Disconnection (24 page)

Sela swallowed hard as the beginning of salty tears trickled down her cheek. “You killed your own niece,” she said, as if saying it aloud somehow verified the fact.

Harold shook his head, the mouth slugs falling out like pebbles from a mountaintop onto his lap and the steering wheel. “Saved her, Ms. Warren,” he said. “Saved her. As I saved that hooker friend of hers. And plenty of others. And you tonight, Ms. Warren. Young girls can’t walk around this Earth as harlots. It’s against the laws of God.”

The ducks on Harold’s tie began to bleed. One duck’s head fell off, another duck moved up from the lower part of the tie to the upper part and began to chew on the other ducks’ webbed feet. They moved in a bath of their own blood, in a musical dance of death and corrosion, like a demented cartoon on a television in hell.

Sela watched in horror as the snake reappeared, rising up from between the seats, taunting her with the tip of its forked tongue. It coiled around the emergency brake, its tail flicking back and forth, side to side, his dangerous eyes never leaving its prey. Sela tried to move away from the creature, making one last attempt at opening the door that Harold had somehow locked permanently.

She held her hands up in the air and begged the reptile not to strike (
As if it knows what I’m saying
, she thought). When the snake finally arched and latched onto Sela’s arm, it felt as if all the fires of Hell were burning into her body at once. Sela screamed out in agony, her body surrendering to the thousand tiny flames coursing through her veins.

“That’s what your parents felt,” Harold screamed, “when you murdered them!”

I did not murder my parents I did not murder my parents liar liar liar
.

“The firefighters were protecting you when they said
faulty wiring,”
Harold said. His grin had grown hideously long, like a clown’s, and his laugh was a razor blade cutting the edge of Sela’s thoughts.

I was seven I was just seven years old I couldn’t
…

“You could and you did!” Harold accused.

I didn’t I didn’t you liar Prince of Lies
.

“You just
had
to play with those matches,” Harold growled. “They told you ‘no’ and you just had to play with them. In your Barbie house, the one with the yellow walls and orange roof, the one you kept downstairs because it was too big for your room. A romantic dinner for Barbie and Ken, remember now, Ms. Warren? Lighting a candle inside the plastic Barbie house. It went afire and you ran upstairs and hid in your little bedroom hoping it would go away and it didn’t. Your parents died and you killed them, Ms. Warren. Deader than a doorknob.”

Sela’s eyes rolled back to her head. She was losing consciousness. The snakebite was close to killing her. She could feel her blood turn to poison.

I did not kill my parents I did not kill
…

But she could remember the Barbie house. Her parents had bought it for her as a Christmas present. It was the biggest, best present that she had ever been given. She could fit most all of her Barbies in there at one time. When she could not sleep at night, which was often, she would go down to the living room to play with the house.

But did I, could I have?

“Yes and you did,” Harold said.

Sela opened her eyes and saw that he no longer looked human. Fleshy bumps were growing from his temple. They looked like tumors, but Sela knew what they really were. Horns. Horns for the Prince of Darkness.

“If I did, it was an accident,” she said aloud, more to herself than to the creature beside her.

It was an accident. Just an accident. I meant no harm
…

“There are no accidents,” he chided. He reached over and moved the radio dial up, and the gospel music exploded from the speakers. The creature sang along, as loud as he could, no longer with joy, but with a mocking, hateful enthusiasm.

“OH, WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS.”

The snake appeared near the glove compartment and glided between the seats and into the compartment below Sela’s feet to where the bloodied limbs and gore and dead people’s clothes rested. The snake slithered into the hollow entrance of an amputated arm, its tail twitching with vigor as it disappeared out of sight.

Sela’s skin went from burning to freezing as she huddled against her seat and watched Harold turn into the Devil right before her eyes. The serpent’s bite had numbed her senses, had made a potential moment of great panic one of heavy defeat and calmness, but she could still think, she could still see. Harold wanted her dead, she realized, and it was only a matter of time before his wish was carried out. Very soon now, and she would be gone, and she would no longer need a cell phone to talk to Chloe.

“You are not a man of God,” she murmured as her mind began to close into darkness.

Harold turned to her, his transition from man to the Devil entirely complete. His shirt, covered in blood, no longer fit his chest—a chest which bore a million sores and cuts. His teeth were sharp and swimming in slugs and snails. His tie had ripped from the growth of his red neck and had cascaded to his lap, where the ducks were quacking in high, panicked pitches. Harold’s eyebrows had risen far over his yellow eyes and his hairpiece was now ripped apart by the horns that had grown on either side of his head.

“You are not a man of God,” Sela repeated.

The reverend—the Devil—said, “Enough of that now, Ms. Warren. Time for you to sleep.” He reached into the compartment between the seats and pulled out a crucifix. “For tradition’s sake,” he explained, raising it over her head. “I don’t want the other girls to think you are special, Ms. Warren, just because you were bitten and they were bludgeoned with, well, this.” He held the crucifix higher. “No” he said, “I wouldn’t want them to think that all. All men under God are created equal.”

He proceeded to slam the crucifix hard on Sela’s head just as a passing crow screamed.

S
lumped against the trunk of an evergreen, Stuart Reed emerged from his drunken slumber. “Where the hell am I?” he asked aloud, his bloodshot eyes taking in the Louisiana bayou around him.

“You’re right outside of N’awlins,” a voice said behind him.

Stuart turned around and looked at the owner of the voice. A man squatted in a patch of grass near him. The man was short and bearded and wore torn, dirty cowboy boots over tight-fitting fit blue jeans. A bemused expression stretched across his face.

“Who are you?” Stuart asked. A thunderous shot of pain rippled through his head when he spoke. “Fuck me,” he muttered and lifted one hand to the crown of his head, willing the pain to cease.

“My name’s Frank, but then, we’ve already met,
Stuart,”
the man answered. “You don’t remember too much when you’re drunk, do you?”

“Not when I black out,” Stuart mumbled as he tried to regain his bearings. What did he do the night before? He could not remember. “It sure as shit would be a great help,” he said, “if you could remind me.”

The man named Frank laughed and moved closer. “Do you remember Ramona?”

An image passed in Stuart’s mind’s eye, that of a Spanish girl dancing in front of him, a yellow rose stuck behind her ear. She was a hot little number with thick red lips and slick hips barely covered by a leopard-print dress. In his vision she tossed back her mane of jet black hair over and over, the aroma of a single rose tearing the air apart as she teased him with the weapon of her sexuality.

“Did she wear a flower in her hair?” Stuart asked.

Frank laughed again. “You better follow me,” he said, using a tone that one would use when talking to a two-year-old child.

Stuart shook his head. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere until I know where the hell I’m at.” He looked at his fake gold Rolex.
Fuck, it’s six o’clock
. The police were probably looking for him now. Those fucking pigs. Fuck them. He might just stay by the tree for the rest of the evening, just to spite that black bastard who thought he knew everything, who thought Stuart
(little old me)
could kill all those drowned bitches.

Stuart watched as Frank kept walking in the direction of the moon. If he knew Stuart wasn’t following, he didn’t show it. “You’ll like what you see,” the man promised.

The only way Stuart would like what he saw was if that chubby cowboy faggot was taking him to a special porthole in the Louisiana bayou that would somehow open up and reveal a quick passageway to Yazoo City.

How long had he been gone now? Stuart had lost count. He guessed around three weeks. People often lost time during their stay in New Orleans. All things considered, Stuart’s visit had been especially mind-altering. He had left for the BankPartners Convention shortly after Halloween night, which he had spent at deer camp. He should have just stayed at the camp, thinking about it now. He and his cousin Hiram had had a blast, driving up Highway 20 to Hazlehurst in a black, sleek-looking Chevrolet Colorado Hiram had just bought from a broke-ass lawyer (“A steal,” Hiram had said, grinning so that all six of his teeth were showing.). They had drunk nothing but red-blooded American beer on the way, slowing down when they saw pretty girls in the other lane. Stuart had nailed his first deer after only four hours—a pretty buck, bigger than anything the taxidermist had seen that season.

There ain’t no place like home
, Stuart thought as he stood up and followed Frank, after deciding that following him wouldn’t be a bad idea after all. Maybe the squat little man had some weed or American beer hidden around the corner somewhere. Something to fix the pain in his head because
(fuckin’ damn)
it sure did hurt.

“Say,” Stuart began, “what’s this surprise all about? You got any pot, bro? My head sure is fuckin’ killin’ me.”

Frank did not answer. The two men entered a span of growth that smelled to Stuart a bit like his grandpop’s body after it had been rotting under the Delta sun for a few days. His grandpop had taken off bird hunting with Joe the birddog on a blazing hot day in July. When he did not return right away, folks in Yazoo City wrote it off as Herman ‘Buddy’ Reed just being himself, thinking he had probably just up and decided to stop in Jackson and enjoy the good urban life of strip clubs and tequila bars. After he had been gone for three days, Stuart’s grandma finally called the authorities. A community search found Stu’s grandpop lying in the sun, dead of a heart attack, his rifle lying at his side. The dog was never found.

“Shit,” Stuart muttered, sniffing the air. “You smell that? Where’s it comin’ from?”

Frank turned around and asked, “You remember Ramona, don’t you?”

Stuart coughed. “If she wore a flower in her hair.”

“That’s all you remember, pal?”

Is this dipshit testin’ me?
“That’s all I remember,” Stuart grumbled. “Was there more? I think I remember, she was a damn good dancer.”

Frank’s laugh stretched out in the darkness like an invisible whip, cracking the sounds of nature with its odious force. “She’s a good fuck, too,” he said. “Wanna taste her? I’ve been waitin’ for you to wake up all day, Stu.
All day.”
The last words were sung with malicious intent. He turned to Stuart, and under the light of the moon the Mississippian could see a large grin staining the lips above the stranger’s beard. “Here she is,” he claimed, pointing to a foot jutting out of wild, uncut grass.

Stuart didn’t scare easily. Ever since last Christmas when his third wife aimed that Glock 9 mm at his head and made it clear to him that she’d had enough of his criticism over her venison spaghetti (he’s said it smelt like a skunk’s fart), and he had, in a nice and orderly way (not the normal Stuart temperament, that was for damn sure), walked over to her and grabbed the gun out of her hand, Stuart felt that he had a great handle on fear.

But the sight of the foot sticking out of the grass was a different story.

Under the bayou sky, Stuart paled and froze in place.

“Walk closer,” Frank ordered. “She ain’t goin’ to bite. She don’t have any teeth to bite, the Spic bitch. Had to knock her around more than I thought I would.” He sighed, shaking his head. “She was a hard one to get, Stu, but you know I did what I promised.”

“What the fuck did you do?”
Stuart spoke in barely a whisper.

“Well, just look.” Frank pointed in the direction of the foot.

Ramona lay upon a growth of palmettos, hardly visible under the light of the sky’s endless stream of stars. She was still alive, but just barely. Her eyes were the color of warm honey and they stared at Stuart with petrified fear. Her mouth was gagged with a red bandana, white rope tied her arms behind her back with a crude knot. Her legs were also tied at the ankles—though by the look of her bruised and battered calves and knees, Stuart doubted her legs needed to be tied.

Her yellow rose was gone, but she still wore the leopard dress, although it was ripped now and covered with mud and blood.

“What did you do?” Stuart asked again as he moved beside the girl, bending down to touch the dried tears on her cheek.

Sweet Mary mother of God, but what kind of fuckin’ monster would do this to a woman
—
not even a woman really, but a mere girl?

He turned to the stranger named Frank. “You’re an animal,” he accused. Stuart searched his inner coat pocket for the gun that he carried at all times. It was missing.

Rat’s ass
, he thought.
No gun, no protection
.

Frank moved to the other side of her. “The way I see it,” he began, “is that you take your turn with her, and if you want, I know a fisherman down here who’d be happy to store her for a few nights …”

Frank was not given a chance to finish his sentence. Stuart’s fists blew a hole into his face, sending him backwards onto the ground. “Hey, just wait now,” Frank begged.

“You do
not
take a woman unwillingly!” Stuart exclaimed furiously as he bent over the cowboy and landed another punch to his jaw. Frank fought back by punching the air with two blind fists, but he was no match for Stuart’s fury.