CHIMERAS (Track Presius) (35 page)

CHAPTER 44

____________

Friday, October 24

Rhesus glances at Diane’s VW parked in the driveway and smiles. A twinge of anticipation nibs at his fingers. He touches his gun holster. Today his revenge will be complete. He will have Diane, one last time, at gunpoint. He wants to see terror in her eyes. What they had no longer excites him. He needs more. There’s a new lady in his life, a dark queen whose heart still escapes him. Tonight Elizabeth Medford will have Diane’s head
. I’ll kill her this time
, he thinks.
And then I’ll empty the rest of my magazine down the throat of that pimp husband of yours, Elizabeth. You’ll be mine, then. Just mine
.

Rhesus walks up the steps to his house fogged with excitement, imagining the scent of Diane’s blood and the auburn lock he’ll steal from her. The door’s not locked, though. And the voice he hears from inside is not Diane’s. Somebody’s yelling. “He’s been using you, Diane!” the voice says.

A fucking cop. Rhesus creeps closer, enough to spot the two of them arguing.
It’s over
. The cop knows about him. He touches the gun. His head is reeling. He could risk it all and shoot now. Quite the prize to kill an officer. Diane’s lock and the sleuth’s police badge. 

No. Too risky
.

The draft makes the front door click closed. Diane startles. “Did you hear that?” she says. But when she peeks into the hallway, she finds it deserted. 

CHAPTER 45

____________

Friday, October 24

I ran into the living room. “He was here, damn it!”

“Who? Jim? My God, Track. Please don’t—”

Tires screeched outside. I leaped to the window, cursing to the fool I was. I drew my gun and yanked the curtains open, ready to fire on the fleeing car. Rhesus’s black Lexus SUV wasn’t running away, though. It was gunned towards the house.

My eyes darted to Diane: she had just come out of the bedroom and was heading to the front door.

Outside, the car flattened the box hedge, knocked over the planters, and skidded on the grass.

Accelerating madly, it spun to the side and aimed at the west corner of the house. I grabbed Diane by the waist and hurled her back against the opposite wall. The ground shook. Glass exploded and shattered into pieces. Debris and chunks of masonry rained on us from the ceiling. And when all other sounds ebbed off, the car engine went on roaring. Inside.

“What the hell was that?” Diane cried. “It came from the office!”

“Don’t move.”

I inched forward and peeked around the corner. The SUV had come full force through the external wall to the office. The black hood jutted across the gaping wall like a stranded orca. Splintered studs and fringed wallboard sprawled over the tinted windshield. A rattling noise came from the vehicle, an intermittent clack followed by muffled thuds. I stepped closer. The SUV gave a jolt. A noise followed, of a door slamming closed and steps running away.
The asshole’s making a break
. I spun around, springing for the door, but something stopped me.
A hiss
. Accompanied by a distinctive smell, sulfur, maybe—

“Diane!” I dragged her down as she came towards me. We fell against the foot of the sofa, and on impact, my gun slid out of my hand and skidded across the floor. For a moment, Diane wriggled and bucked. I held her down and buried my face in her hair. There was no time to explain. The blast was thunderous. The house groaned and whined and more rubble rained on us. Diane froze, clasped my hand, and squeezed it. Everything crushed and the inferno enveloped us. I felt the heat wave scorch the skin on my back. Thick, black smoke followed, creeping into my mouth and nostrils.

“Back door,” I hissed into Diane’s ear. “Cover face—crawl.”

“What happened?” she wheezed. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her from the floor.

“Gas line—hit, exploded. Save breath.”

I crawled behind her to the kitchen, our hands groping over glass shards and debris. I reached for my radio but the damned thing only gave me static, the LCD display dying before my eyes.
Fuck
. I must’ve hit it when I landed on the floor. Behind us, the fire crackled and hissed and leaped forward in consecutive bursts. We got to the back door. I helped Diane to her feet and made sure she got out. “What the hell are you doing?” she yelled when she saw me going back.

“I need my gun. Go, Diane, move!”

I covered my mouth, kept low, and retraced my steps into the inferno. A new explosion shook the house. By now the SUV had turned into a skeleton of wilted metal.

Smoke was everywhere, black and thick. It felt like I had a yarn of steel wool stuck down my throat.
The gun. Get the gun and run
. I crawled behind the sofa, groping over singed carpet and rubble. The house gave a jerk, the ceiling creaked, and flecks of burning debris hissed against my face.

I needed the gun. I held the collar of my shirt against my mouth and nose and crept closer to the flames groping like a madman, my rage smoldering wilder than the fire. I found it at last, stuck underneath an upholstered recliner whose fabric glimmered with swirls of red embers. The grip of the pistol scalded my fingers, yet I clasped it and rolled away. I slammed against something hard, I couldn’t tell what. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I coughed, got on my knees, coughed again.
Out. Get. Out
. I crawled until I hit a wall, spun around and hit a second wall.

By then, I knew I was lost. I could no longer tell where the way out was. All I could see was smoke. All I could
breathe
was smoke. The reek blinded me.

Around me, the flames crackled with sadistic gusto. I reached for the radio again, pressed my finger on the TUNE key and exhausted all possible frequencies. The bitch was as mute as a cod.

I felt a spasm and coughed so hard until there was nothing more to cough and my lungs had turned inside out.

I wanted to weep yet my eyes were as dry as sandstone. Spotlights flickered in my vision. They clustered and migrated and formed the image of two yellow eyes.

I coiled onto myself and wailed.

Home. Back. Home
.

C
HAPTER 46

____________

Casper Wilderness,
April 1976

Shhh.

Quiet.

The eyes won’t see you if you’re quiet.

The eyes are smart, they can see in the dark. They can smell you, too.

Just be quiet, and still, and you’ll be safe.

Just be… quiet…

The boy wheezes, sharp breaths whistling through his teeth. He closes his mouth, but his heart’s pounding too fast, small lungs starved for oxygen.

He squats under the ferns, the rustling of leaves beneath his body sending shivers down his back. Around him, trees groan and creak. A faint moonlight quivers through the crowns.

Not enough to see.

The eyes can see in the dark.

He touches his pocket, but the flashlight is no longer there. He must’ve lost it when he fell the first time. Without a flashlight he has little hope to get back to the campfire. And even if he does find the way…

The eyes are so quiet… they can be anywhere now
.

His left foot hurts. He tries to move it, and sharp pain shoots up his leg. A whimper escapes his mouth.

Shh
!
Quiet
!
If you’re quiet you can get out of this.

If you’re good the eyes won’t see you
.

Slowly he slides a hand down to his leg. He feels blood, warm, burning through his skin.

The eyes will smell it. The eyes will smell the blood and find you.

The eyes will kill you
.

He has to move. He can’t hide for too long. Bare fingers rasp the soil beneath the leaves, trying to mix his smell with that of the earth, searching for cover, and warmth.

Shh
!

He bites his lip to keep his teeth from chattering.

A noise, close to his ear, like a breath.

The eyes make no noise
.

But the eyes can be warm when they breathe on your back. They prowl silently, moving swiftly in the darkness, until they come close, so close all they need to do is pounce—

The scream thrusts out of his lungs and cuts through his throat.

The eyes don’t like screams.

The eyes are angry now
. 

He can see them hovering, flaring in the dark, white fangs glistening below.

Run
!

He sprints, heart drumming in his throat, and claws pouncing behind him. Branches snap against him, scraping his legs, his wound burning, slowing him down…

Fingers of moonlight flash on his face, making his vision falter, the trees around him like black soldiers blocking his path.

A tree root snaps around his shoe. His feet sway in the air, the ground beneath gone, only to come back full force against his face, leaves and rocks and twigs tumbling around him.

The eyes roar behind him, a long howl of victory over their prey.

Everything’s spinning, the trees, the few stars through the treetops, the eyes so close now he can feel warm breath on his face, almost reassuring, until sharp claws pierce through his chest and then all he hears is his own voice breaking through the night.

*  *  *

Encino,
Friday, October 24, 2008

A scream.

No, not a scream. A blast. Loud, deafening.

Walls splintered, hissed, crackled. Glass shattered.

Fangs. Sharp, against my hand.

The cougar.

Move
, it said.

You move, asshole.

I didn’t want to move. It was hot, so hot I wanted to peel my skin off.

Move
.

Cougars don’t talk
.

I couldn’t see, I couldn’t breathe, and the thing kept poking me. I touched it and it scalded me.

A fork.

Kitchen… I’m in the kitchen
.

A glimpse of light emerged through broken glass.

The window—the kitchen window’s in pieces
.

The thin thread of oxygen coming through the shattered glass shook me out of my torpor.

A dream. The cougar isn’t back. It was a dream
.

I tried to move, pain shot through my entire body. I coughed,
wheezed and finally crawled, the feeble light my north star. I hit something hard. Smooth surface, cool at the top. I grabbed the rim, and pulled myself up. Through burning eyes I saw the sink, cracks of light simmering through the window above it. I opened the faucet, splashed water on my hands, arms, face, then clambered over the sink and shoved myself full weight through the broken glass.

Falling into void never felt better.

I had a sudden memory of rolling in the grass as a child, the scent of freshly mowed lawn, the coolness of the earth against my skin.

In reality, cool air filling your lungs after you’ve waded through a burning house stings like hell. I rolled in the grass, rasping like an asthmatic ninety-year-old. Everything inside me stung and throbbed, every breath a sharp blade slicing through my throat. I wheezed and coughed and waited for the pain to subside.

And then I remembered.

Revenge. Rhesus.
Diane
! I sprang to my feet and ran to the front of the house.
Gone
. Diane’s car was gone. He’d taken her somewhere, but where? I whirled my head, searching, clinging to a last hope she’d appear from a corner, safe and unharmed. Behind me, the flames were devouring the bungalow, washing the landscape in a pool of red light. Billows of smoke rose high in the sky. The blades of an approaching helicopter swooshed in the distance.

My eyes fell on the construction site on the adjacent lot. The timber frame delineated a two-story home with a gable roof. The walls of the lower level had been covered in house wrap. The upper level was a skeleton of vertical studs. Trusses and sheets of plywood were piled along one end of the lot.

The air was stiff with the acrid odor of burning. The winds had picked up, feeding the fire and drumming against the plastic sheets draping the house under construction on the lot next door.

I inhaled but to no avail. My nose burned, my throat stung.

The lower hem of a sheet of tarp flapped in the wind. A coil of rope lay on the ground where Diane’s car had been parked.
Hemp
rope, the same found around Huxley’s wrists and ankles. I grabbed it and brought it to my nose. Kowalski’s sour sweat hit my nostrils like a punch in the face.
He took more ropes. For Diane this time
.

The helicopter came closer.

Waiting for help was an eternity I couldn’t afford.

I bolted to the Dodge across the street. I slid behind the wheel, jammed the key into the engine, and then slammed my fist against the dashboard. Where the hell was I to go? Damned be the City of Angels, so vast each life is but a drop lost in an ocean of humanity. I felt mocked, desperate and defeated. Rhesus, the King of Thrace, the human chimera versus the animal one. I thought of all the Greek mythology that had enthused me growing up. Theseus killed the Minotaur. Hercules slain Nemean lion. Perseus decapitated the Medusa.

The monster always loses, Ulysses. You’re the monster. You lose
.

No
.
I’m a killer like him, I can think like him. I can beat him at his own game
.

I screeched into the street and floored the gas pedal. A fire engine wailed in the distance. I grabbed the phone I’d left on the passenger’s seat and one-handedly dialed the first number in my mind. “Sat!” I yelled when he finally picked up. “Place an all-points bulletin on Diane’s car, NOW!”

“Where the hell are
you
?”

“I’m—” The battery died on me. If the Universe has indeed a purpose, that night the whole Olympus had gathered to fuck up my life.