Shocker

by Randall Boyll

  “Contact,” he murmured.

  Someone rapped on the door. Pinker shot to his feet, his fingers still stretched to the socket, looking left and right for an escape route. The door was hammered again, and someone was yelling.

  “Open up in there, Jonathan. Come on, open the door. This is Don.”

  Pinker recoiled, fresh hatred surging through his being, looking now like a trapped animal. He glanced wildly around, then back down to the socket. A crazy smile settled itself on his face; he seemed to have realized something profoundly important. “Wait a minute,” he said softly. “Can I?”

  Jonathan sat up groggily while Alison hovered near him, her mission accomplished. He ground his knuckles into his eyes, then touched the crown of his head. Quite a bump there. He looked at Alison. “You swear that’s true?”

  She nodded. “I swear it.”

  Jonathan realized someone was pounding on the front door, shouting. Alison looked at Jonathan, seeming apprehensive. “Don’t forget,” she whispered, and vanished in a gush of sudden wind.

  Jonathan was alone again.

  Pinker almost cackled at his discovery and his cunning. Just as the doorknob fell off under the insistent pounding of Don Parker, Pinker let himself surge through the electricity in the socket, using it as a propellant, forcing himself to be sucked into the socket and the electrical maze behind it. Hot blue sparks belched out of the socket, spinning crazily on the floor like Chinese fireworks. The hallway light fixture sizzled a moment, then exploded like a bomb, showering the darkened hall with hot chunks of metal and glass.

  The door swung open, banged against the wall, and slammed shut again. Don Parker pushed it open again, easier this time, calling for Jonathan. He sniffed, smelling the acrid aroma of cooked wiring. “Smells like the goddam electric chair in here,” he muttered. He tried the light switch and got nothing. He frowned, drawing his automatic pistol out of his shoulder holster, a trusty Browning double-stacked nine-millimeter, sixteen rounds of death in each clip. He had taken to carrying three or four clips since the murders started. He edged down the hallway lit only by the subdued light of the moon, his pistol ready.

  “Jonathan?” he whispered. He looked back to the door. It wasn’t reassuring. “Yo, Jonathan?”

  He decided to shut up. The bedroom light was on, a dim rectangle twelve feet away. He edged toward it, crunching over ruined glass, passing the kitchen entrance, which was dark. He peered inside, listening. Someone was breathing, but it wasn’t in here. It was coming from the bedr—

  “FREEZE,” Don shouted at the shadow that had lumbered out of the bedroom and was coming slowly down the hall.

  “Don?” Jonathan asked weakly.

  Don let his breath out. “Jesus H. Christ, Jon. I could have shot you!”

  “Would have been a fine capper for the evening.”

  “Huh? What’s been going on here? I thought I heard a fight. And what happened to your door?”

  “Pinker,” Jonathan responded, his voice full of weariness. “He’s here. Didn’t you see him?”

  “I can’t even see you in this light.” He stepped closer, squinting. “Are you all right?”

  Jonathan let out a dismal chuckle. “You’d never believe me.”

  “Well,” Don said, putting his pistol away, “I thought you’d be interested to know that there’s an APB out on you. Half a dozen people witnessed you and that Chadwick guy in the park. Seems he’s dead now, too.”

  Jonathan nodded. “What was Chadwick doing out of the hospital, anyway? Why was he in uniform?”

  “Oversight, I guess.” Don fished a cigarette out of his shirt pocket, then fumbled in his pants for his lighter. “We didn’t have a guard posted by his door. Should have, I guess.”

  He struck his aging Zippo. In the dancing yellow light he saw Jonathan’s clothes, splattered with blood, torn in places. His shoes were red almost to the tops. Blood had dribbled down his forehead in crimson lines. “Holy shit,” he blurted. “What the hell have you been up to?”

  Jonathan looked away. “I wanted Pinker dead so much, and when I got that wish it only made him stronger.” He shook his head, avoiding Don’s questioning stare. “Do you think I killed that prison guard in the park?”

  Don shrugged a little. “Hell if I know. You’re sure talking screwy enough. But if you did, you must have scared him to death.”

  “Huh?”

  “There wasn’t a mark on him. He was just … dead.” Don took a long drag of his cigarette, eyeing Jonathan critically. Down the hall, the bedroom light jerked down to black, then jumped on again. “What the hell’s wrong with your lights?” he asked Jonathan.

  “Don’t know. And if I did, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  Don hesitated, trying to find Jonathan’s eyes with his own. He reached out and turned him back toward him, eye to eye. “We’ve been family a long time, through all the ups and downs. I’ve watched you turn a screwed-up childhood into straight A’s and a football scholarship. I’ve been proud to be your father and I could never see you as a killer.”

  He worked on his cigarette some more. “Besides, Chadwick’s body was a … husk. Same as—”

  “Same as Pinker’s.”

  “Yeah.” Tired of the dark, Don went to the kitchen doorway and flipped the switch. Nothing. He went past Jonathan toward the bedroom, muttering something about cheap light bulbs and an ashtray. Jonathan swallowed, realizing that Don would see things that shouldn’t be seen. He tried to stop him, but Don only frowned and pointed to his cigarette. He walked into the light while Jonathan slumped against the wall, eyes pressed shut, heart sinking to new lows. He knew what would come next, as surely as he knew Pinker was dead yet alive and that no one knew it but himself and Alison, also dead. Don would come out and demand to know …

  “What the hell happened in here?!”

  Jonathan wished he could dive into his shoes and scurry away. Instead he stepped into the light. The bedroom was sparkling with blood and gore. Bloody footprints were tracked all over the floor, Jonathan’s footprints, and the coach’s too, but that could be explained because the coach was a big man and doubtless put up a huge fight after Pac-Man bit the dust under Jonathan’s flashing knife, now a strange bleeding adornment to Cooper’s chest.

  Don looked at Jonathan with tired, speculative eyes. Almost sadly, he pulled his pistol out. “I have to take you in, son,” he said.

  Jonathan hung his head until his chin was resting on his chest. “Don, please don’t.”

  Don looked past him without replying. A three-man squadron of cops was tromping down the hallway, ruining all hope for the light fixture under their heavy feet. They pushed past Jonathan and gasped at the carnage.

  “Please don’t,” Jonathan said again.

  Don stared at him grimly. “I called for backup when I heard the commotion. What did you expect? A cleaning service to wipe up the mess you made?”

  He pointed to one of the cops. “You read him his rights. I don’t want this botched on a damn Miranda technicality.” He sagged wearily onto the bed, studying his shoes as if looking for a fault in the shiny black polish. Jonathan had polished his shoes for him when he was a kid, made them really sparkle for his dad, but now Dad’s shoes were flecked with blood, the soles of them painted with it, all because of little Jonny and his lunacy. The cop began to chant his rights, reading them from a well-worn card. The other two were busy trying to pull the knife out of Cooper’s chest without ruining the prints.

  The light went off.

  “Good grief,” Don bleated. “Jonathan, do you have a lamp someplace?”

  “Yeah. Other side of the bed. It’s plugged in.”

  He heard Don get up and fumble with it. The light clicked on at the same moment that a flash of blue sparks geysered upward from the shade. Don jerked back, flapping his hand. “What’s with the electricity in this place?” he asked angrily. “Your landlord ought to be shot.”

  He stumbled back around the bed, weaving slightly, looking d
azed. He sat down again, no longer concerned about his shoes, worried more about his blackened finger. After the rights had been read, he started speaking abruptly. “I’ll get you the best lawyer I can, Jonathan. Frankly, you’re in very deep shit.”

  He turned to the cops wrestling with the knife. “Put him in my car. I’ll book him myself. Get another unit out here to cordon the place, and call the coroner. He’s going to love this one.”

  They straightened and took Jonathan by the elbows, obviously glad to be rid of the knife-in-the-corpse job. They hauled him out.

  Don looked at the remaining cop, shaking his head. “You sure as shit can’t tell a book by its cover, huh?”

  The cop nodded as he pocketed his Miranda card.

  “Just can’t tell,” Don muttered. “Never can.”

  Chapter •

  Twelve

  Jonathan had been in Don’s car nearly half an hour before Don came out. Jonathan was sitting slumped in the back seat of the unmarked car, his mind too full of worries and his stomach strangely insisting that something be put in it. He realized that he had not eaten all day; he told his stomach to just shut up. Worse things were going on than slow starvation now. Now we are facing the electric chair, just like Pinker …

  … Daddy? …

  … you little brat you shot me in the knee! …

  … just like that stranger Pinker had.

  His yard was ablaze with strobing police lights in pretty colors, the squawk of police radios, cameras flashing. The Channel 8 ActionCam was in action, panning the scene with a light as bright as a searchlight while Walker Stevens heaved his guts up in the darkness beside the house. Some neighbors had wandered over, some in pajamas, some clutching robes together, held at bay by the fat yellow tape that enclosed the lawn outside the fence and declared this to be a Crime Scene, Do Not Cross. Jonathan sunk lower in the seat, leaving only his eyes and hair for gawkers to enjoy. He saw Don come out finally, barking orders to the dozen or so cops milling about, jabbing a finger here and there, acting very military.

  The coroner had already finished his business of loading the bloody corpses of Cooper and Pac-Man into his stern white van. There was some commotion in the backyard; soon another stretcher was carted around the house. A minute later the corpse of the fat road worker was brought to the white van. Some of his body had collapsed into itself like cold ashes; the stretcher bearers weren’t laboring at all. Jonathan wondered how they would try to pin this on him. The worker had been incinerated from within. They would find no solid cause of death; for whatever good that would do.

  Don, seeming satisfied, started toward his car. Jonathan watched him come, his father who had supported him these many years, taught him good from bad, naughty from nice. Dear foster father Don Parker was coming to haul his foster son off to jail, and somewhere along the line he must have injured his knee, because he was dragging his left foot as if it were so much dead meat.

  Jonathan sat up straighter with his heart suddenly booming in the far hollows of his chest, making his ears pound. Don was ducking under the yellow tape, difficult to do with his new bum leg. He was straightening, barely five yards from the car now. Jonathan tried to batter the door open, but it was a cop door, no handle, no window that would roll down. He slid across the seat and smashed his elbow against the other door, getting only a sore elbow for his trouble. He tried screaming, but it was muffled and if anybody heard it, they weren’t saying.

  Jonathan looked frantically back to Don. Don cast him a sweet, sickening smile, then adjusted his face again, sober and in charge. He limped forward, reaching in his pocket for the keys.

  Jonathan hurled himself at the wire mesh that kept him from the front seat, rattling it as uselessly as a monkey in a cage. He tried pounding on the roof, wild with desperation, hoping someone would hear. But what good would it do? He was a felon, a murderer, a copycat killer not very good at copying. No one here would give him help, give him anything at all except maybe the finger if he was feeling particularly nasty.

  Don was reaching for the door handle, his keys dangling from one finger. He cracked the door open, letting in a surge of noise and mayhem. He started to get in, lifting his bad leg with his hands. Jonathan shouted, but no one was in the mood to hear. He screamed hard enough to snap a vocal cord.

  Pinker got in, plopping heavily on the seat. He turned to Jonathan, his face carrying a familiar and wicked grin.

  “Lungs or heart, Jonny-boy. Which one should I rip out first?”

  Jonathan hammered on the rear window, trying impossibly to break it. Pinker laughed, his voice changing from Don’s to his own, a mad, cackling combination of deep thunder and pig squeal. Jonathan hammered the window uselessly while Pinker laughed.

  One of the uniformed policemen in the yard shouted before Pinker could shut the door. He made his face placid again and stepped out, leaving his bad leg inside. “What now?” he grunted, Lieutenant Don Parker once more.

  “We’ve found Cooper’s van,” the cop shouted. “Abandoned less than a block from here, dead in the center of Maplegrove Street.” He was holding a bulky walkie-talkie in one hand. He listened to it briefly, pressing it to his ear. “Might be some blood on the steering wheel. The keys are still in it. We’re going to have to cordon it off or else move it.”

  “Well, shit,” Pinker snapped, and got back out, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the car. Jonathan went back to ruining his knuckles on reinforced glass, maybe even bulletproof as far as he knew.

  Turns out it wasn’t.

  A huge fist smashed through the window on the passenger’s side, nearly catching Jonathan on the chin. The fist opened, grabbed his shirt, and yanked him out. His swift passage involved demolishing the rest of the window, which Jonathan did with less good grace than was common, thinking somehow that Pinker had jumped to a new body and was about to perform the final act in his dismal play.

  But it wasn’t Pinker. It was Rhino. Rhino, the big lummox not famed for following orders. He pulled Jonathan to his feet. “Explain later! Get the hell out!”

  Jonathan didn’t need to think twice. He left almost fast enough to scorch the soles of his Reeboks on the street. In five seconds the night was ready to cloak him in darkness.

  Pinker looked over at the noise. His face drew tight in a horrible, vulpine grimace. He yanked his pistol out and, to the endless surprise of his fellow officers, the coroner, the nosy neighbors, and the reporter whose wig was on backward, began firing wildly at Jonathan’s receding shadow. Everybody hit the deck in unison while uncountable bullets whistled overhead in rapid and noisy succession. Everybody but Rhino, who was charging through the yellow warning tape. He smashed into Pinker, knocking him ten feet across the yard. Pinker rolled once and was up again, pointing the smoking barrel of the Browning directly at Rhino’s ample nose. He pulled the trigger.

  Sixteen brass bullet casings were already heaped in a pile three feet beside him. The gun clicked.

  Pinker whirled around, enraged, nearly frothing at the mouth. “Kill him!” he screamed. “Kill the jerk! Kill the jerk!”

  The cops on the ground stared at him with their mouths hanging open. Nobody moved.

  “SHITHEADS!!!” he screeched, flapping his arms. “KILL HIM! KILL HIM!”

  He huffed and puffed, getting nowhere. He pulled a fresh clip out of a back pocket but wasn’t able to jam it in, both because it was upside down and backward, and because the empty clip was still in place. He bellowed curses to the sky for a bit, then ran for the car with one foot bumbling along behind him. Everybody watched him peel out in a screeching spray of tire smoke and gravel. By the time his taillights had vanished a good distance away they were on their feet again, wondering just why Don Parker’s voice had so suddenly changed from that of a calm and placid professional to the screeching howl of a maniac.

  Jonathan did not stop running until he was on Makley Street, the old business sector of Maryville that had pretty well died when the new shopping malls went up on the so
uthern outskirts of town. Here ruined buildings sat gaping at the world with black and windowless eyes, the skeletal remains of never-used fire escapes adorning the brick walls along with two decades’ worth of graffiti. Bums could be found here lounging in the gutters, tasting those rotten-grape taste-teasers that went for a buck a bottle. These were the highest buildings in Maryville, the trashiest, the darkest. No one came here except the bums, the hopeless, the unwanted. Jonathan almost felt at home here. His was a lost cause.

  His pace had slowed to an exhausted trot. His arms dangled at his sides. He occasionally missed a step because one of Pinker’s borrowed bullets had skimmed the inside of his left knee. The irony of his was not lost on him; now both the chased and the chaser had a bum leg.

  Like father, like son?

  Jonathan shrugged that thought away as he ducked tiredly into a dark alley, ran a bit, gave up and sagged against a wall to catch his breath. Sweat had pasted his pants and shirt to his body like a squishy second skin. More sweat was irrigating his face, washing it clean of blood, splashing big drops on the pavement. The drops might be an easy trail to follow, as good as bread crumbs anyway, but right now he did not care all that much. His abused body was about ready to call it quits for the night and dump him in the gutter with the other derelicts. He estimated he had run nearly four miles by now, the world’s toughest training regimen. His muscles were quivering as if vibrated from within, stretched to the limit, too weak to move. His shoulder put out a bone-deep ache that flared all the way up his neck and stopped at the crown of his head, where the goose egg was. All three wounds hammered in ragged unison.

  A trace of breeze chased debris down the narrow alley, carrying the smell of garbage. He hooked an arm into the rusted ladder of a fire escape, welcoming the wind, and surveyed his chances. He couldn’t go back home. Ever. He couldn’t check into a motel because he was broke. He couldn’t go to Don’s house because Don was done being Don and had become Pinker. Pac-Man had a place, but Pac-Man was preoccupied with being dead. The coach’s place was out, too. He had been divorced for years and lived alone, but the cops might be haunting his house to see what they could scare up.