’re sure it was a Buick?”

  She gave him a look. “I can read, Matt Greshin. Said it was right on the hood.”

  “Yes, ma’am. What color was this Buick?”

  “Well, it was a two-tone. White top, black body.”

  Greshin nodded. “Anything distinctive? Wheels, maybe?”

  “Of course it had wheels!”

  Matt grinned. “I mean did it have aftermarket wheels? Mags?”

  “Well, I’m sure I wouldn’t know. I’m not big on cars.”

  “Fancy wheels? Polished up to shine like mirrors?”

  She shrugged. “No idea.”

  Matt nodded. “Okay, fair enough. Can you tell me what happened in your own words?”

  “Sure, I can. I was standing at the counter, speaking with Sally. We heard a hullabaloo out in the street, and then the big plate window in the front of the shop exploded. I whirled around and saw that car up on the sidewalk and the mailbox lying in the front. The girls screamed and fell down. Or dove, I don’t know. The driver floored it and squealed away. Someone should take away his license after today.”

  Matt nodded. “Yes, I agree. If it’s who I believe it is, I’ll do more than take away his driver’s license when I catch up to him.” His expression was grim.

  “Know this fella, do you?”

  “No,” said Matt, shaking his head. “But I’m starting to.”

  Sally Barnes stuck her head out the hole where her window used to be. “Chief Greshin? Angie called, there’s a ruckus at Meat World, and Danny Jones says you better come quick.”

  “She say what the problem is?” he asked.

  “No, sir. Just that they wanted you quick.”

  Matt sighed. “Well, thanks, Sally. Sorry about your window. You have insurance to cover that?”

  “Oh yes, don’t you worry. George is already on his way to fetch the plywood to cover the hole until the glazier can drag himself over here.”

  “Good enough. Anything else you think of, Mrs. Kenny, you give me a ring.”

  “You know I will, Chief.”

  With a nod, he sketched them a salute and went to his car. He called Angie on the radio. “What’s this emergency at Meat World?” he asked.

  “Several people have been shot. Danny says he needs help fast.”

  “I’m on it, you have Fire Rescue on the way?”

  “10-4, Chief.”

  “Good. In the meantime, put out a county-wide BOLO for a Buick Skylark, late 60s vintage, white over black. Mark it both urgent and approach with caution.”

  “You got it, Chief.”

  Greshin started the car and pulled away from the curb. He flipped on his lights and siren, spun the car around, and pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor.

  8

  Owen took his foot off the gas pedal and let the car roll to a stop in the grass on the side of the road. He got out and slipped into the woods, rifle slung over his arm. “You here, babe?” he whispered. Something touched his cheek, light and feathery, and he smiled.

  The high school was on route 19 out near the western edge of town. Like everything on the edge of town it backed up to the forest, but ball fields and parking lots ringed the school itself like a moat. Perfect for a skilled sniper.

  Owen climbed a pine tree and made a little nest for himself in the crook of two branches. He sighted through the gun at the main doors. Fuck, he thought. The parking lots were empty. The school looked deserted. Only then did it dawn on him that it was Sunday afternoon, and no one would be in school. “Fuck!” he yelled.

  “What is it, my love?”

  “Sunday. No school.”

  “Oh,” whispered Brigitta in his ear. To Owen, she sounded as disappointed as he was. “That’s okay, though. We could go to one of those churches.”

  Owen shook his head. “Services end at noon. Too late to catch ‘em coming out of church.”

  “Oh,” she repeated. “The library then?”

  “Closed on Sunday.”

  “Oh.”

  He slung his rifle and climbed down the tree, pouting the tiniest bit. “Fuck,” he muttered.

  “There must be somewhere, my love.”

  “Well, if you can think of something, just speak the fuck up,” he snapped. Instantly, he regretted it. He
didn’t want to be that way with her. “Sorry, babe. I’m disappointed. I wanted to shoot a teacher or five.”

  “There’s always tomorrow, my love.”

  “Yeah, but I wanted to do it today,” he pouted.

  “Let’s drive by the churches. Maybe one of them is having a nicpic.”

  “Picnic,” he said. “But you’re a genius, lover.”

  He climbed back into the car and mist solidified into Brigitta on the seat next to him. She slid close and put her cheek on his shoulder. “Did you mean it, Owen?”

  “Mean what?”

  “You called me ‘lover.’ Did you mean it?”

  Owen smiled. Women were all alike, even the ones made of mist. All they wanted was to belong to a strong man. “Yeah, babe, I did.”

  “Good,” she breathed in his ear and reached between his legs.

  9

  Benny ran, breath and painful sobs hitching his chest. He couldn’t put his full weight on his ankle so he couldn’t run fast, but every time he slowed to a walk, the dog-things made a ruckus. Black edged his vision, and he longed to lie down, to give up and let Herlequin catch up to him, but he didn’t want the dog-things anywhere near him.

  He stumbled against a tree trunk, the rough bark scouring his face and warm blood mixed with the sweat and tears already streaming down his cheeks. Every step on his bad ankle was agony, and every breath he took burned like he was breathing fire. Still, the dog-things weren’t catching up, and neither was Herlequin. It didn’t dawn on him that the dogs should’ve caught him easily.

  His feet shot out from under him as he tried to cut around the thick trunk of a tree. He slammed to the ground, right on top of a knobby root, and the air went out of him. His vision dimmed as he gasped for breath.

  Better get up, sport, or you lose again. The voice rang in his head—an intrusion, an invasion.

  Benny rolled to the side, still trying to force air into his chest. His lungs felt like they would burst if he didn’t get air soon. Purple and blue shapes swam in his vision—dogs, splotches, things that almost looked like faces. He longed to quit, to close his eyes and let the terror end either in sleep or death, he wasn’t sure he cared which.