Eat'em (21 page)

Chapter 49

“Run!” I yelled again. But this time, my voice trailed off and dropped into a murmur.

Standing with Dixie, Val, and Isaac was a black-haired officer I’d never seen before. His gun trained on me ready to fire if I made any sudden movements. All the sick people in the lobby were cleared out. I had nowhere to go.

I held my hands above my head. My left arm drooped ever so slightly due to the pain that shot up from my shoulder. I anticipated a horde of Grotesques bursting in from the ER doors, but they didn’t come.

Someone grabbed my hands from behind and yanked them behind my back. It was Lieutenant Bellecroix.

“Jacob Caleb Brook,” he said, “you’re under arrest for the murder of Emerson Reeder.”

Cold steel clasped around my wrists.

“You have the right to remain silent,” he said. “You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for you by the court of law.”

The words barely registered. One way or the other, it was over. The Grotesques were no longer my problem. I did what I could. I tried to stop them.

Dixie’s eyes swelled up with tears. Valentine’s hands balled into pale fists. He wanted so badly to be the all-powerful uncle. I couldn’t help but stare at Isaac. He almost seemed emotionless as he rubbed the muscle below his eye.

“You need to get out of here,” I said as the lieutenant escorted me past. “It’s not safe.”

They let me put my personal affects in Val’s Mustang before they tucked me into the back of the squad car. Really, all I cared about was retrieving my pipsqueak demon.

I shifted on the hard plastic seat, scooting my hands under my butt for the small amount of comfort they were worth. Eat’em curled up in my lap and flashed a solemn look of reassurance. For what it’s worth, the little red devil often surprised me with the compassion he was capable of. The small flash of empathy reminded me why my life was improved by having traded his servitude for a bottle of antacids.

“What happened to your shoulder?” the black-haired cop asked.

I stared out the window without answering. We drove by the Ranger’s Ball Park and then the newly built Cowboys Stadium. Arlington was a flat city. Without these monuments one could see for miles. I could stare out the window of the police car and see the curvature of the earth. If I looked to the east I could see a golden future rising over the vast landscape, and to the west was the blood red past. Trails of violet streaked from horizon to horizon as Lieutenant Bellecroix and his partner drove me toward a future that wasn’t so bright, away from a past much more grim.

“Not gonna talk, no?” the cop said, “I gotcha. That’s alright. I figured you would just say its self-defense. You know. Ain’t nothing illegal ‘bout self-defense.”

We were on side roads now. Streets wound up from old horse trails from a hundred years past. Then much of Texas was still considered the Wild West. People rode bareback and carried six shooters on their hip. Many citizens still owned weapons, but the state had laws against ‘open carry’ now. No longer did the west harbor the great cowboys nor was it home to the likes of Billy “The Kid” or other outlaws. No. Instead it had invisible plagues and a red-eyed man with a pet demon.

At the station, I was processed and given a piece of paper with my name and social on it, along with other identifying numbers and a date. I held it up for a photo to immortalize myself as a criminal.

They hosed me off and a medic assessed my wounds. I was grateful not to be seen by some super powered freak of nature. What a great ploy, spreading the infection to those who are already sick. Maybe my detective skills needed work, but I would have never guessed.

My first night was spent in a community cell with other lowlifes like myself. After that I received my own room. The room was long enough for a single cot, wide enough for a toilet, and deep enough for a bookshelf.

This is where I expected I would spend the rest of my life.

Chapter 50

I’m not superstitious. I realize the contradiction in saying such a thing – that someone whose very existence should stand as testimony for any number of religious revelations – but it’s difficult for me to see the things I do and not wonder what logical explanations might explain them. Yet, the truth is, I don’t know if there is a logical explanation, and if there is, I doubt I’ll ever know it.

Now, I’m a victim of superstition. What I thought would explain my actions put me at the heart of the nation’s fears. My spontaneous presentation of incredible vision and handcuff picking demons results in a fervor of religious zealots. They haven’t arrived to support the man whom protects humanity. They arrive to watch the witch burn.

The angry menace surrounds the courthouse in droves. Big Mike escorts me with a team of bodyguards. We drive through the gathering of hissing, spitting, screaming vipers. They curse and spite me. They swing Bibles and Korans and Torahs like clubs and maces and protective shields. My safety derives from a few muscle bound jocks that would just as soon join the throng as keep me from falling victim to it. And I have Mike. And I have a little red demon that spits back at the crowd and laughs at the mania gleefully.

I don’t know if Eat’em doesn’t comprehend my dread or doesn’t care, but he finds enjoyment in the uproarious horde. He chants along with them as I am shoved into the courtroom. “Murderer! Murderer!” is the sweetest of their hateful cries.

Armed officers keep the protestors from following me into the building and through a set of metal detectors.

We continue toward the auditorium where I will receive my final judgment in a few more days. Mike pulls my chair for me and says, “That stunt you pulled… Yeah. That backfired.”

The final witness before closing statements is called up by the state. It’s Isaac.

“The call was made last minute,” Mike says. “I don’t know what the deal is, but by the hush behind this thing, they’re trying to say they got something big.”

“My neighbor?” I say. “What’s he got?”

“I don’t know, Jacob,” Mike says. “What does he
got
?”

“I’m not going to pretend he’s my biggest supporter, but it’s not like we’ve ever talked about much. He’s a coffee shop philosopher. We talk about the meaning of life. Dumb stuff.”

“Maybe he’s a character witness,” Mike says. “I know as much as you do. You sit through this and closing statements and then it’s up to a jury to decide. That’s it. But after that hocus pocus you pulled yesterday… you saw. People aren’t looking favorably at you.”

“I don’t get it,” I say.

Isaac swears in, pressing his hand to the Bible. He wears a sweater vest beneath a dinner coat that looks like it came from a period in which the only public court cases dealt with women’s suffrage or the constitutional repeal of alcohol consumption. Isaac looks like he initiated the Hipster movement.

“They’re scared of you,” Mike whispers before cowering into his seat and sinking into the posture of the defeated. He chews the back end of a silver pen.

By the looks of it, Mike fears me too. The entire lot of attendees fears me. Compared to yesterday the courthouse is morose – filled with downturned chins and upturned eyes. The room oozes a melancholy so thick that not a muffle can be heard through the fog. Not a single sniffle or cough or sneeze tears through the silence. The only person in the building who doesn’t look like his dog just died is Isaac. He takes his seat at the pulpit, flashes me a look neither friendly nor reticent, and turns his attention to Gomes with a smile so coy you’d think he just accidentally bumped into him at the grocery store.

“If it isn’t Stinky the Stench, himself, yes?” Eat’em says as Isaac goes through a series of preliminary questions, confirming his identity and relationship to me. Eat’em sticks out his tongue, making a fart sound. “Let’s rally these sad saps and beat this fool with soap on a rope. A public bleaching, yes. Waterboard him with pine oil.”

For the record, Isaac doesn’t smell that bad. Maybe he has a slight musk, like the dryer lint trap of a pack-a-day smoker, but not as ghastly as Eat’em makes him out to be. Still, Eat’em never liked Isaac’s scent. For whatever reason, he hated it.

The District Attorney turns his back to the jury. He clears his throat and asks, “Have you ever known Jacob to possess magical properties?”

“What do you mean
magical properties
?” Isaac asks.

“Well, has he ever spoken to you about having enhanced vision or anything of that nature?”

“No.”

I shake my head and Eat’em mutters, “This is so stupid.” Putting Isaac on stand is a waste of time. It’s as if they’re intentionally dragging this thing on as long as they can. I share Eat’em’s sentiment, the trial has gone on long enough and I’m ready to accept whatever follows. It wasn’t as if I could ever convince anyone we needed to carpet-bomb a hospital. And by now the plague would have spanned outside of my reach. My only hope was to cut off the head of the thing, and that did nothing.

“What have you spoken about?” Gomes asks.

“Mostly school,” Isaac says. “I really like the kid. I kind of see him as a protégé. He’s got his head on his shoulders.”

“When you spoke with me earlier you mentioned another conversation,” Gomes says. “Would you be so kind to tell the court what you told me?”

“Yeah,” Isaac says, “I didn’t want to say anything, you know. I like Jacob and I’m a friend with his uncle, Patrick. It’s weighed heavy on me after hearing some of what’s been said here. I watch the trial, you know, because I’m rooting for Jacob. I don’t think he deserves the wrap he got. But at the same time, if people are in danger because of me, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

“Not after what I’ve done.”

Chapter
51

“A year ago,” Isaac says, “before Jacob’s arrest, I confided in him a couple things I don’t typically talk about.”

“I don’t know what he’s typically talking about now,” Eat’em says. “Is he going to pin this whole thing on himself or not. Because I want to get out of here, yes. I’m going to need quarters and a vending machine.”

My mind draws a blank too. Isaac has hung out with Val and I quite a bit over the time we’ve known him, but we’ve never been sentimental. Nor has he ever given me reason to believe he’d willingly be a fall guy if I were to ever be arrested for multiple counts of murder.

Isaac bobs his head like a turkey as he talks, almost as if he’s trying to reassure himself of his own memory. He says, “I told him my wife had left me…”

“Wait!” Eat’em interjects, “Someone married the Reek Face?”

“…and she had taken my kids…”

“And copulated with it?” Eat’em belches, “Yuck!”

It’s news to me too.

“It was a tough time in my life,” Isaac says. “I lost everything. I lost my job. I lost my money. My car was repossessed. I lost my house.”

“We never talked about any of this,” I whisper to Mike. “He never told me he was married before, nothing.”

Mike shushes me. He leans back and folds his arms across his chest.

Gomes signals for Isaac to go on. He does.

“I was venting. And I figured I’ve talked to Jacob a lot. I trusted him. He’s a good listener and he’ll hear me out. And he does, so I don’t think anything of it.

“But then,” Isaac continues, “a few days later, Jacob asks me more questions about the house. Where it is? Who lives in it? He asks me a lot of questions about it. I don’t think much of it, but I at least ask him why he’s so curious. He told me not to worry about it, and said he knew a way to get my house back.”

Eat’em flicks his tail back and forth. He lets out a tiresome groan and says, “What is he prattling on about?”

“How did he plan to do that?” Gomes asks.

“He didn’t say. That was pretty much the end of it.”

It makes no sense. Why would Isaac volunteer as a last minute witness to make up some story about a discussion that never happened? My stomach is in knots. What am I supposed to make of this?

The silence agonizes. Everyone else seems to follow the story just fine. Gomes looks like he just uncorked the biggest mystery of them all. Mike now carries an invisible weight even more unfathomable than what he carried before. I, and I alone, sit completely in the dark.

“Why did you feel compelled to come forward with this information?” Gomes asks. “Can you tell me again what made your home so significant?”

“The person who bought it after me,” Isaac says, “was Terrance Randall Lee. That’s the man who was shot down last year on the property. His son, Nicholas Lee, was shot there as well. Police said they found Jacob’s shoe there.”

My heart leaps to my throat. For the briefest moment, Isaac’s eyes turn an unholy black. It’s not an unconscious reaction to light. It’s as under his control as the focus on a lens. He wants me to see it. He wants me to see how badly I failed.

“It’s him,” I say and Mike takes the pen out of his mouth long enough to hush me again.

“I have the deed to the house,” Isaac says. “Well, the old deed. The deed from when I lived there with my wife and children. I just couldn’t believe it’s a coincidence.”

Gomes hands a piece of paper to Judge Brentt. The auditorium remains silent as they read over it and all I hear is the pounding in my chest.
Thump! Thump! Thump!

Two guards with 9mm handguns stand at each exit to the room. There’s more guarding the doorways behind the pulpit than there are to the double doors in the front, even though that’s the way out and the doors behind the judge only lead deeper into the building. There’s a couple holding cells there, but they’re more for recesses than keeping criminals for prolonged periods of time. The jailhouse and prison aren’t in the middle of Arlington city limits, in spite of the courthouse being there, so there’s less concern about me making a run for freedom than making an attempt on someone’s life.

And that’s all I can think of doing.

“This form says you purchased the house in 1886,” Judge Brentt says.

“It’s a mistype,” says Isaac. “When I said the deed was old, I didn’t mean that old.” He smiles his shark-toothed grin, baring all of his teeth, top and bottom. His awkward smile looks even more predatorial now. It’s the menacing visage of a cackling hyena. The hungry snare of a Great White. The mug of the bloodthirsty. Not the friendly smile I once mistook it for. Behind Isaac’s smug face is a taste for power and a hatred for humanity. He says, “I tried to resolve it for years, but I didn’t see the point after it went up for auction. I figured they’d fix it for the new owner.”

The fiendish Isaac turns his head toward me. He thinks he’s won. He thinks he has dominion over me. Over everyone. He thinks because I’m a fool I will allow him to continue his veiled corruption of humanity.

I won’t. The demon won’t allow it.

“Please,” Eat’em says, “for the love of all that is good and holy in this world, yes, will someone please shut him up?”

“I will,” I flow like water. I slide over the table before me, grabbing the pen from Mike’s mouth all at once. I’m through the partition. It’s just me and Isaac.

The world fades. I cross the threshold before a gasping jury. A demon yells from behind me, “Get’em!”

I am a meteorite colliding into a planet long overdue for extinction. I am a Red Dwarfing Sun! I am the Crimson-Eyed killer!

I fling myself toward the pulpit, Grotesque-fast.

Ten thousand volts of electricity really hurts.