A Human Element (11 page)

And even while he ached for a woman again, he forced himself to hate them all. To survive in this prison, he had to forget the sweet creature that had given her softness to him and called him Charlie. He wouldn't contaminate himself by plunging into one of them ever again. Hate would keep him strong. Love would only destroy him.

He fingered the oil painting of a blonde bitch in the throes of death spasms. Her mouth hung wide open in a scream and blood gushed from her ripped-open chest. Large breasts hung from her shredded top. X-10 had painted her that day. The paint was still fresh and the blood on her breasts left red on his fingers.

He closed his eyes and massaged his hardened penis with the thick, greasy paint. He fingered more and more from the painting and smeared it over his erection. His penis glowed blood-red in the dim light as he stroked himself over and over. His menacing staff twitched violently, as he spewed out calling to the bitch.

"Whore. Fucking human whore."

Ben leaned on the balcony and gazed out at the mountain lake with its colorful borders. Autumn was creeping in. His bags were packed. Another assignment finished. He sighed. Another trip, another job, and at thirty-six years old he'd grown tired of it. Eight more years had passed since his friend, Andy, had told him to stop running and start living in one spot. But he hadn't taken his advice.

He tried dating, the few times he was in his Orlando apartment between jobs. But women always wanted more. To stay over, to know his deepest thoughts, to meet their family. He couldn't do it. It felt awkward and uncomfortable. He pulled back and ended the brief affairs. There had to be something wrong with him. He understood the mechanics of sex but didn't know how to be intimate with the soul.

To overcompensate he learned to satisfy a woman in many ways. He showed them the rewards of going slow and stimulating spots they had never dreamed could be aroused. He brought them to new explosive heights and exhausted their bodies straining toward sweet release.

He hoped his sexual abilities would be enough for them but they always wanted more and if they discovered the real him, they would be disgusted and leave him anyways. It was safer to push them away first. It had to be his choice, not theirs. If they knew what he had done they would know he was unlovable, untouchable. An outcast. That's what he felt like. An outcast in his own life. The one thing he had control over was his business. He could be cool, professional, and an expert at what he did and people paid him well for it.

And now he stood undecided at his room balcony at the Mohonk Mountain House, an exclusive, upscale retreat situated high above New Paltz, New York in the Shawagunk Mountains. Where should he go now? For the first time in a long while he had no job waiting for him.

Growing up in New Paltz as a kid, he'd stared up at the mountain in wonder, wishing he could venture into the retreat that had stood on the mountain for one-hundred years. It stood as a giant castle in the sky overlooking a blue lake he wanted to explore, but it had been off limits to a poor kid such as himself. Now he wasn't poor any longer. He was here. Yet, he had no one to share with the beauty and grandness of this historic mountain house. It left him feeling flat. For the first time on assignment he wished he weren't alone.

Complex and uncomfortable feelings had followed him the days he had just spent here shooting a family of six on vacation. He almost didn't take this job as it meant heading back to his hometown. Back to a place where he had once been happy and part of his own family.

More than twenty-five years had passed since he lived here and his parents died. Yet, he felt mired down in the ghosts swirling around him as he moved through each day back in his old haunts. He shot relics of his past in the background. The old bookstore on Main Street, the local diner where he scoffed down hot pierogies when his parents had money to eat out, the winding side streets he biked down, and the Wallkill River he played along.

And there stood his old house. A bike lay on the lawn as if a young boy threw it down to run inside and tell his mom about something cool he found, just like Ben used to do. It looked the same. The new owners had given it a paint job and a new roof, but the tiny Cape Cod stood as it had years ago when Ben lived there and life was good. He didn't know it could be any other way back then. And so this week he followed his clients around taking photos of them amongst ghosts. He didn't want to remember. He wanted to forget.

He stared out at the smooth lake. A canoe floated in the distance on the sparkling water along the water's edge. A man, woman, and a young boy sat in it. The boy looked about ten years old. He stretched his arms out as if explaining something and the father leaned over and hugged him. Were they happy?

He jerked upright on the railing as it occurred to him, in order to forget his past he would have to remember. He looked at the family again in the distance. And that made the decision for him.

He would head to Coopersville and visit the lake where his parents died. It was only an hour away. Perhaps it was destiny he took this assignment so close to the events that changed his life decades ago. He had grown tired of traveling everywhere and belonging nowhere. He had built a life around himself that excluded others. All these years he had been helping other families create memories. Maybe he should start figuring out how to create his own memories, and his own family.

"Well, time to hit the road." He turned to grab his bags. Talking out loud to himself was a habit he picked up along his travels. He didn't need anyone to talk to. "Well, not anymore, bub. Time to face the music. Get off the pot. Stare the bull in the face."

He laughed at himself and slammed the door behind him. "Yep, 'cause the fat lady is singing." He bumped into a stooped, gray-haired man as he entered the corridor.

"Is she now?" the man asked with a smile, grabbing the wall.

"Sorry, sir," Ben apologized, putting down his bags to steady the gentleman.

"No worries, you must be in a hurry if the fat lady is singing. Grab it while you can!"

Ben smiled back and nodded, "I am!" Then he strode down the hall toward his destination. Not a new place, but an old one, to bring him new life. He hoped.

Laura sat at the four-way stop with both hands on the wheel and considered going left or right. No cars came from either direction. But it wasn't unusual for Coopersville. Population three-hundred. She figured she could sit here for half an hour and not see one car. Fields spread out to her left and woods reached up the hill to her right. The hill would take her to the place where she'd grown up. Mr. B told her years ago a nice family had bought the land and built a new home on it. If she turned right she would see it. She pulled a piece of paper out of her jean pocket and unfolded it.

It's time, Laura. Find your powers again because the evil is coming. And he is coming for you next time. If you want to live, be what you are.

Laura folded the note and put it away.

"Be what I am. What does that mean? Use my powers again? For what? To stop some evil man I don't know?"

She'd found the note folded in a neat square on the front seat of her car the day Renee was killed, after she was released from the hospital. It had to be from the man in black. He seemed like a dream in her mind from years ago. Was he real?

The day Renee died doctors concluded she was fine after examining her as a precaution.
Fine
.
Right
. How can you ever be fine again after a day when your friend's blood and brains are blasted across you? The day her life changed again.

No one could tell her why her co-worker went crazy shooting people at her company. Five were injured and four others died before he killed Renee. The media jumped on the story of a man cracking under the stress of the buyout. They also dug around and found Laura's grisly history of Moe's death and her parents and played her up as a tragic heroine that death followed.

Laura ignored the media, and focused instead on replaying the shooting scene, over and over, seeking clues.

The shooter kept repeating it wasn't him. He also said it wasn't her time yet, but she assumed from the note her time
was
coming. Was this man in black right? But who was coming for her? She had no idea, but she did know she had to prepare herself for his coming.

There was something else she also had to do. Besides regain her special abilities she had to find out where she came from. It had to have something to do with the murders of those she loved and why she once could perform magic, as she called it when she was a little girl. Maybe if she found the answers to the horrible events plaguing her life she could stop it from ever happening again.

She called Mr. B and told him everything and asked if she could stay with him for a while.

"As long as you need, my special girl." His voice shook a bit on the phone. At eighty-seven, he had grown older in body but his mind remained sharp and Laura could still count on him. "You can have the loft all to yourself. This guardian of yours must know more than we do. Believe in him and believe in yourself."

"I'm just afraid for you."

"For me? Why, silly girl?"

"Everyone I love dies. I fear something will happen to you too."

"Bah! I'm eighty-seven and if I can't help out a dear friend then what is a useless old man to do? I've lived my life. I have nothing to fear."

"Mr. B, what would I do without you?"

"Probably have real friends your age that aren't old farts with arthritis who need a nap every day."

"Never. Youth is so overrated."

"Well so is retirement. Just get on over here and stay as long as you want. I only request a fresh pie or two in return."

And so Laura quit her job. She packed up her clothes and books and left New Jersey on a sunny, September day. And here she sat by the stop sign. She came here to heal and find answers.

She turned the car right and drove up and over the hill. For a moment she was confused as to where her home had been as there sat a modern, colonial with a wooden play set in the side yard. A little girl sat on the swing pumping her legs to go higher and higher. The barns were gone but the rock wall remained. From the road she could see the apple trees in the orchard bursting with fruit. Two boys played basketball at a hoop in the paved driveway that replaced the shale one Laura used to dig around in looking for arrowheads. She drove by slow and the little girl waved.

A funny feeling came over Laura. She didn't quite recognize it. And then she did, and smiled. Peace flowed through her, knowing a family lived here. Maybe the little girl climbed the same tree she did and sang to the mountains in the distance. She waved back and turned around to head toward the lake. Mr. B would be expecting her.

Ben checked into the Catawba Bed & Breakfast Inn on Main Street in Coopersville. One of the Northeast's largest catawba trees towered over it in slumbering grace on the front lawn. Its giant leaves covered the historic inn with deep shade as birds and squirrels dashed about its limbs. It had its own habitat within its great branches. A world of its own, mused Ben.
Like mine
.

The innkeeper, Rosemary March, was a chatty woman whose large hips swayed up the stairs as he followed her to his room.

"So you used to live here, dear?"

"Many years ago," Ben replied to her wide bottom. It filled the staircase from side to side.

"What brings you back after so long?"

"Work," he lied. "I'm a writer and photographer and doing research for a book."

More like research for my life
. "I'll be coming and going a bit, so no need to pay attention to whether I'm here or not."

"Ooh, how exciting," Rosemary huffed, nearing the second floor. "No worries, your privacy is of the utmost importance. We're so glad you returned, and to stay with us. And to pay two whole weeks in advance! Plus you are our only guest at the moment. Well, here we are!"

She let Ben into a bright room splashed with yellow and burnt orange. He bent his tall frame to fit through the old home's short doorway. A cool September breeze blew through the open windows across a four-poster queen-size bed covered in a patchwork quilt. Sunlight flickered across the sunflowers on the antique dresser.

"I hope you enjoy your stay. If there is anything I can help you with let me know. I'd love to do research for your book." She smiled at him with a wink, and swished out of the room.

Ben set his bags down and looked out the window at the town. It hadn't changed since he and his parents stayed here at the lake cabin on vacation. It remained a small town tucked away in the southwest part of Albany County in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. Eighteenth and nineteenth century architecture graced Main Street from the days when the Dutch had settled the area over two-hundred years ago.

He still never understood why his parents wanted to vacation in another small New York town. This was a hamlet, not a bustling town like New Paltz. Perhaps being so rural, the cabin rentals on the lake had been affordable. He guessed they had been lucky to go on vacation. He recalled, from his nine-year-old mind, they didn't have much in the way of money. He couldn't ever remember buying new clothes or a bike or toys with his mother. He had hand-me-downs from neighbors or cast-offs from the thrift shop in town.

It was noontime and he didn't want to waste any time. He would take the waterfall path to the lake. The place his parents died. He envisioned stepping out from the woods to the wide-open lake. He hoped to feel something. What, he didn't know, but it had to be better than years of feeling nothing.

Ben adjusted his hiking boots and set out for the end of Main Street, traveling along the uneven stone sidewalk. He stopped at the old gristmill and peered into the woods. There stretched the path he remembered. A tiny wooden sign stuck out of the ground, askew, pointing hikers toward the Coopersville waterfall and lake. The lettering had become so faded it was hard for tourists to read it. He guessed not many tourists came to this sleepy town anymore.

Orange and crimson leaves blew down around him, twisting and turning to their end. Fall blew in early this year. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and stretched his lean body upward with a deep breath, enjoying the earthy smell poking up from dead leaves and grass. Then he stepped onto the narrow trail that would take him back in time.