Shocker

by Randall Boyll

  Don waved a hand at his men. “Go back down,” he barked. “Cover that building! We won’t lose him this time!”

  They scurried to the trapdoor one by one, lowering themselves down with agonizing slowness. Jonathan could tell by the sound of the door Pinker was pounding against that he was about to burst through. It was then that he made up his mind. No fifteen feet of dead airspace could stop him from killing the maniac who had killed and killed.

  He ran to the trapdoor, where the last cop was trying to get down. He turned, took a quick lungful of cool air, crouched down as he had crouched so many times in football. He noticed Rhino off to the side, a man big enough to be a wrecking ball, but a man with enough heart to stop a friend from killing himself.

  Jonathan spurted forward, his eyes on the far building, judging it, assessing it, knowing he needed more speed than an Olympic broad jumper. He saw the look in Rhino’s widening eyes, and knew from instinct that this might be the final hurdle of his life. No one—no Don Parker, no Rhino, no Pinker—no one could stop him.

  He charged across the roof, wishing his Reeboks had cleats. Rhino shouted something about getting killed. Jonathan almost grinned. Only one man would die this time, and his name would be Pinker.

  Rhino charged him, shouting. Jonathan zipped past him as Rhino thumped hard on the roof, a missed tackle, a missed last opportunity. Then the edge was there and Jonathan was Superman, a man endowed with powers that would amaze even himself, flying across the chasm, the alley far below filled with debris and overstuffed dumpsters and one smashed ladder. His flailing feet caught on cold wet tar and he was on the other side, skidding on his stomach through puddles of black water and pigeon shit.

  Pinker was still hurling himself at the locked door. Jonathan got to his feet, his face dripping water in large shiny beads, a face twisted up with hot anger and cold determination. He was determined that Pinker would die right now. He launched himself at the pale shadow that was Pinker, hoping to ram him through the door he was so desperately banging on, dump him into the unknown bowels of this decrepit building and smash him to pieces wherever he ended, heaven or hell, or maybe a special purgatory reserved for all the mass murderers who had shown their talent in the last fifty years.

  All of this occurred in a tiny fragment of time, when Jonathan was airborne and cruising toward Pinker. Pinker turned, but too late. Jonathan smashed into him headfirst, knocking him backward with so much force that Pinker’s head made a dent the size of a hubcap in the wet and brittle tar. He groaned once and was still.

  Jonathan jumped to his feet, panting, wiping the conglomeration of stale water and sweat from his face. Pinker looked very dead. Jonathan went to him and kicked lightly at his leg.

  No reaction.

  Jonathan frowned. Could it be this easy? How could the slayer of thirty or more people be coldcocked by a roof made of cracks and ancient tar? His instincts told him no. He bent down to snatch the knife out of Pinker’s hand, and Pinker lunged up with a frightening shriek, swinging the knife in horizontal swipes, aiming for Jonathan’s eyes. For a moment the moon was reflected in Pinker’s eyes, two white crescents wild with hate, the eyes of a madman. Jonathan lurched backward, getting jabbed in the back by antennas, almost falling. Pinker sprang up and advanced on him with the knife.

  Jonathan turned and tried to tear an antenna away from its rusted moorings. Metal that had not been touched in thirty years screeched and groaned, the bolts popped, and then it was Jonathan’s, his antenna and his only defense. He swung it as Pinker lashed out, making sparks jump in crazy streaks as antenna met knife, feeling absurdly that he had grabbed a strange Christmas tree as a weapon. Pinker hacked again, two times, three. Sparks jumped off his blade. He began to cackle.

  Jonathan backed into a ventilator of some sort, a giant made of sheet metal and rusty screws. Pinker lunged. Jonathan threw the antenna in his face and ducked behind the ventilator.

  Pinker hurled the antenna aside with his laughter building to a lunatic’s scream. He stuck his oversize knife through the thin metal of the ventilator, then pulled it back with the noise of wounded metal howling loud and sharp. He began to hack the thing to pieces, laughing, grunting, slashing.

  Jonathan duck walked around the shaft, his heart pounding in his chest and his breath squeaking through his throat. The man was absolutely insane. He was so intent on his work as the demolisher of ventilator ducts that he didn’t notice when Jonathan’s moonshadow fell across him. Jonathan used the opportunity to lunge at him with all the force of a linebacker. Pinker fell on his back with a meaty thump, but when Jonathan recovered and got to his feet, Pinker was already up, weaving from side to side like a snake, his knife glittering savagely under the naked glow of the moon.

  He lunged. Jonathan fell back. Another antenna pricked his back. He wanted to turn, suddenly desperate to live, falling back from that slashing blade and the unpleasant whooshing sound it made as it cut the air. Pinker’s face was a caricature of lunacy and evil, the face of the devil himself, striped black and white, grinning, malevolent.

  Jonathan tried to work another antenna free. Pinker snapped forward and swept Jonathan’s legs from the roof, sending him hard on his back. Then Pinker was on his knees, the knife bright and terrible in his tattooed fist as he raised it.

  The door Pinker had tried so desperately to batter down suddenly swung open, spilling light across the rooftop. There were Don, and Rhino, and six cops, all with their pistols out. Pinker hesitated, his head turning sideways, the knife still firmly in his fist.

  “Drop it,” Don shouted. “I mean it, goddammit!”

  Pinker wobbled to his feet. An idiotic smile spread across his face. The knife fell from his hand. He looked down to Jonathan, leering. “She died real hard, y’know. Your girlfriend, that is. Know what I mean?”

  Jonathan lunged upward with his left hand groping for the fallen knife, finding it in an instant, ready to slash the slasher to a thousand pieces. Don and another officer scrambled over and fell on him, pinning his left arm behind his back, holding him away. Jonathan squirmed and kicked. “Go to hell, Pinker,” he shouted. “I’ll see you dead, you bastard!”

  Two officers raced over and snapped handcuffs on Pinker’s wrists. Still he grinned that hateful, malicious grin. “You like killing too,” he said. “It’s in the blood, for you and for me. Killers, pure and simple. You and me.”

  Jonathan struggled against the arms that held him tight, wanting to reach Pinker’s throat and mash it shut forever. “I want you dead!” he screamed. “I want to see you die!”

  Pinker cast him a wicked smile as he was dragged away. The rest of the police brigade followed, pistols out and ready. Jonathan watched as Pinker disappeared into the light.

  “In control now?” Don asked.

  Jonathan let himself go limp. He nodded. “I’m alright. No more shit, I promise it.”

  They let him go. Don came around, his face set and grave in the shadowy light. “If you want him dead, the state will take care of that. He’ll fry for sure. He’s history.”

  Jonathan grunted. “Sure. He’ll probably get five to ten behind bars. Five or six years, he’ll be out on parole.”

  Don wagged his head. “Not this guy. They’ll cook him to death in the chair.”

  Jonathan nodded. “Fine, then. But I want to be there.”

  “What?”

  “I said I want to be there. To watch him fry. I’ve earned it. I want to watch him die.”

  Don studied him. “You’re not kidding.” He ran a hand over his hair. “Maybe I’m like you. Maybe we’ve both earned box seats at the execution.”

  “Can you arrange it?”

  Don smiled bitterly. “I can guarantee it.”

  And he was right. It took time, though. And it was only the beginning.

  Chapter •

  Six

  The days drifted past and Alison was still dead. The days became months, and still Alison was dead. Jonathan ached for her, lying alone on his bed wh
ile snow piled up outside, sitting alone blankly staring at some idiocy on television while Alison rotted underground in the quiet of a wet new spring. Spring became summer. Pinker finally went on trial with Jonathan as the star witness. It took the jury eleven minutes to pronounce him guilty on nearly fifty counts of murder; two weeks later the judge had made up his mind about the case. He sentenced Pinker to roast in the electric chair at the state prison. Pinker’s state-appointed attorney did not file an appeal. He told reporters he wanted Pinker very dead and deposited in the burning hell he deserved.

  It was a wet and windy Tuesday when Jonathan stood with Pac-Man, Rhino, and Coach Cooper at the entrance to the prison. Don Parker had made good on his word: both he and Jonathan were to be admitted into the viewing room. This would be a brief affair: two thousand volts of electricity for one-half minute, a check by a state-appointed physician to see if Pinker’s heart was still ticking, and if so, another blast of joy-juice guaranteed to bring his brain temperature up past 350 degrees and cook him from the inside out.

  Jonathan’s shoulders were hunched, his hands deep inside his pockets, because of the wind and its cold promise of rain. The joy he might have felt at this moment a year ago was no longer there; nothing would bring Alison back. Even his own desire for revenge was muted. Too much time had passed, and Pinker was as good as dead already.

  Pac-Man let out a huge sigh. He was staring through the heavy fence at the prison up ahead, a depressing structure of steel and stone. He looked over to Jonathan. “Are you okay, man?”

  “Just fine,” Jonathan said coldly.

  Cooper put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll be right here if you need us.”

  “Sure,” Rhino said. “If there’s any problem, I’ll come in and personally break his neck.” He laughed, but it came out sounding weak and unconvincing. He put a fist over his mouth and faked a cough.

  Don Parker walked over from the prison’s tiny employee parking lot, and together he and Jonathan were admitted onto the prison grounds. They walked in silence, heads bowed. Low clouds swirled overhead, as dark as the prison’s cement walls, and weak thunder made noises in the east. Jonathan was gritting his teeth without knowing why. This was the day he had lived for, but now it seemed like just another irritation.

  They went in. Jonathan went up steps and through a maze of corridors, following Don now. He looked around and saw blank walls and barred doors. The place echoed with the hum of indecipherable conversations and jail doors clanking; somewhere someone was screaming and laughing. Don’t let it be Pinker, Jonathan thought. I don’t ever want to hear that voice again.

  They stopped at a blank steel door. Don pushed a button on a squawk box set in the wall, and waited. A few moments later a tinny voice crackled out of the speaker. “Yeah?”

  “Police Detective Donald Parker, and Jonathan Parker.”

  “Going to watch Pinker sizzle?”

  “Just open, please.”

  A snort of displeasure came, followed by the buzzing of the door’s electronic latch. Don pushed, and they were in another corridor. The guard ignored them. Jonathan could feel the emptiness of this huge place, aware that it smelled strangely like a combination of fresh paint and sweat. Things clanked and rattled endlessly. He looked around, feeling queasy. How could anyone survive in a place like this?

  They came to another door, the last one on this endless parade. It was simply made of old wood with a wire-mesh window set inside. Jonathan followed Don in, glancing around.

  The first thing that came to him was the enormity of the electric chair. It was perched in a small room of its own, a Frankenstein construction full of wires and coils and leather straps. Behind the glass wall it seemed to be grinning, a machine that fed on fear and death. Jonathan shivered without meaning to. This was the end of the line, the last act in a tragedy that had no plot and made no sense.

  He willed his eyes away from the huge chair and looked around. A stethoscope was dangling from a brass hook near the chair. On the south wall was a large clock, steadily counting out the minutes Pinker had left to live. There was a black telephone set in the wall beside it, a telephone with no dial. Ominous. How many prisoners over the years had sat here hoping that phone would ring, that the governor might soften up and save their criminal hides before the final moment came? Jonathan shrugged to himself. Probably a few dozen.

  In the viewing chamber itself were a dozen straight-backed wooden chairs that looked as if they had been here for fifty years. Already most of the witnesses were sitting in them, reporters and the select few who got a chance to watch a man fry. They all looked somehow eager yet strained, as if hesitant to gawk at a man going up in smoke, but wanting—needing—to witness it.

  Jonathan and Don took chairs near the front. Jonathan wondered briefly if he would have the displeasure of smelling Pinker as he baked in his two-thousand-volt private oven. He hoped not. Pinker smelled bad enough as it was. Jonathan turned nervously to Don.

  “Where is he?”

  Don gave him a grim smile. “Choking on his last meal, I hope.” He glanced at his watch. “They should be going for him right now.”

  Jonathan nodded. The man was an animal, one that was about to be very dead at last. He was quite sure of that.

  But he was wrong …

  … and so was the priest, who assumed that in all humans there is a bit of decency, and that a man on death row can have his soul easily saved by the act of remorse and repentance. This was the reason that he gave last rites to the doomed prisoners here, prisoners who at the last moment often begged God to forgive them, for they knew not what they did.

  Horace Pinker, on the other hand, knew quite well what he did. The good father, Michael Vanatti by name, approached his cell on death row with a Bible in one hand and a string of rosary beads in the other. If the truth be known, he rather enjoyed execution day, for no man is more prone to conversion than a man about to meet his Maker. It beat hounding the winos who staggered into the church and asked for a buck for a bottle of Ripple, because the man least prone to conversion is a man who is well into his cups and not particularly able to care about anything. So on this afternoon, fifteen minutes before Pinker was to die, Father Vanatti strode purposefully to Horace Pinker’s cell, fully expecting to wreak a miracle.

  “Coming, my son,” he spoke aloud to the bars. “It’s time to—”

  He sucked in a breath, hard enough to cool off his front teeth. Pinker was already busy with a conversion of his own. He sat cross-legged behind a circle of burning black candles he had somehow smuggled in, wearing the standard death row clothing, Day-Glo orange overalls with a black and white checkered band running horizontally around his chest and back. In the center of the circle of candles was an upside-down cross, propped on its head. In the eerie darkness behind the bars Pinker was visible as a black shadow shrouded in flickering candlelight, his face glowing in shades of orange and yellow. On the wall beside him, bolted to the cinder block, was a standard prison television. Its casing had been torn apart to expose the tangle of its innards. Its face showed nothing but a hash of electronic snow.

  Father Vanatti stumbled backward, his eyes wide with surprise. He noticed with horror that Pinker was jerking and pulsating, and that a set of automobile jumper cables led from the TV to his hands. Sparks popped where the clamps were anchored, bouncing to the floor and sizzling there. Pinker was grinning as he did a sit-down version of the boogie-woogie.

  Something black belched out of the TV, something thick as smoke. It swirled around Pinker’s head, a noxious steam that the father thought could only come from the bowels of hell itself. Its smell was a combination of burnt electrical wiring and burning hair. He fell back with a cry.

  The candles all blew out.

  He managed to motion to a guard, then averted his eyes from this scene of utter blasphemy. His Bible suddenly felt hot in his hand, the rosary beads tiny burning coals. He threw them down the corridor and wiped his hands on his frock, his face drawn up with disgus
t. They felt greasy and somehow numb. The Bible skittered on the cement and impacted against a wall. It burst into flames. The rosary beads popped like small firecrackers.

  A guard rushed over while Father Vanatti crossed himself over and over. The guard jammed a large key into the cell’s lock, trying furiously to turn it.

  Pinker leaned over and grabbed the bars with both hands. The guard working the key let out a shriek and dropped to the floor while the bars spat sparks in a shower. The guard’s hands were blistered and smoking. He began to scream.

  Vanatti opened his eyes. Pinker had resumed his lotus position, his face peaceful, almost sleepy. Foamy saliva dribbled down his chin and spattered on his absurd orange overalls. As Father Vanatti looked on with renewed terror, blue sparks buzzed and swirled around Pinker’s drool. Then his lips drew up in a hideous grin.

  “Yessss,” he whispered, sounding to the father the way the snake in Eden must have sounded as he talked Eve into serving an apple with lunch. “Let me have it,” he hissed, then loudened his voice to a shout. “Let me have it!”

  He got it. The dark cloud that boiled around his head changed shape, coalescing into a huge and barely visible face. Vanatti saw glowing red eyes the size of footballs swarming in the mist, the twisted suggestion of a mouth, perhaps horns, perhaps not. He could no longer trust his own eyes as he stared, speechless with wonder, at the creature that surrounded Pinker. The mouth-shape drew up in a leering smile, much as Pinker had so often smiled. Then the ghastly red lips opened.

  “You got it, baby,” it said in a voice that made the father nearly swoon, a voice that had to be from the hottest and darkest reaches of hell, the twisted, booming voice of Satan himself.

  The face, if it had been there, vanished. The swirling vapor was sucked back into the television. It blew apart like a bombshell, gushing sparks and flame. Pinker arched his back in a spasm as new and hotter electricity surged into his hands. His bulging eyes seemed to glow with a terrible energy too powerful for the father to imagine.